Michael Rood, Anti-Catholic?

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Monicathree

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Hi all!

I never usually watch protestant TV, but I accidentally caught this guy. I stopped because he was showing a picture of St. Peter. He started pretty much making the Pagan comparisons. He was talking about Osiris and Son and all these ancient cultures showing a mother and son icon. Also, he said that St. Peter’s statue was just an old statue of Jupiter renamed. He also was talking about different gods whose supposed birthday’s were Dec. 25th.

I have read the Catholic Answers reply to the Pagan accusation, but any other ideas or refutations out there?

Peace
 
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Monicathree:
Hi all!

I never usually watch protestant TV, but I accidentally caught this guy. I stopped because he was showing a picture of St. Peter. He started pretty much making the Pagan comparisons. He was talking about Osiris and Son and all these ancient cultures showing a mother and son icon. Also, he said that St. Peter’s statue was just an old statue of Jupiter renamed. He also was talking about different gods whose supposed birthday’s were Dec. 25th.

I have read the Catholic Answers reply to the Pagan accusation, but any other ideas or refutations out there?

Peace
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If your Michael Rood is the one who owns “The Nazirite Site”, I think this page from it answers your question…

I’m reminded of a quip of Chesterton’s to the effect that the Church fell into apostasy on the day of Pentecost 🙂

That “pagan origin or pagan parallel” type of objection is immensely destructive, because there were “pagan” Psalms, prayers, feasts, and much, much, more: “pagan” Redeemers, Saviours, Lords, and so on; so the logic which rejects the Blessed Trinity or the Mass as a (supposedly) Babylonian or Egyptian error, also undermines the Person and work of Christ; and even the contents of the Bible. (Inspiration is not a doctrine found among Christians and Jews alone.)

The only way to avoid all contact with allegedly Babylonian or Egyptian error, is to avoid Christianity, the NT, the OT, prayer, and belief in God. IOW - become an atheist. 🙂

And avoid: medicine, the wheel, furnaces, canals, writing, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, sculpture, accountancy, beer, architecture, cities, and just about anything else that makes life bearable - Egypt and Babylonia have both been immensely influential on later civilisations. It is next to impossible to avoid being influenced by these two great civilisations, however distantly - or as some seem to think, being defiled by them.

FWIW, this “objection from Babylonian or Egyptian origin” is based on ideas about Babylonia which are not much more than fantasy. This can scarcely be emphasised too much. If you come across webpages or books saying “Nimrod founded Babylon’s religion” or “Catholicism came from Babylon” or “Easter is called after the goddess Ishtar” or “The Assyrians believed in the Trinity” or some such thing - ignore it; it’s all demonstrably untrue, so no Christian should be disturbed by it at all.

For a book by two authors who know what they are talking about, read this instead - or any of the other books on the page. The reviews say what needs to be said. ##
 
Perhaps fortunately, the colour scheme on that web site is hideous. I found it very hard to read.
 
Yes, that is him. I wonder where he gets his information from.

peace
 
Gottle of Geer,

I appreciate all your information. Question, though, can you explain to me a little more about it being demonstrably untrue. I really wouldn’t know how to refute this and make sense of it to somebody trying to argue against the church?? Thanks so much.

peace
 
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Monicathree:
Gottle of Geer,
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I appreciate all your information. Question, though, can you explain to me a little more about it being demonstrably untrue. I really wouldn’t know how to refute this and make sense of it to somebody trying to argue against the church?? Thanks so much.

peace

OK 🙂​

“The doctrine of the Trinity is pagan in origin. The concept of a triad in deity worship began in Babylon and was patterned on Nimrod, his wife Semiramis and their son Tammuz. Later cultures such as the Egyptians adoprted this belief, which can be seen in their worship of Osiris, Isis, and Horus.”

There is a lot wrong here.
  1. He quotes no sources - but the source for this, is a book on the web which was written by a man who certainly believed in the Trinity. People who study ancient Babylonia and Assyria, and who know the languages, can read the texts, and actually know what they are talking about, do not talk about “Semiramis” except when trying to track down the sources of the Semiramis-legend; because “Semiramis” is a compound character based on a goddess and a couple of Assyrian queens, with a bit of half-remembered religion thrown in. “Nimrod” is the character in Genesis 10.8-12. There are about 70 different theories as to who he was; he’s been identified with many gods and kings and pharaohs.
IOW - neither of these two characters is an identifiable historical individual. There are several lists of kings and rulers - no Nimrod, no Semiramis, is mentioned. In fact, there is a lot of evidence of all sorts. They are not there. And if there is no evidence for them - then nothing can be said about them; surely a very obvious point.
  1. No case can be argued without evidence. It is not enough to say “The Trinity is Babylonian” - one must be prepared to show what one is basing that assertion on. The only god in that group is Tammuz, and the surviving texts that refer to Tammuz mention neither Nimrod nor Semiramis; but they do refer to his sister Geshtinana, his mother Sirtur, his wife Inana, and his brother in law Utu - to name a few. Mesoptamia was polytheistic, not Trinitarian. They were Sumerian gods who were worshipped when Babylon was still a village (Babylon is a newcomer to Mesopotamia - dozens of places are as old or older.)
In fact, “Tammuz” is only his Akkadian name (Akkadian is the ancient Semitic language of Mesopotamia, and is recorded as early as 2600 BC). His Sumerian name was “Dumuzi”, and he may be, in origin, a deified king from about 2900 BC (there is some debate about this - there is more than one Dumuzi, and there are gods with some similarities to him; such as the child god Damu).
  1. People who write about Tammuz and Semiramis and all that, as quoted, almostly certainly do not know anything about: Akkadian, Sumerian, the religious history of Mesopotamia, the history of Babylon, the history of Sumer, the religious calendars used in Mesopotamia, the history of Assyria, or anything else relevant to what that quotation asserts. IOW, they seem to know little or nothing of the evidence of what there was.
Yet there is no lack of good popular histories of the area; or of grammars, or of books on the religion. The book I recommended to you should get you started, at least.

