Your View of God

[(=Nemesis=)]

Actually scholars have ideas about the history of the bible too.

The various dialects and word usage used in the law books suggest multiple sources and revisionism. It's thought that Yahweh (the god of the bible) was part of polytheistic myths where different countries had different gods. Yahweh was the god of war and became Israel's god. And then they were revised when Deuteronomy (the last law book) came about to make it monotheistic.

Which explains the massive amount of holy wars in the law books, the fact that there are various phrases indicating multiple gods. Why Yahweh/Moses were so against worshipping of other gods and why Yahweh is consistently referred to as 'the LORD your God'.

You do remember that before that point, the Israelites were kept in Egypt for generations where the pervasive polytheistic practices had a lot of time to influence their attitudes, right? It's similar to the modern day, and consumerism. Consumerism runs in the opposite direction to God's directives (you cannot worship both God and Mammon (and please, that's not polytheism, that's the encapsulation of a concept into an abstract entity, which although related to polytheism, is not the same thing)), and yet many Christians are at least partially preoccupied with consumeristic demands. See: Christmas, king of all that is corrupted by consumerism.

All this stuff about Yahweh being the god of war, based on the recounting of war waged between the Israelites and other nations, is a little over the top. Most of these battles were fought because the Israelites were seeking passage through to Jericho (I would explain exactly why they took Jericho, but it's somewhat irrelevant and long-winded - to be brief, you can feel sorry for them if you like, but many nations around that time were into human sacrifice and/or cannibalism - traits that have most recently existed in isolated tribal african communities, with sacrifices famously practised by the Aztecs) and the nations they were trying to get passage through took the Israelites to be poorly equipped (which they were), exhausted from their exodus from Egypt (which they were) and a future threat (which they were). So the Israelites were attacked quite a lot at that point. When they established Judea, they were quite often at war with the Philistines (Palestine), much like today. But one does not today come to the conclusion that the Israeli armies fight their neighbouring countries "because Yahweh is a god of war". If you look at it, nations like Lebanon, Iran, even Egypt, have been trying to wipe out the modern state of Israel pretty much because their own religion dictates the wholesale slaughter of Jews.

Similar things to the Jesus story had been done again and again before Jesus and it's thought that it was reused by the authors of the Gospels. Virgin births, three day resurrections, saviours and similar phrases like "Horus the Child" come from the Egyptian myths about Horus.

I have heard this one before, and although I don't remember exacting details, I'm fairly confident that there is nowhere near enough similarity to draw anything from it. A quick Wikipedia search shows that Shed (a form of Horus?) was a "saviour" in a very superficial way, being the rough equivalent of a Roman/Greek god of healing. O Shed, save us from this bout of common cold, etc. As for your other details like virgin births and whatnot, I have no idea where to even start looking. Perhaps you might oblige.

There is also evidence of lots of civilisations (China, etc.) being older than Noah's flood.

Kind of off-topic, isn't it? In any case, there are plenty of reasons for this. Mankind was well spread out at that point, even though the worldwide population would be considered tiny. Many believe the flood to have been absolutely global, which may or may not be technically possible. I think it's more likely that the immediate region was flooded, wiping out populations within... a few hundred, or a few thousand, miles.

There is some evidence to suggest that the genesis creation story (namely the first chapter), existed before the book Genesis did. And was part of a polytheistic religion. Hence the leftover of:



Context

Your musing of polytheism stems entirely from the "let US make man in OUR image". That's an interesting take on it. I'd never thought of it. Because God already has some canonically recognised "conversation partners" if you like, whose creation is not documented, but whose influence is frequent and resoundingly well recognised. I am of course referring to the Angels.

To understand what God meant by "in our image", you only have to consider what God, Angels and Mankind all had in common at that point that other life, as far as we know, does not.

They are all imaginative, ambitious, and capable of envisioning possible futures or events which may be completely impossible.

