Will and Elst.

[prajapati]

Originally Posted by Bandit

yes.

so you agree that christians still celebrate astronomical events (like solstice) that pagans used to weave their pagan theology on (like associating the feast in hounour of the life giver on solstice day) after associating something biblical with it??

that they dressed astronomical manenquins dressed in pagan lore, in christian dress ??

for example the astronomical event of solstice (pagan mananquin), on which the pagan (dress) of feast and celebration of the invinsible sun was fitted, is now fitted with the christian notion (dress) that someone was born on the day of solstice.

Originally Posted by Bandit

if you want to try & chisel away the great walls of china, that is up to you. i tossed my chisel out the window years ago & learned that it will eventually weather away & maybe open up on its own, yet the basic foundation of it all, will always stand uncorrupted .

china has no great walls. it has but one

i know that no matter how you decorate it, the basic foundation has and will remain

Originally Posted by Bandit

peace to you & i appreciate the little discussion of awareness.

peace to you too and i appreaciate that you finally agreed that the dress of chrismas is after all woven on the astronomical manenquin of solstice, after taking off the pagan dress of "the feast of the invincible sun"

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by prajapati

peace to you too and i appreaciate that you finally agreed that the dress of chrismas is after all woven on the astronomical manenquin of solstice, after taking off the pagan dress of "the feast of the invincible sun"

maybe you celebrate it that way. i celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

[prajapati]

Originally Posted by Bandit

i celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

yes thats the christian dress.

you celebrate it on the astronomical manenquinb of solstice though.

the same manenquin that pagans had previously dressed up in "the feast of the invinsible sun"

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by prajapati

yes thats the christian dress.

you celebrate it on the astronomical manenquinb of solstice though.

the same manenquin that pagans had previously dressed up in "the feast of the invinsible sun"

i know that. i cant change the wall of china that was built b4 me. Jesus was not built on anything. For me he is the builder & the foundation of it all.
i dont do the invisible sun thing. it does not make any difference to me what day his birth is celebrated.

[prajapati]

Originally Posted by Bandit

i know that. i cant change the wall of china that was built b4 me. Jesus was not built on anything. For me he is the builder & the foundation of it all.
i dont do the invisible sun thing. it does not make any difference to me what day his birth is celebrated.

jesus was not built on anything, but his birthday sure was fitted on the wall.

and if it does not make any difference when his birthday is celebrated, why then celebrate it on the day of winter solstice when pagans celebrated the invinsibility of the sun by having a feast in his honour??

why not the 14th of july? why strip another belief system and replace it with your own ?

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by prajapati

jesus was not built on anything, but his birthday sure was fitted on the wall.

and if it does not make any difference when his birthday is celebrated, why then celebrate it on the day of winter solstice when pagans celebrated the invinsibility of the sun by having a feast in his honour??

why not the 14th of july? why strip another belief system and replace it with your own ?

why dont you ask Rome! or do you just like pointing fingers at people who had nothing to do with it.
and put on a different record, one that does not skip constantly.

[I, Brian]

As before prajapati, Christian sought to replace existing systems - it seems your argument so far rests on Christians sharing some of the holidays, therefore Christianity is a pagan religion.

That argument doesn't work. Paganism and Christianity share the same world, same seasons, same effects on the world by the lunar and solar movements. Doesn't it make more sense for Christianity to hold their own celebrations of return to life and entrance to life over the pagan festicals in an effort to replace them?

[prajapati]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

it seems your argument so far rests on Christians sharing some of the holidays, therefore Christianity is a pagan religion.

well i gave you a chance to get the stick by the right end.

evidently you havent yet managed to do that.

my arguement is not what you think it is.

so i'll give it another shot - by replying to your previous post.




and bandit,

i could not care less why rome did what it did.

what i am saying is that rome dresses pagan manenquins in christian garb, and since that was done in a deliberate effort to obliterate the pagan dress the manenquin was previously wearing, the upshot is that the same pagan mananquins (dates) are celebrated to this day, under a christian spin.

thats what will durant and i wanted to point out. that christianity helped continue/preserve the same pagan traditions that it wanted to destroy by adopting pagan dates/manenquins. which though doesnt make christianity a pagan religion, does make a lot of pagan concepts live on, in christianity.

also its not just dates that were borrowed. theology and concepts too.

from the first quote -

Isis with the babe Horus became the Madonna with Child. The bearded and horse-borne Germanic god Wodan became Saint Nicolas, later americanized as Santa Claus. Even the Buddha found a place on the saints’ calendar under the name Saint Josaphat. The autumnal celebration of the dead became All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, which is nowadays regaining its purely Pagan colours in the form of Hallowe'en. The date of Easter (from the Germanic dawn goddess Eostra/Ostarra) combines the Pagan symbolism of Spring Equinox and Full Moon with the Christian innovation of Sunday as the day of the Lord,-- an innovation which itself was borrowed from the solar cult of Mithraism, a late-Roman type of Masonic Lodge inspired by both Iranian Mazdeism and astrology. Winter Solstice as its feast of the Invincible Sun became Christmas.


