To me, this movie is perfection.

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Part one of Jonathan Miller's documentary, A Rough History of Disbelief, aims to expose atheism's past and explore the reasoning behind it with help from Greek philosophers such as Epicurus to Sigmund Freud. Even though Miller's voice is droning at times, I still managed to remain focused because of the interesting content and although the subject matter could potentially be quite controversial, Miller narrates the documentary without putting any religion on the spot. Theism, anti-theism, and atheism are all discussed and are used as stepping- stones to guide the audience through how atheism first came about as a tool used by those in positions of power to what it is today. I liked that although this documentary discusses religion along side atheism, it does not go out and attempt to change peoples' beliefs. Instead, it's obvious that Miller's goal was to introduce a fresh new way of looking at atheism by walking the audience through his own beliefs while interweaving it with concepts thought of by past and current philosophers along with concepts taught by the five major religions. Ultimately, I thought that Jonathan Miller successfully presents a rational and respectful story of what atheism is and I learned a lot about how it came about and how it has changed over time.

I've watched this documentary several times over the past few years, which is a testament to it's quality. Miller's respect for both the subject and the intelligence of his audience creates a refreshing documentary. A rough history of disbelief does not use visual gimmickry to keep your attention, instead the series tells the story of the history of atheism from the time of the Greeks to the present today and explains concepts of theism (belief in a god/s), atheism and anti-theism (objection to theism) in a thorough way through the writings of historical figures and the evolution of ideas.Whether you are a theist, atheist or apatheist, I strongly recommend this documentary as a way of accurately understanding what atheism is, what has caused it, attitudes towards it and how it has manifested over time.

Absolute Truth? What a proclamation! – to suggest that you or anybody is in possession of all possible knowledge or absolute truth.Even if you could approach that possibly, it implies a finite cosmos – and where the infinite is extremely difficult to comprehend, a finite universe is impossible to conceive.At best religion is simply a way to create a finite understandable existence – a way to use our common conscience experience to illustrate the thing.I don't find any logic in the necessity of a 'creator' just because we perceive our material existence – in fact that again implies the finite 'who created the creator' – or if you describe God as the infinite, then I don't understand how or why the infinite has any interest in our corporal affairs – what monumental conceit!Most commonly, religion is used to acquire and maintain power and authority to force social order through the threat of supernatural retribution.Most often this social order has been for the good, but often it has been politically motivated, extreme, socially repressive, and sometimes down right evil – just look around today.

This is a documentary about a very interesting subject, but, in my opinion, badly made. It's not that it's a bad documentary, because it delivers what it says it does: it's a brief history of disbelief; but Johnatan Miller is the complete wrong person to narrate it.Imagine a Jewish man in his sixties, with a perfect British accent, a pompous intellectual attitude and now living in the US. He is explaining why God doesn't exist, religion is stupid and so on and so on. It's not that he is not right, it's the way he talks! He gets together with his other pompous atheist friends and asks them about their opinion, which is obvious, considering they are his friends. This guy has a weird way of talking and when he needs to give simple examples, he uses references from college education.In other words, a college educated atheist (who is the probable average watcher of such a program) gets information that is interesting, but doesn't really bring anything new. A religious redneck with 5 children running around him shouting will not get the references, will get offended by the narrator's way of speaking and generally will gain nothing, since he already knew pompous intellectuals were full of it. (no offense intended towards religious people, I just gave an example)Therefore, I submit this is a failed science program. It doesn't really have a point. The information as well leaves to be desired, but it's a short mini and there is a lot to say about the subject.Conclusion: it is worth watching (For example, I learned about Epicurus and Democritus from this show and I intend to dig into it.) but don't expect believers to change views because of it.