The Flat Earth Society
Other Discussion Boards => Philosophy, Religion & Society => Topic started by: Nimp on October 16, 2013, 06:08:20 AM
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Therefore it should be taught alongside the hypothesis of Evolution in schools.
Discuss.
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Go away, Nimp.
/thread
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Go away, Nimp.
/thread
and here we see the crux of atheism, a refusal to engage in argument, a refusal to even countenance opposing ideas... truly it's the most illogical religion on the face of the Earth.
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Why don't you put forth your argument of why it should be taught along with evolution?
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Why don't you put forth your argument of why it should be taught along with evolution?
Evolution cannot explain changes of kind in animals, for example, a reptile turning into a mammal. It is an incomplete theory. Therefore, other things should be taught to explain what evolution cannot explain.
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Scientific theories are subject to the scientific method in which they must be falsifiable. There is a good reason why religions haven't been falsified (which isn't even really true) and that is because faith embeds infalsifiability. However, if we are to take things like the bible literally then we can see countless claims that are quite blatantly false and instead of concessions to that, apologists move the goal posts. This is similar to your claim that with evolution exists gaps in knowledge and the inference that we should fill those gaps with god. This is the opposite of how scientific inquiry works. Gaps in knowledge are not weaknesses in Science and we shouldn't fill those gaps with unverifiable and unfalsifiable answers.
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Why don't you put forth your argument of why it should be taught along with evolution?
Evolution cannot explain changes of kind in animals, for example, a reptile turning into a mammal. It is an incomplete theory. Therefore, other things should be taught to explain what evolution cannot explain.
Sorry? What are you talking about? First off reptiles did not turn in to mammals. Mammals and reptile share a common ancestor. This is probably the most common misapprehension made about evolution. Second, do just a little bit of research and you will find quite a bit of knowledge about the transition of the reptilian-mammalian common ancestry in to mammalian forms. For example:
http://cambrian.tripod.com/Reptile-Mammal (http://cambrian.tripod.com/Reptile-Mammal)
Now, from an educational perspective, rottingroom is spot on. Teaching ID because of the "God of the Gaps" is a terrible policy. We should not teach unfalsifiable hypotheses ever.
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Before you guys waste your time arguing with Nimp, you might want to take a moment to search through his post history.
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Why aren't you a mod yet?
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Oh, goody, a Nimp thread.
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Oh, goody, a Nimp thread.
If only blatant trolling in the serious forums was against the rules.
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I wish this forum had a disclaimer about Nimp somewhere near the top so people wouldn't respond every single time without fail.
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Therefore it should be taught alongside the hypothesis of Evolution in schools.
Discuss.
Why Christian theism specifically?
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Therefore it should be taught alongside the hypothesis of Evolution in schools.
Discuss.
Why Christian theism specifically?
That is a great question. I can't wait to see how Nimp responds to this!
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This is fun! We Jews would disagree with Nimp. (1), Christians worship a dead Jewish Rabbi, who was nothing particularly special as far as Rabbis go. (2), if he had no human father, then he had no claim to be the Davidic King, since that lineage passed father to son, and did not include adoption. (3), how many 'gods' were born of virgins, and died only to be resurrected in three days to save their followers from sin? Tammuz, Adonis, Mithras, and Jesus, to name only four. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, friends. Jesus irritated the Romans and was posted on a cross, just like app. 200,000 other Jews. Hardly a unique punishment for the 'saviour of the world'.
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Therefore it should be taught alongside the hypothesis of Evolution in schools.
Discuss.
Why Christian theism specifically?
That is a great question. I can't wait to see how Nimp responds to this!
Every religion mentions Jesus. So many people believe Christian theism that it must be the true force behind all of creation.
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Go away, Nimp.
/thread
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Since when does every religion mention Jesus? We don't, except to note he was one of several false claimants to the messianic title, alongside Shabbatai ben Tzevy, Simon bar Kokhba, and a whole list of others.
