quote:

Originally posted by patrask:

Ok, you asked:

Yes, the first part of the movie Zeitgeist was also referenced in the movie Religulous. The sources are well known and if you wish to read the best books I know, that reference other scholars who have studied this for the last several hundred years, then go here:

www.TruthBeKnown.com


D. M Murdock, a lady scholar who has done a great deal of research in this area, is the person also known as Acharia S (psueudonym - name de plume) necessary for her safety sake. There are three important books that she has published, the most recient is a shorter, easier to read version of the others: Who Was Jesus? - Fingerprints of The Christ. I would recommend this book, and the predesessors, to anyone looking for the Truth, behind the myths.

There is just too much that parallels the earlier beliefs in other gods and the Christ story coupled with the emphatic lack of any collablorating evidence for any written accknowledgemnt of a historical Jesus other than the four canonical gospels, MMLJ, of the New Testament. Read, research and then judge for yourself.

Patrask, I've read countless pages of material on these so-called parallels, and if you investigate the primary sources (or lack thereof) and the inconsistencies with said theories, you will discover that they are hooplah.

Inconsistencies include, but are not limited to:

Mithras was born from a god impregnating a virgin human female. (false; Mithras was born out of a rock like Athene from Zeus's head, fully-formed.)

Sampson's hair grew back in the summer and was cut in the winter. Christmas is held in the winter. Therefore, he is a Jesus motif. (obviously a logical break there).

Osiris had twelve disciples. (He didn't. There is no proof of any myth referring to him as having such.)

A concept of the "age of Pisces" existed before the 1900's. (It didn't.)

And besides. Even if these WERE true parallels, you would have to posit a massive conspiracy. The Gospels were written too soon after Jesus's death (less than 300 years) for such an amalgamation to have occurred. You are positing a secret religious order that goes back to ancient Egypt and Persia, despite geographic and temporal barriers. It defies Occam's Razor, and it defies common sense.

A historical person named Yeshua did indeed walk the earth. Is it so hard to believe? Do you doubt the existence of Siddhartha Gotama, Mahavira, Zoroaster, Confucius, Homer, or Herodotus, citing insane parallels theorized in the 18th century?

Relax!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nico,

quote:

Originally posted by Salamander:
Originally posted by patrask

Thanks!

I wouldn't want anyone to think I liked John better than George.

Hooplah is a good word. So is posit.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nico:



And besides. Even if these WERE true parallels, you would have to posit a massive conspiracy. The Gospels were written too soon after Jesus's death (less than 300 years) for such an amalgamation to have occurred. You are positing a secret religious order that goes back to ancient Egypt and Persia, despite geographic and temporal barriers. It defies Occam's Razor, and it defies common sense.


YOu have hit on the very idea. Look to Egypt for the answers. Get a copy of Ancient Egypt The Light of the World by Gerald Massey and start there. It will prepare you for the shocks that will follow, that all of the Christian beliefs are to be found in the Egyptian writings, which were only decoded in the mid 1800's. Massey wrote in the very late 1800's and into the early 1900's. Read a copy of D.M. Murdock's books and you might begin to see some exciting parallels in the stories and how the New Testament could have been based on a much earlier Egpytian work.

There's a lot in what patrask says. I did a great study of all this pre-Christian stuff and a lot of the answers lie even pre-Egypt, in Mesopotamia.

It's fascinating stuff, folks.

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:
There's a lot in what patrask says. I did a great study of all this pre-Christian stuff and a lot of the answers lie even pre-Egypt, in Mesopotamia.

It's fascinating stuff, folks.

Endless nonsense!

Why you always so mean to me - come on, be Yeshua-like.

When you gonna come down and see me?

In physics, new knowledge is always painful, as the picture of our reality has to change to accommodate the new information. Change is not easy.

A test: go to a library and ask for an early copy of Scientific American, say around the early 1900's. Then find an article about the universe and compare that with the latest information in a more recent edition. The magazine actually does this and compares several dates to see what was happening then to what is happening now. The result: much that was thought to be well understood is now almost unrecognizable.

