This is the first chapter of the first Zeitgeist movie. They disassemble Christianity like it is an old automobile. This was a transformational segment for many people who were once under the spell of Christendom. I saw this twenty years ago, in 1994. After seeing Zeitgeist, I left the Republican party and Christianity. Since then I have studied ancient history and the world's religions. I had to process the PTSD from the Persian Gulf War, in which I was a Marine. My world knowledge was weak. All I knew about the Abrahamic religions was Christianity, and I was a Christian for twenty years. I had to understand the core issues between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. I already knew a lot about Buddhism, and liked it. I undertook the practice of yoga, and became a certified instructor of Ashtanga. I learned about the Hindu, Jain, and Sikh religions. I learned about the Zoroastrian religion, and the Bahai Faith. And then I learned about the ancient religions of the Near East and Mediterranean. Here is what I believe I have learned about the Abrahamic religions. Judaism - The Jews borrowed their fables and folk lore from the Egyptians, Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The grew up between them and were dominated by several of them over the millennia. The Northern Kingdom was decimated by the Assyrians and the northern "ten tribes" were hauled off and never heard from again. The Temple of Solomon was later destroyed by Babylon, and the Jews of the Southern Kingdom hauled off to Babylon for 70 years. King Cyrus of the Persians, a Zoroastrian, set them free after defeating the Babylonians, and let them rebuild the second temple. The Jews then rewrote much of their back story so they could have a valid claim to their land. The wrote the story of how God gave it to Abraham. They borrowed themes from Hindu, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian religions. The learned to write from the Greeks, and adopted Greek language. They retooled their stories, changed their names, and blended it in with their oral traditions. They later fought against the Greeks and then the Romans, though many of the Jews submitted to both. Christianity. Christianity is a Sun God religion. They anthropomorphized the sun to be God's son, and made Jesus a God. Whether or not Jesus actually existed as a human is questionable. There were many cults in the Roman Empire, and the term Christ was used in other religions as the "anointed one" or the "enlightened one". The Romans were adept at blending religions to fabricate new Gods to please the populace from either side. The Messianic Jews fought bitterly against the Greeks and the Romans. They believed a messiah would come and lead them to victory and their own kingdom. The Romans were tired of fighting the Jews, as they were wide spread in Rome. They summoned General Vespasian, who had "erased" the Druid people and culture, and ordered him to do the same with Israel. Messianic Jews were said by Nero to have started the fire in Rome. Nero died, and Vespasian was made Emperor. His son General Titus destroyed Israel with Roman armies. They took the treasure and the Torah from the Jews' temple, and used it to write the Gospels. They promulgated them across the empire. They told the story of Jesus, the Jewish messiah who came and taught the people that the priests of the temple were corrupt, and the law of Moses was obsolete. Jesus taught men to obey Caesar and to be pacifist. He taught men to be faithful in their station in life and their reward would come in the eternal kingdom, the afterlife. This became the explanation for why the Romans decimated Judah and razed the temple, killing millions of Jews and wiping their nation off the face of the earth, taking possession the Levant. After a couple of hundred years of this, they fabricated the formal religion of Christianity and made it the state religion of Rome, a religion they could control. They erased anything that competed with Christianity, and forced it on the masses at the edge of the sword. They canonized the Bible and moved the capital of Rome to Constantinople. Eventually the empire split along the lines of language, Greek vs Latin. The religion split with it, birthing the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, both of which lasted for a thousand years. Islam. There was a prophet named Mani who claimed to be a prophet of Jesus, the last prophet, and the seal of the prophets. He blended Zoroastrian and Christianity and was popular in Rome, Persia, India, and China. He had a large following. The Romans squashed this religion (Manichaeism) when they created Christianity as their state religion. At the same time, Persia adopted Zoroastrianism as their official religion and Manichaeism declined. A few hundred years later, Muhammad came and they wrote the Koran. They believed that the Jews had corrupted their religion, and then the Romans had corrupted Christianity. They believed that Islam was God's true religion and the religion of Abraham. They gave Muhammad the monikers of The Last Prophet and The Seal of the Prophets. They used Manichaeism as material for Islam and kept the stories of the Jews and Jesus, many of which were destroyed by Rome.

