Originally Posted by NashBama:
Originally Posted by Not Shallow Not Slim:
Now, Nash, let's discuss "recycled" Christian theology.
Virgin birth. Commonplace among dieties.
Visitation by Wise Men. Done, well before Jesus.
12 disciples. Old by the time Jesus was here. Horus had 12 disciples. And then, there's the astrological insinuation.
Miracles. Hardly unique to Jesus.
Died and returned on the third day. Been done before Jesus.
Resurrection. Once again, not unique to Jesus.
Son of God. Please. Way old. Look up Achilles.
I will grant you that Hell is a concept fairly defined by Jesus, and what an evil concept it is. Hateful, too. Designed to strike fear into the hearts of those otherwise unconvinced by the cartoonish stories about Jesus.
And then, there is the concept of Original Sin. Older than Judaism. Totally false, as there was no real Adam and Eve. We know this now. Still, Christianity is based... BASED... on this false concept. Without Original Sin, no redemption from Jesus' Hell is required.
We are left with no conclusion other than that Christianity was what Emporer Constantine envisioned it. A way of placating the masses. It remains that, and a way for the clergy class to bilk the gullible public of their money without having to learn much math or science.
DF
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Sure, let's look at your examples.
Virgin births are not commonplace. Mithra is often used as an example of a virgin birth by those who believe in the recycled Jesus theory. The problem is that Mithra was born as an adult out of solid rock. I guess one could say the rock was a virgin, but that's a pretty big leap in logic.
Visitation by wise men? Not really any other example that is similar.
Did Horus have 12 disciples? Nope. He had a few semi-gods and some human followers that fought for him. There is absolutely no reference that Horus had 12 disciples.
Miracles? Sure, other gods performed supernatural acts. However, not in the same fashion of Jesus. His miracles did two things, help others and prove His claims to be true. They were almost always in public and recorded by eye witnesses. Very different from other ancient gods.
Died on the third day? Where was that recycled from, Horus? The Jesus/Horus comparison has been so thoroughly debunked that no respected scholar or historian gives it any credit.
Was Achilles the son of a god? No, he was the son of one of the Argonaughts who traveled with Jason and a lesser sea goddess. To say Achillies is the Son of God is like saying a rock is a virgin.
Like I said, if one already subscribes to the two tenants of atheism, (1. There is no God & 2. I hate Him) then the recycled Jesus theory is easily to believed. However, 5 minutes doing some objective research and the theory disintegrates. No historian, academic, or scholar worth their weight in salt puts any stock in that theory.
We can start here. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5b.htm
If not necessarily "virgin" births, then certainly unnatural births. This is consistent with Mithra, Julius Caesar, Buddhah, et al.
The Wise Men myth is probably astrological in nature. A special star? Belt of Orion? Astrology.
OK, so Horus had 16 disciples. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5c.htm
Nash, you can't be serious about the truthfulness of Jesus' miracles. If, for no other reasons, miracles were common attributions to all sorts of prophets at the time, and the stories of the miracles are not just second hand, but 100th hand before they were even written down. Hume spoke wisely of miracles, and said that if the universe should suspend it's immutable laws for one's benefit, one might claim a miracle, but another is in no way beholden to believe it. Much less generations of story-telling in between. The "eyewitness" accounts are of no gravity whatever. A million people will attest to the "miracles" of Sai Baba, who lives in India, right now. Do you believe them?
Horus was killed, by Set, daily, and daily resurrected. He was beyond death, as was Jesus, according to myth.
Achilles was born of holy stock. Read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles
The only way to make sense of the Jesus story is to assume that an eccentric rabbi did exist, and that his credentials and achievements were badly exaggerated. He was the L. Ron Hubbard of his time, perhaps without the deliberate deception.
But this is all beyond a more essential point. The central tenet of Christianity is that Jesus died on the cross to redeem Original Sin. There is no Original Sin unless the story of Adam and Eve is literally true, and it is objectively and demonstrably untrue. No Original Sin, no need for Redemption.
The Resurrection is a sort of Certificate of Authenticity of the Redemption. Even the dubious stories of the resurrection are wildly varying. Read the Bible on this point horizontally, that is to say, read the account of the resurrection in all four gospels together.
There is nothing original about the story of Jesus. It's a hodgepodge of earlier mythology, admitted as such by Justin Martyr, among others, I imagine.
The more I learn about religion the more I'm convinced that Christianity is simply a cult that "stuck" because a human sacrifice finally worked. It wasn't much of a sacrifice, because the victim was more than human and returned two days later, if one is to believe the myth. Christianity is a derivative of Jewish blood sacrifice, but infused with other mythologies.
We humans are inclined to believe in hopeful things. Look at Mormonism, Heaven's Gate, the Jim Jones cult, Scientology, Southern Baptists, and David Koresh's cult. They're not true. They depend on the acceptance of earlier superstition, hypnosis, and sophisticated brainwashing techniques developed, intuitively, over time. I was once approached by Mormon missionaries. They asked me if I could accept another, newer, Holy Book with the same reverence as the Bible.
Of course I could.
Enjoy your weekend.
DF