A Review of Zeitgeist, The Movie Part II
July 20, 2007, Wausau, Wi — Last time I looked at the problems with many of the parallels claimed in Zeitgeist, The Movie, such as the movie’s attempt to link the Bible to astrological ages. Another example would be the claim that “when Jesus is asked by his disciples where the next Passover will be after he is gone, Jesus replies. Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in.” (Luke 22:10) The movie claims the man bearing a pitcher of water symbolizes the Age of Aquarius which will begin in 2150 AD. “This scripture” the movie claims “is by far one of the most revealing of the astrological references” for Jesus is saying “that after the age of Pisces will come the age of Aquarius.” While I agree this is revealing, what it reveals is the dishonesty of the movie.
While Luke 22:10 is accurately quoted, the disciple’s question is not. The movie makes Jesus’ answer refer to a time “after he is gone” to imply after the age of Pisces. Yet the question the disciples asked was of far more immediate concern. Verses 7-9 set the context of Jesus’ answer in verse 10. “(7)Then the day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread came, on which the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed. (8)So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover meal.’ (9)They asked him, “Where do you want us to prepare it?” As is clearly seen in these verses, the movies’ claim that the disciples were asking about “where the next Passover will be after he is gone” is simply false, they were asking about where they would eat that night!
Even if this was not a problem, the symbolism is wrong for as the movie describes it, Aquarius is “always pictured as a man pouring out a pitcher of water” yet in the Biblical passage the man is not pouring out water, but carrying it. Now if this were merely a symbolic reference as the movie claims, what would be the reason for getting the symbolism wrong? On the other hand, if the account were historical, then Jesus would say the man was carrying water if that was what he was actually doing.
The movie passes on from there to talk about the end times saying “the cartoonish depictions in the book of Revelation aside, the main source of this idea comes from Matthew 28:20 where Jesus says ‘I will be with you even to the end of the world.” The movie then makes a big deal of the word “world” being a mistranslation in the KJV “among many mistranslation” and that it should read as “age”.
It is unclear why the makers of the film choose to use, and then correct, the KJV at this point as opposed to citing a version that does render this as age, unless they were simply looking to make a more general attack on the reliability of the Bible. But regardless, there are far more serious problems with their overall claim. First notice how they dismiss Revelation as “cartoonish depictions.” The main problem is that Revelation did not fit the parallel they wish to find. Again this is one of the problems with such parallel based argument for it ignores everything that does not fit and focuses only on the matches.
Even more problematic is the use of Matthew 28, which the movie claims is the “main source” for our knowledge of the end times. This will come as a great surprise to most people who have read the Bible, for this passage is normally referred to as the Great Commission. Those looking for discussion of the end times would do far better in Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians 2, assuming of course they wanted to ‘set aside’ Revelations. Again the depictions of the end times in these other passages don’t fit the parallel the makers of the movie wish to make, so they are ignored.
Further problems plague the movie’s attempt to see Egypt as the primary foundation for Judaism and then later Christianity. While again some parallels exist, the differences are even more pronounced. In fact, a major question for secular scholars is where did Moses get the laws that he gave to the Jewish people (assuming of course one rejects that they came from God). Some have suggested that he learned then from his father-in-law Jethro, a priest of Midian. The nice thing about this theory is that little is known about Jethro’s beliefs so there is little to conflict with the theory.
The movie further attempts to justify this claim by saying that the Ten Commandments were “taken outright form spell 125 in the Egyptian book of the Dead.” But even in the video Spell 125 has over 40 “commandments” before it fade to the next shot. Is it really that surprising that a moral code would contain prohibition against theft, murder, and lying? Interestingly while the shots of spell 125 show certain commands highlighted, to give the impression that these are copied in the Ten Commandments, some of the highlighted passage are not in the Ten Commandments. For example, “15) I have not laid waste to ploughed land” and “35) I have not cursed the king.” Again only the things that match are counted while the differences are ignored.
