The EnlightenMeFree (EMF) Online Debate Forum

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

This is about religion, and also mentions gnosticism (among others). I mention that because at one point, RSE was The American Gnostic School. In any case, this movie is likely to evoke controversy. It's two hours long.

There are no doubt a lot of religious nuts out there, and many are on religious broadcasts. I do not subscribe to the "hell-fire and brimstone" preaching and teaching that is constantly scaring people into thinking that the doom of the world is just around the corner and that every natural catastrophe is a sign of the end. I'm not into conspiracy theories about computer chip marks of the beast, etc. Nope, I'm apparently not creative enough to force that kind of Christianity into the Bible I read. I know there are religious nuts and fanatics in my field. Hopefully, I'm not one of them.

With that said, I have included a link I think is worth reading about this film, Zeitgeist. I've read modern Gnostic literature and have watched way too many modern Gnostic films. One common thread seems to run through them: These self-appointed experts think that by simply stating something, it is the truth. This intellectual arrogance is laughable. If you are going to claim to have the truth, then back it up. You can't just make a claim and throw in a bunch of dates, artifacts, etc., as side notes. No, you have to site your sources for those claims.

This film is a polemicist's dream, and an average Christian's nightmare. Most Christians have a pretty simple faith, and a well-crafted, but intentionally deceitful video like this will only upset them. Polemicists, however, will have a field day with this one. What some people do to perpetuate their own ideas is amazing!

Incipient to modern Gnosticism has always been based on intellectual arrogance. It is easy to see how they can not see it coming when people question them. They think they are above that. Often, they'll try to shout down their more reasonable opponent, or try even more desperate measures. We saw this at the last meeting at the middle school, didn?t we?

I've gone on too long. Here's the link. I do not agree with everything in it, but it does bring to light some of the obvious flaws in this film. Also, please remember that I do not agree with all other Christians. Sometimes, I will cite a source that makes sense, but I don't always agree with everything they say. Thanks for your openness.

http://www.infowarsforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2952

Well, my answer to that is, upon reading the transcript, apart from the part about Jesus fitting a pattern set forth of old, (to which I could say, yes, his coming was foretold for centuries before he appeared, but, all of those previous "saviours" were GODS, whereas, Jesus was a man), when it comes to what is said concerning the flood, Gilgamesh and Noah, Moses, and the ten comandments, I can easily see that that it could have been the other way around, that the ancient Israelites were simply keeping a faithful record of things, and note, Gilgamesh was a "God" whereas Noah was just a man. Same with Moses. The ten commandments could find an echo in the Egyptian book of the dead because, contrary to what is claimed, that book was inspired by the stone tablets of the Iraelites, not the other way around. And note, the ancient Israelites were captive in ancient Babylon, and captive in Ancient Egypt as well...so, who borrowed from whom? We may never know.

The Old Testament of the bible is simply a history of the semitic peoples...and much of it, by the way, is corroborated by other accounts by other contemporarily existing cultures.
That's just my take on it.
I only read the first transcript from the movie...I think they will go on to say, that we have all been bamboozled and tricked into believing what we are told, and there is a global, evil conspiracy foisted on modern man by the ancient Israelites, the Christian Church, the bankers, the governments (esp. that of the U.S.) the Freemasons who are really the Templars, and so on...hey, I've heard this before. I ask the author...Where did you buy your beliefs, that you feel you can pick on mine??? My research has been more extensive so there!

took time to watch the Zeitgeist film.
sheesh..
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5331&hl=en

The film brought to mind the same propaganda techniques used by Elizabeth C Prophet, my old cult leader, in 1978. ECP sounded real intelligent to devotees as she played fast and loose with conspiratorial info on World Bank, Rockefellers, Rothchilds, 'capitalist-communist conspiracy', CFR and blah blah blah. ECP could tap dance through the bible, history and reams of 'hidden knowledge' to make a point---watch out for the One World Gov and the Beast.

The maker of Zeitgeist [Peter Joseph?] however did not have the ECP Ascended Masters on his side, poor thing.

In the end to leave us with his POSITIVE message Zeitgeist's author did however resort to a similar cheap trick of invoking heavenly beings by using images and quotes of dead heroes: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Richard Alpert [Ram Dass] and Jimi Hendrix were his 'ascended masters' telling us that LOVE IS THE ANSWER. Duh...

I am not wasting more time than I have to on this but I will run down my notes I took while watching:
intro--newage ambient pasta music, then trancing on starry images--'cosmos to earth, cosmos to earth'
bingo the blue planet appears wrapped in a geometric matrix.
Images of Old King James Bible, 9/11, holocaust victims, bombings
more woo woo organ music

quick lessons on the fraud of Jesus churches, Z states conclusions first, seems to assert that the Demiurge or fallen god of Gnostic myth is the creep that created the fraud we all believe, attacks a straw man --the illiterate literalist fundamentalist belief system of the Left Behind people.

my office coworker listens and says the zeitgeist narrator sounds like Lyndon LaRouche! he kinda does!

sources massey and acharya---like sourcing churchward on Mu legend

sargon=moses, uses a 7th century neoAssyrian manuscript to make pseudo comparison, sargon lived 24th to 23rd centuries BCE
Horus = jesus myth NOT
"1) Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.

Let?s take this one apart and deal with each separate issue:

Horus? mother was not a virgin. She was married to Osiris, and there is no reason to suppose she was abstinent after marriage. Horus was, per the story, miraculously conceived. Seth had killed and dismembered Osiris, then Isis put her husband's dead body back together and had intercourse with it. In some versions, she used a hand-made phallus since she wasn't able to find that part of her husband. So while it was a miraculous conception, it was not a virgin birth. "
see: http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/JesusHorus.html

three kings? no mention of "3" in Gospel

Zeitgeist narrator reads history like he's reading a horoscope

Z says fake jesus story invented by churches for "social control". give me a break!
since when did the church succeed at social control? schisms, heresies, rebels and saints abound in its history.

Z's 9/11 explanation is worse than the government's, fails uterly because Z relies on weird science agendas. D R Griffin taught at U of Dayton when I was there--whiteheadian, postmodernist, slipped into subjective headspace and is still there--no substance to his theory why twin towers and bldg 7 collapsed. Ted Gunderson believed in satanic cult conspiracy--a nutcase and Z uses him, etc etc.

Jay Kinney, former editor and founder of Gnosis magazine sees through Zeitgeist facade easily:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/06/ja ... ews-z.html

In one of its few mainstream reviews the Irish Times called it "unhinged" and accused it of offering nothing but "surreal perversions of genuine issues and debates". [from wikipedia]