Can someone please explain to my why this would provoke an attack. This is not a derogotory remark, but merely a reference to the stories that make up the Christian bible.
According to Wikipedia :
Christian mythology (μῦθος (mythos) in Greek) is the body of traditional narratives associated with Christianity. Many Christians believe that these narratives are sacred and that they communicate profound truths. These traditional narratives include, but are not necessarily limited to, the stories contained in the Christian Bible.
Accoring to http://www.pocm.info/ :
Christianity's origins are in ancient Pagan religions. The core of Christianity—the worship of a miracle working, walking, talking godman who brings salvation—was also the core of other ancient religions that began at least a thousand years before Jesus.
Heaven, hell, prophecy, daemon possession, sacrifice, initiation by baptism, communion with God through a holy meal, the Holy Spirit, monotheism, immortality of the soul, and many other "Christian" ideas all belonged to earlier, older Pagan faiths. They were simply part of ancient Mediterranean culture. Along with miracle working sons of God, born of a mortal woman, they were common elements of pre-Christian Pagan religion. Mithras had 'em. So did Dionysus, Attis, Osiris, and Orpheus. And more. And they had them generations—centuries— before Jesus was a twinkle in Saint Paul's eye.
Since Christianity is just the current version of the ongoing mythology, why does calling it such raise such a fuss?
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Blessings and best wishes - S.
Peace.
Thanks for the comments.
BB, I wanted to open the can as I have been 'cut' by the lid several times.
As I have said many times, I am not, and have never been a Christian, therefore I am totally unable to understand this.
Certain words have gained varied meaning over the centuries. Example: "Criticism" -- Very few would hear that word and have positive thoughts, although the meaning of the word itself has neither negative nor positive connotations within it. The reaction is visceral.
Likewise the word "myth." The word has been so used and misused so much over the centuries that the original and correct meaning has now been lost. There is the "myth" of the tooth fairy, the "myth" of Sinbad, the "myth" of effective government (LOL), and so on. Myth has for most come to mean something vaporous with no basis in fact. And that may be your view of Christian beliefs, but as a Christian myself, there is a much more concrete basis for my belief--in my opinion.
So ...
Why not call myths "myths".
Peter, Looking sharp!
I'm afraid that the word Trinity and our failing to involve His Messiah ship has increased the stumbling block to the Jews. They are very faithful to His revelation that He is one.
Thanks. It was a wonderful post.
(+) Father
(-) Son (and all his brothers and sisters, creation as a whole)
(=)The Holy Spirit of GOD
(+=-) All together, the Truth of the Universe.
Still I don't get the minus; what does that really stand for?
*(What an orthodox exoteric Christian would call anyone else on earth.) :-(
You got the very first part right and a couple other references a bot close ... but there is the "bigger", the deeper esoteric understanding that you dogmatic objective exotericists completely miss ... how the TRINITY of (+=-) applies to EVERYTHING because GOD IS EVERYTHING ...
I would suggest more reading and a little help from the Holy Spirit (=) for your edification, but I am sure that you have been well indoctrinated by now to FEAR any thing different than sheeple rules already inculcated.
You are very much unaware, and therefore unconcerned, about the actual poverty of your thinking and "heavenly" expectations based upon the dogma of "the" God who you equate with Jesus (Yeshua) ... enlighten me about how, and who "GOD Jesus," spoke to constantly ... was he speaking to himself then ? Was he the Father, GOD and the Son all at the same time ?
Let us discuss some simple logic here ...
Their separateness and their oneness is beyond our ability to measure or weigh. He say they are one. I believe that. And yet He has communicated through 3 separate entities. I think God is something so far beyond what we can concieve that we have no real understanding of the few pieces of knowledge that He has revealed to us. That is the reason I eliminated the name Trinity that man has chosen to describe Him.
Yes I believe Jesus was God speaking to God. How separate are the Father and Son? We don't know because He is all together different from anything we have ever conceived. Is He indeed light? Was He being somewhat literal? Is raw energy the embodiement of the uncreated God? What is personage or personality in an uncreated being? Is there communication happening throughout His person all the time?
Our mind cannot even begin to conceive of Him as everything our wildest efforst can bring forth is some form of created matter. So I think we are closer to understand who/what He is by saying 'I cannot know what He is.'
