I came into the theater with a neutral and inquisitive mind. I am an Abrahamic monotheist but I am a philosophy and religion major as well and I like to collect all sides of the long-standing God controversy.

This was the biggest intellectual disappointment of my life.

For starters, the best thing about this film is its incredibly tenuous argument in favor of God's existence, which is all of three minutes of the film (the second lecture that Josh presents). However, the argument is circular, even though it accuses the atheistic argument to be exactly so. The basic argument in favor of God's existence is that it can neither be proved nor disproved, and that science was previously incorrect about the state of the Universe (even though it has more information now). A few lines of Genesis are all that is offered in favor of God's existence.

The rest of the film is a giant self-important, fallacious, baseless, and bigoted diatribe made to villainize all non-Christians (not just non-theists), especially atheists and Muslims, and also communists, non-theists, and agnostics. The only attempt made by this film to rationalize and validate its fallacious point-of-view is to offer the endorsement of a red-neck duck-hunter who wears the American flag as a bandana around his head. This film is made specifically for the pretentious ideological validation of Protestant, American, rural Christians (basically bigoted WASPs).

For instance, the hardcore atheist's reasoning behind is theological beliefs (or lack thereof) is his "hatred" for God for burdening him with a difficult misfortune. However, I have known many atheists whose conversion away from religion has nothing to do with the hardships in their life. At the end of the film, he is hit by a car and suddenly loses all of his passion against religion and "accepts Jesus" as the Protestant pastor asks him to do, and thus he is "saved" (fyi, the Bible states that anyone who is not baptized will go to hell; moreover, if the Christian God is as "loving" and "forgiving" as they make him out to be, then why would he be opposed to forgiving and "saving" someone who did not believe in him). Furthermore, this character is not written to present any strong and/or realistic arguments against Christianity, and his violent attitude towards the theistic student is obviously biased. Most atheists are satisfied with their beliefs, no matter their validity, and do not care what theists think of them nor do they care for their arguments.

In addition, the situation with a college professor FORCING his students to write down that God does not exist for THIRTY PERCENT OF THEIR GRADE is incredibly unrealistic and again, bigoted. In this country, we have something called the first amendment, which allows freedom of speech and religion. No professor or teacher of mine has ever dared to make such a personal attack on their students, even though there certainly are characters that abuse their power to inflict their own biases onto their students; however, in this exact example, such a professor would not survive a single class session. Academic misconduct would be his citation, as well as violating the civil rights of his students.

Moreover, the evolutionist vegan who opposes the Duck Dynasty on A&E dude's attitude towards animals is given fatal cancer and thus she suddenly drops all of her beliefs and "accepts Jesus" in the backstage room of some irrelevant Christian rock band.

The atheist lawyer is portrayed as an extreme jerk with no regard for anyone but himself. This stereotypical characterization is not only offensive and comedic (at the same time, ironically) but it is also spun on purpose in order to satisfy the bigoted, blue collar WASP Christian audience.

The Muslim family is portrayed as misogynistic, violent towards the daughter, and the daughter's willingness to convert to Christianity is also unrealistic. This film does NOTHING whatsoever to even present Islam's argument in favor of itself nor does it compare and/or contrast that argument with the one given by Christianity. How are we to validate her choice if we don't even know both sides of the argument, and if we are only given a villainizing, inflaming, and stereotypical portrayal of Muslims?

Lastly, the Chinese communists are presented as very impressionable and lacking ideological fervor. They are also portrayed as selfish and greedy, as well as with a inferiority complex seeing as they are shown to want nothing but to please the Americans around them.

I am incredibly appalled and worried that this kind of tragic propaganda has made its way into our theaters. I am NOT opposed to religion, nor am I opposed to ideological debate and inquiry. Yet this film does absolutely NOTHING to further any sort of intellectual curiosity towards the religious debate. It simply presents the bias of a rich WASP who had the means to make and distribute this film, unfortunately most likely destroying Shane Harper's career in the process (I do not blame the actor for this embarrassment of a film, because he did his part but I hope that he realizes his mistake in accepting such a terrible script).

I assume that both Mr. Harper and Josh Wheaton, his character, are simply kids trying to stand by their faith. This could have been a beautiful story about tolerance, respect, understanding, forgiveness, and the human condition, as well as about recognizing philosophical and ideological complexities that we as people face every day and that shape the course of our lives. However, it is the most hateful, insensitive, baseless, and painful film to sit through. It is more damaging than any of its supporters could ever imagine, especially to themselves.

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