Catholic Forum, please explain this to me

[tjm190]

there is no possible way? Mayans didn’t build their first pyramid until the time around Christ. Egyptian’s built their first pyramid around 2600 BCE… that leaves plenty of time for influence my friend.

… I hope this is not a serious belief. As if a group of people made the trek from Egypt, through the middle east, through the vast majority of Russia, across a then submerged land bridge, and told the meso-American people that monuments in the shape of square pyramids are awesome?

 

[lemondiesel]

… I hope this is not a serious belief. As if a group of people made the trek from Egypt, through the middle east, through the vast majority of Russia, across a then submerged land bridge, and told the meso-American people that monuments in the shape of square pyramids are awesome?

Like I just posted, you should look up ancient writings on the men from boats, which has been termed “Sea People” for better understanding.

These “Sea People” are your Joshua story of the Conquest of Canaan.

 

[tjm190]

Like I just posted, you should look up ancient writings on the men from boats, which has been termed “Sea People” for better understanding.

These “Sea People” are your Joshua story of the Conquest of Canaan.

I know about the sea people, they’re one of my favoritely named civilizations (right up there with the mound builders)

wait… I’m abit confused. Sure, one theory claims that our friends the sea people displaced the original residents of Canaan when they settled down. How does this relate to the account of Canaan’s conquest in the bible?

 

[lemondiesel]

Well then your professor is sadly mistaken if he/she is trying to infer causal relationships between Zoroastrianism and the Abrahamic religions.

tell me, what problem do you see with Christianity (possibly) being influenced by other religions?

Also, How about the fact that the Bible goes from a savage God to the God of the New Testament? Big difference…

 

[pcg2]

Gladly. Thank you. You said Christianity, but remember this can be applied to Judaism and Islam as well.

When you bring the issue up “judging” and “obedience” towards God, all you are doing is allowing God to reinforce morality. If he truly gave us things like the Ten Commandments, then he is tampering with the supposed free will. “He is just guiding us,” doesn’t work because God can not truly reveal himself to anyone, because then he is messing with that persons free will. What if that person didn’t even want to believe in God, maybe he enjoys evil. If you truly believe in free will, you should believe God created the universe and let it play out, knowing that we would be created, because he knows eeeeeeeeeeverything

So then that goes to the point of ancient teachings. Ancient people worshiped things like the Sun and the Moon as gods because they are simple cause and effect relationships. They knew/felt effects from the sun and moon, but they couldn’t know what was causing it. They knew the effects of volcanoes, but they didnt know what caused them. They knew the effects of wind, they just did not know where wind came from.

As the mankind evolved, our knowledge expanded, and so did our idea of God. We were starting to answer more of the causes which in turn began the questioning of certain gods. Which made cause and effect change into explanations with not as many gods. As we began forming civilizations, we had to learn how to react with the Bible around, testing these cause and effect relationships.

Now… Jesus’, Muhammad’s, Buddha’s core teachings were morality, which in biblical sense, has “evolved” from cause and effect relationships.

“Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.”

Sorry for the rant, its hard to explain the concept in just a brief response.

Okay, so when Judaic men wrote the Bible, the beginnings of the Bible, they specifically mention Jews receive the Holy Land and they are the only ones who can get into “heaven.” This now gives them a) right to be in Israel and b) they are chosen, they are reinforced by the Laws of Moses and morality, and they will be judged.

Now thats funny. This religion is parallel to Persian beliefs as well. So in a sense, they rewrote the story using “Israelite history”. (There is also Egyptian historical events in the OT)

That is like taking an apple, and covering it in chocolate. In the end it is still an apple.

Sorry for the rant, I would like to add; please do not think I hate the Bible or try and “debunk” it. It probably is one of the greatest writings in history, especially the new testament.

I would just like to show a parable of Jesus and could you tell me what the Christians interpretion it is?

“I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”
Remember, Jesus refrains for using the word actions of any sort.

TO CONCLUDE the concept of God has changed over time, but the way to impress him hasn’t.

hahaha it’s okay about the ranting, but forgive me, i don’t quite get what you were trying to get at…

I don’t see what’s wrong with the Israelites “rewriting” Persian history to create their own (assuming that’s truly what happened, which i HIGHLY doubt). How does that discredit the truth of the Abrahamic religions? It’s no secret that the bible is a collection of books written over thousands of years and complied together by man. Some of these are allegorical, literal, historical, moral, proverbial and theological in their purpose. So of course, these texts are going to reflect, to some degree, the social workings of the author’s specific culture. But they all reflect some truth, regardless of whether they were influenced by other religions/cultures/etc.

