I'm sort of surprised that anyone is still talking about Zeitgeist. It was pretty popular in certain circles a while ago, but by now the hype has mostly (and fortunately) died down. The film takes the stance on Christian origins posited in one form or another by a whole slew of popular level books by relative laymen on the subject. It's really a pretty bad source of information, not least because it attempts to pass off wild and unscholarly material as authoritative. If I recall, the guy who made it actually gives a bibliography, encouraging viewers to look at his sources, and a brief look over it will demonstrate how poor the research is that went into it. You won't find much from actual scholars wether conservative or liberal (at least from within the last century or so), probably because even some of the most radical liberals would laugh at the ideas Zeitgeist presents as facts.
I suppose we can look at Messiah figures from other religions first. Now, it is only natural that some of the qualities attributed to Jesus are also attributed to other religious figures. Supernatural things happen to supernatural people so we shouldn't be surprised that mythical characters like Horus or others did or had miraculous things happen to them, and it does not in anyway discredit Christianity that demigod figures or agriculture based dying and rising gods existed in other cultures. That said, Zeitgeist has a strong tendency to either greatly overstate its case or simply report information that isn't true. The question of other figures being born of a virgin is a good point. There is no parallel between Jesus being born of a virgin mother and Mithra springing fully grown out of a rock, or of a demigod being born because one of the less than wholesome gods of one pantheon or another came to Earth to impregnate a human woman. Yet, the Pagan Myth borrowing crowd tends to assert direct parallels here though the move is an illicit one. The idea that other savior figures were crucified is simply false. You won't find it in the scholarly literature, but even looking means giving Zeitgeist too much credit, because it avoids the point. Perhaps the silliest thing about the film is that all of its parallels mean nothing if it can be demonstrated that the events they claim are stolen really happened. Even if the makers of the film were able to dig up dozens of legitimate examples of crucified deities, it would do nothing to falsify the fact that Jesus was actually crucified. That Jesus was executed around the time of the Passover by being nailed to a cross is a detail that just about everybody in academia, regardless of their opinions on his divinity, admits really happened, and to claim otherwise demands a very large burden of proof. Zeitgeist and the many poorly thought out works that influenced it rely heavily on the assumption that Jesus, as a person, either never existed or was so heavily mythologized about that we can know next to nothing about him as he existed historically, a position that is so untenable as to be laughed into oblivion by any reputable authority, much like the claim that Jesus was actually a hallucinogenic mushroom or something similar.
Is the word you were looking for "astrology"? Zeitgeist takes a lot of its material on the sun and ancient astrology from the works of D. M. Murdock, a writer, I believe, from Infidels.org. Murdock's ideas, laid out, if I recall, in her work "Suns of God," are either abundantly confused, profoundly dishonest, or both. True to her identity as a conspiracy theorist, her work (similar to Zeitgeist) is poorly researched and full of mistakes. She is quick to speculate, slow to provide evidence, and quick to dismiss the bulk of opinions of the actual experts in favor of her own theories, blaming (in excellent conspiratorial fashion) the failure of her work to catch on as being the result of some cabal or other of scholars trying to hide the truth to preserve the powers that be.
We spoke of the role of Church councils in the forming of the canon in another topic recently, and Zeitgeist likes this idea as well. No conspiracy theory would be complete without the involvement of the Catholic Church, and to that demographic eager to hear that two thousand years of history has been suppressed by Rome, Zeitgeist is a real treat, albeit an inaccurate one. Conspiracy theorists are often quick to complain that the reason the evidence seems to be against them is that it's been covered up by those in power. I suppose, technically, it is possible, but if it were true I highly doubt the makers of Zeitgeist, unable as they are to do so much as to go to a library and do the research, have the requisite skills to uncover the truth.
There's really no reason to take the film seriously because the makers seem not to have taken seriously the process of researching it. A quick google search should turn up some much more detailed critical reviews, and if you'd like to hear from an expert you might start with this one:
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/200 ... movie.html
Ben Witherington III is a well respected New Testament scholar, and he mentions, in more detail, a lot of the same criticisms that I have. All I can say besides that is that you should view Zeitgeist as you would view any film that boasts an endorsement of the 911 conspiracy--very critically. A lot of the ideas it presents are, sadly, fashionable in certain circles (mostly low-grade internet atheists), and this film stirred people up quite a bit a while ago. Unfortunately, a mind full of fashionable ideas is no substitute for a well-fashioned mind. I've heard about Zeitgeist far too often from atheists or I wouldn't even have bothered with it.
A brief question: Why did your father suggest it?
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” -G.K. Chesterton
Some key aspects they talked about was the life of Christ and how it related to other religions prior to Christianity. For example: