Freethought Nation

Those dates are inaccurate and probable stated by apologist. Please cite your source of these dates, which I asked you to do before.

As I said before, Adonis is a Greek god that dates to BCE not CE. Try changing the archaic AD to BCE and you maybe closer to an accurate date on all three.

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

"As concerns the specious claim that the analogies between the Christ myth and those outlined below are "non-existent" because they are not found in "primary sources," let us turn to the words of the early Church fathers, who acknowledged that major important aspects of the Christ character are indeed to be found in the stories of earlier, "Pagan" gods, but who asserted that the reason for these similarities was because the evidently prescient devil "anticipated" Christ and planted "foreshadowing" of his "coming" in the heathens' minds."

"...In his First Apology, Christian father Justin Martyr (c. 100-165) acknowledged the similarities between the older Pagan gods and religions and those of Christianity, when he attempted to demonstrate, in the face of ridicule, that Christianity was no more ridiculous than the earlier myths:

"ANALOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST:

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre?..."

http://www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm

"And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe........."

So here's Justine Martyr admitting that Christians believe nothing different than the Pagans at around 150 CE and NEVER does he even attempt to claim that the Christians originated ANY of these concepts. If Christianity originated even ONE of those concepts Justin would've made a monumentally big deal of it. The Christian apologists who claim that there's no mention of these concepts before 150CE simply don't know what they're talking about.

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2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Those who lack dicrimination may quote the letter of the Scripture, but they are really denying its inner truth. ~ The Bhagavad Gita

Ok it was this thread and it is now buried. Anyway, the thing is, like everything else on this planet, religion evolves. It has evolved.

The account of Jesus's suffering came from Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 53 came about from Horus. That is a form evolution, not prophesy.

I'm copying from Harpur who copies Moffat's translation, but you can read the translation here also as well as (if you scroll upward to the beginning of the chapter) another author's thoughs on Horus.

From page 111-112 in The Pagan Christ

He was despised and shunned by men,
a man of pain who knew what sickness was;
like one from whom men turn with shuddering,
he was despised, we took no heed of him.
And yet ours was the pain he bore,
the sorrow he endured!
We thought him suffering from a stroke
at God's own hand;
Yet he was wounded because we had sinned;
'twas our misdeeds that crushed him;
'twas for our welfare that he was chastised;
the blows that fell to him
have brought us healing.

And the Eternal laid on him
the guilt of all of us.
He was ill-treated, yet he bore it humbly,
he would never complain;
Dumb as a sheep led to the slaughter,
dumb as a ewe before the shearers.
They did away with him unjustly;
and who heeded how he fell,
torn from the land of the living,
struck down for sins of ours?
They laid him in a felon's grave,
and buried him with criminals,
though he was guility of no violence
nor had he uttered a false word.

He shall succeed triumphantly,
since he has shed his life-blood,
and let himself be numbered among rebels,
bearing the great world's sins
and interposing for rebellious men.

Isaiah 53? Look closer before you assume it is Isaiah.



The passage above (not the quote- that's Harpur) is from the Egyptian texts written in BCE, long before Isaiah or even the Jesus story. It is not prophecy. It is an evolution of religious belief that changed as the various cultures changed. One cannot get much more original than that and while I cannot find a link to the Coffin texts, I have already given you a link to the Pyramid Texts, as well as other Egyptian Texts.

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

PRIMARY SOURCES IN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS DATING TO C. 1600 BCE

Following are images of the Book of the Dead of the original texts, specifically from Chapter 178, which is titled, "CHAPTER OF RAISING UP THE BODY" - that is Budge's TRANSLATION of the ORIGINAL EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS. Faulkner's translation is, as we have seen, "Chapter for raising the corpse" (1998 edition) or "Spell for raising the corpse" (1972 edition). Elsewhere, Budge renders the Egyptian title as "CHAPTER OF RAISING UP THE DEAD BODY."

All images are from:

Budge, E.A. Wallis, The Book of the Dead/The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London, 1898. I use this edition because it is the only one that presents the hieroglyphs in full. Faulkner's translation does not, because he only includes the Papyrus of Ani, while this text is from the Papyrus of Nebseni (BM EA 9900). Unfortunately, I do not possess a copy of Dr. Thomas George Allen's respected translation of the Book of the Dead.

Notice the title of the Chapter I am providing here in the original hieroglyphs - THE CHAPTER OF RAISING UP THE BODY - which I have highlighted in read. The title is original to the text in which the images are found. Also, the title is part of the original hieroglyphs as well, called a "rubric."

Note again that the entire Egyptian funerary/mortuary literature overall is specifically designed to resurrect the dead, who is called "Osiris" for the specific reason that he is to emulate OSIRIS'S RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, both spiritually and physically.







Do have fun with this ORIGINAL PRIMARY SOURCE. And while you're at it, be sure to read the entire New Testament in the original Greek. We will henceforth discuss the gospel story ONLY in ancient Greek, as we obviously cannot trust any translation of it. I will very much enjoy analyzing the original Greek in much the same way as I have done here with the Egyptian and as I have done in my books. Of course, those who have not read my books would not know that fact.

