Question by My†h ß?mber: Was Christianity just cobbled together by history thieves?
There is not a single christian ritual or event that is not directly stolen from far older pagan cultures.
The resurrection, communion, Easter, virgin birth, etc. had either already happened many times in other cultures or were already ancient rituals by the time the bible was put together.
Did early Christians have very limited imaginations?
Did they steal these ideas just to convert pagans to their religion?
Or maybe a little of both of these, along with Constantine’s freshly formed Holy Roman Empire that quickly executed anyone of other religions?
Best answer:
Answer by Asha
well….thats ur belief…as far as i am concerned, ur wordings are ur own imaginations…
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Please give facts of said ritual events occurring in other cultures prior to Christianity.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com
enjoy
That’s just a myth didn’t you know that..Jesus is alive and only he can save you..will you accept him and live? John 3:16
God loves you…God bless
Hardly.
Satan knew the future, so he demonically inspired the pseduo-christo traditions “beforehand” in paganism. These satanic replications will reach their culmination through his creation, the Roman Catholic Religion, where they have infiltrated to forge a World Religion from all the seemingly common denominators. Then the climax will be when the descent of Satan transpires in his beautiful form, Lucifer the Light Bringer, who will portray himself as the Return Jesus, and deceive the world, for he is the Antichrist (“Like + Christ”). This is the “Delusion” that Christ said he would send so that those who do not know Him will believe a Lie.
You have that backwards…
Satan has always copied good things, twist the meanings, and to try and lift himself up.
Ex. – Easter is NOT a Christian Holiday. It is a Pagan Fertility Ritual.
The Bible was mistranslated… It is supposed to read Paschal… Which is PASSOVER.
Satan and the Kennites, fallen angels, are always trying to make void the word of GOD.
Get your facts straight.
That sounds about right. Easter comes from pagan spring fertility festivals, Christmas is almost the same time as the winter solstice which is an important day to pagans… the reason is probably a bit of everything you can think of.
Yes, it sure was.
The Old Testament has almost all of Christianity’s New Testament themes, so there would be no need for Christians to go get them from pagan sources and there is no proof at all that the New Testament writers borrowed anything from pagan sources and incorporated them into the New Testament.
The first real Pagan parallel of a dying and rising god does not appear until A.D. 150, more than a hundred years after the origin of Christianity. For example, the version of the Mithras myth that most resembles Jesus Comes from a Roman sect 100 – 300 years AFTER Jesus and it is more likely they modelled it on Jesus Rather than the other way round. (It would seem that at this point in time the Temple of Mithra Fought Back by making their story even more similar to Jesus In Order to win their former followers back!)
So who is copying from whom?
Similarities between Jesus and pagan gods and mythological characters have been grossly exaggerated and for the few things they do have in common, there are dozens of differences between them and the differences far outweigh the similarities.
Even if the similarities with other religions were greater than they actually are, All we would have in that case is religious men theorising about what God would be Like if he manifested here on earth.
And guess what?
When that did come to pass and God did become flesh in the form of Jesus he was Very similar to what those people figured he would be like!
Good for them!
They pretty much got it right!
Jesus met and even surpassed their expectations – that would Seem to be proof in support of Jesus rather than against him.
But you are right on one point…
Around 300 years after Jesus, the Church of Rome in order to get Pagan Converts adopted Mithra’s Birthday As Jesus’ birthday and they adopted many pagan rituals and ceremonies as well, even the design of the churches and cathedrals were based on the layout of Pagan temples, but THAT is Roman Catholicism and not New Testament Christianity. If we look at the original church described in the New Testament we don’t see any Pagan rituals or ceremonies. The writers of the New Testament were Jewish converts to Christianity. As devout Jews they would have nothing to do with paganism in any form. They knew that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of a Messiah which is why they believed him and followed Him. The core essential New Testament Christian themes of redemption, the incarnation, resurrection, etc., were all prophesied in the Old Testament and these documents were around for hundreds and hundreds of years before Mithraism and the other old religions. It is therefore quite possible that if any borrowing of core teachings was done, it was done by the pagans who incorporated Old Testament concepts since these documents existed prior to many of these pagan myths.
It is also noteworthy that the Roman Catholic Church was not the only Christian church or even the first Christian church and Other branches of the faith disagreed with them when they brought in doctrines and ceremonies that were not in the Bible, so they progressively split off from Rome, some sooner, some centuries later as more and more heresies were introduced into the Roman church.
Breakaway groups include: the various Eastern Orthodox churches, the Protestant movement including the Lutherans, the Church of England, and so on.
So overall, while some ceremonies and rituals were adapted by the Roman Church from Pagan religions, and some were kept by even the breakaway Orthodox, Protestant and Baptist denominations, their core Christian doctrines all have their source in the Old and New testaments and owe nothing to Paganism.