Zeitgeist Is Nonsense

[Hrothwulf]

As per my post in one of the more recent testimonies, here's a link to a website debunking the Jesus Myth hypothesis:

 

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

 

And to reiterate what I said before, I'm not a Christian, but as a historian I'm quite appalled by what this film passes off as fact. Zeitgeist, Acharya S, "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors," the whole Jesus Myth thing is nonsense, and it first came to my attention when I realized that I couldn't find proof of much of these so-called "facts" really anywhere. There's no reason to believe that Mithras had 12 disciples, came back from the dead, all that, and the same for Krishna and Horus (in the scrolling list in the film, it claimed that Zoroaster and Thor and Odin were all crucified savior-gods, even though even taking a casual glance at these figures will immediately disprove the movie's claims regarding them).

 

Now of course there is a similarity between many famous legendary heroes and gods, such as miraculous births, speaking with gods, and coming back from the dead and appearing to people, but those are pretty vague.

 

I can actually debunk several of the film's claims right here:

 

1) Horizon does NOT mean "Horus has risen"

 

2) The 12 disciple-thing is not astrological, but rather follows the Biblical theme of the 12 tribes

 

3) Horus was not the sun god, Ra was (and it was Osiris who was killed and came back to life)

 

4) Mithras was not born of a virgin, he was born from a rock and appeared fully-grown. He also wasn't sacrificed or killed, but rather is always seen slaying a bull.

 

5) And from my own childhood experience as a Hindu, I can tell you that Krishna was not crucified nor was he a savior figure. He was an incarnation of Vishnu and counselled Prince Arjun.

 

And like I said in my comment post, you don't need to believe that Jesus was created out of thin air to think the whole thing ridiculous.

[Neon Genesis]

Even if they're stretching the parallels between the different religions, I'd still like to know what basis is there to believe Jesus existed besides fictional myths. I mean, what reason is there to believe Jesus existed besides biased religious text? To me, that would be like using the Harry Potter books to try and find evidence for a historical Harry Potter, especially since as far as I'm aware, we don't even have access to the original biblical manuscripts to know how much info we have about Jesus is accurate. I guess ultimately it's like something one of my agnostic friends said, that debating the existence of Jesus is like debating the existence of a historical King Arthur. And even if there is a historical Jesus, I think it's highly likely that he's completely different than any modern perception of who we think Jesus is that Jesus as we "know" him might as well be "non-existent." Kind of like how Santa Claus and St. Nicholas are so completely different from each other that people treat them as two different entities, so even if St. Nicholas exists as the basis for Santa Claus, everyone knows the Santa Claus kids believe in does not "exist", and it seems like everyone treats them as two different people.

[Hrothwulf]

Well there's no real reason to doubt that he could have existed. I mean, a wandering faith healer who told riddles to his followers? Those types have been a dime a dozen since the beginning of religion. Especially in the hyper-political powder keg that was 1st century Judaea. The existance of Christians in the first century means that it's very likely that there was a man their worship was centered around. But of course that doesn't mean that the miracles and whatnot are believable.

 

Now the problem that the Christian apologists have is they jump from "there's good reason to believe that there once existed someone named Jesus" to "Jesus was the son of God and the Messiah and blah blah." And skeptics take that and for some reason want to just tell themselves that it's all an elaborate sham to make money or something, which is very unlikely.

 

And this gives Christians hope, and makes them argue more. When a skeptic claims that Jesus never existed then Christians go into all this elaborate detail about historians and this and that, because honestly you will find few historians that deny that Jesus existed. This way, Christians think they're winning. So by denying Jesus' very existence, you're egging them on. It's not unreasonable that Jesus existed, but of course the legends that grew around him are cause for skepticism.

 

It's great that you don't believe, but it's best to not believe for the right reasons.

[HuaiDan]

Well there's no real reason to doubt that he could have existed. .........This way, Christians think they're winning. So by denying Jesus' very existence, you're egging them on. It's not unreasonable that Jesus existed, ....

It's great that you don't believe, but it's best to not believe for the right reasons.

 

 

 

There's this thing we like to call burden of proof; as is oft said here extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's not a matter of not believing for the right reasons, it's a matter of not having the right reasons to believe. There's no more reason to believe in Jesus than to believe in the Blair Witch.

 

 

That being said , kudos for your comments on Zeitgeist. I was highly skeptical of some of the claims in the movie and never found anything to back up its key pieces of 'evidence'.

[Hrothwulf]

"Not having the right reasons to believe"

 

Yeah, I totally understand, and I agree. I just think people shouldn't just look for ANY reason not to believe, including coming up with elaborate conspiracy theories (which is all Zeitgeist is, all the parts of it)

[florduh]

Who is behind Zeitgeist? Anyone know who produced, funded and distributes free copies? It's got to take a few bucks to do all that.

[LtJayson]

I watched it...not sure how much of it I believe...but it did do one thing...got me to read the Bible a bit more searching and whatnot.