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Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Welp! It's Greek to me. Can I have that there text in English please? I'll trust you with the translation. Don't have much choice. Of course you did give us the Faulkner translation, something I've been greatly wanting to read- mucho gracias.

Out of curiousity though, what do the various birdies mean? They stick out for me and have my attention- often do when I see hieroglyphics. Soemthing about them distracts me greatly from the rest of the pictures. Are they in connection to Horus or something more frequently referred to in the text?

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

I'm glad you brought that up Mriana - One may get a "How to read Egyptian Hieroglyphs" book but, they won't contain all of the important details found in Christ in Egypt (XiE). There will be information about the Egyptian hieroglyphs and texts in XiE that you won't easily find anywhere else.

_________________
2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

That will be interesting. Now the info not easily found else where will be interesting.

I was serious about the birds though. Everytime I see hieroglyphs the first thing I see are the birds and I can't seem to notice much else. I do hope it explains them, esp if it is too much to explain here.

_________________
Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

Archarya wrote, "be sure to read the entire New Testament in the original Greek. We will henceforth discuss the gospel story ONLY in ancient Greek, as we obviously cannot trust any translation of it."

And this is true especially of the King James version! The real problem for scholars is that the Greek versions extant today, are not even the original versions. During the Council of Nycea, the Romans rewrote/doctored the original gospels and the Acts for their own perceived political purposes and the originals, as far as we know, were destroyed.

The language of administration of the Roman Empire was Greek, so it is not surprising that the gospels were written in Greek.

I would also recommend reading the four gospels in either the Greek or modern, honest, scholarly translations of the Greek gospels and I mean as honest and scholarly as Gerald Massey's translations of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics! But more importantly read the four gospels intertextually with Josephus Flavius's "War of the Jews!" That is, read them both simultaneously. You will be amazed! Titus Flavius, we now know, made his adopted Jewish brother, Josephus the official Roman chronicler of his/Rome's conquest of Judea. Josephus' work represents then what the Romans considered to be the official account of Titus's military campaign in Judea culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem.

In my opinion, it is no mistake that for every event chronicled in "War of the Jews" of Titus's military campaign, there is a one-to-one corresponding parody/analog of it in the gospels occuring in the exact same place, in the exact chronological sequence! In my opinion, it is no mistake that the ministry of Jesus and the military campaign of Titus begin and end at the exact same places, i.e., Genezerth and Jerusalem respectively! I am convinced that the Romans coopted Gnostic Christianity, which was, in turn lifted from the ancient Egyptian religion as indicated by Archarya S., Gerald Massey and so wonderfully illustrated in "Zeitgeist."

A little background on Titus, son of the god Vespasian (deified by the Roman Senate, as were Julius Caesar and other Roman Caesars.) Suetonius wrote of Titus that "he was unusually literate" and could take shorthand faster than any secretary and was able to "forge any man's signature" and that Titus bragged he would be the "greatest forger" in history! From "Lives of the Caesars" by Suetonius, Titus, paragraph 4.
Suetonius also wrote of Titus that he possessed "consipicuous mental gifts." He possessed an extraordinary memory, photographic. He made speeches and wrote verses in Latin and Greek. He loved logic and logical puzzles. He created religions. The Romans were masters at using the religions of conquered peoples to maintain control. It is by no coincidence, in my mind that Clement, the first Pope of the Roman church was a cousin to Titus. The version of christianity Titus coopted from the gnostics represented the Imperial Cult during the reign of the Flavian emperors, of which, Constantinus Flavianus was, I think the last.

I would also like to note the interesting point that every woman asssociated with the ministry of this mythical Jesus, is named Mary! This, I believe is no mistake, no coincidence also. Turns out the the Roman soldiers had a generic expression for Jewish, Sicarii women, much like the Austrailians have a generic, slang expression for a woman, a "Sheila." For the Romans it was a "Mary." The gospels were intended to be understood on different levels. I believe for the Roman elite, they were intended to be dark humor.

Try to obtain the earliest manuscript of Josephus's "War of the Jews" sans the small mention of Jesus, that is a proven forgery. This is also accurately described in Zeitgeist. The manuscript that contains this forgery surfaced about the time of Eusebius, in the late 3rd or early 4th century. Eusebius openly advocated lying and forgery to further the interests of the church. Real nice guy! The earliest versions of Josephus' manuscript do not contain this forgery.

Regards,

Joey

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"Man will never be free until the last King [tyrant] is strangled with the entrails of the
last priest." Denis Diderot

I have proof of nothing! except 1 + 1 = 2 (always). So No... its not proof... I have no proof... I only have evidence on which to base my conclusions and in-turn beliefs.

