In all truth and honesty, I have to disregard science in many cases.

[Monshroud]

I've been reading into the supposed parallels between Jesus Christ and all the other myths and fables which he is compared to as of late. There is one for Buddha, Horus, and even this Greek God named Dionysus. Each and every one of these is from my mentioning and perspective, a rather far fetched view of someone trying to persistently incur that Christianity is fraudulent. The only true comparisons is that Jesus had a mother and these other characters had a mother.

(snip)

Thoughts, opinions, yatterings?

Just to start off, I am not questioning your faith or trying to question your beliefs. I think you are talking about faith. If you are strong in your faith and you believe that the Christian Bible is the true word of God, and that science should not be trusted. I don't think there is anything that can be said to really prove or disprove your beliefs.

If you would like to see some comparisions between Jesus and other religious figures go to:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Watch the first video. The first 4 - 6 minutes is a weird intro, but they start by talking about Religion and the commonality between them all. I think the bit is about 20 mintues. After that it jumps to some rather interesting conspiricy theory. Just watch the religion bit for some info.

If you want something that shoots a few holes through Christian faith by using some science, then I suggest the humorous Penn & Teller: BS episode where they talk about the Bible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RV46fsmx6E

 

[guess who]

Are you on mushrooms? That those other religions are older is as provable as the war of 1812.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

If you would like to see some comparisions between Jesus and other religious figures go to:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Watch the first video. The first 4 - 6 minutes is a weird intro, but they start by talking about Religion and the commonality between them all. I think the bit is about 20 mintues. After that it jumps to some rather interesting conspiricy theory. Just watch the religion bit for some info.

there is still some stuff they got wrong in that part but they gist of it is there.

the fact is there is a lot of evidence that stuff from Judaism has been plucked from other older religions, such as Egyptian, Babylonian and Mesopotamian. there is also a few other religions it borrowed from. so when Christianity came along they naturally incorporated other religions into their own.

the thing is it is very well documented that they borrowed from other religions, the saints are a great example of this, most of the celtic ones are just celtic gods being called saints.

there are a lot of similarities and real historical events in all religions, one such tale is the great flood. it is the one myth that EVERY religion has, including the Aborigines in Australia and they had no contact with anyone for 10 000+ years

it's nice you can think they borrowed from Christianity but no it has been Christianity that has borrowed from other religion and made it part of their own, most people believe this was done so people would be more accepting of the new religion.

also the idea of Hell as fire and brimstone wasn't even part of Christianity until about 1000 years, give or take a couple hundred years, and was only introduced because of so many people were leaving the religion and it was invented in order to scare people back into the fold

 

[manaman]

There are just so many things wrong with the OP that I can't be bothered to rant about all of them.

Then don't bother to post anything. All you come across as is unable to form a valid argument but still wanting to post your feelings on the matter. They usually like a little sustenance to posts in these forums as well.

If you would like to see some comparisions between Jesus and other religious figures go to:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

If you want something that shoots a few holes through Christian faith by using some science, then I suggest the humorous Penn & Teller: BS episode where they talk about the Bible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RV46fsmx6E

Zeitgeist is a horrible, horrible movie that if full of holes, and half truths. Pen and Teller is only a little better.

To start off a response to the OP there is no real middle ground. Loads of people will try to claim that they can rectify the bible with the scientific view of the world. That is not possible. You believe one or the other. You made clear your side. You picked the bible and a creationist stance. The world is 4000 years old, the bible is the literal word of god, etc.

What you really need to read up on is the remarkable evolution of religion that occurred out of Mesopotamia. I mean this is where you need to start, screw Egypt. Civilization in Mesopotamia existed for nearly 2000 years before civilization in Egypt is thought to have coalesced. Which probably accounts for the remarkable similarity between Egyptian, ancient Judaism, and basically all religions not made out of thin air and dealing with space aliens. OP you are right in thinking that pretty much all major religions recognized today had a common origin (of course I am not counting Mesoamerican religions, Native American, or trying to say tribal belief systems all originated from Mesopotamia, don't be silly). Much like the score of languages had a common origin. All having changed as cultures change, and isolation causing these changes to happen in different ways.

