Which God is this paragraph discussing?

[Quixote1818]

I suspect many of you already know this but many more may not. This is only one of many Gods that had similar backgraounds, and who were around hundreds and even thousands of years before Jesus.


BLANK was born of a virgin, with only a number of shepards present. BLANK was known as "the Way", "the Truth", "the Light", "the Life", "the Word", "the Son of God" and "the Good Shepard". He was pictured carrying a lamb on his shoulders. Sunday was known as "the Lord's Day". On December 25th magnificent celebrations were held and "communion" was observed by the followers. From December 25th until the spring equinox were the "40 days" which later became Christian Lent. BLANK was finally placed in a rock tomb and after three days was removed with giant celebrations, festival, and great joy.

On edit: No, it's not Jesus even though it could be.

For anyone interested,I will post a link on this thread later.

[Maraya1969]

1. If it starts out with BLANK religion believes that......it would be historical

so i do not see the problem with it if being taught in a religion study class. As long as other religious beliefs are taught with it.

[baldguy]

2. Jesus

Apollo
Mithras

I'm sure there are others.

[Quixote1818]

4. Thats true, it could be several different Gods

I cut and pasted it from a sight that was not about Jesus though. Yes, it is one of those you mentioned.

[TwentyFive]

3. Jesus story is a fraud - pushed by the rich, so the poor will accept their lot in life.

The poor get comfort knowing the 'blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." If everybody knew that this life on earth was all there is...do you think they'd be toiling away at Wal-Mart for $7/hour and no benefits? All the moronic Freepers would rise up and no longer vote for * and turn off Dr. Laura, Rush and other propaganda ministers.

Rich robber barons gladly allowed their workers a day off to attend church. It allowed them to get away with shitting on them the other 6 days.

[papau]

15. Afraid the Jesus story is fraud story is itself a fraud. Man - things an atheist must believe!

There is so much that those who are atheist and on DU seem to need to believe in order to an atheist on DU. The atheist here on DU sure do feel frighten of challenges to their faith.

[cosmik debris]

21. Most atheists have no faith

So it can never be challenged by anyone's myth. And in case you haven't heard this before, atheists don't have a need to believe. You post is entirely spurious.

I know you find it offensive when people make up stuff and then say that you believe it. That is exactly what you are doing with your claims about atheist's beliefs. If you don't want others to offend you, perhaps you should lighten up on the offensive statements you make.

[Finder]

27. Unfortunately there is as much disinfo in alternative stories as...

there is in the "official" one.

The only thing we know for sure is they are all just stories.

[Danger Mouse]

34. Is this sarcasm?

Atheists don't even have faith. Do you mean challenges to their lack of faith? =P that would be more accurate.

[smirkymonkey]

28. I completely agree with that.

What's amazing is that so few people have figured it out yet.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from killing the rich..." - attributed to Napoleon

[LiberalFighter]

5. Which is easier? Starting a brand new religion or...

taking over a religion with a long established history?

[Quixote1818]

6. Or taking parts of many different religions. nt

[okasha]

20. Christianity did not start as a new religion.

It began as a sect or offshoot of first-century Judaism. Baptism grew out of Jewish purification rituals and the Eucharist out of the Passover/Sabbath seder. The sun imagery can be found in the OT prophetic books--no need to appeal to Sol Invictus. "Son of God" is a Jewish royal/messianic title applied to the king of Judah. "Shepherd" is a royal title known throughout the Mediterranean basin from Greece to Egypt; in the case of Judah/Israel, it goes back to the purported foundation of the kingdom by David. Etc., etc..

Now, the complex of beliefs and archetypes that the story of Jesus does in fact fit into rather neatly is that of divine kingship and king sacrifice. This is something that appears almost world-wide, including, again, in the OT.

[TRYPHO]

42. 9 out of 10 for effort...

okasha wrote:
It began as a sect or offshoot of first-century Judaism
--
Well, technically Christianity WAS Judaism. It wasn't a sect, an offshoot or a.n.other, but actual synagogic based, run-of-the-mill judaism. No one knows when it diverted, when the first "other" declared themselves as such, when the first person said "I am a christian" or said "i am NOT a Jew".
Justin Martyr makes the distinction based on those that were circumsiced, since by his time Christianity had become popular with roman pagans as much as to Jews, to the extent that they were split between those who were and those who weren't circumsised, with the latter now taking preference where the former had been the only accepted christians.