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Haha, most religions don't mention Jesus.
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This is fun! We Jews would disagree with Nimp. (1), Christians worship a dead Jewish Rabbi, who was nothing particularly special as far as Rabbis go. (2), if he had no human father, then he had no claim to be the Davidic King, since that lineage passed father to son, and did not include adoption. (3), how many 'gods' were born of virgins, and died only to be resurrected in three days to save their followers from sin? Tammuz, Adonis, Mithras, and Jesus, to name only four. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, friends. Jesus irritated the Romans and was posted on a cross, just like app. 200,000 other Jews. Hardly a unique punishment for the 'saviour of the world'.
I think you need to provide sources for the claims about religious figures mirroring Jesus. I've seen this claim about a lot of figures and they have all been false. My biggest issue with your claim here is that Jesus was a living being while these others are gods and not said to have been birthed as a mortal.
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The point is not whether Jesus was real or not (although there are some who claim that he wasn't). Mithras is believed to have been real as well. The other two were admittedly gods, who may not have existed in real life. Of course, Confucius and Buddha were said to have been born of virgins also.
The problem as I see it with Jesus is not that he wasn't real. I am prepared to concede that he was. But everything about him was mythologised. Jesus of Nazareth was in fact a Jewish Rabbi, of the Pharisaic tradition, which is why he could criticise them so well. That he was a Pharisee is proved by the fact that he believed the entire Jewish Scriptures (the Saducees accepted only the Torah), he believed in resurrection (the Saducees didn't), He believed in angels and demons (the Saducees did not), he believed in the Afterlife (the Saducees did not), he taught in parables (which was a common way that Pharisees taught), and that he spent a considerable amount of time in synagogues (the Saducees were intimately connected with Temple worship).
So this Jewish Rabbi had his life mythologised with all that virgin birth business, and the whole dying and rising saving God business. And Christianity instituted baptism, mirroring a rite of many of the Eastern Mystery Cults, including Mithraism, and Communion, also mirroring Eastern Mystery Cults. Check any good encyclopedia under the headings "communion" and "baptism".
So this Jewish Rabbi who was nailed to a cross for pissing off the Romans turned into a deity. Go figure. Furthermore, the whole Passion narrative is nonsense.
According to the NT, Jesus was brought before the Sanhedrin at night. Except that the Sanhedrin never met at night. He was condemned by about fifteen people. Except that the Sanhedrin never met with less than a quorum of 71. And he was convicted of violating Jewish law and then given to the Romans. Except that that was unnecessary. The Jews had the prerogative of executing violators of Jewish law by stoning. All they had to do was get the consent of the Roman governor, which consent was rarely denied. So the whole idea of Jesus being punished by the Jews is idiocy.
The whole game is up. These are the reasons that Jews have never converted to Christianity, with the exception of those who usually haven't known their own religion very well in the first place.
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So you made a baseless claim about other religious figures mirroring the story of Jesus, specifically Tammuz, Adonis (which when looking into it I found that this one exists in Arabic religions as Tammuz), and Mithras (who was born of stone). Thanks for simply stating your lack of evidence.
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The point is not whether Jesus was real or not (although there are some who claim that he wasn't). Mithras is believed to have been real as well. The other two were admittedly gods, who may not have existed in real life. Of course, Confucius and Buddha were said to have been born of virgins also.
I recall Buddha being born to a woman and the leader of his tribe, but not of a virgin. And Confucius born to an officer of the Chinese military. Granted, this is my memory from high school humanities, so I may be wholly of base. And I looked up Mithras, he wasn't born to a virgin unless rocks are now considered virgins.
I will, however, agree that the majority of the Christian faith is nonsense.
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There are a lot of myths about Mithras, some that conflict with each other, regarding his birth. The other two I granted were presumably fictional insofar as they did not exist in real life. And Mithras may or may not have existed. But you still haven't addressed the rest of my post.
