ZEITGEIST - MODERN MYTHS

Zeitgeist is a documentary that exposes and is based on what is commonly known as conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories are de facto known for their tendency to elaborate intricate hypothesis claiming a local or global alliance of powerful individuals that deceive and manipulate people for their own benefit and profit. Zeitgeist is an elaborate project created by the activist Peter Joseph in which he claims that major religions, the 9/11 attack and global economy are scams set upon by the government in order to achieve greater control of the population and obtain personal benefits while the general public is unaware of it. Zeitgeist is presented as a scientific document that exposes, with great confidence, a series of statements that are as appealing to atheists and paranoids as they are disturbing to believers and the general public. However, a detailed inspection of the claims that this documentary exposes reveals that they are highly lacking of a firm foundation and are in fact a mixture of well known facts mixed with pseudoscientific superstition and inflated skepticism. The analysis of some inconsistencies between the documentary and reality are presented in the following document.

Zeitgeist and major religions The documentary begins with a sequential presentation of ancient gods from major mythological cultures with the particularity that they are straightforwardly presented as evidently analogous to Jesus. Virginal birth, crucifixion, prophetical life, resurrection and birth on December 25th are all characteristics that are adhered to mythological figures such as hours, Krishna and Dionysus among others. Traditional Christian symbols are regarded as pagan and interpreted as a sign of a pagan origin of Christianity .The bible is regarded as a creation of Constantine among many other sensationalistic claims .In the end it is concluded that Christianity is a mixture of Egyptian religion and roman desires of power. In order to distinguish fact from fiction and crucial from circumstantial a clear distinction has to be made between Christian symbolism and Christian theology; this distinction alone disapproves half of the claims of Peter Joseph. Christian theology in its various forms and expressions is the core and essence of Christianity; it is based on biblical statements and agreements about the interpretations of them, in a broad sense it consists of declarations about the nature of God and Mankind and the relationship between them. On the other hand Christian symbolism is an incidental phenomenon and is the result of the way people have chosen to practice and express their adherence towards Christian doctrine. It is usually dependant on the cultural and historical backgrounds of Christian groups, and so symbolism and traditions are usually borrowed and adapted into Christian practice with new meanings and uses. The Jesus fish for example is in fact the result of an acrostic called Ichthys represented as an stereotypical fish abstraction, given the fact that the acrostic of the phrase Jesus Christ God's son Savior (Ichthys) means fish in Greek .Early Christians adopted the well known fish symbol as a representation of Christ and it is quite clear that it had no relationship with its previous uses. Another element used by Peter Joseph to associate Jesus with mythological gods is the Celtic cross (a cross with a circle) this cross is in

fact based on solar symbols as the author claims, but its use in Christianity is not an indirect worship of the sun, it is an effort made by Christians during the 5th century with the objective of introducing Irish pagans into Christianity. Finally, the birthday of Jesus on December 25th, being a symbolic date, is nothing more than a transformation of roman holidays into Christian holidays, none of the Gods presented in the documentary (including Jesus) were born on this date; Christian theology has never stated this. Finally the 3 kings are also part of Christian symbolism and tradition there is no biblical record of the number of Wiseman visiting Jesus nor if they where kings, Christian theology does not favor this view. The parallels made between mythical gods in the documentary are erroneous and falsely exposed. Peter Joseph (producer) declares that Horus was born out of a virginal conception; this is a very liberal interpretation of the birth of Horus who in fact was conceived by a golden phallus fashioned by his mother (Isis) after his father (Osiris) lost his. He claims the Horus had 12 disciples while in fact he had around 20, neither was he crucified, he was thorn by crocodiles in the Nile. Dionysius was not conceived by a virgin, his mother was known to be a concubine of Zeus, none of his more than 30 surnames and titles are comparable to Jesus. These same patterns of mythological errors appear all over the documentary. Zeitgeist also states that Christian doctrine was created during the council of Nicaea carried on with the purpose of augmenting Constantines power and influence over the world, in fact the council of Nicaea was a council (meeting carried with the purpose of settling arguments in doctrinal subjects) in all of its sense, it settled issues such as the definition of the trinity and the books to be considered canonical (books to be used for doctrine). The books were chosen by their consistency within themselves, their consistency with the rest of the books and their historical origins, all of these books had existed for more than 200 years and hundreds of previously made copies assured their conformity to the original text (much of these copies exist nowadays). Constantine did not have the power to define doctrine; it was already widespread all over, the council of Nicaea simply declared which books were apocryphal (non-authentic) and concluded long going discussions.

Zeitgeist and 9/11 Zeitgeist presents 911 as a controlled explosion by the government of the US in order to apply new freedom-reducing laws and to justify a war abroad. It claims that the pattern of collapse and temperatures reached in the towers are proof that they were actually demolished and not attacked by terrorists, but engineers have another say. In fact, 95% of the volume of the towers was pure air; this explains why it appeared to have turned into dust. Floors under the explosion area collapsed in a vertical manner because of the weight of the floors above which progressively impacted on each other. The documentary argues that the melting point of steel is much higher than the temperatures created by the fire in the WTC and so concludes that it is impossible for the plane crash to be the cause of the collapse, actually this fact has always been recognized by engineers and experts, it is well documented that temperatures inside the towers were not high enough to melt them, the fire that was present in the impact

area is known as a diffuse combustion of Hydrocarbons with an excess of fuel in the area and it is estimated that maximum temperatures inside the towers where below 800c (1500C are needed to melt steel); never the less the temperatures reached inside the WTC where high enough to reduce the strength of the structure to half, more than enough for a collapse to occur. The unevenness of the heat and damage resulted in a deformation of the columns and an overall loss of structural integrity. The crucial factor for the final collapse of the towers was the bending and detachment of the horizontal beams that united the central columns with the outer structure and supported the floors. When these beams ruptured, the outer columns lost their support against the inner core of the buildings and bended inwards to the point of rupture, analysis of videos and photos evidence this. In contrast to controlled demolitions, the towers tilted towards the impact site before collapsing one towards the south and the other one towards the east. The peculiar pattern that resembles demolition was caused by the lack of concrete in the towers, the structural design and a domino effect that is common in this type of building.

Sources

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-02-25/ By Piotr O. Scholz Eunuchs and castrati: a cultural history Balsdon, "Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome" p 124-5 http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html http://www.celtarts.com/celtic.htm http://www.albatrus.org/english/religions/pagan/origin_fish_symbol.htm