A Happy Easter Exposé

reply to post by saint4God


This is a "serious discussion." Easter (Ishtar) was celebrated much earlier than the resurrection of Jesus, and nobody even calls this holiday "the resurrection of Jesus." They call it Easter, because the tradition persists to this day since the church was not able to completely eradicate opposing cultures.

Are you also going to deny that the church launched the crusades, killed millions of Native Americans, and all the other nasty stuff historically attributed to your religion?

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
To say the thread is pointless is a cop out. There is plenty of serious discussion to partake in here, all you have to do is choose to acknowledge it... start by opening your eyes... which should lead to opening your mind.

You've posed no questions, only linkies to picturies.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
Maybe you'd care to reply to:

If you like.

Am i the only one who sees the irony in the holiest day in Christian faith, dedicated to celebrating the Son of God, is named after a goddess

Oester/Ishtar/Easter is a separate holiday, I've said this already. Those who care to study the history would know the difference and the reason for the consolidation.

and that this "greatest story ever told," simultaneously serves as a mecca

Mecca is also something different entirely, again, history book would help here.

of commerce for chocolate barons, dress/hat makers and basket weavers?

Nothing to do with Resurrection Sunday, Christ, God's Son, etc.

I think it would be very naive to think that two of the biggest religious holidays of the year are also two of the most commercial,

The pagan Easter and Santa Claus myth have caused inflated commercialization. Pagans are welcomed to worship who they wish, but surely you cannot call Pagans 'believers in God' just because they buy easter and santa clause candy/gifts.

is just some happen chance coincidence.

It isn't coincidence. The consolidation of celebratory days goes back over a thousand years ago to better manage townships by government officials.

Proselytizing is one of the central duties as a good christian, and apparently by any means possible... i suppose selling out and use of trickery can be easily forgiven by christ, you are saving lives from an eternity in hell after all.

Trickery is not a part of the Christian faith and is the antithesis of proselytizing, which is to say "spreading the truth". Any Christian who has read even the most common verse of John 3:16 knows that you cannot be 'saved' by 'trickery' or any other deception.

...or maybe you could share your thoughts on the OP or any of the videos or pictures provided...

Most of them have been addressed by me and others hundreds of times. If you go to a Zeitgeist thread, it's there and possibly with my name next to it...along with the George Carlin re-hash. If you'd like to speak from your own mind, then it'd certainly be more welcomed then the recycled Youtube videos passed around the countless threads on ATS.

instead of making a pointless post about supposedly being "pointless" and righteously wishing me "peace of mind" on this issue... in other words you are telling me to "stop questioning the hypocrisy and all the nonsense".

This is neither what I'd said nor meant and I'd appreciate it if you would allow me the ability to speak for myself, else it's doubly pointless that I reply at all.

So i will wish in direct response to your wish, that i wish you to do what we all came here to do... which is to Deny Ignorance, and in this thread to question the motives and origins behind this fabrication of a holiday.

By all means deny ignorance, but showing to class without doing any homework doesn't make a person qualified to be a teacher.

[edit on 16-4-2009 by saint4God]

Originally posted by bsbray11
Are you also going to deny that the church launched the crusades, killed millions of Native Americans, and all the other nasty stuff historically attributed to your religion?

Attribute what you wish to my religion (it ain't a popularity contest, trust me), but the truth is a follower of Christ, a believer in his words does not kill people:

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." - Luke 6:26-28

You can say I'm from Mars, but it does not make it true. Attribute away, but when it turns out not to be valid, be careful where the next accusing finger falls upon.

[edit on 16-4-2009 by saint4God]

reply to post by saint4God

Trickery is not a part of the Christian faith and is the antithesis of proselytizing, which is to say "spreading the truth". Any Christian who has read even the most common verse of John 3:16 knows that you cannot be 'saved' by 'trickery' or any other deception.

So does that mean that since my gpop refused another relatives' persistance in 'saving' him and finally suceeded when he had a full
on case of Dementia doesn't really count?

I'm sure it made the relative feel better, but why use such trickery when they knew how he stood all along?

Originally posted by virraszto
So does that mean that since my gpop refused another relatives' persistance in 'saving' him and finally suceeded when he had a full
on case of Dementia doesn't really count?

Judge for yourself: "He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts." - Luke 16:15

Originally posted by virraszto
I'm sure it made the relative feel better, but why use such trickery when they knew how he stood all along?

