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Zeitgeist - 220 Page Source Guide

This half-ass attempt at an article is a way to easily respond to emails, forum posts, etc where TZM members (which seem to be the only Zeitgeist fans, the movies aren't the movement though) claim that the 220 page source guide has never been mentioned on this site, and that it's basically undebunkable.

Almost three months ago (as of October 30th, 2010) Peter Joseph came out with a new edition of his Zeitgeist movie and it had a companion guide that was 220 pages long. The guide doesn't really clear much of anything up at all, it's the same rehashed garbage as before, and in fact the day it came out, there was a discussion about it on our forums. It was basically left that that, because we figured "what's the point?" Just like I had thought, though, not spending our time debunking 220 pages of academic excellence lead Peter Joseph and his devout followers to condemn us as heretics -- no one else cared.

Peter Joseph still claims that we have never talked about this companion guide and in fact we've ignored it. I imagine he knows he's lying, since he does read our forums and the topic in question has been stickied since it was created.

Did I mention it was 220 pages? Because that's how they always mention it, just wanted to make sure you knew.

I've called Peter Joseph on this before type of thing before, "overloading people with information," which he seems to think is impossible, but it's a real thing. The scientific term is called "proof by intimidation" and while often used in the context of mathematics, it is used to describe all manner of arguments. It's basically defined as follows:

Proof by intimidation is a jocular term used mainly in mathematics to refer to a style of presenting a purported mathematical proof by giving an argument loaded with jargon and appeal to obscure results, so that the audience is simply obliged to accept it, lest they have to admit their ignorance and lack of understanding.

The term is also used when the author is an authority in his field presenting his proof to people who respect a priori his insistence that the proof is valid or when the author claims that his statement is true because it is trivial or because he simply says so.

Yes, I stole that from Wikipedia. Regardless, doesn't this sound familiar? It's exactly like almost everything Peter Joseph puts out to his followers, essentially:

"Look at all my sources! I have sources, there for I can't be wrong! Don't dare question my sources, because that means you're wrong!"

But let's get down to it, why did we not bother debunking the entire 220 page source guide? Because it's a rehash of things like:

He uses DM Murdock/Acharya S as his primary source for history of comparative religion.

She is a pseudo-historian who isn't considered academic by anyone except her followers, who by the way, love telling people like me that we're sexist, bigots, etc because we dare question her credibility.

More reading:
https://conspiracyscience.com/forums/topic/curious-phenomenon-re-acharya-s
https://conspiracyscience.com/forums/topic/why-do-you-even-need-acharya-s
https://conspiracyscience.com/forums/topic/the-church-of-acharya-s

Trust me, I know by even pointing this out I'm inviting harassment of epic 12-year old proportions.

Acharya S aside, he still uses tricky language to validate his claims.

The best example of this is his comparison of Joseph and Jesus, and while there are a lot of similarities, he does lie by changing the language (PDF page 87):

Joseph was of 12 brothers (Gen 42:13), Jesus had 12 disciples (Mt 10:1)

Did you catch that? By saying Joseph "was of" 12 he's creating the number 12 by incorporating Joseph into the group (which he doesn't do with jesus), so if we change both sentences to use the same grammar we get:

Joseph had 11 brothers, Jesus had 12 disciples.

or

Joseph was of 12 brothers, Jesus was of 13 disciples.

Not as exciting and profound is it?

He did this in the movie too:

https://conspiracyscience.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/#judah_and_judas

He references Jordan Maxwell, notorious liar

If there's anyone that's a bigger liar in comparative religion than Acharya S, it's Jordon Maxwell, who blatantly lies about things such as "Jesus Christ" is Ancient Greek "oily anal sex." He does "God's Sun = God's Son" even more often than Acharya S, at least she tries to be clever with it. I'd give Acharya S the benefit of the doubt long before I'd even consider anything Maxwell had to say. Need I say more?

Still playing with God's Sun = God's Son

On PDF page 66 we have the same old stuff "Jesus is the sun, the 'Sun of God,'" which is essentially suggesting that Sun of God and Son of God have a connection, when outside of some Indo-European languages, it doesn't. As I said previously:

What does "sun of god" imply other than "son = sun"? Yeah, I get it, Jesus is supposed to be the sun just as the aforementioned gods, but since when does that create grammatical possession for god? They are gods, aren't they? So wouldn't it be "sun god" not "sun of god" unless you were trying to explicitly make that connection.

It doesn't work out so well if you try and think about it at all.

The 9/11 hijackers are still alive

Just like in the film, he still promotes that the 9/11 hijackers are still alive (PDF page 108).

The 9/11 section basically comes right out of 2004

And with that basically everything has been debunked for years, including all of Steven Jones' garbage, the free-fall speed bullshit, etc.

Same old Alex Jones-esque Central Banking conspiracy theories

Which literally have nothing at all to do with any of Peter Joseph's goals, he simply doesn't want to admit being wrong about any of it.

Even with just these points, why should I care what else he has to say? He's already proven himself totally unreliable when it comes to factual accuracy. Why go ahead and check all 220 pages, especially when he just repeats many of the same, totally wrong pieces of information?

The only reason this was created is so that he could solidify how correct he is to his followers (most of which who will probably never even read it) and give them a weapon to use when anyone dares question the first film. They only need to link to this 220 page masterpiece and then demand you debunk it -- any further questions and criticisms can then be easily ignored. Hell, as he even said himself:

So, if you happen to come across people who have absorbed the biased disposition that The Zeitgeist Movement 'must' be discredited because I, Peter Joseph, made a "debunked" film - please show them the above PDF. I can assure you it will keep them busy for a while.

No need to think on your own TZM members, all of your thinking has been done for you.

Maybe now that there's an official article up nearly three months after we first started talking about his 220 page source guide, he can stop lying to people and telling them we've completely ignored it.

If you're interested in what my main criticisms of the movement itself are, check here:

https://conspiracyscience.com/articles/the-zeitgeist-movement/

P.S. Didn't spell or grammar check this, but that will be used against me. I wish the lottery were as predictable as these people.