I'm going to go a little further here and add a detail about why the idea of a mortal meatbag having this spark of soul is so important to God and so repugnant to Satan in particular. God and the Angels, etc., are probably non-dependent on the passage of time, which is probably how the universe turned out so improbably well. Being largely unaffected by time does wonders for your attitude. When you make up your mind about something, you're probably going to know every relevant fact to support or contradict your conviction. Mortals, such as ourselves, are within the relentless grip of time, and as a result are absurdly unstable. If you were to look at a timeline of your whole life, your shifting personality trends and everything else considered, where can you put your finger and say "that's the real me, right there"? To be mortal is to be in flux, and that's why God's creation of so many little temporal mini-Gods running around inventing and conquering and creating is so lovely, or so repugnant, depending on who you ask.

I've already written more than I intended so I'll leave it at that for now.

 

[Myles]

I know why the wars were sanctioned (the Israelites were chosen and so were more special for some reason). That doesn't mean they weren't still wars. God of war comes from phrases in the Hebrew bible like Yahweh Sabaoth (meaning Yahweh God of Armies). The ridiculous amount of wars approved by God in the Old Testament is just a reaffirming factor. There is a remnant of this in English translations:

David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

Context

The poltheism comes from more than just the bible. There is archaeological evidence and stuff too. It's thought that at the time countries in the area had 'national gods'. Israel had Yahweh, hence the 'God of Israel'. Most of the reference to polytheism are thought to have been revised out by Second Isaiah (the unnamed author responsible for writing the second half of Isaiah). There are plenty of references remaining though:

Genesis 1:26, 3:22, 11:7
Exodus 12:12, 15:11, 18:11, 20:3, 20:5, 22:20, 22:28, 23:13, 23:24, 23:32, 34:14
Numbers 33:4
Deuteronomy 3:24, 5:7, 6:14-15, 10:17, 28:14
Joshua 24:2, 24:14, 11:24
1 Samuel 6:5, 28:13
1 Chronicles 16:25
Psalm 82:1, 86:8, 96:4, 97:7, 135:5, 136:2
Jeremiah 1:16, 10:11, 25:6, 46:25
Zephaniah 2:11

Some highlights:

Exodus 12:12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.
Exodus 18:11 Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.
Exodus 23:32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
Psalm 96:4 For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods.

As for the virgin birth. Isis gave birth to Horus through parthenogenesis after her husband had died.

 

[(=Nemesis=)]

I know why the wars were sanctioned (the Israelites were chosen and so were more special for some reason). That doesn't mean they weren't still wars. God of war comes from phrases in the Hebrew bible like Yahweh Sabaoth (meaning Yahweh God of Armies). The ridiculous amount of wars approved by God in the Old Testament is just a reaffirming factor. There is a remnant of this in English translations:



Context

I'm not denying that there were wars. I'm saying that being a god involved in war doesn't make you a God Of War. Whether or not God is referred to as the God of War doesn't really imply polytheism as he had not only been called that, but the God of many other things too... you've pointed at ways in which it might be interpreted that Yahweh may not have been the only Hebrew deity, but it means nothing unless you have some positive indication of other Hebrew gods being mentioned.

I believe you have a distorted view of the number of wars the Israelites were involved in. We are talking about the span of thousands of years. In the last hundred years alone, how many wars has the USA been involved in? I count six from the top of my head, and I know there must be a number more. When history comes to judge us, who will have had the most "ridiculous" number of wars? The Israelites will hardly figure.

The poltheism comes from more than just the bible. There is archaeological evidence and stuff too. It's thought that at the time countries in the area had 'national gods'. Israel had Yahweh, hence the 'God of Israel'. Most of the reference to polytheism are thought to have been revised out by Second Isaiah (the unnamed author responsible for writing the second half of Isaiah). There are plenty of references remaining though:

<snip>

I think the point was that you can shout till you're blue in the face that everyone elses' gods Aren't Real Gods, but people, being generally thick, aren't going to pay a lot of attention. My God's Better Than Your Tin God probably did the trick better. It's not a very strong argument, no, but my earlier point applies. If you can point out a reference to a Hebrew god that isn't Yahweh, you have an argument. At the moment this looks like guesswork.

