Zeitgeist, the Movie 

How dumb are atheists? Dumb enough to believe this kind of stuff: An internet movie called 'Zeitgeist' identifies Jesus of Nazareth as a 'Solar Messiah,' and explains that His twelve disciples, marching on dusty, sandalled feet through the highways and byways of Galilee, are actually the signs of the Zodiac. "Now, probably the most obvious of all the astrological symbolism around Jesus regards the twelve disciples. They are simply the twelve constellations of the Zodiac, which Jesus, being the sun, travels about with." (Zeitgeist, the Movie, 2007, 00:22:40-00:23:00). Obvious, indeed. Why the signs of the Zodiac would be expected to judge the twelve tribes of Israel, or how they could do so, is left unexplained. Skeptical? Want proof? Here it is, the money verse that reveals Jesus came to inaugurate the Ages of Pisces, the astrological sign of the fish. See, he describes the figure of 'Aquarius,' the water-bearer, the astrological symbol whose age would begin in excess of 2,000 years into the future:

Whatever. There is mention of 'water' in the gospel accounts, and 'fish;' what more could you want? Accuracy to within 2,000 years? This film project draws deeply upon the listener's credulity, and seems a bit much even for the ever-credulous atheists. However, it has proven very popular on the internet.

Was Jesus' target audience likely to be impressed by the revelation that the Ages of Pisces was inaugurated, and look eagerly toward the future Age of Aquarius? Not very likely, in that worship of the heavenly host, the sun, moon, stars and planets, had been criminalized by the law of Moses:

"If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die." (Deuteronomy 17:2-5).

Ancient astrologers, unlike some of their modern heirs, firmly believed the heavenly hosts controlled events upon earth; i.e., that these entities were 'gods' in the fullest sense of the term. What modern astrologers believe, or why they think the system works, is often unclear. There have always been apostates in the land of Israel who have bent the knee to Baal, the host of heaven, and other pagan objects of devotion, but the law-abiding have received a clear mandate. The true believers in the god of Israel were not given to astrological speculations. In the atheists' land of make-believe, there is no reason why death penalty crimes cannot be all the rage, every bit as popular as anything else. Is astrology Biblical?:

The narrator intones that Horus was born of a virgin and crucified, and other circumstances not actually applicable to Horus' life; there is more made-up information in this 'documentary' than in most Saturday morning cartoons. Necrophiliac his conception may have been, virginal it was not, and he was 'crucified' only if 'crucified' means the same thing as 'stung by scorpion.' And given that Egyptian religion revolved around temple worship sites where unresurrected body parts of Osiris were believed to be interred, the notion of 'resurrection' in connection with these worthies is shaky at best. If an empty tomb defines resurrection, Osiris didn't experience one: ". . .but Abydos, in Upper Egypt, early gained a reputation of peculiar sanctity, because the head of Osiris was buried there." (James Henry Breated, A History of Egypt, Kindle location 785).

One interesting feature, however, that Jesus does share with some of these figures is a birthday at or about the winter solstice. However, one must be very careful in choosing a time-slot to investigate this feature, because most of these pagan gods never had birth-days of December 25th except for a very short time. Though the atheists are confident that solarism has always been the leading religion, in fact it has not; nevertheless it briefly contended with Christianity for the crown of popularity in the empire. As paganism faced stiff competition from the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity, some of the pagans began to look wistfully toward monotheism, feeling that this was an attractive feature. Gazing in embarrassment at their bloated pantheons, they realized that this was an intellectually and philosophically satisfying element their religion lacked.

For those pagans unable to let go of 'gods' tethered to features of the natural world, solar monotheism seemed a satisfying compromise. In the time of their brief ascendancy, the solar monotheists identified all the other gods with the sun, plausibly or not, even stealing their statues from their proper temples and bringing them into that of the unconquered sun. Dionysus, for example, was a vegetation god basically, the god of the vine, not the sun god, although at some point he became mingled with some human being who had gone on expedition to India. And his birthday was never December 25th until he, along with the rest of the pantheon, was impressed into the solar gang. Helios, Hyperion, Apollo, and Shamash are bona fide solar gods; Attis and Dionysus are not, except in the mind of solar enthusiasts. He may have been a conqueror who introduced viniculture into areas which had not previously had it. He may have been a Timothy Leary-type pied piper who led his blinded devotees to their destruction. Or he could have been entirely imaginary, the vine divinized.

