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>I stumbled upon a guy this afternoon who had not seen Zeitgeist (go here for sources, subtitles and additional info). You may download it here (yes, it’s legal!). It’s a must see for everyone. Below is the remastered final edition, two hours of the most interesting conspiracy theories ever put on tape. Watch, digest and explore.
“It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.”
In my opinion this movie is about making a choice: Do you want to live your life through the eyes of someone else, or do you want to think for yourself? Question everything (Zeitgeist included, of course).
This YouTube channel has a bunch of interviews with the producer of Zeitgeist, Peter Joseph.
You probably know this one already: Tom Cruise, famous Scientologist, is quite scary in this clip – and he’s not acting… It pretty much shows how indoctrination rules in religion. Nothing new, but it seems like a lot of us need to be reminded about this blemish on humanity every once in a while. I’m not saying all religions are crap, they might be of good use to a lot of people, but when religion and faith becomes business and tools for power we’ve failed once again.
A pretty good documentary on the subject of religion and faith is The Root of All Evil? where biologist Richard Dawkins, author of the very readable book The God Delusion, takes on religion and its influence on society.
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“Let me get this straight – your religion preaches that two thousand years ago, a Middle Eastern virgin was impregnated by a ghost. And the spawn of this ethereal sperm grew up to walk on water and multiply bread loves and heal the sick and raise the dead and cast out literal demons. And this Love Child wasn’t just any ordinary spud, it was God incarnate who willingly submitted to a bloody S&M crucifiction to pay for OUR sins, when it would have been much easier (and less messy) if He’d merely made us sin-proof in the first place. And this Miracle Baby, son of a (cough) virgin, rose from the dead after three days and now gets very upset when heavy metal musicians slander His name. And Moses parted the Red Sea, Noah had an ark, God rained frogs on Egypt, and Joshua made the sun stand still. And even though Adam and Eve only gave birth to two boys (one of whom killed the other), the human race somehow fruitfully multiplied while avoiding the sin of incest. And remote Polynesian islanders will boil in molten lava eternally if they don’t embrace the gospel, even if they’ve never had a chance to hear the gospel. And the God who gave you a weenie will also zap you with a lightning bolt if thou darest toucheth the weenie which he didst create.
Is that it? Did I miss anything? Is this the horseshit you’re trying to peddle me? That’s not the Greatest Story Ever Told, it’s the craziest. And you tell me perhaps a third of the people on earth believe this fairy tale? Many of them are willing to kill or die for it? That’s frightening. You’re sure this isn’t some sort of sci-fi novel or supermarket-tabloid conspiracy theory?”
Jim Goad, The Redneck Manifesto
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In the Talmud, a stupefying assertion: “The more men there are, the more images of the divine there are in nature.” This may have been true in the period when the remark was made, but it is belied today by all one sees and will be still further belied by all that will be seen.
E.M. Cioran, The Lure of Disillusion
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To withdraw indefinitely into oneself, like God after the six days. Let us imitate Him, on this point at least.
E.M. Cioran, The Lure of Disillusion
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This quote is from one of the greatest works I know, Les Chants de Maldoror, The Songs of Maldoror, by Lautréamont, written between 1868-1869.
