The Origin of Some Biblical Teachings

[melody]

This series of twelve short videos about 10 min. long deals with the origins of some teachings in the Bible  and institutional religion.


The Naked Truth
Part 1/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3578452534007807746
Part 2/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7976427096766790756
Part 3/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6822568827673989292
Part 4/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6822568827673989292
Part 5/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1830832793429467729
Part 6/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1368291680647391618
Part 7/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3639287662700072129
Part 8/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5210741340567090872
Part 9/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1833992069562634058
Part 10/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3802434196446974114
Part 11/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1732649321738513389
Part 12/12
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-525729033147930545
 

[Mez]

i know theres a TONNE of similarities between religions and some things are pretty much exactly the same... its a subject that interests me greatly. What pisses me off is when they present their one sided view of certain facts! For instance when he's comparing krishna to jesus he says krishna was born of a chaste virgin... yet krishna was the 8th son. He also states that krishna was CRUCIFIED... he died in the woods when shot in the foot with an arrow... i'd hardly call that a crucifiction although i have heard it pinned him to a tree this still doesnt qualify as a crucifiction. I just think they should present the facts in their entire context and with their surrounding circumstances cos then they would actually have credibility.

[Mez]

I just noticed something in relation to the whole "the bible is just astrology and sun worship" argument. It seems to me that they are supposing the ancient egyptians spoke english. They think they are so clever with their word play of "sun/son" IE that the mythologies are all based on the sun and this manifests as jesus being the SON of god (the light of the world as the guy continues to say)... just because the words in english sound the same... although there are certain other credible aspects to this theory what im talking about is a big arguing point for them and its just totall BS. Egyptians didnt speak english so they have to discount the whole "sun/son" thing.

does anyone follow what im saying?

[Embodied Words]

lol, yeah Mez. Do the words sound similar in Egyptian though?

[Mez]

I dont think thats relavant because the words Sun and Son would have to sound the same in egyptian.

[melody]

I think that various teachings of pagan origin got all mixed up and overlapped. They also got to overlay over the Jesus birth story. One really needs to disentangle them from one another.

There are people who claim that Jesus could not have been born on December 25 and give some valid reasons why. You can find one such reasoning on this website

The Truth About Christmas
http://www.xanga.com/ChristmasXmas/395124709/item.html

[Gandalf]

The 25th of December was chosen as Jesus's birthday as it coincided with the winter solstice and the birthday of the eastern Son God Mithras, who's birthday was 25th December.

While Christianity was not a sun cult per say, as I have heard some people say, there is no doubt that Sun worship practises were incorporated into the religion to make it more popular and to provide a sense of continuity.

People seem to imagine that christianity sprung out of nowhere and appeared fully formed. This is not true.

Sun worship was very popular, with emperors introducing elements of this into religious practise as early as the 270s AD.

When the emperors from Constantine onwards incorporated christianity into state religion, there was some smoothing over.

Churches were aligned to the east to face the rising sun, jesus's birthday was made 25th of december. Jesus took on certain elements of the Sun and actually this worked very well as the sun served as a useful metaphor for jesus and the message of christianity; that christianity incorporated many pagan elements should not be seen as an attack. I'm just saying it used these themes as they were already popular motifs... its just used them to convey its own particular message.

A well known example today would be the harvest festivals.. especially Thanksgiving in America... the harvest festival, giving thanks for a good harvest, with offerings of the produce etc, goes back to ancient times. The festival has continued but it has now been incorporated by christianity and this ancient pagan celebration is now used to convey the message of christianity: People used to give thanks to the gods for a good harvest, now it is god. The cornucopia or 'horn of plenty' is a frequent symbol of harvest time.. this symbol goes back way before christianity, yet it has now been incorporated into the christian harvest festival.

[SnakeDoctor]

man...what a way to go...

being shot in the foot with an arrow...