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By the other two I meant Tammuz and Adonis. Buddha and Confucius did exist, obviously. And the myths of their being born of virgins were much later creations that conflict with earlier tellings of their births. But the rest of my post hasn't been addressed yet. And although I will concede the point that many heroes who were said to be born of virgins in fact never existed as mortals, that is beside the point.
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The claims of Jesus’ birth are no different from any of the other virgin birth legends.
Jesus was not the first god to be born of a virgin. Mut-em-ua, the virgin Queen of Egypt, supposedly gave birth to Pharaoh Amenkept III through a god holding a cross to her mouth.
Ra, the Egyptian sun god, was said to be born of a virgin. So was Perseus, Romulus, Mithras, Genghis Khan, Krishna, Horus, Melanippe, Auge and Antiope.
In the ancient world, great men were born of divine fathers and human mothers. Alexander the Great and the Roman emperor Augustus were great men and (therefore) said to have divine fathers. Jesus was also a great man, so he too must have a divine father.
The claims of Jesus’ birth are no different from any of the other virgin birth legends. It doesn’t have any more evidence or appear to be any more likely. Why believe it over the others?
www.patheos.com (http://www.patheos.com)
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The claims of Jesus’ birth are no different from any of the other virgin birth legends.
Jesus was not the first god to be born of a virgin. Mut-em-ua, the virgin Queen of Egypt, supposedly gave birth to Pharaoh Amenkept III through a god holding a cross to her mouth.
Ra, the Egyptian sun god, was said to be born of a virgin. So was Perseus, Romulus, Mithras, Genghis Khan, Krishna, Horus, Melanippe, Auge and Antiope.
In the ancient world, great men were born of divine fathers and human mothers. Alexander the Great and the Roman emperor Augustus were great men and (therefore) said to have divine fathers. Jesus was also a great man, so he too must have a divine father.
The claims of Jesus’ birth are no different from any of the other virgin birth legends. It doesn’t have any more evidence or appear to be any more likely. Why believe it over the others?
www.patheos.com (http://www.patheos.com)
Why believe the flood of Jewish legends and not the others? Why believe in the Abrahamic god, and not the others? Because people are gullible and trusting in family and tradition, even when it holds no real value.
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;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)
Well, I am not here to prove Judaism true. I was just challenging the claim that Christian Theism hasn't been falsified yet. I could give you a variety of reasons Judaism is true, but they only apply to Jews. We know what God has revealed to us. We are obligated by what we know (The Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings). What God may or may not have revealed to Gentiles, we do not know. Its that simple.
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I was just making sure you could back up your claims, which you couldn't. I hope in the future you no longer use these in arguments as they are baseless. Additionally, Ra was not born from a virgin, if I recall correctly his mother was pretty far from a virgin. You almost sound like you are getting this information from the movie Zeitgeist, which is largely full of incorrect information.
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Again, as with so many others, the birth of Ra has become pretty muddled as well. Check the website I posted. I'll freely grant that I was NOT correct in some of the particulars. My memory can fail like any other. But you STILL have not addressed the other points in my post.
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And that does not address Romulus, Alexander, Genghis Khan, etc. I'm not sure about Ra, to be honest.
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I shall point out that Patheos is an atheist website, which may be congenial to some of you. Ok, Horus was born of Isis, a virgin, and later, Ra and Horus were fused into one god. So Ra himself was not born of a virgin, but the god he later became was. (Wikipedia).
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Let's get back to the OP.
The op is about christian theism not being falsified yet. The main thing that every religion has in common is faith. Faith is defined as follows:
faith
fāTH/
noun
noun: faith
2.
strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
So proof in any religion is based on faith and most of the God's from religions I've heard about have such a God that requires faith. It seems that falsifiable proof would completely contradict the entire purpose of faith. How can we expect an unfalsifiable premise to be falsified? The OP is a non-sequitur.
