VIDEO

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward – Official Release 2011

 ZEITGEIST FILM TRILOGY

Strong societies require strong foundations - and not a country in the world currently has a foundation like that.

IMDB Reviewer

Zeitgeist: The Movie is a documentary film by Peter Joseph. It asserts a number of conspiracy theory-based ideas, including the Christ myth theory, alternative theories for the parties responsible for the September 11 attacks in 2001 and that bankers manipulate the international monetary system and the media in order to consolidate power.

The filmmaker, Peter Joseph, gathered up some of the best scientists in their respective fields (along with Michael Ruppert, of "Collapse" fame) to present a case for a near-empirical way of dealing with the problems of society.

This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical "life ground" attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a "Resource-Based Economy".

Any fan of science over opinion, evidence over belief or challenging the status quo in general will find much to love here.

It is seemingly thought of as a political documentary, but technically, there is nothing "political" about it. It takes no sides in the establishment, basing its solutions on evidence (and the scientific method, in a general sense).

This comes off as a radical approach to problems, only because we don't see that in politics. But as far as radical notions go, what Zeitgeist : Moving Forward presents doesn't seem "out there" at all. But the ideas here are really quite universal. They exist in every culture or religion as "goals" or things to work towards. But until now, a clear case hasn't been presented on how to actually get there - how to solve the problems by taking them into account from the beginning.

Zeitgeist, The Movie is a film that was released on Google Video in the spring of 2007 and was created by Peter Joseph. Essentially the video covers three areas of Interest: Part I, entitled "The Greatest Story Ever Told" evaluates Christian beliefs and asserts that it was all taken from pre-existing myths, primarily Egyptian mythology. In Part II, entitled "All The World's a Stage" it goes on to talk about how the US Government knew about the attacks on September 11th, 2001 before hand and that it was a large conspiracy and cover up -- essentially an it was an inside job. Lastly we are told in Part III, entitled "Don't Mind The Men Behind The Curtain", that powerful bankers and world leaders are conspiring for world domination and consolidation of power.

The filmmaker, Peter Joseph, gathered up some of the best scientists in their respective fields (along with Michael Ruppert, of "Collapse" fame) to present a case for a near-empirical way of dealing with the problems of society.

This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical "life ground" attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a "Resource-Based Economy".

Any fan of science over opinion, evidence over belief or challenging the status quo in general will find much to love here.

It is seemingly thought of as a political documentary, but technically, there is nothing "political" about it. It takes no sides in the establishment, basing its solutions on evidence (and the scientific method, in a general sense).

This comes off as a radical approach to problems, only because we don't see that in politics. But as far as radical notions go, what Zeitgeist : Moving Forward presents doesn't seem "out there" at all. But the ideas here are really quite universal. They exist in every culture or religion as "goals" or things to work towards. But until now, a clear case hasn't been presented on how to actually get there - how to solve the problems by taking them into account from the beginning.

Zeitgeist, The Movie is a film that was released on Google Video in the spring of 2007 and was created by Peter Joseph. Essentially the video covers three areas of Interest: Part I, entitled "The Greatest Story Ever Told" evaluates Christian beliefs and asserts that it was all taken from pre-existing myths, primarily Egyptian mythology. In Part II, entitled "All The World's a Stage" it goes on to talk about how the US Government knew about the attacks on September 11th, 2001 before hand and that it was a large conspiracy and cover up - essentially an it was an inside job. Lastly we are told in Part III, entitled "Don't Mind The Men Behind The Curtain", that powerful bankers and world leaders are conspiring for world domination and consolidation of power.

 Zeitgeist: The Movie - Wikipedia

In June of 2008 I was introduced to a short video entitled The Great Arcanum, which, as would later be discovered, is part of a full length documentary entitled The Zeitgeist Movie. This documentary, produced by Peter Joseph, is a rejection of religion in general,and is specifically an attack on the Christian faith. The claim of the film is that deities of various faiths, including Jesus Christ, share many of the same characteristics in the accounts of their life, and that these characteristics are based in ancient beliefs concerning the sun and other celestial bodies. In so doing, Zeitgeist attributes to these faiths the same origin, making them equal with one another both in validity and merit.