I will say, though, it looks sort of interesting as a concept. You have God 1 creating the earth, and sorting out early civilisation, acting as humanity's guide up to Abraham and then wandering off while God 2 takes over with an opening ceremony in a burning bush.

However, a closer look shows that both God 1 and God 2 were interested in establishing the Israelites for whichever reason they may "both" have had, had a similar interest in theatricality, and were both pretty jealous of their people. There are far too many similarities in reported behaviour and not enough differences.

That said, Moses started the Bible off, so who's to say he didn't ret-con history to suit God 2's power-grab from God 1? Well it doesn't make sense. If you're going to write the foundation of the Bible pretending there's one God, it makes absolutely no sense to drop all the polytheist references you purport to find. Secondly, the fact that the Bible was largely written in Moses' time should give us an excellent reason for the "Yahweh vs All Them Other Gods" peculiarities. Without the Bible, the Israelites wouldn't be particularly aware of God's opinions on whether other gods exist, and many would probably have gone along with the idea that many gods do exist, and that you can just make one up if you like (and they did exactly that after escaping from Egypt, as you may recall).

There, I thought there was a good reason.

As for the virgin birth. Isis gave birth to Horus through parthenogenesis after her husband had died.

So, technically, in the original virgin birth story where a virgin who gave virgin birth wasn't actually a virgin?

I'm not going to press you on that, but I will say it sounds less similar than Zeus'... activities, which I think involved impregnating a woman with rainfall. Since that was adopted into Roman mythology, and the Romans were occupying Judea at the time of Christ's birth... if the circumstances of his birth were copied from anywhere, I don't think it would have been wholesale from Egypt. And if you say that all of Christ's life can be explained away through mythological tradition, it would still not be the case. The Jews expected (and largely, still do expect) The Messiah to come down to Earth with dramatic aplomb, and beat up their oppressors with Holy Fists of Smiting. That would sort of be in line with mythological precedent. What happened instead is that Jesus declared himself the saviour of Jews and Gentiles, and didn't smite anyone at all; that ticked off the religious leaders to the point where they killed him, unwittingly making him the flawless sacrifice for all mankind. That's nothing like any other mythology that exists. The closest thing I can think of, is probably Neo in The Matrix (and its awful sequels), sacrificing himself so that all mankind can be released from their false lives (sound like an allegory to sin at all?). I'm fairly confident to say that I think Jesus was the inventor of the super-heroic sacrifice.

 

[HarrisonH]

I'm not going to bother quoting because that's a lot to cut out, but:

The is pretty much no evidence that a mass exodus from Egypt ever occured.

As for the argument "the flood could have been local", then why would god make Noah go through the hassle of building an ark and getting 2 of every animal on earth? Couldn't god have just said "Hey, take a vacation for a bit"?

As for the things about Horus and other gods being the sources for parts of the Jesus story, I beg you both to take a look here.

 

[(=Nemesis=)]

I'm not going to bother quoting because that's a lot to cut out, but:

The is pretty much no evidence that a mass exodus from Egypt ever occured.

That's totally irrelevant unless you mean to say that the Israelites had no dealings with polytheistic cultures pre-Moses. I don't even know what your point is.

