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Old 02-02-2008, 03:15 AM   #51
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"Bizarre and retarded" is not helpful to the discussion. If you don't care enough to make an informed opinion, perhaps you should withdraw from the thread?
Informed? I think Abe is plenty informed on just how bizarre and retarded Acharya S's theories are.
"Bizarre and retarded" is not helpful to the discussion. If you don't care enough to make an informed opinion, perhaps you should withdraw from the thread?

Best wishes,

Pete Brown
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Old 02-02-2008, 05:59 AM   #52
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True, but that is true of anyone. Do you actually know anything about him?
I just know what is on Amazon, his web pages, and what has been discussed been discussed on this thread. What has already been discussed, however, is enough to ring alarm bells. We have someone whose known expertise is not in ancient languages or archeology or meteorology coming up with an elaborate hypothesis that involves all three of those things. Looking at one of the customer reviews of Schock's book on the pyramids does not inspire confidence:

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Perhaps the most glaring inconsistency in the book is the discussion of Atlantis. Schoch begins by telling us that Plato's story of Atlantis is complete fiction used to relay a moral message to Greece in Plato's time. This, of course, is the mainstream academic view. Then he strangely asserts that author William Lauritzen's idea about Atlantis is correct: that "Sundaland offers the best fit with Plato's Atlantis." Sundaland, now located underwater off Indochina bordered by the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, is asserted by Schoch to be the source of the people who traveled the world in Ice Age-era times. These people, according to Schoch, are the source of world language and human genes. The flood story came from them as did the story of Atlantis, which, according to Schoch, was a fictional story. Overall, it is a completely unsupported theme and the two contradictory statements about Atlantis (it's fictional but it was Sundaland) is just too much. According to Schoch, it was the people of Sundaland who took the idea of pyramids everywhere around the globe. Schoch ends his book with this message the worldwide Sundaland-inspired pyramids give us: "Civilization is the gift of the ages...Build the future in a way that acknowledges, preserves, and respects the precious-and very ancient-inheritance we stand for." He uses the quotation marks in the sentences, but where the message came from is not cited.
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Old 02-02-2008, 10:45 PM   #53
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From Publishers Weekly
...
Scientist and tenured university professor Robert M. Schoch-one of the world's preeminent geologists in recasting the date of the Great Sphinx-believes otherwise. In this dramatic and meticulously reasoned book, Schoch, like anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl in his classic Kon-Tiki, argues that ancient cultures traveled great distances by sea. Indeed, he believes that primeval sailors traveled from the Eastern continent, primarily Southeast Asia, and spread the idea of pyramids across the Earth, involving the human species in a far greater degree of contact and exchange than experts have previously thought possible.
I think that nobody had to spread the idea of pyramids, because there are lots of pyramid shaped natural mountains, and its an obvious shape for large observation towers.

If an archeologist wants to know how old some water eroded stone is then he should ask an geologist. Schoch says the wall around the Sphinx is 10,000 years old - so what, there are other ancient structures such as Stonehenge. The controversy is not about the age of the wall around the Sphinx, but how old it the Sphinx itself is – who knows?

There is good evidence that seafaring people traveled by boat to Australia between 50,000 and 90,000 years ago, and inhabited the Ryukyu Islands in Japan 30,000 years ago.

In the last few years, evidence from genetics and language has been acclimating that the Americas were inhabited around 30,000 years ago. The only known method of migration would have been along the coast by boat.

For example,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11451754/
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/marine.../dispersal.pdf
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Old 05-23-2008, 06:49 AM   #54
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Here's the new video response to all of the Anti-Zeitgeisters to part 1, by Acharya.

"ZEITGEIST, Part 1" Debunked/Refuted? Acharya Responds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_9ZyddjaM4

Oh, and here's the blog which is able to emphasize some things that the 10 minute youtube video limit could not.

"ZEITGEIST, Part 1" Debunked? NOT!
http://tbknews.blogspot.com/2008/04/...futed-not.html

:devil1:
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Old 05-23-2008, 02:50 PM   #55
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Lightbulb All About Horus: Egyptian Copy of Christ?

