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| Thread: The Bible |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV |
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privatehudson
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posted January 22, 2004 02:49 AM |
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Ahhh I knew it was 20 or thereabouts thanks  I wonder what happened to him then? Guess he was on a sabbatical or something 
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Lews_Therin
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posted January 22, 2004 03:05 AM |
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Quote:
Well i know it sounds bad , but in fact i guess all it takes is minimum knowloge and eyes open to see that is just a big fat lie
Not exactly a lie, but rather a collection of old myths:
The cult of Asklepios existed 400-500 years BC. Like Jesus he was believed to be a godly, miracle healer, on his altars was written "soter" (= savior). Like Jesus he healed people by touching them with outstretched hand or finger.
The following is according to the theologist Carl Schneider, I´ll try to summarize and translate:
Like Jesus, the believe in his godliness was important for the healing to work, although sometimes both also healed unbelievers. Both healed blind men, and when those blind men were healed, all they could see at first was trees. Both healed lame men, who afterwards carried their litters away. Both made no difference between young and old, poor and rich, man and woman, slaves, friends and enemies. Both silenced storms. ... and more paralells, like an extremely large number of similarities in the stories where Jesus and Asklepios resurrected the dead.
Like the biblical Jesus,Herakles was said to be persecuted right after his birth by the reigning king, due to a prophecy that suggested he would become king. And like Jesus, he died with the words "it is finished". When Herakles died, the earth trembled and the sky darkened. Like Jesus, he had an ascension, and like Judas, the one who was guilty of Herakles´ death hanged himself. Alkmene, the mother of Herakles, was a virgin at his birth. Their stories are almost identical, brought on a large mountain where they could see the kingdoms of the world, tempted - which they resisted against, followed the mission of their godly father, walked over water, called "saviour", suffered alot and finally overbeared death.
Dionysos is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman. Like Jesus, he turned water into wine, and like Jesus he did that in the village Kana. Like jesus he demands from his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood - the sacrament of eucharisty was celebrated by the Dionysos cultists, too (only they ate raw meat instead of housels. Like Jesus he suffered, like Jesus he was crucified, like Jesus he stood up from the dead and left an open grave.
The above is copy+pasted from a posting that I made 8 months ago, my apologies, but it´s been an awful lot of work back then, and I think it´s quite on-topic.
There are also similar paralells to the sun god Mithras (anyone ever heard of christmas ?), Buddha, Pythagoras, Apollonius; not to mention the Egypt virgin godmother Isis.
Christianity spread so well among the pagans, because they could keep on worshipping the same gods and goddesses, celebrating the same feasts - only their names were changed.
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Tyler
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posted January 22, 2004 12:37 PM |
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Quote:
Like Jesus, the believe in his godliness was important for the healing to work, although sometimes both also healed unbelievers. Both healed blind men, and when those blind men were healed, all they could see at first was trees. Both healed lame men, who afterwards carried their litters away. Both silenced storms. ... Jesus and Asklepios resurrected the dead.
There is a theory somewere wich says that sometimes the best explination is th EASYEST (from the movie CONTACT)...So now what to belive that all of that is actually true, or that is just made up?
I go with the second choice
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Shadowcaster
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posted January 22, 2004 11:38 PM |
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That's true, but, unfortunately, nobody can hope to know until it's either too late for those who were right to tell anyone about what they know or too early for those who were wrong to find out that they were, in fact, wrong. Until then, nothing is certain. All we can do now is wait.
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>_>
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Khaelo
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posted January 23, 2004 12:08 AM |
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Quote:
There is a theory somewere wich says that sometimes the best explination is th EASYEST (from the movie CONTACT)...
If only religion were that simple. The movie "Contact" is based on the book Contact by Carl Sagan. I've neither read that book nor seen the movie, but I have read other works of Sagan's -- he was a popular and talented science writer. The idea that the simplest theories are usually the best is a scientific principle. So is the scientific method: the rigorous testing and retesting of evidence, the need for results to be replicatable, the need for hypothoses to be falsifiable. That is how science works.
Religion is not science.
In other news: While Christ's mythology has definite similarities with pagan cults current at the time of its development, Herakles is a new one to me. Virgin birth? He was Zeus's son, and Zeus didn't exactly have a reputation of leaving women as virgins. Furthermore, the "character" of the two divinities is radically different. Herakles was half-civilized and beastial, while Christ came out as a merciful healer and social radical. They both have a dual mortal/divine nature, but that's as far as I see a comparison. Asclepius was also mortal/divine, and I think he and Dionysus have more similarities to Christ than Herakles.