As for the argument "the flood could have been local", then why would god make Noah go through the hassle of building an ark and getting 2 of every animal on earth? Couldn't god have just said "Hey, take a vacation for a bit"?[/quote

Technically, it wasn't two of every animal on Earth. Depending on who you ask, it was two of every kind of animal, or two of every kind of animal deemed unfit for food, and seven of every other kind. A "kind" of animal could be considered analogous to an animal family; for instance, cheetahs and panthers would easily be of the same "kind". That's just being technical and pedantic though. I'm sure you weren't making a serious argument there. As for your suggestion that Noah should have taken "a vacation", tell me, how far can a man walk in a year? About 10,000 miles? That doesn't sound too bad initially. Until you make practical considerations. Would people have followed along behind him, thus defeating the point? Would he be ambushed along the way by bandits? How much effort would it take, versus building an awesome ship? The way I see it, neither option seems more resoundingly obvious than the other. I can only put your refreshingly blasé view of the situation down to an imagining of Noah and the family hopping into the ol' station-wagon and cruisin' down Route 66. Now that's an alternative I wouldn't object to.

As for the things about Horus and other gods being the sources for parts of the Jesus story, I beg you both to take a look here.

Thank you, that was rather informative. I didn't know people had gone to so much trouble to make all those peculiar (and in some cases, completely absurd) connections, and I didn't know some other people had gone to so much trouble to break them again.

 

[HarrisonH]

That's totally irrelevant unless you mean to say that the Israelites had no dealings with polytheistic cultures pre-Moses. I don't even know what your point is.

It was referring to this post of yours. Since the Israelites were not in Egypt, then most of your argument in that post falls to pieces.

Technically, it wasn't two of every animal on Earth. Depending on who you ask, it was two of every kind of animal, or two of every kind of animal deemed unfit for food, and seven of every other kind. A "kind" of animal could be considered analogous to an animal family; for instance, cheetahs and panthers would easily be of the same "kind". That's just being technical and pedantic though. I'm sure you weren't making a serious argument there. As for your suggestion that Noah should have taken "a vacation", tell me, how far can a man walk in a year? About 10,000 miles? That doesn't sound too bad initially. Until you make practical considerations. Would people have followed along behind him, thus defeating the point? Would he be ambushed along the way by bandits? How much effort would it take, versus building an awesome ship? The way I see it, neither option seems more resoundingly obvious than the other. I can only put your refreshingly blasé view of the situation down to an imagining of Noah and the family hopping into the ol' station-wagon and cruisin' down Route 66. Now that's an alternative I wouldn't object to.

The "kinds" argument is silly.

Anyways, my argument about the vacation was really to bring up that God, being all powerful, could have done it any other way that didn't involve the gruesome murder of countless people through drowning. God could have easily just snapped his fingers to kill them all off, instead of creating a scenario that requires jumping through multiple hoops to rationalize later on.

Thank you, that was rather informative. I didn't know people had gone to so much trouble to make all those peculiar (and in some cases, completely absurd) connections, and I didn't know some other people had gone to so much trouble to break them again.

I'm not just an atheist, I'm also a skeptic. If a claim doesn't have evidence to back it up, then it's just silly to propagate it.

 

[Yoshikko]

I don't believe in God. I might believe in a god though, without a particular form, as a higher energy, but I'm not sure. I think the idea of God was made up, because people needed someone to blame the bad events on, to give them reason. Almost everyone has once asked themselves 'why is this happening', and I think that when someone asked themselves this, they might have answered it with the fact that e.g. earthquakes couldn't just be happening without a reason, and thought of a reason. I'm not saying the people who supposedly made it up were lying - they undoubtedly believed in their God, they made it up because it seemed like the only possible reason to them for events such as earthquakes.

The reason I think this idea is still around, is because everyone, needs a 'god' (I will just be referring to a higher power as a 'god'). Everyone needs someone that is higher in the hierarchy than they are, because people need an example, someone to look up to. "Every man may meet his match", that is what I believe in, and so I believe that is the reason that people created such a higher power. It is because people can not live with the fact that they are alone on this world, without anyone watching over them. It's the idea of loneliness and isolation, that scares people. These feelings have a lot to do with the situation, because the top spot, is the loneliest, and people don't want to feel that they are alone at the top, people can't handle that feeling of power, so they need someone that is even higher then they are, everyone needs this guidance. This is how I think the idea of God was created, and why so much people resort to this idea, and believe in it.