But He has revealed to us 'Who' He is. Perhaps every uncreate particle of His being can have intellect and separatism ... all we really know is that He is ONE.
I don't reject what He has revealed to us ... I just reject any word that tries to sum Him up :)
Actually, I looked up Christian mythology. You are entitled to you opinion and you can believe whatever you believe, but there are many of us who look at these stories as nothing more than stories, perhaps based upon fact, perhaps not.
Where did I come from ?", "Who am I ?"and "Where am I going"?
Easy ones, My parents, myself and wherever I decide to go.
I was attacked on these pages for having the audacity to not believe what some folks, like yourself, seem to believe. In your terms, I would call these attacks 'unchristianlike', but I don't use such phrases.
- Peace
There are plenty of Christians out there who profess LOUDLY that they "love" their fellow man but choose to show it with a judgmental attitude, vociferous criticism and a seemingly complete lack of compassion.
One does not have to be a Christian to recognize that....or are you saying that only Christians have the right to criticize Christians?
Anyway, the more I read from you the less I am inclined to seek more "wisdom" from you as it appears to me, one that holds some, that you have little to none to offer ... so much of what you say is in error and only belies your utter ignorance on the subject ... ego talk to get your attention :-)
Thus I write not so much to get those like yourself to "turn around" as much as to use you as an example for the other as yet undecided potentially spiritual folks to see what they would be getting themselves into should they take your route of mis-understanding the factors involved around GOD and themselves ... the rest of us are but more related to your Satan in your mind ... have a nice day, don't let the devil bite. :-)
MzOwl,
I am sure you are not ignorant on the topic of God, as far as your understanding of your beliefs and what you've derived from the Bible are concerned. But the topic of God is not the focus of this post, it's the topic of Christian Mythology that is being broached, and you have yet to submit anything that the author has asked for without being unChristianlike in your statements.
To accuse someone of needing anger management is misplaced, as Jerry wrote nothing 'angry' in his comment. Perhaps you should look up the definition of 'anger' and compare it to 'aggression'..... Jerry is challenging your statements, but there is no anger anywhere except in your words........those who are familiar with the term 'projection' will understand:
"In classical psychology projection is always seen as a defense mechanism that occurs when a person's own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else.[1]
An example of this behavior might be blaming another for one's own failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and redirect their libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another."
Perhaps you hit the nail on the head, perhaps it is the 'fundamentalist' view that had such an issue with the term.
As you said, the founding fathers were not establishing a Christian country, but most did believe in a 'higher authority'. That is another fact that many people do not understand.
Thanks.
True, I think I am one of the notorious 'fundamentalists.' :) At least if that means people who believe in the fundamental truths of the scripture. But most of us study His word and believe for ourselves; not based on old religious writers.
I noticed something. Even though we are all giving opinions, you only thank the ones that agree with you. You call them impartial.
Aren't we all adding to the conversation and giving what we think to be true. As long as we are adding our idea's to the conversation in a respectable way, why can't we all feel that we're in a worth while discussion? I thought this was an interesting discussion but can tell you'd rather we that disagree with you weren't here.
Most of the Christian holidays--datewise, at least--were 'borrowed' from other religions already in existence. It was a way to gain converts...much as Halloween (at least in the highly concentrated Baptist deep South) is becoming the 'religiously correct' "Harvest Festival"....which it has been since man began planting crops rather than hunting and gathering.
Jersey, this is a beautifully simple article. You've got some drive-by point killers. I wish people would at least be brave enough to engage the dialog if they are offended by its content. It's so darn eloquent- the way you wrote this.
Anna, I love your comment. It seems often that the Christian hell of a punitive place of brimstone and fire IS the ultimate taboo-myth to control a region's more prized resource-- people.
That word *myth* really does get fundamentalists, both if taken in its common usage or scientific. One of the reasons, I guess, is that a *myth* by definition would perhaps require a very prehistoric epoch of social evolution, and if the Bible is to be taken literally, then there exists no prehistory. The whole history of existence is then based on the the begats of the begats (some of whom lived for hundreds of years, I guess), until we come to Adam and Eve, and then we only have less than a week since that Big Bang (or a simple wave emergence). Yeuhi or "Let there be light," resonated across the barren nothingness of Creation.
