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Pagan influences on the biblical stories of Jesus' life
#51
RE: Pagan influences on the biblical stories of Jesus' life
(April 10, 2016 at 9:57 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: Given that late bronze age cultures were agricultural, and the link between death and rebirth and the seasons, it seems more unlikely that a god figure wouldn't experience a death and rebirth cycle.  The Christians act like their Jesus was unique, but he wasn't.  It's another example of telling the same lie over and over again to make it appear as truth.

Yes, exactly! The agricultural revolution was total game-change from hunting and gathering societies and that reflected in gods. Because, for the first time, there was a creation of a ruling class, which in agricultural society was needed to organize digging of irrigation canals & organizing army to protect from other tribes. Which all meant that they would be taking food from people to pay the workers and army, but ruling class also used this to take much more food then needed for those jobs to create even bigger armies for themselves and more workers so they could have bigger palaces and tombs in other words food was/is power.

Because of that the ruling class needed cosmological justification for the right to levy all these taxes. So to no wonder many main god stories revolve around food about dying and resurrection. Because there was this need to create the idea of life-force that comes down as food, feeds people and then people give back to the life-force and then it goes back again. By providing sacrifices to the gods, the elite in effect exchanged spiritual food for cosmic order, as the gods maintained the stability of the universe and the fertility of the soil.
So to no wonder the Mayas of southern Mexico believed that maize was the flesh of the gods containing divine power, and at harvest time the gods were, in effect, sacrificing themselves to sustain humanity. This divine power passed into humans as they ate, and was particularly concentrated in their blood.

The Aztecs also regarded human sacrifices as a way to repay energy owed to the gods. The Earth Mother was nourished by human blood, they believed, and the crops would only grow if she was given enough of it. It was supposedly an honor to be sacrificed, but even so victims seem not to have belonged to the ruling elite. Human flesh and blood were thought to be made from maize, so these sacrifices sustained the cosmic cycle: Maize became blood, and blood was then transformed back into maize. Sacrificial victims were referred to as tortillas for the gods.

The Incas also thought sacrifice was necessary to nourish the gods. They offered llamas, guinea pigs, birds, cocoa, gold, silver, and elaborately woven cloth, which was burned to release the energy that had gone into weaving it. Food and alcoholic drinks made from maize were thought to be particularly favored by the gods. But most valued of all were human sacrifices. After subjugating a new region, the Incas sacrificed its most beautiful people.

In China both gods and royal ancestors were offered grain, millet beer, animals and human sacrifices, most of them prisoners of war. The gods were thought to drink the blood of the slaughtered victims.

The Indonesian rice goddess, Sri, is the goddess of the earth who protects the people against hunger. One story tells how Sri was killed by the other gods. When her body was buried, rice sprouted from her eyes and sticky rice grew from her chest. Filled with remorse, another god gave these crops to mankind to cultivate.

That's why in Europe every king was anointed by the pope as a symbol that it's God's will that this person should be the ruler or like in case in UK where the king or queen is the head of the state Church.

And also speaking of pagan influences on Jesus let's just mention, for instance, when in year 1498 Vasco da Gamma arrived in Calicut, India he and his men assumed that that the local Hindus were Christians, falling to their knees in Hindu temples, and mistaking depictions of Hindu goddesses for the Virgin Mary and images of Hindu gods for Christian saints. The king of Calicut was assumed to be a Christian too, and therefore a natural ally against the resident Muslim traders.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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#52
RE: Pagan influences on the biblical stories of Jesus' life
(April 10, 2016 at 11:55 am)Constable Dorfl Wrote:
(April 9, 2016 at 2:43 pm)Godschild Wrote:  Easy there boy, don't get so bent out of shape that kind of language isn't necessary, nor is your attitude. I simply stated that those who are in this discussion should agree to argue from the same staring point, the way it stands now you are arguing apples and oranges. Everyone should agree to one starting point and make their arguments, then take the other starting point and argue from it and see what the results. Then compare the two and see if you can find some commonality between the two. I wasn't try to argue for or against creation of evolution, I though it would be interesting to see the results without my participation.

GC

I gave you the starting point, the book written by a bunch of goatfuckers is 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% bullshit written to make sure idiots like you fork over all ye're money. Until you accept this well established fact there is no point in us discussing with you, as all you're doing is putting your fingers in your ears and screeching "na na na I am not listening" while your pastor fucks you up your arse with his twenty four inch steel spiked dildo.

That's the life you've chosen for yourself, but that doesn't give you any rights to try and force it on us.

 I believe you are the biggest child that's ever graced this forum, really. I said I had no part in this argument all I wanted was to see it argued from the same starting point, both Biblical and evolutionary. But not you, why, because you're afraid of the result, those who are afraid of the truth act just like you and it's pitiful, go grow up and come back when you can act like a human being and not some kind of animal.

GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
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#53
RE: Pagan influences on the biblical stories of Jesus' life
What, exactly, does the fucking buy bull have to do with evolution?

I can hardly imagine the fevered twists your poor little mind will have to go through for this one.
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#54
RE: Pagan influences on the biblical stories of Jesus' life
(April 11, 2016 at 1:43 pm)Godschild Wrote:  those who are afraid of the truth act just like you and it's pitiful

What truth would that be precisely?

The truth you cannot back up with any kind of evidence?

Sorry, that is not truth as it is commonly known.

Rather, it is merely truth due to the delusion that has corrupted your mind.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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