RE: The Zeitgeist Movie
This is not the first time that CFRP has gotten posts about this film, so forgive the brief departure from CST and Ron Paul to give an answer to this film.
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=172543 http://catholicsforronpaul.blogspot.com/search/label/Anti-Catholicism http://catholicsforronpaul.blogspot.com/2007/10/remembering-5th-of-november-catholic.html see comments
John,
The zeitgeist movie falls into the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc - “after this, therefore because of this.”
Mythologies are imperfect grasps at the truth by pagan intuitions of that truth. This is why we see similar mythological patterns repeated all over the world. It is the Truth that is universal that is being grasped at by the myth makers.
But just because these patterns exist prior to the coming of Christ does not automatically lead to the concluison that they are the origin of the Christian narrative - a narrative that has overwhelming historical evidence for its non-mythological factual reality. (see The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel)
The same holds true for the astronomy bit. Just because there is a solar pattern arising in the material world and it existed prior to the revelation of Jesus, doesn’t mean that the Christ narrative has its origin in it.
Prior to the coming of Christ, worship of Creation was very common, after Christ’s revelation this particular penchant died away. Why? Because the revelation of the Christ was indeed accompanied by and announced by astronomical phenomena (Cardinal Ratzinger has written about this). This cosmic event revealed to pagan people that the sun is not a god, but that God, revealed as an enfant, is the author of Creation.(See the first Chapters of Luke and the story of the magi)
The story of the Magi is all about the meaning of astronomy/astrology in relation to the Christ event. The very cosmos was moved to reveal the coming of Jesus.
Regression studies have come to some interesting discoveries about this cosmic event:
http://www.eclipse.net/~molnar/
The last century was the bloodiest humanity has ever seen because it was the century of atheistic humanism - the attempt to create the perfect society via the rejection of Christ.
The battle against atheistic humanism is not over yet, and with this kind of propaganda out there on the internet that seeks to associate Christianity with 9/11 and the Federal Reserve, I suspect that we may see more Christian blood spilt on American soil.
Thank God Ron Paul is a Christian and understands how critical Christianity is to civilization and civil liberties. http://www.haloscan.com/comments/catholicsforronpaul/8440623843447024261/?a=45945#21996
Ayn Rand was an atheist who opposed both faith and force and saw the two united in collectivism. She was a champion of reason, liberty, individualism, and human rights. She and her work are regularly smeared and mis-represented. She died some decades ago and those who inherited her work, her reputation, and her money have used them to promote the neo-con vision of endless war in the middle-east and to explicity call for the mass murder of innocents. It is a cruel and sadistic misuse of her reputation and ideas.
She wrote against the initiation of force and argued that morality should be based in reason, not mystic revelation. She argued that morality could only apply to the realm of choice and that, in fact, our free will - our ability to think and choose - was at the root of the very idea of morality. She believed that rational self-interest was the key to a proper morality - that respect for individual rights was the key to civilization.
But since she didn’t believe in god or big government, she has been villified and lied about until those who have not actually read her works are likely to have a very crooked and inaccurate view of her ideas.
I personally think she was one of the most moral and intelligent writers of our age. Ron Paul has acknowledged her influence on his own thinking. She praised and recommended the work of Ludwig von Mises to her fans back in the 1960’s. As a teenager, I read his “Theory of Money and Credit” because of that recommendation. Von Mises also praised Rand. I suspect Ron Paul named his son “Rand” out of respect for Ayn.
But atheists must be lied about and villified just as Ron Paul is now being lied about and villified. I have yet to read anyone who can accurately present Rand’s views and also villify her. The villifications of Ayn Rand require dishonest misrepresentation. And just as Ron Paul’s supporters are now smeared as “spammers”, “kooks”, “wackos” and “cultists”, so Rand’s supporters are smeared rather than refuted.
Unfortunately, Rand’s “official” supporters, as I have indicated, are intellectual frauds who have climbed up on her reputation and are thumping their chests for war and dumping rude hatred on anyone who dares to disagree. She should be judged very separately from them.
People who smear a thinker by pointing at the very worst of that thinker’s fans are cheats. Even Jesus has a number of horrible and blood-thirsty fans.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/catholicsforronpaul/8440623843447024261/?a=45945#22037