A good question to ask them. Perhaps in quoting this verse to them they'll see their actions in a different light? If indeed they felt deep down they were using trickery then they should. Or perhaps they believe they were breaking through the dementia and reaching his actual heart. Given the choice between the two and knowing that many people actually do try to have good motivation, the latter is more likely the case.

reply to saint4God


This thread has delivered as advertised, title speaks for itself...

but since the content within comes from an array of valid sources out side of the bible, they are not valid (aka pointless)?

Obviously the bible is your sole quote archive, life reference manual & history book all wrapped up in one. Knowing that all of your answers are located in one locale must give you a great sense of certainty in your convictions. The peace you feel and wish for others comes from this knowing that you have "The Truth"... and you wish for others to also have this "peace of mind"... but inorder for this to happen one must embrace ignorance... put the blinders on with only the bible within view.

How can you advocate such a narrow perspective?



[edit on 16-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
but since the content within comes from an array of valid sources out side of the bible, the are not valid (aka pointless)?

You're citing George Carlin as a 'valid source'? Also may want to look into
Zeitgeist instead of merely accepting what it is saying.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
Obviously the bible is your sole quote archive, life reference manual & history book all wrapped up in one. Knowing that all of your answers are located in one locale must give you a great sense of certainty in your convictions.

The Bible provides an excellent moral compass, it does not tell me how the Hittites defeated surrounding empires. That requires a history textbook (which is what I meant by 'history book' in my previous posts). The Bible is not my sole quote archive as you're assuming, just the only one that has been relevant to the discussion so far. Your topic is a slam on Christianity...so you wanted me to quote the tax code perhaps?

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
The peace you feel and wish for others comes from this knowing that you have "The Truth"... and you wish for others to also have this "peace of mind"... but inorder for this to happen one must embrace ignorance... put the blinders on with only the bible within view.

I was not always a Christian, I remember well not being a believer. The Bible does not delete previous knowledge, disregard experiences or suddenly narrow one's view of the world.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
How can you advocate such a narrow perspective?

You're assumption is that my perspective is narrow. May you not be judged so harshly. This finger-wagging is becoming dull and reinforces my initial inclination to not bother posting due to pointlessness. Here I am though, and make it a point not to dwell on previous decisions.

[edit on 16-4-2009 by saint4God]

Ok, let me get his straight, for i get lost in all the dance in dodging.

What you are saying is...
that you deny that the story of christ is very similar, if not the same,
to preceding myths of ancient sun deities?

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
Ok, let me get his straight, for i get lost in all the dance in dodging.

There is no dance nor dodge, are you easily lost?

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
What you are saying is...
that you deny that the story of christ is very similar, if not the same,
to preceding myths of ancient sun deities?

Yes, the story of Christ is dissimilar to preceding myths of ancient sun deities. Since you're unwilling to search the threads about Zeitgeist, I've done some of the homework for you on a thread I'd attended. This is the point of the dicussion where I include the requests non-biblical qoute.

QED:

posted on 22-7-2007 @ 09:54 PM

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
"The Greatest Story Ever Told"
Alright I'd like to hear the counter arguments to this thing.

-Jesus = astrotheological Sun God like the rest of them.

Not a real good match, there. Sun gods usually have barges or chariots or some vehicle that they're associated with that carries them across the sky. No religion has just a sun god and nothing else... if the sun's a god, then so is the moon. No monotheistic religion weakens its god by saying that the god is the god of only one thing.

-Cross = cross of the zodiac

That section made me want to find the writer and kick him. I was an astrologer and what he came up with was pure nonsense.

-30 years old began ministry + died at 33 = prosession of the ages

No age is ever given for Jesus in the Bible. Earliest birth date is about 8 BC and earliest death date is about 26AD -- latest birth and death dates are 6 AD and 37 AD, meaning he could be as young as 20 or as old as 45.

-12 apostles = 12 constallations of the zodiac

Very very weak. No real astrological associations, either with the traditional objects associated with the saints or their personalities.

-Judeo-Chistrian beliefs are 95% plagerized from Egyptian mythology.

