February 09, 2008

Where Did The Story Of Jesus Come From?

This is an except from the film zeitgeist which explains why the story of jesus, Like that of many other gods and prophets, Is a myth involving a virgin birth on Dec 25th, A star in the east, 3 kings, A crucifixion or cross, A 3 day death followed by a resurrection.

To most Atheists it wont come as much of a surprise that the story of jesus isn't unique in mythology, But it will hopefully put a bit of dent in some christians belief that jesus existed and the bible is a true account of his life when they realise that the story is a metaphorical one to explain events in the night sky at different times of the year.

17 comments:

  1. A lot of what was said in that movie was not true or slightly twisted. Here is a good list of stuff zeitgeist got wrong.
    http://www.gotquestions.org/zeitgeist-movie.html

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  2. jesus came before all of them people and the bible says jesus is the son of god

    They copies jesus's stuff from the bible

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  3. Yeah, zeitgeist got stuff wrong, it's an indy doco, you can't expect a masterpiece. The best bit was that comparison to astrology.

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  4. d, it's kinda stupid posting your argument from a creationist website. You might as well post another and say all evolution texts are wrong.

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  5. Ok, well if you do not believe it and you do some research yourself, you can easily find out what he was saying was not true. Also, here is a video that helps debunk it, though I am not sure if it is by a creationist or not, even though it should not matter.
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=b5yIwjStqR8

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  6. D you are going to have to start posting credible sources. First you post a link to a creationist site and then you link to a video uploaded by a christian who confesses to "love exposing cults... Like Darwinian evolution".

    of course creationist christians are going to say zeitgeist got it wrong... what do you expect them to say? That the jesus myth is a load of bollocks?

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  7. Even if we accept that some of what is mentioned in zeitgeist is incorrect, There is still a vast collection of accurate comparisons and the clincher for me is when they explained how the jesus myth is actually a story depicting astrological events.

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  8. Well, why is an indy doc more credible than a creationist website? They have the same capacity to reason.

    Also, the whole astrological stuff, nowhere in the Bible is it said that Jesus was born on the 25th or rose again on Easter. This was placed in at a later date for two reasons. One, so it would be easier for Christians to convert pagans, and two, when they were under persecution, they could celebrate Jesus' birth/resurrection without fear of being killed.
    The Kings were magi, so the whole "three kings, following star" thing is flat out wrong.
    Other sites:
    http://www.thedevineevidence.com/jesus_similarities.html
    http://www.infowarsforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2952&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=8659110ff744242ae7a93b1b2f579d0d
    I could keep going. How many do you need to convince you that the movie is a pack of lies, even atheists I know say that movie is a crock of shit.

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  9. "Well, why is an indy doc more credible than a creationist website? They have the same capacity to reason."

    That is evidently untrue. The main thing that lets down religious people when it comes to reasonable discussion is their conclusions are not based on evidence. Instead their evidence is mined to support their conclusion. The creationists watched the video, Noticed that it contradicted their conclusion and so set out to debunk it.

    What a reasonable person does it find the evidence first, And then use it to form a conclusion. Not the deceitful tactic of creationists where the conclusion if formed first and then evidence is gathered to support it.

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  10. d, how would you feel if Scientologists tell you your shit is wrong and the real god is L.Ron Hubbard and proves it by showing you scientologist websites? Of course you won't believe it and say that the sources are unreliable.

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  12. You could say the same for this video, he came to the conclusion: "there is no god, christianity is based on previous religions, let's find some evidence to support that."

    That is completely different, anon. The websites I used were not trying to prove christianity, just trying to prove that the movie is not true. However, if the scientologists websites made very good points and did not try to convert me, just proved my argument wrong, I would be like "ok, maybe you are right. I was wrong on such and such a point."

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  13. After d gave me a link to questions about Zeitgeist in the other thread, I started researching some of the connections to Horus that it brought up. I haven't delved terribly deeply, but have been able to verify some of Zeitgeist's claims, but not others. Some are a stretch. For instance, Horus was born of his mother after his father had been dead for a time, so that was a conception of some "divine intervention" and some considered that she was once again a virgin.
    Horus was called the savior god in some places in Egypt.

    If you find a site that lists side by side the comparisons, there are I think only two or three things that cannot be verified, one of which is that they both had 12 disciples. The charts say Horus had 4 disciples, although I haven't found this info yet. I can't recall what the other unverified bits are. --I am writing this off the top of my head trying to recall what I read a week ago, without going back to the sites. (For some reason, if I try to leave this site after entering, I lose whatever I've written.)

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  14. I'm not saying zeitgeist is all correct. The websites you gave have an agenda: zeitgeist goes against their faith. It is not a neutral source. They twisted facts and stuff. For example, quoting from the bible as your evidence is simply not up to standard.

    If it were a peer-reviewed paper written by a historian or whatever saying zeitgeist is wrong, backed by evidence, no one would have a problem with it. That's my point.

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  15. I understand what you are saying, but if you look at what they say, it actually makes sense. Zeitgeist also has an agenda, though! So, by your logic, we cannot trust it either.

