Comments by "Ink Black" (@inkblack6256) on "Cult of Mithras Explained" video.
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Saint Knight - you fool.
According to the Hartford Institute of Religion Research, more than 40 percent of Americans “say” they go to church weekly. As it turns out, however, less than 20 percent are actually in church. In other words, more than 80 percent of Americans are finding more fulfilling things to do on weekends.
Furthermore, somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 churches close their doors every year. Southern Baptist researcher, Thom Rainer, in a recent article entitled “13 Issues for Churches in 2013“ puts the estimate higher. He says between 8,000 and 10,000 churches will likely close this year.
Between the years 2010 and 2012, more than half of all churches in America added not one new member. Each year, nearly 3 million more previous churchgoers enter the ranks of the “religiously unaffiliated.
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Saint Knight “Are you going to provide any evidence for your claims.” - LOL......your hypocrisy is pathetic.
In religious countries, including the U.S., religious people describe themselves as happier. In relatively godless countries, such as the Netherlands, or Denmark, religious people are not happier.
This striking inconsistency between the U.S. and godless countries may have a fairly simple explanation. Religious people are in the majority in the U.S., but in a minority in Denmark and the Netherlands. Feeling part of the mainstream may be comforting whereas being in the minority is stressful.
Even within the U.S. there are curious inconsistencies. The most religious states are the least happy based on Gallup data. This mirrors the pattern amongst countries.
Countries with the highest average self-reported happiness are the least religious. The happiest nations are, in order, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Sweden, Denmark and Norway are the second, third, and fourth least religious countries, being exceeded only by formerly-communist Estonia in their atheism.
Why are the happiest countries also the least religious ones? Both happiness and religiosity are affected by the highly developed character of these countries. All score close to the top on the UN’s human development index that measures the overall quality of life in terms of health, wealth, and education.
Residents of highly developed countries are happy because their quality of life is better. The key factor may be an expectation of living to old age without fear of extreme poverty. Because they are confident in their own welfare, they have less need of religion as a salve for the difficulties of their lives.
Such confidence increases in societies where there is a well-developed welfare state that redistributes income from the wealthy to the less fortunate.This could help explain why the U.S. – with significant gaps in its government safety nets - is more religious than Europe despite having a similar level of economic development.
Thanks to Psychology Today - those pesky scientists and their facts.
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Saint Knight There Are No Tangible Historical Artifacts Linked To Jesus.
The Shroud of Turin was revealed as a fake.
Anyone who has lived, even a simple carpenter, will leave possessions after their death. The Gospels claim that the soldiers on duty at the crucifixion cast lots to share out Jesus’ clothing amongst them. Had he really had many devoted disciples (who would have been disgusted at their failure to protect him in the Garden) they or his grieving family would surely have tried to purchase or barter back the clothing. Such items would have been invaluable in the formation of the new church.
Nevertheless, nothing, absolutely nothing from Jesus’ life remained, even shortly after his demise. In the 12th Century people started to mention that they owned the shroud in which Jesus had been wrapped and, years later it surfaced in Turin. It was accepted as a genuine artifact for many years but carbon dating in the 20th Century showed it to be a 12th Century forgery. An ossuary claiming to hold the bones of James, brother of Jesus was also found to be a forgery. There is not one single, verifiable, tangible object in existence today or known to have existed at any time in the past 2,000 years that belonged to Jesus.
Check mate
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Saint Knight
The time that Jesus Christ supposedly existed is one the most heavily documented periods in ancient history. Yet there is virtually zero historical evidence of his supposed existence in any contemporary historical record. It is also important to understand that an absolute reign of terror was instituted when Christianity seized power in the Roman Empire as documented in our Christian Totalitarianism Report. The Church appointed an official historian of dubious ethics, Eusebius, to write an official history. Meanwhile, Christian launched the largest book burning campaign in history, destroying a vast part of the wisdom and history of the ancient world forever.
The Account of Josephus is a Fraud
When discussing the alleged existence of Jesus Christ, one piece of "evidence" that frequently gets mentioned is the account of Flavius Josephus, the famed Jewish general and historian who lived from 37 to 100 C.E. In Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews there is a notorious passage regarding Christ called the "Testimonium Flavium."
