Zeitgiest Movie Claims.. Are they true ?

I can't really answer the question exactly, but I think that would be interesting to mention that the religious-related part of the movie is all or most copied (literally) from "the god that wasn't there", and the rest is an assemblage of multiple conspiracy theories.

Some links debunking the thing, specially the conspiracy parts:

http://www.skepchick.org/skepticsguide/viewtopic.php?t=3648

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=85264

http://guelphskeptics.org/?p=18



Even the parts ripped off from TGWWT aren't free of cricitcs between the skeptics, anyway, and the author himself has admitted some mistakes. (Can find it through the links)
 
:d

The first part of the following movie states that the Judeo Christian Religions were copied directly off egyptian, and early Sun worshipping cults.
Is what this movie saying true or complete bollocks ?


i don't know about all of it, but i think the revised dates of holidays and things are true.
 
The movie is entirely a work of fiction, i say entirely but i only watched about 10-15 minutes of it. It is all rehashed crap anyway so i know what it is about just from reading forum posts on it. For me sitting there listening to this ominous voice telling me not to believe anything i heard except for the lies they are telling me is really insulting.

Also, i know the second part is about 911 and you really have to deny reality to follow along with the claims made.

Someone got their hands on expensive graphics software and made a fairy tale. And really that about sums it all up.
 
The religious claims of zeitgeist are basically true, though most Christian scholars would argue that the transmission of ideas was the other way around - that Early Christianity (spreading across the Mediterranean like wildfire, and thus threatening the hegemony of other religious cults of like nature i.e. Isis and Mithras) actually was the progenitor of such practices as Baptism and the Eucharist (among many others) - in turn transmitting them to the preexisting cults.

I tend to disagree with this interpretation of the mimetic transmission among Early Christianity and other cults, but I think it is right to a certain extent. It is the nature of religious institutions that they not only are molded from without (much to the chagrin of the supposedly unwavering dogmas like Catholicism (what ever happened to limbo?) and Mormonism (an openly racist institution until the mid 1970's)), but they also shape and transmit ideas to and through their cultural context. So it seems reasonable that though Early Christianity was in large part shaped by preexisting near-eastern cults, it also, as a new religious force in the world, shaped them through its own devices.
 
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And things like the cross were not entirely ripoffs from other cults (like the ankh of Isis). The cross was a tool of execution - the early Christian adoption of such a symbol would have been really strange, akin to some religious cult today adopting the electric chair, or lethal injection syringe as their symbol.

So though the cross did exist in great abundance as a religious symbol among near eastern religions and cults, it had context outside of those - the Christians didn't just totally rip it off of the Isis folks.

I'm not sure how this pertains to the argument, but you all might be interested that most of the crosses upon which people were crucified weren't necessarily the "cross shape" as we picture it today. Many were shaped more like "X" - and most were shaped more like "+", with the cross-bar halfway up the pole, instead of like "t", with the cross bar more towards the top..."the more you know!"

Also recall that the supposed Saint Peter was crucified upside down (i'd think this would be a better way to go, as you'd probably pass out in like 30 minutes from all the blood rushing to your brain). Most people who were crucified hung up there for a really long time (sometimes even days). You would usually die from asphyxiation, after your arms had given out and you could no longer hold yourself up. Your shoulders would slump down and you wouldn't be able to breathe.
 
I think the movie confuses the fact that there are similarities between Judaic religious practices and myths and Egyptian ones as evidence of causation. There is correlation between them, and the Egyptian ones are older, but correlation doesn't equal causation.

In fact, as another poster noted, there is a great deal more correlation between Jewish mythology and Sumerian/Babylonian mythology.

In fact there is *EVEN* more between Jewish mythology and Canaanite/Ugaritic mythology that existed before it. The Ugaritic pantheon even had as their highest god "El" the creator (compared to the Jewish name for God "El" used in some books of the Bible), and a separate god "Yahweh", one of the seventy sons of El (compare to the *other* Jewish name for god "Yahweh" used in other books of the Bible).

The Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls (but not the Masoretic text) both state Deuteronomy 32:8 as:

When the Most High (El) gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of El. For Yahweh's portion is His people, Jacob the line of His inheritance

The words "sons of El" are somewhat disputed as some think of them as "angels of God" rather than taking them literally (the Masoretic text renders the words as "sons of Israel"). The passage has long been linked with "Table of Nations" in Genesis (where God split up the Earth into seventy nations).

