The Atheism Tapes

[lazarus]

Available now streaming on Netflix. Jonathan Miller, a Brit atheist playwright, did a documentary for the BBC called "Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief". There were hours of interviews with philosophers, scientists (Richard Dawkins!) and theologians. "The Atheism Tapes" is six half hour episodes, each featuring an interview with one person.

My daughter and I recently watched the first one, with English philosopher Colin McGann. It was quite good. He actually showed me that, beyond being an atheist, I actually am an anti-theist. I, too, believe that religion is harmful to our society and needs to be fought. And my daughter enjoyed hearing the Ontological Argument explicated and argued against.

Sadly, as I stated in another thread, I'm having to take a break from that fight in R/T because of the unremitting stupidity and obtuseness displayed by a few posters there.

I'm still looking for the original "Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief." Netflix doesn't seem to carry it.

[onager]

1. I asked the Internet Fairy...

YouTube has it, but apparently split up into 10-minute segments. So you may have to look around to find all of it. This is the intro/title, to start from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPH-0SYDoY8

As you probably know, it has two slightly different titles, which can be confusing:

The UK version - Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief
The US version - A Brief History of Disbelief

As I recently fumed in another post, the "A" word was too controversial here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Touchy Xian.

It also took THREE YEARS to get it on US television. Wikipedia notes:

Broadcast of the series in the United States was delayed until 2007. PBS's usual corporate sponsors were not enthusiastic about the series...

While I was in Egypt, the Internet Fairy left the full BBC version under my pillow one night. I suspect she found it in that huge collection of ancient writings known as Usenet...

[lazarus]

2. I miss Usenet

I'll check the torrents and see if it's lurking around there somewhere.

Edit: If it's only three episodes, then I'll have it in a couple of hours.

[brooklynite]

4. There's a Mac application called TOOBLE

which will let you capture YouTube videos, that you can then aggregate with QT or other video apps.

[amyrose2712]

3. in the queue. nt

[meeshrox]

5. Just watched a few episodes last night...

loved it! I agree with the anti-theist thing...religion of any stripe can be poisonous...it's too easily distorted into sick and twisted shit.

I also watched the two with the physicist and Dawkins, great stuff!

Something else I stumbled upon, but made me angry was a show called 30 days, hosted by Morgan Spurlock. The second season has an episode where an atheist stays with an evangelical family for 30 days. It shows the hypocrisy of the fundies; they wanted to convert her, she simply wanted to show them that atheists are not evil, etc. Interesting and frustrating. Available on instant queue, also.

[Soylent Brice]

6. got my Wii disc for Netflix streaming last friday. added it that night.

can't wait to watch it.

[and-justice-for-all]

7. I watched that two years ago...

outstanding!