More next time.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Part I Part III Responses I Responses II
Iraq War – Should we Leave? Part IV
In the last installment in this series I looked at how the those against the Vietnam war were an important part of North Vietnam’s strategy for defeating the United States and how our record since of cutting and running when faced with casualties, has taught our enemies, rightly or wrongly, that they do not have to win militarily. All they have to do to defeated the United States, is drag things out and wait for the casualties to rise and the anti-war forces will be able to turn public opinion against the war so that we will leave. Thus al Zawahiri‘s statement that “that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media” and Osama bin Laden references to the United State as the “weak horse.”
While the defeat of the US ended our involvement, the Indochinese people did not get the life, peace, and independence the anti-war activists had claimed would come. Quite to the contrary for those not only in South Vietnam, but Laos and Cambodia as well, the nightmare was just beginning. The spread of communism into the south was accompanied by tens of thousands of executions of our allies that we had abandoned. Hundreds of thousands were place into “re-education camps” where they were starved and tortured. Forced relocation and other techniques were used to bring the South Vietnamese into submission. Conditions were so bad that tens of thousands of people sought to flee the country by going onto the open sea in makeshift boats, where untold numbers died at sea in the exodus of the boat people.
Yet the worst was to come in Cambodia. When the communist gained control, they put in place the most sweeping social controls ever seen. The cities were emptied virtually overnight and people were forced into the country side. In what has come to be called the Killing fields, 2 million people, nearly one-third of the population of Cambodia before the takeover, were killed. The entire country essentially became one large concentration camp.
In the face of all this suffering, the anti-war movement who had been so concerned about the plight of the South Vietnamese during our involvement in Vietnam, for the most part turned a blind-eye. The fact that things not only got worse after we left, but got much worst was simply ignored. When it was finally acknowledged, often it was blamed on the United States in some bizarre twist of logic that if we had not tried to prevent the communists form taking over, perhaps they would have been nicer.
Again there are similar echo’s of Vietnam from those who protest the war in Iraq. The Crawford Update web site said, “the Iraqi people will give thanks when the unemployment rate of 60% goes down, the unannounced house raids on innocent homes stop and the last US troops have left their country.” U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) demanded an end to the American occupation of Iraq and the many injustices against the Iraqi people. One can only wonder why, if these people are really that concerned about the Iraqi people why they did not support the overthrow of Saddam, whose records of evil and crimes against the Iraqi people have been confirmed many times over with the discoveries of mass graves.
If the anti-war activist get what they seek and we do leave before the new Government of Iraq can defend itself, giving the terrorist a victory in “the greatest battle of Islam in this era,” will they still be concerned for the Iraqi people? When the terrorist begin to systematically slaughter all those who tried to help us, will they still be concerned for the Iraqi people? Or will they simply explain it away or even ignore it as the anti-war activist ignored the killings of those who had supported the US in Vietnam?
One of the problems is the changing nature of the claims. Now we are frequently told that “the sanctions were working” and if only we had let them work Saddam was contained. Yet this ignores the fact that even before 9/11 there were concerns that Saddam was effectively undermining the sanctions. These concerns were confirmed following the toppling of Saddam with discovery that the Oil for Food program had been thoroughly corrupted by Saddam and he was funneling billions to undermine the sanctions.
But even if the sanction were working, many who are anti-war now were anti-sanction then. In 2000, Hollywood stars now known for being strongly against the war, were placing ads in the New York Times demanding to “LIFT THE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ON IRAQ NOW!” Ralph Nader and Rep. Dennis Kucinich were holding rallies against sanctions which were labeled “the ten-year long war against Iraqi civilians.” Noted leftists Ramsey Clark wrote to the U.N. in February 2001 that “Widespread and growing anger at the genocide sanctions and the criminal assaults against Iraq will turn into rage, violence and war unless they are stopped. The very first purpose of the U.N. is to prevent this scourge of war.” All of this while Saddam was filling mass graves.
While the anti-war forces like to cloak their arguments in concern for the people of Iraq, the history of Vietnam, and the recent history of Iraq tell a far different story. While their arguments have historically shown a great deal of inconsistency, there is only one thing that is consistent; they always that it is the United States which is at fault.
