>> ^nibiyabi:
None of them were buried for "three days"? I stopped the video the first time this claim was made, and arrived at Mithra. Here is a source stating that Mithra was raised after 3 days: http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Jesus_and_Mithra


There's no actual evidence for that claim, though. You'll notice that the site you link to doesn't provide a source.

That's because there isn't one. Most of the stuff that's claimed about Mithraism is pure speculation. We have literally no idea what the doctrines of Mithraism really were. It was a mystery cult, and those initiated were forbidden from revealing the doctrines to the public. The doctrines were never written down, as far as we know. All we have to go on are a few scattered claims and rumors in extant texts, and the symbols inside the Mithraea where Mithras was worshiped--symbols that could mean practically anything.

>> ^thehelix:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/index.html
There are plenty of sources cited there in the interactive transcript. Check them out if you think this is all lies. He also has an extensive Q&A section that responds to a lot of the criticism.
People who have a knee-jerk "lies!" response without any open minded thought are far less credible in my mind. Agree or disagree, at least have a productive discussion before dismissing anything.


The fact is that Zeitgeist's assertions regarding religion stand or fall with the legitimacy of his main source Gerald Massey, a 19th century poet and self-taught Egyptologist. His work has not stood the test of time, and his theories are not at all accepted among professional Egyptologists today.

Other sources cited on that list as authoritative purveyors of fact include James Frazer's Golden Bough and Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages. James Frazer used a flawed research methodology and came to conclusions that have since been abandoned by succeeding anthropologists and mythographers. Manly P. Hall was an early 20th century esotericist, occultist, and freemason. His writings are works of speculation more than history.

I absolutely love this guy, he's a great writer and a brilliant Anthropologist. Great Sift!

>> ^imstellar28:
^NetRunner
I have read of similar characteristics being evolutionarily viable (in-group loyalty, altruism, taste aversion). I am accusing him of pseudo-science because even if there was some sort of link between genetic programming and political affiliation his scientific methods are juvenile at best, and he is making conclusions based off his own prejudice rather than from the actual data.

I'm no psychologist, sociologist or anthropologist, and while those branches of science do take a lot of flak from proponents of the "harder" sciences, you have to keep in mind that we're at the infantile/alchemical stage of study there. We know so little about the mechanics of the human mind, so to study behavioral patterns, you pretty much have to do this kind of study by survey.

I think again, you're trying to take this video and assume that this is all the documentation he has for his theory, and that he just woke up that morning and stumbled onto the auditorium, with no credentials for being there.

You're a fan of telling people to go read books -- go read some of his.

>> ^RedSky:
hell I'm sure part of the reason people were laughing in the audience was that they simply didn't realise they held these deep seeded generalisations and laughed because they were made uncomfortable to be forced to confront them. (I switched "I'm" and "sure," but only cuz I'm sure it was a typo)

100% agreed.

>> ^RedSky:
some people would tend to gravitate from a harmless confrontation of a relatively amusing mannerism from one's culture's point of view to another, to extrapolated generalisations, oversimplification and eventual detachment and disassociation from groups of people they perceive as 'different'. If that's the case though, the problem isn't the contrasting of cultures, it's the cognitive chain of processes that leads you to that eventual conclusion. So, it may be a slippery slope, but only if your slope is slippery


I think we can agree that the only thing that increases the viscosity of such cognitive slopes is education (whether in school, at home, or whatever the context) and exposure to what anthropologists (like myself) call "the strange"--meaning any culture or set of behavioral characters one did not experience until one's identity was at least partially defined. From what I've seen since I started lurking here a year ago, I trust that the people in this audience (the Sift) have had that education and/or exposure (whether socialized into us or developed by automath)--hence my realization that this was a silly place to pick a fight. But I DO NOT trust the at-large public with the same sense of responsibility. And I suppose I've projected that categorization onto the audience present at Pinette's show and onto the casual viewer of this vid, albeit irrationally.

>> ^RedSky:
I don't believe he went over the line. Making fun of Asian dialects/accents and Indian cuisine? I would see no reason to be genuinely offended if someone made fun of my accent or choice of food. You or anyone else is free to have a differing opinion though, as that's certainly a normative statement.
I admit though that I'm white and have never really been culturally or ethnically discriminated against so I don't pretend to genuinely understand the issue from a first person point of view


I am also white, but my travels have brought me face to face with the true ugliness of racism one can only know when it rears itself against oneself (I expect anecdotes are not necessary, but they can be provided). As a lucky member of the underrated club of we who have come to know the world in the singular locale New York City, and perhaps because I was encouraged to love "the strange" very, very early in my development, I found myself able to mitigate the truly visceral hatred I felt in those moments. Racism elicits an immediate emotional--and sometimes psychosomatically physiological--response. It is not only unwise, but inequitable and irresponsible to require or expect the human animal to overcome that response.

