Jesus was a copycat. (Sklansky, did you know this?)

[Bigdaddydvo]

I have no reason to speculate on your hypothetical.

[eastbay]

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I have no reason to speculate on your hypothetical.

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Why, because you might realize what you believe is a function of what you were taught as a child and what's considered socially acceptable in your locale, and actually has almost nothing to do with any kind of reality of the events you supposedly put your complete and total trust in?

eastbay

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I have no reason to speculate on your hypothetical because I understand where you're going with that question and it makes me uncomfortable.

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I fixed your post.

Can someone please post a link to somewhere casting doubt on the credibility of this guy? I don't know one way or the other about what he's saying, but it seems the only way to cast doubt on the guy is to show that all of these 16 occurences aren't true, and if they're not it should be easy to refute.

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I have no reason to speculate on your hypothetical because I understand where you're going with that question and it makes me uncomfortable.

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I fixed your post.

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NH

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I personally find this to be very damaging to the validity of Christianity.

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As damaging as this list is to your credibility?

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How in the world does one go from asking for people's thoughts on something to being berated (albeit slightly)? I stumbled upon something I found interesting and thought I would like to share. Perhaps if you had something productive to say on the subject... [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[Steve00007]

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When you look at how all religions that you have no belief in have progressed, it should be obvious that they are just stories, myths and legends that have been passed down through the generations. If one certain sect of stories happen before the same set of stories (in a different religion) it lends them more credibility because they obviously couldn’t have copied off the later coming religion.

With that in mind, did you know that sixteen different gods that predated Jesus lived very similar lives, more specifically they all:

- claimed to be the son of god
- were born of a virgin mother
- the mother’s name was Mary, or a derivitive of the word Mary
- were in a temple, scolding and training elders by age twelve
- the ruler of the land, fearing the son of god was born, tried to put him to death
- told by someone greater than they, moved to a foreign land to save their life
- began their ministry by age 30
- ended their ministry by age 33
- killed on the cross

In case you were wondering, the sixteen were:

Chrishna of India, 1200 B.C.
Hindoo Sakia of the Hindu, 600 B.C.
Thammuz of Seria, 1160 B.C.
Wittoba of the Telingonesic, 552 B.C.
Iao of Napal, 622 B.C.
Hesus of the Celtic Druids, 834 B.C.
Quexalcote of Mexico, 587 B.C.
Quirinus of Rome, 506 B.C.
Prometheus of of Caucasus, 547 B.C.
Thulis of Egypt, 1700 B.C.
Indra of Tibet, 725 B.C.
Alcestos of Euripides, 600 B.C.
Atys of Phrygia, 1170 B.C.
Crite of Chaldea, 1200 B.C.
Bali of Orissa, 725 B.C.
Mithra of Persia, 600 B.C.

I personally find this to be very damaging to the validity of Christianity.

Thoughts?

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Perhaps this could be in another thread, but I had a question when reading that. Assuming that what you say is true, why didn't any of those other 'gods' cause a major world religion to form? We know that Christianity has been around for 2000 years, and a lot of people know who Jesus Christ is, but I never heard of the people you just mentioned. Was there something special about Christ, or is it just a coincidence that Christianity came about as a result him? If it's just a coincidence, then why?

eastbay is saying something I've believed ever since I became an ex-uber devout catholic: there are so many religions because there are so many different types of people.

In general the aim of those religions is to make you a better person, just in a way you understand (mostly a function of where you were brought up, but other intangibles exist). I dont need a religion to make me a good person, thats just who I am.

Some people look to a God for that, that's who they are.

"Perhaps this could be in another thread, but I had a question when reading that. Assuming that what you say is true, why didn't any of those other 'gods' cause a major world religion to form? We know that Christianity has been around for 2000 years, and a lot of people know who Jesus Christ is, but I never heard of the people you just mentioned. Was there something special about Christ, or is it just a coincidence that Christianity came about as a result him? If it's just a coincidence, then why?"

Well, some are very worldwide (Krishna for example). The others though, its probably a function of "out of sight, out of mind". Some of the more obscure ones however, are just that, small and obscure, nothing more. Not every religion can catch on like wildfire. Also, it is very well possible that if one of the other religions became extremely popular in place of Christianity you would be asking "I wonder why that Christ guy didn't catch on?"

[IronUnkind]

You didn't post anything meriting my productive commentary. One cannot present fraudulent scholarship with such conviction and expect anything other than to be flamed.

My response, then, was precisely commensurate with your contribution, which in terms of historical accuracy was about on par with holocaust denial.