---------->>> the bits in bold are extra-biblical concepts/theology.
for example, christ is very much central to the bible and that his birthday needs to be celebrated is a christian concept all the way. but there's no reference to "autumnal celebration of the dead", in the middle-east based book thats the bible. and the "day of the lord" concept does not come from christ, but from the fact that one or more of the 12 apostoles were influenced enough, by the "solar clt of mithraism" - to have felt it worthy to incorporate the concept of "day of the lord" into christianity.


so clearly, a few NEW concepts (religious concepts = theology) also came into christianity from pagan concepts.
thats apart from those special dates of the pagan religious calender, that were dressed up in christian connotations.

[prajapati]

That's a point of contention - only the clothing is pagan.

no. some concepts and ideas too.

and its not the clothing that IS pagan, its the manenquin that is.
the present clothing is christian, where once a pagan clothing used to exist.


As before, the Christmas tree isn't on the Church altar - Christianity has not adopted the Christmas tree as a religious symbol.

yes. but then again nor are churches a middle eastern/biblical thing.

that the church should have a pointed spire - often resembling an upturned viking boat (in scandinavia), comes from the design of pagan temples.

and though christianity has not adopted the chrismas tree as a religious symbol, it is an integral part of celebrating chrismas - celebration of the birth of a person,born on an unknown day of the year in israel, - is done on solstice day and with a fir tree playing an important role. the same fir tree that never grew in middle east.

btw thats what i meant by the euro-centricity of pagan symbols that the churched allowed.
why allow fir trees (while converting european pagans) and not "dharma chakras" when converting mongoloid buddhists? why cant they continue to associate with the dharma-chakra the way pagans-turned-christians continue to maintain their association with fir trees??

and why the hell does the mongolian have to associate with the fir tree when he/she converts to christianity - when fir trees are not biblical and were only allowed i, as a sort of consession to european pagans. afterall fir trees dont grow in tibet either.


However, multi-cultural secular Europeans were certainly happy to *revive* older customs. I don't believe you'll find the ceremony of the Christmas tree present in Britain before the 19th century.

lmao !!

so its to "revive older customs' that the church allowed christmas trees to be incorporated in the celebration of christmas on solstice day from the 19th century ???

[prajapati]

This is the problem. *Which* "pagans" are the Christians stealing from?

almost exclusively teh pagans of europe.
and sometimes like the Iris with the babe Horus thing, from egypt.


The Jewish celebration? The Persian celebration? The Italian? Scottish? Mayan?


no.
yes, though vicariously through mithraism.
maybe. the solar cult of mithraism comes to mind.
dunno. scots are celts, most of the euro-pagan things christianity gave a biblical spin to, are germanic.
mayan? NO.

As before, it was a key date in the agricultural calendar. To celebrate an event at that time did not mean taking one religious tradition and simply giving it another name and calling it Christian - it's simply the cuckolding of the original tradition by a new religion with it's own clear theological events.

yes. and they replaced the pagan mythology associated with the key date on the agri calender, with a mythology/biblical tale, of their own.

in this case, no concept or theology has been borrowed, i agree with you.

but the concept of day of the lord, mother with child etc like i pointed out 2 posts back are borrowed concepts/theologies, & alien to the bible of Canaan.


That and Europeans.

not europeans.

but the euro-centricity of the pagan events and often concepts that christianity allowed to live on under this new umbrella.

and the fact that non european convertees have to take to these same events/concepts, though those are neither biblical nor from their own (the new convertee's) previous belief system.




You haven;t really raised anything other than an observation that Christian rituals can have pagan elements. You don't seem to have put forward any successful argument stating that Christianity is simply other religious theologies under a different name.

i did not try that !! the 1st bit in bold is all i wanted to point out, not the 2nd bit.

though i did m,anage to point out some other religious concepts (theologies) that christianity did take from pagan religions (day of the lord concept taken from mithraism, which itself was taken from mazdaism).

of course, i need not take the pain of mentioning that a lot of christianity's concepts DO come from another religious theology - the Judaic.

so how original does that make christianity ??


