Posted on 12/23/2004 8:37:38 AM PST by NYer
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The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation and discrimination. |
I can name two other than Jesus: Mithras and Osiris.
Why is polytheism any more illogical than monotheism?
The conservative movement owes William F. Buckley a debt of gratitude for exposing the Birchers for the buffoons that they are.
Pagan basis of common law bump.
Good, compare them too.
See my posts after this one. Essentially, polytheism results in unsutainable anarchy or is another form of monotheism.
They are either all false or one of them is true.
What if they are all true? Did you ever read the tale of the blind men and the elephant?
They make exclusive claims. For example Christ clearly rejects anything else in his statement "no one can come to the Father but by me.". They may all contain some truth but they cannot all be the truth.
The Death of the Mystery Gods and the Death of Jesus
The best way to evaluate the alleged dependence of early Christian beliefs about Christs death and resurrection on the pagan myths of a dying and rising savior-god is to examine carefully the supposed parallels. The death of Jesus differs from the deaths of the pagan gods in at least six ways:
(1) None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else. The notion of the Son of God dying in place of His creatures is unique to Christianity.13
(2) Only Jesus died for sin. As Günter Wagner observes, to none of the pagan gods has the intention of helping men been attributed. The sort of death that they died is quite different (hunting accident, self-emasculation, etc.).14
(3) Jesus died once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:25-28; 10:10-14). In contrast, the mystery gods were vegetation deities whose repeated deaths and resuscitations depict the annual cycle of nature.
(4) Jesus death was an actual event in history. The death of the mystery god appears in a mythical drama with no historical ties; its continued rehearsal celebrates the recurring death and rebirth of nature. The incontestable fact that the early church believed that its proclamation of Jesus death and resurrection was grounded in an actual historical event makes absurd any attempt to derive this belief from the mythical, nonhistorical stories of the pagan cults.15
(5) Unlike the mystery gods, Jesus died voluntarily. Nothing like this appears even implicitly in the mysteries.
(6) And finally, Jesus death was not a defeat but a triumph. Christianity stands entirely apart from the pagan mysteries in that its report of Jesus death is a message of triumph. Even as Jesus was experiencing the pain and humiliation of the cross, He was the victor. The New Testaments mood of exultation contrasts sharply with that of the mystery religions, whose followers wept and mourned for the terrible fate that overtook their gods.16
The Risen Christ and the Rising Savior-Gods
Which mystery gods actually experienced a resurrection from the dead? Certainly no early texts refer to any resurrection of Attis. Nor is the case for a resurrection of Osiris any stronger. One can speak of a resurrection in the stories of Osiris, Attis, and Adonis only in the most extended of senses.17 For example, after Isis gathered together the pieces of Osiriss dismembered body, Osiris became Lord of the Underworld. This is a poor substitute for a resurrection like that of Jesus Christ. And, no claim can be made that Mithras was a dying and rising god. The tide of scholarly opinion has turned dramatically against attempts to make early Christianity dependent on the so-called dying and rising gods of Hellenistic paganism.18 Any unbiased examination of the evidence shows that such claims must be rejected.
Christian Rebirth and Cultic Initiation Rites
Liberal writings on the subject are full of sweeping generalizations to the effect that early Christianity borrowed its notion of rebirth from the pagan mysteries.19 But the evidence makes it clear that there was no pre-Christian doctrine of rebirth for the Christians to borrow. There are actually very few references to the notion of rebirth in the evidence that has survived, and even these are either very late or very ambiguous. They provide no help in settling the question of the source of the New Testament use of the concept. The claim that pre-Christian mysteries regarded their initiation rites as a kind of rebirth is unsupported by any evidence contemporary with such alleged practices. Instead, a view found in much later texts is read back into earlier rites, which are then interpreted quite speculatively as dramatic portrayals of the initiates new birth. The belief that pre-Christian mysteries used rebirth as a technical term lacks support from even one single text.