A Review of Zeitgeist, The Movie Part I
July 13, 2007, Wausau, Wi — Recently, a friend asked me to check out a web site that was asking for help addressing some of the claims made in an anti-Christian movie posted on the web. After watching the first part of Zeitgeist, The Movie the first thing that struck me, besides the obvious errors, was how dated the movie was. Its main argument stems from pointing out parallels between Christian beliefs and other belief systems with the conclusion, implied or blatant that there must therefore be a link. Such reasoning was popular among skeptics in the first half of the 20th century and earlier, but as more serious work was done, such argument were discarded, particularly after Samuel Sandmel’s article Parallelamania in the 1960s.
The main flaw in such arguments is that they are selective and thus superficial. They are selective in that they take only those things that match, and ignore differences. This leads them to be superficial in that the mere appearance of a parallel however weak is taken as a parallel. The net result is that you can find meaning and significance where it does not exist. For example, consider the parallels that have been noted between the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. The problem scholars found is that the more they looked for parallels the more they found them, even between things that clearly did not have any links. Thus scholars long ago concluded that such parallels were pretty much meaningless.
However a more serious problem occurs with the films choice of parallels. Most of the first part of the film is linked in one way or another to Jesus being born on December 25th and how this links in with winter solstice celebrations. The problem is that one thing pretty much all scholars agree on, skeptical and believers alike, is that Jesus was not born on December 25th. The NT describes the shepherds in the fields with their sheep at the time of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) which would have been highly unlikely on December 25, and points more to the spring. The reason we celebrate December 25th is because a couple of centuries after the birth of Christ the church set that date deliberately to replace the Winter solstice celebrations, so of course there is a parallel to the winter solstice, but not for the reasons implied in the film. With this fact alone most of the first half of this part of the film falls apart.
Another problematic parallel is the movies’ claim that the cross is actually an astrological cross, symbolic of the zodiac. While again there may be a parallel here it is hardly meaningful, and in fact goes straight to the heart of the problem with such reasoning. What the movie ignores is that there is a very good reason Christians use the symbol of the cross and it has nothing at all to do with astrology. Christians refer to the cross because Jesus was crucified on a cross. In short, the cross is a factor in Christianity because it was used in a Roman method of execution, not because of any astrological meaning. Very much the same thing can be said about the movies claim that the crown of thorns represents sun rays.
But even some of the movies parallels don’t quite work out. The movie tries to make the claim that the Bible is really an astrological text and the biblical term “age” refers to the astrological ages such as Tarsus, Aries, Pisces, and Aquarius. The movie makes a point that Jesus was born at just about the time of the beginning of the Age of Pisces (1 AD – 2150 AD). But it also claims that Moses “represents the new age of Aries” and that the reason he broke the tables was because the Jews were worshiping a bull, the symbol of Taurus the previous age. They were in the age of Aries and that is why Jews blow the rams horn.
The idea that Jews use the rams horn because they raised sheep and the horn could be made into a instrument is not really considered. But a more serious problem is that the movie lists the Age of Aries as 2150BC to 1 AD. But even the earliest dates given by scholars for the Exodus, the mid 15th century BC, is over 650 years after the age began. But no problem Moses was in the age and that is close enough.
Similar problems arise with the claim that Jesus represents the sign of Pisces whose symbol is 2 fish. Predictably the movie points to the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 thousand. Yet interestingly while they show the text “we only have five loaves of bread and 2 Fish – Matt 14:17” the narrator says “Jesus feeds five thousand people with bread and two fish.” Note the number of loaves of bread is not mentioned by the narrator, while in the text five is spelled out, but not two. Why? The simple reason is that the fish make the parallel they seek, while the bread does not. Wouldn’t a better explanation for the two fish be that, fish were a common food source for that area and in fact if someone would have food, it probably would have been bread and fish?