 

As for, if Jesus existed...I am not sure that really matters. I went to college with a guy named Jesús...doesn't make him a savior. He may have existed and may have even been a teacher...but, if the miracles recorded in the Bible were true about him, why are there no other documentations of those? I don't care if he existed any more than I care if Jesús Alverez from college exists...but, the Jews are VERY big on documentation. They documented EVERYTHING that occurred...if a dead man that they killed rose from the dead, why wouldn't SOMEONE document that? They can go back and find census information from that era and information about prisoners, etc...but, the fact remains that no non-biblical writing (other than information written MANY years after he supposedly rose from the grave) can be found to contain this information.

 

Just my thoughts on the idea :-) Hope you don't mind a new guy adding ideas.

[Ouroboros]

Hrtohwulf, you make a couple of good points, but one of them I have to make a comment on:

 

2) The 12 disciple-thing is not astrological, but rather follows the Biblical theme of the 12 tribes

If so, then they are astrological, since even a Jewish Rabbis can write that the 12 tribes related to the 12 signs, here's one link: http://www.askmoses.com/article/424,60378/...-Astrology.html.

 

And the Jewish Encyclopedia admit the connection:

The twelve constellations represent the twelve tribes, while each station of the zodiac has thirty paths, and each path has thirty legions (of stars) (Ber. 32b). The standards of the tribes corresponded to the zodiacal signs of the constellations, so that in the east was the standard of Judah, with Issachar and Zebulun beside it, these three being opposite Aries, Taurus, and Gemini; in the south was the standard of Reuben, with Simeon and Gad, opposite Cancer, Leo, and Virgo; in the west was the standard of Ephraim, with Manasseh and Benjamin, opposite Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius; and in the north was the standard of Dan, with Asher and Naphtali, opposite Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces (Yalḳ., Num. 418).

 

If anyone remembers the story about Joseph, and the dream he had, with the stars and the sun etc., the connection is there. If you start searching for the 12 tribes and the zodiac, you'll find that many claim this connection, and many of them Jews, Rabbis and scholars. I think even the Encyclopedia Britannica makes the connection, by stating that the emblems of each tribe had one zodiac symbol each.

 

So if the 12 disciples of Jesus weren't taken from the Zodiac but from the tribes of Israel, and these tribes themselves related to the zodiac, then the 12 disciples also, even if just indirectly, relates to the zodiac anyway.

 

 

 

I do however agree with you that Zeitgeist is a poor movie, full of assumptions and really stretch the "facts" at times, and the movie might even cause more harm than good.

 

And agree about your comment about the existence of Jesus too. Personally I don't think it's as important anymore. The issue about that question itself is what does the questioner mean with "Jesus"? Is it a regular person who were skilled in some magic and had some cool things to say to his followers and then made into a glorified and deified character? Or was he a miracle worker, filled with some supernatural spirit and was the son of God? One is a possible historical character, then other one is not.

[Neon Genesis]

Well there's no real reason to doubt that he could have existed. I mean, a wandering faith healer who told riddles to his followers? Those types have been a dime a dozen since the beginning of religion. Especially in the hyper-political powder keg that was 1st century Judaea. The existance of Christians in the first century means that it's very likely that there was a man their worship was centered around. But of course that doesn't mean that the miracles and whatnot are believable.

But I still don't get this. You accuse the Jesus myth hypothesis for stretching the parallels between Christianity and other religions and coming to the conclusion Jesus does not exist because of this, but then you turn around and do the same thing by comparing Jesus to other faith healers of the time to prove he does exist. Isn't that basically the same thing the Jesus myth hypothesis is doing expect using the same concept to prove Jesus existed rather than the other way around? And I don't see what the existence of other wandering faith healers has to do with proving a non-related faith healer existed.

 

To me, that's like using the existence of other princes to prove that Paris from Greek myths actually existed as a historical character. Likewise, I don't see how pointing to the existence of Christians in the first century proves Jesus existed. That's like saying because the ancient Greeks worshiped Zeus, that proves a historical Zeus existed. And really, when all of Christianity's other claims about Jesus have been proven false, since when would they be a reliable source of information about history? I could just as easily go around telling everyone I know that I have an online friend from Canada named Billy Bob who exists and tell him about all the great things he does. And unless I tell them that I just made Billy Bob up, they could easily believe me and start spreading the lie about Billy Bob around since there's no reason to not believe Billy Bob exists, even though Billy Bob is a purely fictional character I created out of thin air with no evidence for his existence other than my word at all.

 

Why would this not be a reliable claim for a historical Billy Bob but this works perfectly fine for Jesus, especially when as I mentioned in my first post, we don't even have access to the original manuscripts to know how much we currently know from the gospels is reliable? At least Islam has evidence for the existence of Muhammed, but whether or not Jesus actually existed, you still have to wonder why is there no non-biased religious documentation for his existence if he was really such an important figure in history and why did he become so important in modern times if he wasn't important enough to be documented?

