Everyone should be an atheist after watching this

People should be atheists, agnostics or believers, as their own personalities and life experiences lead them to be.

Given the kindergarten standard of the arguments that KoH offers, and the outright falsifications of historical facts that it creates to support them, only very silly people indeed would be swayed in their beliefs by it.

You don't necessarily have to be an atheist, but it's hard to face any amount of historical, or even non-historical movies such as this, without realizing most of what people do in the name of their belief, has little to do with any actual presence of any god.

In other words, God could exist, but most religions have "God" all wrong.


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You spell God with a G, I spell Nature with an N. Capital. - Frank Lloyd Wright

I already was, but it does make a man think about his position in the world.

Religion has adapted and mutated like viruses to survive.

Now, it's in a relatively dormant period and does some community-building.

But it is always there and ready to break out.

Bashing Christianity, because that's what youre talking about, mouslims can believe as much as they please, is SO last season. ?

Not really. I mean, maybe people should be, or maybe not, but a Hollywood movie shouldn't be the decider of that. Whatever Ridley Scott thinks, this movie wasn't really very profound. It's entertainment at the end of the day.

I also don't like this idea that the world would be all nice and peaceful without religion. There would still be class stratification, oppression, exploitation and war with or without religion. Religion is primarily the ideological arm of existing power structures. That's not to say that religion didn't/doesn't have some independent power of its own, but it's really a secondary factor, especially in today's world where its role has declined. But if you take out religion, there would still be wars over land, resources, wealth. Not even the crusades were wholly about religion. It was in part about exporting Europe's disruptive feudal violence abroad and putting it to some use by winning back land for the church. It was as much about power and wealth as religion; they don't need to be mutually exclusive, but can be mutually reinforcing, and in feudalism's context they were. Religion was the ideological crutch of the ruling classes.

Continued in separate post due to size limit:

I had to roll my eyes at the last line of text at the end of the movie, saying that peace remains elusive in Palestine to this day, implying that the religious struggle is still ongoing, has gone on unabated since the crusades, and probably always will. That's one of the most annoying and harmful fallacies going around right now, and it's not historically accurate. It's a myth that Palestine is a zone of perpetual war. In fact, Palestine has in various periods enjoyed peace for centuries at a time (most recently in the 400 years of Ottoman rule), with only occasional interruptions, again largely about feudal power struggles over which king/sultan controls which territory.

The modern conflict is rooted in nationalism, with religion again as a secondary factor. Israel is a colonial project, and the founders of the Zionist movement were largely atheists motivated by nationalism (in its racist colonial variety). The Palestinian struggle, in turn, is motivated by regaining Arab land and overthrowing oppressive colonial rule. For 40 years the Palestinian struggle was led by secular Arab nationalist republicans, socialists and communists. Political Islam was and still is secondary at best. Hamas didn't arise until 1987, 39 years after Israel was founded, and even today it isn't the only resistance organization in Palestine. And although they're a religious organization, it's not accurate to say that their struggle is primarily motivated by religion. The present conflict in Palestine is about colonialism and national liberation.

Bottom line: Palestine would be at war right now with or without religion. Most wars today have little or nothing to do with religion, even when politicians say they do. Same goes even for most wars in the middle ages, though religion was more prominent then. If we want to do away with war, we need to address its material causes rather than just spiritual ones. The myth of religion as the cause of strife is more a way of avoiding the problems than of resolving them.

Wrong!

Precisely the opposite.

After watching this and seeing Christians and Muslims run full throttle in to each other, swinging their swords, and hacking each other to bits, I was moved by their religious devotion and willingness to commit themselves to a bloody demise.

As an atheist it's quite depressing to lack this mindless abandon to a belief.