You really think Christianity isn't big in Haiti?

i am sure christianity is very big in haiti.

afterall its unlikely that the peopel who cound uproot the inca, maya, aztec and all other aboriginal and amerindian theologies of the new world, - after genociding all the people they could they could - would spare the people of a tiny island.

The Maya were long gone when the Spaniards arrived, though -

maya religion wasnt quite all gone. and the maya people certainly werent.

but the spaniards (spanish and portuguese) are the turks-cum-huns-cum-mongols of europe.
so the amerindians stood little chance.

and I don;t believe the Spaniards took the Aztecs customs and sacrifices on-board and called them Christian.

yes and thats the point.

european pagan customs and rituals were taken abroad and given christian spin.
but the customs and rituals of non-whites were trampled and ignored.

also aztecs were not about 'sacrifices" alone as the church would have us believe. i amsurprise you believe in a canard like that being a mod in a CR forum.
if missionaries are to be believed, then hinduism is all about cow worship, buddhism is about a fake lunatic, wicca is all about human sacrifiece

- only they are spotlessly clean good samaritans, never mind the inquisitions and the "genocidal evengelisms" carried out by CharlieTheMango and others !!



Certainly there has been a lot of forced conversion - but that isn't your argument -

no its not - there's little to argue about. like debating if the holocaust (tacitly supported by who ever was the pope back then, if some books are to be believed) happened.

your argument appears to be that Christianity is just another pagan religion, under a new name.


no.
i wanted to point out that christianity is not as UN-pagan as it likes to project itself and ALSO european paganism is not as dead as we think either - it's events and often concepts continue to live in christian guise.

I'm not seeing this supported by any specifica accusations with references.

since that wasnt my original point, i dont see why i should supply references to that effect.


You're putting forward your opinion as some kind of "proof"?

no i am not. you are free to assume though.

also it wasnt my "opinion" that christmas is celebrated on solstice day. thats just what it IS.


Or have I misunderstood something here??

what do you think ???

[At_the_Wellspring]

I'm no expert on religious history, or on comparative religion, but I'll just add my two cents anyway...

As for my own experience of Christianity, it doesn't seem to claim complete separatism from its pagan roots. Undeniably human history and culture will always have some effect on religion and its celebrations. We all live in the same earth, all cultures relate to the natural substances and seasons, which is why images and rituals involving the 'earthly' substances are very present in, I would say, (though I'm not an expert) all the different religions. Doesn't it make sense to use what everyone is familiar with and can comprehend, such as light, water, changing of seasons, growth and harvest to best help people explain religious concepts?

The way I perceive it is that Christianity was able to use existing celebrations to help explain new concepts, rather than trying to be completely foreign.

And while I know that colonising cultures often (probably usually) disregarded the existing people's culture/ religion in an attempt to enforce their own upon them, there are also examples of where the 'new' 'imported' religion somehow blends into the existing belief/ spiritual understanding. For example, here in New Zealand, the Maori culture is one very spiritually connected with the land. There are several Gods in Maori spirituality, of the sky, earth, forest, sea, etc. Ok, New Zealand, like all colonies, doesn't have a squeaky clean history in race-relations, but out of it all has emerged a form of Christianity which is specifically Maori 'Ratana', and which springs from a Maori way of thinking.

Surely everyone will have a slightly different take on life, God, meaning etc dependant on their cultural history, so isn't it important to base religious concepts on things that people understand from their cultural history to promote understanding of the ideas?

Anyway, I'm not sure if that is relevant.

But basically I don't see that anyone is arguing against the fact that Christian celebrations fall on pagan dates and celebrations.

So you could reduce it down to saying that Christianity just added a 'Christian spin' to pagan events - but in the end it is this 'Christian spin' that is the important part of Christianity - not what date things are celebrated. Like bandit said, Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, they celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ, this is what is important, not necessarily what date it happens to be celbrated on.

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, prajapati, and welcome to CR!

The first thing I would have to ask is what is your motivation behind what you have to say here in this thread?

While I can agree with most of the things you mention concerning dates and influence, I do not necessarily agree with your, or your mentor's, interpretation of the "facts."

I have watched Brian attempt to explain a premise you evidently are determined to ignore. No, the "manequin" is not pagan. The manequin, if it in fact exists, is humanity's search for meaning, of an attempt to describe the indescribable. The manequin exists underneath all institutional religions, and every culture and religion clothes the manequin in ways that are significant to their own understanding, going all the way back into pre-history. The cave paintings in Lasceaux and other places cannot help but demonstrate how tribes attempted to connect with what we now call Divine. Now we live in an age of super-tribes, to borrow a phrase, with a great deal of history between the cave paintings and where we are now.

