Around the World in 80 Faiths
Anglican vicar Peter Owen-Jones has been given a year's sabbatical to travel the world with a BBC crew to explore different faiths around the world at the beginning of the 21st century.
Pete Owen Jones presents the definitive guide to faith on earth, with eighty rituals across six continents in the space of a year.
The big six world religions are only part of the story. Faith is belief in the sacred, and it is expressed in a rich diversity of rituals, in denominations, sects, cults, tribal faiths and new religious movements.
Pete's mission is to witness and take part in rites rarely filmed before, to take the religious pulse of the planet and to understand the depth of humanity's fascination with the divine.
As an Anglican priest, Pete will be confronting cultures that will challenge his values and prejudices - he will be surprised, even offended, but also enlightened.
Deeply biased, inaccurate, and often judgmental, this doc cherry-picks points of doctrine or culture that is sensational rather than accurate. It would have been great to better understand the spiritual roots of each faith. Instead, he displays often out-of-context rituals or beliefs that make for novelty TV.
Note: If the show can’t even display a faith’s name correctly, is it really a documentary?
I think religion is man's connection to the divine. Without the divine, what is it there that would be left? Where there are more than one religion, man is clothed with different clothings of the divine. In fact, if there is only one divinity, who could have imagined what the divineis.
This documentary would be so much more interesting if white people hadn't conquered the world and turned native peoples to jesus where ever they could. Damn you, Christianity.
Great documentary but I dont know why everytime there was a killing animal scene he had to freak out. I watched the whole thing though, glad its done, now I can pray.
so I saw up to 35 faiths I think. Where are the rest???
My roommate really enjoyed this!!! I was so glad i went looking for documentaries today
Peter is a true priest. I have been brought up as a Catholic- haven't been to a church for 25 years... But to listen to Pete, I'd go again! This would be the first time for me to stay awake in a church!!!
And by the way- what a BEAUTIFUL and FASCINATING documentary!!!!!!
Thank you, Pete!!!! Gosia
Best documentary ever made and Peter was not afraid to show his weakness to the world... although they could edit that segment of the documentary where the pentecostal preacher made a big deal about him smoking...and blah blah blah....like he is a saint himself.
Really strange that an educated priest would present the apocalyptic beliefs of this group of Afrikaners as unique and shocking. This mentality is commonly found amongst fundamentalists, and even some of the best thinkers in the Western tradition thought they could calculate the literal end of the world. Millennarian fantasies are, furthermore, found in many cultures around the world (not only in the Abrahamic / Semitic traditions, of which John the Baptist, Paul and, according to Albert Schweitzer, the historical Jesus himself were prominent examples of such mistaken end-time expectations).
I cried when he started talking about the bahá'í faith. Watching so many diverse religions for a few hours and then seeing my own having it's little beautiful segment was just wonderful. I'm now up to the South American part and just can't get enough. Rely looking forward to showing my friends.
i want to say wow- a priest taking a part of a satanic naked ceremony for 2 hours tells you something about his own faith ,, either this priest don't really understand the true monotheism that Jesus tough - other that that this guy is very much open minded and his amazing journey show how much mankind is misguided from the truth. so the question now what is the truth?
In regards to buddhism part I don't think it is really a question of tolerance. If you look at stories of the buddha he never denied the existance of Indian gods, he claimed rather that they did not exist in the capacity that Indians thought they did. I think this can be seen in alot of mahayanist branches, Tibet claims some mongol gods after they had been converted to buddhism.
Interesting doco, though quite shallow as I suppose it must be to cover all those religions. It was nice to see such a variety of religious beliefs covered, not just the big ones. The bias of the presenter is clearly stated, he is an Anglican priest, so you can easily look past it. He is honest enough to say when he is aware of his personal views affecting his judgement.
I was disappointed with the Aboriginal segment, it seemed as though he hadn't bothered to ask them what their religion was before he went - he just assumed that all Aboriginals believe in the Dreamtime. There are people who believe, and I would have been interested to see his interview with them, but his conclusion that the religion doesn't exist because he didn't find it was irritating. Also his assumption that all Aboriginal people are the same was a rather sad demonstration of the shallowness of the documentary.
ONe of the best Docus ever! I Wonder if it is on DVD I will purchase it for sure and play it for everyone I know.
i must stop watching I am enthralled but must wait for someone .This is the Best Dicumentary ever made.So far so good I love when he calls his own religion arrogant in their demands on the funeral rituals of the people right before the phillipines bit?I will be rewatching all in a couple of hours anyhow.I know he was speaking of dutch missionaries and the thing about where thee catu hands are situated on them u know the wooden effigies.anyway i know so watch this DOC>
nice...........
-to search is to overcome chaos!
What amazes me is that no matter where in the world you go; what culture, how large that culture, how isolated, and how ancient, they all seem to have some sort of belief system. There does not seem to be an exception. I've always wondered why that was.
Great series, wished the Middle East episode was up. Fascinating.
Although I have never been religious, or belonged to any faith, from a very early age I had a personal God I prayed to and asked guidance from. This series was fascinating to me. It reinforced my belief that religion is a group activity and those who try to connect with a God, need a group to do so. Which I find quite odd.
Its not so much that people do horrible things to one another. Its the realization that we do and trying to not repeat the same things over again. This person cannot undo what has been done. He can only present us with information that compassion, regret, and understanding. It may be that you have a personal agenda or bias that inspires you to respond in this way. Don't blame all imperialist atrocities on this man just because of what he does or where he comes from.
Where is Middle east episode ?
informative, i have only watched a small part so far but am looking forward to watching the rest but for now i have to pause to clean the house, yuk.
I'd love to do something similar some day, while no longer religious myself it would be eye opening and enlightening to experience different interpretations of the deep mystery and wonder of our existence.
Great doc.
Here we go again, the western christian vicar trots the globe comparing diverse cultures to his particular brand of the God idea, as if everything has to come up to his gold standard. However, he did have a moment of clarity when he deprecated his religion's interference with the words how supremely arrogant is that. Say no more.
What happened to the episode about the Middle East? It isn't in the playlist.
I don't know if there's any point in sending someone closed-minded on an amazing journey like this.
great docu!
Kava is not hallucinogenic. It just relaxes the body. He should have tried it.
I would like to go on a similar itinerary while paid half of what he was paid and question people about sex and love. Much more interesting and quite possibly closer to spirituality than these folklore stories. I did enjoy this too though.
I love to see entirely different ways to see the same thing.
az
i was with this one until he talked to the aboriginals... especially as an anglican i don't see how he can't understand that when you stop on someone's way of life, tradition, with christianity and capitalism, that WOW, their religion and spirituality dies out... :/
there's just no shame with this guy.
ok, double with the wiccans. e_e
If you were lucky enough to go on such a journey you would be profoundly enlightened.
This pompous Anglican priest didnt even pickup a tan!
28,000,000 Gods in recorded history, the odds ain't good for the "Pascals wager"
All religion is a brain-washing cult.
This was fascinating. Nice to see how different people view the world; I would love to do a trip like this as well
I think people might find the different religious rituals and belief systems introduced quite interesting; perhaps as a way to compare and contrast the more mainstream religions? As you might guess from the title, the documentary glosses over each faith without much depth
insane! sick! bullsh*t!