Christianity, among other faiths, is here under attack by making the claim that the “Jesus story,” as the narrator calls it, is merely a myth and that the Gospel accounts of His life, death, resurrection, and ascension are based purely on ancient mythological and astrological beliefs. The ramifications of such a notion, were it true, would make Jesus a false prophetrather than the Son of God and promised Messiah, the Bible would be reduced to a book of lies and deceit, and Christians would be in possession of false hope, having been deluded into having faith in a God who does not exist.

The reason this is particularly an attack on Christianity, above other faiths, is that Jesus is the only of these so-called “solar Messiahs” whose birth, life, death, and resurrection resulted in real (not imagined or symbolic) salvation for those who have faith in Him as their Savior. Yes, the Gospel account of the life of Christ is a story, but it is a story founded in history and truth, and what a story it is!

That God was made man in the person of Jesus Christ so that He may die to take upon Himself the sins of the very same ones whom He created, and who abandoned Him to serve their own lusts. Yes, the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is a story – a story of grace and mercy, of redemption and life everlasting, of a loving King who gave His all for His people. The Zeitgeist Movie teaches Gnostic beliefs. Gnosticism is a belief system which began during pre-Christian times and is no new opponent to Christianity. According to www.religiostolerance.org, “Gnosticism involves the relational or experiential knowledge of God and of the divine or spiritual nature within us.” It places an emphasis on an inherent divinity within man.

Gnostics believe that salvation is achieved through knowledge and the full development of the human consciousness (in short, Gnostics teach we can save ourselves). Gnosticism was virtually eradicated in the fifth century due to Catholicism, but has experienced a re-emergence since the mid-1900. According to gnosticteachings.org, Gnostics believe their religion is the source from which all the world's religions have their origin. The heart of Gnosticism is the Great Arcanum (hence, the title of the video under scrutiny), or the Great Knowledge; that is, the “secret knowledge” of which Gnostics pride themselves in possessing, and the knowledge which they believe results in one’s salvation. This knowledge, they believe, is the absolute knowledge of good and evil.

The thrust of the film is the notion, which has existed for centuries, that the life of Jesus was merely a copy of pagan myths (hence, it is often termed the “copycat theory”), borrowing elements from fictional stories of various other “saviors.” Although this theory is generally rejected by mainstream scholars, it continues to gain popularity with conspiracy theorists and Internet antagonists. The theory gained notable popularity in the modern era during the nineteenth century with the publication of the book The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors written by Kersey Graves, a member of the “free thought” community. The theories contained in this book have been disproved a dozen times over since its publication, yet skeptics of Christianity continue to look to it as a source of truth. In fact, many of Graves’ sources often long post-date the Christian era, a practice which is very common among critics in their scrambling for evidence to support their claims. Jonathan Z. Smith, in The Encyclopedia of Religion, comments that the alleged “parallels” to Jesus either post-date the Apostolic Age or the “evidence” in the pré-Christian texts is simply lacking in solidarity. Smith states, “The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts.… All the deities that have been identified as belonging to the class of dying and rising deities can be subsumed under the two larger classes of disappearing deities or dying deities. In the first case, the deities return but have not died; in the second case, the gods die but do not return. There is no unambiguous instance in the history of religions of a dying and rising deity."

“Zeitgeist” is a German expression meaning “the spirit of the age” and is literally translated as “time (zeit) spirit (geist)." The film was first released in June 2007 and is comprised of three parts. Part one is an attempt to deconstruct Christianity by alleging it is a series of fabrications having been merged together from previously existing myths and astrological beliefs. Parts two and three engage in political conspiracy theories involving the banking system and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, purporting that the United States government itself orchestrated these attacks. According to the Zeitgeist web site (www.zeitgeistmovie.com), the project “was created as a nonprofit filmic a expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are.” The producers of the movie claim that "truth is not told, it is realized," thus implying that truth is relative to one’s viewpoint . However, when viewing the movie, it becomes apparent that it is actually designed to indoctrinate the viewer with its own “truth” (that is, falsehood) and persuade the viewer to come to see the world from Mr. Joseph’s perspective.

 Research:

The Zeitergeist Movement and the Eitgeist Movement and the Historical Jesus: Separating Fact from Fiction

Michael Sturgulewski

Jorge Rodrigues Simão, 29.04.2013