vvp_14 The film is Brian Flemming's personal nightmarish search for answers, who as a disgruntled boy never came to terms with his personal problems caused by his Protestant teachings, never bothered to check what they were teaching. So the best way for him to deal with his problems was to deny everything including the existence of historical Jesus.He claims that if the Church was wrong about the sun revolving around the earth it was wrong about the historicity of Jesus Christ. Catholic Church deals only with questions of faith and morals and never claimed to be a scientific institution, although Catholics have always been at the front end of scientific discoveries throughout the two thousand year history. First universities were opened by the Church back in 11 -12 centuries. The entire human race believed the sun revolved around the earth. In fact 1 in 4 Americans today believe the same according to a survey.He tries to demonstrate that Christianity has not invented anything new and the ideas of a saviour and other parallels with Christianity are found in ancient myths like the cults of Mithra, Osiris and Dionysus. These pagan gods belong, of course, to various ancient civilisations - Roman, Egyptian and Greek. Parallels with Osiris and Dionysus are so generic that they can be found in almost any religion. As for Mithra there isn't a single written source in existence from that cult. What survives are ambiguous stone inscriptions that historians still in disagreement about as to their meaning. He conveniently picks the Roman Mithra that has the most "parallels" with Christianity. This cult was followed by the Roman soldiers in 1-4 centuries AD. Yes, AD. That's AFTER the beginning of Christianity. The only written sources that survive of the Roman Mithra cult (a relative of Persian Mitra) are Christian sources that can hardly be turned against the writers who wrote them!He fails to see that Judaism is an ancient religion (if not the most ancient) and Christianity is the organic continuation of it. Judeo-Chritianity span almost four thousand years from Abraham, and in fact go back to Noah (24th century BC). The beliefs of this religion predate even those earliest surviving sources of Persian cults of Mitra by at least several hundred years. Animal sacrifice, bread and wine offerings, a Saviour, Heaven and Hell and many other concepts have always been part of this ancient religion. Longing for their promised Saviour by the Jews go back to the origins of that religion as evidenced in their books. In fact all pagan societies outside of Jewish of that era were so deeply cruel, immoral and perverted that nearly all of them were longing for some kind of a divine saviour, naturally coming up with various stories and man-made prophecies which would eventually turn into cults. Jews even resisted their religion throughout their entire ancient history. Besides, Judaism throughout its entire existence, was in constant contact with other civilisations (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Roman, etc.), and an exchange of religious beliefs was an ordinary matter. Jews were always adopting various pagan cults. Similary, ancient accounts of the Great Flood and the Ark filled with animals can be found outside of Jewish tradition in ancient Greek, Hindu, Mesopotamian cults.Another point is, if one thing is similar to another does it mean they are identical? A human is similar to a monkey. Does it mean a human is a monkey? And if similarities exist in attributes that belong to humans or the facts of lives of one person and another are similar, does it mean one of them never existed? Likewise, attributes that belong to gods would be similar as what we lack in our human nature we would attribute to gods, even the invented ones.Using the same false logic we can "prove" that Napoleon never existed. It's all a sun myth, because of similarities. In Paris there is a column with Napoleon's statue with the inscription: "Neapolio, Imp. Aug.". Splitting of the name gives us "Ne", Greek particle of affirmation, and "Apolio", and we get "True Apollo". So Napoleon was god Apollo. Both Apollo and Napoleon were born on a Mediterranean island (Delos and Corsica). Apollo had three sisters and two wives (one - the earth, the other - the moon) and Napoleon had three sisters and two wives. Apollo was a sun god of light; the sun passes 12 signs of the zodiac and Napoleon was effectively a dictator for 12 years (1802 to 1814). Napoleon had 12 Marshals like the 12 signs of zodiac. The sun is strongest in the south and weakest in the north and Napoleon was defeated in Russia. So he is simply a sun myth just like Jesus of Nazareth.Mr. Flemming interviews Bible Christians to see what they know about the spread of Christianity. And, behold, they don't. What can one expect from the form of Christianity that have no foundation in history? His claims that since Apostle Paul didn't write about the life of Christ Christ, therefore, He never existed, that The Passion of the Christ film is evidence that Christians are blood thirty - these are ridiculous beyond belief. Just as his understanding of the denial of the Holy Spirit being an unforgivable sin is completely wrong and just hilarious. But he never bothers to check his "facts". And by his logic, because there is a gap between the years of the life of Jesus and the Gospels written... Jesus never existed. If someone writes a biography of someone who lived 40 years before does that prove he never existed?This is a truly sad story of a man who never looked anywhere else of what Christianity is all about and is still going blind - just as he was in his teenage years. The film should have been more appropriate called "My Mind That Wasn't There".

