Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Zeitgeist Movie Part 1

1st off, the entire 1st part of the zeitgeist movie is completely fictional and made up. Most of the material stems from D.M. Murdock, who calls herself Acharya S, which means guru or teacher. You will notice that the title to Zeitgeist Part 1 is "The Greatest Story Ever Told". This title very much resembles one of Ms. Murdock's books, "The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold". Obviously, a conspiracy about Christ is also the theme of the first part of the movie. Ms. Murdock has no substantiation to back any claims that she makes and has also created a companion guide to the 1st part of the zeitgeist movie in an effort to keep the ignorant ignorant. There are hundreds of references you can search out that discredit her work as well as the work of those that she bases her claims from, which are the same sources zeitgeist uses for their movie. For starters you can check out the following links that discredits everything stated in the first part of zeitgeist, and especially discredit Ms. Murdock / Acharya S:

www.answeringinfidels.com/jesus.html

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8296054934404709290

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7572663630528394775

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAhrC3nG5E

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDab5MOLjpM

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jXPjt_qCxQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHCzQffIUc

conspiracyscience.com/articles/zeitgeist/

webskeptic.wikidot.com/zeitgeist

www.thedevineevidence.com/jesus_similarities.html

www.preventingtruthdecay.org/zeitgeistpartone.shtml

Below, I have pointed out some facts that destroy everything that was said in the first part of the zeitgeist film. I don't expect you to just read these facts and believe them simply because I put them in this blog! I've presented the following information for the purpose of exposing Zeitgeist part 1 for the fictitious irrationality that it is, and to hopefully make you want to look these facts up for yourself so you can see how stupid and off-key Zeitgeist is in everything they say in Part 1. By exposing zeitgeist for what it is, you can see that it was developed by frauds and con-artists trying to sell something off as fact even though it completely contradicts reality.

* Jesus was not born on December 25th! This date was assigned by the Roman Catholic Church and is widely known to NOT be the actual date that he was born. The date Jesus was born is unknown and the only relevance December 25th holds is in Pagan traditions. So, Christmas on December 25th is nothing more than a celebration in reflection of a tradition and has no bearing on the actual date of Christ’s birth. This date also has no relevance whatsoever with most of the figures presented in zeitgeist, exposing zeitgeist main point to be blatantly fraudulent as they try and emphasize December 25th as a significant date during the 1st part of their film.

* December 25th is not the winter solstice! The winter solstice falls on either the 21st or the 22nd of December! This 21st and 22nd day of the month also correlates to the summer solstice in June. The only reason why the winter solstice is fixed to the 21st or 22nd of December is because of the adaptation of the Gregorian calendar, which we use today as our calendar. One of the modifications of this calendar was to keep the equinoxes and solstices from drifting to different dates. Before this calendar was set in place however, the solstices and equinoxes would drift to different dates over time on the previously used Julian calendar. Also note, that this Julian calendar was only particularly used in the European area of the world while other civilizations had their own calendar, some of which are still used today.

* There are 13 constellations of the zodiac, not 12! The constellations of the zodiac, their meaning and their modern astrological observation dates are as follows:
1. Capricornus – “Horned Goat” – January 20 to February 16
2. Aquarius – “Water Bearer” – February 16 to March 11
3. Pisces – “Fish” – March 11 to April 18
4. Aries – “Ram” – April 18 to May 13
5. Taurus – “Bull” – May 13 to Jun 21
6. Gemini – “Twins” – Jun 21 to July 20
7. Cancer – “Crab” – July 10 to August 10
8. Leo – “Lion” – August 10 to September 16
9. Virgo – “Maiden” – “September 16 to October 30
10. Libra “Scales” – October 16 to October 20
11. Scorpius – “Scorpion” – November 20 to November 29
12. Ophiuchus – “Serpent Bearer” – November 29 to December 17
13. Sagittarius – “Archer” – December 17 to January 20
The constellation that gets left out of the modern zodiac is Ophiuchus. The reason for this constellation being left out is to adapt the zodiac constellations to our modern calendar that has only 12 months on it. Our modern calendar as stated above is the Gregorian calendar, and is used today in almost every location of the world, with exception of a few cultures that have still managed to hang on to their traditional calendars. This Gregorian calendar was implemented in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of the Julian calendar. Also note that the spring equinox at this time occurred on March 11, and one of the main reasons for imposing this calendar was to bring the date of the spring equinox to fall on March 21st, which was the day the equinox fell on in the Julian calendar in A.D. 325, at the time of the Council of Nicaea. This was a significant point in catholic history, and thus also influenced the pope’s decision to align the Gregorian calendar to match the seasonal calendar of A.D. 325. The Gregorian calendar also fixed the problem of having the equinoxes drift to different dates on the calendar with the adaptation of leap years to the calendar.