[continue…]
 
…continue…]

And that is just the beginning - these objections come from a book written 140 years ago, when far less was known of Mesopotamia - and Egypt - than is now known; so the people who go on about all of this are badly out of date. There were no grammars, no histories, no lists of kings, no translations of texts available to the general public - plenty of sculptures, with inscriptions: but they were just beginning to be read. Yet that book was written. I think it can reasonably be called premature. And it has been wildly popular on the WWW. For a book written by a Free Church of Scotland minister who believed the downfall of the Papacy was at hand, it’s done well. Its mistakes would not have been as obvious when it first appeared as they now do.

I hope this helps; a bit, at least. ##
 
Thank you for the time and effort you put into giving me a better explanation. I really appreciate it.

peace
 
Karl Keating – the founder of ‘Catholic Answers’.

The magical beginnings of his ‘battle for faith’ are that he came out of a Catholic Church one Sunday after Mass and found anti-Catholic literature on some of the car windshields in the parking lot.

He went home and wrote an answering tract and distributed it at the church that papered the cars in the church parking lot.

From there this lawyer (now preacher) went on to write and distribute tract after tract. He became so involved in this (and so successful) that he quit his job as a lawyer and opened up his own publishing business.

His ‘Catholic Answers’ company cranks out books and bible tracts at an enormous rate.

The problem with all this activity is in the man himself.

Going from a worshipper of Christ to an evangelical minister his organization boasts of sending out ‘their ministers’ as if they were cut off from Catholic Church and operating on their own.

In fact, they are operating on their own.

Without a true set of moral principles to guide them and a fat check book the group has muscled aside the message of Peace proclaimed by the Catholic Church and has involved itself in spiritual brawls with every bizarre religious group in the United States.

His close association with Deal Hudson points to a character flaw in Karl Keating that in my opinion shows a lack of wisdom.

His association with the Knights of Columbus alone, in my opinion, is a marketing ploy to increase the KofC Insurance Company’s financial interests. That company holds more than 5 billion dollars in assets and insures over 50 billion dollars worth of property.

This plastic Catholic and his manufactured ministers are a disgusting outgrowth of American political thought. Unfortunately they have been financially successful with their self-serving propaganda.

Thankfully God is alive in the world and to all things done in greed and without faith come a bad end. Catholic Answers has no answers for that.

A few links on the ‘CatholicAnswers.com’ include contacts for ‘Christian Jobs’ which will put in touch with the ‘Campus Crusade for Christ’, ‘Secrets of Success’ - a business person’s evangelistic website.

www.catholic.com

http://forums.catholic-questions.org

www.catholicanswers.com
 
Banned_Poster:
His association with the Knights of Columbus alone, in my opinion, is a marketing ploy to increase the KofC Insurance Company’s financial interests. That company holds more than 5 billion dollars in assets and insures over 50 billion dollars worth of property.
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Apart from your screed on Karl Keating, this is a plain lie. The Knights of Columbus only sell their insurance product to fellow KCs. If Mr. Keating is a KC he may have a policy with them, but he certainly hasn’t increased KC insurance financial interests. And the KCs insure people not property. You had better watch what you write or you may find yourself open to being sued for libel.
 