Most contemporary scholars maintain that the mystery use of the concept of rebirth (testified to only in evidence dated after A.D. 300) differs so significantly from its New Testament usage that any possibility of a close link is ruled out. The most that such scholars are willing to concede is the possibility that some Christians borrowed the metaphor or imagery from the common speech of the time and recast it to fit their distinctive theological beliefs. So even if the metaphor of rebirth was Hellenistic, its content within Christianity was unique.20
SEVEN ARGUMENTS AGAINST CHRISTIAN DEPENDENCE ON THE MYSTERIES
I conclude by noting seven points that undermine liberal efforts to show that first-century Christianity borrowed essential beliefs and practices from the pagan mystery religions.
(1) Arguments offered to prove a Christian dependence on the mysteries illustrate the logical fallacy of false cause. This fallacy is committed whenever someone reasons that just because two things exist side by side, one of them must have caused the other. As we all should know, mere coincidence does not prove causal connection. Nor does similarity prove dependence.
(2) Many alleged similarities between Christianity and the mysteries are either greatly exaggerated or fabricated. Scholars often describe pagan rituals in language they borrow from Christianity. The careless use of language could lead one to speak of a Last Supper in Mithraism or a baptism in the cult of Isis. It is inexcusable nonsense to take the word savior with all of its New Testament connotations and apply it to Osiris or Attis as though they were savior-gods in any similar sense.
(3) The chronology is all wrong. Almost all of our sources of information about the pagan religions alleged to have influenced early Christianity are dated very late. We frequently find writers quoting from documents written 300 years later than Paul in efforts to produce ideas that allegedly influenced Paul. We must reject the assumption that just because a cult had a certain belief or practice in the third or fourth century after Christ, it therefore had the same belief or practice in the first century.
(4) Paul would never have consciously borrowed from the pagan religions. All of our information about him makes it highly unlikely that he was in any sense influenced by pagan sources. He placed great emphasis on his early training in a strict form of Judaism (Phil. 3:5). He warned the Colossians against the very sort of influence that advocates of Christian syncretism have attributed to him, namely, letting their minds be captured by alien speculations (Col. 2:8).
(5) Early Christianity was an exclusivistic faith. As J. Machen explains, the mystery cults were nonexclusive. A man could become initiated into the mysteries of Isis or Mithras without at all giving up his former beliefs; but if he were to be received into the Church, according to the preaching of Paul, he must forsake all other Saviors for the Lord Jesus Christ....Amid the prevailing syncretism of the Greco-Roman world, the religion of Paul, with the religion of Israel, stands absolutely alone.2 This Christian exclusivism should be a starting point for all reflection about the possible relations between Christianity and its pagan competitors. Any hint of syncretism in the New Testament would have caused immediate controversy.
(6) Unlike the mysteries, the religion of Paul was grounded on events that actually happened in history. The mysticism of the mystery cults was essentially nonhistorical. Their myths were dramas, or pictures, of what the initiate went through, not real historical events, as Paul regarded Christs death and resurrection to be. The Christian affirmation that the death and resurrection of Christ happened to a historical person at a particular time and place has absolutely no parallel in any pagan mystery religion.
(7) What few parallels may still remain may reflect a Christian influence on the pagan systems. As Bruce Metzger has argued, It must not be uncritically assumed that the Mysteries always influenced Christianity, for it is not only possible but probable that in certain cases, the influence moved in the opposite direction.22 It should not be surprising that leaders of cults that were being successfully challenged by Christianity should do something to counter the challenge. What better way to do this than by offering a pagan substitute? Pagan attempts to counter the growing influence of Christianity by imitating it are clearly apparent in measures instituted by Julian the Apostate, who was the Roman emperor from A.D. 361 to 363.
A FINAL WORD
Liberal efforts to undermine the uniqueness of the Christian revelation via claims of a pagan religious influence collapse quickly once a full account of the information is available. It is clear that the liberal arguments exhibit astoundingly bad scholarship. Indeed, this conclusion may be too generous. According to one writer, a more accurate account of these bad arguments would describe them as prejudiced irresponsibility.23 But in order to become completely informed on these matters, wise readers will work through material cited in the brief bibliography.
http://www.equip.org/free/DB109.htm
I haven't read the thread - is any of it worth my time?
