I wouldn’t be a Christian

[The Grand Nudger]

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. 

Enjoy.

https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hoh...lMoniz.pdf

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. 

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/myst/hd_myst.htm
(savior figures are also a global belief)

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. 

The revelation of john was one of the last bits added.  It almost didn't make the cut.

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. 

-For that, you are going to have to do alot of research on your own.  In thread, I'll only mention again that the people who did actually follow the religion of the old testament realized..at the time and up to this day, that the christians were not getting their ideas from the ot, no matter what they claimed.  They weren't wrong..to consider them heretics and pagans.

This is your view of things, not that of the Christians. 

What on earth.....?  I don't believe in magic book or god.  That was the position of a person very important to the construction of christian belief, who thought that, had followers - and was executed for his troubles.  Marcion.

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. 

Us, is western culture.  So, I'm looking at the above, and I'm seeing that when you spoke of the formative value of christian theology, earlier..in the construction of western culture...you were probably talking more about the fact that christian people did and wrote and sculpted and painted things. Christian theology, itself, is wholly immaterial to that. They would have (and did) paint and write and sculpt things..and even these things changed christian theology.

[Belacqua]

Enjoy.

https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hoh...lMoniz.pdf

Thank you! According to this article, most apocalyptic tales are cyclical, as I said. Things go downhill, but then they start up again. It appears that the Norse and the Zoroastrian religions had non-cyclical ends in view. So I guess we can round up a bit and say that because we have three tales of an ending -- Christian, Norse, and Zoroastrian -- then the idea is "global." 

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/myst/hd_myst.htm
(savior figures are also a global belief)

No, sorry. Eleusian and Bacchic Mysteries were rituals and ceremonies that people went through to wake them up to the supernatural and prepare them for death. There is no savior figure involved. If you read the article at the link you provided, it says that early 20th century scholarship attempted to make the connection to Christian beliefs, but the differences are still very significant. Greeks and Romans who participated in the Mysteries did not have a savior figure, and the culture in general didn't think there was one who was coming, or that one was possible. 

The revelation of john was one of the last bits added.  It almost didn't make the cut.

But it did make the cut. It is part of the Bible. It is composed of Old Testament, not Greek, symbolism.

For that, you are going to have to do alot of research on your own.  In thread, I'll only mention again that the people who did actually follow the religion of the old testament realized..at the time and up to this day, that the christians were not getting their ideas from the ot, no matter what they claimed.  They weren't wrong..to consider them heretics and pagans.

I have done a lot of research on my own. This is something I have studied. 

To say that the Christians didn't get ideas from the Old Testament is wildly unhistorical. They did. As I said before, they changed the meanings and used them in new ways, just as they did with Greek ideas. And from a Jewish perspective they got it all wrong. But the origins in Hebrew culture are undeniable. Telling me to look it up won't change that. 

If you have some link to the contrary I am willing to look at it. Absent that, I will stick with the years of research that I've already done. 

What on earth.....?  I don't believe in magic book or god.  That was the position of a person very important to the construction of christian belief, who thought that, had followers - and was executed for his troubles.  Marcion.

You wrote that, "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." 

Christians in general do not think that the OT God is evil. They don't think that Jesus came to save us from God, because Jesus is God. (One person of the Trinity.) There are of course minority and Gnostic traditions that disagree. William Blake, for one, did think the OT God was a fake. In many eras he would have been severely punished for saying so. 

So yes, you can name some people who agree with your characterization. But what you wrote is not the position of any official Christian sect today, and hasn't been for centuries. 

you were probably talking more about the fact that christian people did and wrote and sculpted and painted things.  

And believed things and constructed theological systems. 

Christian theology, itself, is wholly immaterial to that.  

Wholly immaterial to what? The cultural monuments of Europe? 

Are you claiming that Christian theology is immaterial to the literature and art and music of European culture? Because that would be too silly a thing to say. 

They would have (and did) paint and write and sculpt things..and even these things changed christian theology.

True, sometimes the arts and the theology worked in dialectic and evolved together. This is one of the ways in which Christianity took ancient ideas from the Greeks and the Hebrews and molded them for new eras.

[The Grand Nudger]

Enjoy.

https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hoh...lMoniz.pdf

Thank you! According to this article, most apocalyptic tales are cyclical, as I said. Things go downhill, but then they start up again. It appears that the Norse and the Zoroastrian religions had non-cyclical ends in view. So I guess we can round up a bit and say that because we have three tales of an ending -- Christian, Norse, and Zoroastrian -- then the idea is "global." 

Three in a single link that I gave you..it's not an exhaustive list, and lets remember that beforehand you were certain that there were none.

No, sorry. Eleusian and Bacchic Mysteries were rituals and ceremonies that people went through to wake them up to the supernatural and prepare them for death. There is no savior figure involved. If you read the article at the link you provided, it says that early 20th century scholarship attempted to make the connection to Christian beliefs, but the differences are still very significant. Greeks and Romans who participated in the Mysteries did not have a savior figure, and the culture in general didn't think there was one who was coming, or that one was possible. 

...........no, sorry..what?  You asked for other savior figures.  It's a global archetype.  I was actually surprised that you weren't aware of the competition that jesus had just in that one little corner of the world. 

But it did make the cut. It is part of the Bible. It is composed of Old Testament, not Greek, symbolism.

I don't think that you understand the importance of it's placement in time and use of those concepts.  The revelation of john is an example of christians tacking on some jewish shit (and it was a really contentious thing) to a religion that they appear to have manufactured out of pagan origins..and then -claimed- to be of some ancient pedigree. That is, after all..why marcion had to go..even though they kept his book.

