ziffel

• God made flesh, the Savior and "son of God"
• his father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin
• he is born in a humble cowshed on December 25 before three shepherds
• he offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism
• he miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony
• he rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people waved palm leaves to honor him
• he dies at Easter as a sacrifice for the sins of the world
• after his death he descends into hell, then on the third day you rises from the dead and ascends into heaven in glory
• his followers await his return as the judge during the last days
• his death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine which symbolize his body and blood


The above points in this case refer, not to Jesus, but to the savior godman of ancient pagan cultures. Basically the same story line, modified a bit from culture to culture. Primarily Osiris, Dionysus, and Mithras.

From the book, The Jesus Mysteries, by Tim Freke and Peter Gandy:

To quote church father Justin Martyr:

and again:

It seems apparent to me that Christianity borrowed, quite liberally, from ancient pagan cultures. I'm wondering, doubting really, if most Christians are aware of these similarities, and if so how they account for them.

WishboneDawn

What came to mind for me...
The gospels were written generations after his death. Every one was different. The gospel writers had different ideas and audiences. They wrote a lot of stuff in to appeal to Herbrews in terms of Jesus' similarity to David, etc. I can't see why a shrewd evangelist wouldn't write in things that would seem familiar for pagans in an attempt to appeal to them as well.

I don't think any of those similarities prove Jesus never was any more then the similarities to Hebrew characters and events proves that somehow the hebrew scriptures can majically contain prophecies of the coming of Christ. It just shows that the four boys that wrote the gospels we have left were pretty clever and creative folks.

Yahzi

Translation: the Bible authors lied, and that's ok.

Do you suppose that creativity and cleverness could extend to making the whole thing up?

Yahzi

About half the Christians in America can't tell you who delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

How they account for your Satanic lies is to punch you in the mouth, throw you in jail, and string a noose around your neck if you don't shut up. When prevented from using this method, they put their fingers in their ears and sing, "Lalala I can't hear you!"

Failing that, they make up crazy shit that completely contradicts what they said 5 minutes ago, and when you call them on it, complain that you're too rude to talk to.

ziffel

Yeah. That's why I always get tickled when I see one using the poll results as some sort "proof of god" -- "90% of Americans believe in Jeeeeeesus!"

Yeah, and 95% of them can't tell you a single OT name of God, and about 80% of them only read the bible verses that the preacher points to on Sunday morning. That's why I think most of them have no clue that the Jesus story is pulled from pagan culture.

CaliNORML

Of course this is the way it is, mans vanity says "we are better than them and more like 'God'." But the same message is repeated everywhere, for thousands of years, everywhere, we only like to think ours is better, and in proving to do so, we prove ourselves wrong in the process. It is enough to make you dizzy for sure.

We are no different from animals is our core of living, yet we want to seperate us from them, thus Christians refuse to see evolution and close their ears going "La la la la, I refuse to hear I am only from an animal." Vanity at the worst.

So we make war in order to prove we know "God" better than you, and give in to those animal instincts, kill to survive, even our own brothers like they are nothing more than an animal to me. Thus we prove ourselves wrong, because against this instinct something says "Stop, God would never like this to happen." Hypocracy then enters religion and we are lost.

Only when we admit how cruel we can be and say I at my center of thinking am like an animal and accept that for survival it is a perfect way to further "life" we can see a new set of rules the exact opposite that are perfect too, that is a huge contradiction yet still true.

KMS

Jobar

Yahzi, are you aware of any studies that verify that ~50% figure? It would be nice to have something like that on tap, to quash the frequent ad pops we see.

A poll demonstrating the average Christian's grasp of their beliefs would cause a helluvalotta consternation, I'm thinking. I'd love to have a link to such a study to keep in my bag of tricks...

Yahzi

I thought it was a Barna poll.

Survey

In a nationwide survey of Americans, the Barna Research Group found that 58% do not know who preached the Sermon on the Mount. Most Americans cannot identify the names of the first four books of the New Testament. Half of all adults (52%) did not know that the book of Jonah is in the Bible. Half of all adults (48%) did not know that the book of Thomas is not in the Bible. Seven out of ten adults did not know that the expression “God helps those that help themselves” is not contained within the Bible.

Quoted in Why Christians Sin, J. Kirk Johnston, Discovery House, 1992, p. 68


A reference from Bible.org

WishboneDawn

I guess that's the core of it. Pretty simple view but if it works for you...Personally I think there's more to consider like the context in which they were written. It isn't reasonable nowadays but the approach to writing history then had less to do with an objective accounting of the facts then imparting a message through the telling of it.

I think it's most reasonable to assume the writers were telling stories that were circulating in the early christian communites and inserting their own ideas and theology.

Spitfire

So, we're supposed to be bothered by all this? Oops.

A closer look at the full story behind any of the aforementioned dieties is all you need to see that none of them conform to the same mold. Rather than the exact same story with a few slight differences, it seems to me more like different stories with a few weird coincidences. The same was as with the Enuma Elish when you compare it to the account of creation in Genesis.

Weird coincidences happen all the time. Why get your panties in a bunch about it? Especially when the coming of Christ had been foretold long beforehand and there was plenty of time for these ideas to get around.