Christ's birthday

[Minimalist]

It show that the Carthage general Hannibal never existed either!

He believes it, Adrian.

[Tiberius]

No, he was being sarcastic. You'd get that if you read the article, where it created an argument for the non-existence of Hannibal using the same arguments the Jesus Myth proponents use, to show that the arguments could technically be used for other historical figures.

I want to wrap up by showing how easy it is to produce a scenario where we can deny the historicity of a major public figure. When I published this spoof on the Secular Web's discussion board it was taken seriously even though with hindsight it seems ridiculous. The comments in italics are annotations to bring out points of similarity with the various Jesus Myth ideas in currency.

[AngelaRachnid]

I dont think christians do claim the 25th is His actual birthday unless they just dont have a clue about it. Its not christianity be deceptive.

Hola,

Just finished reading "The Jesus Mysteries" by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy"


it is christianity being deceptive.

A

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There are many things that go against the case of an historical Jesus in my opinion. I see no problem with creating Christ out of previous religions. It seems that the character of Christ was created mostly out of the gnostic writings and Judaism. They make Christ the fulfillment of the awaited messiah that is so often prophesied about in the O.T. The entire life and story of Christ is plagiarized from the O.T. and the N.T. often refers to text from the old out of context and then states on several occasions that Christ has fulfilled the prophecy etc. etc.

Not to mention all the myths from which several of the elements of the Christ story have been plagiarized. There are many pre-christian myths that have the same theme:born of a virgin, performed miracles, was executed, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven. A look into other ancient myths will prove my case just fine.

Yep that about sums it up. then the literalist Christians started believing it was true and went onto slaughter those people contradicting the bible in any way, the period when "God" was in charge also known as the dark ages (because they kept everyone ion the dark about the truth for ages )

A

[fr0d0]

Yep that about sums it up. then the literalist Christians started believing it was true and went onto slaughter those people contradicting the bible in any way, the period when "God" was in charge also known as the dark ages (because they kept everyone ion the dark about the truth for ages )

A

It was actually a period when God was very much out of the picture in truth.

[chatpilot]

God has always been in the picture as I have stated many times it's mans interpretation of the scriptures that influence how he will utilize those scriptures. The scriptures have been used to justify all sorts of atrocities committed by man on his fellow man. Although, the biblical god is not blameless he too has committed a huge amount of atrocities himself if the scriptures were taken as true. I am of the opinion that just because god is the so called creator of all things that does not give him the right to kill at will. That is like me buying a pet and then deciding I am going to kill it because it makes too much noise.

Regarding the 25th as the birthday of Christ as was stated earlier in the post it is a reference to the winter solstice. The religion of the time in the Roman empire was that of Sol invictus and the 25th was the date when light or the sun god conquered the darkness. It is also the longest day of the year.

[AngelaRachnid]

It was actually a period when God was very much out of the picture in truth.

Yea no protection what soever

A

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Regarding the 25th as the birthday of Christ as was stated earlier in the post it is a reference to the winter solstice. The religion of the time in the Roman empire was that of Sol invictus and the 25th was the date when light or the sun god conquered the darkness. It is also the longest day of the year.

And the birthday of Mithras, who used to be seen with the sun behind his head.................thats where where the halo/golden disc/plate thing behind the christians dieties comes from

A

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

And the birthday of Mithras, who used to be seen with the sun behind his head.................thats where where the halo/golden disc/plate thing behind the christians dieties comes from

A common claim,but not one supported by evidence..

The halo is feature of many religions. No one knows if there is only one source. It's not unusual for ideas and symbols to occur independently in different places. If the Christian use of the halo 'came' from anywhere,it's more likely to be directly lifted from Deus Sol Invictus, which in turn MAY have lifted it from Mithraism.

Although Christianity contains no original ideas or moral philosophy, I think people often confuse correlation and causation.

A halo (Greek: ἅλως; also known as a nimbus, aureole, glory, or gloriole) is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art. They have been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes. In, among other religions, Hellenistic Greek, Roman, Buddhist and Christian sacred art, sacred persons may be depicted with a halo in the form of a golden, yellow or white circular glow around the head, or around the whole body, this last often called a mandorla.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_%28rel...ography%29

[Minimalist]

where it created an argument for the non-existence of Hannibal using the same arguments the Jesus Myth proponents use,

That's a silly argument then, Adrian. There are multiple historical references to Hannibal, mainly from enemies, in addition to the tangible evidence. Aside from the extant sources there are references in Livy, at least, to earlier histories which he consulted.

I'm not saying that someone can't make a claim that this is similar to jesus...who is conspicuous by his absence from actual historical writing....but merely that the claim is ridiculous. One might go so far as to note that xtians were so embarrassed by the lack of historical reference to their godboy that they invented the Testimonium Flavianum just to clear up the mess.

[chatpilot]

Christians have been known to have forged historical documents to substantiate a claim for the existence of an historical Christ. Josephus is the most common one and the list goes on. The testimony of the so called church fathers are useless since they are the ones doing all the historical fudging in my opinion. Apologetics came about as a response to the many contradictions pointed out by skeptics and non believers. Apolegetics is in my opinion not philosophy it's just appears to be just like ID is not science but rather a pseudo science.

Apologetics is ass backward philosophy since it starts off with the existence of God as an absolute fact without evidence. Then it tries to build a case from it's unsupported "fact". Whereas in real philosophy and science there are no absolutes and theories are always subject to change based on the advancement of contradictory evidence. Faith has no contradictions it's based on just believing without evidence.

[Retorth]

Thats what apologetics is all about in the first place, init.