We have now examined three major claims from Zeitgeist: The Movie:
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Jesus as Solar Deity — The claim that Jesus’ biography encodes the sun’s annual journey through the zodiac. This collapsed under examination of actual solar mythology, the late development of December 25 as a Christian observance, and the absence of zodiacal frameworks in early Jewish Christianity.
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Biblical Plagiarism — The claim that Christianity was copied from Horus, Mithras, and other pagan deities, and that the Old Testament borrowed from Gilgamesh, Sargon, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. This failed because the alleged parallels were fabricated, chronologically impossible, or methodologically unsound.
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Astrological Ages — The claim that the Bible encodes the Precession of the Equinoxes, with Moses representing Aries, Jesus representing Pisces, and eschatology pointing to Aquarius. This collapsed because the zodiac postdated the relevant texts, every symbol had better explanations in its actual context, and no ancient source interpreted scripture astrologically.
Now we turn to the film’s fourth and final major argument: that religion—and Christianity specifically—is a tool invented for political control.
This claim is different from the others. The first three arguments attacked Christianity’s historical foundations: Did Jesus exist? Was his story original? Does the Bible mean what Christians think it means? The fourth argument attacks Christianity’s purpose: Even if Jesus existed, even if the story is original, religion exists to manipulate and control people.
The stakes here are existential. If Zeitgeist is right, then Christianity isn’t just historically mistaken—it’s morally corrupt at its core. It’s not a well-intentioned error but a deliberate fraud perpetrated by elites to enslave minds.
The Three Sub-Claims
Zeitgeist presents three interlocking arguments:
1. The Historical Jesus Never Existed
The film claims that despite numerous historians living in the Mediterranean region during the first century, “not one” documented a man named Jesus who performed miracles and rose from the dead.
It dismisses the standard extrabiblical references:
- Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and Tacitus — These Roman writers merely mention “Christus” (the Anointed One), which is a title, not a name. They prove nothing about a historical Jesus.
- Josephus — The famous Testimonium Flavianum passage is claimed to be a forgery inserted by later Christian scribes.
If Jesus never existed, Christianity is founded on pure mythology. There was no teacher, no ministry, no crucifixion, no resurrection—just a fictional character invented to serve political purposes.
2. Constantine Invented Christianity at Nicea
In 325 CE, Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea, allegedly to establish “politically motivated Christian doctrines.” According to Zeitgeist, this is where Christianity as we know it was manufactured.
The implication is clear: whatever authentic teachings might have existed before Constantine were corrupted or replaced. The Christianity that emerged from Nicea was designed to serve imperial interests, not spiritual truth. The council marks the beginning of “religious bloodshed and spiritual fraud.”
3. Religion is Psychological Manipulation
The film concludes that religion fundamentally exists to control people. It “detaches people from the natural world,” “demands blind submission to authority,” and “reduces human responsibility” by attributing everything to God.
This allows crimes to be justified in the name of the divine. Religion isn’t a search for truth or meaning—it’s a mechanism for producing compliant subjects who won’t question their rulers.
Why This Matters
These claims matter for different reasons than the earlier ones.
The solar deity claims and pagan parallels were historical arguments requiring historical refutation. But the political control thesis is partly philosophical and psychological. It makes claims not just about what happened but about what religion is and what it does to people.
This means our response must operate on multiple levels:
Historical: Did Jesus exist? What do the non-Christian sources actually say? What happened at Nicea?
Philosophical: Is the “religion as control” thesis coherent? Does it account for all the evidence? Are there counterexamples?
Theological: How does Christianity itself address political authority, human responsibility, and the danger of religious manipulation?
The Historical Jesus Question
The claim that Jesus never existed—sometimes called “mythicism”—is the foundation of the political control argument. If Jesus is fictional, then Christianity is a fabrication by definition.
This is a serious claim that deserves serious examination. The historical evidence for Jesus includes:
Christian Sources: The New Testament documents, especially Paul’s letters (written in the 50s CE, within 20–25 years of Jesus’ death) and the Gospels (written between 70–100 CE).
