True, but it could certainly be one of the original motivations behind the belief... beliefs transmute over time.

No it isn't. It borrows heavily but the premise is quite, quite different.

Plus the festival itself is nothing to do with the feast of Mithra or Saturnalia before anyone starts.

Ok, let me get this straight. Somehow some Jewish guys, who probably couldn't read egyptian (or hebrew since they all seem to like quoting the septuigant [I know I mispelled it] all the time) somehow manages to learn about the Egyptian sun god and other religions, while this similarity is missed by the majority of other Jews. They then manage to make up this Jesus guy and say that he did all these things.

Now Jews believe Christianity is a heresy, but they never thought it would be a good idea to claim Jesus didn't exist and that actualy he is based on an Egyptian Sun god?  Even worse, why would any Jew follow someone who is based on an Egyptian Sun god or even choose to base Jesus on a sun god?

Not "somehow," SimpleTheist.  This way: Egyptians worship the son of the god (Horus) represented by the sun disk.  Alexander the Great conquers Egypt and has himself named the living sun god, son of god. Through Alexander, the tradition of crowning the king as the sun of the (sun) god, it moves into the Greek, then the Roman traditon when the Romans adopt Greek culture.  Julius Caesaer, when he invaded Egypt, has himself crowned the son of god.  His son, Augustus Caesar, who is the ruler of the Roman Empire (including Palestine) seriously perpetuates the tradition as a way of holding power, has himself crowned the son of god--as does every Roman imperial emperor after him until Constantine.

It was already a centuries-old tradition that was all around the people of JC's time. There are shrines to the emperor Augustus, the living sun god, all over Jerusalem at the time that Jesus and the apostles are there.  There's a huge controversy among the Jews--and this is one of the reasons for their rebellions--over how to deal with Roman laws that dictated people should give tribute to the Imperial cult shrine (i.e. sacrifice to graven images).

That's one of the things that doesn't make sense in the Christian reading of the NT.  When Jesus agrees that he's the son of god, what he's literally saying in the connotaions of the time is that he's taking the Roman Emperor's place as the living sun god.   A Jewish church reformer would probably not ever say anything like this: it must be something added by the Greeks who were the majority of the early Christian church.  

Most of the early Christians were Greeks, not Jews.  They already had their long tradition of sun worship, dating back to Appollo originally (who, as you recall, is the son of Zeus/god), but incorporating the Egyptian "son of god" stuff via Alexander.  So calling Jesus the "son of god" would make sense to them as meaning that he was a god incarnate.

 I dunno if this is in the videos and documents linked to because I haven't checked them out yet.  But I seriously thought that this idea was a done deal that most reasonable people accepted--the Christian version of JC is the pagan sun god. 

I mean, come on.  The bible itself clearly shows he was born in the spring, not at the winter solstice.  That should be some kind of clue.

Sapphen, you're probably already familiar with the rhetorical/logical term Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc? 

The worshipors of the Abrahamic three, most never have the oportunity to ponder, and those that do end up becoming apologists committing mind gymnastics to prop up their myth.

All one has to do to know the absurdity of these claims is consider a few things. If one is intrested in understanding where the skeptic is comming from.

1. Is this really real, or do I merely want it to be real?

2. Which in really is more realistic?

  A. Apollo really pulled the sun across the sky with a chariot?

     Or

   |B. Someone made up that story because they liked the atributes of the hero they made up?

If it sounds like fiction it is.

Arguing over history, or allegid real places or people dodges the outragious claims in all holy books. If a Hindu for example, quotes a historical figure from their past as believing in Vishnu, does that make a multiple armed deity real? Or could it simply mean that that famous person baught a myth like modern people do today.

Fictional books can and do contain real people and places and events as a backdrop to the story itself but in no way is it real.

Superman and Spiderman use NY City as a backdrop. But no sane person in their right mind believes that those are actuall beings other than actors on film with video trickery.

So how would ancient people be any less immune to human behaivor? How would they be immune to making up fiction and calling it religion? If it stands to reason that the Eygptian gods died as a result of humans discarding old fiction, why do you think you are immune to fall into the same trap?

Hocus pocus is not real and neither are spirits or gosts or ouiji boards. If Jefferson was wise enough to class the birth and death of the alleged Jesus as being in the same class as Minervia being born out of the brain of Jupiter, why aren't you as brave as he was in daring to ask those same hard questions about your own god(s).

