Is Christianity created from combining ideas from other religions into one?

Advent:
The season of Advent (Latin adventus, "coming") marks the beginning of the church year. In the Western churches, it encompasses four Sundays, beginning with the Sunday nearest to November 30 and ending on Christmas Eve. In Eastern Orthodox churches, Advent is longer, usually beginning on November 15.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ that is observed on December 25. The English word "Christmas" derives from the old English Christes maesse, meaning "Christ's mass."

these both are taken from the winter solstice (Yule) introduced by the Germanic Pagans;

Yule or Yuletide ("Yule-time") is a winter festival that was initially celebrated by the historical Germanic people as a pagan religious festival, though it was later absorbed into, and equated with, the Christian festival of Christmas. The festival was originally celebrated from late December to early January on a date determined by the lunar Germanic calendar. The festival was placed on December 25 when the Christian calendar (Julian calendar) was adopted. Scholars have connected the celebration to the Wild Hunt.

Easter:
Easter is a spring festival that celebrates the central event of the Christian faith: the resurrection of Christ three days after his death by crucifixion. [1] Easter is the oldest Christian holiday and the most important day of the church year. All the Christian movable feasts and the entire liturgical year of worship are arranged around Easter.


Spring Equinox;
The end of March is the focus for a number of religious and traditional celebrations. As the sun appears to cross the earth's equator on the 20th or 21st of March, entering the Zodiacal sign of Aries, day and night will be equal in length. This astronomical phenomenon is a day anciently revered amongst Pagan peoples. Their festivals included Alban Elfed, the Teutonic festival in honour of Eostre, Roman Hilaria Matris Deûm, Welsh Gwyl Canol Gwenwynol ('Day of the Gorse'), the Wiccan Eostar (Ostara) Sabbat and the Christian Feast of the Annunciantion of the Virgin Mary (Lady Day) as well as Easter itself.

Halloween we all know is pagan but for those who dont know the origins;
Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)".[1] The Irish festival's name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".[1](Celts were Pagan)

Satan:
Similar concepts in other religions: Zoroastrianism (The "lie" (druj) is manifest only as decay or chaos, not an entity.), Hinduism (In contrast to Christianity and Islam, Hinduism does not recognize any central evil force or entity such as the Devil opposing God and man. Hinduism does recognize that different beings (e.g., asuras) and entities can perform evil acts, under the temporary dominance of the guna of tamas, and cause worldly sufferings), Buddhism (A devil-like figure in Buddhism is Mara. He is a tempter, who also tempted Gautama Buddha by trying to seduce him with the vision of beautiful women who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara's daughters. Mara personifies unskillfulness, the "death" of the spiritual life.), Ancient Egypt (In the Ausarian drama we find that Ausar (Greek: Osiris) is chopped into 13 pieces by Set. Auset (Isis) collects all of his pieces save his phallus. Horus, son of Ausar and Auset sets out to avenge the death and dismemberment of his father by confronting Set. Horus is victorious over Set and Ausar, being brought back from the dead becomes lord of the underworld. It is this drama that gives us the cosmic conflict between good and evil, evil being embodied by Set. This is not to say that Set was always seen as an evil character in Ancient Egyptian theology.)

if you put all these holidays together and speak in 1/2 truths about them you can create the cristian holidays...if you combine all of the other religions "satans" you can create lucifer and even what happened to him and why he is now in hell...you just need to look hard enough to find things that are older than christianity, and that even the religions depectied had been where jesus had, so he had acess to all this knowlage to create what he wanted with it...i dont believe the bible is 100% true. My personal opinion is that it was writen in 1/2 truths and Jesus was a seer/oracle.

read "ghosts of vesuvius- the last days of pompeii, herculaneam, how towers fall and other strange coincidences"... Charles Pellegrino. AWESOME book, touches on some of this too. Fascinating.

reply to post by crazyray


Awsome will do! thanks

LOL keep digging buddy.

It only gets better the more you look at it.

Check out Sumerian flood stories and how the elements match the bible but precede it by thousands of years.

Christianity originates from the Old Testament, 100%. You are looking at bits a pieces and tying them to Christianity because they are similar but there is no chain of evidence.

So is Judaism derived from other religions? I highly doubt it, Judaism is the most unique "religion" on the planet, incomparable to any other, past or future. If you want to understand Christianity, you should learn more about Judaism.

reply to post by BioStatistic


just quickly scaned over a recovered text; this matches alot of noahs flood stories; heres a link:

www.historywiz.com...

yes.....this was a serious question yeah?

reply to post by 2XOHsurf


Judaism is the first fourm of Christianity...watch the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" it depicts that it was the Pre-Zionists and the Christians that fought over a belief in god and witch one is true. Many old historical movies and books show that in the begining there were fights between the jewish, the Roman catholics and the Christian Armies, AND most of judaism boomed AFTER the celtics had died out. Goliath i believe was one of the LAST celtics who were hunted as witches for there pagan belief, just like the druids, shamans and Alchemests(Old-Wiccans not the Neo-Crap thats out nowadays.) most of the history was destroied by the Romans Due to wanting to be the dominant race, Cesar was the original Hitler and The scandinavian Pagans and Christians that lived together in peace wiped them out and then the Dark ages started...ive studied history for 2 years after i gave up on trying to cope with my mother thinking i was an agent of satan! And i will admit im only 17 but ive dedicated my schoolwork to Science and History. having a young mind that was uncorrupt by anything and being anti-social for the past year and a 1/2 has helped me realize alot of this is bogus just like the world we live in.

reply to post by Hardstepah


More of a Article format to catch your eye.

