Whacko Religious People: Keeping Documentarians Employed

I had this problem with Promises, Jesus Camp, Fahrenheit 911, and this week with Deliver Us From Evil; some of these documentaries make me so angry that I cannot without much difficulty focus my attention on the questions Wendy asks us without having to first briefly address the documentary-of-the-week subject matter itself. It’s brief I promise.

We saw Promises, in which both Muslims and Jews carry on an insane and bloody war over religion, then we saw Jesus Camp, wherein Evangelical Christians brainwash a bunch of children, Fahreheit 911 and lunatic Muslim fundamentalists, and now this film, in which the Catholic Church covers up the pedophilia of Oliver O’Grady, a priest who among hundreds of similar molestations “forced his penis into the vagina of a baby.” Where are the documentaries about atheists committing unspeakable acts of pedophilia, terrorism, brainwashing, or murder in the name of their beliefs? Do people now understand why atheists can be angry about this stuff? It’s nice to know documentary filmmakers will never be out of work as long as religious people keep doing what they do.

Okay here’s the segue: I believe the path to sanity is not just to create multi-platform media, but for people to personally choose a life of unadulterated reason and clarity; a life free of religion. We wouldn’t have to worry about “outreach” and “communities of victims” if religion did not have such a grasp on people to begin with. Maybe if I pray hard enough religion will go away.

The website http://www.deliverusfromevilthemovie.com/ we are given in the assignment page fails to connect people because there is nothing on the site that creates a community or even features user comments. First of all, who is the author of the site? The site is very rudimentary and not interactive in any capacity. The mysterious author of the website promises that content and reader comments are coming, but where are they? It took some digging to find relevant websites that ran even tangentially to Deliver Us From Evil and the effects of the film. The sites I found were not generated by Amy Berg or the producers of the film, which leads me to conclude that this documentary did not appear to rely on multi-platform media to increase outreach and distribution of the film. The sites I did find ran tangentially as I said, but one in particular discusses the actual film and reactions to it.

Greta, of Greta Christina’s Blog made a great statement about the film, which was screened at the Atheist Film Festival just up the street from me. She said on her blog that Deliver Us From Evil “...made clear in an entirely new way just how deeply religion can twist the moral compass, creating an institution that loudly and publicly cries its outrage over the desecration of a cracker... but that whispers and stonewalls, turns a blind eye and covers it up, when thousands upon thousands of children are being molested by its most trusted representatives.” While I don’t know how multiplatform Greta’s website is, I can say there is significant contribution to creating a meaningful community that participates within the blog and within the greater atheist blogosphere that I have talked about in previous posts. I think blogging, vlogging, and other user-contributed media is maybe not essential for outreach and distribution of documentary media, but it is damn helpful.

For those in the class who appreciate the “rare pleasure to listen to rational debate” and who may be craving some clearheadedness after all this religious-people-are-whacko media (Promises, Jesus Camp, Deliver Us From Evil) here is your (user-generated!) dessert: The Four Horsemen. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel C. Dennet; four brilliant minds, one interesting, relevant, and funny conversation. You’re welcome.