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| Getting
Started |
Facts > Pagan Ideas > Getting Started | |||
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Christianity and Paganism share fundamental ideas |
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But for you to get the most out of Facts, it helps if you understand what "borrowing" means, POCM-style. Let's start there. |
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There's a logic to POCM's presentation of the Pagan Ideas facts. To see that logic, you'll want to start with the first row of menu choices: Slavery, then Dreams, then Demons, etc. |
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Trouble is, it ain't so. The only place you find these similarities is in modern books where an ernest amateur quotes someone quoting someone. Trace these claims back to their 19th century origins, and you'll discover some wild eyed fellow just made them up. Just made them up. The ancient evidence simply does not include Gods with twelve disciples born in mangers on December 25th, or any of this identical-myth stuff. Jesus was not an element-by-element, myth-by-myth direct copy of any other ancient Gods. At POCM we are NOT talking about Christianity's Pagan origins as a direct copy of some Pagan religion.
Borrowing
is NOT
dying and rising God number 47 Eventually, enthusiasm for the dying and rising God theory fizzled out, supposedly for lack of evidence, although scholarly prejudice contributed. I myself don't morn its fizzulation. The evidence for a DARG convention is weak, and the whole thing seems too clever by half. And Christianity- borrowing-from-Paganism-wise, the DARG business is unnecessary. You don't need myth-by-myth DARG parallels to see that the Jesus stories fit nicely with ancient culture's pervasive religious conception of the world. At POCM we are NOT talking about Christianity's Pagan origins as another example of a DARG cultural convention. |
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Borrowing
IS adopting ideas common to the culture
Go
shopping for the healthful and refreshing beverage Mountain Dew,
and up on the grocery shelf you'll see a number of drinks that are pretty
similar to Dew. Sugar water drinks. Fizzy drinks. In aluminum
cans. Twelve ounce cans. With pop tops.
Did the fine people at Mountain create Dew by copying the idea of putting fizzy sugar water in a twelve-ounce pop-top aluminum can from anyone in particular? From Coke? From Pepsi? Fanta? No they didn't. Fizzy sugar water in a twelve-ounce pop-top aluminum can is soda. The idea of soda is part of our culture. Dew looks like all the other soda drinks, not because it is a direct copy of any one of them, but because our modern culture has the idea of soda, and Dew is just another one. When a modern person makes a new soda, these are the things we put in. |
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POCM, that's what "borrowing" is. POCM isn't about a sneaky ancient conspiracy. I haven't uncovered the hidden key to the True Meaning of the bible. POCM's answer is simple and pedestrian: Christianity was the social product of its time and place. It didn't invent its core concepts —heaven, hell, souls, eternal life, miracles, prophecies, angels, Gods, sons of God, walking talking godmen, etc.—it got them from the culture in which it developed. When ancient people made a new religion, these are the things they put in. |
By the way: Different |
Is Dew different from Coke? Sure. Coke is dark; Dew is light. Coke's can is red; Dew's is green. Coke tastes like ... Coke. Dew tastes like Dew. But Dew and Coke are both sodas. Our idea "soda" describes only some features of a drink—fizzy sugar water in a can. Other features are not part of the "soda" concept—flavor, color, can color, price, etc. This means that every soda is different from every other soda. Coke is different from Pepsi, is different from Fanta, is different from Dew. Jesus' apologists like to argue that Jesus is not a Pagan God because Jesus is different is some detail or other from other Pagan Gods. We'll talk about this more later. |
| Facts you'll learn, and questions to ask yourself |
| You'll learn it is a fact ancient Pagans owned slaves. You know that. But did you know it is a fact ancient Jews kept salves? God told them that was OK. Did you know it is a fact the first Christians kept slaves, and the bible says God told them that was OK? They did. Those are facts. You'll learn it is a fact ancient Pagans believed dreams were messages sent from God(s). So did Jews. So did Christians. Those are facts. You'll learn it is a fact ancient Pagans believed demons were real beings, with miraculous powers. So did Jews. So did Christians. Those are facts. You'll learn it is a fact ancient Pagans believed miracles happened through of divine power. So did Jews. So did Christians. Those are facts. You'll learn it is a fact ancient Pagans believed in God, and the eternal life of the human soul. So did (some) Jews. So did Christians. Those are facts.
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What you'll learn here at POCM > Pagan Ideas is is that many (but not all) ancient religions were religions of salvation. In general, ancient Mediterranean people believed they would live on after death, with good people having happier afterlives than bad people. Many religions were set up to give believers a better deal after death. What that better deal was depended on the religion: in some Greek mysteries it was the Elysian Fields; for followers of Isis and Osiris it was eternity with Osiris in Underground Heaven; for many philosophy/ religions it was return of the disembodied soul to the One God in the sky. Some ancient religions even called this "salvation." And it all predated Christianity by generations—by hundreds and hundreds of years. What you questions will convince you of is there is no consistent, reasoned analysis of the evidence that can pick out Christianity as fundamentally different from other ancient Pagan religions. Christianity is an ancient Pagan religion. |
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The
next time you're in Church When they get to the part about Joseph learning of Jesus' birth in a magical God-sent dream, and the part about the divine man Jesus casting out demons, and doing miracles, and going up and down from heaven remember the ancient Pagan dreams and Pagan Godmen and ancient Pagan demons and Pagan heaven up in the sky you read about here at POCM. You'll know you're hearing about stuff that predated Christianity by hundreds of years—in a culture where over and over people built new religions out of old parts. Wow! |
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Christianity and Paganism share fundamental ideas |