All of the supernatural characters of Christianity

[_Buffalo]

What evidence do you want?

Authentic historical evidence. Not 19th century "revelations"

Oh please. Read the literature. Most of the Messianic prophecies Matthew quoted were recognized by the Jews then as having Messianic significance. That's why he used them. He was trying to convert the Jews. If you were trying to tell me that Buffaloism is the fulfillment of Mormonism would you take insane distortions of the Book of Mormon that any LDS saint would see as rubbish and try to use it as proof?

Your ignorance is profound. Most of the Matthew proof texts have nothing to do with the messiah. The suffering servant, for instance, is Israel, not the Messiah. If you're bothered by reading, listen and learn from scholar:

http://mormonstories.org/?p=1476

No, Jesus was the sum of everything, the pagans had bits of light and Jesus fulfilled them as he fulfilled Judaism. Why else would so many disconnected cultures have legends of a dead but living god that makes the crops grow?

Resurrection is a common theme because it's part wish fulfillment, part hero archetype.

And of course you say this. You need this to be true so there is no force behind the morality you reject.

See, I can play the wish-fulfillment game too? Of course you want it to be false.

No. What I really, really wanted was for Mormonism to be true and for God to be real. The first time I seriously considered that there might not be a god, (several years ago) I was horrified. I couldn't deal with it. I felt like a chasm had opened up, that the whole world was empty and meaningless. I shelved my doubts for a year because I literally could not deal with that feeling. But my doubts didn't go away. I wish there were a God. I wish Mormonism were true. Sincerely.

Thankfully, as I learned to do away with magical thinking, my peace of mind returned, and has never been better. But I still wish that Mormonism were true.

Oh, and please stop including yourself in a 'we' of Mormons; it's disgusting.

As long as I continue to contribute my time, talents and money to the church, I will continue to call myself Mormon.

[_Buffalo]

Why is it that some people think that the most literal and crudest form of belief must be the status quo? Why must nuanced thinking be described as excuse making? When you modify a hypothesis on an observed phenomena to fit the data from your experiments, is that excuse making for the hypothesis? Just because the advertisers got God wrong, doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist.

I agree, when you encounter one or two problems, it's as easy as modifying a hypothesis. But the weight of them adds up, the further you investigate.

[Guest]

I hope you don't mind me jumping in on this topic!

I think sometimes our Mormon background may make us see religious history in a way that is different from that of other believers. In the Mormon faith the full truth about God was there from the beginning, with Adam himself, followed by cycles of apostasy and restoration. So if history shows that this clearly wasn’t the case, our conception of God is in trouble. But other Christians would probably think more in terms of God’s gradual revelation of himself to humanity. That our understanding of God and his works would evolve over time, both within Judaism and later Christianity, is to be expected. In fact, the orthodox theology would demand it since the infinite God could never be completely described or understood by any fixed system of beliefs. There is always more to God. And this isn’t some modern ad hoc defense of the faith, it is a very ancient approach.

Sure it took time for the monotheistic idea to be hammered home to the Jewish people. That is clear enough just from the Old Testament texts themselves. And a Christian who knows anything about their faith would know that some of the specific elements of the orthodox Christian creed were formally defined only over the span of centuries by the various ecumenical councils.

And the fact that the Jews use a Semitic term for God is no more surprising than the fact that we use an Indo-European term which I would assume has its roots in Indo-European mythology (whether it’s ‘God’ or ‘Deus’, etc.)

[_basilII]

Judaism and Christianity were very distinctive religions for their times. I think it is a mistake to believe that they were simple copies or derivations of other ancient religious systems. The simplest way to see this is how they were actually viewed and treated by their contemporaries in the ancient world. Although fairly numerous, the Jews always stood out in Greco-Roman society because of their strict monotheism, religious practices (like the dietary laws), and charitable works among themselves. The Christians were almost always seen as significantly different and subversive by the Romans, who were generally tolerant when it came to religion. Even their pagan opponents would make comments like ‘see how they love each other’ on their widespread charity and solidarity. There was something distinctive about both Jews and Christians.