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I'm not addressing the rest of your post because I don't care about the argument, just the fact that you are using incorrect information to attempt to make a point.
As far as the others you claimed to be of virgin births, Genghis Khan was his father's third child and mother's first, not a divine virgin birth. Romulus was born of a woman and a god, Mars to be specific. In Roman mythology the gods often born children to mortals, these children being demigods, but these children are thought to be conceived through conventional means besides the divine status of the father. I'm not familiar with a claim that Alexander was born to a virgin.
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Let's get back to the OP.
The op is about christian theism not being falsified yet. The main thing that every religion has in common is faith. Faith is defined as follows:
faith
fāTH/
noun
noun: faith
2.
strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
So proof in any religion is based on faith and most of the God's from religions I've heard about have such a God that requires faith. It seems that falsifiable proof would completely contradict the entire purpose of faith. How can we expect an unfalsifiable premise to be falsified? The OP is a non-sequitur.
You know what's worse than a troll reply to a serious topic? A serious reply to a troll topic.
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Reasonable Faith is an unreasonable premise:
A God that requires faith would contradict the empirically valid methods of reasoning and it is best explained by excerpting Douglas Adams.
In his novel, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams used an imaginary and extreme example of evolutionary intelligent design to make it unmistakably obvious that such a creature was in fact designed rather than by chance in a naturally selective process. Such an extreme example is warranted because of the anti-evolutionists claims that the complexity we see in natural species must have come about by intelligent design and the extreme example provided by Adams should only help a theist with their claims if God was in the business of making any traces of his existence obvious. Here is an excerpt from his book:
The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brain wave energy, absorbing all unconscious frequencies and then excreting telepathically a matrix formed from the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain, the practical upshot of which is that if you stick one in your ear, you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language: the speech you hear decodes the brain wave matrix.
Essentially, it is a universal translator that neatly crosses the language divide between any species. The book points out that the Babel fish could not possibly have developed naturally, and therefore it both imaginarily proves and disproves the existence of God but also indicates a contradiction in God’s motives.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Quod erat demonstrandum."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
To emphatically conclude, Adams has clearly shown the contradiction. From the example of Babel Fish it is easy to conclude that a God requiring faith would be a paradox if advocates of intelligent design or any theist who meddles with attempting to prove God’s existence were to be successful, in addition it would undermine its [God’s] motives. Faith and reason are therefore incompatible and attempting to take faith anything beyond that [faith] is incoherent, futile and most of all unreasonable.
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;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)
Well, I am not here to prove Judaism true. I was just challenging the claim that Christian Theism hasn't been falsified yet. I could give you a variety of reasons Judaism is true, but they only apply to Jews. We know what God has revealed to us. We are obligated by what we know (The Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings). What God may or may not have revealed to Gentiles, we do not know. Its that simple.
Precisely. You trust in your family, who trusted in their family, and so on and so forth. It's a tradition. I'm not here to disprove Judaism, I'm just giving a reason many people believe in any religion, Christianity and Judaism included.
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Let's get back to the OP.
The op is about christian theism not being falsified yet. The main thing that every religion has in common is faith. Faith is defined as follows:
faith
fāTH/
noun
noun: faith
2.
strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
So proof in any religion is based on faith and most of the God's from religions I've heard about have such a God that requires faith. It seems that falsifiable proof would completely contradict the entire purpose of faith. How can we expect an unfalsifiable premise to be falsified? The OP is a non-sequitur.
You know what's worse than a troll reply to a serious topic? A serious reply to a troll topic.
I don't care about the intentions of the trollish topic. Claims like these are persistent in society and I've chosen to respond to it here, for whatever reason.
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Rotting, I think you have a point. I can't prove to you that God exists. You can't prove to me that he doesn't. Ultimately, the concept of God depends on exactly what you said: FAITH. I can tell you all the benefits of having faith, but if you are not so inclined, you're not. But you are right. God's existence is by definition an cannot be falsified. Nor can it be verified. So there you are. The first post, Jesus aside, is a non sequitur.
