The Story of God with Morgan Freeman

What happens to us after we die? Where do we go? Is there any part of us that lives on? As obsessed as humans are with origin stories, we save our most fervent hopes and expectations for where we might spend eternity. In this episode, Morgan Freeman sets out to discover how belief in the afterlife has changed through the ages, how billions believe one man's death allows eternal life for all, and how the desire for immortality has influence scientists and inventors.

Violent cataclysms and fiery judgment fixate the popular imagination and fill numerous holy books. For better or worse, we are obsessed with how our world will end. Morgan Freeman examines both the past and the future to determine what various faith traditions predict about the End of Days, synthesizing history, archaeology, psychology, theology, science, and personal experience to get a glimpse into our cooperate beliefs. What he learns will give him a new meaning for the word "apocalypse."

Is there some sense of God that all religions share? How has the identity of God changed over the millennia? Morgan Freeman embarks on a journey from the birth of monotheism in Egypt and Israel, to India, where Hindus worship millions of gods. He travels from a Houston megachurch to New Mexico where a Navajo girl communes with her divine ancestors. And, with the help of a neuroscientist, he searches for signs of God in his brain.

Morgan Freeman traverses the globe to ask: Where did we come from, and what happened "in the beginning?" Perhaps humanity's first question remains one of its most intensely debated. Science tells us the Universe was created 13.8 billion years ago with the Big Bang. For many believers, though, it is impossible to understand who and what we are without first understanding how we got here…and who (or what) is behind it. His journey takes him from the Vatican, to the streets of Cairo, to the jungles of Guatemala.

If you believe God created the world, and God is good, then why does evil exist? To find out, Morgan Freeman comes face to face with a serial killer in a maximum-security penitentiary and witnesses an exorcism in India. In Egypt, he learns about the belief that souls were weighed for the afterlife, and in California he learns about Zoroastrianism, one of the planet's oldest faiths.

What are miracles, and what might they mean? Morgan meets a man who fell 47 stories and lived, and a man who believes he beat incurable cancer thanks to the power of prayer. In Israel, Morgan joins a Passover celebration of God's miraculous saving of the Jews. He learns how Chinese Taoist belief tells us were are all connected to the energy of the universe. And at the Bodhi Tree in India, Morgan discovers how Buddhists believe the power of miracles lies within us all.

Morgan Freeman seeks out those believed to be chosen to lead and guide humanity. He goes in search of the chosen people walking the earth today, including an American boy who is believed to be the reincarnation of a Buddhist lama who has been returning in different bodies for almost 500 years.

Morgan Freeman sets out to learn how heaven and hell have changed the way people live; descending into the ancient Native American underworld; investigating exorcisms and the gift of tongue; a woman who believes she has seen heaven.

Morgan Freeman meets a man who felt God's presence; learning how Muslims hear God's voice in the Quran; a tribe whose members believe they can channel divine healing power; a physicist with faith that science will lead him to God.

Morgan Freeman travels the world in search of evil and the role that the devil plays in various religions: from Jericho Desert where monks battle Satan to the Vatican where an exorcist sits with a man who underwent years of exorcisms to purge his demons and to a Buddhist temple in Nepal filled with evil spirits.

Morgan Freeman explores what can be learned from God in human form and delves into why many religious believers desire to see God in human form. He discovers the people, places, and mysteries that enshroud divine mortals, including the Emperor god of the Rastafarians, Jesus Christ, and a 5-year-old living goddess in Nepal.

Morgan Freeman travels the world to meet people who claim to have had visions of God. He meets a woman at the holy site of Lourdes, France who believes she was cured of paralysis by miraculous waters. An Anishinaabe man endured days alone in the wilderness for the sake of divine vision.

Morgan Freeman explores how religions have developed ways to fight back against sin. He meets an executioner who had a change of heart, uncovers the origins of self-flagellation, and talks to John McCain's Vietnam jailer about sin.

From a mysterious villa in Pompeii to secret mantras in Nepal, Morgan Freeman sets out to uncover why secrecy and religion are often intertwined.

Morgan Freeman explores what holy laws mean for different religions around the world and the punishments awaiting those who disobey. He investigates how the eruption of Vesuvius was seen as divine retribution. He sees the oldest existing copy of the Ten Commandments.