What do you all think about . . .

[Drkshadow03]

The whole Jesus = Mithra/Mithras idea that atheists love to support?

[Babbalanja]

The folks over at religioustolerance.org (http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5b.htm) aren't atheists, but they recognize the many similarities between the Jesus myth and the sun-god mythology popular all over the Mediterranean when the early Christians were proselytizing.

The Egyptian Horus and the Persian Mithra were just two of the solar deities that share a lot of similar things with Jesus in their biography. I happen to find the correspondences fascinating, as I do all ancient literature and indigenous folk mythology.

Christianity mights have been just one sun-god cult in that era at that time, but converting the Roman emperor was very good PR for the fledgling religion.

Regards,

Istvan

[Drkshadow03]

The folks over at religioustolerance.org (http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5b.htm) aren't atheists, but they recognize the many similarities between the Jesus myth and the sun-god mythology popular all over the Mediterranean when the early Christians were proselytizing.

The Egyptian Horus and the Persian Mithra were just two of the solar deities that share a lot of similar things with Jesus in their biography. I happen to find the correspondences fascinating, as I do all ancient literature and indigenous folk mythology.

Christianity mights have been just one sun-god cult in that era at that time, but converting the Roman emperor was very good PR for the fledgling religion.

Regards,

Istvan

Maybe, but the more I explore the deities that supposedly have similarities with Jesus, usually according to atheists, the more I find there aren't really similarities or they are extremely superficial similarities. I've found quite a few claims to have even been outright lies in the form of just making up parts of myths that never occur in any known myth to make the deity correspond more closely (or at all) with Jesus. So at this point when someone makes such a claim I want them to be able to point me to the exact myth in the exact translated book that contain that actual source for their claim.

[Babbalanja]

Maybe, but the more I explore the deities that supposedly have similarities with Jesus, usually according to atheists, the more I find there aren't really similarities or they are extremely superficial similarities. I've found quite a few claims to have even been outright lies in the form of just making up parts of myths that never occur in any known myth to make the deity correspond more closely (or at all) with Jesus. So at this point when someone makes such a claim I want them to be able to point me to the exact myth in the exact translated book that contain that actual source for their claim.
Um, but the point is that it's not the big bad atheists who have pointed out the similarities between the Jesus myth and those of Horus and Mithras. The folks from religioustolerance.org (http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5b.htm) are believers, and they realize that Jesus was just one of many Mediterranean sun-god religions that vied for popularity some two thousand years back. They acknowledge that there was a fair amount of overlap in the details of the conception, birth, life, death, and rebirth of these solar deities.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is it your opinion that the correspondence between these sun-god myths is purely the result of atheist fraud and propaganda?

Regards,

Istvan

[Drkshadow03]

Um, but the point is that it's not the big bad atheists who have pointed out the similarities between the Jesus myth and those of Horus and Mithras. The folks from religioustolerance.org (http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5b.htm) are believers, and they realize that Jesus was just one of many Mediterranean sun-god religions that vied for popularity some two thousand years back. They acknowledge that there was a fair amount of overlap in the details of the conception, birth, life, death, and rebirth of these solar deities.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is it your opinion that the correspondences between these sun-god myths is purely the result of atheist fraud and propaganda?

Regards,

Istvan

Actually the staff (http://www.religioustolerance.org/statbelief.htm) of religious tolerance site consists of one atheist, one agnostic, one Christian, Wiccan, and one Zen Buddhist, according to their "about us" page. So it's not clear who exactly wrote the article (well, okay, it does say B.A. Robinson wrote the article at the very bottom, but I'm not sure if that's the atheist, the agnostic, the Christian, or Wiccan member). They only cite one source, however, looking up the author, Thomas Harpur, he apparently has a strong academic background (theology, classics, etc.) so at least it seems to be a good and credible source. The Horus identification may have some validity.

My opinion is more something like this: the imagined and exaggerated overlap between the various so-called sun-gods of the Mediterranean is the result of poor scholarship, usually with an agenda--but not always--that often tries to prove that Jesus is just a plagiarized version of various "pagan" mythologies, and because a lot of atheists are former Christians who still bear strong animosity towards Christianity, they tend to eat this stuff up whether it is true or not.

Keep in mind that I'm Jewish. From a religious perspective I could give a rat's *** whether Jesus is a plagiarized version of Horus or not as it doesn't threaten anything I hold sacred. However, for me this is more an issue of intellectual honesty and accuracy.

