Zeitgeist

[pirana 0]

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1. The religion part -- much of it is a stretch. While they raise some interesting points, they don't go in-depth enough to provide concrete proof that all western religions are a take on astrology.

Archaeology provides a much better discipline for studying the origins of religion than that CT diatribe. It only takes a cursory study of the materials found to recognize that all religions have a common foundation in homage paid to the Sun, Moon, planets and stars. Honoring living and dead tribal elders brought in the human and superhuman components. All the rest is just silly BS added by Those Darn Humans who seem to want shit to mean so much more than it does.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[philh 0]

I saw the Zeitgeist movie a while ago, it is a huge collection of ignorance and stupidity. I was reccomnded it , by a few friends and below is a copy of the emial I wrote in reponse :

“Zeitgeist”. This is a movie I’m already familiar with as it really is just a copy and paste from well known conspiracy theories. In particular they are repackaging anti Semitic tract known as “The Protocols of the Elder of Zion” you can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion

But the bottom line is some anti Semitic Russians created a hoax document whereby they laid out an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers in control of the world. Despite it being easily shown as a forgery, it was widely used by anti Semites across Europe in the early to mid part of the 20th century including the Nazis.

After the war the Protocols were still believed in, but they have also mutated and reproduced into new conspiracy theories. Below is a conspiracy theory generator :

http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/generator.html

you can replace the word Jews with space aliens lizard people, Opus Dei, the Free Masons etc The story is always the same with a few variations.

Apart from their anti Semitic origins, the real problem with conspiracy theories is that they collapse under their own weight. Just think, only a few people had to know about Watergate but yet it got discovered; only two people had to know about Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and yet it got out. History tells us that governments suck at keeping secrets. As G Gordon Liddy (the man who broke into the Watergate offices) famously said “three people can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead”. Yet conspiracy theorists ask us to believe that hundreds possibly thousands of people are in on unbelievable secrets yet no real evidence has come out. This stretches plausibility beyond breaking point.

More importantly still is the way conspiracy theorists present their case. Here I would recommend Bob Park (Prof of Physics at Uni of Maryland) excellent essay on how to spot bogus science from the real thing:

http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm

He presents 7 red flags one should look out for. Right at the top of the list is the discoverer pitches the claim straight to the media. Real researchers present their findings for peer review. Other experts in the field go over their work with a fine tooth comb looking for flaws and errors. Anyone who has ever been involved in academia knows how high the level of scrutiny is when you submit research for publication. Notice that conspiracy theorists don’t submit their research in peer reviewed journals, the reason is they wouldn’t survive the scrutiny, they be laughed out of the editors office quite frankly. So they bypass the scrutiny and present their “evidence” to the general public who won’t know how to challenge their ridiculous claims.



Fortunately, there are people that do subject these conspiracy theories to some proper scrutiny and of course they do not stand up. Here is some web site you might want to look at showing how easily most conspiracy theories are debunked:



The Moon Hoax Conspiracy:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

Or

http://www.clavius.org/



The JFK Conspiracy

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm



Or try this book:

http://www.reclaiminghistory.com/



9/11

http://www.debunking911.com/

Or

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html



or even better still

watch the fantastic documentary screw loose change here:

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3214024953129565561

or read through it here:

http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html





Onto zeitgeist the movie. Firstly there is a very comprehensive analysis of this movie on this web site:



http://www.conspiracyscience.com/



But its quite long so I thought Id give you just a few top 5 reasons to doubt this movie in some of the sections.



Part 1 Origins of Religion



This section I have the most sympathy with. They bash religion and good for them. But there is a right way to make the case against religion (and the Abrahamic religions in particular) and there is a wrong way. They pick a very wrong way.