Jewish Sources: Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews (c. 93 CE) contains two references to Jesus—one disputed, one generally accepted as authentic.
Roman Sources: Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius all mention Christ or Christians in the early second century.
Zeitgeist dismisses or explains away each of these. Are those dismissals valid? What do scholars—including non-Christian scholars—actually conclude about the historical Jesus?
The Council of Nicea Question
The claim that Constantine “invented” Christianity at Nicea is historically testable. We have substantial documentation of what the council discussed, what it decided, and why.
The actual historical questions include:
- What was Nicea actually about?
- Did Constantine dictate doctrine or merely convene the bishops?
- What did Christianity look like before Nicea?
- Were doctrines like Christ’s divinity invented at the council or affirmed from earlier tradition?
The Zeitgeist narrative depends on a specific version of events. Does that version match the historical record?
The Psychological Manipulation Question
The claim that religion is fundamentally about control is harder to evaluate because it’s partly philosophical.
But we can ask:
- Does Christianity actually demand “blind submission to authority”? What does it say about questioning, conscience, and critique of power?
- Does Christianity reduce human responsibility, or does it intensify it?
- Have religious movements always served elite interests, or have they sometimes challenged those interests?
- Is the “religion as control” thesis itself a form of control—dismissing certain views as illegitimate before engaging their arguments?
Our Approach
In the following articles, we will examine each sub-claim:
Article 23: The Historical Evidence for Jesus — We’ll examine what Josephus, Tacitus, and other sources actually say, what scholars make of these texts, and whether “mythicism” is taken seriously in mainstream academia.
Article 24: The Council of Nicea — We’ll examine what actually happened in 325 CE, what Constantine’s role was, and whether the council invented Christianity or addressed a specific controversy within an already-established tradition.
Article 25: Religion and Political Control — We’ll examine whether the “religion as manipulation” thesis is historically and philosophically coherent, and what Christianity actually teaches about authority, conscience, and human responsibility.
The Deeper Issue
Beneath the specific claims lies a deeper issue: the relationship between truth and power.
Zeitgeist operates with a hermeneutics of suspicion—assuming that religious claims are masks for power interests. If someone claims divine authority, the real explanation must be political. If an institution promotes certain beliefs, the motivation must be control.
This approach has value. Power does corrupt, institutions do manipulate, and religious language has been used to justify terrible things. Healthy skepticism is warranted.
But suspicion can become its own dogma. If every religious claim is presumed to be a power play, the conclusion is built into the premise. The question “Is this true?” never gets asked because “Who benefits?” has already provided the answer.
The challenge is to maintain appropriate suspicion without letting suspicion replace investigation. The question isn’t whether religion could be used for control—obviously it can be, and has been. The question is whether that’s all it is.
This requires actually examining the evidence.
Looking Ahead
The political control claims are Zeitgeist’s final argument—its conclusion about what all the previous claims add up to. If Jesus is a solar deity borrowed from paganism and encoded in zodiacal allegory, then Christianity is obviously a human invention. And human inventions serve human purposes. The only question is whose purposes.
But we’ve seen that the previous claims fail. Jesus isn’t a solar deity—the parallels don’t exist. Christianity wasn’t borrowed from Horus and Mithras—those claims are fabricated. The Bible doesn’t encode astrological ages—the thesis is anachronistic.
If the foundation is rotten, the conclusion built on it is suspect.
Still, the political control claims deserve independent examination. Even if the earlier arguments fail, the historical Jesus question and the Nicea question can be evaluated on their own merits. And the philosophical question of religion’s relationship to power is worth addressing regardless.
The evidence awaits.
Author’s Note (2026): This article was originally written in 2013 but was never published at the time. Prior to publication in 2026, it has been carefully reviewed and updated to ensure that historical references, scholarly claims, and source material are accurate, current, and properly represented.