Mind you this post is not aimed at one particular person. Just food for thought. 

Hey, I'll buy that.

BUT. 3 days before resurrection? The cross? Sirius? The three kings?

"On the third day he arose": The sun hangs in the same spot for three days during the winter solstice before changing its path in the sky.

"The cross / crucifixion": The sun hangs on or near a constellation called the "crux" shaped like a cross during the winter solstice.

Sirius and the Three Kings: The three kings are in Orion's belt and line up with Sirius during the winter solstice.

December 25th, I buy that the choosing of that date for Christmas was manufactured. What about the other astrological references?

So my question to you is why would they use events occuring on the winter solstice if no part of the new testament occurs on that event? 

this is an atheist only post about the video. i think they had some good insight on it as well that could help add to the discussion.

"Amen" stems from "Amun" as in "Amun Ra"

This thread is bizarre. Basically it's speculation about how a speculative belief system came about.

And they would say Amun at the end of praying to him as well I believe (o rly?). 

Not my hero worship. Not my religion.  

You may have brought this up before (if so, give me a link or PM me) but, what is your religion again? 

Thanks - I'll come up with a few later 

See my post above.  I would expect you to question me.  But I'm a slippery devil. Christians think I'm demonic.

I noticed there has been no response.  Others have been drilling me for this video because they say Horus was never said to be born on Dec. 25 - some of the "facts" presented in the video are FALSE

Mythra and Atlas worshipors celibrated their birthdays on Dec 25th. I have not heard this about Horus, although it would not suprise me.

Again if you look at human nature combined with the fact that religions do not exist in a vaccuum, you can see how future sects and other religions adapt prior motifs, concepts and dates.

Isis for example was known throughout Europe by many names and just like you have Baptists and Catholics in Christianity, her worshipors did so just as diversly as Christians worship Jesus. It is nothing but humans competing for club members through the competitive sale of myth.

Dec 25th as a date as a whole coincides with the winter solstice time of year and many polythiesticl cultures in the polythistic era had deities that were worshiped on or arround that date. These pagan religions conqured each other or mixed with others and forced their deties on each other or as a political action incorperated local cultures rituals to incice worship of endorced by the power ruling class.

Eh... I think one needs to be careful in saying that Christmas 'stole' the rites of other festivals as there were several overlapping festivals in place around the time Christmas became a recognised feast all of which borrowed heavily from each other.

The date of the festival may therefore be close or, indeed, identical to some of those other festivals but it doesn't follow that it surplanted them unless, of course, there were specific edicts put in place by the churches or rulers to make it so. 

I see little need to refute anything. So far all I've read is that Christianity is Sun worship because Jesus was born on Dec. 25th.

Problem #1: Jesus was not born on Dec. 25th, but sometime in March/April.

Problem #2: It was because of all these Pagan gods being celebrated on Dec. 25th that the Catholic Church decided to celerate Jesus' birth on this day.

Also I'll try to watch the video tomorrow during the day. I'll leave myself a note. However, if the video makes the same pointless claims that this thread has so far made, I will become more certain that the Flying spegetti monster is more likely to exist then anything claimed by an atheist is true.

Check out http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/osy.html

I watched the first five min. of the video, however after searching the web for Horus, I was unable to find anything to support what the video said about him. (Unless I go to a specific website that is comparing Jesus and Horus - but that isn't really support) If I can't find support for the video's claims of Horus. 

 All I can say about the video right now is that it apparenlty lies a lot since I can't find anything that makes the same claims as it.

First, I'm not an expert on Egyptian mythology. However, because there is no "bible of Horus" there are many different mythologies of Horus.

The Pharaoh was the earthly embodiment of Horus, while they were also followers of Ra (also a Sun God). Horus and Ra were associated together, but because Egyptian worship was more of a tribal religion, there was a lot of conflict bringing the stories between them together. This resulted in about half a dozen different versions of Horus, most of which can be seperated into two groups.

If he is said to be the son of Isis, he's in the Osirian group. If not, he's a solar deity. This is where you go from someone who can read a simple Wikipedia article to needing an expert in Kemetic Mythology and I run out of steam.