Michael Goodnight After watching The God Who Wasn't There, I was left with the hope that there are film makers out there who can make an argument against Jesus being the Messiah without resorting to taking scripture out of context and presenting assumptions as fact.The film maker makes the argument that the Apostle Paul did not even know that Jesus had been a man. He bases this argument on Hebrews 8:4 which says "If He were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law."The film maker does not provide the full scripture and he takes it out of context. The full passage was arguing that Jesus had created a New Convent and if he still lived on earth would not be a priest because the Old Convent was invalid.This is just one of many times scriptures were taken out of context in an attempt to mislead the audience, and sadly many will take it as fact. We are not talking about how scripture can be interpreted differently either. We are talking about outright lies.It disgusts me that anyone who can come up with the money can make a film filled with deception and lies and call it a documentary. Films like this make me sick, because if you have to resort to deception and out right lies to make your point, then you have no argument to make and should shut up. Don't waste the time and money of others to finance your personal vendetta.

TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews This is a documentary with a length of 52 and a half minutes sans credits(an hour and half a minute with). It consists of interviews with historians, college professors(and similar experts), as well as various random Christians, narration, and clips of films(old and new, all of them dealing with the belief, including The Torture Porn of The Christ). The subject is whether or not Jesus existed, and if he was what he is said to be, or a mere human being. That in and of itself is a worthwhile exploration, and plenty of compelling evidence is presented, and it should open many minds, since it is among the best arguments against that brand of monotheism, objectively speaking(meaning, outside of the ethical ones). However, perhaps on account of his own past fundamentalism within it, director Brian Flemming doesn't stop there, and makes numerous digressions, of varying credibility and maturity(sadly reflecting negatively on the main idea of this, which, again, ought to be shared and spread), such as when he exhibits the need to contrast people happy when explaining the life and application of their saviour with detailing some of the horrors committed in his name. While it's fine to discuss the latter, that's not particularly what's done here, it's used for shock value and almost as if the man helming this production can't say something positive about the other side without also saying something awful, and with a distinct sense of him needing to convince himself(more so than us) that it's a good thing he abandoned his faith. This is something that one gets past later in their atheism(or new supernatural concept), and I get the impression that he should simply have made this later(Richard Dawkins, he is not). This does take a look(or rather a glance) at the evils inspired by(or otherwise linked to) religion, but it is fairly superficial and one-sided, more intent to point fingers than examine(you'll note that Sam Harris is one of those talked to). It is telling that he takes us to the school he went to, confronting its leader, and as important as it is to fight indoctrination, you can't shake the feeling that he's getting payback(pulling him down from the moral high ground). All in all, however, this is good(and it could have been even better). I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this(and as usual, research it yourself as well... don't take someone else's word for it). 7/10

Raymond Ross When Christians are asked how Christianity is spread, many cite "Pentacost" because (if you will take time to read it) Jesus bestowed His power on them to go forth, preach, and heal.A central component to Christ's ministry was faith. The concept is mentioned numerous times from Jesus telling his Disciples during a storm they had little faith, to the woman "in red" who touched his clothes and became healed... "Woman, your faith has healed you."So here we are again, when did the spread of Christianity start. I agree with most: by sending out his Disciples to the public, Jesus was empowering them to spread the good news. It is in that same fashion that a Christian seeks to discover their unbelieving brother, and help them realize the glory of God.