Might as well add my article to this thread:

All About Horus: An Egyptian Copy of Christ?

Your primary sources for Horus are the following:

-- Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride ("On Isis and Osiris" in Latin translation)
-- the Memphite Theology or Shabaqo Stone (generally dated as late as the New Kingdom, c. 1540-1070 BC)
-- the Mystery Play of the Succession
-- the Pyramid Texts (from the late Old Kingdom, c. 2575-2150 BC)
-- the Coffin Texts, especially Spell 148
-- the Great Osiris hymn in the Louvre
-- the Late Egyptian Contendings of Horus and Seth
-- the Metternich Stela and other cippus texts
-- the Ptolemaic Myth of Horus at Edfu (also known as the Triumph of Horus)

See Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt edited by Redford (2001), volume 2, "Horus" p. 121ff.

Forget Massey, Kuhn, Churchward, Higgins, Graves, Doane, Harpur, Freke/Gandy, etc and find the above primary sources, or scholarly (modern) Egyptology sources that cite and provide commentary based on the above primary sources and you should be fine. That's what I tried to do.

Phil P
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Old 05-23-2008, 05:24 PM   #56
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Here's the new video response to all of the Anti-Zeitgeisters to part 1, by Acharya.

"ZEITGEIST, Part 1" Debunked/Refuted? Acharya Responds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_9ZyddjaM4
Strange that in that vid she comments on some charges made by critics on topics like 25-Dec, the cross, the 3 wise men, etc by agreeing that this wasn't in Christianity originally. Doesn't this undermine some of her claims? If earliest Christians thought of Jesus as the sun, but Christianity didn't adopt "the sun's birthday" until the 4th C, why did they wait so long?
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Old 05-23-2008, 08:27 PM   #57
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Doesn't this undermine some of her claims? If earliest Christians thought of Jesus as the sun, but Christianity didn't adopt "the sun's birthday" until the 4th C, why did they wait so long?
In fairness to her, I think her point here is that Christianity as we know it today didn't emerge fully-formed. I think her point is that Christians today worship what evolved from a mish-mash of early solar cults, and that includes additions as late as the 4th C.

There is the additional point she makes that even the very beginnings of Christianity is based on the cult of the Sun, though that may or may not have been conscious. For instance, the 12 apostles story probably originates from the 12 tribes of Israel - but it's also plausible that the story of the 12 tribes of Israel, coming from Joseph's 12 brothers, may have had astrological origins. Did the early christians recognise this connection? Maybe, maybe not. It's possible that SOME did, and the connections she makes between the gospels and the sun's cycle around the Zodiac indicates that she thinks that the Gospel authors were aware of this. (Whereas there's any substance to these "connections" is another matter).

There's also the possibility that the 12 tribes story has nothing to do with astrology, and yet the gospel writers and/or early christians thought it did.
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Old 05-23-2008, 10:14 PM   #58
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Doesn't this undermine some of her claims? If earliest Christians thought of Jesus as the sun, but Christianity didn't adopt "the sun's birthday" until the 4th C, why did they wait so long?
In fairness to her, I think her point here is that Christianity as we know it today didn't emerge fully-formed. I think her point is that Christians today worship what evolved from a mish-mash of early solar cults, and that includes additions as late as the 4th C.

There is the additional point she makes that even the very beginnings of Christianity is based on the cult of the Sun, though that may or may not have been conscious.
Yes, but my point is that if early Christians based their idea of Jesus on the sun from the very beginning, and the other sun gods had 25-Dec as their birth dates, why did it take so long for Christians to adopt 25-Dec for Christ? This is what she says here:
http://tbknews.blogspot.com/2008/04/...futed-not.html

"One of the contentions constantly bandied about as if it constitutes some great triumph is the notion that Jesus Christ was not born on December 25th or the winter solstice; therefore, the comparisons with other gods are inapt. The fact will remain that many millions of people over the centuries have been taught to believe that a Jewish son of God named Jesus Christ not only existed but was born on December 25th. This straw-man argument merely serves to prove our point that Jesus is not the "reason for the season."