There are so many Gods who all have different myths, conflicting myths, extra names or have been merged into different Gods it's unbelievable. You can read some of the translated version of the Book of the Dead to see some of the points referenced in the movie.

 http://www.earth-history.com/Egypt/Bodead/bodead-06-eternal-life.htm

Hopefully someone on the site knows more about Kemetic Mythology than me and can point out some better sources.

Uusually when people engage in character assasination it means they have no answers. Please show me one Christian in antiquity or modern times who worshiped the Sun. Please show me one ancient Christian creed that endordsed Sun worship. Please show me one passage from the New Testament endorsing Sun worship. You people make up such silly arguments that would be refuted if you simply thought them through.

 Alot of people don't know that the theory postulated by the author of this thread has been utterly rejected not only by Christian scholars, but my skeptics. Jesus mythicist Richard Carrier had this to say about this theory:

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Or Christianity Before Christ is unreliable, but no comprehensive critique exists. Most scholars immediately recognize many of his findings as unsupported and dismiss Graves as useless. After all, a scholar who rarely cites a source isn't useful to have as a reference even if he is right. For examples of specific problems, however, see Hare Jesus: Christianity's Hindu Heritage, and some generally poor but not always incorrect Christian rebuttals. A very helpful discussion of related methodological problems by renowned scholar Bruce Metzger is also well worth reading ("Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early Christianity" 2002). In general, even when the evidence is real, it often only appears many years after Christianity began, and thus might be evidence of diffusion in the other direction. Another typical problem is that Graves draws far too much from what often amounts to rather vague evidence. In general, there are ten kinds of problems that crop up in Graves' work here and there:

• Graves often does not distinguish his opinions and theories from what his sources and evidence actually state.
• Graves often omits important sources and evidence.
• Graves often mistreats in a biased or anachronistic way the sources he does use.
• Graves occasionally relies on suspect sources.
• Graves does little or no source analysis or formal textual criticism.
• Graves' work is totally uninformed by modern social history (a field that did not begin to be formally pursued until after World War II, i.e., after Graves died).
• Graves' conclusions and theories often far exceed what the evidence justifies, and he treats both speculations and sound theories as of equal value.
• Graves often ignores important questions of chronology and the actual order of plausible historical influence, and completely disregards the methodological problems this creates.
• Graves' work lacks all humility, which is unconscionable given the great uncertainties that surround the sketchy material he had to work with.
• Graves' scholarship is obsolete, having been vastly improved upon by new methods, materials, discoveries, and textual criticism in the century since he worked. In fact, almost every historical work written before 1950 is regarded as outdated and untrustworthy by historians today.

All this is not to say Graves didn't have some things right. But you will never be able to tell what he has right from what he has wrong without totally redoing all his research and beyond, which makes him utterly useless to historians as a source. For example, almost all his sources on Krishna long postdate Christian-Nestorian influence on India. No pre-Christian texts on Krishna contain the details crucial to his case, apart from those few that were common among many gods everywhere. Can you tell from Graves which details are attested by early evidence, and which by late? That's a problem.

On the other side of the coin, consider his emphasis on the December 25 birth date as a common feature. This is one of the things he gets right, at least regarding Greco-Roman religion: all gods associated with the sun shared the sun's "birthday," erroneously identified as December 25 (it is actually the 21st). But for Jesus, we can actually trace when and why Jesus was assigned this birthday for political reasons in the 4th century, 300 years after Christianity began. Graves seems oblivious to the distinction between the origins of Christianity and its subsequent development. Yet no Christian in the beginning believed Jesus was born on December 25. But Graves obscures this fact, leading to false conclusions about the origins of the Christ story. So again, he gets some things right, but uses them in the wrong way. Can you tell when? That's a problem, too.

Another example is something written by the first philosophical defender of Christianity, Justin Martyr, who wrote around 160 A.D. These passages show the sort of stories that even Christians acknowledged as predating their own, and you can see how Graves sometimes embellishes and goes a bit too far with this kind of evidence--and there is no better evidence before the 3rd century, when Christian ideas were already affecting pagan thought. However, you will see here that there is a small kernel of truth in what Graves argues, but since he rarely cites sources and engages in almost no critical examination of texts we can't tell when he is right or wrong and that makes him useless to scholars.

