"A tale of profound beliefs" - Article on the website "mART"

(Still from "The Last Religion", by Hugo Pinto)

"It is a tale of profound beliefs — in science and reason, but also in love and selflessness. It is a tale of memories — true memories; kept alive by a few in Brazil. And it is a tale of a heritage — precious; endangered.

The Last Religion (2015), directed by Macau-based journalist Hugo Pinto, is a documentary about Positivism in Brazil. Positivism is a line of thought founded by French philosopher Auguste Comte in the 19th century.

“Auguste Comte believed humanity evolved in three phases,” Mr Pinto tells mART. The first is “a theological phase, in which societies are dominated by myths, by supernatural beliefs, like a deity, a superior being;” the second was “a speculative” phase, dominated by “a certain speculative philosophy,” marked by “a lot of questions, but few answers”; and the third was “the Positivist phase, in which all knowledge is acquired through science,” “demonstrable knowledge”.

As a voice tells us at the beginning of the documentary, “the problem of humans is fundamentally the religion”. But when Comte talks about religion, “he’s referring to the harmony among all people”. “There’s only one religion: the Religion of Humanity. Or Positivism. It’s the same thing,” the voice says."

Continue reading.

A conversation about the documentary "The Last Religion"

You can read the interview by Olaf Simons here: http://positivists.org/blog/archives/6599

"The Last Religion"

Director: Hugo Pinto

Production: Hugo Pinto and Luísa Sequeira (Director of Photography)

Co-production: Um Segundo Filmes (Portugal)

They had been around during the Proclamation of the Republic and even designed the national flag, but only a few in Brazil are aware of the historical significance of the Positivists – the followers of the doctrine created in the nineteenth century by the French philosopher Auguste Comte.

Brazil, home of samba and football, home of Christ the Redeemer and Candomblé, is the unlikely place where we can find alive the legacy of a thinker who believed in the liberating power of scientific knowledge.

Regarded as the founder of Sociology, Comte believed that the world could only be explained by science and that faith would be replaced by reason.

Comte rejected supernatural deity, but nevertheless saw religion as an important instrument to unite people around a common idea, as well as a moral order, against the anarchy of selfishness.

Based on universal love and his own newly invented concept of "altruism", Comte founded the Religion of Humanity.

In his vision he saw the Temples of Humanity built around the world, but that only happened in Brazil, in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre.

"The Last Religion" is a documentary that traces Positivism in Brazil since its inception until the present day.

Filmed in Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre, "The Last Religion" introduces the ideas and the people who still believe in a world dominated by knowledge and selflessness as means to combat the two of the greatest global problems: religious fundamentalism and capitalism's closed horizons.