I have done a lot of research on my own. This is something I have studied. 

To say that the Christians didn't get ideas from the Old Testament is wildly unhistorical. They did. As I said before, they changed the meanings and used them in new ways, just as they did with Greek ideas. And from a Jewish perspective they got it all wrong. But the origins in Hebrew culture are undeniable. Telling me to look it up won't change that. 

If you have some link to the contrary I am willing to look at it. Absent that, I will stick with the years of research that I've already done. 

If I tell you some pagan story and then point at the old testament....well....that's "getting it from the OT" about as much as christians got their ideas from the ot.  You;ve done the research, ofc..so you know this.

You wrote that, "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." 

Christians in general do not think that the OT God is evil. They don't think that Jesus came to save us from God, because Jesus is God. (One person of the Trinity.) There are of course minority and Gnostic traditions that disagree. William Blake, for one, did think the OT God was a fake. In many eras he would have been severely punished for saying so. 

So yes, you can name some people who agree with your characterization. But what you wrote is not the position of any official Christian sect today, and hasn't been for centuries.

[
Because, like the other pagans they stole other shit from..those groups were eradicated so as to free themselves of competition while availing themselves of the product of the culture, religion, or pov..... 

Are you claiming that Christian theology is immaterial to the literature and art and music of European culture? Because that would be too silly a thing to say. 

It actually wouldn't be.  It would be far sillier to say that the christian music (just as one example) of europe did not owe it's existence to the contributions of a musical culture that vastly predated christianity.  Again, people changed the religion into their local flavors.  Christian music..in syria..does not sound like christian music.....in a southern baptist church.

The primacy or necessity or causal efficacy of christian theology in all of these things was a historically christian claim - but it's never been true.

[Belacqua]

You asked for other savior figures.  It's a global archetype.  I was actually surprised that you weren't aware of the competition that jesus had just in that one little corner of the world. 

And you didn't give me any. There are none in the Eleusinian or Bacchic Mysteries. There were other would-be saviors in Palestine at the time of Jesus because of Hebrew belief in the need for a savior. It is a belief from Hebrew culture, not Greek culture. If you want to claim that it is a global idea, you have yet to provide any evidence.

It would be far sillier to say that the christian music (just as one example) of europe did not owe it's existence to the contributions of a musical culture that vastly predated christianity.  Again, people changed the religion into their local flavors.  Christian music..in syria..does not sound like christian music.....in a southern baptist church.

For the last time, I am not claiming that Christian music, or anything else Christian, has no roots. 

Bruegel could only have painted his pictures in a Protestant Christian culture. Van Eyck could only have painted his pictures in a culture steeped in Christian devotio moderna. Michelangelo could only have painted his pictures in a Neoplatonic Christian culture. Music, literature, drama, what have you -- If you want to trace the origins of these ideas back further, that's fine. You could go back to single-celled organisms. But for whatever reason the ideas became Christian, and the works are deeply Christian.

Anyway, you are working hard to deny significance to anything Christian, and I think this is very strange. 


[/quote]

[The Grand Nudger]

You asked for other savior figures.  It's a global archetype.  I was actually surprised that you weren't aware of the competition that jesus had just in that one little corner of the world. 

And you didn't give me any. There are none in the Eleusinian or Bacchic Mysteries. There were other would-be saviors in Palestine at the time of Jesus because of Hebrew belief in the need for a savior. It is a belief from Hebrew culture, not Greek culture. If you want to claim that it is a global idea, you have yet to provide any evidence.

I'm really not sure where you want to go with this one.  OFC I gave you savior figures and their attendant cults..and, like the other article, that's not an exhaustive list?   Some of them were active in rome at the same time as the cult of christ began to form.  Others, completely unknown to the romans....but would be useful to europeans later, for example..as in the conquest of meso-america.  

For the last time, I am not claiming that Christian music, or anything else Christian, has no roots. 

Bruegel could only have painted his pictures in a Protestant Christian culture. Van Eyck could only have painted his pictures in a culture steeped in Christian devotio moderna. Michelangelo could only have painted his pictures in a Neoplatonic Christian culture. Music, literature, drama, what have you -- If you want to trace the origins of these ideas back further, that's fine. You could go back to single-celled organisms. But for whatever reason the ideas became Christian, and the works are deeply Christian.

Anyway, you are working hard to deny significance to anything Christian, and I think this is very strange. 

It's a common thing for me to poke holes in the undue deference christianity asserted for itself.  It's another one of the reasons I'm not a christian, disgusting tradition.

None of the ideas "became christian"...lol. Christians simply possess and repeat the ideas, predominantly of non christian origin - because they (both the people and the beliefs) are a part of western culture.

[The Grand Nudger]

Glaring omission, on my part, up above..the type of savior figure in christian theology is entirely -absent- in jewish theology despite it's common presence in both the pagan beliefs that were known to early christians and common globally but unknown to them.  In fact, the idea of a savior god in the flesh is categorically unacceptable.  God is not and cannot be a man. So we may as well add that wrinkle. They didn't get the christian idea of a savior from the OT.

The general supposition is that they "mistranslated" the ot..but they only seem to have done that -after- there was already a christian religion. As if they, like modern christer apologists, were desperately searching for something in the "historical records" that backed up their inane claims well after the fact.

"Is too! the same old god, which is a real god™, we found a story about him in this dusty old book..which sortoff looks like the same thing, if you look at it sideways and hit yourself over the head with a rock until it comes into focus"