Perhaps to evaluate this question, it might be useful to actually name the particular deities in question that people often say have parallel stories to Jesus. I've seen people argue this of:

Romulus and Remus
Dionysus
Horus
Mithra
Mithras

And a bunch of others, if you'd like to include any others, feel free.

[Babbalanja]

Keep in mind that I'm Jewish. From a religious perspective I could give a rat's *** whether Jesus is a plagiarized version of Horus or not as it doesn't threaten anything I hold sacred. However, for me this is more an issue of intellectual honesty and accuracy.
:rolleyes:

And I'm a nonbeliever, so I couldn't care less about anything religious. But from a world mythology perspective, there seems to be a wealth of correspondence between the Jesus myth and various other Mediterranean sun-god myths of the time.

Since every post you've made on the subject has attempted to delegitimize this research merely by claiming that atheists are behind it, I submit that the intellectual honesty in question is your own.

Regards,

Istvan

[Drkshadow03]

:rolleyes:

And I'm a nonbeliever, so I couldn't care less about anything religious. But from a world mythology perspective, there seems to be a wealth of correspondence between the Jesus myth and various other Mediterranean sun-god myths of the time.

Since every post you've made on the subject has attempted to delegitimize this research merely by claiming that atheists are behind it, I submit that the intellectual honesty in question is your own.

Regards,

Istvan

Well, I haven't really made an attempt to delegitimize any of the research so far, to be honest. That wasn't exactly my initial goal, hence why I started my opening post with a question specifically about Mithras/Mithra (hoping some one who had actually read through the Zoroastrian texts could shed some light on the subject). What then happened was that you sort of red herringed the topic by talking about Horus and Mediterranean deities in general (hence why I'm reluctant to call it a true red herring). Then I merely stated my opinion and conclusions up to this point based on previous arguments since you, in fact, asked me for my opinion. Perhaps I am being unfair to you in that I am sort of starting from the middle of this discussion rather than the beginning.

You see it all starts a long time ago with this post on this atheist blog (http://proudatheists.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/which-type-of-jesus-is-yours/#comment-14865) where a guy claims that Jesus is plagiarized and when I ask him what does he mean he then links me to this dubious site. (http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/) There's all sorts of reasons this site is dubious from an information literacy perspective: no footnotes or references for its claims, cluttered site, made-up facts (for the myths I do know), dubious credentials of the author, poor writing, heavy reliance on out-dated mythological theories (particularly the one that believes all myths are really just symbolic expressions of the light conquering the darkness). All clear-cut signs that you shouldn't trust the site from the perspective of information literacy.

My response went like this:

I read through some of that website. It looks like the intellectual equivalent of that guy who insists that the people of Ancient Egypt are really the survivors of the Lost city of Atlantis or the Sphinx was made by aliens. It sounds more like conspiracy theory garbage than legitimate scholarship.

Some of his facts are clearly wrong.

He claims Dionysus cult has been around for thousands of years before Jesus, yet considering Greek mythical literature doesn’t really record much until 8th century B. C., and most scholars agree that Dionysus was a late addition to the Greek pantheon, I don’t see how he could possibly support this claim. (evidence point # 1)

The site claims that Dionysus was born of a virgin. Dionysus was not born of a Virgin mother, nor was he necessarily born of a human mother either. There seem to be two versions of his birth in the myths. One with Zeus as the father through Demeter (a goddess), hence no human involved, and one where Zeus sleeps with a human woman, Semele, and then she is incinerated while pregnant, and Zeus sows the unborn baby into his thigh and gives birth to him. (evidence point # 2)

I could find no reference in any my sources to Dionysus turning water into wine (Homer, Graves, Euripides). (evidence point # 3)

He travels around with his followers to spread his cult, but that doesn’t seem particularly the domain of Christianity, but rather an occupation of all/most religions. So I'm not sure that's saying much, and his cult is a bunch of crazed drunken women having a party, not preachers. He's not walking around teaching moral lessons or love your fellow man or salvation; he's walking around and teaching people how to make wine and get plastered. (evidence point # 4).

He doesn’t incur the wrath of the religious authorities as the site claims (ala Jesus), but rather of his nephew, the King, who doesn’t believe that Semele slept with Zeus and that Dionysus is a deity. Pentheus the king is further frustrated because all the women in the city have gone off to the mountains to party in orgastic ecstasy. (Okay, I can see some vague similarities with the Jesus story here, but then again I can see similarities to the Moses story and a bunch of other stories with similar literary tropes, that probably have less to do with mythological similarities or plagiarism and more to do with vague literary tropes).

