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ZEITGEIST, The Movie

Edx said:
Thats really the point, you can prove essentially the same conclusion as Part 1 of Zeitgeist without having to use fringe opinions from D.M. Murdock.

A legitimate documentary talking about this indepth would still be very interesting.
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I wouldn't go that far. The connections invented in Zeitgeist aren't found when studying the history and mythology of the times. Too much of part 1 is astrotheology and connections that don't exist.

So I wouldn't go so far as to say anything about being able to prove essentially the same thing.
 
You know what's funny? I own a copy of The Christ Conspiracies but never connected it with this movie.
 
fullflavormenthol said:
I wouldn't go that far. The connections invented in Zeitgeist aren't found when studying the history and mythology of the times. Too much of part 1 is astrotheology and connections that don't exist.

So I wouldn't go so far as to say anything about being able to prove essentially the same thing.
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It depends what you mean by essentially.

When I say it I mean the point about the Bible not being all that original and not really being any different from other myths and legends.
 
Again couldn't go that far because the idea that all religions are not really different from each other is not something I could not back up. It is essentially the same as saying that all cultures are not really different.
 
fullflavormenthol said:
Don't get out much do we?

:D
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No seriously though, there isnt much thats fundamentaly different. There also isnt anything fundamentally different about the different races either, its all basically superficial.

The reason why I think its a valid comparision is that fundamentalist Christians believe their Bible, their legends, their stories, their sacred texts are somehow more special and unique than other religions so as to give their beliefs more legitimacy.

But in the end there really is no real difference at all. It has all the same hallmarks of a man made religon as any other.
 
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Edx said:
No seriously though, there isnt much thats fundamentaly different. There also isnt anything fundamentally different about the different races either, its all basically superficial.

The reason why I think its a valid comparision is that fundamentalist Christians believe their Bible, their legends, their stories, their sacret texts are somehow more special and unique than other religions so as to give their beliefs more legitimacy.

But in the end there really is no real difference at all. It has all the same hallmarks of a man made religon as any other.
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There are differences though, and while I agree that no religion is more special than any other; I am not going to pretend that all religions are just so similar that they are identical. Sticking it to the Christians is no excuse for ignoring the difference between cultures and religions. Or pretending that there is really something to that Zeitgeist movie.

There are major differences between Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Judaism and these are all related religious systems. To ignore that is merely intellectual evasion.
 
fullflavormenthol said:
There are differences though, and while I agree that no religion is more special than any other; I am not going to pretend that all religions are just so similar that they are identical. Sticking it to the Christians is no excuse for ignoring the difference between cultures and religions. Or pretending that there is really something to that Zeitgeist movie.

There are major differences between Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Judaism and these are all related religious systems. To ignore that is merely intellectual evasion.
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Theres major differences between humans and frogs but that doesnt mean we dont share a common ancester and that humans were specially created by nothing but magic words.

See my point?
 
Edx said:
Theres major differences between humans and frogs but that doesnt mean we dont share a common ancester and that humans were specially created by nothing but magic words.

See my point?
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I can see that you have created a bad analogy, but nothing pertaining to Zeitgeist part 1 being essentially true.

Unless your argument is that religion is a manifestation of society, and that society is a manifestation of humanity, and as such all religions are the same in that they are human creations. Of course that isn't what Zeitgeist is about.
 
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fullflavormenthol said:
I can see that you have created a bad analogy, but nothing pertaining to Zeitgeist part 1 being essentially true.
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:) Well therein may lie the problem.

I never said it was essentially true. I said the conclusion was essentially true, thats very different. In case there was any confusion I then qualified what I meant when I said "essentially true":

It depends what you mean by essentially.

When I say it I mean the point about the Bible not being all that original and not really being any different from other myths and legends. - me a few posts ago

And then later still I go on to say further what I meant by that...

The reason why I think its a valid comparision is that fundamentalist Christians believe their Bible, their legends, their stories, their sacred texts are somehow more special and unique than other religions so as to give their beliefs more legitimacy.

But in the end there really is no real difference at all. It has all the same hallmarks of a man made religon as any other.

Unless your argument is that religion is a manifestation of society, and that society is a manifestation of humanity, and as such all religions are the same in that they are human creations. Of course that isn't what Zeitgeist is about.
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See above.

But one could argue that Zeitgeist doesnt only have a political message, but one that is even more broad than that. The main conclusion being one that can be summed up in a sort of vague way in the swirly graphic/large eye/nice story end to Part 3 and to not trust everything you hear (irony). So in the sense that the subjects and "facts" *cough* in Zeitgeist are just trying to work up to this opinion and world philosophy Peter Joseph had that he felt demonstrated this well.
 
