Is there a God?

[Phenomanul]

I'm off to lunch... later.

[Blake]

Adam and Eve were Jews? Interesting....

Was Job a Jew?

Try again.

youve got to be kidding me.

[Blake]

Sounds like the blunder is backfiring already.

just like it usually does when people try to cram their personal agendas down others' throats.

[MiamiHeat]

It is highly likely that the writers of the Gospels couldn't list every single Messianic prophecy, let alone comprehend them. .

WHAT???

Isis and Osiris/Horus WERE WIDELY WORSHIPPED THROUGHOUT THE ROMAN EMPIRE. As was MITHRAISM and a myriad of other Gods.

You have no idea what you are talking about

[I Love Me Some Me]

Really, I don't know how much more simply I can put this for you. Let's use the Bible...the gospel account of Jesus and his life...as a guideline, since that is indisputably the earliest account of what we are debating here.

I'd also like to address the underlying logical inconsistency with comparing Egyptian gods to Jesus. It's impossible to compare a core Jesus (one individual in the gospels) to the combined characteristics of multiple legends of someone called by the same name. Horus, for example, has about 20 different legends/dieties, all with different tales and variations. When you (as you have repeatedly done throughout this thread) decide that you can combine all 20 different versions of the Horus story, and pick (buffet-style) particular aspects of particular versions to best make your point, you are BOUND to find some similarities, and create enough to help your point. (Still not good enough, BTW).

To compare like-to-like, you'll need to confine your description of the god to one specific version, or you'll need to expand your description of the god to include all aspects of all versions. In other words, pick one because you can't argue both.

1) Isis was Immaculate

2) You are nitpicking again, severely nitpicking and assuming.

Isis gave birth without intercourse. A "begotten by a ray of light from heaven"

Earlier, you were nitpicking about sexual penetration. I just provided you the evidence, and now you just want to argue whether or not Isis had ever had sex prior to this birth.

It's quite clear what your intentions are.

How does this become evidence? You link to a book published in 1885 that refers to Isis as "Immaculate", but still doesn't call her a virgin. (Do I really have to explain the difference to you?)

You can criticize the Roman Catholic church to legitimize your Protestant belief system until you are exhausted, but it doesn't change this little fact :

The Roman Catholic Church is -the reason- Christianity is where it is today. They are the original Christian Protestants.

You see, there were many different forms of Christianity, it was all one muddy mess, just like the ancient religions. Many different accounts of the same thing.




There were Ebionite Christians, Arian Christians, Marcionite Christians, etc. Their belief systems were so alien to what you know today, that during the Council of Nicea, the roman church tore Arian teachings and letters during the meeting for being too different.

Yet, now you want to act like christianity is any different from the ancient religions.

I can't make this any simpler for you. My argument deals ONLY with the issue of the New Testament content...not the Roman Catholic Church, not the Councils of Nicea, not hymnals, not iconic images, not the Church Fathers, not the sects, not the Apocrypha. I am concerned only with the Jesus of the gospels. Items and elemnts "borrowed" from non-Christian religions after the fact are not relevant to our discussion.

1) Osiris, Isis, and Horus are all incarnations of the one supreme "creator of all things" Re (Ra). Osiris, Isis, and all other gods are just incarnations from Re. Amun, Aten, they are all aspects of RA. During the New Kingdom, the Aten was considered to be an aspect of the composite deity Ra-Amun-Horus. All one and the same, associated as the one creator of all things, Re (Ra).


2) Around 1351-1356 BCE, there was an Egyptian Pharoah named Amenhotep IV, husband of the famous Nefer i. At one point, he changed his name to Akhenaten, and he established one of the first instances of monotheism, the worship of just -1- God and the dismissal of all others.

The idea of worship of only 1 supreme god is commonly mistaken as having begun with the Jews.

This badly pre-dates Judaism.


3) Anyway, I said that the 'ORIGINAL Holy Trinity' was Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Obviously, the concept of the trinity was borrowed and changed around. Instead of Isis, they have 'the holy spirit', which is basically the Father anyway.

And again, find me a reference in the New Testament (MY source for this discussion) that mentions anything related to a Trinity, and we'll discuss it. Until then, this is a moot point.

[smeagol]

I find no validity in any of it because you have no first hand original do entation from when the man was alive and no physical evidence.

Third and forth and 60th hand accounts aren't enough for me.

Show me fist hand accounts of The Republic, by Plato.

Show me first hand accounts of all the Egyptian-myths.

[BacktoBasics]

Gospel talk? Really?

I'm talking about the mathematical probabilities of the information contained within the gospels. Mind-baffling probabilities... Clearly a product of statistical significance despite the fact that it wasn't written with that intent.