A lot of what you are hinting at stems from the quest for political power. It would only make sense that once that power is gained, it seems only "right" to spread it around. Whether or not this is ethical is irrelevent, in the past it is how things were done. When Rome was the dominating influence, the culture / politics / religion of Rome were spread throughout that empire, including things like language, education, and economics. Christianity, or more specifically Catholism, is the heir to the Western Roman Empire. That doesn't sit well with some, but it is fact. As with all great things entrusted to "men," there are both good and bad things connected with all of this.

You make some rather wanton oversimplifications out of matters that in truth are not so simple. Such as Charlemagne's conquest of Europe, and the conquistador's Europeanization of the Americas, as only two examples.

In the first instance, Europe was Christianized by Charlemagne at the point of a sword. The conversions were minimal and not sincere. In some instances, once a tribe surrendered to his forces, they were herded through a stream, where a priest stood upstream blessing the water, and it was called a baptism. The people thusly treated went home and continued as they always had. The church only held any real power and influence in the major cities, and from there dealt their political power. The vast masses of rural farm communities were allowed to continue in their paganism as before as long as they caused no trouble and paid their taxes. In time, there developed a feudal system, but that is beyond where we are in this discussion.

In the second instance, the power of Rome (as the church) was long solidified, although there were always internal struggles within Europe, lasting up until the late 19th century. Martin Luthur helped a great deal towards that end, the Reformation constantly stirred controversy, particularly in what became Germany, but England developed its own unique brand of Christianity bouyed by the success of Luthur and isolation of island life. But we are concerned with the conquest of the New World and the Europeanization of America. A people who held military advantage over such "backward" people as the American Natives with such things as horses, gunpowder, sailing ships and more felt obliged to modernize those they conquered by subjecting them to all their culture entailed, including religion. While I am not privy to the inner workings of the minds of the powers that existed at that time, after the fact it is apparent some of the methods used. And while European influences are very apparent, they are not the "be all and end all" of the form of Christianity that grew in the New World. Have you heard of the Virgin of Guadelupe? (sp?) Having grown up in California, I can say unequivically that the version of Catholism in Mexico and the South West US is not identical to the Catholism you will find in say Maryland, or Europe. Or the Phillipines, for that matter. True, there are many similarities, but there is also a great deal of latitiude as well. A further example, since it is mentioned, concerns Haiti. I have heard it said that Haiti is 90% Catholic, and 100% Voodun. Similar in Africa, by the way. And Brian not long back posted an article about Jesus in Japan that was quite eye-opening. I have mentioned in the past a group of Christians in this modern day in Turkey that still sacrifices to their local nature deities, which they call by Christian names and understand as Christian saints. In their minds they are 100% Christian, yet most Christians I know would shudder to see, let alone participate in such things.

The Christian clothing that dresses the manequin is the attempt by Christians to understand and reach out to what we all intuitively know is there, but cannot see, because of the veil that separates the material world from the spiritual world. Christians turn to our Teacher of Righteousness we call Christ, the man Jesus. We all try as best we understand to apply His teachings in our lives. That is the reality of the individual Christian.

What leaders in religious institutions do is another matter altogether, Christian and otherwise. We trust them to lead us correctly. Sometimes they do well. Sometimes not. I want to believe most have the best intent, but even that is not a given.

And Christians are not alone in any of this process. All of the major world faiths have their struggles with the same problems. Even the religion of science. Even the religion of atheism and humanism. It seems to me a shame to point a finger at one, and one only, when effectively all are equally guilty at one time or another. Most have histories equally bloody as Christianity, and equally unrepentent in their conquests. This even includes the pagans that you seem so intent to elevate with your synopsis.

We are all human. We are all fallible. Our past and our present are filled with mistakes and errors of judgement. It is well you see a fraction of this, I wonder if you have it in you to look at it all. And then, once you do understand, the question then becomes; "so, now what are you going to do about it?" You can continue to throw your temper tantrum, or you can choose to set aside past differences and get on with your life, and try to do what you can within your sphere of influence to fix those things you feel are broken.

What Columbus did, or Martin Luthur, or Pope (pick one, any one), or the King of England or France or the Netherlands or Spain or Belgium or Germany, doesn't matter. Not when it concerns where you personally are going to land in the eyes of your maker. Your father or mother cannot get you into heaven. That is your responsibility. In the end, what really truly matters is how you personally interact with God. Be it Karma, or the Book of Life, or the weight of your soul in the balance against the sacred feather, it is what you do here and now that matters.

Peace.

[I, Brian]

I think juantoo3 has answered the points thoughtfully enough for the time-being - and on that note, would be a good place to close the thread - especially as the general directionless anger and judgement of Europeans isn't a position I want to encourage at CR.