"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." (Whitson, 379).
This brief piece of evidence which supposedly contributed the best "proof" of Jesus's existence has actually been proven to be a fraud. It has been demonstrated continuously over the centuries that "Testamonium Flavium" was a forgery manufactured by the Catholic Church, and was inserted into Josephus's works. The Testamonium Flavium account is so thoroughly refuted, that biblical scholars since the 19th century have refused to refer to it, unless to mention its false nature.
Dr. Gordon Stein gives a further explanation for this forgery. The History of Jesus: A Reply to Josh McDowell.
Another source is The Jesus Forgery: Josephus Untangled.
First Written Accounts of Jesus's Life Occur Decades After His Purported Existence
Most written accounts of the life of Jesus did not exist until a couple decades after his purported existence. These accounts were presented by a number of different authors and had somewhat conflicting stories about his existence. These written accounts are known as the Gospels. Also, it is worth knowing that not all of the gospels that were written even made their way into the bible. Only four gospels became the canonical writings for the church. The rest were burned, destroyed or lost. Historians estimate that the first written gospel, the gospel of Mark, was written sometime after 70 C.E, which means that at the earliest, it would have been written 40 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus.
PLINY, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS: NO PROOF OF JESUS
Nero's Persecution of Christians and Mention of Jesus is Highly Doubtful
There is widespread belief that Nero blamed the burning of Rome on the Christians; however, there are many holes in this theory.
This belief comes from the account of the Roman historian Tacitus (56-120 CE) about how Emperor Nero (37 - 68 CE) blamed the burning of Rome on "those people who were abhorred for their crimes and commonly called Christians." The passage then states that the fire agitators were followers of "Christus" who "was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate." The passage then also states that Christians constituted a "vast multitude at Rome" and goes on to discuss the ghastly ways in which they were persecuted.
However, there are many troubling details about the historical accuracy of this passage. Some critics call into question whether Tacitus wrote this account at all, or if it was yet another forgery. Around the date of Nero's Fire, 64 AD, there were no "multitude of Christians" in Rome. At this time, there was not even a multitude of Christians in Judea. Therefore, it is highly doubtful that Nero would refer to Christians in this way.
This is also the only mention of Christians in the work of Tacitus, despite the fact that he wrote several volumes
Also, the supposed persecution of the Christians by Nero is not recorded by any other historian of Nero's time. If the persecution of Christians were really that widespread, wouldn't other historians be writing about it? (Truth Be Known)
Pliny's Letter About "Christiani"
In addition to the Testomonium Flavianum, there exists another tenuous piece of evidence that some have tried to use as proof for the existence of Jesus. The Roman Historian, Pliny The Younger (62-113CE), wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan in 110 CE requesting his assistance in the proper punishment of a group of "Christiani" who were causing trouble and would not bow to the image of the emperor. According to Pliny, these Christiani would meet before daylight and sing hymns with responses to "Christ as God."
However, this letter does not provide concrete evidence for the existence of Jesus as a person since it makes no direct mention of "Jesus of Nazareth," nor does it refer to his life. Also, there are many critics who have argued that this letter is a forgery. (Truth Be Known)
Suetonius's Reference to "Chresto"
The last piece of questionable historical evidence we'll discuss here is the passage in Suetonius's Life of Claudius, dating around 110 CE. There is a reference in this work to a figure named "Chresto" who caused the Jews to riot in Rome. First of all, if Jesus Christ did exist, it is not possible that he would have been in Rome at this time. Claudius reigned from 41-54 CE, this is at the time of Christ's alleged crucifixion.
Don’t worry - I own up to my copying and pasting. This kinda puts you in an intellectual dilemma.
Thank goodness you aren’t polluting any college campuses with your insane sad immoral cult rubbish.
Don’t forget to keep striving for the top spud.