If you want to read a serious critique of these religions I would recommend:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/

As an atheist, I find Zeitgeists critique embarrassing. I recognised it within seconds of the section starting., although they don’t credit it in their web site, It seems to me they have copied and pasted their argument from a book called” The Worlds Sixteen Crucified Saviours” by Kersey Graves . Serious scholars who do take the view that Jesus never existed do not take Graves seriously. Have a look at Columbia Universities Richard Carrier essay on why here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/graves.html



Their basic argument is just data mining. They are looking for comparisons and so they find them. Whilst there are some legitimate comparisons, the idea of a death and resurrection is correct, they are wildly exaggerated in the film. As promised my top five problems:



1 Horus is portrayed as the Sun god, an image of a solar disc over his head is presented. The problem is, this isn’t Horus, this is Ra, check him out here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra

Nor was Horus born on Dec 25th, baptized or anything similar. I think the film makes just made it up.

One could just as easily make comparisons to Osiris who was resurrected after being murdered by Set. But then resurrection was a common belief, so what?



2 The filmmakers imply the phrase “sun god “has been mistaken for “sun of god”. The problem with this is these two phrases only sound similar in English. Since modern English is only a few hundred years old, the comparison is meaningless.



3 The filmmakers state that Jesus had 12 disciples because of the Zodiac but they have no evidence for this motivation. They just state it as a matter of fact. Sure 12 is repeated in the bible, so are lots of numbers, it’s a big book. 40 is used quite a lot - 40 days on the ark for Noah, 40 years in the desert for Moses, 40 days in the desert for Jesus. One could probably say 1 is important- 1 god, 1 day of rest , 2 is important 2 first humans, the animals went in two by two, 3 is important the holy trinity, 3 angels visited Lot. One could find any number important and that makes the comparison meaningless.



4 The film makers claim that Mary was made a virgin in the story to link here to Virgo. In my opinion this is just stupid. The author(s?) of the gospel of Mathew gives away their reasons for inventing the Virgin birth myth in 1:22 when they say it is the fulfilment of Isaiah 7:14. They mistranslated the Hebrew word alma which means young woman into the Greek word pantheos meaning virgin because they were trying to make seem it like a prophecy fulfilment. This is a consistent theme for NT authors. It has nothing to do with astrology.



5 The film makers think fish are important because they represent the age of Pisces. A simpler explanation is the local people were fisherman and ate a lot of fish. Similarly the ram is important because it represents Aries. Again a simpler explanation is the people kept rams and Abraham used it as a substitute sacrifice for his son.



Part 2 9-11

Here the film makers rehash the much debunked nonsense that the US government was responsible for 9-11. . Again ask why they don’t publish this stuff in peer reviewed journals? It’s because it doesn’t stand up. Rather than pick out salient points, this has been debunked so many times I would rather you take a look at

http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html

And maybe just pick a few points to examine.







Part 3 Banking conspiracy

Here the film makers reconstitute the old anti Semitic tracts that Jewish bankers control the world. Fortunalty they’ve dropped the word “Jewish” but the arguments are just as wrong as they were when they were in their racist clothes.

Top 5 points:

1 As a professional debt trader I had to laugh at this part of the film. The Fed does not issue US debt that is done by the Treasury. The Fed is not like a private company, they have a degree of independence but they have oversight by Congress, those that make decision on monetary policy are the Governors and they are appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. The shareholders in the Fed (the banks) therefore have no say whatsoever in the running of the Fed. Know of any private companies where this happens? Furthermore the banks that hold stock in the Fed are paid a fixed rate on interest on their stock, so they have no incentive to influence fed policy becuase of their shares. More importantly the Fed reutrns any interest payments to the Tresury at the end of they year. The claim in the film is just simply wrong.

2 There is nothing inevitable about increasing debt. The debt is issued by the Treasury, not the Fed, to meet shortfalls between spending and revenues. If the government spends less than it earns, the debt will go down, this did indeed happen under Clinton. The opposite is happening under Bush.

