Zeitgesit movie is a documentary film released online presenting political and social concerns of the new mellienium.
The film starts with the speech of a spiritual leader followed by musically synchronied clips of war and explotions culminating with the collapse of the twin towers during 9/11.The Intro edns with George’Carlin’s monologue on religion .
I will focus on the main conculsions of the film :
Part ONE:
First that Christianity derives from a Gnostic myth .This is not new to us.We know already that SCHOLARS from medieval times from Socrates himself and continuing with the Renaissance and the work of Girodano Bruno .They wrote intensvly about the gnostic influences of the Christian faith.If we think of historians like Eliade ,Culianu(gnosticism) or even Mosche Idel(judaic mysticism) we can trace clear evidence of these influences.At the same time Christianity has its roots in prepeganism and paganism as well.Fraizer ,the American antrhopologist, talks and tries to explain the origins of religoius beliefs of ancient tribes.He speaks of Totemism as one of the the first religious forms .
Freud goes even further into this matter and tries to explain monotheism and Christianity as well.In his book ‘Totem and Taboo” he makes interesting assertions like CHRISTINAITY IS BASED ON A COLLECTIVE MURDER of THE FATHER made BY THE SONS OF THE TRIBE beacuse of the incest taboo and also from the fear and repsect of the father.Feeling gulity because of the murder of the Father they invented a belief system called TOTEMISM invented FURTHER ON THEY INVENTED Son /Sun Religion as well:Christianity.
The root of the judaic monthiesm is dervied from one of the most ancient and first monotehistic pagansim beliefs :from the Egiptenian God Iten(THE SUN GOD).This also coincides with the Book of Exodus when Moses led the hebrew slaves out of Egypt across the red Sea .This was the moment when Moses introduced the new religion to the jewish people.Until then they had pagan beliefs . Moses brought them the gift of a new religion but not as we think today or as it is wrriten in the Bibile.It was a violent war that occur because people of Israel refused the new religion calling it the faith of the enemy.(The Egiptenans).Last but not least, the monotheistic God of Moses prevailed but with lot of blood .The Book of Exodus has this missing part of the ” struggle “.Freud remainds us of this historical gap within the Old Testament.Freud is not the only one to see and mention the gasps in the bibile .Scholars like Newton ,Pascal mentioned the historical gasps of the bibile(both the Old and New Testament) and had the courage to question the facts .
Nietzsche in his book “The Antichrist “speaks about the death of paganism and the new born Chrisitan religion and its consequences.In the preface of the book ”Antichrist”‘ , he says ” “Let us look one another in the face. We are Hyperboreans “.Nietzsche “cleverly refers to the Hyperboreans to indirectly extol the heritage of pre-Christian, paganism as compared to the deficient “southerliness” of the modern Judeo-Christian.But what are are his arguments for that .
Nietsche expresses hiss dissatisfaction with modernity. He disliked the contemporary “lazy peace,” “cowardly compromise,” “tolerance,” and “resignation.Christinanity is the embodiment of this spiritual negaitve traits.
The concept of moral Christianity is in fact what he calls THE WILL TO POWER.Concepts like good,bad,and happiness are in close relationship to THE WILL TO POWER. “What is good? — All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? — All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? — The feeling that power increases — that a resistance is overcome”Nietzsche ’s words and thoughts are provokative and shocking “What is more harmful than any vice? — Active sympathy for the ill–constituted and weak — Christianity”Nietzsche traces the will to power is in the politcal affrimation of sympahty .Christianity is not innocent to that and the will to power is what we call today politics .For thousand of years the Vatican(and not only) and religious leaders make “‘good” politics in the name of the weak.Nietzsche goes even further into the matter.Nietzsche went on to say that mankind, out of fear, has bred a weak, sick type of human. He blamed Christianity for demonizing strong, higher humans like Pascal .who was devrived by Christianity’s teaching of the original sin .
Mankind for Nietzsche is in a decadent state.Mankind is corrup .Power corrupts and where is high power there is absolute corruption.Depravity results because ” … nihilistic values dominate under the holiest names.The Christian God reflects Christianity’s decadence.The Christian God is a “… declaration of war against life, against nature, against the will to live.It is a political construct in order to exercise the WILL TO POWERR OVER the sinner ,the weak ,the marginal .It is a political construct of the few for the most because the Kingdom of Heaven is for Evyone but only few can enter it.This God is a “… formula for every slander against ‘this world,’ for every lie about the ‘beyond’!”The absolute evil of this poltical mechanism is its clergy .The Vatican (but not only) is no strange or innocent to all these things.Nietszche also acuses Paul for falsifing history of Christinaity ,the history of Israel,and of mankind. by making them all seem to be a preparation for the crucifixion. “The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all natural in the instincts — all that is healthy, all that is life–promoting, all that guarantees a future now arouses mistrust.”The meaning of life is that there is no meaning to present life. One lives for life in the beyond. By offering immortal life after death to everyone, Christianity appealed to everyone’s egoism. The laws of nature would be broken for the salvation of everyone. “…[I]t is to this pitiable flattery of personal vanity that Christianity owes its victory — it is with this that it has persuaded over to its side everything ill–constituted, rebellious–minded, under–privileged, all the scum and refuse of mankind.Politcians used it to led revolutions and it was the best tool because Christinaity is ‘the art of the holy lie” and in its history” attains its ultimate perfection “He also concludes that Jesus was the first and the last Christian.
