Thread: The zeitgeist movie: must see to understand what is going on

I watched this a while back, then downloaded it.

I wasn't crazy about the first part which was about Religion, but it was quite amazing the similarities through the ages.

I am still a believer.

The second part was quite remarkable and well put together, although others out there have put to film most of the same. Just not as well.

I definitely recommend it.
I give it 4 and a half stars.

They should take out the religion part. They seem to be saying, just as this religion is a faked myth, so are these other manstream stories. But, they didn't disprove Christianity (or any other religion) but merely advanced an alternative explanation for it that does not match the words and deeds of the early Christians. There's no evidence that people a lot closer the source believed what was stated there. One sideline of the 'Christianity is fake' argument is to contend that the scriptures were written so far after the events as to be meaningless evidence, but there is internal evidence that at least parts are much too close to the events to support this interpretation. And they engage in an argument I've seen elsewhere, that argues that symbols have some inherent meaning, when they actually mean to the person using them what they mean to that person. That is why we can go back into the history of ancient India and see swastikas that have no connection with the Nazis. There is actually a lot of contextual evidence embedded in the New Testament that places it deeply into the cultural context of Roman-occupied Palestine, that is not apparent to a superficial reading.

The rest of it is very interesting and sometimes disturbing. I'm sure there's a lot we don't know about what really goes on and no doubt that our feelings and opinions are manipulated by the media. I haven't made up my mind on a lot of things.

I'm still thinking about whether I like the ending or am disappointed. A bit new-agey tone was there, I felt.

BetsyRoss, did you download the whole thing? If so how?

I guess from what you are saying is that although there are some really good points made, that some of what is being said is that Christianity is a myth or fable. Guess it is like watching "Da Vinci Code", eh?

I have broadband so I could just watch the whole thing. The first part reminded me of arguments I have heard elsewhere. The argument that Christianity is just a myth, that Jesus never existed, and that the myth was created for the purpose of social domination and control of the masses has been around for a while. Now it is true that organized religions tend to get hijacked by the dominant social classes and used to control the masses, but that doesn't invalidate the whole story. The film contends that Christianity is merely a retelling of old solar savior myths that recurr throughout history. It also ties it to the zodiac and points out that the favorite religious animal symbol has changed with the ages (bull, ram, fish). This is also an idea found in some branches of esoteric religion which postulate that a wise spiritual elite creates the religion for the times and promulgates it to the common folk.

This theory doesn't explain the rapid proliferation of the early branches of Christianity, the words and behavior of early Christians, or why they distanced themselves from other religions so quickly and left the older solar/savior cults in the dust. If it was just another pagan cult, there were livelier versions of that same cult that persisted for centuries after Christianity arose and that weren't persecuted. Art has cliches that persist, so art work where one thing resembles another does not prove that they are the same. Symbols can be reused and repurposed. (See my comment on the swastika above)

Attempts by modern people to explain something from the past can go badly awry. An example of this is tarot cards. In the oldest decks it looks like a set of playing cards (that came ultimately from India) with different suits that is embellished by adding on 22 picture cards. The different suits are merely the Latin (Italy, Spain, and related countries) custom of using coins and cups instead of diamonds and hearts. The images probably come from Italian triomfi parades, an event that was as culturally widespread in their day as situation comedies and soap operas are in ours. But only about a century or two after the triomfi parade tradition died out, there are people in literature wondering what the weird pictures on the cards meant (that's how quickly cultural knowledge can fade), and as the centuries passed, the speculations got wilder and wilder. People were saying that the pictures were copied from temple walls in Egypt and had all sorts of esoteric meanings. They do have cultural meanings, but from a culture that is long passed, although that culture is related to ours. During times before modern art history and archeology, without any insight into what these symbols meant to people at the time, any theory about what they really meant was likely to miss the mark. This film's treatment of Christianity also takes symbols out of their historical and cultural context and tries to interpret them. It also seems like they are trying to explain it away, like they have an axe to grind.

The fact is that a lot more people lived and died in those days that we have no official records for, not just Jesus. If you read the New Testament, it is apparent that acceptance of Jesus was far from widespread and that most people either never heard the message or else shied away from it. There were other, larger schisms from mainstream Judaism at the time, other travelling preachers, and a populace that was very nervous and uncomfortable under Roman rule. If the Romans perceived a rebellion in the works, they could be expected to suppress it very harshly. That was seen by many as a good reason to supress people who looked like troublemakers. So it really isn't that surprising that Jesus never made it into official, government records of the time or into the works of prominent writers.