Ancient Judaism was not even a truly monotheistic religion, daemons from Mesopotamian religion are rampant in early writing. Spiritualistic believes are still present in the Old Testament of the bible. There are even personified spirits of air, water, and land in the bible. Animism plays a heavy roll in genesis, one that has been selectively edited out, but is present in the older copies of the bible.

I don't think you even want to get me started on the rough drafts of the new Testament, ones that have been fairly conclusively shown to predate by nearly 200 years the versions we now know as the New Testament.

No you see which side of this fence I sit on. I just want you to know that everything is not as black and white as you think it is and you need to read up, really read up before you jump on the "science is witchcraft" bandwagon.

Oh and there are hundred year old discoveries that have yet to be proved wrong, and some of the basic foundations of modern science was discovered by the Greeks, and earlier civilizations. So don't try to pull shit out of your ass and call it a rabbit, everyone knows that witches use the power of science on the nights of blue moons to pull rabbits out of hats.

 

[Ironic]

There are just so many things wrong with the OP that I can't be bothered to rant about all of them.

Agreed.


Christianity and Jesus came after plenty of the ancient religions. It's proven. You know, by time. Hell, the ancient Greeks had their gods and pantheons over a century before Jesus was born.

Even the Romanised version of Dionysus came 200 years prior to the birth of Jesus.

This is what I am talking about. We've only speculated that far. There is no true proof of this claim.

So, you're saying that the 6,000 year old Pyramids, were just a fabrication? I see. I'm sure there're a whole lot of Egyptians who might disagree with you. Not to mention, the Celts, Romans, Greeks, Inca's and so on. Just because you don't _understand_ the science around carbon dating and such, doesn't mean it's not true. Look things up before you start discounting things you have no knowledge of.

Additionally, it should come as no surprise that there are similarities between the stories from Christian/Catholic mythology and those of cultures past. Take Arthurian Legend, as an example. Originally, that's a Celtic myth. Not Christian. Christianity has this strange knack of resembling the Borg from Star Trek. Assimilate your culture and beliefs into our own. What comes out on the other side...isn't quite Christianity, isn't quite Celtic mythology...but a mish mash of the two. Not beyond the realm of possibility to think other myths weren't...'borrowed' to help add depth to the faith.

Damnit. I was just about to say "so, im guessing the pyramids are just GIANT cardboard cut-outs, designed to trick us all".

The only way I could possible interpret the OP's meaning is "There was an original, true religion, that christianity and buddhism is close to, but has been distorted over the years"

instead of;

"Christianity is one of the worlds most recent religions, but someone told me that science is ALL A LIE and that WATCHES and CALENDERS and SUN-DIALS are evil-tricks to get us to acknowledge the existence of pre-cursory religions".

Personally, I would have to say that the fact that the same idea of the christ-like pure figure/son has re-occurred through pretty much every major religion, is far more interesting than which one is right.

 

[Korolev]

"Science has for itself, has, can and will be only proven in the eyes of man to a certain extent. What is now considered to be accurate information will one day become something that will be shunned and proven false. Even further on into the future THAT itself will be proven false, and so on and so on"

Is what you wrote: Here is my reply:

Science is a work in PROGRESS. It gets BETTER WITH TIME. Unlike religion, science never claimed to be divine or perfect. Science is a framwork for how the world works, built up from observations done by PEOPLE.

This is why some theories are wrong, and why some get corrected as time goes by.

You've chosen to put your faith in something that never changes, something that could very well be completely false, yet you choose to trust it because you know where it stands. That's not very courageous. That's preferring stability and comfort over the quest for truth.

Simply put I do not accept divine revelation. There is nothing in the Bible to prove to me that it came from a higher place. I'm almost certain the Bible and all other religious texts, were written by people too - which is why the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is so out-of-date by todays standards.

And even though you claim that science "changes" - I would say that science "improves". We know more now then ever before. Now you can say "it's all theory, it could change at any time" - not so. Our theory of how nuclear forces work isn't complete, yet it is a very powerful theory that at least resembles how the real world works - how do I know this?