[Evolution_beyond]

I'm not a Christian, but as a historian I'm quite appalled by what this film passes off as fact. Zeitgeist, Acharya S, "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors," the whole Jesus Myth thing is nonsense,

 

Just because Zeitgeist is nonsense, doesn't mean the Jesus Myth thing is nonsense

 

and it first came to my attention when I realized that I couldn't find proof of much of these so-called "facts" really anywhere. There's no reason to believe that Mithras had 12 disciples, came back from the dead, all that,

 

True. Although Mithras did have a lot of other similarities with Jesus - eg. second coming, judgement, all that - oh, and shepherds visiting his birth apparently.

 

and the same for Krishna and Horus (in the scrolling list in the film, it claimed that Zoroaster and Thor and Odin were all crucified savior-gods, even though even taking a casual glance at these figures will immediately disprove the movie's claims regarding them).

 

Yeah, I agree with you, that's all nonsense.

 

Now of course there is a similarity between many famous legendary heroes and gods, such as miraculous births, speaking with gods, and coming back from the dead and appearing to people, but those are pretty vague.

 

Yet isn't it fishy that Jesus has such a typical 'hero' story surrounding him? The same generalised healing miracle stuff that is found in so many ancient narratives.

 

And Rising from the dead/being some kind of mystical man-god saviour? You think that is a vague connection? You don't think that it is at all suspect that a myth seems to develop and evolve from Osiris - Attis, Adonis, Tammuz etc - to Dionysus, while at around the same time stories start circulating about a messiah figure who was also a god-man saviour and died and rose again?

 

 

I can actually debunk several of the film's claims right here:

 

1) Horizon does NOT mean "Horus has risen"

 

2) The 12 disciple-thing is not astrological, but rather follows the Biblical theme of the 12 tribes

 

3) Horus was not the sun god, Ra was (and it was Osiris who was killed and came back to life)

 

4) Mithras was not born of a virgin, he was born from a rock and appeared fully-grown. He also wasn't sacrificed or killed, but rather is always seen slaying a bull.

 

5) And from my own childhood experience as a Hindu, I can tell you that Krishna was not crucified nor was he a savior figure. He was an incarnation of Vishnu and counselled Prince Arjun.

 

All you points here are valid, except perhaps for number two but Hansolo already covered that. You are quite right that Mithras is seen slaying a bull (an astrological symbol btw) and never portrayed as being sacrificed himself.

 

And yes, Krishna was not crucified. However, surely he is a kind of saviour figure - he was a god after all. And it is interesting that Jesus and Krishna are the two great stories about a god becoming a man and walking amongst us. I wonder if there was any influence between the two (The Roman Empire did have trade with India - so it is possible)

[PandaPirate]

Zeitgeist may be inaccurate in its portrayal of dying god men, however, the things you cannot dispute are the scientific facts such as the Winter Solstice being the original celebration before Christ's supposed life on earth. You can go outside and watch the sky and see it for yourself. Virgo the Virgin gives birth to the sun (figuratively, of course) on Dec. 25th.

 

A better movie to watch is called THE PHARMACRATIC INQUISITION. You can see it here:

 

http://www.pharmacratic-inquisition.com/ma..._position=21:21

[Hrothwulf]

But I still don't get this. You accuse the Jesus myth hypothesis for stretching the parallels between Christianity and other religions and coming to the conclusion Jesus does not exist because of this, but then you turn around and do the same thing by comparing Jesus to other faith healers of the time to prove he does exist. Isn't that basically the same thing the Jesus myth hypothesis is doing expect using the same concept to prove Jesus existed rather than the other way around? And I don't see what the existence of other wandering faith healers has to do with proving a non-related faith healer existed.

 

You're mistaking my point. I'm not trying to PROVE that Jesus existed, only to point out that it's not unlikely that he did.

 

It's like saying "Well 3000 years ago there was a sheep farmer in the Arabian desert." Well, why not? Now, of course, that doesn't mean we have to start believing that that person DID exist, or that certain qualities claimed of them were TRUE. All I'm saying is that it's not impossible.

 

Christians use pseudoscience and pseudohistory to try to justify their beliefs. We're supposed to be better than them, though, and the fact that many "skeptics" have sunk to believing the claims made in Zeitgeist reflects poorly on the rest of us. It tells them that we are willing to accept lies and exaggerations and weak links made between pagan mystery cults and Jesus just to find a reason to discredit Christianity.

 

Christians need to rely on ahistorical nonsense, but we don't need to.

[PandaPirate]

Yes, you are correct. That being said, I've read that Acharya S. has written a new book called Fingerprints of the Christ, a book that uses CSI style investigations to look into the claims of Christianity. I for one am looking forward to seeing what it has to say.

 

See FINGERPRINTS OF THE CHRIST VIDEO

 

And if I'm not mistaken, she even goes so far as to use the four gospels themselves to discredit the story of Jesus.

[Evolution_beyond]

Virgo the Virgin gives birth to the sun (figuratively, of course) on Dec. 25th.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble on this one but Virgo is the period from late august to mid september.

 

Capricorn is the zodiac sign for late december to mid january