Summary: For more than a millennium Western civilization looked to the Church for answers to questions about life’s meaning. But for many, acceptance of ecclesiastical doctrine wasn’t enough. This program traces the roots of modern religious skepticism back over 400 years to examine both the unraveling and the endurance of Christian belief. It explores challenges to established theologies in the ideas...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: How much truth is there in the Old Testament account of Noah? Enhanced by satellite imagery, declassified intelligence photos, archival footage, and artwork, this program considers the scientific plausibility of the Noah story. Experts including Porcher Taylor III; archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert, of the University of Pennsylvania; linguist Peter Machinist, of Harvard Divinity School; geologist...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In animism, good and bad spirits exercise an influence on humans. The shaman communes with the spirits in order to heal his tribal constituency. These and other less traditional beliefs, practices, and rituals are the topics of this program. Millenarianism is discussed as a nostalgic belief in a 1,000-year reign of the saints either before, or immediately after, the return of Christ. Astrology...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program portrays the Crusades as a response to the rapid rise of Islam. It looks at various orders of Christian monks and their role in the preservation of religious, artistic, and cultural aspects of civilization. The Inquisition-the Church's response to the rise of heresy and the practice of witchcraft and magic in the Middle Ages-illustrates the ultimate in religious intolerance which...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Rome was once the center of Christian persecution, but the martyrdom there of Paul and Peter began the unfolding of a historical epic that ended with the seat of empire becoming the spiritual capital of the Western Latin church. This program charts the development of Roman Catholicism, traveling to the ancient Port of Ostia, churches in Ravenna, and a remote Celtic monastery to show how...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Neanderthals begin burying their dead in sepulchers that simulate their huts in an attempt to connect with the spiritual world. When God first speaks to Abraham, he becomes the father of three great religions: Judaism, and subsequently Christianity and Islam. Moses leads the children of Israel out of slavery and into the Promised Land. Buddha, "The Awakened One," teaches humans to transcend...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines the structure and major tenets of these four eastern religious philosophies. The role of the spiritual master in Hinduism is defined, and the belief in transcendental power and a multitude of deities is explained. The history of Buddhism is traced from the 6th century BC. Reincarnation and nonviolence are discussed as major beliefs. Chinese Taoism, especially its stress on...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: At the core of the Protestant Revolution was a new emphasis on exploring and questioning the natural world. This program shows how a religious upheaval that began a half-millennium ago led to the art, literature, and science of today's Western society. The film makes the case that a humanistic approach to art first grew out of the Protestant drive to remove images from European churches in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Military conflict accompanied the spread of Islam during the Middle Ages. This program reveals the ironies of that union between war and faith: how Islam was adopted rather than marginalized by invading Mongols; how the rise of strict Islamic orthodoxy countered the scholarly advances of Arabic culture, weakening the empire; and how European appreciation of Islamic culture grew after the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Roman, Gothic, Baroque, and Rococo religious art, along with Christian iconography, are examined as reflections of the religious and political attitudes of the periods in which they were created. This program also examines the role of the Christian Orthodox Church and the schism of 1054 that permanently divided its members. The degrees of reverence accorded to Mary as Christ's mother by...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005