And then the story takes a HUGE turn from what the site owner claims happens next. Dionysus is never crucified or killed in Euripides’ Bacchae as the site for some odd reason claims. He allows himself to be captured, is jailed, frees himself from jail with his powers, eventually convinces Pentheus, the reluctant king, to cross-dress and spy on the psychotic women in the mountains. The crazed women, which include his daughter, tear him to pieces, believing him to be a wild lion. His daughter returns home wearing her father’s head, until the illusion fades and she recognizes that it’s her father’s head, not a lion, that she is wearing. Dionysus appears at the end to the whole city and tells him that he is punishing everyone for denying he is a god. (Evidence point # 6, I really don't remember when any of this happens in the gospels . . . Just like I don't remember any scene in any myth where Dionysus is crucified.)

For some reason the website then claims the woman is weeping at Dionysus’ tomb around three days later after he is crucified, which never happens in any of the myths I know about, especially not Euripides’ Bacchae. In the play, she is crying because she went insane and tore apart her own father. Dionysus is never crucified or killed. And his “revelation” that they are all going to suffer horrible torments and punishment for not immediately accepting him doesn’t occur at a tomb or to select followers as the site claims, but over the whole city and it’s addressed to everybody, even the people that did follow him. (Evidence point # 7: blatantly making up Dionysus was resurrected 3 days after a death that never happens)

There is a story about Dionysus was a baby living in a cave to protect him from Hera's jealousy and being torn apart by Titans at Hera's orders. His heart is then sowed onto Zeus's genitals and he sleeps with another woman who becomes pregnant with the "resurrected" Dionysus, and this is why he is called twice-born. However, this is not a spiritual resurrection; his physical body is restored. This is not a death for the salvation of humanity as so many websites claim. He isn't an adult when this happens. There is also a question about whether he actually dies or is merely mutilated as technically gods cannot be killed in Greek mythology, according to pretty much every other myth (see: Prometheus story, the War with the Titans, etc.)

From what I looked up of the other mythologies that the site mentions, which I am not as familiar with, they have similar problems of manipulating the story details (such as making details completely up that never happen in any known myth) to make dubious connections to the New Testament stories.

--------------------end the original response-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In that same thread a different atheist makes the claim that Perseus, Romulus and Remus are all virgin births (just like Jesus). I check Livy for the Romulus and Remus story, and it turns out that it isn't a virgin birth (their mother is forced to join the vestal virgins, hence where the virgin part comes in, but is then raped by Mars in the woods, hence no longer a virgin) and I then ask her if she has ever read any of the actual myths themselves. She answers that she hasn't.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The owner of the same atheist blog (not the website) then mentioned that he (http://proudatheists.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/who-are-the-militant-ones/#comment-17197) "suspect[s] that Jesus was the one that replaced another mythical creature..Mithra(s)."

This inspired me to post my question here as I was uncomfortable responding to this as I, too, haven't read through Zoroastrian texts and wanted to see if I could find someone who had read them on this site who would be willing to comment and fill in the details.

I then responded to him:

"Have you ever read any of the actual mythological books (I believe it is the Avesta, but I could be wrong) that contain these stories about Mithra? Have you ever read any book by a credible scholar (someone with a Ph. D. in a related subject such as Persian or Roman mythology/languages/history/etc. and who is preferably associated with a credible university) who has made the claim Mithra/Mithras = Jesus? Or have you gotten this information only from atheist books, websites, videos, etc.?

This is not an attack on your viewpoint; if you have read some credible books that have made this claim I would like to read them." (note: this is the second time now I have asked an atheist whether they have read any of the actual sources for the myths of the beings they claim to be prototypes of Jesus, and the second time an atheist has responded they in fact haven't).

He also added links to where he got his information from here (http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/mithraism.html) and here (http://www.avesta.org/avesta.html).

I then responded:

The first site doesn’t really meet my criteria. The guy is an atheist/satanist with an anti-theistic bias (with banners deriding religion), doesn’t have a formal degree in the appropriate subjects or related subjects (as far as I could ascertain from exploring his website), and whose references he actually quotes in his Mithraism article consist of other “atheist” web sources (who are probably getting their bad information from the same sources he did), himself (at one point), and books from other non-experts. I think it’s very telling that he never quotes a single peer-reviewed scholarly journal, despite the fact that there is an entire scholarly journal dedicated to the study of Roman Mithraism.