Note that, if you assume a Ugaritic root to the references, it all makes a lot of sense, as the Ugaritic El also divided the world into seventy nations--one for each of his sons, including Yahweh.

See here for a more expert discussion of the same point.

It seems very likely that the noted similarities between Egyptian religion and Jewish religion arose because all the cultures in the region were cross-pollinating all the time. The rise of Judaism was not some linear march from an Egyptian starting point. It was a hodgepodge of ideas taken from many sources in the region that eventually evolved into the Canaanite religions (of which Ugaritic was one), and then the Canaanites transitioned into Judaism and began to think of themselves as a separate group from the other Canaanites around them.
 
The Ugaritic pantheon even had as their highest god "El" the creator (compared to the Jewish name for God "El" used in some books of the Bible). . . .
Elohim, which also occurs, is simply the plural of eloh which comes from the same proto-Semitic root as Arabic allah. Is El another form of eloh?
. . . .and then the Canaanites transitioned into Judaism and began to think of themselves as a separate group from the other Canaanites around them.
Now DNA analysis suggests that the Canaanites who chose not to adopt Judaism were the ancestors of the Palestinians. The Palestinians are as closely related to the Jews and the Lebanese, if not more so, than they are to the Arabs.
 
Elohim, which also occurs, is simply the plural of eloh which comes from the same proto-Semitic root as Arabic allah. Is El another form of eloh?

My Hebrew etymology is not all that it could be, but a few sources, at least suggest that eloah is related to "El." Most are not well sourced though. To cite two:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05393a.htm ("Elohim has been explained as a plural form of Eloah or as plural derivative of El.")

http://www.thechristadelphians.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=4744 ("y dialetic transference, namely phonetic substitution Il/Ilu become El/Eloah in the general punic vocabulary...")

That makes selse to me, as it explains the number of proper names that refer to God (Michael ("who is like God"), Gabriel ("Man of God"), Israel ("He who strives with God"), Daniel ("God is my judge"), etc.).
 
you crazy

The movie is entirely a work of fiction, i say entirely but i only watched about 10-15 minutes of it. It is all rehashed crap anyway so i know what it is about just from reading forum posts on it. For me sitting there listening to this ominous voice telling me not to believe anything i heard except for the lies they are telling me is really insulting.

Also, i know the second part is about 911 and you really have to deny reality to follow along with the claims made.

Someone got their hands on expensive graphics software and made a fairy tale. And really that about sums it all up.

I think it is very ignorant for you to say that they got some graphic software and made fairytales. The firefighters and people who worked for the WTC that mentioned an explosion before the planes hit, they were in on it to, right??? Crazy as it may seem and I understand that none of want to beleive that our own gov't is capable of such terror but I feel we are trained to thing we cannot do anything about it. With everyone thinking like this, the gov't can get away with murder!!!!!! Just to add fuel to the fire....the patriot act, not in so many words, but go speak out in public make a big stink about all this and how our country is going into the toilet and see what happens!!!!!
I agree that this makes for good conversation, however, for you to say it is all a fairytale is very narrow minded!!!!
 
Be enlightened family!

We have to understand that we are not seeking "our truth" but "the" truth", which encompasses us. The movie has a proclivity, as any type of research or argument does, toward antitheism. In research we find articles which suit our need in aiding our argument to prove or disprove, regardless if there is other research out there "anti" that argument. Then we test our hypothesis, and solidfy our argument with results and then the skewed conclusion. Real research or science should not skew but account for all ideas and then deduce from all encompassing understanding. The movie has a good scientific or research foundation but a weak conclusion, which a lot of people would accept, without know all of the background information. The narrator/moderator does say a very good point about the lack of knowledge and knowing having people to think narrow mindedly and drawing irrational, inadequate conclusions. The issue is that the narrator is doing the same thing. eg. It is fine to say that Horus and all of the dieties that were worshiped over time have the same origin, but the only problem is that he didn't account for the slight differences (No one knows when Jesus was born Dec. 25 was the date given for celebration of his birth. The word Maji doesnt mean kings it means wise one and the maji just so happened to be kings. The narrator only names few of the miracles another of the dieties supposedly did, but I wonder why he didn's name all of them. The big one is that Jesus didn't have 12 disciples, he had 13, REMEMBER MATHIAS AFTER JUDAS DIED. ). I'm not denouncing the history that has been given because it is true but what I am clarifying is that because we have a piece of history doesnt mean that it fits in the puzzle the way that we say with our limited understanding. This is the reason I say we have to study to get full CORRECT knowledge and understanding then we can draw valid sound conclusions.
 
