(November 11, 2018 at 5:01 am)Khemikal Wrote: That is a globally common belief. You can look anywhere you like.
It's not Hindu or Buddhist or Shinto.
Do you have a link or a source or something to show me that this is global? And here I'm not saying that only Christianity has an origin story for humans. I'm saying that the notion of a drama with a beginning middle and end for human history is not something I've seen elsewhere. So, please show me something.
Quote:The hellenistic culture that christianity arose out of was roman, not greek.... they too had been hellenized, jesus was one of many contemporary savior figures in -their- pre christian society.
Right, but the word "hellene" means Greek. The Roman world was largely hellenized by the adoption of Greek ideas. However, I am asking you for the Greek or Roman origin of the idea of a savior figure. The idea of a savior was common in the hellenized world of the Hebrews, because the Hebrew idea remained.
If I'm wrong, please show me the Greek or Roman origin of the idea, in places without a direct Jewish influence.
Quote:At best, it's a borrowed ladder that they didn't actually understand and instead inserted their own cultural tropes into..and at worst (and entirely more likely) they tacked old magic book on -after- they'd come up with their new silly religion.
An old borrowed ladder of Hebrew origin. Important figures in early Christianity had better or worse knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures, but that doesn't change the origin of the idea. The Revelation of John, for example, is assembled from older Hebrew tropes. He may have misunderstood them or he may have adapted them while knowing that his readers would recognize their origins and see them as more significant for their multiple meanings.
Again, if you're going to show me that the concepts and symbols in Christianity that come from the Old Testament in fact have some other origin, I'll need some sort of link or argument. A bit of evidence.
Quote:The guy who gave them the idea for a magic book thought that jesus was here to -save- us from old magic books evil god.
This is your view of things, not that of the Christians.
Quote:Christianity isn't shaping us, and it never has been..we've been shaping it
Who is "us"? Are you and I Greeks? Have we preserved a pure Greek culture so as to sway the Christians? Or have the Christians stolen the Greek ideas that they liked and used them to influence European culture for centuries?
Many of the monuments of western culture, which continue to have relevance in our lives, are Christian. Their use of Greek ideas are shaped and expressed in a Christian idiom. It's true that Michelangelo's Last Judgement is a thoroughly Neoplatonic document in both theology and visual form -- but that's a picture of Christ in the middle, and it's in a Christian church. Am I to think that its Neoplatonic ideas are in fact not really Christian? Even books that aren't explicitly religious are nonetheless shaped by Christian thinking. Proust's novel, for example, while not a religious document, could only have been written in a Catholic culture. It is wildly unGreek.
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