We should also be careful about seeing parallels in everything. Correlation does not prove causality. Just because Hellenistic mystery cults had heroic savior figures or the followers of Mithras had a sacred meal of bread and wine doesn’t mean that Christianity copied these elements from them. In fact, the existing evidence suggests that both Christ devotion and the Eucharistic meal arose among the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus and were not late developments of a Hellenized Gentile church. I think the academic study of early Christianity is due for an overhaul, especially with regard to the influence of Hellenistic culture, Gnosticism, and the orthodox tradition. Two good books along these lines are: ‘Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity’ by Larry W. Hurtado, and ‘Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels As Eyewitness Testimony’ by Richard Bauckham.

[_Some Schmo]

Not really.

?????

What didn't you understand?

I suspect many (ie most) of the people around the Mediterranean 200 years before Christ were people of faith (a.k.a. believers in god).

That was my point, they came to that conclusion without the need of 'apologetics'

Dude, the conclusion IS an apologetic. They had to explain the changes away somehow, given the idea that god is supposed to be unchanging.

Like I've mentioned, what's considered doctrine/gospel/theology today was originally just the apologetics (ideas to explain away older ideas that don't work upon examination) that ended up sticking. It's evolution, alright; the evolution of BS. Not the evolution you descibed (since, you know, god should really exist before you're going to have a relationship with him - relationships without communication aren't really relationships).

[_emilysmith]

It seems to me a forgone conclusion that cultural syncretism played a large role in shaping Judaism and Christianity, not to mention all other religions.

I do agree that some correlations are perhaps over exaggerated, but that isn't to say there is a good reason behind the similarities between, say, Hercules and Jesus.

While I have never agreed with Jung's metaphysical aspects of a collective unconscious, it is obvious that people adopt some symbols easier than others. These concepts and symbols that people naturally latch onto will, of course, find their way into religions that have a large number of members.

While the Canaanite Pantheon may have gradually been left to the dust, the symbols that served a purpose were destined to return in some form or another, even if their wasn't a direct line of evolution.

In the case of Jesus, we have a figure that did not originally have a corporeal form. The earliest Christians had never heard the story of Jesus of Nazarath, born in Bethlehem. The Gospels that made it into the Bible were a few of hundreds of documents that discussed Jesus. They were widely variable in how he was portrayed.

This is nothing new. The various elements of the Old Testament present us with the same problem. Different people had different views on the nature of God. Is it instant death to be in his presence? Do you need an intermediary? From the very beginning, the multiple viewpoints have provided a conflicting theology.

The few works that were chosen to make up the New Testament were an attempt to make a more coherent message, though it still failed in many aspects.

I suppose, in short, that the supernatural characters are the product of two main factors; the synthesis of different theological figures from surrounding cultures and the human need for a symbology and iconography that provide hope and a way to better understand the world around them.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Dude, the conclusion IS an apologetic. They had to explain the changes away somehow, given the idea that god is supposed to be unchanging.

Going backwards, where is the stopping point? When do changes cease being apologetic in nature?

[_Some Schmo]

Dude, the conclusion IS an apologetic. They had to explain the changes away somehow, given the idea that god is supposed to be unchanging.

Going backwards, where is the stopping point? When do changes cease being apologetic in nature?

When they made up the first draft. Religion 1.0, I guess.

You know, you write the first draft of a piece of fiction, then the editors (critics) come along, blow holes in your story, so you do rewrites until it becomes sensible.

And who knows? Maybe one day, religion will make sense. It would be a much better story if they hadn't tried to pass it off as fact in the first place.

[_moksha]

where was Jesus borrowed from?

Well, there are remarkable similarities to the stories of Horus, Mithra and Dionysus. Still, it is nice to think that Jesus was entirely unique.

[_Dr. Shades]

Why else would so many disconnected cultures have legends of a dead but living god that makes the crops grow?

Because disconnected cultures felt compelled to come up with an explanation for why their crops died out in fall and winter but began growing again in spring and summer.