3 Its claimed that Rockefeller profited from the crash of 1929. Apart being untrue, this is also ridiculous in the extreme; any wealthy person including Rockefeller would have their net worth massively reduced by a crash, what on earth would be the point of buying assets cheap if your net worth goes down by the same amount? Only someone that is not involved in trading would suggest something so ridiculous.

4 The film implies the Fed can control the supply of money. Not really, of course it can do this by printing more or less money. But in the modern world money is not just notes and coins. Money can take many forms. In the early 1980’s several central banks tried to target the money supply as a way of controlling inflation. What they found was that every time they targeted a particular form of money (in the UK we moved between m0, m1 m2 m3, £m3, and m4) money would move between one measure that was being targeted to one that was not. This became known as Goodhearts Law.Central banks found it impossible to control the money supply and so they decided to giveup and use interest rates as a proxy, they just don’t have the level of control over the economy that the film implies.

5 The film implies the sinking of the boat Lusitania was done for the purpose of leading the USA into WWI, but this happened 2 and half years before the US entered the war. The idea that bankers make more in war than in peace is simply false. Thinks about it, most banks assets are in loans to their customers and they secure that with things like houses, business etc. So the best way for a bank to make money is a booming economy, house prices do not tend to go up during war. Right now we have one of the worst banking crises in history and we have two wars going on, this argument makes no sense. Spending trillions of dollars on a war like Iraq is not good for the economy, you might as welll as just burn all that wealth, which is what Bush has done.
If the banks control the world why are they in such a shit state now? Lets not forget many bankers died in 9/11 .

Anyway there are so many more flaws in this film it would take a long time to go through them all. That’s why I would point you again to this site:

http://www.conspiracyscience.com/articles/zeitgeist/

which does actually take the time to make more specific criticism and basically rip the film to shreds. Nothing less than it deserves given its pseudo science/pseudo history approach.

[rhys 0]

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Egads! Your criteria for proof is religion and astrology? And your evidence is the Bible?

You missed your calling as a Consultant to the Emperor, . . . . by about 1000 years.

You obviously didn't watch Zeitgeist did you?

The beginning of Zeitgeist is about religion, I wouldn't usually use the bible as evidence but if you had have watched the movie, then you may have understood what I was talking about.

Astrology is not about hippie chicks selling crystals and sending you text messages about your fortunes. The basis of asrology is about the sun's cycles and how it effects us everyday, season to season year to year.

I dispise christianity as it is portrayed, and in these forums I often make mistakes and cannot explain exactly what my feelings or thoughts are due to frustration and my human nature type idiosyncrasies like that.

Zeitgeist is in line with many of my beliefs and has actually aligned them quite a lot and allows me to have the information needed to allow me to further my studies into my beliefs.

It has given me an element of closure in regards to many things that I have discussed here in the SC and potentialy/hopefully will do the same for others.

Everybody should watch this movie, it is free to download, and should be watched with an unbiased mind.

Whichever side of the fence you sit on open your mind for two hours and think about it afterwards rather than while you are watching it. Especially right wing christain sceptics, those little angry (perfectly natural) thoughts that go on inside your head when someone refutes your beliefs, will distract you and will not allow you to take everything in, in one sitting. You will miss important information as it just keeps on coming at you.

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When the poer of love overvomes the love of power, the world will know peace. - Jimmy Hendrix

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[philh 0]

"The basis of asrology is about the sun's cycles and how it effects us everyday, season to season year to year. "

Really, my understanding is that astrology is thousnds of years old and the discovery of solar cycles was made in the 19th century. Ive never heard of an astologer consulting Nasa's space weather, nor have I heard of any evidence of someone being able to prepdict human behaviour on the basis of sun cycles. Perhaps you can show us the evidence.

Zeitgeist is for the tin foil hat brigade only.