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Saint Knight The time that Jesus Christ supposedly existed is one the most heavily documented periods in ancient history. Yet there is virtually zero historical evidence of his supposed existence in any contemporary historical record. It is also important to understand that an absolute reign of terror was instituted when Christianity seized power in the Roman Empire as documented in our Christian Totalitarianism Report. The Church appointed an official historian of dubious ethics, Eusebius, to write an official history. Meanwhile, Christian launched the largest book burning campaign in history, destroying a vast part of the wisdom and history of the ancient world forever.
The Account of Josephus is a Fraud
When discussing the alleged existence of Jesus Christ, one piece of "evidence" that frequently gets mentioned is the account of Flavius Josephus, the famed Jewish general and historian who lived from 37 to 100 C.E. In Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews there is a notorious passage regarding Christ called the "Testimonium Flavium."
"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."
This brief piece of evidence which supposedly contributed the best "proof" of Jesus's existence has actually been proven to be a fraud. It has been demonstrated continuously over the centuries that "Testamonium Flavium" was a forgery manufactured by the Catholic Church, and was inserted into Josephus's works. The Testamonium Flavium account is so thoroughly refuted, that biblical scholars since the 19th century have refused to refer to it, unless to mention its false nature.
Any respected modern day historian and scholar knows about the Josephus fraud.
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Saint Knight Some fool mentioned Intelligent Design which is obviously incoherent as a proposal and logically false.
The argument from poor design states that if God is perfect, why did he create us and many other living creatures so poorly? For instance, we are vulnerable to many diseases, our bones break easily, and with age our bodies and minds break down. You could also mention our poorly-made spines, inflexible knees, and pelvic bones that make childbirth difficult and painful for women.[1] Together, this biological evidence indicates that God does not exist (or that he did not create us well, in which case, there is no reason to worship him).
Believers might counter this argument by stating that if God is perfect, then he created us as well as could possibly be expected. They might also argue that what we see as imperfections actually have a purpose in the larger workings of God's design. Point out the logical fallacy in this right away. We can't live our lives hoping that one day an explanation for why our eyes or shoulders were designed so poorly will arise. Reference the philosopher Voltaire, who wrote a novel about people looking for meaning after a devastating earthquake hit Paris. We are pattern-seeking animals, so naturally we look and hope for patterns where none can be found.
Some might point out that God originally created humans in their perfect form, but after humanity sinned against God, God's original creation became corrupt and wrought with sin, and death and entropy entered the world as a result. Be aware of this rebuttal when using the flawed-design argument.
Thousands of gods but only yours is real.
How childish can you be kiddo?
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Saint Knight
Jesus joins the ranks of pure fiction with the likes of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Boogie Man, God, Apollo, Zeus, Yoda, Osiris, Spock, Vishnu, Noah, Aphrodite, Hermes, the Virgin Mary, Eros, Iris, Moses, and Spiderman.
You are so deluded, irrational and illogical with your absurd belief in nonexistent fantasy.
Grow up.
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Saint Knight Religion is one of the most enduringly powerful forces on earth. Two of the most influential, both today and in the past, Christianity and Islam, believe that Jesus Christ played a pivotal role in both faiths.
Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God, born of a virgin birth, was crucified and resurrected for the remission of sins. Muslims believe that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth brought forth by the command of Allah and became one of his most important (and subsequently revered) prophets. Muslims do not believe that Jesus was crucified but that another man died in his place.
Whether or not we believe in the existence and life of Christ as a matter of faith most people are prepared to accept that Jesus was a real and verifiable historical figure; that he was born, lived and died in Judea between around 4BC and 33AD.
This has been repeated so many times that most people do not ever think to challenge it but should they? Did a man called Jesus, son of Mary (and adoptive son of Joseph) walk the paths of Judea or was he merely a figment of imagination? A group of stories and myths pulled together by a range of cynical individuals for a particular purpose?
If you are a Christian, of course, the existence of Christ is a matter of faith but should non-Christians believe in Jesus so readily? Here are our top 10 reasons to claim that Jesus never existed.
Again my deluded ‘never made a choice’ indoctrinated cultist (Sunday is when you idiots tithe....morons) there is no contemporaneous account of the life of Jesus
Jesus does not exist in the historical record. Jesus Christ never existed.
