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Zeitgeist - Religion Debunked

Started by Arthur Dent, December 14, 2008, 12:19:08 AM

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Arthur Dent

This was a pivotal film in my falling out of religion. This is just the first part of the film which talks all about religion but you guys will LOVE this. It will give you chills...

[youtube:55mff06x]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs9br09jGoc[/youtube:55mff06x]
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Arthur Dent

Anyone?????

You'll have to forgive the intro, it sets the tone for the full-length film. Skip to 7:00 if you want.
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Sophus

I can't find any other reliable source that supports their claims about Horus and Jesus.
‎"Christian doesn't necessarily just mean good. It just means better." - John Oliver

Arthur Dent

Quote from: "Sophus"I can't find any other reliable source that supports their claims about Horus and Jesus.

Hmmm... I have flipped to that spell though in the Book of the Dead and it's dead on (woah, didn't mean to do that).
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Sophus

Most websites say Osiris is the father of Horus and doesn't say anything about Isis being a virgin. This video seems silly.
‎"Christian doesn't necessarily just mean good. It just means better." - John Oliver

Arthur Dent

Quote from: "Sophus"Most websites say Osiris is the father of Horus and doesn't say anything about Isis being a virgin. This video seems silly.

You're getting too caught up in the details and either way, it's not all about Horus. There's the whole bit about the sun dying on the cross for three days and then being resurrected, the 2 fish, the ram, etc etc etc.
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Tom62

I liked the first part of Zeitgeist, but many of the facts that they claim to be true have to be taken with a pinch of salt. I do believe that in essence the makers of Zeitgeist are right by claiming the Jesus is nothing more than a combination of different (sun) Gods before him and that there could be a relation with the Zodiac, but some of the evidence that they produce are simply not true and could easily be refuted by Christians. For example there is no account that Horus was crucified like Jesus or that he had 12 disciples. The death of Horus was caused by a scorpion, while his mother Isis was absent in a neighboring city. Horus was then resurrected, but I haven't found any accounts so far that this event took place after 3 days. According to academical references, Horus had four followers variously called the semi-divine Heru-Shemsu ('Followers of Horus') and 16 human followers. There is also mention of an unnumbered group of followers called the mesniu/mesnitu ('blacksmiths') who accompanied Horus in some of his battles.

I think it is a fact that the Christians took other Gods as a template for their Jesus myth and then tweaked their myth a bit to fit their own needs (like 12 disciples instead of 16, representing the 12 tribes of Israel or the Zodiac). I'm pretty sure that no Christian on Earth wants to know the true origins of the Jesus myth. Christians will most likely refute the true origins of the Jesus myth by pointing out the discrepancies between the different myths. Point however is that those discrepancies were deliberately brought into the Jesus myth to distinguish the Jesus myth from others (and to avoid copyright infringements  :) ).

The makers of Zeitgeist wants us to believe that we cannot believe everything. Looking at the rather paranoid world-view presented in the next parts of Zeitgeist (9/11 and banking conspiracy , etc.), I must come to the conclusion that we cannot believe all the things that Zeitgeist present us as "facts" either.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

Arthur Dent

You nailed it tom. It gets you thinking, gets some good concepts out there, but isn't any sort of standard of truth...

A friend of mine just watched the film (and Addendum) so I wrote him the following synopsis.

Part 1 - That was some heavy stuff. It's hard to not be changed by watching it. Some of the facts are botched, but the basic idea is there. Some of those concepts match up too well... I've looked into these idea further and you really do start to see links between not only religion and astrology, but religion and the human condition, etc.

Part 2 - Mostly rubbish. I think the actual collapse of the WTC was legit; we've actually gone over it several times in my courses. The Shanksville crash was also legit; they found the engines buried 60 ft in the ground.

Nevertheless, the event was exploited for military expansion and the removal of civil rights. Furthermore, religious and patriotic beliefs were tapped into to rally support.

Part 3 - I'm not educated enough on the history to know if this part was accurate or not. I do know that the DHS is totally insane though, and yes, they did try to push RFID through Congress. In one of my courses I gave a speech on the hypocrisy of their mission statement which claims their goal is "Protecting America's Freedoms".