Would it then be so amazing to discover that what is contained in the Bible had other sources, and the stories were changed to reflect the times in which they were adapted, both old and new testaments?

In physics, the goal is a more complete truth. As the Bible says, the Truth shall set you free. Knowing more about a subject does not mean that what you previously believed was wrong, only that you did not have the whole truth at that time. The universe is a marvelous and mystifying subject that only brings Man to his knees as he continues to learn how it works. I am certain that God, the Great Mystery, gave us this capability to marvel at His creation so that we could share in the appreciation of its beauty.

Much of the mythology that is accumulated in the Biblical stories have their sources in the study of the astronomical orientations that occur and change with time, as viewed from Earth. The precession of the equinoxes was known thousands of years ago. The early temples that were erected in various parts of the world were used to mark the passing of the days by noting the alignments of fixed stones with orientations noted in the sky over head at night and of the Sun during the times when it stopped moving higher in the sky and turned around and began to retrace the path to its lowest elevation, during the winter solstice, meaning Sun stands still. That occurred On December 22 and for three days the Sun did not move much as noted on a mark on the wall of a cave. At the end of the third day it began to move in the opposite direction, starting to be resurrected again and returning light to the world.

This information on how things moved was known to ancient Man. It was encoded in stories and passed into the future, and essentially forgotten for many years. The precession of the equinoxes is a very complex idea. It is the motion of the Earth against the background of the stars as it travels around the Sun on its annual journey, returning to the place of the crossing, the equinoxes and solstices, or the quarters of the annual trip, each year. It takes 72 years for the precision to move backward against the reference stars one decree. The year can be marked by noting when the Sun arrives at the equinox, equal day and night times, in Spring and again in Fall, and in between when the Summer and Winter solstices occur, the times when the Sun stands still in the sky and then turns around and starts to return on its path up and down in elevation in the sky. Thus, in approximately 2100 years the point of the crossing has moved along that path the width of one of the twelve constellations known as the Zodiac. When the Spring Equinox is noted to be in the constellation of Pieces, the Age of Pieces, the Fish, is said to have arrived. The Age of Aquarius will arrive next in a few hundred years. The precession is like a spinning top that is wobbling as it rotates and the axis traces out a circle in the heavens as it slowly falls around the path against the stars. All of events are marked by certain numbers, 12, 7, and others, that are actually derived from the motions of the Earth against the background stars and were known in the distant past to Man then alive. How?

Much has been lost in our history; some was purposely repressed by the Church to eliminate any conflict with their version of the Truth. All that was needed to be known was in the official book, The Bible and that was not even available to the common man until late in the game, only the Priests could access the information. That worked for a long time. Most people, who had not the time to study the world, because they had to earn a living, would be satisfied with the Church's stories. Some would not. Luckily for us the Church was not wholly successful in the repression of the background information. In the last several hundred years much of this information has come to light.

A great source of marvelment has been the Sumerian civilization dating from around 6000 BC. There is hard evidence, uncovered in the 1800's on clay tablets, that these people knew about the precession of the equinoxes and other such complex tabular information. That information then found its way to Egypt and was then incorporated into the Egyptian religion. From the Sumerian into the Assyrian and into the Acadian to the land of the Hebrews, and finally to the Bible, the information was changed to protect the message and it was made easier to transmit forward in time by oral traditions, which eventually were written down and likely changed again. The Hebrews have not changed the Torah, as it was considered the Word of God. Thus, it has come down to us as a reference of the time in which it was composed.

The study of these topics does not diminish the importance of the message. Knowing what is encoded behind the Biblical stories gives a greater understanding of the importance. If one takes the Bible as the written word of God, then all discussion is over. But, if one has the courage to pursue this path of inquiry into the history of the Bible and what is contained therein, much can be learned that only serves to enhance the wonderment of the learner. I have been on this path for many years and I have not lost any of the sense of wonder at the universe because I learned new information. Man is accumulating information at an exponential rate and we have learned more in the last few days than was supposedly known in all of history before that. Maybe we are also only re-discovering what has been known in the deep past and will again come to light as we move forward into time. Worship of the Creator does not stop as we gain understanding of His creation.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: patrask,

I'd like to correct a few mistakes here.

