For some strange reason, I decided to watch the movie God's Not Dead. I did not have high hopes for this movie going into it and the movie definitely did not exceed my expectations. It was worse than I thought it was going to be. The movie pretty much starts with this Freshman boy in College named Josh who takes a Philosophy class from an "Atheist" professor. You will find out later why Atheist is in quotations. Anyways, Josh goes to this class and the first the professor does is have the students write down on a piece of paper that God is dead. Thus making the first reference to the title of the movie. The professor, whose name is Professor Radisson, is pretty much saying you can't believe in God and be a productive member of this class at the same time. First of all, Josh was the only student to question the professors teaching methods out of all of the students who have ever been in that class. That seems a little far-fetched, but I can get past that it is a movie after all. What I can't get passed is that it is completely unprofessional for the Professor to have done that. That is pretty much imposing his ideas on his students and I have never known any Atheist teacher to ever do that, especially in a philosophy class. Those types of classes are all about critical thinking and to have people of different beliefs adds better discussion to the class.
My main problem is how this teacher and other Atheist characters in this movie are portrayed. The Teacher is portrayed as this person who has no tolerance for people who follow religion and is frankly just mean about for seemingly no reason. Later we find out that the Teacher really is not an Atheist. He is mad at God for a traumatic event that happened to him. He opens up to Josh about his underlying anger to God and as josh replies "How can you be angry at something that doesn't exist?" Then to top it all off, the professor gets hit by a car and professes his sorrows and love to Jesus in his dying moments. So, Atheist number 1 has been taken care of.
Now on to Atheist number 2, Amy. The first time we see her is in the front of a Church asking people why they believe in a mystical being all for her youtube channel. Cue appearance by Duck Dynasty people. She is already portrayed as someone who hates people who believe in God and thinks they are stupid. Again, Atheists really do not have this sort of thinking. Low and behold, Amy finds out she has life-threating cancer. This puts her into a state of depression and in the face of death. Long story short, she gets super angry at life and goes to confront the band about to perform at the Christian concert. Except when she does that, they get her to believe in God again and become Christian. Again, this really boils down to a misconception about Atheists. It says that Atheist deep down believe in God and just need a little push in the right direction when that is not true. People become Atheist after a while of self-discovery and realize that they do not need to believe in a god. To go through all that just to be turned into a Christian does not happen. So, this is Atheist #2 taken care of just one more to go.
The next character is Mark a.k.a the biggest Jerk in the world. He is also in charge of a big business. He won't go visit his dying Grandma and is virtually mean to everyone. He doesn't die or convert to Christianity he is just portrayed as a soulless jerk of a human being and when he finally visits his Grandma she tells him that his success came from satan. This Atheist stereotype number 3 in place, the angry, heartless human being. Of course, this is not true either. Being Atheist does not make you a mean person, just like being Christain does not make you a good person. It is really the person underneath and not what they believe or don't believe in. I have met a lot of Atheists and they have been very nice people with good morals and attitudes.
The whole movie was honestly just a misportray of Atheists. If you read reviews on this movie, even many religious people don't like how it was done. It was demeaning to people who do not believe in God and put people who do on a pedestal. Nobody is better than anyone based on whether they believe in God or not. Atheists are not better than Christians and Vice Versa. The movie was a big disappointment and did a poor job of creating a story and characters.