Re: the virgin births, I'm not saying that all those figures were born of virgins. I'm only saying that claims were made at various times that they were. Genghis Khan, for example, during his lifetime, was able to get people to believe that he was born of a virgin. As I recall, Romulus was born of Mars and a woman, but it did not involve intercourse. Rather, his presence impregnated her.
Alexander was another. Although it is known that he had a father and a mother, the claim existed that he was born of a virgin. Don't ask me where that got started.
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I shall point out that Patheos is an atheist website, which may be congenial to some of you. Ok, Horus was born of Isis, a virgin, and later, Ra and Horus were fused into one god. So Ra himself was not born of a virgin, but the god he later became was. (Wikipedia).
No it isn't. There are atheist blogs on Patheos, but it is far from being an atheist website. Just having a brief look at their home page should tell you that.
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Interesting. The site I looked at was specifically about denying the virgin birth, and it said there that it was an atheist site. Perhaps they meant only that page of the site.
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Interesting. The site I looked at was specifically about denying the virgin birth, and it said there that it was an atheist site. Perhaps they meant only that page of the site.
Yeah, you were looking at one of the blogs. Patheos has a blog network. They even have Jewish blogs! http://www.patheos.com/Jewish.html (http://www.patheos.com/Jewish.html)
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Patheos describes what they are on their about page.
http://www.patheos.com/About-Patheos/About.html (http://www.patheos.com/About-Patheos/About.html)
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I just looked at it. It appears to be a site dedicated to all faiths, including Atheism. I'll have to have a look at it later. For now, I have to catch the bus. So I shall close this down for now. Talk to you all later.
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Rotting, I think you have a point. I can't prove to you that God exists. You can't prove to me that he doesn't. Ultimately, the concept of God depends on exactly what you said: FAITH. I can tell you all the benefits of having faith, but if you are not so inclined, you're not. But you are right. God's existence is by definition an cannot be falsified. Nor can it be verified. So there you are. The first post, Jesus aside, is a non sequitur.
Re: the virgin births, I'm not saying that all those figures were born of virgins. I'm only saying that claims were made at various times that they were. Genghis Khan, for example, during his lifetime, was able to get people to believe that he was born of a virgin. As I recall, Romulus was born of Mars and a woman, but it did not involve intercourse. Rather, his presence impregnated her.
Alexander was another. Although it is known that he had a father and a mother, the claim existed that he was born of a virgin. Don't ask me where that got started.
I find nothing to support that the presence of Mars made her with child. Also, Horus is the child of Isis with her slain husband Osiris. She reconstructed his body after Set dismembered him and the his penis in the Nile. She fashioned a golden one for her rembiodied husband which she mated with to conceive Horus, not a virgin birth.
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I just looked at it. It appears to be a site dedicated to all faiths, including Atheism. I'll have to have a look at it later. For now, I have to catch the bus. So I shall close this down for now. Talk to you all later.
Just to be clear. The prefix "a" in atheism suggests a lack of faith. Not faith.
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I just looked at it. It appears to be a site dedicated to all faiths, including Atheism. I'll have to have a look at it later. For now, I have to catch the bus. So I shall close this down for now. Talk to you all later.
Just to be clear. The prefix "a" in atheism suggests a lack of faith. Not faith.
Atheism (Def): 1. the theory or belief that God does not exist.
Believing that God doesn't exist despite such a being not being proven to not exist is a religious belief.
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I just looked at it. It appears to be a site dedicated to all faiths, including Atheism. I'll have to have a look at it later. For now, I have to catch the bus. So I shall close this down for now. Talk to you all later.
Just to be clear. The prefix "a" in atheism suggests a lack of faith. Not faith.
Atheism (Def): 1. the theory or belief that God does not exist.
