Recently I told you of my encounter with Lance, the juggling-stick expert, and Merril, his Mayan-guru babysitter. I met both at the Scarborough Renaissance Faire and we talked some about Jesus and hope for the future. To understand where he was coming from, he told me to watch Zeitgeist the Movie. (Zeitgeist is German for “Time Spirit” or “Spirit of the Age.”)
Having watched it, I am a bit perplexed. Zeitgeist the Movie is actually two movies (or documentaries).
As part of the introduction to Zeitgeist the movie, there was a quote which reveals the way a lot of people view Christianity. This quotes is both funny and so very sad. This quote comes from George Carlin (at around 11:30 of Part 1 of Zeitgeist the movie):
I gotta tell you the truth folks. I gotta tell you the truth. When it comes to bullsh*t, big time, major league bullsh*t, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims — religion.
Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man, living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire, and smoke, and burning, and torture, and anguish, where he will send you to live, and suffer, and burn, and choke, and scream, and cry forever and ever until the end of time.
But he loves you!
He loves you, and he needs money! He always needs money. He’s all powerful, all perfect, all knowing, and all wise, but somehow, just can’t handle money. Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more.
Now, you talk about a good bullsh*t story, holy sh*t!
This is, of course, a caricature, which is why it’s funny. However, it’s sad, because when you boil “religion” down, George Carlin isn’t too far from the truth. Frequently, religion uses God to scare people into giving away their money. Much of Christendom operates in the same way.
What I hope to impress upon Lance is that Jesus is not this way at all. Jesus is just as upset and angry about this kind of religion as George Carlin is. Maybe angrier. When Jesus saw this sort of thing going on in the temple, He made a whip and nearly started a riot (Matt 21:12).
However, that was all just part of the introduction to Zeitgeist the movie. The real movie was divided into two parts, and I frankly am not sure how they fit together, so I will deal with them separately.
Part 1 of Zeitgeist the movie: Jesus is a Myth
The first forty minutes is designed to make you think that religion in general, and specifically the stories about Jesus, are all a myth based on Egyptian astrology. I found parts of this section very disturbing, especially since, in all my “religious training” I have never heard any mention of what this movie states. Here is a website which summarizes some of the things the movie reveals.
Has anyone done any research in these things? What solution/answer can you provide? All the parallels between Jesus and Horus are incredible, especially when you consider that the stories of Horus predate Jesus by thousands of years.
Note: After doing a lot of reading, research, and thinking on the topics in this post, I wrote a follow-up post about the pagan roots of Christianity here and some of my concluding thoughts about Zeitgeist the movie. Go check it out and let me know what you think.
Part 2 of Zeitgeist the movie: US Politicians and Bankers are Robbing the World Blind
Part 2 was a conspiracy-theory smorgasbord. It attributed both World Wars, plus Vietnam, 9/11 and the war we are in now, as well as the Great Depression upon dirty public officials and rich bankers. The ultimate goal, the narrator says, is a one world government with a one world bank.
He may be right about this…I don’t know. But I guess if it turns out to be true, I wouldn’t be too surprised. The funny thing is that some of the sections of this part of the movie fit very well into prophecy about the End Times, the Mark of the Beast, and the coming Antichrist, especially the parts at the end about the RFID chip and the National Identification Card (which he said will be required of all US citizens in May 2008). Various Christian “Prophecy Buffs” love this sort of thing.
Conclusion (My take on Zeitgeist the movie)
So watch Zeitgeist the movie at your own risk. I watched it so that I can continue to the conversation with Lance. He seems to be a very intelligent person, with a love for life and people. I think Jesus would hang out with Lance and learn how to use those juggling sticks. So maybe I will to.
There are a lot of things you won’t find in any religious training. Take the “Eye of the Needle” gate/door/pass story (please). You’ve heard that Cinderella’s glass slipper was probably fur, right? Same thing here.
People will bend over backwards with rationalizations rather than admit that someone copying a book hundreds or thousands of years ago may have made a mistake. Or that perhaps that the history was embellished a bit by disciples eager to win over their audience.
The problem with people who make movies like the Zeitgeist is their lack of focus. Even if this guy isn’t crazy, he looks like he is. Maybe he’s got very credible evidence of his Jewish Corporation Bank Planet plan, but that has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus being a myth. It’s like the crazy guy in the subway. Yes, the end of the world is coming, white people are the devil and Giuliani is controlling your thoughts, whatever. Just pick ONE and develop it, man.