Not only is nothing in the bible capable of being directly linked to the time in which Jesus was reputed to be alive, but there are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus.
As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. The Gospels claim that Jesus’ ministry was famous across the region and well known to people such as Herod and Pontius Pilate. In the later part of his ministry it is claimed that he was followed by great multitudes of people and, of course, in one instance that he fed 5,000.
There is not a single mention in him in military records or dispatches back to Rome (surely anyone who could command huge gatherings of people in a potentially disruptive province should be of interest). He is not mentioned in the records of Herod’s court nor is he mentioned in the records of the Temple or by any Priests. Surely if he was believed by some to be a prophet and others to be a false prophet some mention of the ructions he was causing in Judean civic and religious society should have been recorded.
Some people like to point to the supposed letters of Pontius Pilate as evidence of Jesus’ life but these were a work of fiction.
I “disclare” victory.🤣🤣
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Saint Knight
If praying is never answered the logical conclusion is god is an imaginary deluded fantasy concept. This explains the problem with gods - humans have imagined thousands of them.
While the main purpose of prayer may be to help others, it never demonstrably does that. Prayers benefit only those believers who say or hear them. Prayer gives them comfort. It lets them think they have some control over a situation that may be out of their hands. It’s the last resort of people who have run out of ideas, and the first resort of people who never bothered to think about how they could actually fix the problem at hand.
This is not harmless. There’s a very real downside to praying. It lulls believers into a false sense of accomplishment. We cannot solve our problems – much less the world’s – through prayer. We often see people with good intentions praying for victims in the wake of a tragedy, but prayer is useless without action, and those actions make the prayers irrelevant. To paraphrase the great Robert Green Ingersoll, hands that help are far better than lips that pray.
I have no problem with “prayer” as an act of meditation. In fact, many atheists can tell you the benefit of silent self-reflection. The delusion occurs when you think someone else is hearing your thoughts and acting on them.
When it comes down to it, prayer is illogical, even in religious terms. If God has a plan, why try to thwart it? If God can be swayed by prayers, what kind of God would allow the horrors we see in the world? And if two devout believers pray for different things, how does God choose the winner? (I'm sure the San Antonio Spurs would love to know the answer to that.)
Prayer is nothing but a powerful placebo. We’d all be better off accepting that.
While the main purpose of prayer may be to help others, it never demonstrably does that. Prayers benefit only those believers who say or hear them. Prayer gives them comfort. It lets them think they have some control over a situation that may be out of their hands. It’s the last resort of people who have run out of ideas, and the first resort of people who never bothered to think about how they could actually fix the problem at hand.
This is not harmless. There’s a very real downside to praying. It lulls believers into a false sense of accomplishment. We cannot solve our problems – much less the world’s – through prayer. We often see people with good intentions praying for victims in the wake of a tragedy, but prayer is useless without action, and those actions make the prayers irrelevant. To paraphrase the great Robert Green Ingersoll, hands that help are far better than lips that pray.
I have no problem with “prayer” as an act of meditation. In fact, many atheists can tell you the benefit of silent self-reflection. The delusion occurs when you think someone else is hearing your thoughts and acting on them.
When it comes down to it, prayer is illogical, even in religious terms. If God has a plan, why try to thwart it? If God can be swayed by prayers, what kind of God would allow the horrors we see in the world? And if two devout believers pray for different things, how does God choose the winner? (I'm sure the San Antonio Spurs would love to know the answer to that.)
Prayer is nothing but a powerful placebo. We’d all be better off accepting that.
I suggest you spend more time fixing your moronic deluded state instead of re-posting comments that destroy your insane position.
Bbbbb....but the Bible says.....
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Saint of Dynasty
Since you do not know the definition of "cult," here you go...
Cult (kŭlt) n.
a. A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.
b. The followers of such a religion or sect.
A system or community of religious worship and ritual.
The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.
A usually nonscientific method or regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing a particular disease.
a. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.
b. The object of such devotion.
An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest.
This pretty much defines every single religion on this planet.
