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zeitgeist

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Theinformant

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Answer yourself these three questions before you view this video on the link below.

1. Are you open minded?
2. Do you believe anything is possible?
3. Do you believe that we do not know everything?

Keep these questions in mind when you are viewing the information on this video.

ATTENTION:
View this video link at your own risk. It is not provocative but it is controversial.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
 
This to me this is how they get people involved in cults. I believe it is in line with people like David Karish, Jim Jones, The moonies and others, if you notice first in starts with images that very easily can hyptomis someone or put someone into a sort of trance. This is diffenetly not for Christians especially youth and children or even new converts to watch. I don't see any value in this for anybody to watch.
 
I stuck through most of this, but it was heavy slogging. It got pretty repetitive and boring. Like most propaganda it throws in some facts along with lots of nonsense in the hope that you will buy into the nonsense because of the presence of facts.

As I suspect few Christians will stick it out as long as I did, I don't know how much response you will get. You really have to turn off your brain to watch it and that is unfortunate because it is quite well done.

I am not sure of who you are, your past experiences or knowledge of what Christianity really is. The person who made the video has some knowledge, but that is a dangerous thing. They do not understand scripture, the nature of God and the message of Christianity.

First off the filmmaker denies that Jesus even existed. This makes it all one big conspiracy from the very beginning. The person who would gain from this is missing. The early church was not institutionalized as it is today. There were no appeals for money or people living extravagant lifestyles. The only thing that early Christians got was persecution which is well documented both inside the church and from outside the church. The "witnesses" to Jesus suffered and all apostles were martyred except one. Not one had anything to gain by lying. They had lots to lose by sticking to their story.

If someone was crucifying you or feeding you to lions then the temptation would be very strong to deny your faith. Yet Christianity has got to its present state because it has thrived when it has been most persecuted. The biggest threat to Christianity today is from indifference and not persecution.

Because the filmmakers deny scriptural truth they lose the essence of the whole thing. It don't see the big picture because they are so busy at looking at the parts and selectively at that. The Bible is big on parallel themes and motifs, not because they are reinventing themselves as is suggested, but because it is part of the big picture. God planned it that way. The Bible is also rich on prophecy, but it you do not believe in the Bible then you can deny the prophetic nature which is too bad because you miss out on essential truths.

Despite what the narrator says Christianity is not a rehash of old religions, particularly Egyptian mythology. It stands apart and that is its appeal. Christianity is the only religion based on relationship. Judaism and Islam are based on laws. Christianity isn't. Despite the cute cartoon of Moses with the Ten Commandments, it isn't about a list of shall nots anymore. It isn't about fear of damnation and punishment. Although these things exist, they are not the essence of Christianity.

Christianity is about having a personal relationship with God. God made the universe and all things in it. He exists outside of space and time. He made us for a purpose, to commune with us. He desires to have a relationship with us and it isn't to dominate us. He could have done that but he chose not to. Instead he gave us free will and this means that we are free to believe or not believe. We are free to do it our way or his way.

The result of doing it our way is sin which leads to pain and suffering for us and those around us. God did not make sin and does not desire us to suffer. God wants to restore that relationship and wants us to realize that his way is best (but not mandatory). When we come to this realization he knows that we will acknowledge him for who he is and we will desire to be in a relationship with him. The foundation of that relationship is love. He wants us to love him the way he loves us and to do it of our own free will.

The Bible is not so much as how-to guide as a revelation of his character and a history of his intervention to lead us to a point where we can "get it". The final part of this was for God to enter into the universe and to become a mortal being. This is not something he just did. It is something that he knew would be necessary from the beginning.

Jesus is not only the cornerstone of our faith, but the cornerstone of God's revelation of himself. He did not choose to do it in a big bombastic way. He chose to do it on a very personal level in a backwater part of the world and to have it grow from there.