H.R. HAYS ... In the Beginnings, Early Man and his Gods (c)1963

He's talking about how the Egyptian myth-makers borrowed from the earlier myths (in the same way the Christian myth-makers later borrowed from the Egyptians (and others))

page 252

...But the fact that the Egyptian harvest festival was connected with Min, the ithyphallic bull, suggests foreign influence. The equating of Osiris who is killed and resurrected with the sprouting grain and Isis's role in resurrecting him, although it takes a special Egyptian form (conditioned by the Nile flood and the role of the sun), parallels the Mesopotamian death of the god although Osiris was not originally a grain spirit....

page 256

... His wife, Isis, has a posthumous child, Horus, who, when he grows up avenges his father. To this factual base was added the dying-god-who-is-resurrected theme but symbolizing both the birth of the grain after the Nile flood and the entry of the king (and later, all Egyptians) into eternal life....

_____

So we have scholars, Acharya and Hays (undoubtedly others as well) providing mountains of evidence making their case. And we have someone who disagrees ( a defender of myths ), who rejects their evidence but provides not a shred of his own. Such is the nature of cognitive dissonance, out-right rejection of all that which troubles.

What we have here is the ole "burden of proof" logical fallacy again. Greekorthodoxy cannot say the scholars are wrong. He can only reject their evidence. He can only say the scholars have not shown to his satisfaction that pre-christian examples of the resurrection myth indeed existed. Its like:

"You cannot prove that God does not exist, so He does."

No... It does not mean that....

I reckon if we look long enough we can find someone who still believes the earth is flat and the center of the solar system too. Its incumbent upon us to take pity on such poor misguided souls not succumb to their narcissistic needling.

and clearly there are some posters here who are not capable of that.

Moreover, it's obvious to me that Acharya S can easily demolish anyone who comes here, lacking the ability to think logically, rationally and intelligently (which presupposes having an open mind).

Ancient Egyptian papyri, upon which sources such as the Book of the Dead were printed, this was used as far back as 4000 BC, that makes it as primary a written source as you could want or magine, so I don't see why anyone would have a problem understanding this, it is after all the origin of our word, "paper" (although the process of making it was kept secret by the Egyptians and no written record was kept on how to produce it).

That Osiris was killed and resurrected, this mythology is fairly well known so I don't even know why anyone would bother arguing that point. Yet they do!

People have believed in myths before, so it's not an exercise in faith to think that Christianity is another one of those historic myths. Just because millions of people believe in mythological stories, this by itself does not mean such stories are based on any kind of historical facts.

I just wanted to welcome all the newbies - jdbugbuster, Orphic Bard, ngant17 etc and thank them all for posting some great 1st posts here. It's very comforting to know that there are plenty of folks out there that get it.

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2013 Astrotheology Calendar
The Mythicist Position
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection
Stellar House Publishing at Youtube

Being rather new, I haven't had the time to read all of the posts here, but I must say that it is very interesting.

I do believe that Acharya S, and most of the people here are on the right track and I appreciate all of the work and the research she has put into this sensitive subject.

Currently I'm extremely busy on a project for work, but I will check in and post when time allows. Again, my thanks to all who are involved.

Regards, miamizsun

P.S. I know there is some required reading, so please feel free to help me out and possibly list a few books (or videos) in order.

Hey Miamizsun and all of the newbies posting on the forum. I'm with FTL - it's nice reading through the new posts showing up here.

The bottom line is that the Christian apologetics community has been so broadsided by the release of Zeitgeist part 1, and now Bill Mahers Religulous, that they don't even know how to handle themselves. Taking up this little "No dieing and Rising God-Men before Christ" argument is so ridiculous that it's hard to know how to address it. Obviously the Egyptian Hieroglyphic langauge completely blows this argument out of the water.

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The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Yes I agree.

When you look at all of the data, the history of religion itself, then it is fairly easy to dismantle the xian argument.

I've read Harris, Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins, etc. I found Harris and Dennett especially enlightening (IMHO Harris presents a great case). I grew up in the deep south in a large Catholic family, attended parochial school. I defected (much to the delight of the nuns) and as soon as I was able, I moved to a larger city, ATL. I kept moving further south until I ran out of real estate.

Regards

Well then you fit right in around here on the truthbeknown forums Miamizsun. There are a lot of posters around here that had been Christian at some point and have a knowledge of the bible from that perspective but have since moved on to learn the truth about the worlds religious evolution.

One thing is for certain, dieing and rising God-Men motifs go way back into antiquity and any scholar trying to negate that fact of mythology can't be taken very seriously.

This poor GreekOrthodoxy character seems to have just scratched the surface of this issue recently and hadn't yet learned where this argument leads in the end. Trusting these so called 'scholars' who are openly Christian apologists is a very risky business. Their entire position is based on trying to preserve the institution no matter what and by whatever means necessary. Peter Joseph goes over this pretty well in Zeitgeist: Addendum. The preservation of the institution over rides any real search for truth. I think that it's pretty obvious that this is the only reason for the new let's all deny the existence of pre-Christian dieing and rising God-Men motif that the apologists have been using lately.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?