In terms of human evolution there is a great discrepancy between what scientists mean when they say "missing link" and what most uninformed people mean when they say missing link.

The common conception seems to be that a "missing link" means the form which is needed to prove a connection between two species. For scientists while a missing link can indeed help prove the connection between two species, but it often just further evidence. Meaning they already assume there is a connection between two species from other evidence they have but a new 'missing link' only further strengthens that assumption.

In human evolution there are many many missing links that have been found. If you compare the bones of early homo erectus to modern homo sapien the difference are pretty outstanding, but if you compare the bones of late homo erectus to those of very early homo sapien those differences become much less distinguishable. In fact many anthropologists seem to have a hard time deciding whether, based on morphology, to classify the bones from that particular point in time as homo sapien or homo erectus. So in that sense there is a very clear connection between our species and another human species.

On another note I think something that often causes people to misunderstand how evolution works is that we homo sapiens are the only human species currently on the planet. I often think this leads people to think evolution occurs in a progressive chain, where once a new species forms the parent species dies off. This is an incorrect assumption (at least if you look at what we know about evolution). A parent species can still exist even after there's been an off shoot, there can even be multiple off shoots. We Homo sapien have shared the planet with other species of human before, Neanderthal, homo erectus (the assumed parent species) and homo floresienses which some people believe died out only 13k years ago. There really is a wealth of information out there on the subject, all people need to do is look. And not just wikipedia, as much as I love it, it is not the definitive source of all information.

@Johnald_Chaffinch Well I'm glad he got off his high horse to esplain to us stoopid peoples what the future will look like.

Honestly man, scientists have guessing what the future will look like for a long time now, and they're usually wrong. I mean, where's my jetpack?

I'd suggest most of them are wrong because they exactly are Physicists or other hard scientists. They arent Socialogists or Cultural Anthropologists! They lose complete sight on the human part of things. I doubt he'd understand what a lowly person sitting in a sweatshop in Malasia making cheap goods thinks of his type 1 civilization. Or even a person trying survive in the war-torn hellhole that has become Somalia. Most of these problems are the result of his glorious globalization.

Just becuase we have the luxury to live in rich countries doesnt mean we can assume that our vision of the future world is one that is shared by the billions of other people who share this planet.

The irony here is twofold:
1- His message is only being delivered and his book only being sold because of the internet.
2- He himself is an amateur by his definitions. He is not an anthropologist, i.e. "one who studies culture".

So relevant..this album gives me chills. *save


Doctor Doctor what is wrong with me
This supermarket life is getting long
What is the heart life of a colour TV
What is the shelf life of a teenage queen
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
News hound sniffs the air
When Jessica Hahn goes down
He latches on to that symbol
Of detachment
Attracted by the peeling away of feeling
The celebrity of the abused shell the belle
Ooh western woman
Ooh western girl
And the children of Melrose
Strut their stuff
Is absolute zero cold enough
And out in the valley warm and clean
The little ones sit by their TV screens
No thoughts to think
No tears to cry
All sucked dry
Down to the very last breath
Bartender what is wrong with me
Why am I so out of breath
The captain said excuse me ma'am
This species has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
Amused itself to death
We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We ohhed and aahed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah
And when they found our shadows
Grouped around the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry no feelings left
This species has amused itself to death


(switch channels)
[Alf Razzell:]
"Years later, I saw Bill Hubbard's name on the memorial to the missing at Aras[?]. And I...when I saw his name I was absolutely transfixed; it was as though he was now a human being instead of some sort of nightmarish memory of how I had to leave him, all those years ago. And I felt relieved, and ever since then I've felt happier about it, because always before, whenever I thought of him, I said to myself, 'Was there something else that I could have done?'
[background: "I'd rather die, I'd rather die..."]
And that always sort of worried me. And having seen him, and his name in the register - as you know in the memorials there's a little safe, there's a register in there with every name - and seeing his name and his name on the memorial; it sort of lightened my...heart, if you like."
(woman) "When was it that you saw his name on the memorial?"
"Ah, when I was eighty-seven, that would be a year, ninete...eighty-four, nineteen eighty-four."

and there is an oliver sacks story about temple grandin that is also great.

it's in "an anthropologist on mars".