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Lews_Therin
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posted January 23, 2004 01:15 AM |
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Quote:
Virgin birth? He was Zeus's son, and Zeus didn't exactly have a reputation of leaving women as virgins.
Hello Khaelo,
at http://www.mythopedia.info/11-greece.htm I found the following entry about the mother of Heracles:
Alcmene = Alkmene (f.)
• Heracles was the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene.
• Heracles and Iphikles accompanied their mother Alcmene.
• Heracles’ mother Alcmene was a royal virgin and his father was king Amphitryon, her first cousin.
• Gods and heroes are commonly referred to in Greek genealogies by the names of their mothers, as ‘Apollo, the son of Leto’, ‘Dionysos, the son of Semele’, ‘Herakles, the son of Alkmene’, ‘Achilles, the son of Thetis’, and so forth. It is true that they are also regarded as the sons of Zeus, the universal Father; but Zeus, as in some districts Poseidon, merely plays the part of a unifying principle … Such gods and heroes were in fact ‘virgin-born’ ….
Another son of Zeus, Perseus, came to life by virgin-birth, too ... he somehow poured a shower of gold into her lap
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Lews_Therin
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posted January 23, 2004 01:48 AM |
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Quote:
The idea that the simplest theories are usually the best is a scientific principle. So is the scientific method: the rigorous testing and retesting of evidence, the need for results to be replicatable, the need for hypothoses to be falsifiable. That is how science works.
Religion is not science.
But religion sometimes tries to meddle into matters of science - for example the attempt of an explanation of how the universe came to existence. And if religion asserts that it has the better answers, IMO it makes sense to bring Occam´s Razor into play, in order to show that the religious "explanation" - besides the fact that it´s not falsifiable - creates more open questions than it solves.
Here´s a nice gif that illustrates my point  :
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Khaelo
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posted January 23, 2004 01:52 AM |
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Edited By: Khaelo on 22 Jan 2004
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In some accounts, Amphitryon is Alkeme's husband and the father of Herakles's brother. There's one version, which I think is in Ovid's Metamorphoses, that Zeus took on the form of Amphitryon in order to seduce Alkeme and concieve Herakles. So, her virginity is not a critical aspect of Herakles's cult. I don't doubt that the "All-father" concept has a lot to do with Zeus's rampant paternity, but his sexual exploits show up pretty vividly in the mythology. With the exception of Perseus -- that golden shower really is odd -- I don't buy the argument that the rest of Zeus's children are the products of virgin births.
Quote:
But religion sometimes tries to give meddle into matters of science
My statement was in reference to when science tries to meddle in matters of religion.
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Lews_Therin
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posted January 23, 2004 02:01 AM |
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Quote:
So, her virginity is not a critical aspect of Herakles's cult.
I agree, but I didn´t in any way mean to say that the cults were identical. My point is that the large number of identical and similar narrative elements tell a good deal about how the New Testament was conceived. Herakles is just a small part of the big picture.
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Tyler
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posted January 25, 2004 12:27 AM |
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so what does zeus has to do with the bible? i'm in the dark here
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Khaelo
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posted January 31, 2004 11:27 PM |
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Zeus is a sky god. Yahweh is a sky god. Both concern themselves with human morality, particularly oaths, guestrights, law, and highest honor. Both punish those who violate their principles. Both have sons who heal, save, deflect demons, mess around with the chemical properties of liquids...how is there not a connection?
Interestingly enough, if you follow Lews's link and look at the section on Heracles himself, amongst all the "traditional" portraits of a beast-slaying, womanizing, hard-drinking brute of a hero, there are also allusions to Heracles as healer and savior. It touches upon the question of what divine characteristics are most important to humans.
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Consis
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posted July 08, 2007 08:21 AM |
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Ugh...
I hate this thread. I wish it were deleted.
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Aculias
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posted July 08, 2007 08:30 AM |
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yea no one would of cared either until you brought it up again.
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antipaladin
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posted July 08, 2007 09:50 AM |
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well...
Old testament: Im jewish,so ill speak my opinion,in israel we reffer to the old testament as bible alone,and discard the new testament,as christian's bible.
We have to learn it in school,analise stuff,and etc.
It reffers to the romans menny times,also to thegreeks,and meny others.
Jesus: during the king (i forgot the name,it happends sometimes) the one that wasent jewish,but roman-persian,and was crowned by the romans,killed the last decended of judah's aristocraty prince aristoboles,was warned by the jewish prophet of that time,a child willrise who will change most of the world as he knew it,frighted the king killed all of the childern in the region,which made hes grandperents move to bet lekhem,were he was burn.