My favorite part of Zeitgeist was the ending. They bring everything together so well and the true intention of the film starts to come clear.

(He said he might have to look into Carl Sagan) This film was actually my first exposure to Carl Sagan. I like his way of thinking because he takes things to a much broader perspective, as if he's just a distant observer. The fascinating thing is that when you look at things from this perspective, so many problems become superficial.

As for Zeitgeist Addendum, it sounds an awful lot like socialism. Some of the other concepts though, (like profit seeking creating stagnation and scarcity) make a lot of sense and I had never thought about them. I'm just not sure we will ever be able to move beyond a money system, even with all of the problems it causes us.
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Martian

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
-Thomas Jefferson

(I DON'T BELIEVE GOD EXISTS)

Sophus

It's absolute bullocks. They're using the same tactics as conspiracy theorists.
‎"Christian doesn't necessarily just mean good. It just means better." - John Oliver

Arthur Dent

I still think there are some really good slams to Christianity in there. It's not all about Horus...

As far as I'm concerned, the story of Jesus fits too well with the behavior of the sun on the solstice. And the bit about the end of the world, joseph=jesus, etc. It's these ideas that I'm condoning, not the whole of Zeitgeist. They're trying to show that religions grew by copying one another and trying to woo followers. It makes perfect sense to me.

And as for 12, yes, it really is found all throughout the bible and when I was younger they told us that this was a very important fact for symbolic reasons.
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Sophus

Quote from: "Arthur Dent"They're trying to show that religions grew by copying one another and trying to woo followers.
I agree with that. Most of them have an underworld and/or a paradise...  Christianty stole the old Halos from Hinduism... why not use real evidence instead of make stuff up? Some of what they have to say is true but they're still creating their own fiction in many ways to persuade. That was originally religion's trademark.  ;)
‎"Christian doesn't necessarily just mean good. It just means better." - John Oliver

Arthur Dent

I suppose. I guess Zeitgeist got my mouth watering a bit. I want to see a real, scholarly approach to this sort of thing.

Dawkin's "Root of all Evil?" was good, but more geared around evolution than historical religion.
"In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soa

Sophus

Quote from: "Arthur Dent"I suppose. I guess Zeitgeist got my mouth watering a bit. I want to see a real, scholarly approach to this sort of thing.

Dawkin's "Root of all Evil?" was good, but more geared around evolution than historical religion.
I'll see if I can find anything for you.
‎"Christian doesn't necessarily just mean good. It just means better." - John Oliver

wheels5894

I'm not so sure about whether this video is rubbish. There are some serious questions tackled and if we think the video is rubbish we still have to come up with answers. It is certainly true that the OT texts are heavily reliant on the Babylonian and Egyptian traditions. Whether one takes the view that the Israel begins with the Exodus and Moses ro that Israel starts with some people leaving Babylonia to, effectively start a new nation in the land of Canaan (see Philip Davies 'In Search of Ancient Israel') the traditions must have come with them when the texts were written. That is think is something no one will refute.

Now so far as the Astrological ideas, I think we would be wrong to look and see, as we do now, the use of Astrological ideas to write the stories of Jesus. I would suggest that the Astrological ideas would have been part of the normal traditions of the people and would be just as natural to use as any other concepts. This would mean that it is quite possible for the various Biblical stories to have been written that incorporate astrological ideas in them. However, the likenesses of the various 'saviour gods' from Horus onwards suggest that there must be some sort of pattern and some sort of connection and that we need an explanation for these facts. I rather think that the video may have got quite a bit of the truth even if it is nt quite right.

One of the ideas the video has is that Jesus may not have existed at all. I rather think this unlikely. There was a multi-page discussion on this topic on the 'why doesn't god heal amputees' board which concluded that Jesus most probably existed though not a person like the gospels describe. If, this is right - that a crucified man was the basis for the Jesus of the NT - then using known ideas like astrological ideas to expand the character makes a lot of sense and explain the 'ages' rather better than anything else I have ever seen.