Same as it ever was, so its a cosmic narrative The pure mind see's everything as sacred The best stories always resonate in the heart The treasure loses no value whether stolen or misrepresented... The essence of a thing does not reside in is it is us loved this posting though thank you

Wow, Zeitgeist again. I love those movies. Thanks. July 2022.

this video is so devastating I love it

Well, I find it fascinating and some of the points are astounding. I must have been living under a theological rock but that's what an Irish Catholic upbringing and schooling will do for you. And yet, it is simply naive to think that something so grand as the Spirit could be constrained, reduced and restricted to a single 'cultus.' Here, Science can inform us about how the progression of knowledge moves towards Truth and not away from it. In this way, interfaith dialogue is confirming the Spirit's saturation in the World's cults.

Excellent.

The Virgin Birth story, as well as all of the other details of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection, appear in MANY cultures, not just in Egypt's.

very interesting & informative

every time he says "the age of aquarius" , I hear just a couple of seconds of the song in my head :)

there are times when I think it would have been interesting to be born in an earlier time(say roman empire, maybe) , but when more thought is given I truly believe I was born too early. it will take centuries if not eons to rid humanity of religion. but what a wonderful place it could be:)

Part 3 may be scary for some bcuz the rfid actually was banned in several states anyways but part 1 is a must watch

Everyone needs to watch this shit

There was a video circulating on Facebook that expressed it being "The Greatest STORY ever told!" not the most import historical document imperative to know, "STORY"!

I'm agnostic as to a historical Jesus and lean towards mythicism, but I have lots of questions and am trying to research the scholarship. I legit want to know if Jesus lived. My sources for Mythicism are Price, Carrier and Murdock;for Historicity I use Ehrman, Crossan; and quasi agnostics are Avalos and Burton Mack.

Watching this on Winter Solstice Dec 2016!

Share widely and also be aware that this information also destroys the foundations of the Islamic Myth criticism of which can be an extremely dangerous pastime.

I wonder why most scholars haven't speak more openly about this. why are they afraid of?

A good video. It is all Astronomical.

There's an astronomical problem with the "Southern Cross" part around @ 8:36 - the Southern Cross is visible from lower latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, but that occurs in May/June, apparently around the SUMMER solstice, not the winter solstice...

"Earth on a wobbling axis" idea needs to be re-thought for a FLAT EARTH.

Jesus wasn't born on December 25th. The December 25h is a pagan day, the sun of the day , the smallest of the year.

Well done ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

Well, as Matthew 13:35 says "I will utter things hidden since the beginning of the world". Christianity is simply the teaching of the Self and Natural Law. Exoteric Christianity is the solar practice, though.

And here for a different perspective: "From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ", Second Edition Paperback - July 11, 2000. Paula Fredriksen

Did you do research on gods? Horus's father was another god, Osiris. Horus was the god of war and hunting. In some other stories, Horus is the brother of Isis.

Now people will just dismiss me as a butthurt Christian: But I've found a hell of a lot of flaws, I only just started listing them towards the end of the video. And I haven't looked into the astronomical things. But the whole Horus vs Jesus vs Dinoynus vs Whateva thing has been debunked several times. Jesus' crucifixion is the one thing that religious and non-religious scholars and researchers can agree happened. I forgot a lot of the other shit before I typed this, but looking at the dark ages? Please do some research of the causes of this. The Crusades? They're a bad thing? After 400 years of countries such as Iraq, Egypt and Spain being taken over by Islamic Caliphates a retaliation is a bad thing? Please look into it people, have a look from both perspectives. Take everything with a grain of salt, if you still think they're a bad thing after looking at the history so be it. Same goes for the inquisition, over 430 years they killed 5000 people. Thats fucking tiny in comparison to anything today. It was much more fair and judicial system that that of those ages and people would love to be trialed by the inquistion in those days. Edit: Also the Justin Martyr quotes inside the video: It takes the quote and the following text out of context. The whole thing so far can be summarized by this quote: "If you explain something to a person who doesn't truly understand it and then draw for them the conclusions, they're inclined to believe you in the absence of an opposing argument." I hope when I get to the next part its not going to be as bad. Inb4 people just type butthurt Christian instead of actually trying to have some non-biased research into the above points.

Where is this story about Horus and Seth comes from exactly please? I know a little bit egyptian myths and not this one. Seth is not the god of the darkness nor night but of the desert and the violence.

religious, agnostics and atheist are basically the same haha

A lot of this is so wrong. but here and there there are correct bits.