posted August 18, 2007 09:09 AM         

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Apparently, the beginning upset a lot of Christians they knew. I also think we should be sensitive about it.....someone who is a deep believer in Christianity could have a nervous breakdown if they ever found out the truth too suddenly (I went through something of a religious crisis myself in my teens, so I know)......

However, I thought about the beginning part of it a little bit. The movie insinuates that Jesus never even existed.

I have another theory.

My theory is that he did exist. He was a deeply and truly spiritual teacher, just like Buddha and the Yogis, the Tibetan monks, Amma, etc..........

His teachings were so moving that they became very widespread. This worried and annoyed the authorities, so they decided to take the matter into their own hands. They re-wrote the Bible. They turned Jesus into something he wasn't, incorporating him into their own myths, to make it
more acceptable to people worshiping other 'gods'.....but the main reason, of course (and as always) was for CONTROL!

Buddha formed his own spiritual path to get away from some of the idolatry and dogma of his upbringing. The real truth can be found within. The most profound and spiritual writings are by those who have gone within.

If you look at Jesus' teachings and the rest of the Bible, it is clear that they contradict each other!

Jesus taught forgiveness, love, equality and not to judge. If you look at the characteristics of 'God' (which really meant 'those who came from the sky' in Hebrew)....you see, if you look.....that this God is actually quite sadistic and controlling.

True love is unconditional.

So I say that Jesus did in fact live, they just changed the story. Jesus was in fact a true teacher, but I feel he didn't want us to worship him as such, only to realize that all that he did, we can do also. (Now we can see the story was changed, we can also see it is likely he didn't perform the super-miracles the Bible says he did.....although I do believe in the power of mind over matter).

Written with LOVE.

*There are also slight inaccuracies with the film...the film failed to mention the Dead Sea Scrolls; I'm sure there is other evidence he lived which can be found in the books of various authors/researchers.

------------------
Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. If evil has any reality - and it has a relative, not absolute, reality - this is also it's definition: complete identification with form - physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. This results in a total unawareness of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic oneness with every "other" as well as with the Source. This forgetfulness is original sin, suffering, delusion. When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say and do, what kind of world do I create? To find the answer to this, observe how humans relate to each other, read a history book, or watch the news on television tonight.

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction."

posted August 18, 2007 10:57 AM         

someone lent me a copy to read whilst visiting jerusalem ..
the writers' perspective made potential sense as to how it might have been ..
i think at the time it was banned from sale either in the usa or canada ..
not sure which .. ( was what i was told at the time .. may not be fact )
( maybe it was seen in a similar light to salman rushdie's 'satanic verses' .. )
t'was entertaining reading .. and the general vibe about jerusalem itself ..
made it seem quite plausible ..

seems like the author passed away in 1991 ..
.. maybe he knows the truth of it now ..
~ http://www.frankyerby.com/yerby.html ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and this is a strange fact about Jerusalem ..
take a walk-about 'n one's likely to bump into some really odd folk ..
the whole city has a strange vibe about it .. some folks succumb totally i guess ..

from google search string .. 'the jerusalem syndrome' ..

~ http://savvytraveler.publicradio.org/show/features/2000/20000603/jerusalem.shtml ~

~ http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Goren_Jerusalem_Syndrome.htm ~

"    The Jerusalem Syndrome is a clinical psychiatric diagnosis first identified in the 1930s by Dr. Heinz Herman, one of the founders of modern psychiatric research in Israel. Subsequent research was made by Dr.Yair Bar El, former director of the Kfar Shaul Psychiatric Hospital in Jerusalem, involving 470 tourists who had been declared temporarily insane.[1] The Jerusalem Syndrome is a temporary state of sudden and intense religious delusions brought on while visiting or living in Jerusalem. Most of the hospitalized visitors were Jews, but many others were Christians. The clinical symptoms usually begin with a vague and extremely intense excitement. The patients often adopt "biblical" or otherwise eccentric clothing, sometimes merging their identity with that of a character from the Bible or having a strong feeling of mission. They typically adopt a lifestyle of religious observance and attach unusual significance to religious relics. The most interesting feature, considering the extreme behaviors associated with the Jerusalem Syndrome, is that the subjects sometimes have no prior history of psychiatric difficulty and exhibit none afterward. These patients, if they recover, are typically embarrassed by behavior they cannot explain. "

posted August 18, 2007 11:15 AM         

The Zeitgeist movie makes out that Jesus never existed. However, my heart tells me, somehow, that no wicked person could possibly have fabricated the words of Jesus.....Jesus was beyond these people, these deceivers, manipulators, distorting the truth!

However, I don't think it is a bad people for people to think and ponder this deeply; it will help us to wake up and become more understanding.

------------------
Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. If evil has any reality - and it has a relative, not absolute, reality - this is also it's definition: complete identification with form - physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. This results in a total unawareness of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic oneness with every "other" as well as with the Source. This forgetfulness is original sin, suffering, delusion. When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say and do, what kind of world do I create? To find the answer to this, observe how humans relate to each other, read a history book, or watch the news on television tonight.