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MOD warning: Post by TheVisitor has some questionable information,the rest is fiction.
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Egypt received her science and mathematics from the Chaldeans and in turn Greece received them from Egypt.
Since the priests were in charge of teaching these sciences, and since these sciences were used as a part of religion, we already know the key as to how the Babylonish religion gained its strength in these two countries.
It is also true that whenever a nation was able to overcome another nation, in due time the religion of the subduer became the religion of the subdued.
It is well known that the Greeks had the very same signs of the Zodiac as did the Babylonians; and it has been found in the ancient Egyptian records that the Egyptians gave the Greeks their knowledge of polytheism.

Thus the mysteries of Babylon spread from nation to nation until it appeared in Rome, in China, India and even in both North and South America we find the very same basic worship.

The ancient histories agree with the Bible that this Babylonish religion was most certainly not the original religion of earth's early peoples.
It was the first to drift away from the original faith; but it was not itself the original one.
Historians such as Wilkinson and Mallett have proven conclusively from the ancient documents that at one time all the peoples of the earth believed in ONE GOD, supreme, eternal, invisible, Who by the Word of His mouth spoke all things into existence, and that in His character He was loving and good and just.
But as Satan will always corrupt whatever he can, we find him corrupting the minds and hearts of men so that they reject the truth. As he has always attempted to receive worship as though he were God and not the servant and creation of God, he drew worship away from God to the end that he might draw it unto himself and so be exalted.
He certainly did accomplish his desire to spread his religion throughout the whole world. This is authenticated by God in the Book of Romans, "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, until they became vain in their imaginations, and through darkness of heart accepted a corrupted religion to the extent that they worshipped creatures and not the Creator." Remember, Satan was a creature of God (Son of the Morning).

Thus we find that where once truth was disseminated amongst men, and all held to that one truth, there later came a day when a vast group turned from God and spread a diabolical form of worship around the world.

History bears it out that those of the tribe of Shem that stood with the unchanging truth were in solid opposition to those of Ham who turned away from truth to the devil's lie.
Monotheism turned to polytheism in Babylon.

Is it not strange that while the descendants of Ham went on their way in Satanic worship which involved a basic concept of three gods that there is not one trace of the descendants of Shem believing such a thing or having any ceremonial worship that involved even a type of it?
It is not strange that the Hebrews believed, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is ONE God", if there were three persons in the Godhead? Abraham, the descendant of Shem, in Genesis 18 saw only ONE God with two angels.

Now how was this trinity expressed? It was expressed by an equilateral triangle even as it is expressed in Rome today.
Strange, the Hebrews did not have such a concept.

Now who is right? Is it the Hebrews or the Babylonians?

In Asia the polytheistic idea of three gods in one came out in an image with three heads on one body. He is expressed as three intelligences.

In India, they found it in their hearts to express him as one god in three forms. Now that really is good modern day theology.

In Japan there is a great Buddha with three heads like the one we previously described.

The doctrine of the trinity has destroyed the multitudes and will destroy until Jesus comes.
According to history it did not take long for a change to be made in this concept of a Father and a Son and the Holy Ghost.
Satan took them a step at a time away from the truth.
The evolved concept of Deity was now: 1. The eternal father, 2. The Spirit of God incarnate in a HUMAN mother. (Does that make you think?) 3. A Divine Son, the fruit of that incarnation, (Woman's seed).

But the devil is not content. He hasn't achieved worship of himself yet, except in an indirect way. So he takes the people away from the truth still further.
Since it was not necessary to worship the creator-father, it was only natural that worship swung to the "Mother and Child" as the objects of adoration.

In Egypt there was the same combination of mother and son called Isis and Osiris.

In India it was Isi and Iswara. (Note the similarity of names even.)

In Asia it was Cybele and Deoius.

In Rome and in Greece it followed suit.

And in China.
Well, imagine the surprise of some Roman Catholic missionaries as they entered China and found there a Madonna and Child with rays of light emanating from the head of the babe.
The image could well have been exchanged for one in the Vatican except for the difference of certain facial features.

The original goddess-mother of Babylon was Semiramis who was called Rhea in the eastern countries.
In her arms she held a son, who though a babe, was described as tall, strong, handsome and especially captivating to the women.
In Ezekiel 8:14 he was called Tammuz.
Amongst classical writers he was called Bacchus.
To the Babylonians he was Ninus.
What accounts for the fact that he is represented as a babe in arms and yet described as a great and mighty man is that he is known as the "Husband-Son".
One of his titles was "Husband of the Mother", and in India where the two are known as Iswara and Isi, he (the husband) is represented as the babe at the breast of his own wife.

