Different thoughts on an old argument

[lotus_in_bloom]

Pondering on the old ‘‘Catholics ripped off the Pagans’’ argument. I am sure many of you have encountered the attacks/accusations that Catholics took the ‘Divine virgin mother/dying resurrected son’ pagan story and slapped a Christian label on it…however I love pondering the faith and I have two possible theories to add to it.(Before I proceed with these two theories, just know this is not meant to bait an argument and I am not saying I believe these theories as I am just wanting to ponder and speculate)

Theory one: Paganism pre-dates Christianity(before Christ on Earth), that is not disputable. Ancient man worshiped all sorts of goddesses and gods and many had a reoccurring theme. A divine virgin goddess who gave birth to a god who later died and was generally resurrected. Could it be that God knowing the heart of man and the rampant following of these religions brought the truth in a similar form to draw the pagans away to follow Him?(supposedly The Vatican is built on the former temple site of Cybele)

Theory two: Perhaps Satan knew of the Lords plan earlier on and formed the pagan religions to detract from the future birth of Christ.

 

[empther]

Theory one: Paganism pre-dates Christianity(before Christ on Earth), that is not disputable. Ancient man worshiped all sorts of goddesses and gods and many had a reoccurring theme. A divine virgin goddess who gave birth to a god who later died and was generally resurrected. Could it be that God knowing the heart of man and the rampant following of these religions
brought the truth in a similar form :bigyikes:
to draw the pagans away to follow Him?(supposedly The Vatican is built on the former temple site of Cybele)

Is there nothing too outrageous to be posted on this forum?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Theory one: Paganism pre-dates Christianity(before Christ on Earth), that is not disputable. Ancient man worshiped all sorts of goddesses and gods and many had a reoccurring theme. A divine virgin goddess who gave birth to a god who later died and was generally resurrected. Could it be that God knowing the heart of man and the rampant following of these religions brought the truth in a similar form to draw the pagans away to follow Him?(supposedly The Vatican is built on the former temple site of Cybele)

Theory two: Perhaps Satan knew of the Lords plan earlier on and formed the pagan religions to detract from the future birth of Christ.

Theory one: many ancient religions have many different versions of creation and the relationship of gods to men. We can only generalize about that by saying men fashioned their gods to conform to powers greater than they; powers they feared or powers they admired. The search for the true God was bound to fail among these religions because hardly any of them were monotheistic. When the true God did appear first to the Jews and later to the Christians, the pagan religions immediately began to die. Some of them still exist, but as Catholics we believe that when they have been exposed long enough to Christ, they too will begin their decent into darkness.

Theory two: Some pagan religions are or were downright Satanic. These certainly celebrated the worship of violence and hate, such as the Thugees of India. Satan’s main effort now, however, must be to spoil the fruits of our Catholic faith. This he can only accomplish by sowing division among us, as he has successfully sown division among the Protestants. The “smoke of Satan” wafts through the Vatican, as it did everywhere else in the ancient world and does everywhere else in the modern world.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Theory two: Perhaps Satan knew of the Lords plan earlier on and formed the pagan religions to detract from the future birth of Christ.

As a child I remember some local churches taught the above.

 

[lotus_in_bloom]

Is there nothing too outrageous to be posted on this forum?

I am not saying that I hold those to be true, in fact I was just curious if anyone could direct me to the truth in the matter.

 

[Celtic_Maiden]

As a child I remember some local churches taught the above.

Do you go to Software Church?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Do you go to Software Church?

Now days I don’t go to any church regularly (and when I do it is only by invite). It was in some Baptist and non-denominational Christian churches in which the hypothesis was presented that Satan made fake religions ahead of time to fool people.

 

[Pablopedro]

Pondering on the old ‘‘Catholics ripped off the Pagans’’ argument. I am sure many of you have encountered the attacks/accusations that Catholics took the ‘Divine virgin mother/dying resurrected son’ pagan story and slapped a Christian label on it…however I love pondering the faith and I have two possible theories to add to it.(Before I proceed with these two theories, just know this is not meant to bait an argument and I am not saying I believe these theories as I am just wanting to ponder and speculate)

Theory one: Paganism pre-dates Christianity(before Christ on Earth), that is not disputable. Ancient man worshiped all sorts of goddesses and gods and many had a reoccurring theme. A divine virgin goddess who gave birth to a god who later died and was generally resurrected. Could it be that God knowing the heart of man and the rampant following of these religions brought the truth in a similar form to draw the pagans away to follow Him?(supposedly The Vatican is built on the former temple site of Cybele)

Theory two: Perhaps Satan knew of the Lords plan earlier on and formed the pagan religions to detract from the future birth of Christ.