This movie assumes that, if we know that a given personage in antiquity was acclaimed as a god, we also know that that person did not actually exist: "The reality is Jesus was the solar deity of the gnostic Christian sect, and like all other pagan gods he was a mythical figure. It was the political establishment that sought to historize the Jesus figure for social control." (Zeitgeist, the Movie, 00:37:20-00:37:44). Really, all pagan gods were mythical figures, the greatly-honored sun included? Don't look at it, or that non-existent myth will burn out your eyes! Was Augustus non-existent, was Caligula non-existent, was Nero non-existent? Gods, all. It is not the case that all the gods did not exist. Jesus was, of course, acclaimed as God incarnate by His followers, but to assume therefore He did not exist historically is as nonsensical as assuming that Pythagoras did not exist, or Empedocles. This same logic would assert that Father Divine, the amply documented twentieth-century American figure, cannot have existed, because his followers professed his deity. Certainly any atheist has a prior commitment to denying that any such claim can be true; but they cannot therefore wave a magic wand and deny the existence of those who have made the claim! Christians observe that Father Divine was in error, not that he did not exist.

Incidentally Father Divine, along with such predecessor figures as the Munster Communards, will provide the reader a good test case against the movie's thesis that all religions are invented by international bankers. Why would international bankers have wanted to invent Father Divine, Jim Jones, or the Munster Communards?

Some pagan theologians devised a neat little package, whereby men could be heroes, half-men demi-gods, leaving the highest heavens to the sky gods. But as Euhemerus noticed, even the highest gods, such as Zeus, born in a cave, and Saturn, one-time king in Italy, had enjoyed human sojourns. The reality of paganism is much messier than any neat theological construct imposed after the fact. That Dionysus may actually have gone to, or come from, India, is reflected in that nation's 'Soma' religious texts, which impart the ruinous idea that salvation is found in intoxication. This idea worked out about as well in antiquity as it did for the hippies who revived it millenia later, reaping a bitter harvest of madness, murder and ruined lives. To those who take the trouble actually to study Dionysus, his purported resemblance to Jesus vanishes like a vapor. In general, all those schemes which make all of the pagan gods to be one thing or another fall short of conviction. The reader may recall from 'The Golden Bough,' that all gods are vegetation gods; but surely farming is not the only thing people do, where is to be found a metallurgist god when you need one? The sun is one god in the pagan pantheon, not the only god; all gods are not the sun, though solar enthusiasts imagined they were.

Was Jesus, too, forced into this mold, assigned a birthday of December 25th, when no such date is reported in the earliest sources? Oddly enough, there is a source which implies a mid-winter date, though it is not a respectable one: it is the Protevangelion, which recasts Zacharias, John the Baptist's father, as the high priest. Zacharias' encounter at the incense altar cannot have occurred in the Holy of Holies, or on the Day of Atonement, yet that is just where this apocryphal work situates it. But if this encounter is of date certain, then the date of the two linked nativities may be estimated by approximation, yielding a winter date for Christmas. This source has no historical value, but it must have impressed someone, as we do still to this date celebrate Christmas in mid-winter:

It is this identification with the sun that gives us the twelve disciples as the twelve signs of the Zodiac:

"A savior is born during the darkest days of the winter solstice; his light grows and dims through the twelve signs of the zodiac. . .The myths and legends of Apollo, Heracles, Osiris, Ra, Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Jesus, Mohammed, Arthur, the twelve harvesters in the Egyptian Field of Amenti, twelve carpenters, potters, weavers, fishermen, twelve rowers in the ship with Ra, twelve stones chosen by Joshua, and twelve facets of the ancient solar deities all symbolize our innate faculties of spiritual intelligence, twelve grades of being, twelve stages of unfoldment. These twelve phases of transformation are twelve ways we seek identity with our Higher Self. . .In an advanced stage of meditation the head's twelve cranial nerves are energized to liberate the individual as an enlightened being, a solar conqueror , a 'self-rolling wheel,' world savior, avatar, messiah of the age, like a central sphere surrounded by twelve others, symbolizing twelve attributes, or powers." (A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, Michael S. Schneider, Kindle location 3712-3738).

When we ask the question, what are there twelve of? Some of the solarists' twelves are a bit sketchy, but the answers come back, twelve months, twelve Capitoline gods, twelve signs of the zodiac. The lunar year has twelve months, though correcting to the solar year of 365-1/4 days will require us to interpolate a thirteenth every now and again. However this identification does not leap out from the pages of the Bible. There are twelve disciples because there are twelve tribes of Israel. Reading the story of Jacob in Genesis, the reader comes to realize the identification of Jacob as Sol, old Hannah, or Hyperion, is very well concealed. You'd never even guess it.