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction."

posted August 18, 2007 11:59 AM         

be just that .. reading your header post ..
got me thinking about Jerusalem .. as a physical environment ..
it's got a very mystical feel about it .. be a very special place in that sense ..
and it's probably been that way since time began ..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from above link ..

In Israel, Jerusalem Syndrome is taken very seriously. Everyone involved in security, tourism, or health is on the lookout for afflicted visitors. In an average year, three or four tourists develop real, palpable Jerusalem Syndrome. In l999, more than 50 visitors were diagnosed, the increase possibly attributed to millennial activities.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Bar-El takes a long puff on his cigar and gets down to specific current cases.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Bar-El: "We have now here a woman, she was picked up by the police after she kicked and beat some persons at the side of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They asked why and she says: 'I am the Prophetess of the Olive Tree and I am a very powerful person. I announce the immediate arrival of Jesus Christ.' This woman is here in a terrible anxiety state. She said that she must be out, under the influence of the sun and the moon and by this influence her branches will grow green. This is the symbol of the immediate arrival of Jesus Christ."

She didn't want to be taken inside because under a roof her branches would grow black, and that would be the sign of the anti-Christ.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another seemingly normal man is a teacher from Denmark.

Dr. Bar-El: "He arrives every year to Jerusalem because he said only here he can speak with the Virgin Mary. He doesn't take trips to Lourdes, to Montserrat, no, only here. We speak with the person a lot. A completely sane person only with this idee fixe."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bar-El talks about a memorable case which actually led to one of the first instances of collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli police. The Palestinians found a man without clothes, money or ID, and, after interrogation, they figured out he wasn't a security risk. They had no idea what to do with him, so they contacted an Israeli officer. The Israeli asked only one question: "Is the guy really completely nude?" "No," answered the Palestinian, "he's wearing an animal skin." "Oh," said the Israeli, "you've got another John the Baptist." It was the sixth John the Baptist the Israelis had run into. They usually did days of purification between Jerusalem and the Galilee before ending up at the Jordan River to baptize Jesus or the first Christians, and part of the trek was through Palestinian territory.

posted August 18, 2007 11:32 PM         

They say Feb. 28th,
but according to astro.com,
the day they are showing is the 26th

Anyway, its a pretty convincing chart.

posted August 19, 2007 06:12 AM         

Another thing the film doesn't look at is "as above, so below".

The planets, the cosmic clock.....could represent an actual birth of a great soul sent Time after Time, to teach....who knows?

There is so much more to our world than meets the eye. One day science and true spirituality will merge as one. They are not separate.

------------------
Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. If evil has any reality - and it has a relative, not absolute, reality - this is also it's definition: complete identification with form - physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms. This results in a total unawareness of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic oneness with every "other" as well as with the Source. This forgetfulness is original sin, suffering, delusion. When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say and do, what kind of world do I create? To find the answer to this, observe how humans relate to each other, read a history book, or watch the news on television tonight.

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction."

posted August 19, 2007 11:39 AM         

Jay Kinney reviews Zeitgeist, the Movie http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/06/jay_kinney_reviews_z.html

"For the last couple of months, Boing Boing readers have been emailing me about a two-hour documentary available on Google Video called Zeitgeist, the Movie. I finally got around to viewing it.

In three parts, Zeitgeist (which has no credits) attempts to show that 1) Christianity is rehashed pagan sun-worship and is used by the rich and powerful to control people, 2) the 9/11 tragedies were part of an elite conspiracy, and 3) ever since World War I, the ultra-rich have been secretly manufacturing wars and financial collapses to control the populace and to get richer and more powerful.

I don't know enough about politics, history, or religion to have a valid opinion of Zeitgeist, but I was interested in getting a well-informed person's assessment of the documentary. I could think of no one better suited than Jay Kinney. He was the publisher of the late, great Gnosis Magazine, the author of several books on Western esoteric and occult traditions, and the author of The Masonic Enigma, "a journey of discovery into the real facts (and mysteries) of Masonry's history and symbols." He's also an amazingly talented cartoonist, and contributed to The Whole Earth Review which is how I first learned about him. (His 1987 article, "If Software Companies Ran the Country," where he compares Al Capp's Shmoos to infinitely-copyable software, remains as fresh and powerful today as it did 20 years ago).

At my request, Jay watched the movie, and kindly wrote the following review for Boing Boing:

Zeiting the Geist
The latest bit of guerrilla media to take the online universe by storm is “Zeitgeist, the Movie.” Clocking in at close to two hours’ length, and with over a million views on Google Video since its June 26th “official” release, Zeitgeist is a grabby, cranky, can’t-stop-watching-it documentary that purports to tell the real truth about Christianity, 9/11, and the International Bankers.

Exactly who is behind the video is unclear, although someone with the moniker of “Peter J.” has posted an online letter claiming credit and explaining Zeitgeist’s message to those who may have somehow failed to grasp the worldview that the video hammers home.

And what is that worldview, pray tell? Religions in general, and Christianity in particular, are primarily systems of social control. 9/11 was an inside job and the destruction of the WTC twin towers and building 7 were aided by controlled demolition. And finally, International Bankers, through the Federal Reserve and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), control our money and our future, leading to, ta da, the coming One World Government and the microchipping of everyone.