Christians are not different from non-Christians in most respects, certainly we are no better. The big difference is that we have God living in us, in the form of his Holy Spirit. This is something which cannot be seen or verified, but it is real to us. We have no doubts and we can face persecution even though we did not see Jesus in person. This is an undeniable truth and a reality to all Christians that can never be appreciated by a non-Christian. It is like an inside joke. We get it and a non-Christian never will. I call it a joke because it is seen as foolishness by others, but it is the ultimate truth to us and gives us meaning and purpose.

I do not pretend to say that Christianity is perfect. That would be a lie. Religious zeal has done lots of harm, but that does not make it wrong. It just makes the people who are overzealous wrong.

I was an atheist for the first thirty years of my life. I put my faith in science and rationalism. But I was not without a god. I had merely given something else the place of God. I now see that that was wrong. I still strongly believe in science and rationalism. My faith did not make me turn off my brain.

There really isn't such a thing as an atheist. Everyone believes in something. You just have to find out what you believe in and go from there. I believe that there is something very good about people at the core of their being. It drives us to create and to do great things. I believe that we want to do the right thing and are made to love and to receive love.

Biology can explain some things, but not everything. We are more than the sum of our parts. Intelligence cannot be quantified. Thought and feeling have no dimension that can be measured. Do they not exist then? I think therefore I am.

Love serves no biological function. It drives us to do more than to nurture our young. It pulls us together as a society and makes us unique. It is a drive that is greater than hunger or thirst. Without love people give up hope and act like animals or just die. Biologists will tell you that our purpose is to pass on our genetic material to our offspring. It sounds attractive, but it gives life no meaning beyond this. It does not explain why a human would run into a burning building to save a complete stranger thus possibly spoiling his chance to pass on his genetic material.

I do not know who you are or where to begin, but you need to assess what you believe and why you believe it. You need to challenge yourself and not accept dead end answers. An example of this would be saying that it all began with a Big Bang. This is simplistic and is a denial of the laws of thermodynamics. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. So where did it all come from? What is the essence of all things?

The Bible has some answers but it is vague about some things, perhaps deliberately so. Creation can be viewed literally, but not all scripture is literal. Many people including me do not take the Creation story literally. Many scientists are Christian. They see no contradiction between believing in Evolution and Christ. I don't. Science is not a threat to faith. It gives us a better appreciation of who God is when we look at the building blocks of the universe or the human genome.

This video pokes fun of some Christians who in an attempt to be consistent with their worldview take unnecessary and outlandish positions. This is risky and foolish and avoidable. They are letting their religious zeal get the best of them.

To be a Christian we need to believe some things. These do not include taking the Bible literally and trying to explain everything. The Bible is quite clear there are mysteries that God has kept hidden from us. We weren't meant to have all the pieces of the puzzle.

These people have been easy fodder for critics of the faith as this video is only keen to illustrate. We are not all simple mind controlled freaks. Some of us are thinking, caring people. Never confuse the message with the messenger.

It is easier to convict an atheist than an agnostic. An atheist has built his position on what he considers to be sound argument. Therefore they have by definition entertained the idea that there was a God, before discounting it. This means that they are open to discussion and argument.

Ironically, science may come to the rescue of theologians. Quantum mechanics deals with particles and what happens to them as we approach infinity. Mathematically there has to be an entity at infinity which exists outside of the universe. Scientists refer to it as the Singularity. So if there is an entity outside of the universe which is known to act on the universe, who is it? What is his nature? Science may be able to prove that God needs to exist, but we can never discover his nature through science because he exists apart from the universe. This is why God did things the way he did. It is a one way street. He can act on us, but we cannot act on him.

A scientific worldview and a Christian worldview are not incompatible. The complement each other quite nicely. We do not have to compromise our beliefs at all or try to get the facts to fit our worldview. They come together quite nicely all on their own. As with most things when we step in we mess them up. It is the same with Christianity. When we try make it fit we make a mockery of it and this film exploits that weakness.

Blessings,
Dunamite
 
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