The second site is better as its basically a translation site for Persian texts. However, I didn’t really see what you wanted me to look at specifically concerning Mithra = Jesus on that site. Mithras is another story, as many scholars think he is completely different god, which I’ll explain more below.

Having gone through a couple of sites myself, I found one scholar, Dr. Richard Gordon, who is in fact the original editor of the Mithraic Journal that I already mentioned, who offers an FAQ page to answer some reader’s questions. In it he refutes the idea that the followers of Mithras believed in Resurrection and that Mithras of Rome is based off Mithra of Persia. These ideas came from a scholar named Frank Cumont who was considered an early scholar of the subject, but whose theories in the past 70 years have since been disregarded by the majority of Mithras scholars based off new evidence and reevaluation of his lack of evidence, particularly his idea that Mithras of Rome is a copy of Mithra and myths from Persia.

The problem is, of course, that according to all the major scholars in that field we just don’t know a lot about Mithraism; almost all our evidence stems from statues and iconography. The scanty information we do have from Christian sources needs to be taken with a grain of salt (read the FAQ for the reasons).

----------------------------------------------

To sum up a really long post, the problem so far is I haven't seen any real good evidence for the Jesus = this or that pagan god hypothesis. Almost all the scholarship dealing with this comes from the 19th century, and the comparative mythology it represents, is considered outmoded by most working scholars of today in relevant fields who lean towards cultural particularism. Those who have resurrected this scholarship from the 19th century, such as Freke and Gandy in the Jesus Mysteries, aren't real scholars with real credentials in relevant fields. Many of the atheists I engaged with during these conversation basically admitted to not having read any of these myths. Many of the websites they offered as the places they got their information were filled with blatantly fraudulent facts, misinformation, and outdated theories. In fact, almost all the websites they used to get and support this information were a casebook study of bad websites from information literacy standards (I'm a trained librarian, so this is sort of my expertise). I would love to see some good evidence if you or anyone else has any (from credible scholars with relevant degrees and who preferably teach at credible universities) from peer-reviewed books or articles that support any of these arguments, or direct quotes from actual primary sources of the myths.

Now if you don't want to talk just about Mithra that's fine with me. So, besides Horus and Mithra, do you have any other candidate that Jesus is supposedly based on that you'd like to discuss?

[Babbalanja]

Well, I haven't really made an attempt to delegitimize any of the research so far, to be honest.
Well, actually, you did. You've pointed out several times that you dismiss anything an atheist would have to say on the subject, as if that's a responsible basis on which to assess his or her research. I'm not sure what you have against atheists, but it's not relevant to this issue.


That wasn't exactly my initial goal, hence why I started my opening post with a question specifically about Mithras/Mithra (hoping some one who had actually read through the Zoroastrian texts could shed some light on the subject). What then happened was that you sort of red herringed the topic by talking about Horus and Mediterranean deities in general (hence why I'm reluctant to call it a true red herring).
Because that's the only take I have on this matter. There seemed to be a lot of sun-god cults in the Mediterranean around the time of Christ. Their heroes all had miraculous births, events of their lives celebrated around equinoxes and solstices, and miraculous deaths, usually followed by ascension into the sky to reign as the Sun. As a nonbeliever, I don't think it's any more likely that Jesus was born of a virgin, literally rose from the dead and ascended into heaven than that Mithras was born from a stone, literally slew a magic bull and ascended into heaven. That's the real similarity between Jesus and Mithras: their life stories are mythical tales that were popular thousands of years ago.

Look, if you're Jewish, you obviously know that the Jesus myth resembles Mediterranean sun god mythology a lot more than it resembles anything in Jewish Messianic literature. None of the OT patriarchs had virgin births or rose from the dead, did they? Wasn't the Messiah supposed to be an earthly being who would lead his people (a la Moses) to the Promised Land? I don't think it's particularly farfetched to imagine that the story of a dissident rabbi in Palestine didn't resonate enough with potential converts outside the Jewish community. The early Christians probably could only relate to a miraculous cult hero, so they added a lot of features of pagan sun gods to the myth and increased its worth in the marketplace of ideas. Certainly the miraculous-birth is a feature that was added after Paul's letters, since the Apostle never mentions the fact that Jesus was born to a virgin when he's literally singing the praises of his Savior.