When was the historical Jesus born? Is there any way of recovering the actual date? Not likely:

The Zeitgeist project promotes the theme of evergreen popularity amongst atheists, that Jesus never existed. Even viewed from the most mundane angle, there is no reason to believe He didn't, and considerable reason to believe He did. He did miracles, which atheists consider impossible, or so it was reported; yet similar things are reported of Benny Hinn, whose existence the atheists do not deny. Simply denying what you cannot explain may be an economical way to reduce cognitive dissonance, however there is no special reason to expect it to lead to truth, or else primitive peoples denying satellite phones are onto something:

The New Atheists generally regard the aerial assault of 9/11/2001 as Exhibit A in their case against 'religion.' As atheist Victor Stenger phrased it, "Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings." The common assignment of blame for this event, to Muslim terrorists clustered around Osama bin Laden, makes some Muslims uncomfortable. This large population group therefore includes many who deny this explanation of the event. But there are also others who have adopted this viewpoint without any inherent bias in its favor. They have not been forced into this stance by the weight of evidence in its favor, because the affirmative evidence that the U.S. government was behind 9/11, or Mossad or whomever, is thin to put it mildly.

This film project reflects the 9/11 'Truther' perspective, claiming the U.S. government is responsible for the collapse of the twin towers, which is asserted to be the result of a planned Thermite explosion rather than the hijacked planes' impact. What this has to do with the equally implausible claim that Jesus Christ is a "solar deity" is left to the viewer's imagination. Since the New Testament makes no reference to Jesus sparking the dawn or transiting the sky, perhaps it is a moot point. We know that lazy old sun just rolls around heaven all day, phenomenologically speaking; it does not trudge through the hills and dales of Galilee. One good thing about the sun, though, is that is appears immune to manipulation by international bankers. If indeed it is true that the U.S. income tax is unconstitutional, then how can the sun, smiling benignly in the sky, be blamed for this, much less Jesus of Nazareth? It's 'the gummint' at fault, no doubt, which in the film-maker's mind is somehow wrapped up with that friendly luminary in the sky, conniving together in the mother of all conspiracies. In the film-maker's mind, religion is an illusion conjured up by the malevolent international bankers, who pull the strings, to distract your mind from their machinations. They say sunshine is the best disinfectant, so let us shine some rays on this murky matter. Is it likely that the U.S. government is responsible for 9/11, as this film project alleges?:

If the New Testament authors intended for it to be understood that 'Jesus'='the Sun,' it's a wonder they never mentioned it. One thing is certain: if people ever did learn critical thinking skills, they would not become disciples of Lyndon LaRouche, nor discover that 'It is all one.' This film projects stands as dramatic testimony to the extreme gullibility of atheists.

While some religions might conceivably have been designed by international bankers, because they place a premium on social stability within even grotesquely unjust societies,— think of Confucianism, think of Hinduism — such a complaint can scarcely have been lodged against the original Mosaic polity recorded in the Old Testament, which requires debts to be forgiven every seventh year. This stricture was found so odious by the bankers that they 'reformed' it, under the aegis of rabbi Hillel, by inventing various ways around it. If the international bankers were all-powerful, as this media project imagines, nor is there any limit backwards in time to which their malice cannot extend, why would they invent a religion in which all debts must be forgiven every seventh year?:

Thus the Old Testament, what of the New? According to Reza Aslan, Jesus was "as close to Marxism as it gets:"

"'If there's one thing you can really zero in on when it comes to Jesus' preachings — I mean the historical Jesus — was his absolute hatred of wealth,' Aslan said. . .Aslan described those ideas as being 'as close to Marxism as it gets,' but added that Jesus took the message even further." (Huffington Post, September 9, 2014, 'Reza Aslan Blasts "Prosperity Gospel" Preachers')

If the Banksters invented Jesus, why did they invent a near-Marxist one? I don't mean to endorse Reza Aslan's whimsical recreation of "the historical Jesus" — watch out when you hear this phrase, it means 'made to order,' — he does what all these people do, they take the full-orbed portrait of Jesus found in the New Testament and shear away those features they dislike, in Aslan's case His commitment to non-violence, retaining only those features they like, and adding some invented ones for good measure. However Jesus as He is found in the pages of the New Testament is not the international banker's ideal either.