Cause
and effect
| Believers
and Pagan-origins-ers see the cause and effect of Christianity's rites
and theologies very differently. Let's start with believers. |
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Believers
imagine the events in the New Testament gospels are basically true.
Jesus was real. The meaning of the story of Jesus comes from the
facts of His life. The facts
came first. The meaning came second. Jesus was God.
Because He was God, He could do miracles.   |
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| Jesus
Sun God |
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Pagan-origins-ers
see it the other way. They understand that ancient culture had standard
ideas about Gods and their powers, and about the eternal destiny
of the human soul. They understand that the stories about how Dionysus,
and Kore, and Osiris brought salvation
did not reflect real facts. The stories were made up, sure. But
they weren't made up randomly, they were made up to fit
the standard ancient shtick about Gods and souls. The stories
were similar because the ideas were similar. The ideas came first;
the "facts" came later.
For Pagan- origins-ers,
"Christianity borrowed miracles from Paganism," doesn't
mean "facts" about Jesus' were copied, miracle by miracle,
from Pagan myths. It means early Christians
knew and believed the standard ancient Pagan shtick
about God and the eternal desitny of the human soul, and
they made up their Jesus myths to fit.
The meaning came first, the
"facts" came second. Gods did miracles. Jesus was
a God. Naturally, Jesus did miracles. |
Greg's
rambling. Skip this if you want
Notice in the explanations table that all the apologists' explanations
of the Pagan-Christian similarities are constructed to preserve the believer's
facts-first version of cause and effect.
And
the Pagan-origins-ers' explanation number 1 must include the
conclusion that the "facts" about Jesus were
made up, made up to fit the pre-determined meaning of
the myth.
Interestingly explanation
number eight, which as we've seen is not supported by the ancient evidence,
is the non-apologists' explanation most often attacked and "refuted"
by apologists. I think this is because number eight preserves facts-first
cause and effect, so it is the non-Christian explanation whose basic mechanism
apologists assume to be natural.
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