We can build nukes. That's power. That's power you can hold in the palm of your hand. That's power you can use to defend/create/destroy. Science has given us so much power. Yes it gets things wrong - but it also gets things right, and as time goes by it is starting to get more and more things right.

On the other hand, what can the bible give me aside from pleasant thoughts and vague promises of an afterlife? It can't cure cancer (as evidenced by the huge amount of praying christians who die from cancer), it can't create satellites or construct bridges or complex electronics.

Science is power. The Bible is just talk.

 

[Arsen]

To those who referenced carbon dating. There are many assumptions about that topic that many latch onto due to the lack of knowledge surrounding it. It is still a relatively new advancement within science, as as a guy who has spoken with many scientists I must say that even they agree that people try to throw in many scientific unknowns and combine it with a lack of belief in the subject.

 

[thetragicclown]

I firmly believe that Christianity originally started out, then all of these other beliefs sprouted from that exact religion.

Of course you're going to believe that. You're quite clearly Christian, and a pretty dogmatic one at that.

All the ancient Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian even, contain some reference or similarity to a tale of early Judaism and contain characters that resemble Christ down to the core, yet become tainted figures in their worship of sinful devices and pleasures.

While a large number of early Jews certainly were in Egypt at one particular point of classical history, it's highly unlikely they had any affect on ancient Egyptian beliefs. In fact it's more likely to have been the other way round, especially given Jews' second-class status in Egyptian society. When you also consider that Egypt traded with many other nations like Ancient Greece and Rome, the idea of Judaism being influenced rather than being influential seems more likely.

Those other ancient societies couldn't possibly have been influenced by Jewish ideas of Jesus Christ anyway, because there weren't any such things. A fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity is the Jewish conviction that God is so essentially different from and beyond humanity that he could never become a human, which is why the Messiah in Judaism is explicitly not-divine (unlike Jesus, who's more like an avatar of the sort you find in Hinduism). Also, since Christ didn't fulfil the other criteria to be the Messiah of Judaism like bringing peace among all nations, perfect harmony and abundance in nature, no sin or evil, reinstating the Temple etc, the majority of Jews do not consider him to be the Messiah.

But don't let little things like that shatter the narrow reality-tunnel you've made for yourself.

EDIT: Of course, I should have expected loads of people would beat me to these various points by the time I finally wrote them all down.

 

[Spacewolf]

I've been reading into the supposed parallels between Jesus Christ and all the other myths and fables which he is compared to as of late. There is one for Buddha, Horus, and even this Greek God named Dionysus. Each and every one of these is from my mentioning and perspective, a rather far fetched view of someone trying to persistently incur that Christianity is fraudulent. The only true comparisons is that Jesus had a mother and these other characters had a mother.

Science has for itself, has, can and will be only proven in the eyes of man to a certain extent. What is now considered to be accurate information will one day become something that will be shunned and proven false. Even further on into the future THAT itself will be proven false, and so on and so on.

I have to contest that fictional characters can be put side by side with other real life individuals as well. I can be compared to a character by today's standard.

I firmly believe that Christianity originally started out, then all of these other beliefs sprouted from that exact religion. All the ancient Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian even, contain some reference or similarity to a tale of early Judaism and contain characters that resemble Christ down to the core, yet become tainted figures in their worship of sinful devices and pleasures.

And for that matter only Judaism has true historical reverence which corresponds to its texts.

Thoughts, opinions, yatterings?

Edit - I also have to contest whether or not the dates of certain past religions are accurate as well. Then again once you put the Son of God on the same page as another "god or goddess" the line become insistently blurred.

i recomend tat you look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras to see where christians got the dates for there festivals from especially since the Torah says that Jesus was born in august

 

[Nmil-ek]

There are just so many things wrong with the OP that I can't be bothered to rant about all of them.