Only if the Judaeo Christians believed in:
* multiple gods
* that the only way to get into "heaven" was to be a good and honorable person... belief in a particular god/gods wasn't necessary
* the secular ruler of the land is a god
* homosexual acts by god/gods were okay
* that the god had wives/wife and lovers
* that the soul is composed of multiple parts
* that gods married their siblings
* that the chief god could give birth to other gods (not angels, gods equal in power)
* that the dead had an afterlife only as long as their body wasn't destroyed
* that you could pray offerings for the dead and they'd receive gifts in the afterlife.
* that you sacrificed animals to the gods

-Jesus birth and life story is the same as that of Horus

You mean that Jesus' mother was married to his father and was in fact his father's sister, that Jesus' father was killed by his evil uncle, that Jesus' widowed mother went to live in a swamp and hid out with her sister, that Jesus was hatched as an egg and flew into the sky when he was born, that his evil uncle spent a lot of time trying to kill him, that Jesus had his eye torn out in a last battle with his evil uncle, that Jesus had homosexual relationship with his uncle and his uncle became pregnant by Jesus, and that Jesus never died but rides in his father's sun barge across the sky and helps defeat the evil serpent each night (although his father's Great Cat creation is actually the one that defeats the evil serpent of the underworld every night)??

..because that's the story of Horus, as told in papyrii and temples and the Book of the Underworld and the Book of the Dead.

I'm pretty well read on the Bible and I think I would have remembered the egg bit and the never dying bit and the homosexual relationships bit, too.

-Death and resurrection in 3 days represents the suns movement at the end of the year wher it floats for 3 days before rising back in the other direction; December 25th.

In a word, no.

The winter solstice is about December 21... and it doesn't float. All sorts of ancient civilizations had sun calendars that marked the date. December 25 was, however, Mithras' birthdate.

-Siruis is the Star in the East, and the 3 stars next to it represent the 3 Magi Kings. These line up with the sun during the Winter Solstice.

Notice, please, that various astronomical sites show us that Sirius is in the winter nighttime sky as is Orion... and they can't possibly line up with the sun then (and they're actually not on the ecliptic.)
www.northern-stars.com...

-Jesus = Pisces, the fish god;

He can't be a sun god and a fish god. Besides, depending on what you're going by, the Age of Aquarius started in 1978 or so. (this section was just... awful.)

I know I sound critical (I'm not being nearly as harsh and picky as I could), but if you'd look up the references you'd see just what a mess the thing is. As a "mockumentary" it would be okay (sort of) ... spreading disinformation in the name of a fun good time.

But as a piece of Great Truth? No.

[edit on 17-4-2009 by saint4God]

Yes more dance in dodging, you say there are similarities by deliberately choosing not to acknowledge them. Prime example in your last post, you ignore the common characteristics of horus by going out of your way to only point out those that differ... does that somehow magically erase the common traits presented?

Maybe you'd also care to work your dodging/detouring/deflecting magic on the following gods/godesses of the ancient BC world who had very similar "Easter" time stories to tell:

Cybele & Attis from ancient Greece
Aphrodite from ancient Cyprus
Ashtoreth from ancient Israel
Astarté from ancient Greece
Demeter from Mycenae
Hathor from ancient Egypt
Ishtar from Assyria
Kali, from India
Ostara from Norway

If you took an honest objective approach to this inquiry ...
you will clearly see and admit that the death and resurrection theme is nothing unique to jesus. Therefore if this common adventure story is present for more then one preceding deity, one would have to conclude that the bible was at best in part plagiarized.

As for replying to the rest of your post... you are exhausting me with all of this avoidance/denial ...to be continued.

[edit on 17-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

I suppose you are right after all.

It is "pointless" to point out how the bible is no different then many of the other stories of it's day to someone who is in denial. It's arrogant to claim that one story is better then the rest, and very blind (blind faith) to not acknowledge their similarities.

To help me understand a more rational Christian mindset on this topic, i found a segment from Beyond Today by the United Church of God, titled Easter Exposed. Since they speak your language, maybe you'll be more inclined to listening to them versus me. Like Zeitgeist, they aren't afraid to tackle this subject straight on with an honest assessment. Though barely cover the breathe of terrain that Zeitgeist does, they at least acknowledge Christianity's adoption/assimilation/plagiarism of sun gods & pagan symbols/rituals.

Where their perspective is fundamentally flawed, is in not recognizing that the bible is also a "myth". This debate we are having is over the validity of these stories. You hold one up with the conviction that it has a monopoly on truth, where as i see truth expressed in most fictional works. The Bible, Book of Mormon, Koran, Bhagavad-Gita etc... all have equal merit.