Similarly the movie claims that people do not know what the fish symbol on their cars is actually “pagan astrological symbolism for the sun kingdom during the sign of Pisces.” Of course the real explanation does not fit their parallel, and so is ignored. Early Christians adopted the fish symbol, not for any astrological meaning, but because the Greek word for Fish, IXTHUS, is an acronym for Greek words “Jesus Christ God’s Son Savior.”
More next time.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Part II Part III Responses I Responses II
Iraq War – Should we Leave? Part III
In the last note in this series I looked at the history of our defeat in Vietnam. Like the war in Iraq, many on the anti-war side saw the United States as an invading power and that if we would only leave, the conflict would end. As one leaflet calling for mass demonstrations put it, “Our goal is to force the government to get out of Indochina and allow the Indochinese people the life, peace, and independence they deserve.” Others saw Vietnam as a civil war and we should not get in the middle of it. All opponents seemed to agree that there was no way to win. All seem to portray the people of Vietnam, not as threaten by a communist takeover, but threaten by United State Army which they commonly spit on and label baby killers. I did not enter the Air Force until 1975, just at the end of this period so I missed the worst of it, but can remember being told not to wear my uniform off base as it was not safe.
The North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, who was the first high-ranking communist to enter Saigon in 1975, had a different view. According to Tin, the limited nature of the war, and the anti-war movement were key to the North’s victor. As Tin later wrote, “If Johnson had granted Westmoreland’s requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.” As Tin explained, concerning the bombing that was done, it “was expanded in slow stages under Johnson and it didn’t worry us. We had plenty of time to prepare alternative routes and facilities.”
As for the anti-war Movement, Tin wrote, “Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement.” Particularly encouraging were the visit to Vietnam of anti-war activist such Jane Fonda. These visits, “gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses.” The North Vietnamese leadership saw the anti-war movement as “part of it’s war- making capability, and we [turned] that power in our favor.”
Al Qaeda also has taken note of the lesson of Vietnam. Their second in command, al Zawahiri has said that “The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam-and how they ran and left their agents-is noteworthy.” Noteworthy indeed. When the last helicopter left the US embassy in Saigon tens of thousands of those who had supported and worked with, and counted on the US were left behind. Many were killed, tens of thousands were executed. Hundreds of thousands were place into “re-education camps” where they were horribly tortured, and not just the tough interrogation methods the liberal media currently likes to labels as torture, but actual torture.
Like the North Vietnamese, al Zawahiri also knows that the most important battles for them will not be on the battlefields. Like North Vietnam, al Qaeda has no hope of actually defeating the U.S. militarily. Thus he has said “that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.” For similar reasons Osama bin Laden believes that al Qaeda will defeat the United State because, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” He clearly sees the United States as a weak horse that runs away when things get tough. In addition to Vietnam he cites the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon 1983 where “two explosions made you leave.”
He also cites “Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American soldiers into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal.”
So now, the Democrats proclaiming defeat, and demanding withdrawal out of Iraq not only encourage our enemies, it demoralizes our potential allies. Al Zawahiri’s statement about how we left Vietnam was not just a message to his supporters, it was a warning to any who might be thinking about supporting the United States. One of the things that virtually everyone agrees on is that to succeed in Iraq will take the support of the Iraqi people. But if you where an Iraqi, would you be willing to step forward and risk not only your life, but the lives of your family, on the belief that the United States will not leave Iraq as it left Vietnam, and left Lebanon, and left Somalia? When Iraqis see news reports of Americans calling for us to get out of Iraq now, and the Majority leader of the Senate saying that the U.S. has already lost, how can that not be seen as a confirmation of Osama bin Laden’s claim that America is the “weak horse.”
If Iraq is added to the list of places were the US cut and ran, then just where will we fight the terrorists? Afghanistan? If so, why wouldn’t those seeking to defeat us in Iraq, simply follow us to Afghanistan with the belief that when the death toll climbs there, so will the calls to get out of Afghanistan. Why would the Afghans risk their lives to support us given our record of cutting and running as soon as the casualties climb? In short leaving Iraq would be the greatest confirmation Bin Laden could hope for, that we really are the weak horse. Sure one can argue that he is wrong, and that we will fight, but the question remains, where?
