‘The Unbelievers’

Intellectuals on a Mission

Two years ago, a pair of scientists set off on a barnstorming tour to save the world from religion, promote science and reason, and sell a few books.
Their adventure is now the subject of “The Unbelievers,” a documentary out just in time for Christmas, opening for a week in Manhattan on Friday.

If you think a road trip with a pair of intellectuals wielding laptops is likely to lack drama, you haven’t been keeping up with the culture wars. A reviewer in The Los Angeles Timescalled it “a high-minded love fest between two deeply committed atheistic intellectuals and their rock-star-like fan base.”

The Bing Crosby and Bob Hope of this road movie — alas, there is no Dorothy Lamour — are Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, recently retired from the post of professor of public understanding of science at Oxford University, and Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist at Arizona State University. They are among the most outspoken of the “new atheists”: scientists and other intellectuals who have tired of having sand kicked in their faces by the priests and mullahs of the world. So the scientists are indeed mobbed like rock stars at glamorous sites like the Sydney Opera House. Inside, they sometimes encounter clueless moderators; outside, demonstrators condemning them to hellfire. At one event, a group of male Muslim protesters are confronted by counterprotesters chanting, “Where are your women?” In between, there are airports and taxi rides and endless cups of coffee.

read more HERE

I haven’t seen the movie but I would like to. If anyone has I would love to read what you thought of it. Of course the movie isn’t going to be for everyone I bet some will bash it without ever watching it but that’s fine. As the article says it is a movie for those hungry for plain honest talk about the universe.

I have not seen the movie and have no comment for it.

But I do have below from my point of view of Richard Dawkins:

I do not mind Richard Dawkins pushing the fundamentalistic Christian and Islam a bit towards change. But that do not mean I think they should believe in Richard Dawkins Materialistic worldview that have been proven false already by for instance the existence of the Placebo effect. Richard Dawkins is as small minded and dualistic from my point of view sometimes as any ego influenced man who will not look outside his box and choose to ridicule everything he does not understand or fit his view of science. He say he is a man of science. Man of science have to have an opened mind and Richard Dawkins might say he has it but his statements has for me proven the opposite. I see Richard Dawkins as a creator of a dualistic small minded religion/world view. His religion will hold humanity back just like the Christian priest held humanity back in the past with their dogma.



I do not like man made religion boxing me in. Be it a religion based on undeveloped science or any other faith makes not difference to me.

Michio Kaku. Now there is from my point of view, a truly brilliant mind and a seeker of truth no matter where it leads.

reply to post by LittleByLittle


Soo…to sum up your post you are saying you don’t like Dawkins and you haven’t seen the movie.

That about right?

reply to post by Grimpachi


Some people are so ingrained in their beliefs that to show them anything other than that scares the crap out of them. They wind up not listening to the other side and just clinging to their beliefs even harder than a two year old who is determined not to lose his mommy at the mall.

There is a GIANT group of these individuals on this site, I wonder if that is a good cross section of the average person...

I look forward to watching this movie and hopefully learning something. Thanks!

SnF

Grimpachi
reply to post by LittleByLittle

 

Soo…to sum up your post you are saying you don’t like Dawkins and you haven’t seen the movie.

That about right?

I might see it for Lawrence Krauss. He has been interesting in other debates and are from my point of view more questioning and unafraid to be wrong and I like that.

But yes about Dawkins. I have seen enough debates from Dawkins for a lifetime and I am tired of the Ad hominem attacks he makes when he is losing the argument. He has his worldview and is very aggressive about others sharing his worldview.

I don't like RD at all...I wish somebody would pass him a head lamp so he can find his way out of his own backside.
Having said that, I will give the vid a viewing if I can find it, even if it just confirms for me personally that my above view of him hasn't changed.
OK...watched the clip.....that film takes us back to the dark ages. I find it curious that RD went to Oxford...he'd have been better off at Cambridge. Historically, Oxford was established on the premis that religion held the answer to everything. You then had a break away individuals who went down the scientific path and Cambridge was established.

Personally....I like this...it marries the two perfectly

Sorry
Rainbows
Jane

superman2012
reply to post by Grimpachi

 

Some people are so ingrained in their beliefs that to show them anything other than that scares the crap out of them. They wind up not listening to the other side and just clinging to their beliefs even harder than a two year old who is determined not to lose his mommy at the mall.

There is a GIANT group of these individuals on this site, I wonder if that is a good cross section of the average person...

I look forward to watching this movie and hopefully learning something. Thanks!

SnF

One of the most accurate posts I've read on here for some time. Without naming names BO XIAN falls into this category perfectly.
I'm going to watch this movie this afternoon.