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Throughout my life, I have seen narrow-shouldered men, without a single exception, committing innumerable stupid acts, brutalizing their fellows and perverting souls by all means. They call the motive for their actions fame. Seeing these spectacles, I wanted to laugh like the others but I found that strange imitation impossible. I took a knife with a sharp steel cutting-edge on its blade and I slit my flesh where the lips join. For a moment I believed I had achieved my object. I looked in a mirror at this mouth disfigured by an act of my own will. It was a mistake! The blood flowing from the two wounds prevented me from discerning whether the laugh really was the same as others’. But after comparing them for a few moments I saw clearly that my laugh did not resemble that of human beings, i.e. I was not laughing at all. I have seen men, ugly men with their eyes sunk in dark sockets, surpassing the hardness of rock, the rigidity of cast steel, the insolence of youth, the senseless rage of criminals, the falseness of the hypocrite, the most extraordinary actors, the strenght of character of priests, beings whose real character is the most impenetrable, colder than anything else in heaven or on earth; I have seen them wearing out moralists who have attempted to discover their heart, and seen them bring upon themselves implacable anger from on high. I have seen them all now, the strongest fist raised towards heaven, like a child already disobedient towards its mother, probably incited by some spirit from hell, eyes full of the bitterest remorse, but at the same time of hatred: glacially silent, not daring to utter the vast ungrateful meditations hidden in their breasts, because those meditations were so full of injustice and horror; I have seen them grieve the God of mercy in his compassion; and again at every moment of the day, from their earliest childhood right up to the end of their old age, I have seen them uttering unbelievable anathemata, void of all common sense, against everything which breathes, against themselves, and against Providence; prostituting women and children, thus dishonouring the parts of the body consecrated to modesty. Then, the waters of the seas rise up, engulfing ships in their bottomless depths; hurricanes and earthquakes level houses; plague and all kinds of disease decimate families. But men do not realize this. I have seen them blushing, or turning pale for shame at their conduct on this earth – rarely. Tempests, sisters of hurricanes; bluish firmament, whose beauty I refuse to acknowledge; hypocritical sea, image of my own heart; earth, who hold mysteries hidden in your breast; the whole universe; God, who created it with such magnificence, it is thee I invoke: show me a man who is good… But at the same time increase my strenght tenfold: for at the sight of such a monster, I may die of astonishment: men have died of less.
>This is Part Two in the series about Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations theory.
Part One can be found here.
It was in an article in Foreign Affairs (1993) and a subsequent book (The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order (1996)) that Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard Professor, caused a massive stir in the world of global politics.
Huntington predicted that global conflicts after the Cold War would no longer focus on ideologies, like communism and capitalism, but rather find energy in cultural differences like old battles rooted in old cultures (look at Kenya right now). He claimed that the West, and first and foremost America – at the time the world’s only super power, was in decline and that Islamic and East Asian civilizations were on the march (look at the Middle East, India and China today).
Is Huntington saying “I told you so!” to the world? We’ll see about that later. In this post I’d like to focus on the criticism that was and is directed towards his thesis, and in Part Three or Four I’ll look at what Huntington himself has to say looking back at his own work.
First, Huntington draws the global map with a very sharp pencil. It’s the West against the rest, where the West is all alone against seven civilizations: Islamic, African, Latin American, Hindu, Buddhist, Orthodox, Sinic and Japanese. By doing this he is defining cultures by power.
But the most important – and the most dangerous – “failure” in Huntington’s thesis is, as I see it, that he fails to see the difference between Islam and radical Islam, and thus fears the conflict between Islam and the West (Christianity) for the very wrong reasons, since radical Islam does not represent the Islamic civilization. Islam is not a coherent civilization. You don’t look at Christianity like that, do you? Of course not, because we know there’s about a million ways to praise the Lord within the Christian community. We should know that about Islam as well, but “the war on terror” and its false media won’t let us.
Radical Islamists are “nowhere men”, meaning they are children of the frontier between Islam and the West, belonging to neither. USA is fighting a war against disparate groups that are independent of nation states! They are not fighting Islam, even if that is what they (and the Western world?) seem to think. Also, they cannot cope with Islam as a state of power. Just look at their current relationship with Iran…
And hey, radical islamists are already here, either knocking at the gates of Europe or living amongst us all at this very moment. Things have changed drastically since Huntington began working on his thesis some fifteen years ago. Back then, Islam was beginning to rise. Now Islam has become a big part of the West, which many see as a negative thing pretty much thanks to “the war on terror” and false media not giving the whole story et cetera and so forth… Many seem to think that every muslim is a radical militant muslim. How sad and tragic of us to think so.
What Huntington should be afraid of though, and where I think he is right, is the fact that the West is rapidly losing its coherence and culture, its will and pride, feasting on materialistic ideologies and unsparing wars (dealing with the Arab world by using military force is one example), while Islam is growing stronger everyday – in spirit and soul.
I believe and hope that spirit and soul will prevail over materialistic interests.
Criticism will continue in Part Three.
