Religions > Atheism > Human sacrifices, that's where the idea that the Son had to die came from
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Carl Sagans billions" |
| Date: |
19 Dec 2006 09:54:44 PM |
| Object: |
Human sacrifices, that's where the idea that the Son had to die came from |
Some dogmas and core beliefs of Christianity are:
1. Christ's death (to atone for the sins of all mankind, forever)
2. Christ's resurrection after 3 days (Easter) (can conquer death)
3. Christ ascension to heaven 40 days after Easter (can defy gravity)
4. Pentecost - Holy Spirit 7 weeks after Easter (invisible power)
5. Christ's return/second coming (judgment day, Armageddon)
It is not difficult to understand how the first one, the idea of Jesus,
the son of God, having to die for our sins and the sins of all mankind
for all times came into being.
In the thousands of years before Christ, in many cultures human
sacrifices were seen as the ultimate appeasement with God or the gods,
as the best offering to atone for sins, to beg for forgiveness,
to ask for blessings, to ward of disasters, famine, epidemics,
to obtain salvation, etc..
As you study the many religions in the middle east and other
areas of the world over thousands of years, you will find similar
philosophies, similar explanations, similar stories, similar gods,
similar miracles (e.g., walking on water), similar myths.
Even Abraham, according to the Bible, came close to sacrificing his son
Isaac. An ultimate sacrifice is to offer your own son!
It is not new. So the brilliant idea of the ultimate human sacrifice
to appease God --- for all sins! -- for all of mankind!-- and
forever!!! --- came into being.
A really brilliant philosophy, a grandiose idea of salvation.
------------------
However, who or what could be so grand, so out of this world 'big', so
all encompassing, as to qualify for total appeasement with God?
------------------
So the idea was born that God, the loving God, loved us so dearly,
that he gave of himself, the ultimate gift of mercy.
As with Abraham, the only person that comes close is the SON!
(Remember that in those times sons were regarded as the
all-important children).
So the idea of the 'son of God' was created, the son - an ultimate
sacrifice! So God sacrificed his own son to atone for all the sins
in the world, forever. The parallel with Abraham's story and other
similar stories in many religions on an individual level is very clear.
This new bigger idea expanded the atonement not to one individual or
one family or one tribe, but it applied to all mankind and forever!
Really a brilliant idea of hope and mercy, for all of mankind.
A brilliant idea to appease God and get relief of the 'guilt' of
sin, for all human beings and for all times.
A brilliant idea that despite all our 'sins' we really have been
saved, we all have been forgiven.
------------
These ideas then historically evolved into beliefs and absolute
truths and then finally in a structured religion with laws, dogmas,
etc., called Christianity, and of course ending up with the claim of
being the only 'true' religion.
-----------
It is all man made by brilliant thinkers and philosophers.
It has appealed to many people over many ages, so it is very likely
tied to our biological and psychological coming of age, possibly during
childhood and puberty, the coming of age of feeling terrible (sexual)
guilt, despair and loneliness. The idea that there really is salvation,
there is approval, there is absolution of guilt, there is total
acceptance by the 'Father' is so appealing!
There is no cynicism, no sarcasm here.
It is all man made, by brilliant thinkers, philosophers and prophets.
All religions and all gods are man made.
This is then how the central Christian dogma and belief
of the son having to be sacrificed for our sins came into being:
Beliefs in the value of human sacrifices evolved over thousands
of years into a belief in the ultimate human sacrifice, the son of God.
That's why in Christianity Jesus had to die.
It is a philosophy that evolved from older and pagan religions
that had human sacrifices at their center.
The ideas from paganism were adopted or evolved into
Christianity. It is all developed by man. It is a successor of
primitive
beliefs. Of course it is a philosophy and belief I do not agree with.
As it is very much contradictory to what we now know through
science, what we know about evolution, what we know about the
universe, what we know about cell biology, what we know about
psychiatry, what we know about the human brain, what we
know about the development of religions, etc., etc.
For example, there are over 100 billion stars in our own
galaxy and over 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe.
Even if every galaxy has only one planet with intelligent life on
it (a very low estimate), there would be 100 billion planets Jesus
would have had to visit. It is just not a rational idea.
Christianity's beliefs are ancient beliefs, constructed by many
thinkers and authors over thousands of years. That's why there are so
many strange, illogical and contradictory constructs in it.
Many scholars, prophets, rulers and translators have added their own
interpretations, ideas and visions. That's why religions so often
contain a mix of philosophies of life.
That's why it does not make sense to educated people who live now.
That's why there are so many conflicts with what we know now.
Many people force themselves in all kind of mental contortions
to make sense out of Christianity's central beliefs, to
understand it, to understand the rationale. They are trying
desperately, they think, to understand the 'Word of God'.
So they study the Bible and the many explanations about it
throughout their lives, often a very laborious struggle.
However what they are really trying to do, is to understand the
words and wisdom of many human beings who lived long ago,
authors with different backgrounds and visions. Authors that
intermingled different philosophies of life from many different
societies and regions.
