As anyone who has met him knows, documentary filmmaker Ben Fama Jr. is not one to mince words when talking about the disastrous results of religious ideology.
“Some of the world’s problems unfortunately have to do with belief systems,” Fama said to the crowd gathered to hear him speak Thursday, April 21, at Yavapai College Verde Valley Campus. “Why is it important to challenge these belief systems?”
The question is not incidental. In the last half-decade, Fama has made a name for himself by confronting faith. In 2012, he released the award-winning documentary short “A Virus Called Fear,” which examined how fear drives belief. This year, he intends to release the feature-length documentary “A Reason to Believe,” which trods a similar path as his shorter work and podcast material.
Fama presented a snapshot of his own history — a mishmash of oftentimes conflicting beliefs. The result of growing up in a split family, with a father whose history was rooted in Catholicism and a mother who took inspiration from New Age beliefs.
Making the matter more complicated, Fama said, is the city of his upbringing.
“Las Vegas is a land of perception — a land of illusions,” Fama said. “The whole town is made up to make you give up reason.”
According to Fama, the singular intersection of his influences, not to mention the onset of a mental illness during adolescence, made defining himself and what he believed difficult. When the year 2000 came and went with none of the expected upheaval, and then the terrorist attacks of 9/11 occurred, Fama began to seek answers about the world and himself.
“I could say that before 9/11, I didn’t understand much about the world,” Fama said, adding that the event allowed him to move from believing Muslims needed to be punished to doubting the veracity of claims about the religion. By the time he saw Michael Moore’s documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Fama had come to the conclusion that he must doubt all claims to truth unless backed by reason and science.
“When you get that little seed of doubt, it’s hard to get rid of it. I thought, ‘How many things am I wrong about?’”
Still, Fama clung to some beliefs. The lure of conspiracy theories, in particular, held sway. In 2011, he came to Sedona with an ultimatum: If nothing happened in 2012, when so many predicted disaster would strike according to an alleged Mayan prophecy, he would abandon conspiracy theories and begin a life dedicated to exploring the realms of belief with reason.
“For me, I was done then,” Fama said of 2012. “You have to understand, I wasn’t stupid for what I believed. I was just trying to find answers.”
And the finding answers, Fama explained, is where reason should hold sway. With problems of terrorism and other forms of extremism — each with real-world implications — on the apparent rise, he said he believes there is never a better time to start questioning if your beliefs are helping or hurting the cause of peace.