Regards,

Istvan

[Drkshadow03]

Well, actually, you did. You've pointed out several times that you dismiss anything an atheist would have to say on the subject, as if that's a responsible basis on which to assess his or her research. I'm not sure what you have against atheists, but it's not relevant to this issue.

I have nothing against atheists really, other than I think many of them are short-sighted for a variety of reasons. However, I didn't once dismiss any piece research solely because it was written by an atheist, nor do I make that claim anywhere in any of the posts that those are the reasons I am dismissing it. Information literacy 101, however, tells you that you need to see if a website has bias and then judge how much the bias may affect the content. So far example, if you go on a website that has a bunch of logos that say, "White Power!" plastered all over the place and Swastikas and then they claim to have to the factual biographical information on Martin Luther King Jr. you need to take the information on the website with a grain of salt.

After that you look for other things: lack of footnotes, credentials, dating of the material, if you have the opportunity to consult with other sources does the information seem to match the mainstream view of the subject, etc.


Because that's the only take I have on this matter. There seemed to be a lot of sun-god cults in the Mediterranean around the time of Christ. Their heroes all had miraculous births, events of their lives celebrated around equinoxes and solstices, and miraculous deaths, usually followed by ascension into the sky to reign as the Sun. As a nonbeliever, I don't think it's any more likely that Jesus was born of a virgin, literally rose from the dead and ascended into heaven than that Mithras was born from a stone, literally slew a magic bull and ascended into heaven. That's the real similarity between Jesus and Mithras: their life stories are mythical tales that were popular thousands of years ago.

All of which is fine. There were tons of mythical tales that were popular thousands of years ago. That doesn't mean anything really.


Look, if you're Jewish, you obviously know that the Jesus myth resembles Mediterranean sun god mythology a lot more than it resembles anything in Jewish Messianic literature. None of the OT patriarchs had virgin births or rose from the dead, did they? Wasn't the Messiah supposed to be an earthly being who would lead his people (a la Moses) to the Promised Land? I don't think it's particularly farfetched to imagine that the story of a dissident rabbi in Palestine didn't resonate enough with potential converts outside the Jewish community. The early Christians probably could only relate to a miraculous cult hero, so they added a lot of features of pagan sun gods to the myth and increased its worth in the marketplace of ideas. Certainly the miraculous-birth is a feature that was added after Paul's letters, since the Apostle never mentions the fact that Jesus was born to a virgin when he's literally singing the praises of his Savior.

Regards,

Istvan

Also, if you wish to continue this conversation would please name specific sun-gods rather than a generalized abstraction. It's impossible to discuss this further or get into any nitty-gritty without more specificity.

[Kemathenga]

You two want to keep up the dialogue? than just ignore me.;-) Personally I can't see what the problem is. Of course, Jesus would use the myths fashionable in his time to make himself understandable to people. He acted like what we would call "zeitgemäß" (something like "up to date").
Judging from the fact that Jesus is still around and Mithras isn't I'd guess he managed to make himself interesting to more than soldiers and sun-worshippers.
Interestingly enough it's not only mediterranian cults the Jesus-story relates to but some celtic ones, too. Like the Death of the Corn King, roughly resembling the gospel story of the wheat falling into the ground and multiplying or even Kaiphas announcing that one man has to die for the people. That's what made Ireland come over to the new religion without a war, a singularity in church history.
Since all religions claim to translate the divine to humans I wouldn't be surprised at similarities. It's the differences I would take interest in - and did through my time at the university.

[Taliesin]

I think that the argument would stand better ground if one didn't claim Jesus= god X, but rather that a large number of Jesus' properties where loans from deities X,Y and Z - a collage rather than a plagiarism.

Generally, I turn to Wikipedia on this, but it seems that the page dealing with the topic doesn't have enough references. I'll refer to it anyway. Perhaps it'll help.
Jesus_Christ_in_comparative_mythology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_in_comparative_mythology)

Mithraism#Mithraism_and_Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism#Mithraism_and_Christianity)

[Babbalanja]

Also, if you wish to continue this conversation would please name specific sun-gods rather than a generalized abstraction. It's impossible to discuss this further or get into any nitty-gritty without more specificity.It doesn't seem like you want to continue this conversation, since you merely ignored my entire point about the way the Jesus myth morphed from dissident rabbi to mystic sun-god.