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Monicathree:
Thank you for the time and effort you put into giving me a better explanation. I really appreciate it.

peace
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You’re welcome 🙂​

About this accusation that the Church is “pagan” because Christian feasts coincide or overlap with pre-Christian ones - there are two points that may help:
  1. Celebrating Christian feasts at the same time as older ones need not be thought of as “giving in to paganism” - it can also be interpreted as a way of Christianising time and the calendar, and of doing so by “crowding out” the older feasts
So, it need not follow that, because the Nativity was kept on the same day as the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun” at Rome, that the church at Rome had apostasised or been corrupted - which is how many Christians interpret the fact that the two feasts were on the same day. For there is an alternative possibility: that the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun” was being replaced, pushed out of the calendar, so that the Feast of the Nativity of the “Light of the World” could take its place instead. FWIW, the Feast of the Nativity is connected to the struggle against Arianism: it was a liturgical means of resisting it, just as Nicea I resisted it with its creed.
  1. Building churches over temples is a way of Christianising space, as well as time - as happened in Damascus. A church was dedicated to St. John the Baptist there; it was built on the site of the temple of the thunder-god Hadad, he who in 2 Kings 5.18 is called “Rimmon” (= “pomegranate” in Hebrew; probably a mocking nick-name based on his title “Ramman”, “Thunderer”).
What the Church believed, can often be deduced from what Christians did: if Christians destroy temples and the relics in them, they are not expressing belief in the gods whose temples they are. There was a great deal of Christian vandalism, sometimes going as far as homicide, as in Egypt, for example 😦 - this does not exactly suggest agreement with the religions that were under attack. ##
 
My response to this kind of thing has always been “So what if it did start out as Pagan as long as it is being used correctly now?” It is the beliefs that are the most important thing, not the rituals or decoration. I have actually always thought that it was kind of fitting that Pagan traditions that offended God for so long were turned around and directed at Him to give Him praise. The Easter bonfire that many churchs have today on Holy Saturday started out as a very Pagan celtic tradition. St. Patrick used this and many other Pagan practices to help the people of Ireland better understand Christianity. And being able to keep some of their same practices made it easier for them to accept the truth of Jesus.
 
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ContraFool:
My response to this kind of thing has always been “So what if it did start out as Pagan as long as it is being used correctly now?” It is the beliefs that are the most important thing, not the rituals or decoration. I have actually always thought that it was kind of fitting that Pagan traditions that offended God for so long were turned around and directed at Him to give Him praise. The Easter bonfire that many churchs have today on Holy Saturday started out as a very Pagan celtic tradition. St. Patrick used this and many other Pagan practices to help the people of Ireland better understand Christianity. And being able to keep some of their same practices made it easier for them to accept the truth of Jesus.
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***## ***The use of “ex-pagan” things may not see important to us - but, AFAICS, it is very important to some Christians for this reason: they want to obey what God says in the Bible; and to avoid what God forbids. Why ? Partly, because they have a high view of Scripture - which is the religious reason for learning what God wills of them from Scripture alone; and partly, because obeying God is essential to Christian holiness. Therefore, they don’t have much time for things that God did not command Israel to use in worship, and they have no time for things that are explicitly forbidden in the Torah or elsewhere in the Bible. Images are forbidden - so, no images in the NT church. Christmas-trees ? See Jeremiah 10.2-5 (that is how some of them apply it in today’s circumstances). Halloween ? That is of pagan origin, &, it is tainted with “Romanism” - so, it is “off limits” to them.

I think they do not feel at liberty to use “ex-pagan” things - just in case those things became a cause of stumbling and of sin. God wishes to worshipped as He has required - so we must not add our own bright ideas to His perfect Will and revelation. He wants us to to obey Him, not to “add to” or “take from” His revealed Will.

All of this is, an attempt to avoid everything God forbids. Such Christians often do not think theologically - they go by what God says: which they find in undiluted, unspoilt, untainted, perfect form only in the Bible.

The Catholic POV is much more “incarnational” than theirs - they tend to emphasise God’s Will and Words more. I think they are probably more OT-minded than we are, too.

Their desire to avoid disobeying God, even in things we might think trivial, is admirable - it’s just a pity that it spills over into anti-Catholicism at times.*** ##***
 
Gottle of Geer said:
## The use of “ex-pagan” things may not see important to us - but, AFAICS, it is very important to some Christians for this reason: they want to obey what God says in the Bible; and to avoid what God forbids. Why ? Partly, because they have a high view of Scripture - which the religious reason for learning what God wills of them from Scripture alone; and partly, because obeying God is essential to Christian holiness. Therefore, they don’t have much time for things that God did not command Israel to use in worship, and they have no time for things that are explicitly forbidden in the Torah or elsewhere in the Bible. Images are forbidden - so, no images in church. Christmas-trees ? See Jeremiah 10.2-5. Halloween ? That is of pagan origin, it is tainted with “Romanism” - so, it is “off limits” to them. I think they do not feel at liberty to use “ex-pagan” things - just in case those things became a cause of stumbling and of sin. God wishes to worshipped as He has required - so we must not add our own bright ideas to His perfect Will and revelation. He wants us to to obey Him, not to “add to” or “take from” His revealed Will.

All of this is, an attempt to avoid everything God forbids. Such Christians often do not think theologically - they go by what God says: which they find in undiluted, unspoilt, untainted, perfect form only in the Bible.

The Catholic POV is much more “incarnational” than theirs - they tend to emphasise God’s Will and Words more. I think they are probably more OT-minded than we are, too.

Their desire to avoid disobeying God, even in things we might think trivial, is admirable - it’s just a pity that it spills over into anti-Catholicism at times. ##
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