Not sure this thread will be considered to be in the right place. But I felt the issue was evidence of a conspiracy in religion and about religion, so this initially seemed the best place to put it. What it essentially covers is how conspiracies against religions are formed because the adherents often don't know what it says, and when confronted with what it says, they freak out and call you a devilish liar from the pit of hell.

Conversely, atheists and other people who have been taught that papal writs equal what the bible actually says, are often quite irate when you show them the papal writ was not in the bible. They haven't read it for themselves, only the very carefully hand-picked verses and papal statements, used to form their critical view

Anyway, in recent years, quite a few books have been cranked out, taking aim at the foundation of all abrahamic faiths, et.al, the Torah. These texts range from Sitchin's Earth Chronicles to critical works on the various papal interpretations of the biblical texts or simply papal writs/pronouncements, over the last 2000 years.

That's not even counting the critical texts of Zeitgeist, Acharya S., Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, the writings of various new agers like Helena Blavatsky, and of course, Catholic higher criticism texts, like the Homeric Problem, that gave birth to the Enlightenment. This has muddied up the waters so badly you can even find skeptics who disagree with the same sections of Torah, for entirely different reasons. And they've even begun to form almost religious like fervor against the opposing anti-torah data. Sitchinites vs. Acharaya S. readers, for example.

Add to this mix, different forms of Abrahamic faiths, who are often quite critical of the other forms available, including the mainstream versions and the "cult" versions. It's like trying to determine who really killed JFK, while standing on another planet, wearing ear plugs and blinders and refusing any information that doesn't match exactly, the first view on JFK's death.

To get people to even consider any new data at all, even if they've personally changed their minds 20 times on the subject, is like pulling your own hair out by the roots, one by one. And it isn't just the abrahamic religions that have this problem but the atheists, agnostics, pagans, buddhists, hindus, and etc. In short, humans create huge walls of defense against knowledge, perhaps in fear it might make sense at some level. And it takes a great deal of effort to change even the most insignificant detail, for any side of problem.

What's all this got to do with the Sitchin-Catholic problem? Well it's like this:

When researchers first started to study the theory of evolution, they made some mistakes along the way. These mistakes were recorded for posterity and later used against them by people who didn't agree with evolution, as evidence that evolution is wrong.. This exact same thing happens with subjects like Sitchin's Earth Chronicles, as regards the subject of ancient Sumer. It has gotten to the point where if you even mention "sumerian" anything, people immediately associate it with Sitchin, as if he wrote the sumerian texts and carved their artworks.

In addition, the popes over the years, have made all manner of mistakes in their interpretationa, which bled over to some protestant religions maintaining some of these same mistakes in interpretation, an example being the insistence that 2 of every animal on earth were brought in the ark, when it doesn't say that at all. It says 7 clean animals in pairs. 7 birds in pairs and 2 unclean in pairs. Naturally the papal version and the later protestant versions, keep repeating the "all animals" mistake. Atheists or people of other religions look at this "all animals" story and laugh and for good reason---- it ain't in there. In fact, the word for "all" and "every" were suspiciously missing from strong's translation in that section.

Half the time, believers don't even know what their own texts say. They must've missed the verse that said "study to find yourself worthy." A clear admonition to learn what it says, first hand, not because someone else spoon fed it to you in sunday school or catechism or aaronic priesthood classes.

I thought I would compile a list of falsehoods, some created by catholicism and perpetuated by protestanism that simply aren't in the text, and outline how they are such easy targets for a conspiracy in religion to be realized!

Christmas on December 25th. Christmas is not in the bible. To call this evidence the bible is false, is ludicrous. To defend it as the legitimate date of Christ's birth, is also ludicrous.

The Madonna with Child on Lap. You mean to tell me moms, even famous moms, didn't hold their children on their laps? Sometimes the things that people find conspiratorial are almost as laughable as claiming 2 of every animal on earth, walked onto an ark that mathematically couldn't contain them all, based on the given dimensions of the craft. Math, the language of creation, proves this belief false. Just use your common sense and ability to read. That's what it's there for.

