The topic of my final project is atheism. I chose this because I am an atheist, and this aspect of my identity has become increasingly important to me in the past few years. I was raised Catholic and my family is still dedicated to that religion. But as I became an adult, I began to look for the truth on my own, and everywhere I looked, it became evident that God was not needed to explain the world around me. Eventually I reached the point where I realized I was a hardcore atheist. Since then I have done my best to educate myself about what it means to call myself atheist and this project will hopefully be an extension of that goal.
Below are two videos that might give you an idea of what's going on in this lumpy melon I call a head. The first is The Blasphemy Challenge, posted by The Rational Response Squad. I'm a fairly stoic person, but this video makes the hair on my neck stand up when the child at the end says, "I deny the holy spirit, and I am not afraid." The second video is my response to the video (OK, I wanted a free DVD, so sue me) and my only regret is that I did not say that I am not afraid of being sent to hell.
Atheism is obviously a very broad topic, so I will focus on a specific aspect of my experience for each post. Each of these will attempt to replicate a mode of documentary film making, so let's see what these modes are about.
Expository Documentary
If the expository mode of documentary had to be given a three-word definition it would probably be "Discovery Channel Special." This is the mode in which the documentarian is putting forth an argument about the historical world by presenting images and rhetoric that cause the viewer to come to the conclusion that this is the one true view of the films subject. This is done by addressing the viewer directly, through "evidential" images of the subject and by actually speaking to him/her through a voice-over.
Poetic Documentary
The poetic documentary mode acknowledges that there may be alternative forms of knowledge that can be learned when the focus of a documentary is put more on the associations or patterns available in its study. This includes emphasizing mood and tone, as well as rejecting continuity in space and time in favor of breaking the subject into fragments and rearranging it for the viewer in a way that highlights the possibility of alternative knowledge.
Performative Documentary
Documentaries made in the performative mode emphasize personal experience and the emotional responses they elicit. They are concerned with helping us share in a perspective to which we are not native. This helps connect the personal and subjective content to a larger context that we are already familiar with.
In my next post for this project, I will focus on the Intelligent Design movement (oh, how I am loath to capitalize those words). I will do this in the expository mode, and while I would never deny that I am extremely biased on the issue, I will try to be as neutral as I can. To achieve something that could be considered expository, I will use a combination of images from factual sources. I will substitute text for the usual voice-over, but still aim to make something that conveys factual authority by being organized and accurate. I will likely not use sound for this portion, since the topic lends itself so well to a presentation based on images and text.
The following post will use the poetic mode to focus on a contrast between the tendency of religion to justify and inspire violence and the tendency of atheism engender more peaceful and compassionate responses to the world. I will not attempt to mask my bias here. I plan to pair images of religion with related images of atheism and use text to paint the contrast. For example, an image of Osama bin Laden on one of his tapes and a quote of his calls to kill "infidels" paired with an image of a television appearance of Richard Dawkins and a quote from one of his books, like "Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end." I would emphasize contrasts of tone and mood between the two sides rather than an organized debate. Some of the images might not even need quotes associated with them, such as ones of terrorist attacks. Others would show an image from one side of the argument with a quote from the other. Overall, the post would convey a visceral knowledge rather than a factual one. Whether sound is included would depend on if I can find useful video clips for the message.
The final post will be a performative treatment of my relationship with my family. I plan to record interviews with one or both of my parents using either the built-in camera and microphone in my laptop or the video mode of a digital still camera. I would ask questions related to my experience and record their responses without intervening once I have finished asking. I would follow these videos with text meant to relate this experience to a larger context of atheism in religious countries.
I heard about denouncing the Holy Spriit before when Penn Jillette did it. I found the clip somewhere on YouTube, but I didn't know why it was considered so bad until I looked it up. Once you know what it entails, it makes it seem all the more dangerous and requires actual belief in atheism. I wonder what a satanist would say, given that they do believe in God but don't want to end up in heaven?
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