This is part of Morgan Freeman’s series “The Story of God” that begins on Sunday, April 3, on the National Geographic channel. (See my previous post on this series, which appears to be involved in heavy osculation of faith.) The title of this video that National Geographic chose is “Morgan Freeman Examines the Afterlife in Jerusalem,” which already tells you that it’s hardly unbiased. Have a gander at a tomb that the show describes as the “historically credible” resting place of Jesus. The archaeologist is a real Jesus enthusiast. (Apparently the term “mythicist” isn’t in the show’s vocabulary.)
Here’s PuffHo‘s puffery:
Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre is believed to be the site where Jesus was both crucified and buried. Due to the prominence of those events in the Christian gospel, celebrated during the Holy Week leading up to Easter, the site has long been a place of pilgrimage for Christians around the world.
Actor Morgan Freeman recently made his own pilgrimage to the revered site for the upcoming National Geographic Channel series, “The Story of God with Morgan Freeman.” In the clip above, the actor visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and discusses its history with archaeologist Jodi Magness.
“You can really feel the energy here,” Freeman says in the clip. “This spot is the focus of so much devotion.”
Magness explains to Freeman that in Jesus’ time, Jews buried their dead in underground burial caves, much like the one beneath the church. Christian gospel recounts that Jesus was buried outside the walls of Jerusalem, which the church was at the time of Jesus’s death.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is just one of many sites and communities Freeman visits in the National Geographic show, which explores the ways in which religion has evolved and shaped civilization over the centuries.“In some places I found answers, and others led to more questions,” Freeman said in a press release. “The constant through it all is that we’re all looking to be part of something bigger than us. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we certainly are.”
You can feel the energy there—if you’re already a believer. I doubt it would do much for me. Nor of course does the film express any doubt whether Jesus lived, or whether he was in some sense a holy figure. The stuff about the film “leading to more questions” is, of course, standard boilerplate, but if by “we are certainly part of something bigger than us,” Freeman means something divine, then he’s simply making stuff up.
The National Geographic is now owned by a company controlled by Rupert Murdock and is descending into the pit of slime like all other Murdock enterprises.
True that.
In my country since the magazine was purchased by M the magazine has changed for the worse. The paper is thiner and cheaper, the magazine has less content and some of the cover photos have been heavily photoshopped.
Odd, considering Freeman is a reported atheist.
Yes, but he has… The Voice.
There exists a fair amount of people who like to put the minor quibble of whether or not a religion is true aside, and just explore the happy diversity as a positive thing. Religion is treated like art, music or lifestyle. The more you admire different ways of “doing” things, the more liberal and open-minded a thinker you are.
And then you can wax poetic about how we’re all after the same “truth” or “experience,” once you go ahead and put aside the variety.
There are theists who don’t appreciate this, of course — to them truth is very important and they’re not placated by an even-handed approach. My guess is that this series is going to carefully grant the same sort of respect to other religions. Followers “believe” this to be true and many people “think” this is so etc. etc. — weasel words which mask the fact that any genuine skepticism is ruled out.
But the vast majority of religious believers are happy to avoid criticism on any level, the Mutually-Assured Destruction Pact of ecumenical faith ensuring peaceful coexistence and the ability to say one thing within the group (“We understand the true God”) and another thing to everyone else (It doesn’t matter how you see God.”) Atheists who give their stamp of approval to this are welcomed with open arms.
I wonder if the notion of the afterlife that they discuss will include things such as reincarnation and other non-Western ideas.
“Mutually-Assured Destruction Pact”…ha ha that is very good, you have a gift for clever phrasings of these things. The modern religious often remind me of rival magicians refusing to call out each other’s tricks as fakery.
But it was not always thus, it seems. Even a few decades ago, it was not uncommon for say, a Catholic, to state that non-Catholics are simply in error.
I suspect that Freeman is not adverse to big paydays, though. I have no proof, only indirect evidence that most surely verifies that it’s why he took on this role.
That was my first thought: for the dosh. But if he is indeed an atheist, I’d say he’s a sell out. He’s already immensely wealthy, I doubt he really needs the money he received for this inane project.
What are you talking about? Morgan Freeman IS God. At least while he’s not lending all his powers to Bruce.
Armageddon outta here.
The History Channel, so-called, just did a long grind on their channel called, what else, The Bible. I did not watch.
Maybe the reason they got Morgan Freeman for this narration job was that James Earl Jones was busy. With the added music and the voice, it must be real.
All “science” channels run bible themed docs on easter weekend. I find it quite irritating.
I wonder if there’s any correlation between the feelable energy level at a location and the prior suggestion that the location is somehow special.
Heh. A recent issue of I think Skeptical Inquirer performed a test on a group of self-declared “psychics” who were walked through the official battle-site of Wounded Knee. They all felt a tremendous amount of negative energy, some of them having visions of Indians slaughtered by cavalry.
What they did not know was that historical scholars and researchers had recently discovered that the supposed location of the battle site was off by several miles. The psychics had been casually walked right over the actual place of carnage and felt and said nothing.