* The sun never once stops moving anywhere in the sky for 3 days; and to do this would mean that the earth would somehow need to stop in its orbit around the sun once a year. Obviously this is impossible and would be cataclysmic! The sun's lowering and raising in the sky is in relation to how high it gets during the day, not how the sun appears when its setting at night. The sun's movement in our sky is due to the earth's tilt and position in its orbit around the sun. On the Winter solstice, the sun is the lowest in the sky at its mid-point during the day for the northern hemisphere and the opposite is true for the southern hemisphere where the sun is the highest at its mid-point during the day. Therefore the sun does not stop moving in any direction at any point in any year. Rather, the earth's location in its orbit constantly changes how high or low the sun will be during the day every day at its midpoint as the Earth revolves at a constant rate around the sun. Because the earth's orbit never stops, neither does the sun's movement in our sky!

* The Southern Cross is a constellation that can only be seen from the southern hemisphere of our earth and up to 25 degrees latitude in the northern hemisphere. This makes the constellation impossible to view from anywhere in the Middle East or Europe today. The line that divides the hemispheres is the equator, and each hemisphere has its own set of constellations that cannot be seen by the other hemisphere. However, the viewability of the constellations is not constant and changes over time due to the precession of the Earth. This is a very slow process though, and only changes the constellations degree in the sky by 1 degree every 71.5 years. This means that over the course of 2,002 years, the constellations have only moved 28 degrees. This is enough movement to suggest that the Southern Cross, better known by the name Crux, could have been viewable at higher latitudes in the past. In fact, it is recorded that the constellation was indeed viewable in certain areas of the Middle East and Greece. However, you should note that the Greeks never identified this constellation as a cross, but rather as part of a bigger constellation that they called Centaurus. The Romans are also said to have renamed the Centaurus constellation and called it Thronis Caesaris in tribute to the Roman Emperor Augustus. The actual identification of the Crux as individual cross apart from the Centaurus constellation is not recorded until 1507, when explorer Amerigo Vespucci mentioned this set of stars by shape only. The actual name Crux and specific identification of this cross as an individual constellation didn’t occur until 1679, when the French Astronomer Augustin Royer identified it as such. So why would zeitgeist use a constellation that was never even identified to be a constellation until it was completely invisible to most of the Northern Hemisphere? This makes no sense at all, but then again neither does saying that the sun stops moving in our sky for three days, which is the exact point in the zeitgeist film where the Southern Cross / Crux constellation is mentioned.

* Orion’s belt is never perfectly in-line with Sirius at any time during the year! You can, however, follow the path of the three stars in the belt to end up in the vicinity of Sirius, but not at Sirius because these stars are not aligned with each other. These constellations, along with every other constellation in our nights sky never move around and end up in different places. So this means Sirius does not move to a special place one day out of the year, but rather is fixed in its same location every day of the year. The only thing that ever changes is the earth’s orientation towards the stars, thus determining which constellations are visible from your current location on earth. As previously noted, the stars never align perfectly, so any line drawn from Orion’s belt to Sirius would be bent and thus not point directly anywhere for when the sun rises the next morning.

* Orion has had other names in antiquity, but has hardly been identified solely by the three stars in its belt, and especially not by the name “Three Kings”. This term "Three Kings" is found when translating it from only three references where it is found in history to be called by this name. This is found where the three stars were called by the name "Drie Konings" in South Africa by Afrikaans speakers, and in French it was noted as les "Trois Rois" in Daudet’s Lettres de Moulin (1866), and on Dutch star charts and seaman’s guides around the 17th and 18th centuries was called "Driekoningen". The term “Drie Konings” in the Afrikaans language of South Africa did not appear there until at least the 17th century. This is evident because when you examine the origin of the Afrikaans language you find that it is completely derived from 17th century Dutch. You’ll also notice this obvious fact when comparing “Drie Konings” with the original Dutch word “Driekoningen”. Therefore the term “three kings” in relation to the three stars in Orion’s belt was not even referred to by this name until somewhere around the 17th century.