You made no choice, indoctrinated by your family and peers, a belief in the supernatural, a belief in magic, a belief in nonexistent made up imaginary fantasy, a day set aside for cult worship and meaningless cult speeches and deluded pray.
Humanity finds you and your ilk utterly pathetic.
Keep striving irrational little boy.
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Daniel fanous
In History, Jesus Was a No Show
Various historical scholars attempted to authenticate Jesus in the historical record, particularly in the work of Jesus-era writers.
Michael Paulkovich revived this project as summarized in the current issue of Free Inquiry.
Paulkovich found an astonishing absence of evidence for the existence of Jesus in history. “Historian Flavius Josephus published his Jewish Wars circa 95 CE. He had lived in Japhia, one mile from Nazareth - yet Josephus seems unaware of both Nazareth and Jesus.” He is at pains to discredit interpolations in this work that “made him appear to write of Jesus when he did not.” Most religious historians take a more nuanced view agreeing that Christian scholars added their own pieces much later but maintaining that the historical reference to Jesus was present in the original. Yet, a fudged text is not compelling evidence for anything.
Paulkovich consulted no fewer than 126 historians (including Josephus) who lived in the period and ought to have been aware of Jesus if he had existed and performed the miracles that supposedly drew a great deal of popular attention. Of the 126 writers who should have written about Jesus, not a single one did so (if one accepts Paulkovich’s view that the Jesus references in Josephus are interpolated).
“When Iconsider those 126 writers, all of whom should have heard of Jesus but did not - and Paul and Marcion and Athenagoras and Matthew with a tetralogy of opposing Christs, the silence from Qumram and Nazareth and Bethlehem, conflicting Bible stories, and so many other mysteries and omissions - I must conclude that Christ is a mythical character.
He also considers striking similarities of Jesus to other God-sons such as Mithra, Sandan, Attis, and Horus. Christianity has its own imitator. Mormonism was heavily influenced by the Bible from which founder Joseph Smith borrowed liberally.”
Mormonism fabricated in plain sight
We may not know for sure what happened two millennia ago but Mormonism was fabricated in plain sight by a convicted conman. According to Christopher Hitchens:
In March, 1826, a court in Bainbridge, New York, convicted a twenty-one-year-old man of being a “disorderly person and an impostor.” That ought to have been all we ever heard of Joseph Smith, who at trial admitted to defrauding citizens by organizing mad gold-digging expeditions and also to claiming to possess dark or “necromantic” powers.
Hitchens writes: “Quite recent scholarship has exposed every single other Mormon “document” as at best a scrawny compromise and at worst a pitiful fake” ...
Smith’s legacy was cleaned up via subsequent “divine revelations” that rejected first polygamy and then racism at convenient historical turning points. So the historical development from fakery to respectable religion is well documented.
There is no reason to believe that the genesis of any major religion was substantially different. This raises the question of why so many intelligent people choose to believe religious fictions.
The most plausible explanation is that they cannot easily distinguish between organized religion and confidence rackets.
Starting a fake religion
Religious people may find that hard to swallow, so it is interesting to see what happens when someone sets out to found a fake religion. Would this work, or would members see through the deception and promptly leave?
American Indian film director Vikram Gandhi studied yogis and their followers in India. He concluded that these holy men were confidence tricksters, scores of whom plied their trade throughout India in the manner of the Jesus story.
The filmmaker wondered whether he could pass himself off as a guru here in the U.S. He cultivated a fake Indian accent, grew out his hair and beard and reinvented himself as Sri Kumare, a mystic hailing from a fictitious Indian village.
In the film, Kumare (2011) the director founds his cult in Arizona where he unloads his bogus mysticism upon the unsuspecting public and soon draws a group of devoted followers who seek his counsel on their life problems and become frighteningly dependent upon his new-age advice.
The underlying psychology may be fairly simple. Common confidence tricksters work their magic by telling victims what they want to hear. The same is true of successful prophets who offer pie in the sky bye and bye as I explain in my book Why Atheism Will Replace Religion. The only reason that Jesus does not fit in this category is that he probably never existed.
Jesus simply never existed. No tangible proof or evidence.