Many people therefore also get very very lost in doing that.
So after a while they often give up all further thinking or
questioning, and they 'submit' or 'surrender' and 'give themselves up
to the Lord'.
After that they will forever parrot the standard slogans fed to them.
Such as 'we are all born in sin, so that's why Jesus had to die, and it
was really God's mercy to give us Jesus in order for us to attain
salvation and eternal life', etc.
They get lost and succumb for the simple reason that the belief
structure is a patchwork and mixture of older religions. So it is
often illogical and based on too many different notions and ideas.
The whole structure therefore is not simple, elegant, logical,
coherent and self-explanatory.
A simple example is the difference between the Old and New Testament.
The 'Old' core is an eye-for-an eye, law and militarism,
the 'New' core is love and compassion and forgiveness.
Contradictory philosophies.
In this day and age there is a much better understanding of how
and why religions were created, of sociology, psychology, psychiatry,
biology, evolution, history, exchange of ideas between societies,
languages and the difficulty of good translations, and also from the
interesting field of comparative religions.
I have several questions, for thinkers and students/scholars of
religions and comparative religions - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, as
well as older religions, that intrigue me:
1. Resurrection - In view of the above, who can give a good explanation
of why the philosophy of Christ's resurrection was added to the dogmas
of Christianity? Where did it come from? What was the idea?
Where/what are its roots in older (pagan) religions?
2. Ascension - What are the origins of the belief in the ascension?
Were all gods in primitive religions in one sense or another able to
fly or were they often birds or a combination of bird and human or
animal? Were pagan gods always able to go to 'heaven' whenever they
wanted to?
3. Pentecost - Where does the strange idea of a Holy Ghost come from?
What does it add, other than more confusion and a step away from
mono-theism? Why was two not enough, the father and the son? By adding
a Holy Spirit and creating the idea of Trinity, it deviates even more
from mono-theism. By adding saints, angels, the cross, wine and bread
sacraments, Virgin Mary, etc., etc.,
it deviates still farther from mono-theism. In a sense probably
reverting back t to many more of the original ideas inherited from
paganism (without most Christians ever realizing it).
4. Where does the idea of Christ's final return (the end of the
world, the second coming, Armageddon) as well as the 'rapture' come
from? Where does this fatalistic/messianistic view come from?
Preachers, who can only parrot the usual and meaningless Christian
slogans, do not need to reply. They have no explanations, as they
cannot understand or will never admit that Christianity (as well as
Judaism and Islam) is all manmade and grew out of older religions.
They have come to accept the many illogical constructs by accepting the
basic dogmas and the current explanations used to defend them. That's
why they always talk in circles and cannot enlighten as their words
gloss over inconsistencies and contradictions, and always with the same
words over and over. A typical, non-scholar non-thinker example is
Billy Graham. When you read him or hear him, you encounter the same
meaningless repeats over and over. For him it is all simple and clear:
For a non-thinker there are never questions, only fixed answers,
and constructed by others.
CCDarwin - USA
.
|
|
| User: "Zadok" |
|
| Title: Re: Human sacrifices, that's where the idea that the Son had to die came from |
20 Dec 2006 09:15:12 AM |
|
|
"Carl Sagan's billions" <> wrote in message ...
Some dogmas and core beliefs of Christianity are:
1. Christ's death (to atone for the sins of all mankind, forever)
2. Christ's resurrection after 3 days (Easter) (can conquer death)
3. Christ ascension to heaven 40 days after Easter (can defy gravity)
4. Pentecost - Holy Spirit 7 weeks after Easter (invisible power)
5. Christ's return/second coming (judgment day, Armageddon)
It is not difficult to understand how the first one, the idea of Jesus,
the son of God, having to die for our sins and the sins of all mankind
for all times came into being.
In the thousands of years before Christ, in many cultures human
sacrifices were seen as the ultimate appeasement with God or the gods,
as the best offering to atone for sins, to beg for forgiveness,
to ask for blessings, to ward of disasters, famine, epidemics,
to obtain salvation, etc..
BUT!! In the Christian Bible, there is a little verse in Deuteronomy 12,
that tells us we are not to inquire after the pagan Gods. Then it turns
around and says that sacificing a son or daughter to Gods is an abomination
unto GOD!!
See Deuteronomy 12: 30-31 - 30 and after they have been destroyed before
you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying,
"How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same." 31 You must
not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their
gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn
their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.
Now religionists like to claim that God did not burn Jesus in the fire, as
they ignore that the key is not the burning in fire, but the fact that they
were sacrifices to their Gods.
A sacrifice of a son or daughter to any God is detestable to God, and he
hates it!!
As you study the many religions in the middle east and other
areas of the world over thousands of years, you will find similar
philosophies, similar explanations, similar stories, similar gods,
similar miracles (e.g., walking on water), similar myths.
Kuhn wrote a whole volume of where Christian stories came from ancient
Egyptian stories and were nothing new. Anything their Godman did, had been
done before.