"Nothing Day" sounds great, can we just watch Seinfeld and veg out? That's what I'd rather do on most holidays anyway.
Most of "Western Civilization" is BASED ON "Judeo-Christian Jurisprudence!!"
Doc
We all have some sense that things have gone very wrong. The Birchers just had a unique perspective on how and why. Unfortunately, professed religion (the kind we see on the 700 Club or from Coral Ridge ministries) isn't going to save America. Politicizing it may make things worse. But did Buckley have all the answers? Who does? It's startling to think how soon America could slip into the shadows of history if current trends aren't reversed. I see the Birchers as grabbing at anything they can to save themselves and their country. Religion seemed to be something that could unite and strenthen our resolve. Wouldn't we all like to see that? I think multiculturalism and post-modernism is the true enemy. A word like 'ethnocentric' would have made our founding fathers burst into laughter.
That's true for many of them. The universalists and deists (none of whom were secular humanists!) among our founding fathers got along fine with the hellfire and brimstone Puritans. That should teach us a lesson.
My Thanks to You Both!!
Somehow, your "Revelations about 'Common Law'" give me Hope that our "Western Civilization" has a "Leg Up" on ALL OTHER "Civilizations!!"
Our "Forefathers" "GOT IT RIGHT!!"
I VERY MUCH Appreciate your "Elucidation!"
I am Humbled by my Ignorance.
Thanks!
Doc
I agree with you JT. I also agree with our founding fathers that the ethics and moral clarity that come from our religious traditions are important to our overall cohesiveness and vitality. That has to come from within individuals and their families, however.
The claim is that we can't fight the attack on marriage and our cultural heritage without "unsecularizing" our government. I think that shows a certain lack of imagination. Tar and feathers may be a better tool to deploy against our internal foes than turning America into a theocracy as Roy Moore, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson would like to do. I admit that the battle against all vestiges of Christianity led by the ACLU, multiculturalists, and the vanguard of the homo agenda are vexing. But when isn't freedom and the rule of law under attack? Instead of being shocked or reactionary, we should forge ahead and crush this move against America's families and its unity with our own media.
All across America the rule of law is under attack. We seem to be losing our stomach for enforcing our laws, starting with the second amendment. That much change, or we'll lose what our forefathers gained for us. We need to be fierce in defending the status quo.
Tar and feathers was used in the Colonies as a way of marking tyrants and shysters in a way that was difficult to remove as they faced exile from one region to another. We can use cyberspace to do much the same. We need to mark anti-American media, politicians, multi-national corporations, educators, and civil administrators by documenting their destructive impact on our country.
On a related note, Illegal immigration and offshoring are neutralizing and dispersing our R&D, manufacturing prowess, and shrinking our demand for domestic labor -- skilled and otherwise. Could we even manufacture fighters or military computers if Taiwan fell to mainland China, for example? What are our "Christian" legislators doing about these problems? I'm waiting...
Economic value (as in your second sentence) means that something is worth exactly what it would fetch on the open market (monopolies and price-fixing excepted of course). If everything of value is intrinsically valuable, then let's take gold, which the world has always believed to be valuable. The only reason gold is valuable is because of its relative rarity. Glut the market with gold, and it'll become worthless. For example, Mansa Musa single-handedly depressed the value of gold in Cairo because he brought so much with him and spent so much on the way to Mecca. Gold was plentiful in his native Africa.
Its value is what we say it is, and we make that decision based on various factors that often vary from culture to culture (beauty, rarity, usefulness, cultural or religious significance, etc.).
But you see you're mixing emotional value with economic. From your first sentence, yes, the shell likely has no economic value, but it has emotional value to him. And the only reason that shell has any value was because it came from his neice. But it's still value, and he assigned it.
Now flip that around to religion, and your relationship with your god has immense value to you. However, it is likely totally without value to an atheist who has no need for it. But across all values there is one common theme: we assign these values on a personal or economic basis, and nothing else does.
Also, the problem with Europe isn't as you state. They have their values too, but they value peace over freedom (forgetting the monetary aspect from the oil scandal), while we value freedom over peace. Both are good things to value IMHO, but different societies weigh them differently.
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