Disturbing and Interesting New Documentary Highlights Predominantly-Christian Community

Anyone who thinks the vast majority of conservative evangelicals don’t want a theocracy is fooling him/herself.

”
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so…” -Robert A. Heinlein

This is why it’s necessary to keep fighting stuff like this, because yes, if they can legislate a theocracy into law, they will certainly do so. 

I lived in King for about seven years (97-03). Being a ‘Yankee’ and an atheist at the same time was – difficult.  Looking forward to watching this piece. Thank you for sharing!

Couldne say it better myself (unless I add curse words of course…. lol)

Couldnt say it better myself (unless I add curse words of course…. lol)

I’m about half way through, it’s pretty good. There is a pretty interesting variety of people and opinions.  It becomes very obvious that those who are the most certain in their faith/ beliefs are the most dangerous, as far as theocratic tendencies go and perhaps literally as well.  I did appreciate the Christians who expressed doubt, and admitted they do not agree with everything the bible says and wouldn’t kill people if God told them to.  I also liked that they show how other religions would pose their own rules and that would also be wrong.

ETA: Thor is my favorite

Just watched the whole thing.  Shocking how small minded people are.  I was especially shocked by the justification for slavery and the people saying they hoped they would be strong enough to commit genocide or kill their own son if god ordered it.

I did like the way multiple relegious viewpoints were included.  It showed how crazy they all were.  It also showed though, why separation of church and state is important.  What ever your beliefs are the will always be someone else who strongly believes in something different. 

I only made it about 10 minutes into the video before I turned it off in disgust.

I watched this last week when it was posted on the Rock Beyond Belief blog.  My favorite quote was from executive director of the Baptist Joint Community for Religious Liberty (didn’t know there was one!), Brent Walker, said, “I must not ask government to promote my religion, if I do not want government to promote someone else’s religion.  I must not permit government to harm someone else’s religion, if I don’t want government to harm my religion.”  The woman at the end who was happy to let her bible justify slavery was just plain wacky.  I can’t remember her exact words, but she said something along the lines of it being OK, ‘if you had a lot of land and there was a lot of tobacco or cotton that needed to be picked’.  ?????

I JUST started, and immediately 0:40 gave me flashbacks of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TJLOGI2Odc#t=1m19s

This was a real interesting video to watch.  I’d really like to hear how Christians view this movie, because from my view, all the Christians came off as either ignorant, bigoted or intolerant .  

The Baptist Joint Community for Religious Liberty has existed for some time though the Southern Baptist Convention cut ties in 1991 (most of the other major US Baptist Conventions belong).   Many Baptists are for religious liberty partly because until fairly recently they were a minority (and one, heaven forbid, that didn’t practice infant baptism so put those poor unbaptized kids in risk of hell) or if a majority did not hold political power. 

Wow.Wow wow wow.  I was transfixed. Burdick did a brilliant job putting that together. What a cast of characters from reality-land–that scary-fundie NC Representative Bryan Holloway, the crazy dumb preacher Robin, the sweetfaced brainwashed Mormon Bryan–along with Rev. James Dunn and the Rev. Barry Lynn–both lucid and reasonable as always.  Love how the preacher Robin told the story of how she got a big bill and prayed, “Jesus, you’re gonna have to pay this bill because I can’t” and the next week she got a tax refund check for the exact amount. Hallelujah, Jeebus pays bills!  And the whole lot of them save one said that if asked by God to kill their child or their whole family or village, they would.  I’d love to know more about the story behind the story, how Burdick got into film making and this one in particular. It would be very cool if he’d do another documentary about Rock Beyond Belief! There’s a story there too, unfolding every day… 

Agreed! When the woman started justifying slavery (“Many of them lived better than they did in their home country”) I thought I must have been hearing wrong.

Wow, I found myself yelling at the screen for much of that. So much ignorance, and bigotry, and just plain nastiness. Anybody who claims that religion is necessary for moral behavior should take a look at King, NC, and see just how wonderful religious folks can be. Though, to be fair, Reverends Dunn and Lynn were both amazing in their defense of religious freedoms.