Every concept is an expansion of a previous concept. This is how progression and evolution works. You dont get To Albert Einstein without going through, Niels Bohr, Isaac Newton, Galileo etc. You dont get Christianity without reading the Torah, Buddhism, Sumerian, Egyptian. Just like how you couldnt have Islam without Christianity. Religion and religious books become really interesting when one is able to understand how they influence each other, and are able to suspend any belief of 'the one true religion', or a book that was written by divine intervention absent of any previous influence.

reply to post by Solsthime331


Question: "Did Constantine decide what books belonged in the Bible?"

Answer: It is very important to clarify exactly what role the Emperor Constantine played in the Council of Nicea, what the purpose for the council was, what happened at Nicea, and briefly how the canon—the Bible as we know it—was formed. Constantine was a Roman Emperor who lived from 274 to 337 A.D. He is most famous for becoming the single ruler of the Roman Empire (after deceiving and defeating Licinius, his brother-in-law) and supposedly converting to Christianity. It is debated whether or not Constantine was actually a believer (according to his confessions and understanding of the faith) or just someone trying to use the church and the faith to his own advantage. Constantine called the Council of Nicea—the first general council of the Christian church, 325 A.D.—primarily because he feared that disputes within the church would cause disorder within the empire. The dispute in mind was Arianism, which was the belief that Jesus was a created being. The famous phrase they were disputing was, "There was when He was not." This was in reference to Jesus and was declared heretical by the council and thus resulted in the following words about Christ in the Nicene Creed: "God from true God…from the Father…not made." It was determined by the council that Christ was homoousia, meaning, one substance with the Father.

Concerning manuscripts that were burned at the order of Constantine, there is really no mention of such a thing actually happening at the order of Constantine or at the Council of Nicea. The Arian party's document claiming Christ to be a created being, was abandoned by them because of the strong resistance to it and was torn to shreds in the sight of everyone present at the council. Constantine, and the Council of Nicea, for that matter, had virtually nothing to do with the forming of the canon. It was not even discussed at Nicea. The council that formed an undisputed decision on the canon took place at Carthage in 397, sixty years after Constantine's death. However, long before Constantine, 21 books were acknowledged by all Christians (the 4 Gospels, Acts, 13 Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation). There were 10 disputed books (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, Ps-Barnabas, Hermas, Didache, Gospel of Hebrews) and several that most all considered heretical—Gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthaias, Acts of Andrew, John, etc.

be well

This is interesting...

Theodosius’ death precipitated a political crisis, and the barbarians were soon taking advantage of it with invasions on an unprecedented scale. The intervention of the state in theological matters appeared less attractive to people who had witnessed the trials of the Priscillianists and the cruel executions that concluded them. Many Christians became less certain of themselves and went back to paganism. Many pagans became more aggressive and dared to say openly that the new religion was responsible for the collapse of the empire. In the pagan field resignation yielded to fury, and in the Christian field aggressiveness had to be turned into self-defence. This incidentally brought about a revival of pagan historical writing in Greek: pagan Greek historiography had been conspicuously absent from the ideological struggles of the fourth century. It thus becomes clear that the years between 395 and 410 saw new developments in historiography which are beyond the scope of this lecture. ...

Christianity did originate from the old testament, and the old testament was a fabricated history

In times of persecution and of uneasy tolerance the Church had developed its idea of orthodoxy and its conception of the providential economy of history. It emerged victorious to reassert with enhanced authority the unmistakable pattern of divine intervention in history, the ruthless elimination of deviations. The foundations of Christian historiography had been laid long before the time of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.

At the beginning of the fourth century Christian chronology had already passed its creative stage. What Eusebius did was to correct and to improve the work of his predecessors, among whom he relied especially on Julius Africanus (14). He corrected details which seemed to him wrong even to the extent of reducing the priority of the Biblical heroes over the pagan ones. Moses, a contemporary of Ogyges according to Julius Africanus, was made a contemporary of Kekrops with a loss of 300 years. Eusebius was not afraid of attacking St Paul’s guesses about the chronology of the Book of Judges. He freely used Jewish and anti-Christian sources such as Porphyrios.
Found Here

The above article is worth reading in full... But Wait, there's more! Here's an interesting Acedemic
Paper by Barbra Percival.

