Actually, Religulous is a prime example... only it's not technically a film about atheism or promoting such values- in fact, I believe the point was not to promote atheism as more correct, but simply to spread the idea of DOUBT in a world where even the "kooks and wacos" are ENCOURAGED to be CERTAIN by the Earthly (and heavenly) powers that be.
We can look at the kooks in North Korea that sing a lullaby to their kids that goes "The Americans cower, on their knees, shoot them in the face, lalala" (I'm paraphrasing- but look up docs on North Korea, it's f***ing scary in there!) and we can call these people brainwashed and denounce Kim Jong's propaganda machine, but as soon as the eyeglass turns on the unwinnable debate, everybody has to shut up and mind everyone's beliefs despite the fact that there's a guy on my TV who told me I'm going to hell because I think the only way Jonas would have got out of that whale was through the backdoor! God forbid we engage in "hate speech"!
Bill Maher states this implicitly in one pivotal scene- he is trying to reawaken the idea that maybe, just somehow, we don't know what the hell is actually true, so what we should stop is the BULLSHIT, not religious belief, and be free to speak our minds without FEAR. The controversy is not religion vs atheism - the controversy is CENSORSHIP.
Certainty is a terrible poison. Science is rewritten every 500 years while religion hasn't been updated since the days of sacrificing goats and firstborn sons. But it's important to separate the religions from the religious.
The major religions are INSTITUTIONS made up of a VARIETY of PEOPLE from the most extreme to the most reasonable, but by their very nature cause terrible things. We see the oppression of free speech even on this forum, where the taboo topic can cause great offense and is thus labeled a "forbidden zone" where one must tread carefully (like I'm doing, LOL), lest he or she offend someone by expressing their feelings. We hear of the silly little cartoons that incite the muslim world to call for beheadings; the nine-year-old girl in South America who was excommunicated from the church for having an abortion when the step-father who had raped her was let off with confession; we see the evidence of the holocaust persecuting the Jews... but where did Hitler get his ideas of hatred? From thousands of years of hatred cause by a collection of writings that the Emperor Constantine declared divine, in which the Jews are cursed with the blood of Jesus.
Look at the connections to: women's rights, homosexuals, slavery, priestly pedophilia, the inquisition, the rights of kings before men under God, the slaughter of the South American natives by the Spanish, Osama Bin Ladin, the crusades, Israel and Palestine, the Republicans- religious institutions do undeniable harm! Sure, it's not the whole picture, and if everybody were Atheists it wouldn't make the world a better place, but no matter what your faith, it is hard to deny that religion is not JUST for the good.
It's one thing to have faith in the idea of God, but to learn the history of the religions and see what they have produced, I would think that those who uphold the values of the truly pious would scorn and denounce the churches of today as whorish peddlers of hypocrisy and then start worshiping the sun and mummifying their dead. And likewise, I would expect the truly Atheist to immediately kill themselves upon reading this, because what's the point?
The rest of us (everyone, I expect) fall in between- the state of NOT KNOWING. From that state, we may ONLY have FAITH, but must acknowledge that it is only OUR interpretation of the available data and that since it is NOT CERTAIN, we cannot impose these beliefs on others or expect them to agree with us. Every single viewpoint is unique.
Science and Religion are simply two categorical ways at looking at life- on one hand you have the objective experimenter who looks no further than where the lines cross and the graphs end, and then the faithful spiritualist who sees the subtext of the scene in the play that he is in. Both are actually correct, in my mind... it doesn't change that in reality both the Christian and the Atheist agree that God is not visible or that the Earth is round- reality is something of a constant- but both parties are taking the data that reality feeds them and coming up with an interpretation. The problem is when groups of each party get together, negotiate, haggle and BEND THE DATA to allow them to convince the largest number of people that THEY are all correct. In reality- every single person is correct in believing what THEY believe. Those who subscribe to the opinions of the groups will always end up with the watered down version - Reality for Dummies.
But bringing it closer to the point (aka, your film)... you want to make a documentary about atheism...