If God is omniscient, then He would have known that the Isrealites would have gotten this information from other cultures/religions. But that’s okay, because it in no way invalidates their truth. Think about evolution. Sure, God could have just created us in a literal 7 days just like we are now – human. But it is now increasingly evident that we evolved from lessr life forms. God allowed us to, gradually, “borrow” from our past ancestors and turn into what we are today. That makes us no less human.

You have to try to remember that God knows what He’s doing.

 

[pcg2]

Also, How about the fact that the Bible goes from a savage God to the God of the New Testament? Big difference…

there are some threads talking about this on this website

 

[lemondiesel]

hahaha it’s okay about the ranting, but forgive me, i don’t quite get what you were trying to get at…

I don’t see what’s wrong with the Israelites “rewriting” Persian history to create their own (assuming that’s truly what happened, which i HIGHLY doubt). How does that discredit the truth of the Abrahamic religions? It’s no secret that the bible is a collection of books written over thousands of years and complied together by man. Some of these are allegorical, literal, historical, moral, proverbial and theological in their purpose. So of course, these texts are going to reflect, to some degree, the social workings of the author’s specific culture. But they all reflect some truth, regardless of whether they were influenced by other religions/cultures/etc.

If God is omniscient, then He would have known that the Isrealites would have gotten this information from other cultures/religions. But that’s okay, because it in no way invalidates their truth. Think about evolution. Sure, God could have just created us in a literal 7 days just like we are now – human. But it is now increasingly evident that we evolved from lessr life forms. God allowed us to, gradually, “borrow” from our past ancestors and turn into what we are today. That makes us no less human.

You have to try to remember that God knows what He’s doing.

I am not trying to “discredit” Abrahamic religions. I am trying to imply that there is no true need for these practices we know about today for religion. It is ALL about living morally, because we effect the world. You and I are no different, sure we look different, but we are all one in sense. Religions have gone away from that because we began to know that god doesn’t punish us for our sins on Earth.

God can not effect us by ANY means, if he does, he is effecting our free will.

 

[lemondiesel]

Sure, God could have just created us in a literal 7 days just like we are now – human. But it is now increasingly evident that we evolved from lessr life forms.

If you don’t mind you should let me say something on my belief about the creation story.

“God created man in his image”

My long explanation up there has actually lead a great deal to this question. God created man in his image, which means God gave us the ability to “see that its good.”

God can notice how beautiful his creations are. We can notice the beauty of something. God created us in his image that way.

 

[LilyM]

Will you look up the “Sea People” which is in Egyptian hieorglyphics and other ancient texts as people on boats, who ultimately (still a theory) caused the Bronze Age collapse.

I’m familiar with the ‘sea people’. Yes, of course people had boats in ancient times and used them. The Egyptians themselves used watercraft on the Nile from earliest recorded times, as did those who dwelt on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

It’s a huge and entirely unwarranted leap into fantasy to imagine that the sort of boats or ships that were used to ply these rivers, or even the generally very flat and calm, not to mention small, Mediterranean Sea, were in any way capable of going across the huge, open Atlantic to the Americas. May as well suggest that a person could float across the Atlantic on their backs, or swim across.

Even the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans of the classical period, whose seafaring capabilities were well in advance of anything either the Egyptians or Mesoamericans could do, were NOT CAPABLE of going across the open ocean to the Americas. They certainly would’ve tried, if not succeeded, if they had even thought it possible. It wasn’t, and they didn’t.

As I said before, IF there had been any contact between the Egyptians and the Mesoamericans there would’ve been traces of Egyptian influence in Mesoamerica.

Where are the Egyptian words creeping into Inca language (after all, they would’ve had to speak to each other, and thus would’ve known and used each others’ languages)? Where are the Egyptian deities being worshipped under another name by the Incas as they were by the Greeks and Romans who WERE influenced by Egypt? Where are the finds among Inca ruins of Egyptian coins and trinkets given to Incas in trade?

For that matter, the influence woud’ve had to extend both ways - the Inca would’ve influenced the Egyptian. So likewise, where are the Egyptian texts discussing the quaint Inca custom of human sacrifice in the same way that they talk of the people of Carthage offering babies to idols? Where is the mention of the (surely noteworthy) Inca basketball games? Or anything - a picture, an artifact, a piece of writing - referencing them at all, for that matter, in any way whatsoever?

 

[buffalo]

Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?