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But you must understand why I feel the need to clarify what is being discussed here, because there is a world of difference between saying for example, societies that are being oppressed have a tendency towards suffering servant motifs or liberation philosophies ending in a messianic faith, and the notion portrayed in Zeitgeist that there was a conspiracy to steal ideas from the Egyptians and cover it up. One notion is the common sense ideal that comes from an honest study of society and religion while the other is complete woo.

I think you would agree with saying there is a large difference between saying that all ocean themed deities share common characteristics because they are gods of the ocean, and saying that every sea god is really a copy of an earlier sea god.
 
fullflavormenthol said:
But you must understand why I feel the need to clarify what is being discussed here, because there is a world of difference between saying for example, societies that are being oppressed have a tendency towards suffering servant motifs or liberation philosophies ending in a messianic faith, and the notion portrayed in Zeitgeist that there was a conspiracy to steal ideas from the Egyptians and cover it up. One notion is the common sense ideal that comes from an honest study of society and religion while the other is complete woo.
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Oh yes a world of difference, Zeitgeist is an exaggeration for sure and in my opinion a needless one at that.

I think you would agree with saying there is a large difference between saying that all ocean themed deities share common characteristics because they are gods of the ocean, and saying that every sea god is really a copy of an earlier sea god.
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Sure, its like when I gave the example of the Code of Hammurabi. Its not that the Biblical people who had the Moses myths stole all the laws from the legend of Hammurabi, its that the similar legends were so abundant in cultures of that area that you can't pin it down to one source. To be fair to the Bible it did do a few things differently (especially if you read some of the books the church arbitrarily left out) in the same way Egyptions did things differently based on whatever that religion emerged from. Its clear there is a lot of stories and myths that are clearly influenced by other religions just not to the extent that Zeitgeist claims and I touched on a few earlier.
 
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Edx said:
Oh yes a world of difference, Zeitgeist is an exaggeration for sure and in my opinion a needless one at that.



Sure, its like when I gave the example of the Code of Hammurabi. Its not that the Biblical people who had the Moses myths stole all the laws from the legend of Hammurabi, its that the similar legends were so abundant in cultures of that area that you can't pin it down to one source. To be fair to the Bible it did do a few things differently (especially if you read some of the books the church arbitrarily left out) in the same way Egyptions did things differently based on whatever that religion emerged from. Its clear there is a lot of stories and myths that are clearly influenced by other religions just not to the extent that Zeitgeist claims and I touched on a few earlier.
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There is a wealth of information about the parallels in the ancient near east, and in fact I once took a class in Old Testament studies that focused on these occurrences.

So we are in agreement that Zeitgeist, or to be more specific Acharya S/D.M. Murdock gets it wrong in that they are trying to create this concrete conspiracy when in reality it is more a rich tapestry of interacting cultures splitting off from other cultures and constantly reinterpreting their existing legends.

And like I wrote in the first paragraph there are numerous sources for this information, but my problem with movies like Zeitgeist is that they try to make everything more deliberate and more sexy.
 
fullflavormenthol said:
There is a wealth of information about the parallels in the ancient near east, and in fact I once took a class in Old Testament studies that focused on these occurrences.

So we are in agreement that Zeitgeist, or to be more specific Acharya S/D.M. Murdock gets it wrong in that they are trying to create this concrete conspiracy when in reality it is more a rich tapestry of interacting cultures splitting off from other cultures and constantly reinterpreting their existing legends.

And like I wrote in the first paragraph there are numerous sources for this information, but my problem with movies like Zeitgeist is that they try to make everything more deliberate and more sexy.
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Then let it be written! We are agreed! :D
 
Edx said:
eh?
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Many of the people who make the claim that all cultures or all religions are basically the same usually base that conclusion on what is known as the fallacy of translation. This is the fallacy that because certain words from different languages are translated to the same word in yet another language, they must have the same meaning. For example, the Japanese word kami used in the Shinto religion and the Hawai'ian word akua used in their native religion both translate to the English word god. The fallacy would lie in assuming that a kami must have the same properties and characteristics as an akua, and both behave just like the god of the Old Testament.
 
That's a fair point. I get that when I try to translate obscenities from Spanish to English for people.

A cabrón does not have the same properties as a *****. etc.
 
Hokulele said:
Many of the people who make the claim that all cultures or all religions are basically the same usually base that conclusion on what is known as the fallacy of translation. This is the fallacy that because certain words from different languages are translated to the same word in yet another language, they must have the same meaning. For example, the Japanese word kami used in the Shinto religion and the Hawai'ian word akua used in their native religion both translate to the English word god. The fallacy would lie in assuming that a kami must have the same properties and characteristics as an akua, and both behave just like the god of the Old Testament.
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Then the fallacy here is rather your assumption that my reasoning behind saying that was based on language :)
 
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