Here is another discussion from the same forum, and likely the last one I will participate in, as this thread prompted a forum-wide ban on “controversial” topics. The topic was taken off the board as well, but I saved this while it was still up.

Celtic Mist on 30.11. at 08:42

Could Christianity be a rip off of a plethora of Religions?

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 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.”

http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa052902a.htm

linko163 today at 01:39
christianity is one of its own not a rip off what makes it different from every thing else is that Jesus actually came to earth and died for us something no pagan gods or anything else for that matter could do

Angacam today at 01:45
There are countless stories of Martyrs in countless religeons. Just as there are Flood stories dateing back as far as Sumeria and Mesopotamia. The same as almost every major theme of the old testiment can be traced with care back to other more ancient stories from even more ancient religeons and societies. While I have no doubt Jesus was a living man. His claims of divine lineage have been seen and heard in many other places by many other prophits of many other gods and belief systems. What seperated Chistianity from the rest was that age old thing, that one thing that ensures a survivable institution. Money and hence power.

linko163 today at 01:52
that is because every religion wants to have their own Jesus which is not right because there is only one Jesus and the reason they are traced back to many legends is because they had to be told somehow until they were written and put toghether to make the bible

Angacam today at 02:03
Son, these stories predate the bible, christianity, and judaism which was the root of christianity. I spent 15 years studying comparative religeons. The major world religeons all have relativly the same root docturns and belief structures because they all share common oral origins. There is no real differense between them in theory only in practice, which is due to variations of interpritation.

linko163 today at 04:06
but that’s your problem son you don’t know what i have studied either i have spent all my life studing many religions and the difference stories that do predate the bible but let me tell you this the bible is just a book a book with God’s word yes but just a book and Jesus walked the earth and everything the bible was created after he died so no doubt there was stories like that before hand but Christianity is totally different from everything else because God is real Jesus is real and so is satan that is what is so different about everything else all pagan religions and their gods they are not real NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTT RRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL

Angacam today at 04:17
They were as real to there worshipers as Christianity is to you. It is all a mater of view point. To dispell others beliefs as “not real” simply because YOU do not believe in them is the hieght of arrogance and is one of the main problems with Monotheism. Each one wants to lay claims to being the “true” path. This same claim is made by Islamic Imans, Jewish Rabi, and Christian Priests. Each are just as arrogant as the other each are just as blinded as the other. the ones that truely see are the ones who are open minded enough to say that each has it place, that each is correct as it is a mater of the interpritation of gods word as he gave it to each of the founders of the said religeon.

Gamaliel87 today at 08:55
Linko163, you need to learn to use punctuation. After you learn this we’ll address run-on sentences.

I believe Christianity is an original religion that began with the same events that the Bible says took place. However, I agree with the about.com article in that a lot of the Catholic symbolism we know today was added later – e.g. the mother-and-child obsession, the halos, incense, feast days, the altered doctrine of communion, and much more – came from pagan religions and rituals that were popular during the time when government-sponsored “Christianity” was trying to become more popular among the people of that time.

As far as the other things Angacam mentioned, I don’t have an exhaustive answer but I’ll offer some thoughts:

1. There’s a difference with Christianity that none of these other religions have in common: the claim that people cannot better themselves or save themselves from their wickedness, and that God-become-man died to take man’s punishment. Every other religion you’ll come across talks about doing the right things in order that one may be saved. Christianity turns this doctrine on its head by talking about being saved in order that one may do the right things. Where does that come from?

2. How do we know that prehistoric evidence of Christianity-like beliefs in other cultures actually predates the Christian/Jewish faith? Experts say so, but as we all know people tend to find things that support their beliefs. Adding that to the unreliability of many dating and archeological methods and the amount of guesswork that comes into play, can we know for sure that what the experts say is correct?

Angacam said: “The ones that truly see are the ones who are open-minded enough to say that each [religion] has its place, that each is correct as it is a matter of the interpretation of god’s word as he gave it to each of the founders of the said religion.”

3. How can religions with mutually exclusive teachings all be correct? I realize that people view this sort of “rightness” in a vague, both-and, what-works-for-you spiritual sense, but what if there is more substance and epistemological realness to these teachings than we think? If we truly believe that one thing is true, how can we believe that an opposing truth is correct is someone else believes it? Are we just missing the logic, or do we not actually take it seriously enough to wonder why it doesn’t add up?

4. If difference in religion is a matter of the interpretation of God’s word, is there more than one God, or did he give conflicting revelations to different people? The most-followed world religions are monotheistic. If we’re actually willing to believe that there are either multiple and diametrically opposed revelations from one almighty God, or that there are many little gods who each successfully claim to be exclusive and all-powerful, do we actually believe in any God at all?

5. One last thing: The claim that no belief holds a monopoly over any other belief is problematic. To say that truth is relative (i.e. whatever someone wants to believe is true for them) is a bit of a paradox, because you are admitting you can’t know for sure whether or not that is true! Is there any chance that people who say there isn’t absolute truth or absolute rules or an absolute God might be wrong? When you think about it that way, it seems like the only way to avoid this paradox would be if there actually is absolute truth in some camp or other. Even nature might give us a clue, if we look in the right places: after all, gravity isn’t subject to interpretation yet.

linko163 today at 15:32 Quote
ok this may not be on subject but it will say that we can’t create anything from nothing. Stick your hand out in front of you and try to make something. What did you make? That’s right nothing so if we can’t make ourselves then who did. God did.

Angacam today at 16:03 Quote
OH for ***** sake.

Angacam today at 16:11 Quote
Linko,
You are trying to use proofs that have no basis in reality.

Because I cant do it it must have been God
Because the bible says so it must be true

This is completely rediculous as a proof of gods existance.

I can’t make a Computer but that does not mean it takes God to do it.
I have read the Hobbit but that does not mean Dragons are real.

Religeon is a matter of faith nothing more nothing less. What you believe is no less valid than what I believe. Your truths are not false simply because i have a different set of writtings that spell it out in a different order and call God by another name.

Your type of narrow minded thinking is exactly the type of thinking that leads to fundementalism and blood shed over religeon and has done so for thousands of years far longer than even christianity has been around.