That this Ninus is the Nimrod of the Bible we can affirm by comparing history with the Genesis account.
Pompeius said, "Ninus, king of Assyria, changed the ancient moderate ways of life by the desire for conquest.
HE WAS THE FIRST WHO CARRIED WAR AGAINST HIS NEIGHBORS.

He conquered all nations from Assyria to Lybia as these men knew not the arts of war."
Diodorus says, "Ninus was the most ancient of Assyrian kings mentioned in history.
Being of warlike disposition he trained many young men rigorously in the arts of war.
He brought Babylonia under him while yet there was no city of Babylon."

Thus we see this Ninus started to become great in Babylon, built Babel and took over Assyria, becoming its king, and then proceeded to devour other vast territories where the people were unskilled in war and lived in a moderate way as said Pompeius.
Now in Genesis 10, speaking of the kingdom of Nimrod it says, "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar.

Out of that land went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh, and Calah etc."
But the translators made a mistake in translating Asshur as a noun for it is a verb, and in the Chaldee means 'to make strong.'
Thus it is Nimrod, who having been made strong (he established his kingdom by building the world's first army which he trained by drilling and through the rigors of hunting) went beyond Shinar with his strong army and subdued nations and built such cities as Nineveh, which was named after him, for even today a chief part of the ruins of that city is called Nimroud!

Since we have discovered who Ninus was, it is now necessary to discover who his father was.
According to history it was Bel, the founder of Babylon. (Now it is to be noted here that Bel founded it in the sense that he started this whole move, but it was the son, Ninus, that established it and was the first king etc.)
But according to the Scripture, the father of Nimrod was Cush: "And Cush begat Nimrod." Not only is this so but we find that Ham begat Cush.
Now, in the Egyptian culture Bel was called Hermes, and Hermes means, "THE SON OF HAM".
According to history Hermes was the great prophet of idolatry.

He was the interpreter of the gods. Another name by which he was called was Mercury. (Read Acts 14:11-12)

Hyginus says this about that god who was known variously as Bel, Hermes, Mercury etc, "For many ages men lived under the government of Jove (not the Roman Jove, but Jehovah of the Hebrews who predates Roman history) without cities and without laws, and all speaking one language.

But after that Mercury (Bel, Cush) interpreted the speeches of men (whence an interpreter is called Hermeneutes) the same individual distributed the nations.

Then discord began." It is seen from this that Bel or Cush, the father of Nimrod, originally was the ring leader that led the people away from the true God and encouraged the people as the "interpreter of the gods" to take another form of religion.
He encouraged them to go ahead with the tower which his son actually built. This encouragement is what brought the confusion and the division of men, so that he was both, "interpreter and confuser".

Cush, then, was the father of the polytheistic system and when men were deified by men, he of course, became the father of the gods.
Now Cush was called Bel. And Bel in Roman mythology was Janus.
He is pictured as having two faces and he carried a club by which he confounded and "scattered" the people.
Ovid writes that Janus said concerning himself, "the ancients called me Chaos".

Thus we find that the Cush of the Bible, the original rebel against monotheism was called Bel, Belus, Hermes, Janus, etc. amongst the ancient peoples.
He purported to bring revelations and interpretations from the gods to the people.
In so doing he caused the wrath of God to scatter the people, bringing division and confusion.

Now up to this point we have seen whence polytheism or the worship of many gods came.
But did you notice that we also found a mention of a man named Cush who was given a title of "the father of the gods."?
Did you notice here the old theme of ancient mythologies, that gods identify themselves with men?
That is where ancestor worship comes from.
So we might just examine history to find out about ancestor worship.
Well, it was brought out that Cush introduced a three god worship of father, son and spirit.
Three gods who were all equal.

But he knew about the seed of the woman coming, so there would have to be a woman and her seed come into the picture.
This was brought to pass when Nimrod died. His wife, Semiramis deified him, and thus made herself the mother of the son and also the mother of the gods. (Just exactly as the Roman church has deified Mary.
They claim she was without sin and was the Mother of God.)
She (Semiramis) called Nimrod "Zeroashta" which means, "the woman's promised seed".

