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Author Topic:   ZeitGeist
Brian
Member (Idle past 4959 days)
Posts: 4659
From: Scotland
Joined: 10-22-2002


Message 181 of 185 (432371)
11-05-2007 4:12 PM
Reply to: Message 180 by Spektical
11-01-2007 9:04 PM


Re: JC Did Not Exist!
First what are the subplots of christianity?
There's tooo many to mention here, but they are essentially the little stories that are added together to make up your one story. For example, the Virgin Birth, the Atonement, creator of the universe, suffering servant, descendent of David etc, all these subplots are part of the 'one story'.
My point STILL stands....progression towards a more CENTRAL theme is the truth when it comes to religions/cults. This is simply due to the fact that knowledge is ACCUMULATED with time.
But this 'progression' includes ALL the Hebrew Bible stories PLUS the New Testament, so logically Christians believe more fairytales than Jews do.
Buz, Ray, and others here accept everything in the Hebrew Bible as 100& accurate, on top of this they accept all of the NT as accurate. Jews reject the crazy ideas in the New testament (ask a Jew if the Messiah would ever be defeated, thus Christianity is more ridiculous than Judaism.
I can imagine waht a Jew thinks about God sacrificing Himself to Himself as payment to Himself. Christianity is intellectually redundant.

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RCS
Member (Idle past 2608 days)
Posts: 48
From: Delhi, Delhi, India
Joined: 07-04-2007


Message 182 of 185 (514480)
07-08-2009 2:15 AM
Reply to: Message 135 by arachnophilia
10-21-2007 10:48 PM


Re: krishna
Just one correction. Krishna was the 8th child of His parents and was born in a prison cell.

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 Message 135 by arachnophilia, posted 10-21-2007 10:48 PM arachnophilia has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 183 of 185 (589574)
11-03-2010 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Asgara
07-25-2007 2:19 PM


Claims and counterclaims
Asgara writes:
Please, tell us your thoughts on the movie...why should we see it? Have you researched any of the claims to know what is true and what is not?
The movie portion that I saw talks of the shady deals that the U.S. government made with third world countries. Seems the movie asserts that the corporations influence the government and that the government makes sure that business friendly leadership runs these countries. So far, the evidence provided suggests at least an indirect correlation.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 184 of 185 (589631)
11-03-2010 3:52 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by nyenye
07-25-2007 4:40 AM