A Review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion Part II
June 29, 2007, Wausau, Wi — In part I of my review of Richard Dawkins’, “The God Delusion” I looked at three errors in Dawkins view of religion. Somewhat more surprising, however, is Dawkins view of atheism in America. He claims that “The status of atheists in America today is on a par with that of homosexuals fifty years ago. ” He goes on to claim that atheist are so under siege that they “are reluctant to ‘come out.’” (p 4) Does Dawkins really believe this? In the 1970s when I was an atheist, it never even crossed my mind that I was some sort of persecuted minority, or that I needed to hide my rejection of a belief in God. Since then, if anything atheist has only become more accepted.
Dawkins goes on to say that “atheists are a lot more numerous, especially among the educated elite, than many realize.” (p. 4) While I have no doubt Dawkins is correct that many of the “educated elite” are atheist [and most of rest are either agnostics or simply support secularism], I don’t think that this would come as much of a surprise to many, but rather is pretty common knowledge. In fact this is one of the reason his previous claim that atheists are a persecuted minority is so silly, for these elites not only dominate Universities, but also the news and entertainment media, and much of government, and they use their power and position to spread secular views, and attack and restrict religious views wherever they can, and they have been quite successful.
More importantly, Dawkins clearly sees the fact that so many of these educated elites are atheist as strong evidence that he is correct. After all if these smart people believe it, it must be true. However for those like myself, “educated elite” is not a positive term, but a negative one that refers to those who are so caught up in theory and academia that they long ago cut themselves off from reality.
One of the hard lessons that those in the physical sciences like physics and chemistry have historically struggled with is that nature often acts in ways that one would not expect. The history of science is full of scientists who had really nice theories of how nature should work, only to have them dashed to pieces when they were tested. This is a good thing as it move our knowledge forward. However as one moves out of the physical sciences and into the social sciences the ability to actually test one’s theories becomes increasingly difficult. More over the ability of the researcher influence the results increases. Yet this difficulty has not tempered the “educated elite” creation of new and novel theories.
For example, until recently it was the norm for the “educated elite” to claim that men and woman are basically the same. Any behavior differences we observer were simply the result of how they are raised. Now for those who were not fortunate enough afford such an education the ideal the men and women are the same was always pretty silly. But then the educated elite are not the elite for nothing.
Even though recent medical research, particularly on the brain, has thoroughly debunked this claim and has clearly show that, to the great astonishment of many of the elite, that men and women are different, this falsehood that they are the same continues to shaped much of the social debate in this country. After the differences were demonstrated, many of the elites simply moved from the view that the differences don’t exist, to the view that they are not that important.
For example, the idea that because of these differences, a father and a mother play different roles in the raising of a child is still questioned by many of “educated elite” who continue to maintain that these roles are completely interchangeable. It really does not matter if you have a mother and father, a mother and mother, father and father, or whatever combination you desire, the only thing that is important is that the child is loved. I have often hear the “educated elite” characterize the claim that the best way to raise a child is with loving mother and a loving father in a stable committed relationship as a bigoted and narrow minded religious view, and I should not seek to impose my religious views on society because of the separation of church and state.
In short, what defines so much of the “educated elite” at least beyond the physical sciences, is they have constructed a world view that is largely immune to actually testing and even when parts are disproven, this is not allowed to have much impact on the worldview itself. Yet because it is labeled “science” this world view is somehow seen as automatically true, differing views are then rejected as religious and therefore false.
Where this comes into play for atheism is that this is pretty much what atheist like Dawkins have done. They construct a world view based on assumptions that cannot be tested or proven, but must just be accepted, and then when God does not fit into the world view they have constructed, they conclude He does not exist.
Could it be that the vast majority believe in God for the same reason that the vast majority believe that men and women are different, and that the educated elite reject God for pretty much the same reason they once rejected the idea that men and women are different?
Part I Part III Part IV Part V