I did mention Mithras a few times in my previous post, but you seem to have missed it. I'm not sure how fruitful this dialogue will be unless you start actually reading what this particular short-sighted atheist has to say. This may be intentional on your part, so I apologize if I didn't take the hint to buzz off.

Regards,

Istvan

[Drkshadow03]

I think that the argument would stand better ground if one didn't claim Jesus= god X, but rather that a large number of Jesus' properties where loans from deities X,Y and Z - a collage rather than a plagiarism.

Generally, I turn to Wikipedia on this, but it seems that the page dealing with the topic doesn't have enough references. I'll refer to it anyway. Perhaps it'll help.
Jesus_Christ_in_comparative_mythology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_in_comparative_mythology)

Mithraism#Mithraism_and_Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism#Mithraism_and_Christianity)

See, I wonder if it is the opposite. I think one thing throwing me off is the everybody and the kitchen sink approach a lot of these arguments take. Jesus = god X, Y, and Z. It sounds almost desperate. Well, one of those gods must be like Jesus! And they all have the same biography as each other according to a lot of this research. See they're all sun-gods (except when their not like Dionysus). They all had virgin births (except I still haven't found one that I would label an actual virgin birth). The thing is if I were to read god X, Y, and Z's myths, I don't think they're really anything like each other either, not just Jesus.

I haven't rejected Horus completely because out of the deities I have researched who Jesus is supposed to be based off he comes the closest that I've seen so far, mostly with the fact that according to wikipedia in one of his forms he was considered a savior figure (but even then, I get the impression it was physical salvation rather than spiritual).

However, it depends what we mean by "plagiarized." I know one serious scholar who argues that Jesus turning water into wine was a Christian attempt to show Jesus was superior than Dionysus. THAT makes sense. There is a huge difference with the argument that the life of this god or that god matches Jesus life almost perfectly therefore Jesus is a complete or almost complete copy of said deity versus there were certain elements or miracles incorporated into a story that would typically be the area of a pagan god that was incorporated to impress the pagans and show that Jesus was superior than the pagan gods. Those are VERY different arguments.

I am capable of supporting either one. I just want to see some good evidence that god X, Y, or Z has real similarities to the life of Jesus.

[Babbalanja]

Judging from the fact that Jesus is still around and Mithras isn't I'd guess he managed to make himself interesting to more than soldiers and sun-worshippers.
The Mithras cult was evidently tolerant of other faiths, so in that sense it was diametrically opposed to the absolutist dogma of Christianity. However, the Mithras religion was exclusively male-oriented, while the Jesus myth developed a form of pagan goddess-worship in the cult of Mary to appeal to female converts.

And let's face facts: converting the Emperor Constantine was a public-relations coup that basically ensured the triumph of Christianity over its competition.

Incidentally, contrary to the erroneous proclamations of the original poster, it's wasn't atheists who initially pointed out the similarities between the Jesus myth and the pagan sun-god myths. It was theosophists, whose thirst for Egyptology and mystical-schmistical numbnuttery was seemingly bottomless. Perhaps their research was sloppy and their overstatements many, but they were not trying to denigrate Christianity by comparing it to pagan myths. Quite the opposite: they were trying to revitalize the mystical basis of Christianity by redefining the Jesus myth as part of a more ancient mystical tradition.

Regards,

Istvan

[Drkshadow03]

Incidentally, contrary to the erroneous proclamations of the original poster, it's wasn't atheists who initially pointed out the similarities between the Jesus myth and the pagan sun-god myths.

Strawman much?

What I actually wrote: "atheists love to support." I never said anything about them inventing/creating/initially pointing out . . .

And I also wrote: "My opinion is more something like this: the imagined and exaggerated overlap between the various so-called sun-gods of the Mediterranean is the result of poor scholarship, usually with an agenda--but not always--that often tries to prove that Jesus is just a plagiarized version of various "pagan" mythologies, and because a lot of atheists are former Christians who still bear strong animosity towards Christianity, they tend to eat this stuff up whether it is true or not."

I said nothing about them being the ones behind the scholarship necessarily. Just that they tend to support it uncritically.