A friend had strongly recommended Zeitgeist, though mainly for the first part. Most of the themes were old-hat for me, since I had learned about the mystery religions nearly 40 years earlier in comparative religion class and I had subsequently learned about Christianity's habit of assimilating old religions rather than displacing them, including the inclusion of sun-god symbolism by the time of Constatine. Though a lot of what it presented seemed to be quite a stretch.
I rather liked one thing it brought up, that the Three Kings following the star were the three pointer stars of Orion's belt. Good story, but something immediately did not seem right. No, I immediately know for a fact that it was not right!
From the Wikipedia page on the Zeitgeist movie ( Zeitgeist (film series) - Wikipedia ):
quote:
Another Christian-astrological similarity, according to the film, is that the three stars in Orion's belt (called the "Three Kings") align with Sirius on December 25, the brightest star in the sky, and point to the Sun's rise on the horizon. This is equated to the Nativity of Jesus, where, according to the film, three "kings" follow the star in the east to locate the birth of Jesus.
Those statements in the movie immediately raise red flags for me. Don't get me wrong here; that story made all kind of sense and was a very compelling interpretation. The only problem is that, astronomically and even astrologically speaking, it is pure and utter crap. The alignment that it describes cannot possibly ever occur.
The three stars in Orion's belt are indeed "pointer stars" that point to Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. However, the claim is "the three stars in Orion's belt (called the "Three Kings") align with Sirius on December 25". Uh, yes, that is technically correct. However, there's nothing special about 25 Dec. Those stars point to Sirius every single day of the year, every single second of the year, year after year. In astrology, which was ancient astronomy, you had the fixed stars, which did not move (relative to each other), and the wandering stars (AKA "planets") which did move against the background of the fixed stars. Sirius and Orion's Belt are fixed stars, which means that they do not move relative to each other. That means that Orion's Belt always points to Sirius. Duh?
The next really immense problem is this part of the statement: "..., and point to the Sun's rise on the horizon." Uh, sorry, but that is absolutely impossible. It would be like saying that the Statue of Liberty overlooks the Great Wall of China.
OK, time for a little basic astronomy lesson. The coordinate system by which we describe the location of any object in the sky is created by extending the earth's equator into the sky as the celestial equator. We then measure distance above and below the celestial equator in degrees of north or south declination. Then we pick a starting point in the celestial equator, the Vernal Equinox, and measure longitude eastward in Hours of Right Ascension, which translates to one hour RA per 15 degrees longitude; that also works out to a total of 24 hours RA to form a complete circle.
The plane of the earth's orbit around the sun is called the ecliptic; this plane is observed by the sun's apparent position in the sky. That means that the sun is always on the ecliptic. Because of the 23.5 degree tilt of the earth's axis, the plane of the ecliptic and the plane of the celestial equator are at different angles, to the tune of 23.5 degrees. On most sky charts, the celestial equator is drawn as a straight line and the ecliptic as a sinusoidal curve above and below it.
Important to us is that the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator at two points: the Vernal Equinox where the sun will be moving from south to north, and the Autumnal Equinox where the sun will be moving from north to south. The farthest north the sun will go will be 23.5 degrees north declination, at the Summer Solstice. And the farthest south the sun will go will be 23.5 degrees south declination, at the Winter Solstice. Those are the four cardinal points, the four positions of the sun that define the start of our four seasons, as well as the start of the four Cardinal signs of the Zodiac. To summarize this:
quote:
0 hours RA, Vernal Equinox, First Day of Spring, 0 degrees Aries, Sun at 0 hr RA, 0 degrees decl.
6 hours RA, Summer Solstice, First Day of Summer, 0 degrees Cancer, Sun at 6 hr RA, 23.5 degrees north decl.
12 hours RA, Autumnal Equinox, First Day of Autumn, 0 degrees Libra, Sun at 12 hr RA, 0 degrees decl.
18 hours RA, Winter Solstice, First Day of Winter, 0 degrees Capricorn, Sun at 18 hr RA, 23.5 degrees south decl.
OK, now we can describe where all our suspects are on the morning of 25 December. The sun is just slightly past 18 hours RA (about 18:16 RA) and just a little bit north of 23.5 degrees south declination. And where are our fingermen (ie, the ones allegedly pointing to the sun at this time)? In the neighborhood 6 hr RA and close to the celestial equator (the Belt is around 5:30 RA and 1 degree south declination, while Sirius is at 6:43 RA and 16:05 degrees south declination). All the way over on the opposite side of the sky! They couldn't have a better alibi if they had made one up. Cast a quickie horoscope ("view of the hour"; real handy for sketching out what will be in the sky and about where) and you will see that just as the sun is rising in the east on 25 December, Orion and Sirius are setting in the west. The only time that the Sun is anywhere close to Orion and Sirius is at the start of summer, 6 months from 25 December, but it's 23.5 degrees north of Orion's Belt and about 40 degrees north of Sirius.
Now you see how the "Statue of Liberty overlooking the Great Wall of China" comparison applies.
Just for fun, I plotted their positions on graph paper and extended the line from Orion's Belt through Sirius. It points southward. Since the Sun is north of them when it's in their part of the sky, that line will never point to the sun. And when the sun is farthest south on 21 December (18 hr RA, 23.5 degrees south declination) that line will be pointing to 18 hr RA, 56 degrees south declination. Way off the mark!
It's a nice story, real cute. Too bad it's so obviously bogus. Out of curiosity, has anyone else noticed this error?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by nyenye, posted 07-25-2007 4:40 AM nyenye has not replied

  
Trae
Member (Idle past 4306 days)
Posts: 442
From: Fremont, CA, USA
Joined: 06-18-2004


Message 185 of 185 (664737)
06-04-2012 4:57 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by Dr Adequate
10-21-2007 12:31 PM


Dr Adequate writes:
I shouldn't be at all surprised if "John Frum" was (a corruption of) a real name. Which is more likely, that, or that one day a bunch of cargo-cultists just drew a name out of a hat?
Been reading over some old threads and noticed this tidbit. Turns out there's a suggestion that the name originates from military men named John (John from (America), etc.).
The name ‘John Frum’ is sometimes considered a corruption of John from (America), and the cult believe that their saviour will eventually bring more cargo to this island, just as he did during WWII. Although it’s possible that John Frum existed before the 40s, he would most likely have been described as a white man until black American GIs arrived, whereupon the cult’s devotees very sensibly decided that in fact John Frum had been a black man all along.
John Frum Day Google Sightseeing
Another interesting note religion-wise is this from the same article:
Confusingly, the central tenet of John Fruminism2 is actually the rejection of Westernism — devotees are instead encouraged to return to traditional kastom (a local word for native Tannese customs).
It isn’t simply that a religious group can take an event or series of event and get the details wrong, they can also fully embrace confusion like the above. This reminds me a bit of the Christian rejection of Judaic culture.
P.S. Brian hasn't been around for some time. I had always hoped he'd publish a book on the Exodus or some other topic. Anyone aware if he has?

This message is a reply to:
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