Personally I think that God has been revealing himself to all of Humanity throughout our existence. It is just in a much dimmer way and unclear way with the Pagan religions, rather than the direct revelation of Judeo-Christianity.

So I think they had an idea of what was to come, but simply didn’t understand it or the form it would take.

Examples: Pharoh believed he was God incarnate, and after he died it was believed he would travel through the underworld for 3 days before being reborn as the Sun defeating darkness and rising into heaven. Coincidence or a prophetic dream that symbolized what was to come?

The Aztecs thought that to appease God the Priests would have to sacrifice a person on the altar and eat his heart. Interesting how when the Spanish priests arrived they were sacrificing The Spotless Lamb on their altars and were eating his heart (in all Eucharistic miracles the flesh observed under the microscope is heart tissue).

They also believed God would come from across the sea and bring them salvation (and his description almost perfectly matches the paintings and images of Christ that the Spaniards had.) Again coincidence or a prophetic dream that symbolized Christ?

Of important note here is there is no way this similarity could have been created by interacting cultures “borrowing” from each other. The Aztec people would not have been in contact with Middle Eastern or European culture for thousands of years prior.

 

[catholicscot]

Pondering on the old ‘‘Catholics ripped off the Pagans’’ argument. I am sure many of you have encountered the attacks/accusations that Catholics took the ‘Divine virgin mother/dying resurrected son’ pagan story and slapped a Christian label on it…however I love pondering the faith and I have two possible theories to add to it.(Before I proceed with these two theories, just know this is not meant to bait an argument and I am not saying I believe these theories as I am just wanting to ponder and speculate)

Theory one: Paganism pre-dates Christianity(before Christ on Earth), that is not disputable. Ancient man worshiped all sorts of goddesses and gods and many had a reoccurring theme. A divine virgin goddess who gave birth to a god who later died and was generally resurrected. Could it be that God knowing the heart of man and the rampant following of these religions brought the truth in a similar form to draw the pagans away to follow Him?(supposedly The Vatican is built on the former temple site of Cybele)

Theory two: Perhaps Satan knew of the Lords plan earlier on and formed the pagan religions to detract from the future birth of Christ.

Re Theory one: if you look into the myths and belief 's of the ancient world via academic sources rather than popular one you will find two things. Firstly most of the supposed similarities do not exist. Secondly many of the sources we have for what pagans believe date from after Christ so the question of who was imitating whom (where similarities do exist) is a rather difficult one to resolve.

Re Theory two: if I remember correctly Justin Martyr advanced such an idea. Interestingly the examples he cited, which presumably well were known in the ancient world, are never referred to nowadays and the examples he doesn’t mention, like Isis and Horus, are probably ignored by him because nobody at the time thought that the supposed parallels existed.

 

[VincentChristop]

Let me ask you this.

In ancient days you had a bunch of slaves who acted savagely because of their suffering brought upon by the higher ups. They constantly rebelled, and had great spiritual leaders to protect them. How would you control your people?

Let’s say in ancient days all these slaves in one way or another knew how to practice magic.
Let’s say in these ancient days these slaves would not settle for what they had.
Let’s say these slaves did everything in their power to over come the oppressors of their time.

What is the best way to control them?

In ancient days only wealthy people were allowed to publish scripture.

With that said. The lower class found ways to gain power, and that power was through their Gods/ancestor spirits etc etc.

The higher ups feared this fact. So they conspired together to form the greatest deception man has ever known.

Breaking original traditions of current slaves.
Brainwashing them with the correct morals through fear.
Telling them that everything they do that was a way to gain power over the higher ups was a sin, so that they would be afraid of this “God”, and not act hostile.

If you pay close attention to the Bible. Read it from another perspective. You will realize that everything in the Bible is to stop slaves from rising against the people who govern the earth.