You have been fooled.
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Mr Dyntasy You have been indoctrinated by a bunch of idiots.
The belief in "god" seems to be ubiquitous through the ages.
We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians believed in their gods so fervently that they built massive structures like the Great Pyramid -- still today one of the largest and most enduring human constructions ever created. Despite that fervor, however, we as a society have decided with complete certainty today that the Egyptian gods were imaginary. Thus we do not build pyramids anymore and we do not mummify our leaders. We reject all of the rituals and ceremonies of the Egyptian religion because there is no evidence of their gods' existence.
More recently we know that tens of millions of Romans worshiped Jupiter and his friends, and to them they built magnificent temples. The ruins of these temples are popular tourist attractions even today. Yet society have decided with complete certainty that these gods were imaginary. Mainline society is no longer building temples to these gods or worshiping them because there is no evidence for their existence.
Much more recently, we know that the Aztec civilization believed in their gods so intensely that they constructed huge temples and pyramids. In addition, Aztecs were so zealous that they were acrificing hundreds of human beings to their gods as recently as the 16th century. Despite the intensity, however, we know today that these gods were imaginary. The Aztecs were insane to be murdering people for their gods. Killing a person has no effect on rainfall or anything else. We all know that. And there is no evidence whatsoever demonstrating that the Aztec gods exist. If the Aztec gods were real, we would still be offering sacrifices to them and these sacrifices would be effective.
Thus we come to understand that he fact that millions of people worship a god is meaningless.
The "God" and the "Jesus" that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a "virgin birth", "burial in a rock tomb", "resurrection after 3 days" and "eating of body and drinking of blood" had nothing to do with Jesus. All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals and beliefs in order to be more palatable to converts. You can find accounts like these in popular literature:
"The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating" - were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions."
"Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans."
This article points out that, "It has been noted since antiquity, and in modern scholarship since the 19th century, that Jesus Christ has striking parallels to other deities worshiped in Hellenistic religion, specifically to the cult of Dionysus in the Greek mystery religions and with the Buddha." The article goes on to demonstrate striking similarities between Christianity and the religions that came before it.
It is extremely hard for a Christian believer to process this data, but nonetheless it is true. All of the "sacred rituals" of Christianity, and all of Christianity's core beliefs (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.) come straight from other religions that were popular around the time of Jesus. Articles like this and this can help you learn more. Once you understand the fundamental truth of Christianity's origins, the silliness of the whole thing becomes apparent.
Obviously the pagan believers, from whom Christianity derived its myths, worshiped gods that were imaginary - If gods such as Horus, Ra, Mithras, etc. were real, we would have proof of their existence and everyone would be following those gods. Our "God" and "Jesus" today are simply extensions of these imaginary forerunners. Therefore God is imaginary.
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Mr Dyntasy If you believe in God, you have chosen to reject Allah, Vishnu, Budda, Waheguru and all of the thousands of other gods that other people worship today. It is quite likely that you rejected these other gods without ever looking into their religions or reading their books. You simply absorbed the dominant faith in your home or in the society you grew up in.
In the same way, the followers of all these other religions have chosen to reject God. You think their gods are imaginary, and they think your God is imaginary.
In other words, each religious person on earth today arbitrarily rejects thousands of gods as imaginary, many of which he/she has never even heard of, and arbitrarily chooses to "believe" in one of them.
The following quote from Stephen F. Roberts sums up the situation very nicely:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
A rational person rejects all human gods equally, because all of them are equally imaginary. How do we know that they are imaginary? Simply imagine that one of them is real. If one of these thousands of gods were actually real, then his followers would be experiencing real, undeniable benefits. These benefits would be obvious to everyone. The followers of a true god would pray, and their prayers would be answered. The followers of a true god would therefore live longer, have fewer diseases, have lots more money, etc. There would be thousands of statistical markers surrounding the followers of a true god.
Everyone would notice all of these benefits, and they would gravitate toward this true god. And thus, over the course of several centuries, everyone would be aligned on the one true god. All the other false gods would have fallen by the wayside long ago, and there would be only one religion under the one true god.