This also works with “haunted” houses. Tell a fake story in advance and people will sense the vibrations left over from what never happened. This “energy” thing is just so damn easy to test. And yet believers seldom care, because it takes a hell of a lot to budge them from their faith in their intuition and “knowing what they felt.”
But still, Trump is very high energy. You can feel it right through the TV.
Lol
Great story! The power of suggestion is powerful.
The lure of fame and money is powerful inducement to lie.
I’ve always found the whole “feel the energy” thing to be hilarious. As you’ve mentioned, it’s used a lot by those seeking to profit on “haunted houses”.
There’s a show in my country called “Åndenes makt” (in English translated to something like: Power of the spirits). The show is about so called psychics going to “haunted homes”. People watch it because it is ridiculous.
I watched one episode once for the lolz and it involved a farm.
First off, the psychic ” revealed” that there would be a red barn there before she got tot the farm (every single farm in Norway has a red barn by the way).
Then the owners of the farm told her about “absolutely shocking” events like the computer being on at nighttime and a rake in the barn falling over on its own.
Thats when the woman started feeling an energy coming from the barn. It made her feel sick so she had to sit down. Appearantly there were goblins (nisser) at the farm doing all sorts of mischevious things.
No, I’m not making this up. The owners of the farm and the presenter were all shocked by this and there were many “oohs” and “aahs”.
Kinda like this show I suppose. If you can feel the ” energy”, it must be true right?
When I went to Macchu Picchu the guide told us about how people could feel the energy of the Ini Watana stone. You were allowed to touch it, but you weren’t allowed to stand right up next to it, which necessitated some leaning over.* I always figured this set up was a scam so the guides could look down the shirts of any tourist women gullible enough to want to try it.
*This was many years ago. I don’t know what the accessibility rules are now.
I met someone who claimed they were sensitive to that sort of thing.
I felt a bit guilty telling them that the pretty red and white cherry trees lining the road where they lived had planted due to the second battle of St Albans being fought there (or rather part of it had since it was a rather spread out battle).
Not so guilty though that I failed to mention the town gallows had been nearby.
They started getting bad feelings about the area after that.
There is a feeling you get visiting places like Salisbury Cathedral, where the grave of Edward Heath, former Britsh prime minister, is not far from a plaque commemorating a military gentleman who survived the Charge of the Light Brigade. It’s not just the history up close, but realization of the investment then and still being made by believers, the flesh made stone if you will, that can’t be captured by Twitter and blog comments.
If there is one thing that I have learned, it is that we are part of something bigger. We are part of the carbon cycle, where our atoms were once fixed into the bodies of photosynthetic organisms and herbivores, and carnivores, through the eons. At all times in what is only the recent history of our atoms, most of the atoms in our bodies were part of the atmosphere and part of the oceans. Highlights of my atoms’ history is that I have some atoms in my right hand that were once in Homo erectus, and atoms in my left hand were once shat out of a T. rex’s ass, having formerly been part of a hadrosaur. Our atoms are part of our planet and the greater solar system, which formed from an accretion disc of matter many billions of years ago.
That material was once part of a number of red giant stars that died, and some blue supergiant stars that also died much more violently.
I could go on, through a long series of events where every moment was once a present, and that moment was forced into existence by events of the immediate past. At no point was there a single event that was not entirely governed by physical laws, chance, and contingency.
But of course all these answers only leads to more questions.
Happy zombie day, everybody.
Come on, is this really doubted? Donald Trump’s followers are looking for the same type of self-transcedence as they march in lockstep to a higher authority. Submit, obey, conform, and become enlarged. The details here really matter.
No problem; Landru will absorb them into the body. They will be assimilated.
BTW isn’t the church of the sepulchre where the catholic and orthodox caretakers of the place had a big donnybrook a while back, going after one another with brooms and shovels? Fine christian behaviour that.
You can feel the energy here…
I once met someone who when he found out that I’m a geologist, asked me about crystals. He said that he had visited a cave with lots of crystals and felt a weird energy, and wondered if it was energy.
I told him that it could be, or he might be a little claustrophobic.
He replied that yes, he is really claustrophobic. I’m not sure if he got the point.
Dilithium or just boring old quartz?
It appears that Freeman, who is quoted in Wickpedia as saying “I think we invented God” is pandering to the religious to stay Mr. Popular t.v. Star.
The criticism that this series is biased in favor of faith might be premature. I’ve listened to some of Jodi Magness’ lectures; she’s a university professor (UNC at Chapel Hill) who presents the history rather than promoting the faith.
As an atheist, I belong to so much that is ‘bigger than myself’, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophers, and finishing with the Enlightenment thinkers. I live in a cerebral universe that is bathed by the ideas of these scholars and am nourished by thinkers such as Dawkins, Hitchens Dennett and Coyne. I belong to my local Humanist group online where we grapple with being ‘good without god’ and fortunate enough to having a loving husband and friends. Carla cat adds to the mystery of living with a small animal that controls her adoring slaves. If I really want to be wowed, I just look at the stars, or walk in nature. One of my pet hates is the crappola that people need religion to be connected to something ‘bigger than themselves’.
You got that right !!
Every time I see an add for that show, I have to change the channel. Ugh.