Do images of a mom with her kid prove the kid never lived? The train of logic there is beneath skeptical minds, which bugs me. Either critique it properly, or hop on the ark with every animal on earth stuffed inside it.....somehow, cause that's about how much sense it makes to claim madonna statues prove the bible is false and jesus never existed. Come on, you can do better than that folks.

All animals on the planet, in the Ark. Doh.

The Anunnaki are made up by Sitchin. No, they are not Sitchin just happened to have enough clout to get his work on the subject published. That's the jist of it! He didn't make them up. He just added his interpretation of the data.

The Enuma Elish proves the bible is a copy. No, it does not. It's a shared history, not a copy. How can you acknowledge that semites lived in that time frame, in that area, and yet deny them the same history that was written in the mainstream of the time? It's mindboggling how anybody gets from point A to point B, all the while acknowledging the semitic people were there, and then accuse them later of copycatting their own history. It's illogical, irrational and denotes your inability to recognize what is obvious to everybody else. Whoever is pushing this "copycat" thing is trying to divert attention from something important, as far as I can see, that something is probably the REAL CONSPIRACY in religion.

Clearly the big conspiracy in religion is that human beings of all kinds are hard-headed and exceedingly prejudice.

Sweet! Good on ya! And I can't imagine a better OP left this late evening to say goodnight on. So, goodnight.

Originally posted by The GUT
Sweet! Good on ya! And I can't imagine a better OP left this late evening to say goodnight on. So, goodnight.

short answer.
i want some meat with that glass of milk!
oh well, good night.

By now, everyone will be familiar with the fact that Sitchin embroidered his translation of the Sumerian Tablets and, imo, set the cause back years.
There was a wonderful organization called "The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature" who made a tremendous effort in translating the tablets but unfortunately they ran out of money in 2006 and, sadly, no work has been done in this field since.
This subject has seen innumerable threads in various forums as well as the well-worn "Conspiracy" theories which can be understood to a certain extent as if, and I repeat IF, these tablets are proven to be authentic in some matters, then religion would go down the gurgler causing absolute and utter chaos throughout the world.
Not a subject to be discussed without creating controversy in many ways but one which will not deter the believers and non-believers to continue to state their case.

Originally posted by OzTiger
By now, everyone will be familiar with the fact that Sitchin embroidered his translation of the Sumerian Tablets and, imo, set the cause back years.
There was a wonderful organization called "The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature" who made a tremendous effort in translating the tablets but unfortunately they ran out of money in 2006 and, sadly, no work has been done in this field since.
This subject has seen innumerable threads in various forums as well as the well-worn "Conspiracy" theories which can be understood to a certain extent as if, and I repeat IF, these tablets are proven to be authentic in some matters, then religion would go down the gurgler causing absolute and utter chaos throughout the world.
Not a subject to be discussed without creating controversy in many ways but one which will not deter the believers and non-believers to continue to state their case.

oh not even remotely! the torah was a history book. people call it religion today because the history it recounts includes incredible details. but even the sumerian texts contain incredible details.
and i love "The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature" ! it's not even remotely mundane. it's full of all manner of interesting things.

for example: the abzu. man are people confused on what that thing is/was. no one, other than perhaps samuel noah kramer (which see) and perhaps sitchin (who thought it was a mine in south africa) have actually done any justice for the word "Abzu."
here's a big hint: it's the abyss, which in the bible is the bottomless pit and abyss as well. used both ways. the egyptians talked about it too. in fact that's what the founding city of dynastic egypt was, abydos. abydos is greek spelling. egyptian is abdju. dj is pronounced z. abzu. what's enki's abzu doing in egypt?

these are things few researchers even bother to find out. and they should. the more we discount the texts of our ancestors, the more in the dark we are about what is going on today. this should bother you greatly. it's a conspiracy in religion.