Christianity is not a new revelation. It is a continuation of Paganism by another name. The gospel story of Jesus is not a biography. It is a Jewish reworking of ancient Pagan myths of the dying and resurrecting Godman Osiris-Dionysus, which had been popular for centuries throughout the ancient Mediterranean.
The stories told about Osiris-Dionysus will sound familiar. He is the Son of God who is born to a virgin on the 25th of December before three shepherds. He is a prophet who offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism. He is a wonderworker who raises the dead and miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony. He is God incarnate who dies at Easter, sometimes through crucifixion, but who resurrects on the third day. He is a savior who offers his followers redemption through partaking in a meal of bread and wine, symbolic of his body and blood. The Jesus story is a synthesis of the Jewish belief of the Messiah with Pagan myths of the dying and resurrecting Godman.
The conquests of Alexander the Great had turned the Mediterranean world into one culture with a common language. This created an age of eclecticism, much like our own, in which different spiritual traditions met and synthesized. Jewish mystics of this period, such as Philo Judeas, were obsessed with synthesizing Jewish and Pagan mythology.
At the time, both Pagans and Christians were well aware that the Jesus story was a myth. The early Christians, known as Gnostics, understood the Jesus story as allegory, not history, and even called Jesus by the names of the Pagan Godman. The Gnostics were brutally eradicated by the Roman Church in the 4th and 5th centuries.
The Gnostics had synthesized Jewish and Pagan mythology to produce the Jesus story and many other extraordinary Christian myths largely unknown today. The Roman Church was a later deviation, which misunderstood the Jesus story as history. It was, as the Gnostics said at the time, an imitation Church teaching a superficial Christianity designed for the masses.

Roman Christianity, and all its subsequent offshoots, is based on the idea that if you believe in the existence of an historical Jesus you will go to heaven when you die. The historical figure of Jesus has been so central to Western culture that it is hard to question his existence. As soon as we hear his name we can see him in our mind's eye, in his flowing white robes, with long hair and a beard. Yet this picture of Jesus was not created until the 8th century.

The fact is that everything we think we know about Jesus, like this romantic picture of the bearded savior, is a creation of the human imagination. Actually there is barely a shred of evidence for the existence of an historical Jesus and this dissolves on closer inspection. Paul, the earliest Christian source, shows no knowledge of an historical man, only a mystical Christ. The gospels have been thoroughly discredited as eyewitness reports. Other bits of traditional evidence, such as references to Jesus by the Jewish historian Josephus, have been shown to be later forgeries. If solid evidence had existed, there would have been no need to have created such fabrications.

Perhaps within a generation people will look back at the beginning of the 21st century and be amazed that a culture with the technology to travel to the moon could see the fabulous story of Jesus as anything other than a myth. It is truly the greatest lie ever told, because it has been thousands of years in the making.

22jumpstreet:
...The fact is that everything we think we know about Jesus, like this romantic picture of the bearded savior, is a creation of the human imagination. Actually there is barely a shred of evidence for the existence of an historical Jesus and this dissolves on closer inspection. Paul, the earliest Christian source, shows no knowledge of an historical man, only a mystical Christ. The gospels have been thoroughly discredited as eyewitness reports. Other bits of traditional evidence, such as references to Jesus by the Jewish historian Josephus, have been shown to be later forgeries. If solid evidence had existed, there would have been no need to have created such fabrications.....

your vain efforts and futile marketing deceive you and your other yous!

Just as a Sheep knows his Shepherd, every True Child knows their father, without a shadow of doubt.

But it is expected that bastards would surely have many fathers and there shall arise disputes and disputings as to who, is his Father!

Dtruthspeaker:


your vain efforts and futile marketing deceive you and your other yous!

Just as a Sheep knows his Shepherd, every True Child knows their father, without a shadow of doubt.

But it is expected that bastards would surely have many fathers and there shall arise disputes and disputings as to who, is his Father!

This is important and relevant because... ??

22jumpstreet:


This is important and relevant because... ??

Because A Deceiver is exactly as a yahoo yahoo, he must aggressively market his deceits.

And it is only Fools and the-evil who shall and must fall from your ploy.

Dtruthspeaker:


Because A Deceiver is exactly as a yahoo yahoo, he must aggressively market his deceits.

And it is only Fools and the-evil who shall and must fall from your ploy.

My friend,the truth is bitter, the truth is bitter....

22jumpstreet:

The gospel story of Jesus is not a biography. It is a Jewish reworking of ancient Pagan myths of the dying and resurrecting Godman Osiris-Dionysus, which had been popular for centuries throughout the ancient Mediterranean.

Here we go again. Another atheist reciting what he heard without adequate research. For your information, there is no evidence that the jesus story was derived from Osiris. This is the age of the internet and scholarship, please do your research.

The stories told about Osiris-Dionysus will sound familiar. He is the Son of God who is born to a virgin on the 25th of December before three shepherds. He is a prophet who offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism. He is a wonderworker who raises the dead and miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony. He is God incarnate who dies at Easter, sometimes through crucifixion, but who resurrects on the third day. He is a savior who offers his followers redemption through partaking in a meal of bread and wine, symbolic of his body and blood. The Jesus story is a synthesis of the Jewish belief of the Messiah with Pagan myths of the dying and resurrecting Godman.

None of these things are true about Osiris, if you think they are, then give me references to works of historians on Osiris or the ancient scholarly references, you would find none. All of these stories about Osiris likening him to the Jesus story were largely manufactured by 18th century atheist writers. Do your research my man.

22jumpstreet:


My friend,the truth is bitter, the truth is bitter....

ah, not so! Truth is only bitter to those who love to eat lies!

It is actually very sweet!

Dtruthspeaker:


ah, not so! Truth is only bitter to those who love to eat lies!

It is actually very sweet!

In Justin martyr first apology, this is what he has to say

"
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;"

He confirmed my point..

22jumpstreet:


In Justin martyr first apology, this is what he has to say

"
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;"

He confirmed my point..

Truth is not established simply because someone said!

Dtruthspeaker:


Truth is not established simply because someone said!

Just quoting those who know better...