Skeptic Project

"If he [P.J. Merola] had [omitted the conspiracy theories from the subsequent Zeitgeist movies], the Zeitgeist franchise would probably not be nearly so successful. Nothing commands attention and feeds our native desire for power like a good conspiracy theory. If you know about the conspiracy, you're in on the secret information, and you are more powerful than the conspirators. For better or for worse, we all have a deep craving to have the upper hand. This is perhaps the main reason for the unending popularity of Zeitgeist, Loose Change, Alex Jones, Richard Hoagland, and other conspiracy theory machines. It also explains the passion shown by those who defend them: All that matters is "being the one who knows more than you," and the facts are a distant second."

Exactly what I was trying to substantiate "Zeitgeist: by the numbers" topic. Merola needs the conspiracism in order to remain high-profile, which is why he'll never jettison the 9/11 or Jesus-doesn't-exist crap.

Wait, you're in Tulsa? Hey me too.

But yeah, that's Ben.

I'm a bit dissapointed that Brian Dunning says that Zeitgeist isn't sourced, when it is a little more complicated than that. The trancript of the movie gives a source for most of the claims in Zeitgeist part 1. The problem is that most of the citations are to sources like Acharya S and a bunch of old books like Gerald Massey, instead of primary sources like documents from Jesus' time. (I also think that Peter Joseph probably didn't check every book he uses as a source, a just copied citations from Acharya's book or something.) There is also a source page that just lists the books and videos. It's interesting that this list has changed around a lot, like Alex Jones used to be listed as a source, but was taken off, probably after Alex called Zeitgeist "Luciferian".

So, he used Alex Jones a source when he claims he had never heard of Alex Jones.

I think this is what your refering to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4PidzHziMQ&feature=PlayList&p=A71D806B507A8482&index=13

He says when he used Alex's footage, he didn't know who the hell he was at the time, and he didn't expect Alex to react the way he did to Addendum. It's not true. PJ did an interview with Jason Bermas and Dylan Avery back around the time of Zeitgeist 1, and they brought up Alex. Peter said he really loved Alex but didn't like how agressive Alex was and thought Alex's Christianity could be overbearing. So he clearly knew a lot about Alex and the way he acted.

The interview with Jason Bermas was taken off Youtube for some reason since I listened to it, in the last two weeks. If anyone knows another copy, post a link please.