This...the largest flaw in your arguement is you trying to state somehow all religions came from Christianity or Judaism.../sigh

Wrong, the largest fault here is that he seems to beleive science being proven wrong is a fallacy on its behalf somehow, newsflash science is proven wrong all the fucking time thats why we know the information is relible. When science receives new information or evidence we test it, repeat said tests and document it discarding the old invaluable information. Science is built upon information being proven wrong and disposed of how can we ever reach the truth if we take all information at face value without probing the details? like say religious texts?

 

[Arsen]

I firmly believe that Christianity originally started out, then all of these other beliefs sprouted from that exact religion.

Of course you're going to believe that. You're quite clearly Christian, and a pretty dogmatic one at that.

All the ancient Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian even, contain some reference or similarity to a tale of early Judaism and contain characters that resemble Christ down to the core, yet become tainted figures in their worship of sinful devices and pleasures.

While a large number of early Jews certainly were in Egypt at one particular point of classical history, it's highly unlikely they had any affect on ancient Egyptian beliefs. In fact it's more likely to have been the other way round, especially given Jews' second-class status in Egyptian society. When you also consider that Egypt traded with many other nations like Ancient Greece and Rome, the idea of Judaism being influenced rather than being influential seems more likely.

Those other ancient societies couldn't possibly have been influenced by Jewish ideas of Jesus Christ anyway, because there weren't any such things. A fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity is the Jewish conviction that God is so essentially different from and beyond humanity that he could never become a human, which is why the Messiah in Judaism is explicitly not-divine (unlike Jesus, who's more like an avatar of the sort you find in Hinduism). Also, since Christ didn't fulfil the other criteria to be the Messiah of Judaism like bringing peace among all nations, perfect harmony and abundance in nature, no sin or evil, reinstating the Temple etc, the majority of Jews do not consider him to be the Messiah.

But don't let little things like that shatter the narrow reality-tunnel you've made for yourself.

He did do all those things. The difference is that people are saying what those key events mean.

There IS peace. Just not a lack of war. One must accept it for himself as an individual person.

 

[Korolev]

And what do you mean by "proven false"? Gallileo's laws were not proven false. Newton's laws were not proven false - it's just that that wasn't all there was to it. Many aspects of science have NOT been proven false, and you have no evidence that they will be (although I'll concede that they might later on). You're just saying that it will be proven false - and yet, the modern theories of science grow stronger every day, they become more powerful, more accurate, more capable.

All the technology around you is produced by science. Go on. Say it does work. And no one will believe you. Because science WORKS. At the end of the day, the pure power of science triumphs over any religion. I don't care how you pray to your god, how you tout your bible - if you get a nuke dropped on you, you're dead.

I remember a case in Malaysia - a religious sect (not an islamic sect, a local, indigenous religion) in which some members decided that they were being oppressed by the powers that be and wanted to stage an attack. They drank some "holy water" which they said would protect them from bullets. And they also tied their hair together, also believing that this would provide some sort of magic charm.

Well they got shot. Their beliefs didn't count for jack against technology - notably, GUN TECHNOLOGY.

Religion will probably never die because of human race's bizarre insistence that "no this can't be all there is". Whatever. They ignore reality at their own peril.

Take the native American indians. Now, what happened to them was truly dreadful and undeserved. Yet it was inevitable. Instead of spending time developing metal-works and guns and cities, they put all their faith in wolf-spirits and magic tailsmen. Did it work? Of course not - the Europeans steamrolled all over them. Unfair? Yes. Brutal? Horribly so. A tragedy in human history? Damn straight. Inevitable? Of course. If it wasn't the british it would have been someone else.

If we deny reality, if we start to neglect science in favor of religion, homeopathy, "naturalism" and "alternative science", you know what will happen? The West will lose its technological advantage. And which point the chinese, who are mostly athiests and are very capable scientists (most of the best scientists I work with in the lab are either Chinese/Japanese/Korean or Indian) will leap ahead of the west and eat the west up.

Judging by the number of science graduates coming out of chinese universities compared to western universities, this has already started to happen.

If the West starts becoming muddle-headed and romantic, the hard-nosed, practically-minded Chinese and Indian people will eat the West up. And if that happens, it deserved to happen, because power would be on their side. If the west wants to give up its power, so be it. Someone else will pick up it.