I'm also talking about the historical relevance of Bethlehem, and the tribe of Judah (modern day Jews)...

You ignore at your own peril.

I also showed in this thread a mathematical account of key moments in the mans life. Mathematics that pre-dated his existence that were rooted in an astrological calendar.

You ignore at no peril.

Enjoy your lunch

[Winehole23]

MiamiHeat:

All religions are historically determinate in their emergence, qua religions. Newer creeds will take elements of whatever preceded them or tried to assimilate them to be sure, but putting the emphasis on historical precedence and influence to the exclusion of all else surely discloses a bias: against novel content. What's pretty clear is that you have not yet penetrated far enough into the subject of your own criticism, to find the target.

That is why it is ultimately unconvincing for you to point at thematic similarities between ancient religions and Christianity and leave it at that. Perhaps if you had some kind of structural analysis to hang it on, I could take you a little more seriously, MH, but all you've presented so far is a ragbag of antiquity that you pick over like a buffet line.

Why should the most ancient be the most authoritative? You act as if the very existence of religion previous to Christianity refutes it, because influences can be detected. Why should this be necessarily so?

[BacktoBasics]

Show me fist hand accounts of The Republic, by Plato.

I'm not debating Plato. I haven't the slightest idea if he existed or didn't.

Show me first hand accounts of all the Egyptian-myths.


I can't. They're myths. Bingo. I told you they weren't real. Are we agreeing here?

Thanks for not hurling insults my way this time.

[BacktoBasics]

You act as if the very existence of religion previous to Christianity refutes it, because influences can be detected. Why should this be necessarily so?

I'm not disagreeing entirely with your point but what it does do is show a precendent for a general layout. A layout that has correlations to not just story lines derived from an opinion but key dates and events that are directly mathematically solvable within all religions as a whole. Bits and pieces here and there that all seem to fit at some point with each other.

Its like having the plans to a first generation automobile from the early century and then debating whether or not modern automobiles did or didn't originate from that previous en y. Obviously so much has changed and each auto builder has put their own touch on things but you can see where bits and pieces would have been birthed from the original ideals.

[smeagol]

Thanks for not hurling insults my way this time.

You are welcome.

Now, for the nth time, try to develop an answer for my question:

One more time:

How did this myth about Christ develop? You have a man (or maybe not, according to you) being born on the year 1 AD and dying on the year 33 AD.

There were disciples of this man that wrote his life story, starting less than 20years from his death. You have written do ents from the 2nd C that prove that those books of the Bible existed. You have other writings from Christians, starting around the year 90 AD, going all the way to the our time, that attest to Christ's existance.

So, once again, where exactly did the Christ-myth develop?

Was it the apostles that invented him?

Was it St Paul?

Was it the next generation og Christians that pushed this myth further?

These are the questions you need to answer.

[smeagol]

I can't. They're myths. Bingo. I told you they weren't real. Are we agreeing here?

Yet you use these myths to explain Christianity. How can you be so sure these myths are the correct ones, given that there is no first hand account of them.

[BacktoBasics]

Yet you use these myths to explain Christianity. How can you be so sure these myths are the correct ones, given that there is no first hand account of them.

I don't think that they are correct. I think they're stories.

I think Christianity is a compelation of many stories, astrological moments in time and hearsay accounts about either a mortal man or a mythical one. I'm not the best person or best equipped person to pull it all together for a single post on this thread.

I'm not trying to avoid your question. I just don't have the time here at work to formulate everything in single post to fully illustrate my stance. I'm trying to not sound like I'm copping out but I can seem to find the verbage to relate how I feel without writing out 100+ pages along with all my sources. Too big of a question to pen. A fair question nonetheless. I know that response fuels your fire but oh well.

[Blake]

Why should the most ancient be the most authoritative?

It might not be, but it's tough to make an argument that it's the right religion when it's not the oldest.

We here in the western part of the world mostly ascribe to Christianity and the Bible as being the source above all sources, yet many of the Shiite Muslims out of Iran trace their religious roots back to Zoroastrianism which many think pre-date Judaism.

Why is it that Westerners know more about stuff that came out of the Middle East than actual Middle Eastern people?

[MiamiHeat]

suffice it to say, that most intellectuals see the truth behind all of this. most scientists/scholars/whatever do not believe in a god because they confronted these problems at some point in their life and came to the same conclusion.

the rest of you in this thread are either trolling, scared/in denial/whatever to let go and admit the situation, or just plain simpletons like angel_luv ( i feel bad already, sorry ).

personally, i suspect a lot of trolling in this thread

"It is finished"

[Blake]

Yet you use these myths to explain Christianity. How can you be so sure these myths are the correct ones, given that there is no first hand account of them.

