ZeitGeist

oh god, i got dragged into this on another board. let me post my analysis here.the rumors regarding poor production and factchecking are, so far, true. i skipped the first ten minutes of musical slide show, cause... i just don't have the patience for poor filmmaking. sorry. so far, i am four minutes in. yes, four minutes. 4:00. i've just gotten past initial description of horus, and so far every. single. claim has been a lie. every last one! let me say that this does not bode well. i'll condense here from my post elsewhere and summarize the first four minutes:

1. the association of "sun" and "son" and "god's son" does not seem to exist elsewhere, and using "god" unbiquitously like that makes little sense in a pantheon. which god?
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2. horus is the god of the sky, not the sun. amun-ra is the god of the sun. horus became the sun-god when he enveloped, conceptially, amun-ra and a number of other deities. horus is also the god of the moon, and the stars.
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3. jesus was not born on dec 25th. more like april. it's a rather well established fact of history that the early catholic church chose to celebrate christmas on the winter solstice so christ worship would replace pagan gods. this is not part of the original beliefs of christianity, or found anywhere in the bible.
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4. horus does have a virgin birth story, BUT this is an inappropriate application of it. horus's father is osiris and his mother in isis. osiris (not horus) was killed by set, and horus (or possibly isis, depending on the myth) resurrected him. in one myth, it's isis and she does it without giving him back his penis. so horus, who is born after, needs an explanation -- thus virgin birth. another virgin birth idea comes from isis enveloping her handmaiden, mut, who was infertile. the problem is, of course, is that they use the conflation all three ways. because osiris and horus become the same god, they have horus killed by set and resurrected. and then they have horus resurrect someone (osiris). and then they have a virgin birth. it's sort of like having your cake, eating it, and giving it away. you can't use the same damned story three different ways.
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5. there is no "accompanying star" myth for horus. they made that up -- horus was the god of the stars.
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6. "three kings" are not mentioned in the bible. it's also later tradition. there are an unspecified number of astrologers. ironically, they have shot themselves in the foot by removing the only real reference to astrology in the NT.
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7. there are no baptism/preaching myths about horus. the "figure anup" they mention is anubis, god of the underworld. who is a better parallel for satan than john the baptist. they didn't use the normal name, and slurred it, so people would be less prone to looking it up and saying, "hey wait." pure and simple intellectual dishonesty, on top of an outright lie.
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8. there is no mention of horus ever having "12 disciples." there were a number of gods that were associated with him, but the number 12 does not pop up anywhere. another lie.
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9. horus didn't walk around preaching and performing miracles. horus was a god. even the egyptian gods on earth -- the pharoahs -- didn't do that. they ruled stuff. that's what god's did. and "miracles?" he's a god.
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10. i can't confirm any of the "lamb of god" kind of titles. this is highly suspicious, as egypt was not the sort of culture that would produce such an idiom. they were not shepherds, and weren't as big on animal sacrifice. and which god? horus was a god.
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11. horus was not crucified. crucifixion is a ROMAN invention. osiris was broken into a number of pieces by set (as above). this is another use of the same myth, where they are picking and choosing different bits from bifferent revisions to make it seem like there is a correlation. i cannot find any reference to the duration between osiris's death and resurrection (by horus, or maybe isis).

so that's the first four minutes of actual content. every claim a fabrication, lie, or distortion. i've looked ahead a bit, and there's some doozies based on these claims. and i haven't really even gotten to the judeo-christian stuff, the stuff i actually know a thing or two about. this is from a quick fact check.