Believing that God doesn't exist despite such a being not being proven to not exist is a religious belief.
Google:
a·the·ist
ˈāTHēˌist/
noun
noun: atheist; plural noun: atheists
1.
a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.
Merriam Webster:
athe·ism
noun \ˈā-thē-ˌi-zəm\
Definition of ATHEISM
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity
dictionary.com:
a·the·ist
[ey-thee-ist] Show IPA
noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
a- or ( before a vowel ) an- 1
— prefix
not; without;
The prefix "a" means "without". In this case it means "without" theism.
Much like a-gnostic which means "without" knowing.
Much like a-symmetry means "without" symmetry.
Much like a-tonal means "without" key.
Much like a-social means "without" social interation.
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He knows all that. He will continue posting those things as long as you are willing to waste your time refuting them.
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He knows all that. He will continue posting those things as long as you are willing to waste your time refuting them.
Feeding the trolls seems to have become fashionable here on FES.
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I kind of like that Nimp's threads sometimes unintentionally start these bizarre debates between other members of the site.
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It can definitely prove interesting. Incidentally, having done some checking, I do stand corrected on several points. Romulus, Genghis Khan, and Confucius were NOT claimed to have been born of virgins. Nor was Ra. Alexander was. Krishna was, but roundabout. Buddha was. Adonis and Tammuz were. Mithras and Zoroaster had various claims made for them, both of virgin births and other methods, depending on source. I apologise for being so inaccurate. Not one of my finer moments. Tammuz, Adonis, and Mithras were dying and rising saving figures. There is some debate as to whether there is a historical germ of truth to these figures' existence. The fundamental point, I think, is the fact that Jesus, while definitely a historic figure, was mythologised into a god.
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I kind of like that Nimp's threads sometimes unintentionally start these bizarre debates between other members of the site.
I disagree.
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To respond to the OP, school's job is to teach mainstream science and keep lectures separate from religious teachings. If it were a class on Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, then Creation could be taught in that class. Otherwise, in a science class, it's the most scientifically accepted theory that gets taught, with the disclaimer at the start of the lesson that it is just a theory and nobody in attendance has to believe it if they choose not to.
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It can definitely prove interesting. Incidentally, having done some checking, I do stand corrected on several points. Romulus, Genghis Khan, and Confucius were NOT claimed to have been born of virgins. Nor was Ra. Alexander was. Krishna was, but roundabout. Buddha was. Adonis and Tammuz were. Mithras and Zoroaster had various claims made for them, both of virgin births and other methods, depending on source. I apologise for being so inaccurate. Not one of my finer moments. Tammuz, Adonis, and Mithras were dying and rising saving figures. There is some debate as to whether there is a historical germ of truth to these figures' existence. The fundamental point, I think, is the fact that Jesus, while definitely a historic figure, was mythologised into a god.
Adonis (Tammuz in Arabic) didn't die for anyone. He was murdered out of jealousy with a boar as the weapon. I'm also fairly certain that a bull sacrifice is central to the belief of Mithras. Also, Krishna was not born to a virgin, his mother already have seven children, he was conceived immaculately however. I'm also seeing nothing to suggest Buddha was born to a virgin, but I'll again give you the immaculate conception. Alexander as a few accounts of his birth, from conception on his parents' wedding night to his mother being pregnant prior to the wedding night. I'm not denying that Jesus is seen as an aspect of God, in fact that is key to the Christian belief seeing as he is the son of God.
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To respond to the OP, school's job is to teach mainstream science and keep lectures separate from religious teachings. If it were a class on Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, then Creation could be taught in that class. Otherwise, in a science class, it's the most scientifically accepted theory that gets taught, with the disclaimer at the start of the lesson that it is just a theory and nobody in attendance has to believe it if they choose not to.
The disclaimer shouldn't even need to be mentioned in a science class. The disclaimer exists in science 101 when students are taught what the scientific method is. As long as the definition of a theory is understood then the PC motions of reminding everyone about this isn't necessary.