    But if you do want a neutral site, I linked this one.
    http://www.infowarsforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2952
    It is pretty good, he lists many sites where you can research what Zeitgeist.

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  16. I have no expertise in ancient cultures, mythology, and astrology, but I am an astronomer. The astronomy in this video is just plain wrong.

    Claim: On December 24th, Sirius aligns with the 3 stars in Orion's belt.

    Wrong! While the stars do have motions across the sky, they would only be apparent to the mark-1 eyeball on timescales of millenia, at the very least. Step outside on any winter night (northern), and you can see Sirius sitting about 20 degrees (about two fist-widths at the end of your extended arm) eastward of Orion's belt. It lies about 5 degrees southward of a line extending from the belt (both of these numbers are guesstimates just from glancing at my pocket skyguide). Every night. This arrangment does not change on timescales of a few nights. It would only be perceptible to a person who slept for 10s of thousands of years... and even then, just barely. Looking up Sirius on simbad (public astro data archive) I find it has a net proper motion of about 1.3 arcseconds per year to the southwest (that's really fast, btw. But then again, it's only ~8.6 ly away). 2000 years ago, it would have been about half a degree closer to the line from the belt... or still about 5 degrees (or 10 full moon diameters) below that line. Every winter night of a person's lifetime.

    Claim: The belt stars and Sirius point at the rising sun.

    Wrong! Orion is a winter constellation, so called because we can see it up at night in the northern winter. Orion is setting as the sun rises! Sure, this also slowly changes with time, due to precession. But precession occurs on a roughly 1.25 degrees per hundred years timescale... which would mean that 2000 years ago, Orion would have set about 2 hours earlier... even further BEFORE sunrise.

    Claim: The sun appears in the southern cross.

    Crux (the official constellation name for the southern cross, in case you want to look it up) is at a declination of -60. Which is to say, it's at 60 degrees south of the ecliptic (which is the plane you would get if you extended the earth's equatorial plane out to infinity). The sun goes from declination -23.5 (northern winter solstice) to +23.5 (northern summer solstice) (notice the relation to the tilt of the earth's spin axis.). Crux is about 37 degrees south of the plane defined by the sun and the earth's orbit. The only way the sun could appear in Crux is if the earth's orbit were somehow tilted 37 degrees (not the earth's axial tilt, but the actual inclination of it's orbit. The 8 planets' orbits are co-planar to within a degree or two. Getting a 37 degree shift in orbital plane is akin to the gravitational interactions that launched comets into the Oort cloud. So apply the comet / Jupiter mass ratio to something similar shifting the earth's orbit... Disaster!)

    If you would like to check my assertions, may I recommend you download Stellarium. It's a free sky simulator that let's you view the sky from any where, anytime. However, I don't think it includes the effects of proper motion and precession, so you'll just need to read up on those and do the math yourself. If you look up Sirius (or any other star) on simbad, know that proper motions are quoted in milliarcseconds - 60 arcsec = 1 arcmin, 60 arcmin = 1 degree.

    Unfortunately, you can't fight quackery (ie magical thinking) with quackery (poor scholarship) (though I may cynically assert that one can't fight magical thinking with excellent scholarship, either, since most people find myths mroe comfortable and easier to understand than reality). But if we present poor scholarship as our arguments, not only will the quacks say, "Believe me because my ancient text says blah!" but they will also say, "And because the scientists are so afraid, they'll even lie to try and destroy your soul." (wouldn't that be ironic, a preacher saying "step outside in the hours before sunset, and check this assertion yourself. Be empirical!")

    After seeing how poorly the astronomy was handled in this video, I'm disinclined to trust the linguistic and mythological assertions. Any classicisists out there able to point out the real signs of cultural seeding in christianity and other religions? (I do recall there being flood stories in multiple cultures, along with actual evidence of regional level flooding, for example, allowing for conjectures regarding the origins and evolution of the flood story) Anybody out there able to discuss the literary analysis of the new testament, showing which writers cribbed from the others, and how the texts changed over time? Historical references to the plethora of messiahs running around the middle east at the time? Reliable, referenced discussion of mythological parallels?

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  17. Zeitgeist part 1 is far more correct than some are willing to concede - and most people really don't know much about the subject at all.

    Forget about the Anti-Zeitgeisters who claim to have debunked part 1 or Acharya S - ask them for their credentials, qualifications and experience with these issues. Most "debunkers" tend to be 20-somethings who have no formal training in these areas whatsoever.

    It is very disappointing to see this new brand of militant atheism going around which tends to be as fundamentalist in their atheism as any other religious fanaticism. Freethinkers should be coming together by finding ways to understand Zeitgeist part 1, rather than rant about topics they know very little about.

    Acharya S will soon be coming out with her new and 4th book Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection.

    It will explain a lot about the origins of the Jesus myth, using primary sources and other sources by solid experts.

    Enjoy the video "ZEITGEIST, Part 1" Debunked/Refuted? Acharya Responds

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