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well, that's just the thing. there isn't. the story of horus, isis, and osiris is not at all like the jesus narrative. the people who made the movie (and make the claims) have taken little bits and pieces out of context from three completely different versions of the story, as it evolved over the years.it's not like, say, the flood myth, where the story is exactly the same as the akkadian myth, except for a few details like names and boat dimensions.and they've literally re-used the same part of the story two different ways. more like four stories. and the timespan between them is as much as 1,000 years or more. indeed -- but a snippet here and a snippet there, totally out of context and misrepresented, does not make a case for relation. it makes a case for the dishonesty of the person making the argument.it sort of makes as much sense as saying jesus was the messiah because he road a donkey. oh, right. for the purposes of my points above, whether or not jesus was real is an irrelevency. we're talking about the mythology involved, the stories as written. well, that's the problem. jesus wasn't born on dec 25th. neither was horus, btw (though he's a lot closer). and neither was any other god or religious figure they claimed was. that date does indeed have significance: it's the winter solstice, just as they say.but where, exactly, is the discussion of the celebration the entire civilized world (except the jews) participated in at the time of jesus, on that date? where is the discussion of the god that revolves around? his name is "saturn." his festival, saturnalia, was one of the big feasts of rome, held for an entire week, just before the winter solstice. why isn't that in the video even once?the answer is that it doesn't support their case. in fact, it helps invalidate it. because when the date for christ-mass was chosen, overriding the pagan festival of saturnalia was a significant concern in the church's mind. we celebrate christmas today around the winter solstice because of saturn, not because of jesus. the date does not come from the original tradition -- it comes from another source. and a well known one, too. because the discussion died, and i wasn't interested. i watched up until just before mithras (eager to find similarity there, but had some trouble finding a neutral source on the matter). i'll give you a summary: "not a single point was remotely correct, or documented anywhere outside of the video."would you like more? i posted a break down of the fast claims about attis and krishna elsewhere, i can re-post them here. um, actually, it was. the persians apparently invented something similar, but crucifixion was primarily a roman thing. those other places that did it? former roman states. even as such, crucifixion (or anything remotely similar) is not found in any of the other myths the movie makes reference to. one of the "crucified" messiahs they mentioned for instance, attis, died because he cut off his own testicles at his wedding, because of his lover-on-the-side/former-hermaphrodite demon mother. then he turned into a tree. sound like crucifixion and resurrection to you? it doesn't to me. i can draw more connections to oedipus rex than jesus christ. i have seen some amazing, and amazingly informative films made for next to nothing. it can be done, and it is done. spitting out claims so fast that no one can write them down or notice they're lies is not good filmaking. it's not even good lecturing. and ten minutes of... windows media player visualizations? or something like that? i don't think it takes money to know how to edit a film down.and i find the "research" claim spurious. ten minutes of fact checking reveals every claim to be false. we're not talking research. we're barely talking wikipedia. i've seen more research in middle school literature papers. which is sort of what this is: a poorly produced book report. you can find the sources on their website -- they pretty much just copied those (faulty) claims wholesale, without a lick of actual cross-checking or verifying. it's conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo. nothing more. i think i got poor marks on a book report once in elementary school because all i did was summarize the plot. i haven't watched those sections yet. in fact, i haven't gotten very far into the first section yet. it's hard to wade through all the obvious lies. but i think it says something that there are three completely disparate, different conspiracy theories in the film. these people like to go for grand-unification-conspiracies, don't they? something that explains everything might as well be religion. the only bit that i am amused by is the backlash. some of the "rebuttals" made by christians are simply responses in turn: also outright lies. i appreciate the irony.

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no, one should never trust lies. that's common sense. not really. it tries to give you the secret answers to everything. actual research comes from "they can't be serious" backlash against the more obvious lies, not because their points have warranted further investigation. in other words, it's not provoking thought, it's provoking disagreement with proof. their intent is the opposite of the result. let me introduce you to a member here named "simple." "conspiracy theorist" and "crackpot" are synonymous. this is the same confabulation and misrepresentation and faulty connection-drawing that leads to stuff like creationism and holocaust denial and the flat earth society. of, and UFO's. it's all the same camp, really, because the basic premise is the same: don't trust vast majority of evidence, people are lying to you.your username is "skeptical." ironically, this term is often used by CT's as well as their opponents. it's that the CT's are "skeptics" of the mainstream. really, the word they're looking for is "denier." true skepticism -- not trust anything -- generally leads away from their ideologies. as with this case.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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oh, whoops. its taht pobrelm aobut raednig reararnegd wrods aigan.

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my apologies -- i seem to be mildly lysdexic when i'm tired. and people who have converted or lost their faith. i don't see that as a reason, really. people will care or not care based on any number of factors. and being unconcerned about the existance of god does not seem to hinder a person from being a philanthropist. actually, it seems to help it -- with no active, present, easily evident god acting to right wrongs in the world, the person unconcerned about god's existance might be even more concerned with saving the world. the theists who imagine that god will take care of everything, not so much. the scientific approach is not about trust. it is about asking questions, repeatedly, until one is reasonably confident that the answer is a standard one. not sure what you even mean by this. of where? the US? it's been a pretty much rejection all around, actually. there's been a bit of a show of atheists who accept it, merely because it tries to drag christianity through the mud. but these are about as informed and educated as the average christian response, just phrased in the positive instead of negative. space isn't black, because it's not an object. it's nothing -- there's no way for light to reflect off of nothing and create the color white.and yes, we do need the occasional free-thinker that goes against the accepted science. of course we do. but there's a difference between "revolutionary" and "crackpot." crackpots like to think they're revolutionaries. but real scientific revolutions happen because of evidence, not denial of evidence.

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due to poor understanding of how the earth rotates when the calendar was created, and the fact that the year is 365.25 days long, the calendar has shifted slightly over time.but that's sort of also the point too -- they're delibrately shifting around dates. but the christmas-solstice connection is fairly well established as intentional and a later artifact of the church. ...let me get back to you on that one. i've seen it elsewhere, but i had always understood it as saturnalia. the sol invicta themes seem more of a connection, indeed -- but that's largely in regard to mithras. who is probably worth discussing here at some length.mithras was a similar idea, at a similar time. it's hard to say what came first, and who influenced whom. because the date was established much later -- not the year christ was born. originally, the only christian celebration took place alongside passover. indeed. but i hadn't clarified the calendar differences -- another point against the movie, really.