Like I said, I'd like to believe that there exists such higher power, but I am cynical, and can't believe in that, it would be too good to be true. I believe we are alone, in the end, we are all alone, in religious situations, at least.

 

[Myles]

I'm not denying that there were wars. I'm saying that being a god involved in war doesn't make you a God Of War. Whether or not God is referred to as the God of War doesn't really imply polytheism as he had not only been called that, but the God of many other things too... you've pointed at ways in which it might be interpreted that Yahweh may not have been the only Hebrew deity, but it means nothing unless you have some positive indication of other Hebrew gods being mentioned.

I believe you have a distorted view of the number of wars the Israelites were involved in. We are talking about the span of thousands of years. In the last hundred years alone, how many wars has the USA been involved in? I count six from the top of my head, and I know there must be a number more. When history comes to judge us, who will have had the most "ridiculous" number of wars? The Israelites will hardly figure.

I would suggest that any wars sanctions by an omnipotent, omnibenelvolent god were ridiculous. Especially considering they were the ones that started the wars just because they wanted land. They weren't in defense. God should be doing better than what America can do anyway. Everyone knows America has a violent past. And it's at most a thousand years. Exodus occurs in 1491 BCE.

I think the point was that you can shout till you're blue in the face that everyone elses' gods Aren't Real Gods, but people, being generally thick, aren't going to pay a lot of attention. My God's Better Than Your Tin God probably did the trick better. It's not a very strong argument, no, but my earlier point applies. If you can point out a reference to a Hebrew god that isn't Yahweh, you have an argument. At the moment this looks like guesswork.

I will say, though, it looks sort of interesting as a concept. You have God 1 creating the earth, and sorting out early civilisation, acting as humanity's guide up to Abraham and then wandering off while God 2 takes over with an opening ceremony in a burning bush.

However, a closer look shows that both God 1 and God 2 were interested in establishing the Israelites for whichever reason they may "both" have had, had a similar interest in theatricality, and were both pretty jealous of their people. There are far too many similarities in reported behaviour and not enough differences.

That said, Moses started the Bible off, so who's to say he didn't ret-con history to suit God 2's power-grab from God 1? Well it doesn't make sense. If you're going to write the foundation of the Bible pretending there's one God, it makes absolutely no sense to drop all the polytheist references you purport to find. Secondly, the fact that the Bible was largely written in Moses' time should give us an excellent reason for the "Yahweh vs All Them Other Gods" peculiarities. Without the Bible, the Israelites wouldn't be particularly aware of God's opinions on whether other gods exist, and many would probably have gone along with the idea that many gods do exist, and that you can just make one up if you like (and they did exactly that after escaping from Egypt, as you may recall).

There, I thought there was a good reason.

It's thought that when the Israelites left their home when Isaiah was being written, that the people weren't taking the idea of putting Yahweh above all gods very well. So they rewrote all the other gods out of the picture. And merged a few gods too (like Yahweh and El Elyon). Which explains the multiple names given to God throughout the bible.

 

[Ivysaur]

I have heard this one before, and although I don't remember exacting details, I'm fairly confident that there is nowhere near enough similarity to draw anything from it. A quick Wikipedia search shows that Shed (a form of Horus?) was a "saviour" in a very superficial way, being the rough equivalent of a Roman/Greek god of healing. O Shed, save us from this bout of common cold, etc. As for your other details like virgin births and whatnot, I have no idea where to even start looking. Perhaps you might oblige.

Sorry, but it just happens I'm reading a nice book, El catolicismo explicado a las ovejas (Catholicism explained for sheep), by Juan Eslava Galán (ed. Planeta), whose main purpose is analyzing the Bible from a logical/scientific/historical point of view and showing the hundreds of incoherences it contains. One of the chapters (Chapter 6, Los antecedentes de Jesucristo (Jesus Christ's precedents), pag. 66), shows a list of all religions that included a version of Jesus's history. And I just had to quote it.