Yes.  It makes sense that there is such a group, but living in the South, I just never thought anyone would join.  Baptists here are the big dogs.  The baptists were persecuted in colonial times, along with the Quakers (who could ever dislike the Quakers???), but I didn’t think anyone remembered this.

Baptists apparently vary especially since each congregation is independent and might well fear that another congregation with differing views might try enforcing its doctrinal views using the power of the state.  Brent Walker according to his biography is from West Virginia and lived in Florida, Kentucky, and now Virginia.

Quakers were a bit more evangelical in the 1600s and they fail to give extra respect to social superiors (they treated them as equals).   They were also inclined to let women speak (look up Margaret Fell for an early example as well as Elizabeth Fry, Lucretia Mott, the Grimke sisters, etc) at a time when women publicly speaking was considered scandalous.  They tend to take positions and hold them tenaciously (some Quakers were imprisoned as conscientious objectors during various US wars, some refuse to pay the part of their taxes that would go to support the military).   Speaking truth to power is important to them even if it makes them unpopular.  Quakers, however, are very scarce in the South (actually they are very scarce, the world total is about 350,000 and only 86,000 or so in the US) though Greensboro has a fair number.  

And how being gay is obviously worse, since it’s actually banned in the bible, while slavery is not.

Also stunned at the number of people who say they would kill their kids if they thought God wanted them too.  I call that a brain tumor away from murder.

High point for me was the Christian woman laughing that Ganesh was obviously a myth.  I mean, you can’t have a person with an elephant’s head for goodness sake!

My favorite part was when George said he knew his step-father was in hell because he was an atheist and like all atheists he was “self-centered”. George then goes on to say how his step-father was a good man, hard working, a good father who took care of his family and step-children. 
Wow, a man who works hard to raise, love and take care of children that aren’t even his own; what a self centered asshole.

This made my head explode multiple times. Such bigotry.

This was a bit scary to watch.  These people essentially wished to force their religious beliefs on others thinking they were right and that they were following the word of God, end of conversation.  What I am seeing in the Republican candidates is that we are slowly becoming a nation of Christian bigots and other beliefs be damned. So much for relgious freedom that this country was really founded on.  Reminds me of the inquisition of the Catholic Church.  People take no time to actually dig into their various religions to see if they really are God inspired or simply man-made.   If they did, their views might be completely different.  However, most people are satisfied to sit back with what they have been spoon fed all their lives and and take that as gospel based on faith alone.  Funny, Archey Bunker called faith believing in something so rediculous that no one in his right mind could ever believe it.  Yet, Creationists want their faith in a creator taught in a science classroom as an alternative theory to evolution when they don’t understand that evolution has been shown to be fact whereas creationism is merely based on faith.  I have sent link to this video to all my friends including my right wing religious ones. 

This was a bit scary to watch.  These people essentially wished to force their religious beliefs on others thinking they were right and that they were following the word of God, end of conversation.  What I am seeing in the Republican candidates is that we are slowly becoming a nation of Christian bigots and other beliefs be damned. So much for relgious freedom that this country was really founded on.  Reminds me of the inquisition of the Catholic Church.  People take no time to actually dig into their various religions to see if they really are God inspired or simply man-made.   If they did, their views might be completely different.  However, most people are satisfied to sit back with what they have been spoon fed all their lives and and take that as gospel based on faith alone.  Funny, Archey Bunker called faith believing in something so rediculous that no one in his right mind could ever believe it.  Yet, Creationists want their faith in a creator taught in a science classroom as an alternative theory to evolution when they don’t understand that evolution has been shown to be fact whereas creationism is merely based on faith.  I have sent link to this video to all my friends including my right wing religious ones. 

@Tez ME TOO..i moved away last year because of this. It was like the crusades.

You read my mind. I’m just starting a documentary on RBB, as well as one one the Reason Rally in Washington the week before. 

Thanks you Justin for the wonderfully written review and for all the kind words from everyone on the film!

Thank you posting this on you web site and I would like to thank everyone for your comments and support for this cause.