Stop having so many damn kids; population control, anyone?

[Sunta 4]

They made no claims about Dionysus being cruxified

Pam, let me refer you to this link:

http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr17a.htm

It has some great pictures of early pagan and/or Greek symbols, one of which is a picture of the crucifixion of Dionysus.

Finally, what are you thoughts on Mithra? He was born of a virgin mother and lots of other similarities...

[~Pam~ 0]

They made no claims about Dionysus being cruxified

Pam, let me refer you to this link:

http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr17a.htm

It has some great pictures of early pagan and/or Greek symbols, one of which is a picture of the crucifixion of Dionysus.

Greek mythology doesn't make any claims about Dionysus being cruxified whatsoever. At least it's not in any of my books. I looked it up on the internet though to see what you are referring to and found this article about the fake amulet:

To the uninformed viewer, the amulet might appear to bolster claims that Christianity was influenced by the Bacchus/Dionysus tradition. But a closer look reveals problems with the amulet:

1. The image on the book cover is not a photograph of the actual amulet. Instead, it is an artist's rendition of the amulet. And the artist's rendition is not based on the actual amulet itself. Instead, it is based on a line drawing of the amulet, which is said to have been destroyed or lost during the Second World War.

2. The amulet is dated by scholars as having been created two centuries, or more, after the crucifixion of Jesus. If the dating is accurate, it would be impossible for the New Testament to have been influenced by it.

3. It is unknown if the amulet is truly of pagan origin.

One of the first scholars to provide a date for the amulet was Robert Eisler, in his Orpheus - The Fisher. Eisler claimed that the amulet was created during the third or fourth century, which would be two or three centuries after the writing of the New Testament and its account of the crucifixion of Jesus.

In fact, Eisler concludes, however reliably or unreliably, that the amulet does not show a crucified pagan but that it actually shows a crucified Jesus. And, it should be noted that Eisler was not a pro-Christian scholar. His writings provide ample evidence of antagonistism towards Christianity.

A third century AD date for the amulet is assigned in Orpheus and Greek Religion, published in 1952, by WKC Guthrie, in a caption that explains an illustration of the amulet.

In a 1993 reprint edition of Orpheus and Greek Religion, there is an added footnote that quotes a review from Otto Kern, a German scholar, in which Kern states that he believes the amulet "is almost certainly a fake." Kern also cites a few other scholars who question the authenticity of the amulet.

The amulet, if indeed it ever existed, would function better as an example that pagans copied from Christianity, rather than the other way around.

One of the early Christian writers who documented examples of pagan cults imitating Christian rites was Justin Martyr, who lived during the second century AD. From his perspective within the second century, he wrote that there were no examples of pagan traditions involving a pagan deity being crucified:

"But in no instance, not even in any of those called sons of Jupiter, did they imitate the being crucified; for it was not understood by them, all the things said of it having been put symbolically." - Justin Martyr's First Apology LV.

Dionysus, as we recall, was a son of Zeus. And a second century AD source, one who was familiar with examples of paganism imitating Christianity, wrote that this was one element of Christianity that the pagans had not yet copied.

Finally, what are you thoughts on Mithra? He was born of a virgin mother and lots of other similarities...

Oh I have some good information on Mithra! I'll post it either later tonight or tomorrow, since I want to watch a video with my hubby!

[Sunta 4]

Pam, the Pagans copied Christianity? Now, wait, I know for someone who reads and researches as much as you, there is no way you could possibly believe that.

Regarding the amulet, I don't think that all scholars dismiss it as "fake", though I will grant that if several experts think it is, it's authenticity could be questioned.

However, there are plenty of Pagan symbols that pre-date Christ (Paganism being a much much older religion as I'm sure you're aware). Do you believe all of them to be fake as well?

[Carlene 12]

However, there are plenty of Pagan symbols that pre-date Christ (Paganism being a much much older religion as I'm sure you're aware). Do you believe all of them to be fake as well?

Paganism does, indeed, pre-date Christianity. Some Pagan rituals were around even before Judaism, which is over 3500 years old.

I know that Christians like to think that Christianity began in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, but it just ain't so. I once saw a sign outside a church in the little town of Whitney, TX, and the sign read, "Founded 33 BC". In actuality, this denomination was formed in 1957. Sometimes, in our earnest zeal to be righteous, we Christians turn out to be dead wrong.

[Big girl banded 0]

Carlene. I like your attitude towards all this. You seem very grounded and matter of fact.

[Wheetsin 714]

Just because...

[Carlene 12]

Carlene. I like your attitude towards all this. You seem very grounded and matter of fact.