But it wasn't too long until the woman began to attract more attention than the son, and soon she was the one who was depicted as trampling underfoot the serpent.
They called her "the queen of the heaven" and made her divine.
How like today wherein Mary, the mother of Jesus, had been elevated to immortality.

"Mary the Mediatrix," "Mary the Mother of All Believers," or "Mother of the Church."
If there was ever Babylonish ancestor worship in a religion, it is the religion of the Church of Rome.

Not only was ancestor worship originated in Babylon but so also was the worship of nature.
It was in Babylon the gods were identified with the sun and moon, etc.
The chief object in nature was the sun which has light giving and heat giving properties and appears to man as a ball of fire in the heavens.

Thus the chief god would be the sun god whom they called Baal.

Often the sun was depicted as a circle of flame and soon around that flame there appeared a serpent. It wasn't long until the serpent became a symbol of the sun and consequently worshipped. Thus the desire of Satan's heart became full-fledged. He was worshipped as God. His throne was established. His slaves bowed to him. There in Pergamos in the form of a living serpent he was worshipped.

Now look at the symbol for Sci-Forums at the top of the page.
What do you see?
 
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MOD warning: Post by TheVisitor has some questionable information, the rest is fiction.
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The religious parts of the movie are only slightly less contraversial than the 9/11 and new world order stuff. But basically the same mind set that could believe the latter two would have trouble being objective and rational about the first as well.

I would class it as edutainment and suggest getting out the hip waders, and I'm by no means religious friendly. FYI, there links are not exactly unbiased and the conclusions drawn aren't necessarily supportable. For example its at least as reasonable to assume JHVH was the adoption of a local caaninite deity.
 
Here is the evidence for the first part of Zeitgeist:

Footage from “The Naked Truth”
IRES | All Rights Reserved

Audio from “Revelations”
by Bill Hicks | All Rights Reserved

Audio from “The Light of the World”
Courtesy of Jordan Maxwell | All Rights Reserved


Information Sources

Massey, Gerald
“The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ”
Book Tree Publishing

Massey, Gerald
“Ancient Egypt, Light of the World”
Kessinger Publishing

Massey, Gerald
“Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Mysteries of Amenta”
Kessinger Publishing

Acharya S
“The Christ Conspiracy”
Adventures Unlimited Press

Acharya S
“Suns of God”
Adventures Unlimited Press

Churchward, Albert
“The Origin and Evolution of Religion”
Book Tree Publishing

Murdock, D.M
“Who was Jesus?”
Steller House Publishing

Allegro, John
“The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth”
Book Tree Publishing

Maxwell, Tice & Snow
“That Old Time Religion”
Book Tree Publishing

King James Version
“The Holy Bible”

Leedom, Tim C.
“The Book Your Church Doesn’t Want You To Read”
TS Books Publishing

Remsburg, John F.
“The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence”
Prometheus Books Publishing

Irvin & Rutajit
“Astrotheology and Shamanism”
Book Tree Publishing

Doherty, Earl
“The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin With A Mythical Christ?”
Age of Reason Publishing

Campbell, Joseph
“Creative Mythology: The Masks of God”
Penguin Publishing

Doane, T.W.
“Bible Myths And Their Parallels In Other Religions”
Health Research Publishing

Carpenter, Edward
“Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning”
The Book Tree Publishing

Rolleston, Frances
“Mazzaroth”
Rivingtons, Waterloo Place Publishing

Cumont, Franz
“Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans”
Cosimo Classics Publishing

Fideler, David
“Jesus Christ, Sun of God”
Quest Books Publishing

Berry, Gerald
“Religions Of The World”
Barnes & Noble Publishing

Frazer, Sir James
“The Golden Bough”
Touchstone Publishing

Wheless, Joseph
“Forgery in Christianity”
Cosimo Classics Publishing

Singh, Madanjeet
“The Sun- Symbol of Power and Life”
UNESCO Publishing

Jackson, John G.
“Christianity Before Christ”
American Atheist Press Publishing
 
Now look at the symbol for Sci-Forums at the top of the page.
What do you see?

The simple circle/saw blade image w/ initials that were voted the best looking by users sometime ~ 2 years ago. There were tons of submissions, some complex, others very simple. That one was a good mix. No Satan at play, unless he hangs out on the forums, and submitted designs.

other options that didn't win:
http://www.sciforums.com/uploads/logo_samples.jpg

the thread itself (there is an image of questionable content on page 1, so don't click if you don't want to see it)
http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=58600
 
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