* The Bible never once mentions anything about 3 kings visiting Jesus. The Bible only references wise men in the gospel of Matthew, and shepherds in the gospel of Luke. So the only reference to Jesus’ birth is found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, each gospel broadening the story of Jesus’ birth by telling of different adorners who located Jesus’ location by different means. Zeitgeist tries to twist the gospel of Mathew around and state that three kings visited Jesus and Ms. Murdock tries to back up this claim by stating that because there were three gifts, this means there were also three kings. As already mentioned the Bible never once says anything about 3 kings visiting Jesus. Also, you can never assume that there is any number of people just by how many gifts are presented. Of course Ms. Murdock and Zeitgeist can’t even get the number of gifts right in relation to the Bible story because the Bible does not mention how many gifts were brought but rather only the types of gifts which are: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The Bible never quantifies how much of each type of gift was brought. These gifts were brought with the wise men to adorn the new born King as an order from King Herod to find Jesus and tell of His location so that King Herod could also come and worship before Jesus. The wise men never returned to King Herod however because they had learned in a dream that Herod’s true intension was to kill Jesus.

* The words sun and son are completely different and have nothing in common other than the fact that they sound the same in English. Nowhere in the Bible does it refer to Jesus as the Sun of God, and in fact the Bible condemns the worship of the sun. The penalty under the old covenant, in the Old Testament for sun worship was death. Anyone caught doing this was to be stoned to death. This penalty of death was also reserved for anyone who worshiped the moon or stars, so it makes no sense to say that Jesus was the sun, or that astrology and the zodiac are the theme of the Bible. God commands to worship Him and nothing else and to do otherwise is an act worthy of death. From knowing this, it's completely idiotic to conclude that Jesus is the sun or that Christians are sun worshipers.

* Easter was brought about through pagan tradition and the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Easter is another pronunciation for the name Ishtar, after the mother of Tammuz, which was a god of the Babylonians and associated with the moon. This pagan tradition is in relation to the full moon that occurs around the vernal equinox aka spring equinox. Also note that the story of Ishtar bears similarities to the story of the Egyptian Isis and Horus in some accounts. The Ishtar tradition was part of the Roman culture through a strong pagan influence. When the Roman Catholic Church came to power, they embraced this holiday of their country and adopted it into their new religion of Catholicism. However close or far away this holiday falls in relation to whenever Jesus died, it has nothing to do with his death and resurrection and is nothing more than another pagan influenced holiday. The death and resurrection of Jesus are said to have taken place during the Jewish holiday of Pesach translated as Passover and also known as The Feast of Unleavened Bread. This holiday falls on the first month of the Jewish calendar known as Nisan, and is celebrated starting on the 15th day of Nisan. This celebration changes from year to year on the Gregorian calendar because it has nothing to do with this calendar. The celebration of Passover is in recognition of the Jews escaping captivity and slavery from Egypt. The word Passover is in reference to when the spirit of the Lord passed over the land of Egypt and killed every firstborn except in the homes that had the blood of the lamb on their door posts. After this 10th plague occurred, the pharaoh freed the Jewish people from their captivity. Passover is said to have occurred in the spring time, which occurs in the first month of the Jewish calendar. This is the reason for the Passover celebration in the Jewish calendar month of Nisan and has nothing to do with the vernal equinox. And as already stated Easter has nothing to do with Passover and is nothing more than a pagan adapted holiday by the Roman Catholic Church.

* Neither the constellation nor the age of Aries has anything to do with Jews blowing the rams horn! Blowing the rams horn is a custom done by the Jews most often in recognition of their new year, known as Rosh Hashanah. There are other traditions and times that the Jewish culture blows this horn, but Rosh Hashanah is the most prominently noted time. Jews are recorded doing this well before the age of Aires and even up to today. So if this was in any way related to the age of Aires, Jews would have stopped this after the age had ended, and would not have done this before the age began. Also, there is nothing in the Bible that relates Moses to a ram, so this is just complete nonsense being fabricated by zeitgeist once again.