 

[Legion]

I firmly believe that Christianity originally started out, then all of these other beliefs sprouted from that exact religion. All the ancient Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian even, contain some reference or similarity to a tale of early Judaism and contain characters that resemble Christ down to the core, yet become tainted figures in their worship of sinful devices and pleasures.

You have to be fucking kidding me. Most of those cultures existed before Christianity, how the hell could they steal things from it?

Christianity stole half it's special occasions from Paganism, which was the main religion before Christianity came along and slaughtered non-believers.

To put it bluntly, should you be serious then you have lost all credibility when it comes to religious discussion, even, I imagine, from a lot of your fellow Christians.

 

[L4hlborg]

Yay. Someone is seriously having some mental issues here. Or just retardation. Or lack of knowledge. Or too much alcohol. Or other stuff.

 

[thetragicclown]

He did do all those things. The difference is that people are saying what those key events mean.

There IS peace. Just not a lack of war. One must accept it for himself as an individual person.

Is he Divine though? If he is then he cannot be the Messiah of Judaism, for it plainly says God cannot incarnate in the physical world in anyway. If he isn't divine then you are invalidating Christian belief that he was the incarnated Divine Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In this instance, Jesus can't have his Messianic cake AND eat it.

Incidentally, I left two Messianic criteria out of my last post.

* All Jews return from exile to Israel (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5)
* Universal acceptance of the Jewish God and Jewish religion (Isaiah 2:3; 11:10; 66:23; Micah 4:2-3; Zechariah 14:9)

Neither of which have happened. Not all Jews live in Israel and there's sure as hell still not universal acceptance of Yahweh and Judaism (just look at the leader of Iran, not to mention your average neo-Nazi).

 

[Latinidiot]

ok, i'll give it try. Christianity is based, AS ARE ALL RELIGIONS, loosely on the previous religion(s), because, after all, who would come with a COMPLETELY different idea and expect it to be believed.

Science , as Lunar Shadow put it, 'describes the world as we observe it', so when we observe something, we try to come up with an explination for it that fits, without yelling 'God did it!' and knocking off for lunch. Science is constantly trying to improve, and indeed, improving, while our knowledge of History, as it gets further away every day, constantly deteriorates. The bible, too isn't safe from this process, as the only way to reproduce it has been 1500 years of retranslating and rewriting it by hand.

And the Bible, where do you think it came from? did it fall out of the heavens with a note saying;
'read it.
live it.
love, God.'?
i'm pretty sure it didn't.
Christ WAS an unordinary person, because he spread the message of love, but the Bible is made up. just as every other legend, it has a core of fact, accompanied with Fiction.


THERE.

 

[bug_chaser]

1) The 'supposed' parallels between Christ and previously popular religious icons incude such things as the virgin birth, the resurrection, walking on water, raising people from the dead, and being born in December.

2) The religions that you theorize "sprouted" from Christianity in fact preceded it by thousands of years. Early Christians deliberately borrowed from those beliefs to claim adherents to the new faith. For example, there is no reference in any Gospel to Jesus being born in December.

3) Science can in fact be proven, and it boggles the mind that the irony of using the internet to bash science escapes you. The fact that the self-correcting mechanisms of science have allowed for refinement in knowledge over the centuries does not permit you to dismiss science out of hand and cling to Bronze-Age superstition. However, if religion were to allow for self-correction and demand reason instead of blind faith, it might be easier to persuade men of science to see religious texts as more than quaint allegories. We might begin, perhaps, with examining the actual age of the Earth. Then we might move on to if there was ever a tower that reached quite literally nigh unto heaven, and whether or not there was ever some guy in a boat floating around with two of everything. After that, we can examine whether or not some other guy was any better of a faith healer than the ones we see on TV, and whether or not it is possible for somebody to come back from the dead.

If you're wondering about the answers to those questions, they are as follows: Approximately 4,500,004,000 years older than the Bible says it is, no, absolutely not, no, don't be ridiculous.