gstafleu

It started "long" ago, but it is still in progress. From the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics:
Gerard Stafleu

Freethinkaluva

I doubt that it will be on TV here in the states...at least not for me. I hope somebody records it. I'd like to see it.

Freethinkaluva

Well, how was it? Did anybody here get to watch it?

No Robots

Yeah, I watched it. It wasn't bad. They did provide counterpoint. It was good to see some of these people: Harpur, Freke, Gandy.

It was good to watch. It gave me and the missus something to talk about, what with me yelling "bullshit!" every few minutes and her asking why.

Agrajag

Yes, the argument presented and the evidence used to back it up are very credible indeed.
It is cogent, well researched and frankly makes a lot of sense.

What puts most secular thinkers off is that they feel it leaves the door open for just another brand of the same superstitious rubbish, this is a shame as when viewed as an allegory rather than literal truth, and most importantly one understands the metaphorical language used, it actually outlines a refreshingly sane approach.

I would definitely give it a look see, especially as it's coming up for christmas hehe.

Toto

The problem is that the evidence is not always credible.

What puts most secular thinkers off is that it is too easy for Christian fundamentalists to find errors in the arguments.

Agrajag

Not only are the brief examples this refers to (Virgin birth e.t.c.) common to Christianity and other more 'pagan' myths, but virtually every act attributed to Jesus has parallels in the popular mystery religions of the time.
If we eliminate all the parallels we are left only with a flimsy historical pastiche that is rife with inaccuracies ranging from geographical blunders to dating problems to outright fabrications, and one that is supported by absolutely no good historical evidence.
Not really an idiosyncrasy so much as a handy and familiar backdrop for a more culturally pertinent adoption of the mystery tradition's approach.

As the evidence doesn't support the party line of the Christian church, that the events described in the New Testament are the 'gospel' truth, it becomes necessary for any rival explanation to illustrate a mechanism whereby the central myth of Christianity could have arisen.
You mention commonalities and there are a lot of them, so many in-fact that asserting that they were just being knocked around at the time seems a bit weak.
Given the fact that these similarities pretty much comprise the entirety of the meat of this new religious myth and when viewed allegorically represent a coherent and harmonious whole rather than conflicting discordant 'pieces' it seems far likelier that they represent a designed system rather than an accidental conglomeration.

Such an alternate explanation must also account for the differences and 'idiosyncrasies' occurring in this new myth.

Rather than erring in either direction as you put it the Jesus mysteries hypothesis (and this is not a belief restricted to the authors of this one book, such a view has been voiced time after time, even by Pagan scribes contemporaneous with the early christians) neatly ties both these two approaches together explaining how and why the similarities and idiosyncrasies came about.


Quite so, but from the mouths of the pagan mystery teachers themselves we have it that the mystery schools taught on two levels. The literal minded masses accepted the outer form of the mysteries as literal truth, while those that were ready were helped towards a realization both that these tales were allegorical and of what the allegories referred to.
This book hypothesizes (with some very good evidence) that the inner 'esoteric' teachings of Christianity and it's teachers were purged and the literalist 'exoteric' side became the dominant one.

It was never claimed that the mystery traditions and proto-Christianity were entirely esoteric.

Once again I see no soot to be slung in either direction

Agreed the authors have taken onboard the belief system they were researching and do wax lyrical about it, but frankly I'd be a bit bored if they presented a dry historical with no insights into what the allegories of this myth refer to. Also as they are dealing with the mutation of an allegorical mythic tradition the mystagogic approach is quite appropriate.

Agrajag

Care to give an example?
Preferably one that invalidates the argument, rather than just drawing in good faith upon others flawed research.

Christian fundamentalists have been fabricating 'evidence' for a very long time, but to date no good historical evidence has appeared to back up their claims.
Now I don't know about you, but I like to compare versions of history based on how well they tally with known and non-falsified historical data, so again can you point me towards the data that contradicts the JM hypothesis?

Hope you don't mind me asking for evidence before I make my mind up

Agrajag

Firstly I should just like to say that I am a complete idiot!

I thought I'd take the book in question into work with me today to refresh myself on the salient points for some intarwebnet based research.
As I read it I realized that it was not in-fact the book I thought it was...

Somewhere in my addled and prematurely senile brain I had confused 'The Pagan Christ' with Freke and Gandy's 'The Jesus Mysteries (was the original Jesus a Pagan God)'.

Now I bought the 'Pagan Christ' on the back of a burgeoning interest in the subject sparked by TJM and gave up reading it half way through out of bullflop fatigue. That said I instead recommend that people interested save your money, if you're interested buy the 'Jesus Mysteries'.

So anyway I throw myself on your tender mercies and pray to almighty dog that you will forgive my trespasses and spare me the wicked tongue lashings and flames of torment that I so richly deserve.


Jack

Magdlyn

The most obvious one is this, from Egypt:

Isis was not a virgin when she conceived Horus, and she had sexual intercourse to conceive him, even tho her husband Osiris was kinda dead at the time, dismembered, put back together, and missing a penis, which she had to fashion herself out of clay or gold (depending on the version of the myth), and she took the form of a bird and hovered over his body to have sex.

Other pagan "virgins" that conceived gods or demi gods had some sort of sexual union as well. Of course, Xtianity, with its horror of sex, would not even mention its god's penis! An early story about Mary, however, did mention the intactness of her post partum hymen!