Posted on 04/06/2010 7:07:19 AM PDT by truthfinder9
I think it highly likely that most Christians will tell you the move from polytheism to monotheism was a good thing, atheists go one step further and toss out all gods, yet this is considered a bad thing, why?
It’s a myth that atheists throw out all gods. They adhere to one ism or another like materialism, naturalism, etc. They like to pretend religion necesitates a diety. It does not.
Because it is a lile. It contradicts human experience and the natural revelation of the creation itself.
I think that takes a little more explanation, how does religion not need a deity, or at the least, something to have Faith in?
Stoicism proposed the kind of monotheism that atheists reduce to nullity. It reduces the gods to impersonal forces, where the ordinary pagan believed in gods with personalities. Stoics were a kind of pantheist. Atheists simply disregard the idea of any sort of universal order.
I did explain it. They replace the diety with some “non-diety” object of worship, whether it be scientism, materialism, naturalism, etc. Not every religion has a supernatural being at its center. But atheists like to redefine things to help themselves rationalize.
Atheists don't “throw out all gods”, they replace them. They believe that ultimately they themselves are what controls their own destiny and the only thing worth worshiping. In that manner, they can justify anything they do as “moral” because their “god” told them it was alright.
Christianity is a mix of Jewish spiritualism and pagan Platonism, later embellished by pagan Aristotelianism in the West. Trough Judaism, Christianity shares many mythological beliefs that are common to other cultures and religions.
Biblical stories of creation and the flood bear striking similarities to Sumarian and Baylonian myths. The waters, the firmament, the successive acts of creation, the Garden of Eden, the flood and the ark, the birth of Moses, etc. all parallel each other.
The story of the origins of the Garden of Eden have fascinating similarities with the Sumerian (oldest epical writing) paradise-like Garden story, with forbidden fruit, the making of a woman from the rib, and the curse...The idea of forbidden fruit is also found in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2000 BC)
The Gilgamesh story of the Flood has god Ea directing Utnapishim that a ship be built:
And then Utnapishim, relating many passages that are mimicked by the story of Noah (including the ship's dimensions,and all that), says:
The similarities of the whole story are striking when compared to the OT account: a God destroying the world, sparing certain individuals, commanding that a ship be built, that all species of animals be brought into it, the ship comers to rest on a mountain after the flood, both ships have windows which they open after the rain stops, a bird is released from the ships once the ships have come to rest on mountains, etc.
Then there is the legend of the founder of the Semitic dynasty of Akkad, King Sargon, c. 2000 BC, which bears striking resemblance to the later story of Moses' birth:
Christianity had to be hellenized in order to become acceptable to the Greeks. Otherwise it was an alien even silly to them. This compromise is made evident when Paul realized that only by dispensing with circumcision and dietary laws, in fact with the Law itself, could he have any success in preaching the new faith to them.
The whole idea of a God-man was necessary for Greeks to accept Christianity because their gods were anthropomorphic, and they could relate to it better that way. This is where john's Gospel comes in (at the very end of the century), which was made possible by the fact that by the end of the first century, the Jews have rejected Christianity and the movement was now free to shape its own religious beliefs, tailored for the new "Israel" and its cultural and religious concepts.
To deny any influence on Christianity and to claim some ready-made God product is simply denying historical, even biblical evidence to the contrary. In the first three hundred years of Christianity, there was no uniform belief or doctrine taught, and the Bible contained many books that are no longer used or were used in conjunction with books Christians would consider unacceptable today.
So, the only Evangelical argument that none of this it true is pathetically reduced to a fiat which must be believed and not an objective proof, namely that Christianity, Christian revelation, Christian doctrine, and the New Testament is a unique revelation from God, not a product of nor in any way influenced by mystery pagan religions, Hellenism, or Gnosticism
Every so-called "revealed" religion in the world makes the same pathetic claim, which simply must be accepted on an a priori basis, without offering a single ounce of proof that this "revelation" was from God, whatever he may be.
Well, if it is all "revealed" by God to the believers, then why write silly articles like this one? They already "know."
http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/comparsison_horus_jesus_chart.htm
Long time lurker but I couldn’t let this stupidity go unanswered.
“I have never researched the Jesus Horus connection but it seems plauseable.”
Only to the uninformed who do very little research for themselves and rely on unsourced websites for information.
“http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/comparsison_horus_jesus_chart.htm";
Easily refuted here :
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/osy.html
With references. Imagine that.
Sure, if you look at the fine detail, every story can be refuted. But it is the general theme and ideas that are the same or similar. Obviously, the mythological ideas were being passed on from culture to culture, and this is where we see thing in common with all of them.
Christians see references to "Jesus" all over the OT, but the Jews don't. The NT could have been written with the express intention to show these OT "prophesies" (after the fact) as announcing Christ. But even here, again, we see that one can "refute" them by sticking to the details (i.e. virgin, versus young woman; Emanuel vs Yeshua; the suffering servant being Israel vs man; the messiah riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, a self fulfilling "prophesy," etc.). The meaning of the words such as "son of God," or "the anointed one," Satan, the "world to come," or the "Kingdom of God," etc. all have different meanings in Judaism as opposed to Christianity.
But nonetheless, just as there is a common thread in the mythical stories, there is a common (borrowed) thread in the details. of course, each mythical religion claims to be the true one and all others are naturally "false."
Similar yes but you left out the part that the god in the Sumerian rendition of the story is a snake.
Thanks for all your talking points that intelligent people have answered over and over again. Good luck.
Polytheism to Monotheism is a stage closer to truth. Atheism a leap away from truth.
Truth is Good.
Myths can be seen as models - a model of something larger incapable of being fully understood, but capable of an abstraction of a part, conceptualizing.
As scientist say: All models are false, some are useful.
That story dates to hte 7th century, not 2k BC. See WIKI.
That's older than any copy of the Bible.
If biblical myths are models, then by definition they are false, even if they are useful to some.
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