* Neither the constellation nor the age of Taurus the bull has any relevance to Moses smashing the 10 commandments. And the golden idol the people were worshiping when Moses came with the 10 commandments was a calf which is a baby cow, not a bull as was stated in the zeitgeist movie. It's kind of hard to mistake a baby cow for a bull unless you are two years old and can't tell the difference yet. It's quite a bigger stretch and completely asinine to say that this is the starting point for the age of Taurus! Since when I did Taurus become a baby cow? And how is creating an idol of a baby cow of any relevance to the age of Taurus. The obvious answers to these questions are that Taurus is still the same bull that has nothing to do with baby cow idols and zeitgeist has yet again fabricated another ridiculous lie.

* The Romans did not invent Christianity! The Romans hated the Christians and killed anyone they found professing to be a Christian. This however only made the Christians stronger as spectators saw that people were willing to die rather than deny their Christian beliefs, this led others to convert to Christianity. With the Christian’s growing in numbers and the Romans unable to stop this from occurring, they had to devise another method to control them. This is what led Rome to create a pseudo-Christian religion known as Catholicism. In doing this, the Romans used their newly created religion to convert all of Rome to this new belief system. Because Rome was influenced by paganism prior to this new mass-conversion into being Catholic, Rome also borrowed pagan ideas and beliefs and intertwined them into the Catholic religion they created. Any beliefs imposed by the Roman Empire were done so through force under the cover of Catholicism dictated by the Romans to be the law of God and thus became the supreme law ruling over the populace. Those who questioned this authority were executed in the inquisitions of the Roman Catholic Church. The execution of the Christians still continued, but now it was because they would not believe everything dictated in Roman Catholicism.

* The Book of the Dead is a book concerning the afterlife of the Egyptian dead, and was used to help guide the dead along their journey in their afterlife. I fail to see how 3 incantations from this book describing the acts of killing, lying and stealing relate directly to the 10 commandments. First off, the purpose of the 10 commandments and the Book of the Dead are completely different. And obviously, the actions of stealing, lying and killing are universal in being looked down upon. It’s obvious that zeitgeist knows nothing about Egyptology and is completely illiterate. Zeitgost also forgot to mention the other 7 commandments which are: “1. You shall have no other gods before me or make for yourself an idol, 2. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God, 3. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, 4. Honor your father and your mother, 5.You shall not commit adultery, 6. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, 7. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.

* There are plenty of sources outside the Bible that point to Jesus being a real person. Five of these sources are actually given in the zeitgeist movie, and one of them is taken out of context and not even mentioned as a source, while the other four mentioned are simply mocked. The thing zeitgeist intentionally leaves out and doesn’t want you to know is that the references they give are known to be very highly esteemed scholars of their day, making their written information highly credible.

The following are well known non-biblical scholars that wrote about Jesus in the time-frame referenced in the zeitgeist film:
1. Clement of Rome
2. Ignatius of Antioch
3. Justin Martyr
4. Polycarp
5. Irenaeus
6. Mathetes
7. Barnabas
8. Papias
9. Quadratus
10. Eusebius
11. Hermas
12. Tatian
13. Theophilus
14. Athenagoras
15. Clement of Alexandria
16. Tertullian
17. Bardesanes
18. Josephus
19. Tacitus
20. Suetonius
21. Pliny the Younger
22. Thallus
23. Julius Africanus
24. Lucian
25. Celsus
26. Rabbis of the Talmud

That’s 26 different accounts outside the Bible, 5 of which are in the zeitgeist film, but with twisted and distorted information. Also note that the list of names above is incomplete, as there are more scholars that wrote about Jesus, but these are the most prominent names that I found. So zeitgeist purposefully left out mentioning many scholarly accounts, mocked 4 credible scholars and misquoted Justin Martyr.

Just so you can see how out of context zeitgeist made their little blurb from Joseph Martyr I’ve provided the actual writing from Justin Martyr as follows:

“And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth(1) of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement(2) of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods. But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions. But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.”

In this passage you can plainly see that Justin was defending the Christian faith with comparisons against the mythological gods of his time, of which others around him believed in. Justin Martyr is one of the most famous defenders of the Christian faith of his time, so for zeitgeist to try and say that Justin Martyr was putting down Christianity is completely opposite from reality. Justin Martyr is said to have lived from 100AD to 165AD, which is only 100 years after the life of Christ.