"According to the historian E. Royston Pilke, several religions, including the Persian, Egyptian, Syrian, Greek, Roman, Aztec and Hindi ones, celebrated the birth of of the Sun God, son of the Virgin of Heavens, around the end of December.

"Several Mystery Religions had a god, born among men, who would die and then resurrect some time later, in rites that would freed the followers from the fear of death.

"According to the historians Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, the Indo-Iranian god Mitra was born in the Winter Solstice (December 25th), son of a Virgin and a God. Three sheperds who were in the zone are witnesses to the event, his followers called him "the Saviour" and "Son of God", and are told to be baptized to join him, turns water into wine in a wedding, and dies in Spring to freed men from their sins, sinks to the underworld, but, three days later, comes back to life and then goes to Heaven, he'll judge men once the world ends, and his followers remember him by eating bread and drinking wine to represent his body and his blood.

"But that's not all. 6 of his sacraments are the same ones Jesus used hundreds of years later. Holy Communion, specifically, already appears in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. That was to be taken by the followers who had previously taken the catechism. After the communion, 12 priests would dance around the new follower (12 people, did I hear that somewhere?).

"The followers of Mitra would originally be baptized with blood from a bull. But, due to the obvious inconveniences, it was later changed to sacred water instead.

"Mitra is first heard of in the Vedas, the Indian Sacred Books, around 2500 years before Jesus was born. During the following centuries, the cult spreaded to Persia. Then, in the year -1200, Zoroaster was born from yet another virgin, in the modern Afghanistan. He was baptized, had impressive religious knowledge even when he was a kid, was tempted by the Devil after staying in the desert for some weeks, had a revelation from God that moved him to create a religion (Mazdeism or Zoroastrianism) and wrote a sacred book following God's orders. He was helped by 12 disciples, did several miracles, healed ill people, and his existence was celebrated in ritual feasts.

"In his sacred book, you can find the history of Adam and Eve, the Ark, a sacred Trinity (Ahura Mazda, Mitra and Anahita, mother of Mitra).

"Dyonisus was also born from a Virgin and a God, was known as the Saviour, turned water into wine, his symbol was a lamb, considered himself "a god that had taken a human form". When he was arrested, he told Penteo, the political leader who ordered it, that he couldn't 'do anything that hasn't been already arranged'. His followers used a cross to represent him. He dies in Spring, and his mother, Semele, ascended to heaven with him.

"Lastly, the Egyptian god Osiris was born the 25th of December, from a virgin, in a manger, he's baptized, preaches, brings peace to the people, dies on a cross, comes back to life three days later, and, finally, is known as "Keristo" (the anointed) in Latin. His life is written in the Temple of Serapis, in Sakkara, where Jewish priests lived during their time in Egypt."

Sorry if there are any problems in the text, I just translated it myself. If you want more specific bibliographic references, just ask.

 

[HarrisonH]

Sorry, but it just happens I'm reading a nice book, El catolicismo explicado a las ovejas (Catholicism explained for sheep), by Juan Eslava Galán (ed. Planeta), whose main purpose is analyzing the Bible from a logical/scientific/historical point of view and showing the hundreds of incoherences it contains. One of the chapters (Chapter 6, Los antecedentes de Jesucristo (Jesus Christ's precedents), pag. 66), shows a list of all religions that included a version of Jesus's history. And I just had to quote it.

"According to the historian E. Royston Pilke, several religions, including the Persian, Egyptian, Syrian, Greek, Roman, Aztec and Hindi ones, celebrated the birth of of the Sun God, son of the Virgin of Heavens, around the end of December.

"Several Mystery Religions had a god, born among men, who would die and then resurrect some time later, in rites that would freed the followers from the fear of death.