Apokrifs
Those texts,discoverd in eygpt-roman-byzantian ruins,are evidence of a sub christian religion,which desrcribes the act of betrayl,a tad differntier:
Few days before it,judaa notices jesus was somewhat troubled,he then confinde to him,telling him that one of the apostles will betray him.
Acording to the apokrifs,jesus wanted judaa to betray him,couse he couldnt spread 'christinty' otherwise.
Also acording to those texts,merry magdlayne was jesus's wife,and apostles,whom meny other apostles envyed,but she bore him meny childern.
Those belivers ware hunted and destroyed by the holy roman church during byzantiums empire.
this shadds a differnt intersting light on events,but either way,were all jewish
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types in obscure english
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dkolb
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posted July 08, 2007 12:26 PM |
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Christian here!
w00t
Anyway I think part of the reason I enjoy HOMM so much is because the haven/castle faction to me always invoked strong emotions in me about my faith. I kinda view them as the ideal that Christianity always strove for and so it is in a sense an escape from reality.
I sorta have a messed up view about my faith.
I'm in a sense a gambler....
I figure it this way:
If there is no God it doesn't really matter what I do in the scheme of things but if I do good things at least my offspring will think highly of me. At any rate I'm worm food.
But if there is a God, then I really don't want to screw up and end up in hell, even if there is only a chance of it happening.
And if Person A is an atheist and Person B is a theist and they both die at the same time it's not like Person A is going to be like: LOL I told ya so!
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Vlaad
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ghost of the past
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posted July 08, 2007 06:45 PM |
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Quote:
I sorta have a messed up view about my faith.
I'm in a sense a gambler....
I figure it this way:
If there is no God it doesn't really matter what I do in the scheme of things but if I do good things at least my offspring will think highly of me. At any rate I'm worm food.
But if there is a God, then I really don't want to screw up and end up in hell, even if there is only a chance of it happening.
And if Person A is an atheist and Person B is a theist and they both die at the same time it's not like Person A is going to be like: LOL I told ya so!
That is called Pascal`s Wager (or Pascal`s Gambit). You may want to read the rebuttals section of the article.
However, there is already an active topic on religion.
One of the possible contributions to this thread could be your input on the Gospel of Judas. It was published after this thread had been started, and belongs to the interesting corpus of works which never made it into the Biblical canon.
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dkolb
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posted July 08, 2007 07:40 PM |
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Edited by dkolb at 19:54, 08 Jul 2007.
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I'd say the rebuttal that holds the most water is
"Ignores benefits/losses while alive"
Regardless they are more responses then refutations so they really don't phase me. Life itself is a gamble and nothing really changes that. Tomorrow could both be our last days. So it's important to choose your horse. As long as you pick one and come to terms with what you believe in then what happens happens. That is why I feel bad for agnostics...
The atheist's wager says:
"You should live your life and try to make the world a better place for your being in it, whether or not you believe in God. If there is no God, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent God, he may judge you on your merits coupled with your commitments, and not just on whether or not you believed in him."
That sounds as reasonable as Pascal's, but in an inverted sense Pascal's sounds as reasonable as the atheist's wager. The problem is everything is not known and nothing is absolute.
Pascal's is not a foolproof argument and I wouldn't dream of treating it as such.
All I am doing you could say would be redistributing the odds.
In a sense I imagine even if the Zoroastrian God were the true God, I'd imagine even he would prefer that I worship a false God rather than no God. Perhaps the act of worship itself is all that truly matters?
But I truly digress....
The Gospel of Judas you say?
ah an old gnostic text... knowledge unattainable through normal means.
The traditional belief is that these type of texts were written to try to stifle Christianity before it grew. Or if not that there were certain sects of early Christianity that didn't really follow the mainstream. One I remember off hand believed that Jesus was exactly half man/half God but not fully both at the same time. Forgot their names started with an A I think.
Anyway these "gospels" that resurface are rather nice for Dan Brown to make revisionist history but as for what else I do not know.
The gospel of Thomas used to be the old craze.
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antipaladin
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posted July 08, 2007 09:21 PM |
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the reason its not in maistream of new testament becouse there ware inhalighted and eradicated by holy roman church.
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dkolb
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posted July 09, 2007 04:19 AM |
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Edited by dkolb at 04:22, 09 Jul 2007.
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^true
I still seem to feel that most of the "hidden" gospels were meant to stifle Christianity before it spread though, instead of it being a legitimate text that was somehow censored.
Protestants are quite against some of the extra Catholic texts because they believe they are not divinely inspired. So some are on the boat of thinking these extra gospels are interesting/a good read but they should not be believed to the extent of the main gospels.
ah I found the other group I was talking about the Arians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism
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