Myths can be like unconscious signposts, heralding ancient challenges that were met and overcome, the *signs* behaving like a way to bring some consciousness into the process. Here the meaning would definately imply a spiritual foundation to a society. There's also the third, rather loose meaning for *myth,* as a work of literature based on fantasy, which would be seen as a direct attack on the Bible again.
From those POV's, many fundamentalist Christians would suggest that much of science is the *myth,* and the Bible the only evidence of reality.
I don't think there really is a logical way to debate the issue among those whose minds are made up like that. Augustine was a very troubled soul, based on interpreting some of his writings, who would have benefited so much from a bit of psychotherapy for his overwhelming sense of guilt, with oscillations into ecstatic manic episodes, maybe.
Most ancient societies had some form for a nefarious underworld, perhaps a place Jungians would call the *shadowlands,* which, aside from unresolved conflicts residing in the unconscious of infant traumas, could be based on a cultural, unconscious *memory* of instinctual behaviors coming into conflict with an evolving cognitive mind trying to make sense of a world filled with jungle dangers. In the New Testament, I think Mathew described it as a place of forever cringing from knowing that one is trapped forever in that space of hopelessness.
Sometimes, when I think of Dante's Inferno, I wonder if the key out of hell isn't inscribed above the portal to Hades. Once one let's go and accept that space of *mind?* (the infinite hopelessness), then you consume the whole of hell.
In many ancient myths like that, one has to match the devil of wit to get past a frightening portal, where on the other side of this archetype is the resolution to it all.
In the Greek myth of Zeus, his brothers, Hades and Poseidon won a war with Zeus against the Titans, and Hades took over the Underworld.
In some ancient Vedas, Death, or Yamma, is generally described as the most frightening form of anything, unless the one doing the dying embraces Death like a lover, and then Yamma becomes that lover, reflecting one's core personality. The same with Kali, who was the consort to Shiva, a supreme God among some, or the final phase of the universe's trinity of Creation (Brahma), Preservation (Vishnu) and the Destroyer (Shiva).
There's an old story of a huge queue of people in a line towards an ultimate choice. The choice is to either plunge into a refreshing lake or into a burning ring of fire. Most of course, would chose to plunge into the lake. But then, just beneath the surface is a really bad fire.
The few who bravely push the envelope of all preconceived thinking might jump into the ring of fire... and on the other side is paradise.
Go figure.
I love it when an article gets me to think like this. Thank you, Jersey Joe.
Yes, you make a lot of sense in what you say.
Those of us with deeper insight just need to not take the nonsense of others personally.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. It is nice to know that there are fellow Gather members who can put aside their preconceived notions and open their minds to a new direction.
We have no problem with the similarities from Scriptural teaching is old false hedonistic religions. The first couple of verses in the Bible certainly lend room for an ancient creation. When God opened His mouth and spoke forth the Universe it must have been the biggest bang that could exist. I do believe it is taught that at some time ... even a billion yrs later (I don't know) God prepared the earth and humanity in an actual 7 day span of time.
So ... all of the people that have scattered across the face of the earth have their ancestral history under the tutelage of God through Adam and Eve and prophets. It only stands to reason, even though they now reject the Creator, that their beliefs would carry similar myths.
How do I love thee - let me count the ways!
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. . .
2 Peter 2:1
-Mark
Sorry, I don't understand your comment. Please fill me in.
You assert in your article that the Story of Redemption has pagan DNA and that the narratives from God's Holy Word are myhological. That's heresy and I think Marianne has callled you on it. . .
-Mark
In any event, that's make you a FALSE TEACHER. . .
-Again, Mark
If you choose to dismiss facts, that is your choice.
Christianity 'borrowed' heavily from the many pagan religions that came before it.
What is a false teacher? The information presented is correct.
Faulty reasoning Joe. Many pagan beliefs as well as Christianity were birthed out of what is now called the Old Testament times. Fortunately, God has given us a paper trail. Otherwise we would all have veered off into myth. What nonsense to suppose that their forefathers didn't bring some truth from their own ancestors with them as they travelled the world. It would be amazing if there weren't similarities in ancient religious myths.
And there also seems to be a universal Great Flood story, which indicates to me that there really was one.