Make it exclusively for atheists then. Don't bother trying to convert religious people with the facts- would you ever go rent "Religion: The Movie" and expect to walk out going "Gee, I hope one day I see a mob of men trying to rape an angel and get the chance to offer up my daughter instead. I'd do anything to make that burning bush that talks happy". You wouldn't. And no religious person is going to watch your film and think "wow, some atheists are really nice, maybe there isn't a God after all!". So why make the movie? The intelligently religious already know about stereotypes. The stupid ones ARE the stereotypes.
Atheism is a religion itself- why? Because you call yourself an atheist and thus profess CERTAINTY that there is no God.... and yet.... you didn't QUITE say that... what you said was "the existence of a god a very slim possibility".
"Slim Possiblity". Hmmm.... I smell doubt. Get me Bill Maher on the phone, pronto...
Either way- here's a better idea for you. Take that doubt and nurture it.
Make a documentary about the very nature of existence. Start from scratch.
It's 3000 years later. We don't have sun gods and solstices anymore. No living (sane) person has sacrificed their child to an invisible deity lately. God hasn't made a public appearance. Science is currently leaning towards theories that either involve multiple universes or implications that matter is holographic in nature but not a scientist on Earth understands what they're saying. The old notions are built on shaky foundations.
It is not a question of "is there or isn't there a God?".... that simply polarizes people. It gets religious people indignant because they feel stupid or ashamed or something when you present them with the facts and all they can do is say in response is usually "ooh, but i have faith". And that gets atheists boiling because they think the facts are indisputable (when really they just put FAITH in FACTS) and the other party is being willfully stupid.
And then people like me get RAGE, because they are both correct and wrong at the same time, correct in their individual interpretations.... wrong, in the question they are asking.
"What is all this?" is the question we, and your documentary should be asking. The question that humanity stopped asking when we industrialized science and religion. (and on a side-note, I'm surprised we don't have drive-through confession booths yet.) We're not asking that question any more. You're either a christian, a jew, a muslim, a catholic, an atheist, a gnostic, a witch or a pagan... but I say fuck 'em all- let's just be humans with individual ideas. Sure, Jesus is the son of God- but he also said that we're ALL sons and daughters of God. He got it, why can't anyone else? The idea is not what counts- it is the ACTIONS of people that count. We can be kind and love one another regardless of religion- so why do we need billion-dollar institutions to help "spread the (diluted) word of God"? Why do we need to slip pamphlets under doors telling people how to get into heaven? Why do we need to agree with large groups and cannot be content having our individual faith in individual ideas?
Here's what we know. We're all here together on a big rock in space and there's lots of water, plants, animals, rocks, people, stars, beautiful sunsets, martinis, nebulas, sea-tortoises, bacteria, beams of light, black holes, space-time, and the like. It's all there, because we can see it.
But what is it?
And when we ask THIS question, suddenly the polar opposites become ONE.
Because you can throw out all your holy books and look in awe on the beauty of the universe and say without shame or doubt that God IS EVERYTHING. Or you can throw away your text books and beakers and magazines too and interpret that data however you like.... because let me ask you- what IS an electron? What is a Quark? If string theory is correct- what ARE those little filaments made of? In science, we tend to label things with human names.... but "Gold" is not a word- it's an "element", but what is an element? An element is a type of... "stuff" that we.... find around the place.
It breaks down quickly when you realize that everything is a big play on words.
Suddenly, science and religion are simply label-makers that go around and slap signs on everything, telling us what to think about this or that without understanding it themselves. Silly. Immature. Dangerous.
So don't make a film about atheism. Don't make a film about religion. Make a film about reality. I couldn't give a shit what an atheist has to say because I already know what the label "atheist" means. But make me a film where a HUMAN being interprets reality and then my curiosity is piqued. I don't expect to change anyone's mind here and would even go so far to say that if you agree with me, you're missing the point. Believe what is in YOUR heart, not what the group tells you to. If you need God, you will find him, with or without the help of a creepy guy who wears a dress and distributes grape juice and crackers to a room filled with bored, sleeping people.
That's my interpretation of it, anyway.
/ rant
PS: No apologies for the length or content, but at the same time, ahem.... sorry. LOL