How can you be sure any stories are the correct ones.

How do you know aliens haven't walked among us? Plenty of eyewitness accounts say they have.

[Blake]

suffice it to say, that most intellectuals see the truth behind all of this. most scientists/scholars/whatever do not believe in a god because they confronted these problems at some point in their life and came to the same conclusion.

the rest of you in this thread are either trolling, scared/in denial/whatever to let go and admit the situation, or just plain simpletons like angel_luv ( i feel bad already, sorry ).

personally, i suspect a lot of trolling in this thread

"It is finished"

now this is a bad post.

[Phenomanul]

"It is finished"

Actually the account of what Jesus said was, "Tetelestai"... which is closer in meaning to "paid in full" than to "it is finished".....

[smeagol]

I don't think that they are correct. I think they're stories.

I think Christianity is a compelation of many stories, astrological moments in time and hearsay accounts about either a mortal man or a mythical one. I'm not the best person or best equipped person to pull it all together for a single post on this thread.

I'm not trying to avoid your question. I just don't have the time here at work to formulate everything in single post to fully illustrate my stance. I'm trying to not sound like I'm copping out but I can seem to find the verbage to relate how I feel without writing out 100+ pages along with all my sources. Too big of a question to pen. A fair question nonetheless. I know that response fuels your fire but oh well.

Well, until we can engage on a debate regarding the answer to that question, there is not much more I can add to the thread. I'm no expert on Egyptian or other ancient religions. But I have read extensively about the origins of Chrstianity and I'm ready to debate how Christianity was born out of a myth (or not).

[smeagol]

suffice it to say, that most intellectuals see the truth behind all of this. most scientists/scholars/whatever do not believe in a god because they confronted these problems at some point in their life and came to the same conclusion.

And I'm sure you have a study that proves this . . .

the rest of you in this thread are either trolling, scared/in denial/whatever to let go and admit the situation, or just plain simpletons like angel_luv ( i feel bad already, sorry ).

personally, i suspect a lot of trolling in this thread

"It is finished"

You have no clue what the definition of a troll is.

[smeagol]

How can you be sure any stories are the correct ones.

How do you know aliens haven't walked among us? Plenty of eyewitness accounts say they have.

True.

So why the are we discussing this?

[smeagol]

now this is one more bad post in a long line of horrendous posts.

Fixed

[Phenomanul]

I also showed in this thread a mathematical account of key moments in the mans life. Mathematics that pre-dated his existence that were rooted in an astrological calendar.

You ignore at no peril.

Enjoy your lunch

Astronomical motion which was defined by His own hand. Your astrological argument only serves to stregthen the belief that GOD is in control of the heavens... So much so that other civilizations have also noticed His handiwork.

And for the nth time, the fact that the Roman Empire prescribed certain dates to mark the celebration for the birth and death of Jesus Christ does nothing to negate the fact that those events took place. The fact that they borrowed pagan dates, as a token of compromise to further unify their empire, was probably wrong though deemed necessary at the time. Even still, this mistake, does nothing to negate the fact that Jesus existed.

[BacktoBasics]

Astronomical motion which was defined by His own hand. Your astrological argument only serves to stregthen the belief that GOD is in control of the heavens... So much so that other civilizations have also noticed His handiwork.

And for the nth time, the fact that the Roman Empire prescribed certain dates to mark the celebration for the birth and death of Jesus Christ does nothing to negate the fact that those events took place. The fact that they borrowed pagan dates, as a token of compromise to further unify their empire, was probably wrong though deemed necessary at the time. Even still, this mistake, does nothing to negate the fact that Jesus existed.

You didn't need to say all this. This is the kind of garbage I hear all the time. You guys will take anything for your own. If concrete proof shows up...god put it there. If another god showed up tomorrow and said you guys had it all wrong you'd say god did that to test us.

Oh oh I see how you did some calculations that pre-date his existence based on items that have nothing to do with religion........................................um yeah that was god working mkay.

Everything strengthens your argument. You guys have spent more time fabricating ways to tie up loose ends than you have understanding religion as a whole across the entire Earth.

Thats not a personal jab either so don't get up on your 100,000ft horse to tell me you know a lot about religion...it was a generalization.

[Phenomanul]

1) Adam and Eve is a creation story of the Jews. The egyptian civilization pre-dates them by thousands of years.

I was unaware that Adam and Eve were dated to any particular time...

Hence, how can you claim with any certainty that the egyptians pre-date them by any amount of time?