 

Thank you. I just think it's pointless to argue with history. And it's anti-intellectual. If you're Episcopalian, your church was founded by Henry VIII in 1534 as the Anglican Church. If you are Baptist, your church can be traced back to Amsterdam in the early 1600's. Methodist? John Wesley, an Englishman, 1739. Mormon...Joseph Smith, 1829.

Christian tradition records that the Christian Church in Rome (the Roman Catholic Church) was jointly founded by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and that Peter was its first bishop. The term "Catholic Church" is first recorded in 110 AD by Ignatius of Antioch in a letter of undisputed authenticity to the Church at Smyrna. In this and other letters, he insists on the importance of the bishops in the Church and speaks harshly of heretics.

 

You do not have to agree with anyone else's idea of when, where, or how to worship, but recorded history is seldom open to interpretation.

[Carlene 12]

Just because...

 

For 15 years, I was the director of a social service agency that provided direct aid (food, clothing, etc) to low income and crisis-struck families. Sometimes it was hard to read over the intake sheet and still keep a straigt face. One of the questions was, "Have you received assistance from any other agency, or any churches, in the last 90 days". I bit my lip to keep from laughing in one man's face. He had written, "I went to the Baptist church and got gas".

[GeezerSue 7]

And it isn't just the New Testament that has ties to ancient stories. We have a massive deluge in the Epic of Gilgamesh, too, dating back to probably 3000 BC or so. (The apologists claim that ANY flood story would contain similar elements, and claim that the Gilgamesh story is silly and the Genesis story "makes sense.") (To them.)

[Sunta 4]

You do not have to agree with anyone else's idea of when, where, or how to worship, but recorded history is seldom open to interpretation.

Carlene, herein lies the problem. Each church believes that their doctrine, viewpoints, interpretation of the scriptures, etc etc., are the "right" interpretation. Each church is working from a similar document (the bible), but there are many different versions of the bible, and many different interpretations of the scriptures.

I am not trying to be patronizing when I refer you to the game of whisper down the lane, but I do think the comparison is a logical one here.

To go back to the amulet depicting the crucifixion of Dionysus for a moment, Pam asserts that it's a fake, a forgery the is "copying" Christianity. If that were true, it's just another example of one religious tradition borrowing from another. When speaking of one religion being "the right one", the very fact that religions have often borrowed certain images and stories from each other becomes troubling. Throughout history, in oral and written accounts, we can very clearly see the same themes of Gods, miracles, heroes, saviors, virgin births, feats of superhuman power. Pam states that she's not impressed by the example of both Dionysus and Jesus changing Water into wine at a wedding. In her interpretation, that is nothing more than a coincidence, a fact able to be blown off easily as nothing more than serendipity. In my interpretation, it's pretty eye-opening, evidence of some sort that Christianity was borrowed from other traditions and stories.

So with just the people on this thread, we have vastly different interpretations of the same fact.

To me, that is a problem in terms of ever "proving" that any religion is "the right one".

Someone else brought up the excellent question of how do we reconcile the idea that Muslims believe in Allah as feverently (if not more feverently) as Christians believe in Jesus? Who is "right"? They think they are right, Christians think they are right. It's becomes an example of a micro version of "eternal return". It then becomes an impossibility to prove who is right and who is not.

Going back to Paganism for a moment, it is recorded that there are many, many similarities between Paganism and Christianity. Easter is a perfect example of that. Sometimes I wonder if Christians ever stop and think about the question "what do bunnies and eggs have to do with Jesus?" The answer is they don't, but could very probably be a holdover from the days of the Goddess Ostara, who turned a bird into a rabbit who would then lay colored eggs to amuse children. Bunnies were also the Pagan symbol of fertility. This goddess was the goddess of fertility and is linked to goddesses Ishtar,Astarte, and Eostre. Now of course this story also grew and changed over time, and were finally adopted by Christianity. It's just one example out of so many that point to Christianity being a religion that borrowed many traditions and stories from older religions. And isn't it a fascinating coincidence that Mithra was also born on December 25th?

The Roman winter solstice festival Saturnalia is also fun to look up and read about.

Oh but really there are just so, so many parrallel myths/festivals/stories/holidays/characteristics that I once again find myself out of time!

I have the day off and must now go and be roped into the commercialism that is Christmas, lest my mother be disappointed with a lack of presents.

[Carlene 12]

Each church believes that their doctrine, viewpoints, interpretation of the scriptures, etc etc., are the "right" interpretation. Each church is working from a similar document (the bible), but there are many different versions of the bible, and many different interpretations of the scriptures.

