(April 7, 2016 at 11:38 pm)Redbeard The Pink Wrote: There are some Egyptian stories that describe Isis as giving a virgin birth, but there are other versions of that story that involve a detached, golden penis, so I'm not sure how much that had to do with Jesus. Probably not much.
Actually a lot because Isis was wife of Osiris who died and then resurrected few days later to became judge of the dead in the afterlife (sounds familiar?) as well as deity that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River.
Also symbolism of Osiris is very similar to Jesus: He carries the crook and flail-the crook is thought to represent Osiris as a shepherd god as well as fish symbol.
Osiris death and resurrection cycle was considered "The death of the grain and the death of the god were one and the same: the cereal was identified with the god who came from heaven; he was the bread by which man lives. The resurrection of the god symbolized the rebirth of the grain."
Penis you mentioned is the way he died. He was chopped up in 16 pieces which were later marked every year by his worshipers by making of molds from the wood of a red tree in the forms of the sixteen dismembered parts of Osiris, the cakes of 'divine' bread were made from each mold, placed in a silver chest and set near the head of the god with the inward parts of Osiris as described in the Book of the Dead.
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"