You two want to keep up the dialogue? than just ignore me.;-) Personally I can't see what the problem is. Of course, Jesus would use the myths fashionable in his time to make himself understandable to people. He acted like what we would call "zeitgemäß" (something like "up to date").
Judging from the fact that Jesus is still around and Mithras isn't I'd guess he managed to make himself interesting to more than soldiers and sun-worshippers.
Interestingly enough it's not only mediterranian cults the Jesus-story relates to but some celtic ones, too. Like the Death of the Corn King, roughly resembling the gospel story of the wheat falling into the ground and multiplying or even Kaiphas announcing that one man has to die for the people. That's what made Ireland come over to the new religion without a war, a singularity in church history.
Since all religions claim to translate the divine to humans I wouldn't be surprised at similarities. It's the differences I would take interest in - and did through my time at the university.

Kemathenga, I will check out the Celtic story. That sounds promising. Do you happen to know where one could find a translation of said story?

[Babbalanja]

What I actually wrote: "atheists love to support." I never said anything about them inventing/creating/initially pointing out . . .
And what, aside from a glaring demonstration of your own personal bigotry, is so significant about atheists supporting something? Why is your first criticism of any source always that it's on an atheist website? Why do you spend a lot of time denigrating the atheists whose knee-jerk support of the Jesus/pagan correspondence seems a lot more suspect to you than the fundamentalists' knee-jerk rejection of it?

You're the only one here who ever mentioned that the Jesus myth was supposedly "plagiarized," because of your previous arguments with that big bad atheist blogger. All I've ever tried to do was point out that the Jesus myth seems to resemble various sun-god myths in their emphasis on their heroes' miraculous life events rather than the tales of the Jewish patriarchs. You ignored this, since it evidently doesn't fit in with your caricature of an atheist who blindly accepts that the Jesus myth was copied word-for-word from the story of Mithras.

Regards,

Istvan

[Drkshadow03]

And what, aside from a glaring demonstration of your own personal bigotry, is so significant about atheists supporting something? Why is your first criticism of any source always that it's on an atheist website? Why do you spend a lot of time denigrating the atheists whose knee-jerk support of the Jesus/pagan correspondence seems a lot more suspect to you than the fundamentalists' knee-jerk rejection of it?

You're the only one here who ever mentioned that the Jesus myth was supposedly "plagiarized," because of your previous arguments with that big bad atheist blogger. All I've ever tried to do was point out that the Jesus myth seems to resemble various sun-god myths in their emphasis on their heroes' miraculous life events rather than the tales of the Jewish patriarchs. You ignored this, since it evidently doesn't fit in with your caricature of an atheist who blindly accepts that the Jesus myth was copied word-for-word from the story of Mithras.

Regards,

Istvan

They're is nothing overly important about it. It was one mere detail. For all intents and purposes you can erase that line in first post and get to the meat-and-potatoes of what I'm really interested in discussing. I've never shown any bigotry towards atheists, outside of knowing this curious tendency among many of them to buy into this uncritically.

That is a far cry from, "Oh my G-d, Atheists are the evil devil who are immoral and worship Satan!" Stop playing the false victim BS!

I've more than supported that there are many atheists out there who buy into this. I can also quote other sources if you need more convincing. Many, by the way, doesn't equal ALL or even MOST (just enough that you can find a lot). All I've said is a lot of atheists seem to buy into this bull without any evidence, which disturbs me as a librarian trying to support strong information literacy standards.

Clear enough for you? Now if you're done crying victimhood, can we get back to the discussion at hand?

I ignored your Mithras point because they're not vaguely similar in details. A "Heroes' miraculous life events" stories describes hundreds of different myths and tales from all sorts of cultures, most of which are very different from each other, so it's basically meaningless. It's like saying Jesus equal a god and Zeus equals a god and Odin equals a god and Apollo equals a god, so they all must be basically the same.

But I am curious, in what way are these stories different than the tales of Jewish patriarchs? We know for a fact that certain tales like Noah and the Flood come from the Epic of Gilgamesh, down the details of the ark measurements.

[Babbalanja]

Stop playing the false victim BS!:rolleyes:

I pointed out the amount of times you used the fact that atheists believe this, in every single post you've written on this thread, to make it seem like there's no worth in pointing out the correspondences between the Jesus myth and pagan mythology. If you'll stop repeating the claim that this is what atheists believe, I'll stop pointing out how strange and bigoted the claim sounds.


I've more than supported that there are many atheists out there who buy into this. And I've asked several times why this point seems so cogent to you. I think you're counting on using the 'fact' that atheists believe it to make it sound bad to the believers here.


All I've said is a lot of atheists seem to buy into this bull without any evidence, which disturbs me as a librarian trying to support strong information literacy standards.It's telling that you actually call it bull, when you've been trying so hard to make it seem like you're an objective researcher into the matter. You're either complaining that the sources aren't good enough or complaining that the myths aren't exactly the same in every detail. Can I point out that it seems like you're stacking the deck in your favor?