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I kind of like that Nimp's threads sometimes unintentionally start these bizarre debates between other members of the site.
I enjoy some of the discussions, too. Same with some of Tom's threads.
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To respond to the OP, school's job is to teach mainstream science and keep lectures separate from religious teachings. If it were a class on Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, then Creation could be taught in that class. Otherwise, in a science class, it's the most scientifically accepted theory that gets taught, with the disclaimer at the start of the lesson that it is just a theory and nobody in attendance has to believe it if they choose not to.
A scientific theory isn't "just a theory". It's not a guess in the way you might make a guess about something and say "I have a theory about that". A scientific theory is made up of facts that have been tested, repeatedly.
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I kind of like that Nimp's threads sometimes unintentionally start these bizarre debates between other members of the site.
I enjoy some of the discussions, too. Same with some of Tom's threads.
Same with me and that is why I respond. I don't care if he is a troll, I think I have an interesting response to what could be considered an interesting question.
You can even say that EJ is a troll when he talks about America not being a continent but there was some interesting responses to that where we got very succint definitions of continents, we talked about classifications of rivers, nomadic history and more.
Taken further, God maybe a complete illusion and as an atheist I am inclined to agree with that but still I find that discussing gods existence or lack thereof to be extremely interesting.
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Krishna's mother was not a virgin. But he was transferred into a virgin's belly to be born, according to literature from ISKCON. I guess you are right that that isn't strictly a virgin birth. Buddha had those claims made for him. His mother, Maya, was supposed to have been a virgin. Mithras did indeed have a bull sacrifice. But he died and rose somewhere along the way. The Babylonian Tammuz, after whom one of the Jewish months was named, did indeed die and rise, at least according to some sources. Adonis you may be right about. I don't know of an Arabic Tammuz. The Babylonians were not Arabs, nor speakers of Arabic.
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Tammuz is regarded as a life-death-rebirth god. He died at the onset of the poor weather each year and was reborn when better weather came. The god of vegetation, he guaranteed the rebirth of food. Wikipedia info.
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And wikipedia wrote that better than I did. I'm in a hurry.
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So Tammuz was linked to the crops. Makes perfect sense that he would die and be reborn, multiple times at that. Thus, no real correlation to the Jesus resurrection as you had previously tried to imply.
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Any god that dies and is reborn can be likened to Jesus. I mean, think. Easter adopted symbols like bunny rabbits, eggs, and even its name from the Germanic goddess of the spring, new life, and rebirth. The whole concept of Jesus dying and rising from the dead tapped into the ancient Israelite need for several things. 1, the fact that Israelites wanted a god of death and rebirth. Two, they wanted a messiah. Three, they were interested in the Eastern mystery cults. Christianity had everything that would appeal to Hellenised Jews and Goyim. But especially the Goyim, after Paul got hold of it!
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Many of the Christian holidays are just an adaptation of pagan rituals. This was done to try to make the transition into Christianity easier for the once non-believers so they wouldn't stop the celebrations they had been holding for generations but would rather celebrate God instead of the goddess of spring or whatever other deity. The best proof of this is Christmas itself. Jesus most likely was not born on December 25, however there was a pagan festival which was observed near this time of year in ancient Egypt (source: http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/holidays2.htm (http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/holidays2.htm)).
The thing about Jesus is the fact that he was a mortal being whom was killed and rose from the dead, and he only did this once. He died for the salvation of his followers' souls. Resurrection is a common theme in faiths but it is usually a god which dies and is resurrected, not a mortal.
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Jesus is considered both God and man. Remember the Hypostatic Union? They were not (and still are not) simply commemorating the death and return to life of a mortal. They were (and are) partaking of God himself in that bazarre communion ritual. And the Romans had a festival, that of Sol Invictus, at the Winter Solstice. Many of those activities were brought to Christmas too.