Fact: Christians were only legalized in Rome after 3 centuries of persecution; source
Fact: When Rome began to fall, we see the military weakening; source
Fact: Pagans were forced to Christianity: source

Something came before Christianity that they adopted and adapted to sell their religion, what came before that or even before that?

Fact is, it all came from somewhere else and the earliest records we find are the Sumerian texts. Everything else is man making god in his own image. Can we believe it? WELL, that's where faith comes in, doesn't it?

We all know Christianity is the world's biggest lie, and for those of you who slam me for this, do your homework before you post because I can PROVE everything in this post.

I highly suggest for the rest of you, look into watching "Zeitgeist" and "What The Bleep Do We Know?"

reply to post by Solsthime331


Yes, many christian religions have combined and distorted ancient pagan traditions and rituals into there practice. However, true christians do not partake in these pagan traditions, neither does the bible support these pagan celebrations.

Originally posted by Caleb.K
reply to post by Solsthime331

 

Yes, many christian religions have combined and distorted ancient pagan traditions and rituals into there practice. However, true christians do not partake in these pagan traditions, neither does the bible support these pagan celebrations.

LOL they just bastardized them.

All religions are just collections of prior stories, that are modified.. Well, except maybe Jedi religions and such..

Originally posted by BioStatistic


LOL they just bastardized them.

Agreed, Why are so many people bind to the fact that Christmas was not Christs birth it was the Birth of a new year, It was the winter solstice! Yule is the time of greatest darkness and the longest night of the year. The Winter Solstice had been associated with the birth of a "Divine King" long before the rise of Christianity. Since the Sun is considered to represent the Male Divinity in many Pagan Traditions, this time is celebrated as the "return of the Sun God" where He is reborn of the Goddess.

The OP has touched on a very interesting subject that I have seen hints of in other threads here on ATS

From what I have learned, if we use the bible as an example (one that I know so I can reference) we can learn this:

There is a creation story. There are others similar to it in other societies. There is a flood story. Once again written about in other societies. There is the story of the tower of babel. I have just read a post where there is a Chinese Hill tribe that has an oral tradition almost identical to that of the book of Genesis right up to the tower of babel and then it parts ways with the bible after that.

I don't think it really matters on where the old testament originated what really matters are the 'common threads' Where this is leading to is the story of the tower of babel. The people built a tower that was so big that they thought they were better than God. He got mad, split everyone up, scattered them around the globe and mixed up their languages. This is the bible's explanation for all the different races and languages upon the earth.

So, if you look at religions, it would follow that there should be some similarities because before the tower of babel incident everyone had the same belief system.

Enter one Mr Jesus Christ. This is now well along the timeline of Judaism so the religion has it's own distinct flavour by now. As many of you have pointed out, Christianity took a while to succeed at being a recognised religion. The Romans used to throw Christians to the lions for sport in the early days for instance. Once it became the religion of Rome, many of the pagan beliefs were assimilated and Christianised. This was an effort to make the faith more palatable to the locals no doubt. After all, it would be easier to say and hear, 'Hey instead of celebrating this pagan festival, let's have a party for Jesus" instead of "death be upon the pagans who celebrate solstice"

It is widely acknowledged that apart from easter, none of the dates of the festivals like Christmas etc are on the actual dates of the Christian events. Jesus was most likely born in March April (Spring) as there are references to lambs being around when he was born.

Originally posted by 2XOHsurf
Christianity originates from the Old Testament, 100%. You are looking at bits a pieces and tying them to Christianity because they are similar but there is no chain of evidence.

So is Judaism derived from other religions? I highly doubt it, Judaism is the most unique "religion" on the planet, incomparable to any other, past or future. If you want to understand Christianity, you should learn more about Judaism.

And with further study, you will find that the Old Testament is a retelling of even older Babylonian and Sumerian stories. All roads lead to Ancient Sumer, friend, and that was the origin of religion. The Gods and Goddess left, and the survivors wanted them to come back, so they created certain rituals designed to bring that back. Thus was born religion. After that, men with an agenda took over and made everything male dominated, and killed off everyone who protested and did things against them.

reply to post by Invariance

Something came before Christianity that they adopted and adapted to sell their religion, what came before that or even before that? Fact is, it all came from somewhere else and the earliest records we find are the Sumerian texts. Everything else is man making god in his own image. Can we believe it? WELL, that's where faith comes in, doesn't it? We all know Christianity is the world's biggest lie, and for those of you who slam me for this, do your homework before you post because I can PROVE everything in this post.

I wholeheartedly agree here, Invariance, as a student of religious research and origins for many years you are spot on. I have attempted for years to teach Christians this, but they are so brainwashed it is virtually impossible to do. I do not believe they will make it to the new world upon ascension, and it is sad. I have a distinct feeling though, that soon they will all get a great big wake up call, and their eyes will be open to the truth at long last. I fear that many, faced with this, will commit suicide and try to escape, but no escape will be possible. I starred your post.

Christianity is like your obese aunt at a wedding buffet. Takes a load of everything then goes back for seconds..