But, if Christ was a sun god initially, wouldn't he have "been the reason for the season" in the first place? I mean, was it hidden from the start, or celebrated from the start but then was hidden by later "orthodox" Christians?
________

Actually, reading further down, Acharya does have a reason for this:

"The sun god's birthdate was added to this mishmash at a later date, probably because adding it any earlier would have certainly given away the fictional creation."

... which would again lead to some problems. Are the other elements about the story of Jesus, then, not so specific to sun gods that they "didn't give away the fictional creation"?
________

(ETA) Here is what Acharya says about 25-Dec:
http://truthbeknown.com/christmas.htm

"The December 25th birthday of the sun god is a common motif globally, dating back at least 12,000 years as reflected in winter solstices artfully recorded in caves. "Nearly all nations," says Doane, commemorated the birth of the god Sol to the "Queen of Heaven" and "Celestial Virgin." The winter solstice was celebrated in countless places, including China and Persia, the latter regarding the solar Lord and Savior Mithra's birth. In Rome, a great festival called "Saturnalia" was celebrated from December 1st to the 23rd. The winter solstice festival in Egypt included the babe in a manger brought out of the sanctuary...

Nor is the winter solstice celebration a purely "Pagan" concept, as the Jews also observed it in reference to the birth of their god, Yahweh. The "Feast of Illumination," "Feast of Lights" or "feast of the Dedication," occurred in winter (John 10:22-23; Josephus's Antiquities XII, 7.7)¹ and represented the "ancient Hebrew Winter Solstice Feast."


I've never heard that Yahweh was born at the winter solstice. I'll check the Josephus reference.
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Old 05-23-2008, 10:41 PM   #59
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But you're omitting the fact that the Dec 25th date was already spoken for before Christianity. So after Constantine, Christianity began to be officially recognized. Then, they could later pass laws against pagan religions and usurp them. Eventually wiping them out. The history on this is clear and documented.

Here's Wickedpedia specifically on "Sol Invictus"

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"The Romans held a festival on December 25 called Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, "the birthday of the unconquered sun." The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the god of Emperor Aurelian (AD 270-274); and Mithras, a soldiers' god of Persian origin.[1] Emperor Elagabalus (218-222) introduced the festival, and it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.[2] December 25 was also considered to be the date of the winter solstice, which the Romans called bruma.[3] It was therefore the day the Sun proved itself to be "unconquered" despite the shortening of daylight hours..Solar symbolism was popular with early Christian writers."
The winter solstice / Christmas type celebrations were already popular BCE. The fact that it is a well known festival for the sun god along with the fact that that is still the date commonly used today for Christianity demonstrates the connection. This is old news. If that wasn't the birth date for Jesus then why use it? The church could've picked 364 other dates to choose from yet, they chose that one.
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Old 05-23-2008, 10:45 PM   #60
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Well, this is Josephus's Antiquities XII, 7.7:

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/t...hus/ant12.html
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7. Now Judas celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the temple for eight days, and omitted no sort of pleasures thereon; but he feasted them upon very rich and splendid sacrifices; and he honored God, and delighted them by hymns and psalms. Nay, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs, when, after a long time of intermission, they unexpectedly had regained the freedom of their worship, that they made it a law for their posterity, that they should keep a festival, on account of the restoration of their temple worship, for eight days. And from that time to this we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights. I suppose the reason was, because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us; and that thence was the name given to that festival. Judas also rebuilt the walls round about the city, and reared towers of great height against the incursions of enemies, and set guards therein. He also fortified the city Bethsura, that it might serve as a citadel against any distresses that might come from our enemies.
This is Hanukkah, which is celebrated on different days, from late November to late December (so overlaps with Christmas occasionally). Nothing even remotely suggesting that "the Jews also observed it in reference to the birth of their god, Yahweh" as far as I can see.
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