Exactly how all this fits together is left to the viewer’s imagination or, presumably, the film-maker’s hash pipe. Are those who manipulate Christianity for control purposes in cahoots with the Bankers, and were the Bankers in on the 9/11 caper? Zeitgeist sidesteps such logical questions through the use of the all-purpose term, “the elite,” a shadowy group of rich and powerful men who want nothing more than to enslave humanity and reap block-buster profits through the promotion of wars and financial crises.

For conspiracy buffs, this is all pretty standard fare, and, indeed, aficionados of the genre will find little new in “Zeitgeist.” The notions that most religions were originally a kind of solar worship, and that the Jesus Christ story recapitulated the mythos of numerous other “dying gods,” were floating around in the late 1700s. Fittingly, the video features a quote from Thomas Paine reducing Christianity to warmed-over sun worship, which was a daring bit of religion-baiting 200 years ago, albeit not so earth-shattering today.

The nefarious International Bankers meme has been propagating itself since at least the mid-1800s and has long been a mainstay of radical right-wing circles where it has often overlapped with mutterings about Jewish cabals.

The 9/11 truth segment of the video is, of course, of much more recent vintage, but, here too, it mostly repeats accusations that have gotten widespread play in the uber-skeptic milieu.

Breaking new factual ground is not what Zeitgeist is about, however. Rather, the video is a powerful and fast-acting dose of agitprop, hawking its conclusions as givens. Unfortunately, like most propaganda, it doesn’t play fair with its intended audience. At times, while watching it, I felt like I was getting Malcolm McDowell’s treatment in Clockwork Orange: eyes pried wide open while getting bombarded with quick-cut atrocity photos.

At other times, Zeitgeist engages in willful confusion by showing TV screen shots of network or cable news with voice-overs from unidentified people not associated with the news programs. If one weren’t paying close attention, the effect would be to confer the status and authority of TV news upon the words being spoken. Even when quotes or sound bites are attributed to a source, there’s no way to tell if they are quoted correctly or in context.

Late in the video, there’s a supposed quote from David Rockefeller, which, if genuine, would be an astounding confession of complicity in mass manipulation. But, of course, the quote is not sourced or dated, which renders it useless. (The video’s website does feature a Sources page, but a hodge-podge list of books, with no page numbers cited, is of little value for source verification.)

The over-all temper of the video is rather like the John Birch Society on acid, with interludes by Harry Smith. Incongruously, after spending nearly two hours trying to scare the bejeezis out of its viewers, Zeitgeist ends on an oddly upbeat note, telling us that Love — not Fear — is the answer, We are all One, and featuring sound-bites from Ram Dass and Carl Sagan.

It’s a shame, really, that Zeitgeist is, ultimately, such a mess. There are plenty of legitimate questions about what transpired on 9/11, just as there are plenty of shady doings in international finance or puzzling aspects of religious history, for that matter. And what is coming down in the name of National Security is truly unnerving. Yet, bundling them all together in disjointed fashion does justice to none of them. Time and again, Zeitgeist maximizes emotional impact at the expense of a more reasoned weighing of evidence. But, perhaps that’s the intention.

I’ve often pondered about what it might take to snap everyone out of the walking dream we collectively entered on 9/11/01. Just as the fall of the Berlin Wall provided the emotional pivot for the end of the Cold War, only a collective experience of an intensity equal to that of 9/11 might jolt us awake as to what is really happening in the corridors of power and certain undisclosed locations.

It’s my hunch that Zeitgeist is one attempt to provide such a jolt, and it does indeed pack a certain punch. Too bad it also runs off in three directions at once, and is so indiscriminate in its sources and overly certain of its conclusions. Zeitgeist may be powerful, but its power is tainted with some simplistic and pernicious memes that have already received more propagation than they deserve. The video’s producer does inform us that “It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth . . .”

Indeed. "

posted August 19, 2007 02:31 PM         

Perhaps there are conspiracies going on.....but perhaps too much paranoia and schizophrenia (in few cases).....could.....be drawing some of the wrong conclusions.

posted August 19, 2007 07:07 PM           

John the Bapstist's Son John, is the one I believe wrote Revelations..
and right there in plain site, has been sitting Jesus' Birthday 06-06-0006, the number is a man, man/woman is beast..

The sky is our mirror image..ah, but opposite..
you know the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other?
Our Soul in Heaven is the Angel form of each one of Us, here on Earth-Hell our human form is the Devil..we must conquer our human form, and connect to our True Self, the Soul, the Angel..everything has it's polar opposite, we must conquer, and balance, bring Harmony..

Why would we not have the date of Jesus' Birth, when we have so many other D.O.B. from that time period and before? Think about it..it's been sitting right in front of US all this time..
There was a show on the History channel that came very close to confirming this..the three wise men, the locations in the sky, tracked back to his time...

He was a Gemini-Butterfly, that is what I really think!

when we break everything down, all is very simple, it is our human brains that complicate everything!

posted August 20, 2007 06:11 PM           

LOve and Reverence to ALL. ...