So, back to my typically pedantic correction of okashas point: Christianity BECAME a sect or offshoot of judaism by the mid first century.

Rant over.

TRYPHO
(I should know, I was there :-)))

[papau]

16. What could be done - copying a past religion - is not proven done by the

items presented.

No problem - I understand the rules of logic are hard for the rational atheist to understand.

[ikojo]

17. I don't know..but L Ron Hubbard became

rich by creating a religion out of whole cloth.

[TahitiNut]

7. This theory of "copycatechism" is analyzed here ...

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html

[Odin2005]

13. I think the proper term is "syncretism"

Christianity originated as a syncretic blend of the moral tales and parables from a traveling Jewish rabbi that latter generation would call "Jesus" fused with Mithraism, traditional Paganism, "mystery cults," Neoplatonic mysticism, and the cult of Sol Invictus.

[papau]

19. nope - it would have been possible to happen that way - but it didn't n/t

And amusingly - since we are dealing with rationalists - the DU atheist crowd -

seems the "No it didn't happen via 'syncretism'" latest research (note research - not assertions) is available to the DU atheist via the interest, but to Google/getting their own info, or even links to that info, that proves 'syncretism' a dead postulate, seems beyond the ability of the rational atheists on DU to do. Even when feed the links month after month they seem to have not clicked on them.

I guess it is a faith thing - the faith that is atheism can not stand logical rational challenge, can it?

[Finder]

29. Totally untrue...it is exactly the opposite of what you are stating....

Your comment regarding the "faith" that is atheism is absurd. You are the one that believes based on faith alone.

The only people who deny syncretism are the followers of syncretized religions.

[okasha]

30. As I understand papau's post

s/he is referring to the derivation of Christianity from Roman Mithraism, which the chronology does not support.

There is a level at which all religions are syncretic. Judaism--or more accurately, proto-Judaism--was influenced by Egyptian religion through Egypt's long-term occupation of Palestine. Christianity grew out of a first-century Judaism still based in the strictly monotheistic Josianic reforms of the seventh century BCE, but open to the influence of Neo-platonism among the Greek-speaking upper classes. It had also picked up some minor acoutrements in Babylon, eg., the fire spirits who became the seraphim and other "higher orders" of angels and the idea of a spiritually malevolent being in opposition to the deity(ies).

Where Papau is quite correct is in that there is no need to look outside of first-century Judaism for influences on earliest Christianity, which was itself a form of Judaism. Once the Temple was destroyed in the 70 CE revolt against Rome and much of the population of Judea forcibly removed, both Judaism and the sect that was to become Christianity underwent considerable change. The latter, especially, acquired, absorbed, and generally adapted to the faiths native to areas where it took hold. Local gods and goddesses assimilated to various Christian figures, as did feasts and ritual practices. There's where the syncretism comes into Christianity, especially in the three branches (Roman, Greek, Anglican) of the historic or orthodox church.

[Finder]

31. That is not what he was saying...

I do agree with your last paragraph and that is what is considered syncretism.

[okasha]

32. Very true.

Unfortunately, it's not what the OP meant, or what a number of posters who have brought forward the same or similar material have meant. I think "faith" comes into the equation in the uncritical way this material is treated--there's not only no citation in the OP but apparently no attempt to check out any of its assertions at even the most basic level. A little googling would lead to materials which show it up for the misinformation it is. You don't even need Google to disprove the assertion concerning the "40 days" of Lent; you don't even need a calendar--your fingers and toes will do the job just fine. Now, you can call unquestioning acceptance of unproven assertions "faith"--or you can call it a number of things that are far less complimentary. Would you really prefer "gullibility?"

[Odin2005]

38. "the faith that is atheism"

:eyes:

[TahitiNut]

35. I prefer "copycatechism"

:shrug: Sue me.

[Odin2005]

37. Nah!!!

:)

[TahitiNut]

39. I just can't resist pun-ny neologisms.

:silly: Indeed, I'd call the half-vast gulf that divides folks in this area as a 'copycatechasm'. :dunce:

[papau]

18. That's an excellent reference on Roman mithra - which is now dated after Jesus n/t

n/t

[papau]

8. This is a bit tiresome - another atheist book being pushed in GD - "Suns of God"

Perhaps a good choice for all the atheists on your Christmas list -

Suns of God:Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled )Why is there no mention of Jesus Christ by historians of his time? What is the Mysterious Brotherhood?) by Acharya
What do Krishna, Buddha and Christ have in common?