So far all you've done is refute a claim no one here has even made: "the Jesus myth was plagiarized word for word from the Mithras myth." Good for you.

But we have nothing to learn from the way the Jesus myth generally resembles the sun god myth---how about the miraculous birth and ascension into heaven?--- closer than the myths of Moses or Abraham?

Regards,

Istvan

[Radha Krsna]

Listen me... (http://ngarayana.web.ugm.ac.id/Galle...Govinda%20MP3/)


More... More... And more... (http://www.kaskus.us/showpost.php?p=147154787&postcount=1)

[Drkshadow03]

:rolleyes:

I pointed out the amount of times you used the fact that atheists believe this, in every single post you've written on this thread, to make it seem like there's no worth in pointing out the correspondences between the Jesus myth and pagan mythology. If you'll stop repeating the claim that this is what atheists believe, I'll stop pointing out how strange and bigoted the claim sounds.

And I merely pointed out that a lot of atheists seem to believe this, not that it was wrong BECAUSE atheists believed it, but for some reason you can't seem to read a basic sentence, but still want me to take you seriously.

Now it's true I didn't add "many" or "a lot" in my original posts, but I assumed perhaps wrongly that it was understood. Nevertheless, I clearly demonstrated through links that there are atheists who believe this. So on those grounds it is pretty much a moot point. There ARE atheists who believe this; I suppose there are theists and mystics too; however, I do NOT believe ALL atheists believe this. If there is still some lingering confusion I am clarifying it now.

You also have my motivations all wrong. I think it might be worth pointing out the correspondences between the Jesus myth and pagan mythology if such correspondences can in fact be found. However, I find myself skeptical about the many correspondence mentioned because every time I fact check the so-called correspondence they end up not being true, strongly fudge the facts of the known mythologies, and have even contained blatant lies, which itself is very telling about those who seem to want to support these ideas uncritically.



It's telling that you actually call it bull, when you've been trying so hard to make it seem like you're an objective researcher into the matter. You're either complaining that the sources aren't good enough or complaining that the myths aren't exactly the same in every detail. Can I point out that it seems like you're stacking the deck in your favor?

I am an objective researcher, but even the most objective researcher has some bias; in this case, the bias is that every claim of Jesus = Pagan god doesn't match up with what I already know about the subject. I also have to admit that after spending a lot of time on that one particular atheist's blog, and watching many of the atheists on there self-congratulate themselves for being more rational, intelligent, logical, educated than dumb, stupid, illogical believers (read: Christians in 90% of the cases) who offer shoddy evidence on crappy Christian websites to prove Jesus was a real historical personage, there is an amusing sense of irony when many of those same atheists then do exactly the same thing in reverse to prove Jesus was a plagiarized pagan myth.

If the evidence is stacked in "my" favor it is because the evidence is stacked in the favor of the position I currently am taking on this issue, until I see good evidence otherwise. I gave my reasons for rejecting different sites, which were all very good reasons.

At this point I've been selecting and vetting books to read on Egyptian mythology, Mithraism, and Zoroasterianism to further my inquiry into this matter.


So far all you've done is refute a claim no one here has even made: "the Jesus myth was plagiarized word for word from the Mithras myth." Good for you.

Actually I did show that people claim that the Jesus myth was plagiarized, if not word for word, than event for event, for example, on the website concerning Dionysus and some of the other mythological figures. And I did refute it by noting that none of these events happen in any of the known Dionysus myths that I ever read or am aware of (if there is an important one that I am not aware of where Dionysus dies for three days and is resurrected that you are aware of, please share with the class . . . ). So once again you apparently haven't read my actual posts.


But we have nothing to learn from the way the Jesus myth generally resembles the sun god myth---how about the miraculous birth and ascension into heaven?--- closer than the myths of Moses or Abraham?

A "miraculous" birth from a virgin and a miraculous birth from a rock seem like very different things to me, as well as the miraculous birth of Horus from his mother being impregnated through necrophilia. At best, they represent a very vague motif of the "miraculous birth," which have far more differences than similarities if you ask me and really don't tell us much about anything. Not to mention in many cases in this sort of discourse they're not presented merely as miraculous birth, but as a virgin births.

Does Mithras ascend into heaven? What sources are you using for his mythology?