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ok, i could be wrong on this of course. it's very possible that the romans stole crucifixion from the greeks. you know, just like everything else in their society that's sort of the important point. is there any evidence to support that? if not, it's still sort of moot -- horus was not executed. this all comes about from my addition of something like "and certainly not by a roman method of execution."

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frankly, because i hadn't gotten there. i'll re-post attis and krishna after this. and if there's enough interest, i'll spend the time to do some proper research on mithras and dionysus. i admittedly don't know much about mithras, and would genuinely be interested and honest about it if it seems mithraism was an influence on christianity. i've been known to point out the cross-cultural influences on judaism, so i don't want you think my points are drawn from bias. the problem is that so much of the discussion of mithraism and christianity is nothing but pure and unadulterated bias. the defenders of christianity post nothing bu denialism and apologetics. the proponents post nothing but conspiracy theories. the two extremes, frankly, do not help one find the accurate truth that is probably somewhere in between. again, because i hadn't gotten there. those initial set of points were just from the breif run-down where the narrator lists a bunch of points in a row, powerpoint style. for that first post, we're talking less than 2 minutes of actual content -- and that's every claim made in that time.i am nothing if not thorough in my rebuttals. "arach" like the spiders. i guess we're even lol. please feel free to post that. it's very possible my impression was false. mr jack suggest the greeks did it too, which would not be surprising. the question is, "did the egyptians?" i don't know, but i have never heard anywhere that they did. and the more important question is "does it appear in the horus myth(s)?" and the answer to that one -- the claim the video makes -- is no.

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"egypt" is mentioned once, and "according to one source." i can find the source on jstor, but i can't log in from home. i'll check at school. i'm really not sure where this idea comes from? the book of the dead is funerary rites. there are 42 "negative confessions" a few of which match the ten commandments, yes. but that's hardly amazing, nor does it make the book similar to the bible. the two are vastly different content. please do. i've reposted attis and krishna below, from posts i made months ago on another forum.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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ok, spektical asked for more. here's the break down of the slide about attis.

1. greece - 1200 bc
   oh, catching them early this time, are we? attis became a solar diety in the second century ad -- after christ. and "greece" would be the wrong country at this time. attis is from phrygia, which was only establishing itself in 1200 bc. while some overlap and osmosis is likely, it wasn't until persia took over that "greece" and "phrygia" fell under one roof. but we're likely looking at roman mythology here.
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2. born of a virgin
   only sort of. his father was the castrated genitals of the hermaphroditic demon agdistis, his mother was impregnated by doing something with the fruit of tree that grew from the castrated genitals. it's bizare, but it's rather commonplace for greek myths to have rather unique origin stories for gods. some not even involving women at all.
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3. dec 25th
   i cannot find any credible (ie: impartial) sources that give a date for attis's birth. even so, supposing it is dec 25th, it would make sense as one of the practices of the solar cult that arose around him. in the second century ad.
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4. crucified
   attis died from the result of cutting off his own genitals at his wedding, due to being driven crazy by his mother/secret lover, cybele -- not the "virgin," the demon that resulted from agdistis losing his male genitals. similarly, the father of the bride cut off his genitals as well. what is it with these people and cutting off genitals? anyways, it certainly wasn't crucifixion.
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5. placed in a tomb, dead for 3 days
   unspecified by the myth. but his body was not allowed to rot, by special miracle of zeus.
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6. resurrected
   as a pine tree.

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• born of a virgn
  krishna was the seventh child. do i need to say more here?
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• star in the east
  actually, the hindus were quite astronomically adept. you won't find a mysterious, badly-phrased reference to "a star." you will find rather precise charts of the heavens. and they point to a birthday in july. at least they didn't claim "dec 25th!" here again.
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• performed miracles (with disciples)
  i don't know about that. the only "disciple" of krishna i've ever heard of is arjuna, and technically arjuna was the master and krishna just drove the chariot. no references to miracles that i'm aware of.
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• resurrected
  ok, what a silly claim about hinduism, which believes in reincarnation. for, um, everyone. and as for krishna being reincarnated, don't be silly. krishna was only an incarnation of the god vishnu to begin with.

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1. adam = mankind
2. shet = back. as in "ass." or the number 6.
3. enosh = man. as in anashim. comes from "mortal."
4. qeynan = possesion
5. mahalalel = praise of god
6. yared = descend
7. chanok = dedicated
8. metushelach = "man at arms"
9. lamek = "power" (but similar to "fool")
10. noach = rest

thaks for playing!i really don't feel like going into it much more, but the rest of that post is of similar veracity. we can discuss it some other thread, however.

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