Atheists, tell me, a Roman Catholic: why should I become an atheist?

[Minimalist]

All mystery religions centered on a central savior deity (literally called
the soter, 'the savior', which is essentially the meaning of the word 'Jesus',
as explained in Chapter 6, §3), always a son of god (or occasionally a
daughter of god), who underwent some sort of suffering (enduring some
sort of trial or ordeal) by which they procured salvation for all who participate
in their cult (their deed of torment having given them dominion over
death). These deaths or trials were l itera11y ca11ed a 'passion' (patheon, lit.
'sufferings'), exactly as in Christianity.78 Sometimes this 'passion' was an
actual death and resurrection (Osiris); sometimes it was some kind of terrible
labor defeating the forces of death (Mithras), or variations thereof. All
mystery religions had an initiation ritual in which the congregant symbolically
reenacts what the god endured (1ike Christian baptism: Rom. 6.3-4;
Col. 2. 1 2), thus sharing in the salvation the god had achieved (Gal. 3.27;
1 Cor. 1 2. 1 3), and all involve a rituaJ meal that unites initiated members in
communion with one another and their god (I Cor. 1 1 .23-28). All of these
features are fundamental to Christianity, yet equally fundamental to all the
mystery cults that were extremely popular in the very era that Christianity
arose.79 The coincidence of all of these features together lining up this way
is simply too improbable to propose as just an accident.

Notably all the mystery religions were products of the same sort of cultural
syncretism. The Eleusinian mysteries were a syncretism of Levantine and
Hellenistic elements; the mysteries of Attis and Cybele were a syncretism of
Phrygian and Hellenistic elements; the mysteries of Jupiter Dolichenus were
a syncretism of Anatolian and Hellenistic elements; M ithraism was a syncretism
of Persian and Hellenistic elements; the mysteries of Isis and Osiris
were a syncretism of Egyptian and Hellenistic elements. Christianity is simply
a continuation of the same trend: a syncretism of Jewish and Hellenistic
elements. Each of these cults is unique and different from all the others in
nearly every detail-but it's the general features they all share in common
that reflect the overall fad that produced them in the first place, the very features
that made them popular and successful within Greco-Roman culture.


Richard Carrier, "On The Historicity of Jesus"  Pgs 98-100