 

I was referring to historical fact - hard evidence, if you will. There are many historians who are not Christians - probably most, if fact. They concern themselves with authenticating schrolls, texts, documents, relics, etc. When that can be achieved - when the consensus of the world's most respected historians says that a fact is a fact, then it's time to stop arguing about it, in my opinion.

 

 

 

 

Someone else brought up the excellent question of how do we reconcile the idea that Muslims believe in Allah as feverently (if not more feverently) as Christians believe in Jesus? Who is "right"?

 

Allah is God. Though he has many names, He is the God of Christians and Muslims and Jews.

 

 

Going back to Paganism for a moment, it is recorded that there are many, many similarities between Paganism and Christianity. Easter is a perfect example of that. Sometimes I wonder if Christians ever stop and think about the question "what do bunnies and eggs have to do with Jesus?" The answer is they don't, but could very probably be a holdover from the days of the Goddess Ostara, who turned a bird into a rabbit who would then lay colored eggs to amuse children. Bunnies were also the Pagan symbol of fertility. This goddess was the goddess of fertility and is linked to goddesses Ishtar,Astarte, and Eostre. Now of course this story also grew and changed over time, and were finally adopted by Christianity. It's just one example out of so many that point to Christianity being a religion that borrowed many traditions and stories from older religions. And isn't it a fascinating coincidence that Mithra was also born on December 25th?

 

 

Most Christians - the logical ones, at least - freely admit that the early Church capitalized on Pagan festivals to lure converts to the Church. Jesus was almost certainly born in the spring, when the shepherds would be found in the fields, tending their flocks.

 

The idea of celebrating the Nativity on December 25 was first suggested early in the fourth century CE, a clever move on the part of Church fathers who wished to eclipse the December 25 festivities of a rival pagan religion, Mithraism, which threatened the existence of Christianity.

 

On December 25 (the date of the winter solstice) pagan Romans, still in the majority, celebrated Natalis Solis Invincti, "Birthday of the Invincible Sun God," Mithras. The Mithras cult originated in Persia and rooted itself in the Roman world in the first century BCE, but by the early 300s CE the rising religion of Christianity was posing a formidable challenge to the sun worshipers, especially after the Edict of Milan issued by the Roman emperor Constantine I in 313 CE allowed Christians to practice their faith in the Roman Empire.

 

In those tenuous early days of Christianity, however, Church fathers debated strategies for supplanting the Mithras cult with their own religion. Since it was well known that Roman patricians and plebians alike enjoyed festivals of a protracted nature, Christians recognized that they needed an alternative to the December celebration of Natalis Solis Invincti. They needed a celebration in which all participants — Mithraists, Christians, and those in between — could take part with pride. Accordingly, the Church officially recognized Christ's birth, and to offer head-on competition to the sun worshipers' popular feast, the Church located the Nativity on December 25. The mode of observance would be characteristically prayerful: a Mass. In fact, Christs' Mass. As one theologian wrote around 320 CE:

 

We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it.

Although centuries later, social scientists would write of the psychological power of group celebrations — the unification of ranks, the solidification of collective identity, the reinforcement of common objectives — the principle had long been intuitively obvious. Christianity took permanent hold in the Western world in 337 CE when Constantine I was baptized on his deathbed, uniting for the first time the Crown and the Church.

[Sunta 4]

Carlene, a few quick (and very sincre) questions before I really head out the door to the mall. With all of your knowledge, do you ever have trouble reconciling what you know with your complete faith in Jesus as the "one true Lord and Savior"? If not, could you explain how you do reconcile the facts with your belief?

Does it trouble you or make you question things when you know as fact that the early church founders purposely sought to replace other religions with their own? Do the similarities to other religions bother you at all?

Does it ever make you question the validity of Jesus when you really think about what Christianity asks you to believe? The ability to raise people from the dead had always been something only "mythological" figures could do, as well as changing Water into wine. We know that it is impossible to really do these things. It's what we know to be true fact.

Why do Christians believe that all of these other "myths" are just that- myths, but yet Jesus, who bears so many similarities to these other mythological Gods, is not a myth? I truly do not understand that and have been wondering about it.

Ok, off to the mall.

[Carlene 12]

Carlene, a few quick (and very sincre) questions before I really head out the door to the mall. With all of your knowledge, do you ever have trouble reconciling what you know with your complete faith in Jesus as the "one true Lord and Savior"? If not, could you explain how you do reconcile the facts with your belief?

 

Does it trouble you or make you question things when you know as fact that the early church founders purposely sought to replace other religions with their own? Do the similarities to other religions bother you at all?