We are thought about martyrs through out history for Christianity, but are you aware throughout the centuries more people died from crusades of Christianity. Are you aware that everywhere Christianity is present the morals and traditions of nations around the world turn into one tradition and one type of moral.

Don’t get me wrong there is good teachings, but God The Universe showed me what true peace and freedom is.

There is more than meets the eye to this world.

 

[VincentChristop]

Also are you aware you keep relics inside altars at the church?

Meaning clothing, bones, hair etc etc. of saints.

These relics are put inside altars at church.

This is not for remembrance of the saint. Not at all.

This is a act of pure magic. Notice how the altar consist of the same magical tools to perform a supposed “pagan” ritual.

pentacle(earth) - paten
chalice(water) - chalice
sword(wind) - Thurible
wand(fire) - crossier(fire)

This infact is not “the devils trickery”. Magic is used in mass as a additional means to make you believe, and also as a means to strengthen spirits mentioned in mass.

archangels, holy saints, jesus, mary etc etc.

 

[tonyrey]

Personally I think that God has been revealing himself to all of Humanity throughout our existence. It is just in a much dimmer way and unclear way with the Pagan religions, rather than the direct revelation of Judeo-Christianity.

So I think they had an idea of what was to come, but simply didn’t understand it or the form it would take.

Examples: Pharoh believed he was God incarnate, and after he died it was believed he would travel through the underworld for 3 days before being reborn as the Sun defeating darkness and rising into heaven. Coincidence or a prophetic dream that symbolized what was to come?

The Aztecs thought that to appease God the Priests would have to sacrifice a person on the altar and eat his heart. Interesting how when the Spanish priests arrived they were sacrificing The Spotless Lamb on their altars and were eating his heart (in all Eucharistic miracles the flesh observed under the microscope is heart tissue).

They also believed God would come from across the sea and bring them salvation (and his description almost perfectly matches the paintings and images of Christ that the Spaniards had.) Again coincidence or a prophetic dream that symbolized Christ?

Of important note here is there is no way this similarity could have been created by interacting cultures “borrowing” from each other. The Aztec people would not have been in contact with Middle Eastern or European culture for thousands of years prior.

It is absurd to think a loving Father had never inspired the human race prior to the advent of Judaism and Christianity. Primitive man intuitively grasped the difference between body and spirit while Socrates chose to die for what he believed to be right. On the other hand evil manifested itself in human and animal sacrifice.

 

[ericc]

I am not saying that I hold those to be true, in fact I was just curious if anyone could direct me to the truth in the matter.

Lee Strobel in his “The Case for the Real Jesus” interviewed a number of prominent historians/researchers on this alleged paganistic roots and conclusion was basically superficial resemblances and authors trying to cash in on sensationalizing this topic which otherwise had been more or less written off in the academic world. Says Edwin Yamauchi one of the interviewees of the book when asked about people writing on these topics of mystery religions who lack the appropriate academic background:

“They don’t have the languages, they don’t study the original sources, they don’t pay attention to the dates, and they frequently quote ideas that were popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but have already been refuted. Reputable and careful scholars like Carsten Colpe of Germany, Gunter Wagner of Switzerland, and Bruce Metzger of the United States have pointed out that, number one, the evidence for these supposed parallels is often very late, and number two, there are too many generalizations being made.
“People see parallels and then jump to conclusions that one religion influenced another. Of course there are going to be some parallels — most religions talk about some sort of salvation, practice certain rituals, or have a common meal. But that doesn’t mean there is dependence."

 

[ericc]

Also are you aware you keep relics inside altars at the church?

Meaning clothing, bones, hair etc etc. of saints.

These relics are put inside altars at church.

This is not for remembrance of the saint. Not at all.

This is a act of pure magic. Notice how the altar consist of the same magical tools to perform a supposed “pagan” ritual.

pentacle(earth) - paten
chalice(water) - chalice
sword(wind) - Thurible
wand(fire) - crossier(fire)

This infact is not “the devils trickery”. Magic is used in mass as a additional means to make you believe, and also as a means to strengthen spirits mentioned in mass.

archangels, holy saints, jesus, mary etc etc.

You are joking right?