IamJoseph

Yes. Myth = you don't have a historical name more than 6000. :wave:

IamJoseph

Not true. These were totally pagan belief systems with headbashing dieties. That Egypt experimented with a mono-sun-deity, for totally political reasonings, makes it mono-paganism, but still pagan.

Clivedurdle

Hang on, are you saying xianity ain't pagan?

Let me see - godman, sacrifice, logos, the twelve.....

IamJoseph

I don't target any kind of belief, be it pagan or monotheism. I do target falsehoods, false charges, villification, and relying on another's demise as the sole claim to fame. The latter should not be attached to a belief in God, and some belief systems appear incapable of performing this feat.

spin

By definition, christianity is not pagan. In fact the word "pagan" as we know it today is of origin a christian jargon. It meant in Latin "of the country" and christianity apparently had most support in the cities, so anything not christian was equated with coming from the country and thus "pagan". These country people had weird ideas.


spin

Clivedurdle

Has its roots in the true gods? Syncretic?

IamJoseph

Yet christianity has a common thread with pagan beliefs such Rome, Hellenism, ancient Briton and all parts of Europe, in is rituals and doctrines, especially in divine man, and a son sacrificing on behalf of the father. Here, the father becomes a cursory afterthought and less transcendent then the son, though it claims to be monotheistic via a novel interpretation.

semiopen

Morton Smith has pointed out that the differences between monotheism and polytheism are not that clear.

Prayers are almost always said to a single deity; when praying to that deity similar epithets are used that we see in Hebrew prayers, such as greatest of all the gods, etc. There are a few exceptions to this, there are some Egyptians examples of worshiping two gods simultaneously; but this seems unusual.

Even today, individually we might be members of a faith that believes in a single God; yet there are many different religions and it is arguable that at least some of the attributes of the god they worship are different from other faiths.

My recent thinking, at least, makes me wonder if monotheism was the revolutionary development that it is often being credited with being,

IamJoseph

I doubt your Mr. Smith ever practiced Monotheism or understands it. What is important is that most nations were once polytheistic, and one became montheistic - since their birth, never having been polytheistic. While Abraham's ancesters were polytheistic, his descendents via Isaac and Jacob were not. The laws which monotheism demands was not acceptable to most people - specially so with Europe.

semiopen

I doubt that he shared your keen understanding of the subject.

The paper I was referring to is The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East, in Essential Papers on Israel and the Ancient Near East.

Morton_Smith