( and the author is well educated in the field)

BUT as Nash points this out:

"One frequently encounters scholars who first use Christian terminology to describe pagan beliefs and practices, and then marvel at the striking parallels they think they have discovered. One can go a long way toward "proving" early Christian dependence on the mysteries by describing some mystery belief or practice in Christian terminology...Exaggerations and oversimplifications abound in this kind of literature. One encounters overblown claims about alleged likenesses between baptism and the Lord's Supper and similar "sacraments" in certain mystery cults...The mere fact that Christianity has a sacred meal and a washing of the body is supposed to prove that it borrowed these ceremonies from similar meals and washings in the pagan cults. By themselves, of course, such outward similarities prove nothing. After all, religious ceremonies can assume only a limited number of forms, and they will naturally relate to important or common aspects of human life. The more important question is the meaning of the pagan practices." <http://www.summit.org/Resources/NT&PaganRel.htm>


Now, the main reason this position has generally been abandoned (as noted above) is that it is altogether unnecessary, and less 'useful' as an explanatory construct: the elements in the gospels and epistles all make more sense as having developed out of mainstream Judaism and have much more 'numerous, complex, and striking parallels' to Old Testament/Tanaach themes and passages. Apart from issues of chronology and questions of motivation for borrowing (separate problems from that of detecting forceful parallels), the Jewish background furnishes us with a system of underlying ideas needed to make sense of the imagery.


no one is arguing (certainly not me) that they couldn't have done it, but rather that they didn't do it. The evidence may support borrowing later; but in our (earlier) case, it doesn't...That's my argument--that "the evidence leads us to believe borrowing did not occur".

All of the above taken from the internet - but it expresses my view very well.

In any case, if your atheist, I am sure you will enjoy the book.

but now I wonder why this was not posted in the religious forum ....

in any case -

Merry Christmas everyone.

[lapfog_1]

9. uh, yeah,

hold on to that belief while you put up the Christmas tree, and all the Christmas lights, and hang the mistletoe.

[papau]

14. Having a hard time distinguishing Jesus's life from later Roman Church actions are we? n/t

n/t

[valerief]

10. Sol Invictus? nt

[Odin2005]

11. Mithras.

[BlackVelvet04]

12. Not according to this website:

Various stories survive to account for Mithras's birth. Often he is depicted springing from the living rock or from a tree; at Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall, however, there was a tradition that he was born from the Cosmic Egg. This sculpture shows Mithras bursting from the Egg whilst holding in his upraised hands the Sword of Truth and Torch of Light. Around him in an egg-shaped frame is the Cosmos containing the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. This is an unique representation in Britain and is thought to be the earliest surviving representation of the Signs of the Zodiac in the north-west provinces of the Roman Empire.
http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/archive/mithras/text.htm

[okasha]

22. See my post 20, below.

You might also want to do a little verification on your sources, starting with looking at a calendar. It's not "forty days" from December 25 (Winter Solstice) to the Spring Equinox. It's more like 90.

[cosmik debris]

23. Actually, I believe the Solstice falls on Dec. 22

We must be scrupulous about our facts. Facts are the basis of religion, right?:sarcasm:

[okasha]

24. Actually, and uhm, factually, Winter Solstice

can fall on one of a narrow range of days. But just to satisfy your scrupulosity, December 25 is "approximately" on the Winter Solstice.

(Careful, or you're going to gut the argument that Christmas is based on pagan Winter Solstice festivals. You wouldn't want to do that, now, would you? :rofl: )

[cosmik debris]

25. I'm not that concerned about the origin of Christmas.

I'm too busy defending the Jewish Holiday in the War on Chanukah.:-)

[okasha]

26. My goodness.

You mean Judah Maccabbee wasn't just another Mithras copycat? Light springing forth at the dark of the year from under the earth and all that? Aww, shucks!

[Danger Mouse]

33. Gilgamesh!

Uhm...Zeus? Marvin the Martian? I have no clue.

[jgraz]

36. As a Marvin the Martian worshipper, I find your post insulting

"You have made me very angry - very angry indeed!"

[Danger Mouse]

40. Oh man...

looks like I'm screwed =P

[jgraz]

41. That would be "screwn"

[WritingIsMyReligion]

43. Is it Mithras?

I know much of Jeebus was ripped straight from the Mithrans.

[okasha]

44. Unlikely.

You might want to check out some of the posts upthread. The so-called similarities in the OP range between dubious and made up out of whole cloth--and Roman Mithraism post-dates Chritianity.