1. Sumerian stories DID indeed find their way into The Tanakh and Torah- but only after being passed on (and changed in many ways) to the Akkadians, the Gutians and Amorite Babylonians, then finally to the Neo-Babylonians and the Assyrians. The Gospels, however, do not contain any relevant amount of Sumerian material.

Also, the Sumerian civilization began during the 4100 – 2900 BC Uruk Period; It officially began with the creation of early cuneiform pictographs used to keep administrative records of the surplus around 3500 BC. The Sumerian civilization is not c.a. 6000 BC/E.

2. The "Age of the Pisces" was not distinguished until the 1950's.

3. Egyptian Religion did not come from Sumer. Egyptian Religion evolved, relatively on its own, for thousands of years. Obviously by the New Kingdom there had been idea trade, but there's still no real Christianity/Egyptian Religion parallel that can be drawn from one primary source to another.

"Massey wrote in the very late 1800's and into the early 1900's." So did Freud. Freud attempted to insinuate that Moses was an Atenist priest, despite the fact that Atenism was abolished following the death of the pharaoh Akenhaten and the name "Moses" comes from the name of the pharaoh "Ra-Moses" (Ramses). What we need in such study is some PRIMARY sources, and some NEWER secondary ones!

4. Christmas is held on the 25th of December because the Romans, trying as they always did to control Christianity, placed the celebratory holiday of Christ's birth on the same day as the celebration of the Roman God "Sol Invictus". That is pretty much the only reason we have Christmas on the 25th of December, not because it has some ancient astronomical meaning that the Christian secret conspiracy planned out using ancient Magi texts.

5. Much of the "information on encoded ancient text" theory comes from Anti-Freemasonry or "occult" sources from the 1800's and early 1900's. See: Aleister Crowley, etc.

Patrask, don't get me wrong here. You're correct on many of your facts; and wrong on many of them, too. My point is that you shouldn't jump to conclusions without analyzing your sources, understanding why some sources aren't used anymore, and keep an open mind! You don't seem to like that "sure of themselves without proof" feel that creationists have, but you've mimicked it!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nico,

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Knox:
Both a homosexual and a single person have the same cross to bear: be celebate.

That's unnatural and sick. Why do you think so many Roman priests got into "trouble"? Because their archaic church won't let them marry and be normal people!

God didn't give people sexual organs and sexual urges just for the heck of it.

End celibacy now!

Oh, and if you think the majority of "celibates" are really celibate, think again - (nearly) everybody "does it", some just are forced to do it in secret. And some break and do it on little boys. Such a sadness.

Allowing priests to marry again (priest shortages are actually causing a leniency already)would definitely be a good first step!

Right. And the tired old excuse that "they are following Jesus's example" is hogwash!

Yeshua was married.

(And now I play the waiting game)

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:
(And now I play the waiting game)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiting_(trolling)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

Aha!

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Knox:
Both a homosexual and a single person have the same cross to bear: be celebate.

That's unnatural and sick.

_

Doug Spaulding ... you forced my hand. I really don't feel like bringing knowledge to you who know what's up but refuse to accept it.

Since when does God bring us into a situation that we can handle on our own?

The answer of course is: NEVER!

God brings us into IMPOSSIBLE situations. Conditions beyond what we are capable. We are burdened beyond what we can carry. If he ain't doing THAT in your life, I would worry. In fact, I would cry out to God. If God is letting you be yourself in all your weaknesses, etc. then I would get down on my knees big time.

(And now I play the waiting game, too!)

Adding the remainder of the above posting~

The reason WHY
God brings us into impossible situations is ... that we learn that we cannot get THRU those impossible situations WITHOUT God. And if we think we got thru those on our own, there is coming a day when we will learn it wasn't us. Hopefully, we learn thru intuitive understanding. We break thru the understanding to see God's hand in everything. And even THAT is God's hand working.

It's the worst shame to go thru life and reach its end, thinking we are its master . Nothing is further from the truth.

quote:

Originally posted by Nico:
Aha!

I never realised I was a troll.

My deepest apologies!

Never let it be said that I won't admit when I am wrong.