* Not one of the gods presented in the zeitgeist movie was ever born of a virgin, had a star in the east leading to their place of birth, was crucified or dead for three days and then resurrected. These allegations are completely made up in an obvious attempt to do nothing more than try and discredit Jesus who actually has these things associated with him. And as pointed out earlier, Jesus was not born on December 25th, which is also the date of birth zeitgeist appoints for every god, most of which have no association whatsoever with the December 25th date. And again the only relevance this date holds is in relation to pagan traditions. Zeitgeist claims that these characteristics belong to each and every one of the following characters of antiquity:
1. Horus
2. Attis
3. Dionysus
4. Mithra
5. Krishna
6. Chrishna of Hindostan
7. Budha Sakia of India
8. Salivahana of Bermuda
9. Zulius or Zhule of Egypt
10. Osiris of Egypt
11. Orus of Egypt
12. Odin of the Scandinavians
13. Crite of Chaldea
14. Zoroaster of Persia
15. Mithra of Persia
16. Baal of Phoenecia
17. Taut “the only Begotten of God” of Phoenecia
18. Indra of Tibet
19. Bali of Afghanistan
20. Jao of Nepal
21. Wittoba of Bilingonese
22. Thammuz of Syria
23. Atys of Phrygia
24. Xamolxis of Thrace
25. Zoar of Bonzes
26. Adad of Assyria
27. Deva Tat of Siam
28. Sammonocadam of Siam
29. Alcides of Thebes
30. Mikado of the Sintoos
31. Beddru of Japan
32. Hesus or Eros of the Druids
33. Bremrillah of the Druids
34. Thor (son of Odon) of the Gauls
35. Cadmus of Greece
36. Hil of the Mandaites
37. Feta of the Mandaites
38. Gentaut of Mexico
39. Quexalcote of Mexico
40. Sibyls
41. Ischy of the island of Formosa
42. Divine Teacher Plato
43. Holy One of Xaca
44. Fohi of China
45. Tien of China,
46. Adonis (son of the virgin Io) of Greece
47. Ixion of Rome
48. Quirinus of Rome
49. Prometheus of Caucasus
The following names from the above list are not even real, are completely made up by zeitgeist and thus have no relevance to any historical character ever written about.
6. Chrishna of Hindostan
8. Salivahana of Bermuda
9. Zulius or Zhule of Egypt
11. Orus of Egypt
13. Crite of Chaldea
17. Taut “the only Begotten of God” of Phoenecia
19. Bali of Afghanistan
20. Jao of Nepal
21. Wittoba of Bilingonese
24. Xamolxis of Thrace
25. Zoar of Bonzes
28. Sammonocadam of Siam
30. Mikado of the Sintoos
31. Beddru of Japan
33. Bremrillah of the Druids
36. Hil of the Mandaites
37. Feta of the Mandaites
38. Gentaut of Mexico
39. Quexalcote of Mexico
40. Sibyls
41. Ischy of the island of Formosa
43. Holy One of Xaca
44. Fohi of China
45. Tien of China
That’s 49 different character names listed by zeitgeist, half of which are completely fictional and made up altogether, not to mention the fact that the actual valid characters listed don't even have any of the Jesus traits associated with them as claimed by zeitgeist. It would be one thing for them to say this about just one god or character of antiquity, but they were actually stupid enough to throw 49 names out there on top of their ridiculous accusations, 24 of them which are not even a name for any character of antiquity.

I close this blog with a quote you'll find on zeitgeist's main page of their film: "They must find it difficult... Those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority." by Gerald Massey

Zeitgeist uses this quote from a fraud author for their fraud movie. Obviously no truth at all can be found anywhere within the first part of their film, but rather only lies of individuals that want you to consider their word as supreme authority over everything you've ever been taught. And thus I use their quote against them because you will not find a single thing in zeitgeist part 1 that is true and they want you to blindly accept them as a new authority. They anticipate people being lazy and not researching things on their own. That after all is the greatest factor in all of this and one they hope for, that nobody actually checks to see if what they say is at all true in any way. They just want you to take their word as authority and believe them just because they say it's true.

I encourage anyone reading this blog to research not only what I have stated here but also every claim that is put forth both in the zeitgeist movie and Ms. Murdock’s ridiculous companion guide to part one. In doing so, you will find out for yourself why this movie is purely asinine and unsubstantiated in everything that it claims to be true in part 1.

My astronomical and calendar references can be substantiated from:
The Cosmic Perspective, 4th Edition

My Biblical references can be substantiated from simply reading the Bible and comparing it to what Zeitgeist states.