Here's the Holidays or Holy Days? pamphlet they plug during the program. (PDF)



On this next segment, they basically recycle the content they covered before but with some other biblical points of view. What i found most noteworthy was when the paster at the tail end of the show shares his view of the holiday as a kid... but doesn't go any deeper then just mentioning how he thought it was all about the candy, eggs, bunny etc





[edit on 19-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

As for one scholar that speaks volumes of Truth... we should all turn to Joseph Campbell's work. Here's a segment from the documentary series The Power of the Myth, that speaks to the common theme of the hero throughout all of the world's religions... Jesus's sacrifice is nothing new/unique.

Google Video Link

Google Video Link

[edit on 19-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Hi/

Pascha is the correct term for the celebration of Christs Resurrection.

Easter may be a pagan celebration but Pascha is not!
Sunday may be a pagan word for a pagan day, but the correct day is called 'Lords day' as it was in early Christianity.
The Greeks and many other Christian Countries still use the Lords day translated in their language.
eg/Kiriaki in greek means the Lords day.

IX
happy Pascha to all.
helen

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
Yes more dance in dodging,

Byrd's post delivers quite well on Zeitgeist without dancing or dodging. You like using that phrase so much, that you're now labelling others for doing it, so I'll use your style of quote this time, "the post speaks for itself".

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
you say there are similarities by deliberately choosing not to acknowledge them. Prime example in your last post, you ignore the common characteristics of horus by going out of your way to only point out those that differ... does that somehow magically erase the common traits presented?

A direct address towards these would be more helpful instead of a generalized comment saying that there are indeed similarities.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
Maybe you'd also care to work your dodging/detouring/deflecting magic on the following gods/godesses of the ancient BC world who had very similar "Easter" time stories to tell:

Cybele & Attis from ancient Greece
Aphrodite from ancient Cyprus
Ashtoreth from ancient Israel
Astarté from ancient Greece
Demeter from Mycenae
Hathor from ancient Egypt
Ishtar from Assyria
Kali, from India
Ostara from Norway

There is no doubt that most of these above are the same, however the Aphrodite one is a stretch (but I'll let a believer in that religion defend such as claim as it provides no value to me to dispute it). Also saying two Greek goddesses are the same is counterintuitive to how the Greeks perceived goddesses as individuals.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
If you took an honest objective approach to this inquiry ...
you will clearly see and admit that the death and resurrection theme is nothing unique to jesus. Therefore if this common adventure story is present for more then one preceding deity, one would have to conclude that the bible was at best in part plagiarized.

Very well, what original transcript of the Bible have you if your claim is that it is plagiarized?

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
As for replying to the rest of your post... you are exhausting me with all of this avoidance/denial ...to be continued.

You bore me with your repetition and refusal to change your paradigm. Now, we can continue to wave each other off, or we can attempt at a serious progressive discussion. The choice is yours.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
I suppose you are right after all.

It is "pointless" to point out how the bible is no different then many of the other stories of it's day to someone who is in denial.

Fortunately for you then I am not in denial. Present the facts and evidence and we can discuss.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
It's arrogant to claim that one story is better then the rest, and very blind (blind faith) to not acknowledge their similarities.

Similarities are similarities whether acknowledge or not.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I
To help me understand a more rational Christian mindset on this topic, i found a segment from Beyond Today by the United Church of God, titled Easter Exposed.

This explains the 'inspiration' for your thread title. That's a good media-hound *pat pat pat* (seen the videos before). Whenevery YOU would like to contribute something to the discussion, that'd be most interesting to hear.

[edit on 22-4-2009 by saint4God]

Originally posted by helen670
Hi/

Pascha is the correct term for the celebration of Christs Resurrection.

Easter may be a pagan celebration but Pascha is not!
Sunday may be a pagan word for a pagan day, but the correct day is called 'Lords day' as it was in early Christianity.
The Greeks and many other Christian Countries still use the Lords day translated in their language.
eg/Kiriaki in greek means the Lords day.

IX
happy Pascha to all.
helen

Well said and thanks for the clarification. Being that Pascha causes confusion as a non-english word, I tend to stick to the translated version as one key complaint about translation and origin is confusion, to which I try to clarify in the best English terms possible. Thanks for the contribution to the thread.

Eggs being a part of Easter celebrations has a lot more than, if even, any correlation to their symbolism for fertility.