When we look at our world today, we see nothing like that. There are two billion Christians AND there are more than one billion Muslims, and their religions are mutually exclusive. There are thousands of other religions. When you analyse any of them, they all show a remarkable similarity -- there is zero evidence that any of these gods exist. That is how we know that they are all imaginary.
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Mr Dyntasy Educate yourself.
Children who grow up in Western societies, even if not formally educated in the Christian tradition, are aware of the amazing life story of Jesus. He was conceived and born in a stable to a virgin (Mary), escaped death at the hands of a tyrant (Herod) in his infancy, grew to be a precociously knowledgeable child, started his ministry of preaching before giving himself to be sacrificed, resurrecting after death and giving rise to a new covenant for the remission of sins. It is a story full of wonder and hope and, for many people it would appear unique and it is an article of deep faith and belief for billions of Christians around the world.
Sadly it is not unique. The story of Jesus is no more original than any modern day knock off of Romeo and Juliet. Many mythologies have a Christ like character whose story is set around the same pattern. Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld had a very similar life story and the ancient Egyptians celebrated his ‘passion’ with gusto. Osiris’ son, Horus was born to a virgin in a cave with a star overhead. He was visited by shepherds and gods. Horus was said to be the ‘light of the world’. He started to become active aged about 30 and many miracles were attributed to him that also appear in the gospels including walking on water and letting the blind see again.
But the similarities do not stop there. Dionysus was the son of Zeus and a virgin woman; he was able to turn water into wine and was killed and resurrected. Attis, another Greek god was honored every spring in a ritual in which his effigy was buried and believed to rise again after three days. Hercules was reputed to be another god/virgin offspring who was killed and rose again.
Perhaps the now defunct Christ figure with the most surprisingly similar story was Mithras whose life was an almost exact parallel, his worshipers even celebrated his birthday on 25 December.
Jesus simply isn’t real.
Ps. Your English is that of an eight year old
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Mr Dyntasy Jesus never existed.
Children who grow up in Western societies, even if not formally educated in the Christian tradition, are aware of the amazing life story of Jesus. He was conceived and born in a stable to a virgin (Mary), escaped death at the hands of a tyrant (Herod) in his infancy, grew to be a precociously knowledgeable child, started his ministry of preaching before giving himself to be sacrificed, resurrecting after death and giving rise to a new covenant for the remission of sins. It is a story full of wonder and hope and, for many people it would appear unique and it is an article of deep faith and belief for billions of Christians around the world.
Sadly it is not unique. The story of Jesus is no more original than any modern day knock off of Romeo and Juliet. Many mythologies have a Christ like character whose story is set around the same pattern. Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld had a very similar life story and the ancient Egyptians celebrated his ‘passion’ with gusto. Osiris’ son, Horus was born to a virgin in a cave with a star overhead. He was visited by shepherds and gods. Horus was said to be the ‘light of the world’. He started to become active aged about 30 and many miracles were attributed to him that also appear in the gospels including walking on water and letting the blind see again.
But the similarities do not stop there. Dionysus was the son of Zeus and
a virgin woman; he was able to turn water into wine and was killed and resurrected. Attis, another Greek god was honored every spring in a ritual in which his effigy was buried and believed to rise again after three days. Hercules was reputed to be another god/virgin offspring who was killed and rose again.
Perhaps the now defunct Christ figure with the most surprisingly similar story was Mithras whose life was an almost exact parallel, his worshipers even celebrated his birthday on 25 December.
Jesus simply isn’t real. Just a badly written character in a meaningless book of fantasy fiction.
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Mr Dyntasy Just because you like a thing in a fictional book doesn’t make that thing real. You are so deluded and irrational.
“
The "witnesses" who saw and heard nothing
As it happens, we have an excellent witness to events in Judaea and the Jewish diaspora in the first half of the first century AD: Philo of Alexandria (c25 BC-47 AD).
Philo was an old man when he led an embassy from the Jews to the court of Emperor Gaius Caligula. The year was 39-40 AD. Philo clearly, then, lived at precisely the time that "Jesus of Nazareth" supposedly entered the world to a chorus of angels, enthralled the multitudes by performing miracles, and got himself crucified.