"According to the historians Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, the Indo-Iranian god Mitra was born in the Winter Solstice (December 25th), son of a Virgin and a God. Three sheperds who were in the zone are witnesses to the event, his followers called him "the Saviour" and "Son of God", and are told to be baptized to join him, turns water into wine in a wedding, and dies in Spring to freed men from their sins, sinks to the underworld, but, three days later, comes back to life and then goes to Heaven, he'll judge men once the world ends, and his followers remember him by eating bread and drinking wine to represent his body and his blood.

"But that's not all. 6 of his sacraments are the same ones Jesus used hundreds of years later. Holy Communion, specifically, already appears in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. That was to be taken by the followers who had previously taken the catechism. After the communion, 12 priests would dance around the new follower (12 people, did I hear that somewhere?).

"The followers of Mitra would originally be baptized with blood from a bull. But, due to the obvious inconveniences, it was later changed to sacred water instead.

"Mitra is first heard of in the Vedas, the Indian Sacred Books, around 2500 years before Jesus was born.The cult spreaded to Persia. Then, in the year -1200, Zoroaster was born from yet another virgin, in the modern Afghanistan. He was baptized, had impressive religious knowledge even when he was a kid, was tempted by the Devil after staying in the desert for some weeks, had a revelation from God that moved him to create a religion (Mazdeism or Zoroastrianism) and wrote a sacred book following God's orders. He was helped by 12 disciples, did several miracles, healed ill people, and his existence was celebrated in ritual feasts.

"In his sacred book, you can find the history of Adam and Eve, the Ark, a sacred Trinity (Ahura Mazda, Mitra and Anahita, mother of Mitra).

"Dyonisus was also born from a Virgin and a God, was known as the Saviour, turned water into wine, his symbol was a lamb, considered himself "a god that had taken a human form". When he was arrested, he told Penteo, the political leader who ordered it, that he couldn't 'do anything that hasn't been already arranged'. His followers used a cross to represent him. He dies in Spring, and his mother, Semele, ascended to heaven with him.

"Lastly, the Egyptian god Osiris was born the 25th of December, from a virgin, in a manger, he's baptized, preaches, brings peace to the people, dies on a cross, comes back to life three days later, and, finally, is known as "Keristo" (the anointed) in Latin. His life is written in the Temple of Serapis, in Sakkara, where Jewish priests lived during their time in Egypt."

Sorry if there are any problems in the text, I just translated it myself. If you want more specific bibliographic references, just ask.

I'd like the sources, because of this.

 

[Ivysaur]

The major part of the history of Mitra comes from The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, the book that is disputed in your link.

Other sources (Mitraism is not the only cult I mentioned, by the way) are:
Última noticia de Jesús el Nazareno, Lluís Busquests i Grabulosa
Jesús, 3000 años antes de Cristo, Claude-Brigitte Carcenac Pujol & Llogari Pujol
History of the Synoptic Tradition, Rudolf Bultmann
Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?, Morton Smith

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

I saw a thread like this on another forum so I will borrow it.
What are your views on god? Do you think he/she/it is the the highest of beings? Do you think there is one, or many? Do you think god is ancient mans perception of aliens? Or do not believe in a supreme being at all, and think we all just are? please discuss, oh and be civil and respect other peoples views.

I don't care. That's not to say that I'm atheistic or agnostic or any variant. I just don't care about God. If whatever's up there is up there, then great! If nothing's up then, also great. I just wish other people would be as apathetic as me when it comes to stuff like this...

 

[Livewire]

I always assumed it woefully obvious that Christianity borrowed many, if not all, its chief material from previous religions, just like all the others. Also, there is historical evidence that suggests that a major flood occurred sometime before 1600 B.C.E that inspired all the Indo-European flood myths.

 

[DowntownDumpling]

I was raised in a Unitarian family, but am atheist now. I've never believed in much of a chance that a deity exists, although I used to believe that there might be an afterlife, kind of like what Buddhism describes.

 

[YuDaMan]

I wish I could believe in a God, but I don't think that is possible, yet. I go to a Christian college, however, I was raised in a Buddhist family, but being in the college for 3 years now, I have become more open minded instead of staying closed off from others' views. I'm pretty sure I fall in the category of agnoticism...