Until the late middle ages Christians fasted and abstained during Lent to such a degree that their diet was very similar during those 40 days to the current vegan diet. Meat, dairy products, eggs etc were all abstained from. Hence the Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Tuesday traditions of using up all the meat and dairy products the night before Ash Wednesday. On Easter Sunday the fasting was over and time to tuck in! There are many very old Paschal domestic traditions which involved eggs and decorating and sharing them among the family. While the fast became less severe in Western Christianity the Eastern tradition (and Greek, Coptic, etc.) maintained the severity of the fast and still do in many places to this day.

Eggs were often painted, particularly red denoting Christ's passion, and blessed on Holy Saturday to distinguish them from other eggs. The famous Fabergé eggs were a regal adaptation of this tradition.

Re. all the other things which people bring up about Easter, Christmas, pagan gods etc. bring up, you really should do some reading about the evolution of many of the Christian traditions which have little or no reference to the pagan rituals often claimed. Its so often a case of the fallacy of "undistributed middle" where some say "Pagans do X. Christians do X. Therefore Christians stole X from Pagans" A bit like "Cats have fur. Dogs have fur. Therefore dogs stole fur from cats." Its a nonsense.

If you'd like a bit of fun, bring em on, fill these pages with more of your claims and allow me to disassemble them for you and help you deny ignorance.

You guys amaze me and crack me up at the same time .
I suppose if you believe in miracles/fairy-tales you also believe in cowinkadinks also?

Ok chop/omit/spin/distort this...

Was the bible plagiarized from other works of fiction?

The similarities between the stories and characters in the Bible and those from previous mythologies are both undeniable and well-documented. It is only due to extreme religious bias that pervades our world today that people rarely get exposed to this information.

In this short piece I'll attempt to show blatant similarities with regard to two of the most important Biblical narratives: the Genesis story and the character of Jesus Christ. The Book of Genesis's Flood Story Mirrors The Epic Of Gilgamesh From Hundreds Of Years Earlier

Here are a number of elements that both Gilgamesh and the flood story in Genesis share:

1. God decided to send a worldwide flood. This would drown men, women, children, babies and infants, as well as eliminate all of the land animals and birds.

2. God knew of one righteous man, Ut-Napishtim or Noah.

3. God ordered the hero to build a multi-story wooden ark (called a chest or box in the original Hebrew), and the hero initially complained about the assignment to build the boat.

4. The ark would have many compartments, a single door, be sealed with pitch and would house one of every animal species.

5. A great rain covered the land with water.

6. The ark landed on a mountain in the Middle East.

7. The first two birds returned to the ark. The third bird apparently found dry land because it did not return.

8. The hero and his family left the ark, ritually killed an animal, offered it as a sacrifice.

9. The Babylonian gods seemed genuinely sorry for the genocide that they had created. The God of Noah appears to have regretted his actions as well, because he promised never to do it again.

Keep in mind the level of detail in these similarities. It's not a matter of just a flood, but specific details: three birds sent out, resisting the call to build the arc, and a single man being chosen by God to build the arc.

[Then consider that the first story (Gilgamesh) came from Babylon -- hundreds of years before the Bible was even written.

Do you honestly think, based on the similarities above, that those who wrote the Genesis story had not heard the Gilgamesh story? And if they had heard it, and they were simply rehashing an old, very popular tale, what does that say about the Bible?

continued...

[edit on 22-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Jesus's Story Is An Obvious Rehashing Of Numerous Previous Characters:

Perhaps even more compelling is the story of Christ himself. As it turns out it's not even remotely original. It is instead nothing more than a collection of bits and pieces from dozens of other stories that came long before. Here are some examples.

1. Asklepios healed the sick, raised the dead, and was known as the savior and redeemer.

2. Hercules was born of a divine father and mortal mother and was known as the savior of the world. Prophets foretold his birth and claimed he would be a king, which started a search by a leader who wanted to kill him. He walked on water and told his mother, "Don't cry, I'm going to heaven." when he died. As he passed he said, "It is finished."

3. Dionysus was literally the "Son of God", was born of a virgin mother, and was commonly depicted riding a donkey. He healed the sick and turned water to wine. He was killed but was resurrected and became immortal. His greatest accomplishment was his own death, which delivers humanity itself.

4. Osiris did the same things. He was born of a virgin, was considered the first true king of the people, and when he died he rose from the grave and went to heaven.

5. Osiris's son, Horus, was known as the "light of the world", "The good shepherd", and "the lamb". He was also referred to as, "The way, the truth, and the life." His symbol was a cross.

