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May. 22nd, 2006 11:19 am
The DaVinci Code
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I really want to. Here's an excerpt though that I find very interesting.
--
“The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. The Bible is a product of MAN. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, addition, and revisions.
Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen. As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions, and founded new philosophies. As a descendant of the lines of Kind Solomon and King David, Jesus possessed a rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews. Understandably his life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land. More than EIGHTY gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them.
The fundamental irony of Christianity, The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great. A lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed, too weak to protest. In Constantine’s day, Rome’s official religion was sun worship–the cult of Sol Invictus, Constantine was the head priest.”
[Conflicting views from the Christians and the Pagans threatened to divide Rome, Constantine backed the winning horse and made a hybrid of the religion, satisfying both parties.]
“Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Huros became the blueprint for out modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. Virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual–the mitter, the alter, the doxology, and communion, the act of “God-eating”–were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is not exclusively Christian; the self sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl. Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch, they grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage... an assimilated historical record of man's quest to understand the devine.
The pre-Christian God Mithras–Mithras– was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Christmas, the "birth of Jesus Christ" is celebrated in late December. Yet according to the Bible, Christ was born in March. December twenty-fifth is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus--Unconquered Sun--coinciding with the winter solstice. It's that wonderful time of year when the sun returns, and the days start getting longer. Conquering religions often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It's called transmutation. It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. Worshipers keep the same holy dates, pray in the same sacred locations, use a similar symbology... and they simply substitute a different god.
Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagans veneration day of the sun. To this day, most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the pagan sun god’s weekly tribute-SUNday.”
[At gatherings is was voted and debated upon “the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration of sacraments, and Christ’s divinity.” A vote was administered to whether Jesus should be the son of God or not, and it barely passed.]
“Christ’s divinity was critical to the further unification of the Roman empire and to the new Vatican power base. This not only precluded further pagan challenges to Christianity, but now the followers of Christ were able to redeem themselves only via the established sacred channel–the Roman Catholic Church.
How about our image of God? Christian art never portrays God as the hawk sun god, or as an Aztec. When the early Christian converts abandoned their former deities--pagan gods, Roman gods, Greek, sun, Mithraic, etcetera--they asked the church what their new Christian God looked like. Wisely, they church chose the most feared, powerful... and familiar face in all of recorded history.
Zeus."
--
Amen.
--
“The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. The Bible is a product of MAN. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, addition, and revisions.
Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen. As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus toppled kings, inspired millions, and founded new philosophies. As a descendant of the lines of Kind Solomon and King David, Jesus possessed a rightful claim to the throne of the King of the Jews. Understandably his life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land. More than EIGHTY gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them.
The fundamental irony of Christianity, The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great. A lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed, too weak to protest. In Constantine’s day, Rome’s official religion was sun worship–the cult of Sol Invictus, Constantine was the head priest.”
[Conflicting views from the Christians and the Pagans threatened to divide Rome, Constantine backed the winning horse and made a hybrid of the religion, satisfying both parties.]
“Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Huros became the blueprint for out modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. Virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual–the mitter, the alter, the doxology, and communion, the act of “God-eating”–were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is not exclusively Christian; the self sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl. Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch, they grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage... an assimilated historical record of man's quest to understand the devine.
The pre-Christian God Mithras–Mithras– was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Christmas, the "birth of Jesus Christ" is celebrated in late December. Yet according to the Bible, Christ was born in March. December twenty-fifth is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus--Unconquered Sun--coinciding with the winter solstice. It's that wonderful time of year when the sun returns, and the days start getting longer. Conquering religions often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It's called transmutation. It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. Worshipers keep the same holy dates, pray in the same sacred locations, use a similar symbology... and they simply substitute a different god.
Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagans veneration day of the sun. To this day, most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the pagan sun god’s weekly tribute-SUNday.”
[At gatherings is was voted and debated upon “the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration of sacraments, and Christ’s divinity.” A vote was administered to whether Jesus should be the son of God or not, and it barely passed.]
“Christ’s divinity was critical to the further unification of the Roman empire and to the new Vatican power base. This not only precluded further pagan challenges to Christianity, but now the followers of Christ were able to redeem themselves only via the established sacred channel–the Roman Catholic Church.
How about our image of God? Christian art never portrays God as the hawk sun god, or as an Aztec. When the early Christian converts abandoned their former deities--pagan gods, Roman gods, Greek, sun, Mithraic, etcetera--they asked the church what their new Christian God looked like. Wisely, they church chose the most feared, powerful... and familiar face in all of recorded history.
Zeus."
--
Amen.