The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis
by Catherine Tatge
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Brian de Salvo, Daniela Talochova, Heather Woodruff, Karen Tenenbaum, Ronan O'Leary (III)Director: Catherine Tatge
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 225 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: PBS Paramount
Movie Reviews of The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis
Movie Review: Nicholi hides personal bias: he co-founded a Christian lobbyist group
Summary: 2 Stars
In both the book and DVD version, Nicholi presents himself as neutral on the question of the existence or nonexistence of God. In fact, Nicholi is a founding board member of powerful conservative Christian lobbyist group the Family Research Council, which actively attempts to outlaw homosexual and abortion rights while advocating abstinence-only sex education and the theory of Intelligent Design. While I assume Nicholi has the best intentions, his strong bias comes through in every aspect of the work, and in the end this feels like an unfairly hidden conflict of interest.
By pitting unhappy and mean-spirited Freud against joyous Lewis, Nicholi seems to imply that all Christians are happy and all atheists are grumpy. Obviously, it would be just as easy to focus on a happy atheist and grumpy Christian, so this argument is groundless. However, because the argument is forwarded consistently yet implicitly, it is difficult to easily identify and refute. Just listen to the typically disjointed and melancholic music used in the Freud scenes compared to the happy or profound music selected for Lewis.
Nicholi frames the God question as: "We make one of two basic assumptions: we view the universe as an accident, or we assume an intelligence beyond the universe who gives the universe order, and for some of us, meaning to life." This framing of the question is unambiguously borrowed from the Intelligent Design movement Nicholi is part of, and rests on an implicit assumption not 1 atheist in 1,000 would agree with: that the only alternative to God is Accident. In fact, as soon as Nicholi finishes framing the question, skeptic Louis Massiah gently corrects him: "To me there is an order to the way things are, and the central question is whether you want to say that the 'orderer' is God."
The above is not an isolated example; throughout the work, Nicholi's method, particularly in his framing of questions and frequent use of specious but masked assumptions, is heavily weighted in favor of his hidden bias. Nicholi's course addresses one of the most fascinating of all questions, and was engaging to read and watch. However, I feel he has some moral obligation to be forthcoming about having co-founded a group actively pushing Intelligent Design in Washington, and to resist his frequent reliance on rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Summary of The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis
Based on a popular Harvard course taught by Dr. Armand Nicholi, author of The Question of God, the series illustrates the lives and insights of Sigmund Freud, a life-long critic of religious belief, and C.S. Lewis, a celebrated Oxford don, literary critic, and perhaps this century's most influential and popular proponent of faith based on reason.The Question of God: Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis makes an exhaustive yet stimulating case that Freud, father of psychoanalysis, and Lewis, author and Oxford scholar, are exemplary representatives of their respective secular and spiritual belief systems. This two-part PBS program grew out of a quarter-century-old Harvard course taught by Armand M. Nicholi, in which the backgrounds of Freud and Lewis (born a generation apart) are compared and contrasted for formative experiences that drove one man toward a science-based atheism (Freud's conclusion that belief in God stems from childhood fear and helplessness) and the other away from atheism toward Christianity (Lewis's assertion that one can reject religion and find a personal path toward God). Through dramatized scenes featuring actors playing Lewis and Freud, the show simulates a kind of give-and-take between these deeply influential men. Somewhat less interesting are interspersed excerpts from a roundtable discussion, moderated by Nicholi, among various people (writers, filmmakers, etc.) who talk about their own experiences of faith. --Tom Keogh
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