Philo was also in the right place to give testimony of a messianic contender. A Jewish aristocrat and leader of the large Jewish community of Alexandria, we know that Philo spent time in Jerusalem (On Providence) where he had intimate connections with the royal house of Judaea. His brother, Alexander the "alabarch" (chief tax official), was one of the richest men in the east, in charge of collecting levies on imports into Roman Egypt. Alexander's great wealth financed the silver and gold sheathing which adorned the doors of the Temple (Josephus, War 5.205). Alexander also loaned a fortune to Herod Agrippa I (Antiquities 18).
One of Alexander's sons, and Philo's nephews, Marcus, was married to Berenice, daughter of Herod Agrippa, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, 39-40. After the exile of Herod Antipas – villain of the Jesus saga – he ruled as King of the Jews, 41-44 AD. Another nephew was the "apostate" Julius Alexander Tiberius, Prefect of Egypt and also Procurator of Judaea itself (46-48 AD).
Much as Josephus would, a half century later, Philo wrote extensive apologetics on the Jewish religion and commentaries on contemporary politics. About thirty manuscripts and at least 850,000 words are extant. Philo offers commentary on all the major characters of the Pentateuch and, as we might expect, mentions Moses more than a thousand times.
Yet Philo says not a word about Jesus, Christianity nor any of the events described in the New Testament. In all this work, Philo makes not a single reference to his alleged contemporary "Jesus Christ", the godman who supposedly was perambulating up and down the Levant, exorcising demons, raising the dead and causing earthquake and darkness at his death.
With Philo's close connection to the house of Herod, one might reasonably expect that the miraculous escape from a royal prison of a gang of apostles (Acts 5.18,40), or the second, angel-assisted, flight of Peter, even though chained between soldiers and guarded by four squads of troops (Acts 12.2,7) might have occasioned the odd footnote. But not a murmur. Nothing of Agrippa "vexing certain of the church" or killing "James brother of John" with the sword (Acts 12.1,2).
Strange, but only if we believe Jesus and his merry men existed and that they established the church. If we recognize that the Christian fable was still at an early stage of development when Philo was pondering the relationship of god and man, there is nothing strange here at all.
What is very significant, however, is that Philo's theological speculations helped the Christians fabricate their own notions of a godman.”
Education is a key. So far you have failed at every step.
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Mr Dyntasy Children who grow up in Western societies, even if not formally educated in the Christian tradition, are aware of the amazing life story of Jesus. He was conceived and born in a stable to a virgin (Mary), escaped death at the hands of a tyrant (Herod) in his infancy, grew to be a precociously knowledgeable child, started his ministry of preaching before giving himself to be sacrificed, resurrecting after death and giving rise to a new covenant for the remission of sins. It is a story full of wonder and hope and, for many people it would appear unique and it is an article of deep faith and belief for billions of Christians around the world.
Sadly it is not unique. The story of Jesus is no more original than any modern day knock off of Romeo and Juliet. Many mythologies have a Christ like character whose story is set around the same pattern. Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld had a very similar life story and the ancient Egyptians celebrated his ‘passion’ with gusto. Osiris’ son, Horus was born to a virgin in a cave with a star overhead. He was visited by shepherds and gods. Horus was said to be the ‘light of the world’. He started to become active aged about 30 and many miracles were attributed to him that also appear in the gospels including walking on water and letting the blind see again.
But the similarities do not stop there. Dionysus was the son of Zeus and a virgin woman; he was able to turn water into wine and was killed and resurrected. Attis, another Greek god was honored every spring in a ritual in which his effigy was buried and believed to rise again after three days. Hercules was reputed to be another god/virgin offspring who was killed and rose again.
Perhaps the now defunct Christ figure with the most surprisingly similar story was Mithras whose life was an almost exact parallel, his worshipers even celebrated his birthday on 25 December.
Just more proof that the badly written fictional character was never real.
Virgin birth, zombie resurrection, walking on water......how stupid are you?
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