Even Abraham, according to the Bible, came close to sacrificing his son
Isaac. An ultimate sacrifice is to offer your own son!
Close. It was only a test. To sacrifice a son or daugther to God is a
destestable act to him. See Deuteronomy above!!
It is not new. So the brilliant idea of the ultimate human sacrifice
to appease God --- for all sins! -- for all of mankind!-- and
forever!!! --- came into being.
A really brilliant philosophy, a grandiose idea of salvation.
1. Resurrection - In view of the above, who can give a good explanation
of why the philosophy of Christ's resurrection was added to the dogmas
of Christianity? Where did it come from? What was the idea?
Where/what are its roots in older (pagan) religions?
When any religion trys to make their Hero into a god, they have to come up
with supernatural events.
The christian resurection comes from Early Sumerian clay tablets.
In the Sumerian clay tablets, the Goddess Inanna dies. She spends three days
in the netherworld (Did not Jesus spend three days in the grave?). Finally
the corpse of Inanna is hung up on a hook (cross in christian stories).
Her body is then treated with the Water of Life, and the Food of Life
(Christian Eucharist), and Inanna arises from the dead.
BUT. She has to supply two people to take her place. She picks one of them
as her husband Dumuzi. (was not Jesus crucified with two theives?).
The two people who took Inanna's place in the netherword only had to be
there for six months of the year.
Every spring, they celebrated the resurrection of Dumuzi, when his six
months were up.
These clay tablets date to 2000BC.
Now religionists will claim that there is no connection!!
But is there a connection??
In the bible, we are told that Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees.(
Genesis11: 31). In Ur of the Chaldees there was a temple to Inanna.
And in Joshua he tells us that back before the flood the Ancestors of the
Israelites worshipped other Gods.
Joshua 24: 2 - Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the
God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father
of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods.
So, we know they worshipped other Gods, and lived in Ur of the Chaldees,
where there was a temple to Inanna.
But the fundies will still say that it is not connected.
To that we say!! In Babylonian writings Dumuzi, the husband of Inanna
becomes Tammuz!!
OOOPS!! Ezekiel 8: 14 tells us that the bible people were aware of this
person.
Then he brought me to the entrance to the north gate of the house of the
LORD, and I saw women sitting there, mourning for Tammuz.
But what of Inanna??
Actually if you read some of the hymns to Inanna, one of her titles was
Queen of Heaven (see the book by Wolkstein and Kramer, called Inanna, Queen
of Heaven and Earth).
And OOOOOPS, we have Inanna worship recorded in the bible.
Jeremiah 7: 18 -
The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead
the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out
drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger.
It seems the worship of Inanna and Dumuzi (Tammuz) was hard to eradicate!!
So, from the above you can see how the death and resurrection is simply
pagan stories retold as christian!!
2. Ascension - What are the origins of the belief in the ascension?
Were all gods in primitive religions in one sense or another able to
fly or were they often birds or a combination of bird and human or
animal? Were pagan gods always able to go to 'heaven' whenever they
wanted to?
Again from Sumerian tablets you can read the story of Inanna, who had a
boat, where she could fly to heaven and back. So yes, the pagan gods could
travel back and forth from Heaven.
The actual tablet says -
Enki:
"In the name of my power! In the name of my holy shrine!
To my daughter Inanna I shall give Truth!
Descent into the underworld! Ascent from the underworld!
Then about the boat -
Inanna gathered all the me.
The me were placed on the Boat of Heaven.
The Boat of Heaven, with the holy me, was pushed off from the quay.
3. Pentecost - Where does the strange idea of a Holy Ghost come from?
What does it add, other than more confusion and a step away from
mono-theism? Why was two not enough, the father and the son? By adding
a Holy Spirit and creating the idea of Trinity, it deviates even more
from mono-theism. By adding saints, angels, the cross, wine and bread
sacraments, Virgin Mary, etc., etc.,
it deviates still farther from mono-theism. In a sense probably
reverting back t to many more of the original ideas inherited from
paganism (without most Christians ever realizing it).
Again, once the Godman was gone (if he ever existed), religionists had
nothing. So the idea of the holy ghost was invented as something to be used
for keeping the faithful in line. INVISIBLE GODS are what?? Spirits??
Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost are interchangeable. Just look at the
translations of the bible. NIV uses Spirit and JKV uses Ghost.
4. Where does the idea of Christ's final return (the end of the
world, the second coming, Armageddon) as well as the 'rapture' come
from? Where does this fatalistic/messianistic view come from?
The resurrection of Gods, was rampant throughout pagan religions.
Attis the Pagan god, was not only hung on a tree, but died on Black Friday,
and arose on the Pagan DAY OF THE SUN!! Long before Jesus did!!
The second return is a twisting of the bible.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 16: 27 and 28 that the Son of man will come in
glory and judge everyone according to his works.
Then verse 28, has Jesus telling his disciples that some of them will be
alive to see it.
27For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels,
and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28I tell
you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they
see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
Hope this helps!!
Smile.
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