Justin wrote in his Dialogue of Justin and Trypho (the Jew) (69-70):

Be well assured, then, Trypho, that I am established in the knowledge of and faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which he who is called the devil is said to have performed among the Greeks; just as some were wrought by the Magi in Egypt, and others by the false prophets in Elijah's days. For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by intercourse with Semele, and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that the devil has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by Moses? And when they tell that Hercules was strong, and traveled over all the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and ascended to heaven when he died, do I not perceive that the Scripture which speaks of Christ, 'strong as a giant to run his race,' has been in like manner imitated? And when the devil brings forward Asclepius as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ? . . . And when those who record the mysteries of Mithras say that he was begotten of a rock, and call the place where those who believe in him are initiated a cave, do I not perceive here that the utterance of Daniel, that a stone without hands was cut out of a great mountain, has been imitated by them, and that they have attempted likewise to imitate the whole of Isaiah's words?

Although I have not exhaustively investigated this matter, I have confirmed only two real "resurrected" deities with some uncanny similarity to Jesus which are actually reported before Christian times, Zalmoxis and Inanna, neither of which is mentioned by Graves or John G. Jackson (another Gravesian author--though both mention Tammuz, for whom Inanna was mistaken in their day). This is apart from the obvious pre-Christian myths of Demeter, Dionysos, Persephone, Castor and Pollux, Isis and Osiris, and Cybele and Attis, which do indeed carry a theme of metaphorical resurrection, usually in the terms of a return or escape from the Underworld, explaining the shifting seasons. But these myths are not quite the same thing as a pre-Christian passion story. It only goes to show the pervasiveness in antiquity of an agricultural resurrection theme, and the Jesus story has more to it than that, although the cultural influence can certainly be acknowledged.

The only pre-Christian man to be buried and resurrected and deified in his own lifetime, that I know of, is the Thracian god Zalmoxis (also called Salmoxis or Gebele'izis), who is described in the mid-5th-century B.C.E. by Herodotus (4.94-96), and also mentioned in Plato's Charmides (156d-158b) in the early-4th-century B.C.E. According to the hostile account of Greek informants, Zalmoxis buried himself alive, telling his followers he would be resurrected in three years, but he merely resided in a hidden dwelling all that time. His inevitable "resurrection" led to his deification, and a religion surrounding him, which preached heavenly immortality for believers, persisted for centuries.

The only case, that I know, of a pre-Christian god actually being crucified and then resurrected is Inanna (also known as Ishtar), a Sumerian goddess whose crucifixion, resurrection and escape from the underworld is told in cuneiform tablets inscribed c. 1500 B.C.E., attesting to a very old tradition. The best account and translation of the text is to be found in Samuel Kramer's History Begins at Sumer, pp. 154ff., but be sure to use the third revised edition (1981), since the text was significantly revised after new discoveries were made. For instance, the tablet was once believed to describe the resurrection of Inanna's lover, Tammuz (also known as Dumuzi). Graves thus mistakenly lists Tammuz as one of his "Sixteen Crucified Saviors." Of course, Graves cannot be discredited for this particular error, since in his day scholars still thought the tablet referred to that god (Kramer explains how this mistake happened).

There is great need of new work in this area. There really is a huge gap in modern scholarship here--this is one of the few subjects untouched by the post-WWII historiographical revolution. Most scholars today consider the subject dead, largely for all the wrong reasons. And there is little hope. The subject is stuck in the no-man's-land between history and religious studies, whose methods and academic cultures are so radically different they can barely communicate with each other, much less cooperate on a common project like this.

When I embarked on researching this stuff ten years ago (this actually partly launched my interest in history as a profession) I found it excruciatingly hard to find anything on the subject. Most of the relevant material (that worth reading anyway) is buried piecemeal in academic journals or chapters in obscure out-of-print books. At the time, I ended up with no recourse but to personally contact experts worldwide item by item.

I haven't seen any improvement since then. I have personally acquired a great deal of expertise in the related subjects, but only after a decade of hard-core exposure to source materials and other historical studies. I have never seen any attempt to get all this experience into one book, and sadly, though I have a growing file for a possible future book, I have no plans to work on this any time soon.

In any given case there are sometimes relevant and available books in English that can at least give you enough background to go back and assess what Graves claims, but no direct updates of his work.