[rhys 0]

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Really, my understanding is that astrology is thousnds of years old and the discovery of solar cycles was made in the 19th century. Ive never heard of an astologer consulting Nasa's space weather, nor have I heard of any evidence of someone being able to prepdict human behaviour on the basis of sun cycles. Perhaps you can show us the evidence.

My mistake I am actually talking about astronaomy,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astronomy
My bad!

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[philh 0]

So you are saying the basis of astronomy is sun cycles? No it isnt that either .
Also what would this have to do with the utterly stupid film Zeitgeist? THye were on about astrology.
I dont know if you are an atheist or non theist etc. But if you are I would emplore you not to discredit our arguments with the nonsese that is dressed as a serious argument in Zeitgeist. This film is a paranoid fantasy. Why not try serious scholarly arguments against Christianity instead. You will find many google" internet infidels". good luck.

[mnealtx 0]

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Zeitgeist is in line with many of my beliefs and has actually aligned them quite a lot and allows me to have the information needed to allow me to further my studies into my beliefs.

Shiny side goes out, bro...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[rhys 0]

If you are fishing for a personal attack,

you won't get one.

I should be waving my habds to the mods and screaming PA PA PA, like you would but i am better than that.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[billvon 2,435]

And your one warning. Cut it out.

[klyster 0]

http://sector.yweb.sk/Zeitgeist.Addendum.DVDRip.XviD.torrent

Zeitgeist Addendum out now folks, it's free and contrary to common belief, actually tells it like it is.

Download and watch, then feel free to rip it to bits, good luck ;)

link for the lazy:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

[klyster 0]

It's a bit hard to debate religion with people when they insist on using the bible as the keystone to all their supportive arguments.
Especially when you are trying to explain that you think the bible is a flawed piece of rubbish (though highly entertaining).

I'd love to see a christian defend christianity without using the bible as a some form of reference.

This place...
http://wheresjesus.multiply.com/

...is awesome, the bible is literally ripped to pieces and shown for what it really is, a badly written piece of fiction designed to manipulate the not so intelligent.

Go and have a read, it's free, unlike religion.

Zeitgeist's spin on religion is a lot more believable than religions spin on itself.

It's not too late to gain that extra bit of life back, and remember, you shouldn't have to be rewarded to be a good human.

[pirana 0]

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http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

A great site, with many real live genuine physicists participating in the forums!

The best I've found to chat with people about astronomy & physics; with a healthy dose of debunking going on at all times. The site started out critiquing the very poor portrayal of physics and astronomy in popular movies, books, TV, etc, and, IMO, has become one of the premier debunking sites out there (along with Mr Randi's efforts).

It is however promoted as a family friendly site; so some here might not like it. No profanity, no politics (outside the topic of it's influence on space exploration) and no religion (other than as part of a critical examinatin of the science involved or the study of religions).

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[nerdgirl 0]

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http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

Thanks for the link - neat site.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[pirana 0]

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Egads! Your criteria for proof is religion and astrology? And your evidence is the Bible?

You missed your calling as a Consultant to the Emperor, . . . . by about 1000 years.

You obviously didn't watch Zeitgeist did you?

The basis of asrology is about the sun's cycles and how it effects us everyday, season to season year to year.

Whichever side of the fence you sit on open your mind for two hours and think about it afterwards rather than while you are watching it.

I've watched it. Is is absolute garbage. It is appealing to some people's emotions, to their sense of paranoia, and to their need to be in on a really big really cool secret.

Yes, the Sun has power over our lives. It provides the energy that makes life in our solar system possible. However, if you think there is some force that acts on us as individuals, in different ways for different people; then I would ask what the mechanism of influence is.

By exactly what physical process do the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets guide my individual life (other than the homogenous influence they exert on the planet Earth as a whole)?

My mind is open, but not so far that my brain falls out.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

You are most welcome. I used to post there a lot, less frequently now. I mostly just enjoy reading the science and math threads (since the level of expertise there is way out of my league); but I do enjoy the OFF TOPIC BABBLING section.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley