reply to post by NJE777
NJE777 , Horus??????? Please…???
With all those stars, you ought to try to be an author…these fairy tales in the OP…SEE… www.bede.org.uk …SOME GOOD ADVICE for you to profit
from this SAD post…
“ 1. The first thing to do is ensure you cast your net as widely as possible. So within Christianity you should include every cult, heresy and sect
you can get your hands on. Gnosticism will be particularly helpful as they did indeed borrow large chunks of pagan thought which is partly why they
were considered heretics in the first place. As for paganism, this can include just about everything. Freke and Gandy comb not only Greek cults
(Oedipus) but also Egyptian (Horus and Osiris), Roman (Bacchus) and Persian (Mithras). Elsewhere you will find Celtic deities, Norse beserkers and
Indian mystics pulled into the fray. Now, with this vast body of writing, finding parallels will not be too challenging provided you are willing to
wade through it all.
2. But don't restrict yourselves to pagan religions from before the time of Christ. Remember your methodology should be that Christians copied pagans
and not the other way around. This is useful because you can now point to similarities between paganism and Christianity after the latter was already
widespread. So if, like Freke and Gandy, you can find a picture showing Bacchus on a cross dating from two hundred years after Jesus was crucified you
can still claim that the Christians copied the pagans and not the other way around.
3. Language is important. Christian terms such as 'salvation', 'Eucharist', 'word made flesh' and 'lamb of god' are common currency today.
Therefore when translating or paraphrasing pagan sources always use modern Christian language. Never mind that the ancient pagans would not have known
what you were on about - you are not talking to them. In this way you can call a woman being raped by various kinds of wildlife a 'virgin birth',
you can call having ones body parts stuck back together a 'resurrection' and you can call just about every Greek hero a 'son of god'. Also it is
helpful to use King James Bible phrases and style when quoting pagan texts. It gives them some more gravitas.
4. Do try to confuse liturgy and practice with history. For instance the mystery religions and Christianity were both underground movements so they
had to operate in similar sorts of ways. Sacred meals and ritual washing are as old as religion itself so the Christianity using them as well as
pagans is not surprising at all. Make it sound like a complete revelation.
5. Say totally different things are in fact closely related. For instance, Mithras was sometimes represented by a bull. Say this is the same as Jesus
being called the lamb of God (ignoring that one is a symbol of sexuality and strength and the other of innocence and humility). Compare the Mithric
ritual of taking a shower in the warm blood of the aforementioned bull with Christian baptism with water. Claim that the thieves crucified with Jesus
are the same as a pair of torch bearers that appear on some illustrations of Bacchus.
6. For goodness sake do not mention the things that really made the pagan mysteries interesting. After all your work of showing that Jesus and Bacchus
are one and the same, you will lose everything if you let on that Bacchus was the god of drunkenness and his worship involved getting plastered and
having sex with anything in sight (goats being a particular favourite). In fact, keep sex out of it altogether. Yes, sex was the central feature of an
awful lot of these pagan rituals but that is not the point your are trying to make.
7. Avoid up to date scholarship which will probably pour cold water over your vaunted theories. You will find plenty of nineteenth and early twentieth
century writers with a bone to pick that can support your wildest speculations. And do not worry if not everyone agrees with you - you can always
dismiss the dissenters as apologists or as those unable to cope with your earth shattering ideas.
Take this advice and you may be a best seller!!!!