Christianity does NOT own either of those stories exclusively.
The Great Myth of the Sun-Gods
by Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn
Oh and it gets ugly when I say that I am against abortions.
We should all be free to follow our own path.
Leave that to those involved.
It is murder wether you agree or not.
So I'm okay to run a red light. . .
or pour kerosene into the ground in my backyard. . .
or steal your bird bath. . .
or kidnap your child. . .
or slander your name. . .
if I want.
-Mark
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Joshua 24:14-15
-Frederick Douglass
"The facts are well documented.
If you choose to dismiss facts, that is your choice.
Christianity 'borrowed' heavily from the many pagan religions that came before it.
What is a false teacher? The information presented is correct."
But Thus sayeth the Lord:
"You are My witnesses," declares the LORD, "And My servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me.
Isaiah 43:10
Where are you getting your facts JJ - perhaps The Discovery Channel or A&E?
-Mark
Mythology
You are free to follow your own beliefs, myths, and morals, but be aware that most people do not subscribe to your beliefs, myths, and morals. All we ask is that you respect the beliefs, myths, and morals of others, and we will do the same for you.
Mark, if you only knew ...
Ramona, if you (and Mark) just really knew, you would be saying what I say.
They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Actually, there are multiple stories that bear a striking similarity to the story of Jesus, therefore it is obvious to all (but the closed-minded) that the story of Jesus was 'borrowed' from these ancient Pagan religions.
I suggest opening your mind and taking a look at these websites, all of which address the issue of ancient religions like the story of Jesus:
http://www.pocm.info/pagan_ideas_virgin_birth.html
http://www.entheology.org/POCM/pagan_origins_virgin_birth.html
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/virgin.html
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/pagan_ideas_virgin_birth.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/virgin_birth.html
Why can you not accept the fact that 'your truth' may not be the 'absolute truth'?
That is, I believe, the root of the problem.
IF there were then a REAL ABSOLUTE TRUTH ... which there is ... and it differed from the one held by those claiming the SINGULAR GOSPEL, as Christians of the exoteric orthodoxy do, then IT would be still CONFLICTED by them.
If any spirit revealed anything to me contrary to the Bible I would believe it was an evil Spirit. That would be my choice.
You believe you met the Lord in a personal encounter. I do not doubt that. We all would say the same thing. And yet, because you believe you have received additonal truths and have gone past us, you ridicule us. Why would you not love us instead of taking brotherhood with those that laugh at our faith in God? I never understood that about you. It doesn't make sense to me. Do you not believe the Bible is God breathed? I guess that never occured to me. Hmmmmm :)
"" because you believe you have received additonal truths and have gone past us, you ridicule us. Why would you not love us instead of taking brotherhood with those that laugh at our faith in God? ""
I love everyone really, at least on the spiritual realm, but here in ego land, I use mine to attempt to get the attention of those who might need some additional information, sort of a "shock tactic" to get them, and keep them, interested. Then maybe they will read more of my writings to get the whole picture and better understand what I deem to be the universal truth, the absolute truth that there is one and only and it is held by GOD (not God) and consists of what I call the BET (Basic Equation of Truth) as (+=-) where it actually, among other things, stands for the Holy Trinity of GOD ... even that of God for those more esoteric than exoteric.
I do not ridicule seriously as much as poke a little fun at some folks ... unless of course they get nasty back and we take the gloves off. :-)
As for the Bible, I believe it was mostly GOD inspired, but those who wished to serve God (the impostor, explained in the Sumerian story) of the Old Testament, another story was concocted to get the people under control and in line as the intended "sheeple" that now exist.
The "real truth" is so much more interesting and rewarding ... the latter should be of more concern for religionists ... IMnsHO.
-Mark
"Why can you not accept the fact that 'your truth' may not be the 'absolute truth'?"
I sure can, that is critical to comprehending the Word of God.
Can you accept that those are two-bit websites specifically designed to slander the Book I consider the Word of God?
Can you accept the possibility that 'your truth' is not 'absolute truth'?
Yes, we are free to follow our own path, but you are willfully ignorant to suggest that includes actions that intrude on the rights of our fellow man.
So it'd be okay for me to run the red light as long as no one gets hurt?
Where does our man fellow's rights come from anyway?
-Mark