 

Does it ever make you question the validity of Jesus when you really think about what Christianity asks you to believe? The ability to raise people from the dead had always been something only "mythological" figures could do, as well as changing Water into wine. We know that it is impossible to really do these things. It's what we know to be true fact.

Why do Christians believe that all of these other "myths" are just that- myths, but yet Jesus, who bears so many similarities to these other mythological Gods, is not a myth? I truly do not understand that and have been wondering about it.

 

Ok, off to the mall.

 

As strange as it might sound, I really don't. And since you asked, I will share something else. I didn't choose God....God chose me. And sometimes I wish He hadn't, because it's not always easy to be a Christian - to do the right thing. Sometimes "the right thing" is the LAST thing I want to do.

[skyeblu79 0]

Amen! And as demonstrated by this thread and our society in general, it's certainly not the most popular thing to be or do. Nevertheless, I love God and I am so thankful to be one His own.

 

I'm on my way to Vegas for Christmas.. anyone want to join me in Sin City?

 

:clap2: I want to goooooooo. My home away from home. Have enough fun for me too!!!

[~Pam~ 0]

Finally, what are you thoughts on Mithra? He was born of a virgin mother and lots of other similarities...

I'm finally here!

Now on to Mithra...

BIRTH: Mithra, called the “god out of the rock”, was believed to have been born out of solid rock (“The Generative Rock”) and his worship was always conducted in a cave (since it was made of rock). Often in these “temples”, they would have a standing image of this rock, as well as a sculpture of Mirthra sacrificing the bull. They believed that this rock “gave birth” to Mithras on the banks of a river, under the shade of a sacred tree, and he emerged from the rock with a Phrygian cap on his head, and armed with a knife in one hand and holding a lit torch in the other.

The so-called “virgin birth” story came a WAY after Jesus was born, died and was risen! It seems to trace back to Cumont’s work in the 1800’s, and was more recently published by Joseph Campbell…but…ummmm…..well, I think I’ll let you read this one for yourself:

"Mithra...was born beside a sacred stream beneath a sacred tree.

In works of art he is shown emerging as a naked child from the

"Generative Rock," wearing his Phrygian cap, bearing a torch,

and armed with a knife.....The earth has given birth - a virgin

birth- to the archetypal Man."

Skeptics of Christianity jumped on that bizarre wording (who in the world would call THAT a “virgin birth”…seriously?) and ran with it.

Oh and I have a couple of pictures showing the “rock birth”:

DECEMBER 25TH BIRTHDAY: This one strikes me as a bit funny because everyone knows Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25 (at least I think that’s common knowledge)! That’s just the day we Celebrate it! There is absolutely no mention of the date of Jesus’ birth in the Bible. And we totally DID take that date from the Pagan “gods”, including Mithra (and I had a list of a few others on that day and now I can’t find it!).

Anyway, since no one knew the exact date of Jesus’ birth (only the year was known), the Roman Catholic Church was free to choose whatever date they wanted. Well, at the time, the Pagans had a big festival on December 25th to celebrate the annual return of the sun. It was a huge and loved festival, and since the Christian church was trying to convert the Pagans to Christianity, they wanted to make the transition be as smooth as possible. Since they knew that the Pagans wouldn’t want to give up their well-loved festival (much like we wouldn’t want to give up Christmas now), they decided to celebrate Christ’s birthday on that day too to make the transition easier (a decision that I personally do NOT agree with actually...but that's besides the point).

But, of course, that day was never a part of Christian theology. It was just a tradition started by the Roman Catholic church.

SUNDAY AS THE DAY OF WORSHIP: Yep, this is true. Unlike Christianity though, it was exclusively for men only. Husbands could not bring their wives or daughters to worship with them.

AFTER-LIFE: In Christ's day, Mirthraism was actually one of Christianity's top rivals. I'm not sure if either influenced each other at that time or not, but they seemed to be on the right track with some of their major beliefs. They both believed in an after-life...specifically Heaven and Hell...and they believed that God provided them a path to salvation and a mediator between God and man. Christ being a mortal man, of course, but Mirthra in only a cosmogonic (astronomical) sense as he was believed to exist in the realm between Heaven and earth. They believed he was a sun god and he would appear in the sky at dawn and cross the firmament in a chariot drawn by four white horses. It was believed that he could take on the appearance of "diffused daylight".

HIS DEATH: Well they don't believe that Mithras actually died. He is said to have been carried to heaven in his chariot, alive and well.

When I go to Heaven, I'll have to look him up!