Skeptic Project

Hey Ed how have you been?

I wrote a comment to another user on the blog about this I will repost it here.


iamlilith666 responds to the academic article
http://zeitgeistmovements.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/its-official-the-zeitgeist-movement-is-a-religion/#comment-6033

My response towards them.
http://zeitgeistmovements.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/its-official-the-zeitgeist-movement-is-a-religion/#comment-6048

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iamlilith666 wrote: [Did] you guys attempt to read the whole thing? I mean the entire article, not just skim through and grab bits and pieces to present your half-assed argument. All this article did was attempt to explain and define a completely fabricated idea of "conspirituality" by using terms and definitions from scholarly references meshing them up and then applying them to groups that the author(s) perceived to have some kind of association without actually doing one bit of serious research or investigation. Again, old news man, Charlotte Ward, not Web and she is listed as the author, I have the entire article, btw, accessed information regarding Zeitgeist dated in 2009, not only that she didn't even bother to research the actual movement, and even worse she said Jacques Fresco created Zeitgeist The Movie and invented the movement...what? And, I don't believe Wikipedia is an acceptable scholarly source, idk, that's just me though...What else ya got guys? And that shit about Merola selling the movement out...aaaahhhh that's petty, from what I've heard he's been rather open about his activities in regards to the movement and the films, so not sure what you think you uncovered. I hope you guys one day find happiness, many blessings to you all, sincerely.

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My Response to iamlilith666:

Actually I have read through it all a few times, I prefer to read than watch a 4 hour long conspiracy TZM movie.

"All this article did was attempt to explain and define a completely fabricated idea of "conspirituality" by using terms and definitions from scholarly references meshing them up and then applying them to groups that the author(s) perceived to have some kind of association without actually doing one bit of serious research or investigation."

Actually Muertos has pointed this out numerous times within his own blog about this mesh of new age and conspiracy beliefs coming together and by labeling a term, it is more easily defined and recognized to people as well as the term can potentially be adopted to a academic audience at large as well as a wider none academic audience to define such groups. I like the term it rings off the tongue nicely as well as defines what TZM is, all in one shot.

There is actually so much TZM mantra it's actually hard to sift through what is actually happening and what they say is happening. The academics who wrote this up wanted to basically note a new phenomenon that's happening on the internet therefore I would imagine in the future there will be more scholarly work done on TZM based on it's religious status in the future.

Keep in mind my stance on internet cults is that there isn't enough academic evidence to really define if it's possible for there to be groups on the internet that can be label cults. My stance would go with internet none mainstream religions as well. However scholarly works like this that take the first baby steps into such areas compiled with other academic scholarly work show academic evidence of the possibility of none main stream religious groups that can purely be based on the internet.

"and even worse she said Jacques Fresco created Zeitgeist The Movie and invented the movement...what?"

Yes that is a mistake I agree with that however that does not discredit the article as a whole at that it's revealing that you would mention this quote the very same quote Peter Joseph Peter Josephs talks about in his video about this piece of academic work. The article it self was done by credentials academic professionals and things do get wrong I would imagine in future releases things of this nature will be corrected much like when Peter corrects his TZM source guide in correcting the numerous errors of TZM or justifying his conspiracy theory's errors within the TZM source guide for the zeitgeist movement. If that's the only thing that needed correction was who got accreditation for the work that's not bad at all considering Peter Joseph has gotten things wrong numerous times within his own movies, which can be found on skepticproject.com

I'd like to say that in Peters video, he criticizes this academic work Peter then asks that they please contact him for any accurate information which I think is absurd. Why would a a person who is publishing about conspiracy/newage based groups contact the leader of the group to ask them if there a religious conspiracy based/newage group, that's like asking scientology organization if there a cult and expecting a honest answer. TZM is against religion at that and would be hostile if anybody tried to label them a religious organization, to expect TZM or any other group to say that they fit this conspirituality religious group is not likely. That's why credible academic research in these areas has to be done from the outside, as a observer not as a participator, nothing more nothing less.

"nd, I don't believe Wikipedia is an acceptable scholarly source, idk, that's just me though...What else ya got guys? "

I completely agree with you on that. I remember when a professor had promoted wikipedia as a scholarly source I completely disagreed with them as well. Wikipedia is a good starting place I believe the references within wikipedia is a good start to where the really good credible tangible information is at.

"And that shit about Merola selling the movement out...aaaahhhh that's petty, from what I've heard he's been rather open about his activities in regards to the movement and the films, so not sure what you think you uncovered. I hope you guys one day find happiness, many blessings to you all, sincerely."

I agree that Peter has been open about selling his DVD's however he's not been open about how much money he makes off the DVD's (or the t-shirts, or now the new venues he places the TZM conspiracy DVD's at) which I believe to be a substantial amount. Substantial enough that he's expanded his dvd store onto other places besides his TZM website as well as adopted a new company license. I have always thought Peter has made a substantial amount of money off the dvd's he sells on his website, by expanding his territory he has more venues to sell these dvd's, which would suggest that I am correct based on such actions. Looks like I was on par from the start.

I much appreciate you thanking the blogs authors (one of which is me) with "happiness many blessings to you all, sincerely.".

Re: 2012

Yes, there was a few minor issues with that but these were largely irrelevant to the main point of the article. It's really akin to pointing out Piltdown Man and saying evolution is a crock.

Merola; instead of making a video, why not do what you say we should do for everything; be scientific. Publish a counter to the article for peer review.

Zeitgeist IS relivant to The Zeitgist Movement. He didn't keep the name because he liked it or w/e his excuse may be. The point was he did Zeitgeist, people wrote him and asked him how it should be fixed, he read The Best Money Can't By and made Zeitgeist; Addendum as a response to the problems posed in Zeitgeist THe Movie which still contained conspiracy theories and set up the Zeitgeist Movement. The reason why I say this is because THAT'S WHAT HE FUCKING SAID!