6. Mithra's birthday was celebrated on the 25th of December, his birth was witnessed by local shepherds who brought him gifts, had 12 disciples, and when he was done on earth he had a final meal before going up to heaven. On judgment day he'll return to pass judgment on the living and the dead. The good will go to heaven, and the evil will die in a giant fire. His holiday is on Sunday (he's the Sun God). His followers called themselves "brothers", and their leaders "fathers". They had baptism and a meal ritual where symbolic flesh and blood were eaten. Heaven was in the sky, and hell was below with demons and sinners.

7. Krishna had a miraculous conception that wise men were able to come to because they were guided by a star. After he was born an area ruler tried to have him found and killed. His parents were warned by a divine messenger, however, and they escaped and was met by shepherds. The boy grew up to be the mediator between God and man.

8. Buddha's mother was told by an angel that she'd give birth to a holy child destined to be a savior. As a child he teaches the priests in his temple about religion while his parents look for him. He starts his religious career at roughly 30 years of age and is said to have spoken to 12 disciples on his deathbed. One of the disciples is his favorite, and another is a traitor. He and his disciples abstain from wealth and travel around speaking in parables and metaphors. He called himself "the son of man" and was referred to as, "prophet", "master", and "Lord". He healed the sick, cured the blind and deaf, and he walked on water. One of his disciples tried to walk on water as well but sunk because his faith wasn't strong enough.

9. Apollonius of Tyana (a contemporary of Jesus) performed countless miracles (healing sick and crippled, restored sight, casted out demons, etc.) His birth was of a virgin, foretold by an angel. He knew scripture really well as a child. He was crucified, rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples to prove his power before going to heaven to sit at the right hand of the father. He was known as, "The Son of God".

The problem, of course, is that these previous narratives existed hundreds to thousands of years before Jesus did.

Logic Sets In

Many are familiar with Occam's Razor, which states that, all things being equal, one should not seek complex explanations when more simple ones are available. No one disputes that these other stories predate the Judeo-Christian Bible, so we really only have two options:

1. The religious explanation is that while the other stories were very much the same as those in the Bible, they are all false. But when they occur in the Bible (despite it being much the same content), this time the stories are true. One explanation of the resemblances to the earlier myths is that Satan created them to lead people astray from the true Messiah that would come much later. So essentially, an ultra-powerful and evil being (Created by God) influenced humanity to create deceptive stories -- thousands of years before the real version -- so that people wouldn't believe the real thing when they saw it.

2. The alternative explanation is that the nature of storytelling during the period was such that central themes propagated through time. This combined with the natural tendency to have certain repeating elements in human stories, and the fact that the Bible stories came after the other ones, explains the similarities to previous myths. And since the stories of worldwide floods, virgin births, and people rising from the dead that the Bible is based on were false to begin with (which everyone agrees on) -- they are also false in the Bible. In short, the Bible is simply another iteration of the same themes that came long before it.

Which of these two explanations makes more sense to you?

Source: Freethoughtpedia.com - Daniel Meissler

[edit on 22-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

reply to post by The All Seeing I


A bit of history cracks you up? Facts amaze you? Hmmm, I can see why we have a problem here.

The Epic of Gilgamesh certainly has many similarities with the story of Noah and the Ark - and, your point is what? I would actually think it quite telling that this flood story does indeed appear in many ancient cultures, nice back-up for the veracity of the biblical story. Who did the Babylonians steal it from? Who was "Author Zero" who dreamed up a story which had such an influence on so many diverse cultures? As I pointed out much earlier in this thread, in a post you seem to have accidentally ignored, similiarities in stories doesn't trouble me at all, neither do I think they are demonic to confuse the faithful, yadda, yadda, yadda. They demonstrate the inherent reason of humanity made in God's image which seeks Him by reason in the world and its events and approaches a certain knowledge of Him before/without revelation.

The same is of course true of the tales included in your pantheon of "gods". I would recommend however that you check your source's assertions. Osiris did not "when he died he rose from the grave and went to heaven", he became king in the land of the dead. For more on this topic this thread might interest you.
How strange that "these previous narratives existed hundreds to thousands of years before Jesus did" when one of them is a contemporary of Jesus.

The two options your source suggests: (1) is simply wrong as points here and elsewhere I have made points out, (2) "the natural tendency to have certain repeating elements in human stories", hmmm, I wonder where that "natural tendency" comes from - evolution I'm sure, such an advantage to procreation the story of the flood has been.