Like we need him to tells us corporations are greedy? This is news? If I want a real dystopia allegory, I’ll just re-read 1984 or maybe pick up Brave New World (because I’ve never read it and now I’ll have to to understand Amusing Ourselves…).
Starting with Carlin is good, though. I wonder if he even knows he’s in it.
Bullet,
You always make me laugh! Thanks for your comment.
I actually have preached on that eye of the needle passage before and amazingly, think I got that one right. I’m glad for the link you gave me though. Thanks. Of course, seminary is still teaching the “small gate in the wall of Jerusalem” myth. I heard it from one my profs just last semester. Oh well…
Well,
I’ve been doing research into the Egyptian Myths, and have been reading the Egyptian book of the Dead which contains the supposed similarities between Jesus and Horus and Osirus.
Guess what? I think that whoever came up with the list of similarities between Jesus and Horus fabricated the list in an attempt to prove that Jesu was a myth. He (rightly) assumed that most people would not wade through the Book of the Dead to read the accounts of Horus and Osirus.
I wanted to see if anyone else had realized this, and with some searching, for this blog (be warned: it contains R-rated language): Stupid Evil Bastard. He appears to be a libertarian atheist who wants fellow atheists to stop using the Horus myth in an attempt to disprove Jesus.
And check out this excellently researched document as well:
Tektonics.org Copycat
Amen, then. 🙂
My faith was shaken several years ago when I watched until I found out the Mithra society denied many of the alleged similarities described in this video. The early Catholic church taught(added) many of these “similarities” to get the current Roman pagan culture to worship Jesus and the Saints as basically the same as the Roman Gods.
Thanks! Yes, I found similar things in my own study.
So, didn’t you just by your own admission state that religion is based on lies. So, I’m to believe that all the things that completely debunk the world’s largest control scheme were fake and added by evil men, but all the other stuff is totally true? Hmmmmmkay What about the countless other religions before the Egyptians? Many also spoke of a savior who died and rose again. There very well may be a God, and I believe there is, but you put him in a box with your dogma, and you’ll never find any truths that way, because you shut your mind to new knowledge under the delusion that you already have it all contained in a book, written by men, whom you’ve already stated have altered the text with lies.
All religion is a faith based choice. I have my beliefs, but they are through faith. Faith by definition is the belief in something absent of proof. You have no proof yet claim to KNOW the truth. So are you a liar or a dupe? Because, you’re one or the other when you claim absolute truth absent any facts. You are welcome to your beliefs and I respect your right to have them, but when you claim authority from God and claim to know absolute truth, you become a zealot and a charlatan. Your faith based guess is no more authoritative than anyone else’s.
Hi Jeremy, I’m from Colombia, I had a friend present this Zeitgeist video a while ago. I investigated and they are very biased and state things as fact when they are not (In the First Part). I would recomend you to read :
http://www.jonsorensen.net/2012/10/25/horus-manure-debunking-the-jesushorus-connection/
http://www.gotquestions.org/zeitgeist-movie.html
And finally this video which does it nicelly since it goes point by point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFI6m6Icav4
Excellent! I will look into the links. Thanks!
Mithra a familiar name back when I became a believer back in the early 80’s
Thoroughly debunked by our wonderful brother in The Lord Chris White. Go to YouTube and watch his complete dismantling and debunking of zeitgeist.
Thanks! Do you have a link?
I heard the same arguments debunked by Bruxy Cavey. Unfortunately I was kind of buying it until that part of the film came on…
Ahhhh, Nathan, that Bruxy guy. Always with a good bit of insight, that fellow.
I love Bruxy!
Thanks for the input on debunking this! I will check them out.
There are so many historical fraudulent claims in this movie you could drive 50 buses through all of the holes at once. The Copycat idea of Christianity seems to be gaining so much traction these days, yet when you look into the historicity of these claims they are by and large a joke. Even highly educated academics are writing such nonsense. Last year I read Tom Harpur’s book The Pagan Christ, which for a noted academic like Harpur, makes wild claims, yet there is no real historic basis to them, just blind bigotry and prejudice and an extreme liberal licence to make such claims.
Yes, and yet I am not ready to discount them all. I think that God may have been whispering His truth to other cultures and generations than just the Jewish one, so that when Jesus came, He could be seen as the fulfillment of their hopes, dreams, and myths.
Conspiracy theorists often twist language to make tenuous correlations sound like direct causation. With a deeper look however they rapidly unravel.