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Politics and terrorism have failed to secure peace for Northern Ireland. Now four heroic families in Belfast band together to create a school that integrates their own Catholic and Protestant children. Using archival sections which dramatically but objectively explain the conflict, this program integrates a history of Ireland's "troubles" with a story of hope. Despite 62 explosions and 40 deaths during the first four months, the school is able to...
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Español
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Sifting through questions surrounding oppression and terrorism, Spanish essayist and philosopher Fernando Savater has often analyzed religious dogma-studying those who promote it and those who oppose it. This program documents Savater's views on the social and intellectual wellsprings of terrorism and militant fundamentalism, as well as the eternal conflict between science and religion. The author of Ethics for Amador and The Task of the Hero examines...
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English
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The rule of the Sassanid Empire of ancient Persia was characterized by considerable centralization, ambitious urban planning, agricultural development, and technological improvements. This program reveals the history of the Second Persian Empire, with a focus on the architecture of the royal palaces and religious temples of the period. The rise of the Sassanids through Ardeshir e Babakan, the important role of Zoroastrianism during the duration of...
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English
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What aspects of religion should atheists (respectfully) adopt? Alain de Botton suggests a "religion for atheists" - call it Atheism 2.0 - that incorporates religious forms and traditions to satisfy our human need for connection, ritual, and transcendence. Through his witty and literate books and his School of Life, Alain de Botton helps others find fulfillment in the everyday.
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This program summarizes and distills what we have learned about the great religions in this series. Smith's lifetime of experience and study helps him to go beyond the differences between each tradition. He shows how the cultivation of virtues valued by all religions-intelligence, compassion, creativity, truth, beauty, and goodness-can lead to transcendence. In the many faces of God he has contemplated, Huston Smith sees no conflict. He believes them...
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English
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On Christmas Day, 2009, Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 using explosives hidden in his underwear. Although passengers subdued him at the last minute, a string of missed opportunities and errors by government security agencies culminated in what President Obama declared a "systemic failure." Should airports use racial and religious profiling to identify potential terrorists? Or does this...
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English
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This film is part of a unique and groundbreaking series that brings the work of the Dalai Lama to a wider audience-illuminating for all those interested in Buddhism, inner peace, and the path to enlightenment. In this program, His Holiness the Dalai Lama instructs on how to deal with anger and emotions, starting with a general discussion of thoughts, followed by how destructive emotions negatively affect relationships, and finally the ways that one...
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English
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The French Revolution explodes, and the Church, at the center of the controversy, must redefine its relationship with political power. This program focuses on religious controversy throughout the ages to the 19th century, when Christianity finds a new vitality and diversity of worship in democratic societies. Vatican II (1962-1965) is discussed as having paved the way for modern Catholicism, and the Protestant Ecumenical movement, also of the 1960s,...
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English
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Shortly after his election in 1958, Pope John XXIII announced to an astonished world that he planned to convene an Ecumenical Council in Rome-an event that became known as the Second Vatican Council or Vatican II. Produced on the 50th anniversary of the historic gathering, this film presents interviews with high-ranking clergy members and Church officials with detailed knowledge of how Vatican II came about. Not least among these is Loris Francesco...
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English
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The Indian Subcontinent is romantic, remote and mysterious. From the plains of Pakistan to the foothills of the Himalaya, from Northern India and Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu in the south, this vast melting pot of civilizations, religions, cultures and landscapes has seen some of the greatest artistic golden ages on earth. This series examines the Indus Valley civilizations, Tamil Nadu-land of the temples-and the Mughal Empire, three very different dynasties...
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English
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The path Steven Rockefeller has taken on his intellectual and spiritual journey would very likely surprise his great-grandfather, the tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Sr. A convert to Buddhism, Steven Rockefeller has been teaching Religion at Middlebury College in Vermont for almost 20 years. Centering on what he calls "the democratic reconstruction of religion," Rockefeller has steeped himself in the writings of Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and...
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English
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It has been called a gateway to eternal salvation and an incitement to holy war. It has unified peoples yet divided nations. Religion: would society be better off without it? That is the question in this Oxford Union-style debate as panelists make their case. Speakers for the motion underscore that rampant interfaith and intrafaith violence vastly outweighs any social benefits of religion and that key virtues of religion, such as inspiration and consolation,...
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English
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Eqbal Ahmad, a leading authority on colonialism and nationalism, asserts that "a nation is hard to define because it is an ideology based on identity, and identity constantly changes. And he should know, having once traveled 900 miles from his village in India to resettle in Pakistan as part of the 1947 Muslim exodus. This program engages Professor Ahmad in a retrospective investigation of the politico-religious ideals that led to the formation of...
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English
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This film reviews the cultural and religious history of Vietnam, along with the development of, and U.S. involvement in, the Vietnam War. Produced for the U.S. government in 1971 by John Ford, the highly controversial film supporting the war in Vietnam was never officially released. Note: The war footage includes combat scenes, civilian massacres, anti-war protest and mistreatment of Prisoners of War (POWs). The film concludes with a quick succession...
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English
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In this program, Dennis Wholey has a conversation about the Greek Orthodox Church with Father Stephen Callos of Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Topics of discussion include primary distinctions between Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism; similarities and differences among the Greek, Russian, and other Orthodox Churches; the Orthodox view of the incarnation of Jesus; and marriage and celibacy...
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English
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This program from the Famous Authors series traces James Joyce's life from his childhood and university days in Ireland, during which he was strongly religious, through his time in Paris where he denounced Catholicism, studied medicine, and began writing poetry, articles, and book reviews. The film introduces viewers to the city of Dublin, the background of Ulysses, Dubliners, and his other works. Joyce made a spotty living writing and teaching, but...
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English
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Stranded on an island by a plane crash that leaves all the adults dead, a group of schoolboys establish a primitive society in order to survive. However, their tribal community, begun on moral terms, decays into savagery and ends in a brutal murder. This allegorical novel, now a classic of 20th-century literature, probes the dark side of human nature that lurks beneath the thin veneer of civilization. In this program-enriched by footage from the 1963...