The main reason why I don't think Christianity is as strong as it should be is because of all the different denominations. They constantly dispute amongst each other about the differerent interpretations of the Bible while the secular world sits back with their stereotypical view of the average Christian. I don't believe the statistics true about how many Christians there are. Too many people call themselves Christians without knowing the true meaning. Yea that sounds hypocrytical from someone who isn't Christian right? Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't take one to know one.

Also, I find it very annoying for Christians to defend the existence of God by citing verses from the Bible. Isn't it's integrity that is on debate anyways? It's like asking someone to define a vocabulary word without using the word itself.

 

[TornZero]

Agnostic... or, whatever.

I was raised Christian by my parents, but I grew up not believing in any of it. I don't believe in God, because there's no proof going for Him. But I can't exactly say there is no God, as there's still a possibility until He is undeniably unproven.

Now, if I did believe in Him (and even while I don't), my view wouldn't exactly be anything life-changing or super-powerful. He may have caused the universe to be created, and given it matter, anti-matter and dark matter, and allowed chemical mutation to take effect instead of just watching asteroids fly around. It's like saying, "Ah, this is boring. Let's make something cool happen!" He may still be watching over us now, yet doing nothing BUT watching. Yeah... watching on a movie theater-sized HDTV that we won't get to use for another hundred years.... Maybe sprouting a hundred arms and eyes just to play a fifty games on every console at once. (Dang that would be awesome!)

As for Him being only one or being many, it's possible for either to be true, and both to be true at once. Considering God is able to create a universe, He should be able to split Himself into weaker entities in separate self-images, or He could have originally been many entities that merged into a single God. In the case of the former, being one and many at any one point in time is possible, while the latter progresses from being many to becoming one.

 

[Timbjerr]

I was raised in a Catholic family, and while I believe in the basic aspects of Catholicism, I think I'm technically more Deist about it.

I believe in a creation deity and I believe that Jesus Christ was his earthly avatar, but I don't believe he intervenes with human affairs directly very often. Given how immense the universe is, he's probably more busy looking at the grand scheme of things instead of micro-managing every planet with sentient life on it. XD

As for the Bible, its historical credibility is dubious at best given the manner by which it was compiled and how many times it was edited and retranslated over the course of human history. Yes, there are some parts that are spiritually enlightening, but it's by no means infallable

 

[Musician of Literature]

Hm, hm, hm. Religion. I like to go back to ancient cultures for this. Ok, so i believe that many gods were involved in creation of the earth, and other planets. Ok. But I believe everything was created by one god, and creation is supported by other gods. Now these other gods are aliens who had superior technology to humans. They probably lived on Mars, which I believe at one point supported life. So my belief is that aliens governed earth, altered our ancestors genes, and then fled the solar system to find a new home in replacement of Mars, which heated it's core. Aliens with amazing technology still governed earth from the new location. Ok, and I believe that the gods are aliens because EVERY ancient religion is polytheistic. That clearly explains the gods traveled all around the world, or possibly altered the genetics of apes in Africa before our great civilization, then helped with the pyramids then left.

 

[[Ghost]]

I don't believe in basing my life around a book that I roll joints out of.

Atheist 'nuff said. <3


.,:;'`Ghost'`;:,.

 

[Bolanboy]

I'd like to believe there is a God, or some supernatural all-being higher power that doesn't necessarily have a plan but just for a comforting reason. But I don't like to think that there is only a Human race and that's it, that would blow me. I'd also say I'm more agnostic, whereas when I was younger I'd say I was atheist because AW YEA I'M YOUNG ATHEISM IS COOL LOL. I also hate that evolution and religion can't co-exist for a simple few words that read "And He made us in His image". If I was a God and making a few new universes, I'd like to create the species as low-down as possible to see the evolution and the path they take, as opposed to "Here's a world, have fun! Don't eat apples!".