Which one is worse?: Bush publicly praising Islam while fully knowing every word of it is bullshit, in an attempt to divorce and differentiate Al-Qaida from the rest of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims... Or Obama making similar proclamations while actually <b>believing</b> it.
any chance he might say that christmas is nothing more than a pagan ritual that christians stole and that jesus was not born on dec 25 and the whole virgin birth story is a primitive myth that never happened? no, i dont think so either.
almost no doubt that the choice of december 25th was somewhat arbitrary and probably based on the celebration of the solstice in pagan religions. But there is also little doubt among serious historians there was a historical Jesus, we just do not know the exact day he was born. "And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest." This text from Josephus is accepted by just about every scholar. So there was a Jesus. We do not know his exact birthday. And you do not think he is the Son of God who was the Messiah predicted in the Jewish bible. Others including me do. If you believe he is the Messiah then it is not so difficult to believe he could have been born a virgin.
first. virgin birth was kind of a common trait that primitive man gave to the gods they invinted. http://englishatheist.org/indexd.shtml "But a study of ancient literature discloses the fact that myths of virgin births were part of many if not of all the surrounding pagan religions in the place where, and at the time when, Christianity arose." second. the virgin birth myth was not in the earliest bible writings, paul knew nothing of it. "The virgin conception of Jesus by Mary is an obvious myth. The Gospel of Q does not mention it. St. Paul not only does not mention it, but implies that Jesus' birth was normal. The author of the Gospel probably invented the virgin birth so that the story of Jesus' could compete with the magical conception of many heroes and gods in surrounding Pagan religions: e.g. Horus (circa 1550 BCE), Zoroaster (1000 - 1500 BCE?), Krishna (circa 1200 BCE), Indra (circa 750 BCE), Buddha (circa 600 BCE), Mithra (circa 500 BCE), Quirrnus (circa 550 BCE), Attis (circa 200 BCE), Adonis (born in Bethlehem many centuries before Jesus). The author cites a passage in an ancient Greek translation of Isaiah. The translation was an error: it substituted "virgin" for "young woman." Matthew and Luke probably felt compelled to go along with the expectation that Jesus' mother was a virgin. The story of the Magi coming to Palestine to give homage to the King of the Jews appears to have been freely adapted from the story of Mithra's birth. He was mythical Persian savior, also allegedly born of a virgin on DEC-25, who was worshiped many centuries before Jesus' birth
I suppose you think the the side that believes that Jesus was born of a virgin is does not have pages and pages of counter arguments all over the net. In Genesis we see - And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise Him on the heel." From the beginning of the bible we see the need for a messiah or redeemer. You can debate whether the Messiah was to born a virgin or a young women. But to me does it really matter. It seems to me the Son of God would not be conceived by a human father... but the debate about the translation of the word is incidental to the real importance. I think this writer did a pretty good job explaining it. http://www.pbc.org/files/messages/8206/4383.html
sorry. "the bible says the bible is true" just does not cut it with free thinking people. The Virgin Birth and Childhood Mysteries of Jesus James Still Biblical scholars have long ago dismissed the literal interpretation of the miraculous virgin-birth of Jesus. Also, many liberal Christian denominations have either quietly purged the curious piece of teaching from their body of philosophy, or conveniently ignore the issue altogether. Despite this, the allure of such an intriguing concept is still very powerful and Jesus' virgin birth continues to enjoy the unquestioning belief of millions of people. The purpose of this essay is to explore the mythological connections between prodigal children in history with an emphasis on the meaning and symbology of virgin birth as it particularly relates to Jesus. In this way Jesus' virgin birth and the mysteries surrounding it will be fully explored in the mythological context from which it derives. We know very little about the desert nomads and goddess worshippers who settled the fertile Tigris-Euphrates river valley. Mesopotamia, situated as it was between the ancient lands of Ur and Sumer, was almost constantly at war in the three millennia preceding the Common Era. What we do know comes down to us through the Ashurbanipal library. King Ashurbanipal (fl. 620 BCE) of Nineveh ruled the Assyrian empire just prior to its decline. His brutal accomplishments on the battlefield were tempered only by a driving passion for letters and learning so that, over time his spoils included the religious texts and history books of all of his conquered neighbors including the Mesopotamians. After his death, his empire collapsed and in a few short years Nineveh itself was utterly destroyed by Persian invaders. The invaders were only interested in destroying Nineveh's military might; they ruined the city's walls, but completely ignored the Ashurbanipal's library, perhaps considering it a mere whimsical endeavor. The library was soon swallowed up by the shifting sands of the desert. Finally in 1845 British archaeologists rediscovered Nineveh and the wealth of books which lay buried there. The pre-civilized world of ancient Mesopotamia, consisted of small farming settlements whose people worshipped Ishtar, a fertile, mother goddess. Ishtar caused the rains to fall and the crops to grow in a continuous cycle of birth, life, and death. Over time, Ishtar-worship began to wane as the warlike male gods of neighboring tribes emerged in positions of prominence. The warrior-kings of neighboring desert tribes continually invaded the fertile lands of Mesopotamia, eventually seizing the land and incorporating it into their own rising and falling empires. One of the first warrior-kings to rise up among these early peoples was Sargon of Akkad, who established his kingdom in 2200 BCE. Ishtar was by now fully absorbed into the stronger cults of the patriarchal deities and she became a lesser deity who was subservient to the new male gods of the warrior-kings. Sargon is perhaps the first Babylonian king who was said to have a larger-than-life birth and childhood. He was born in secret to a mother of lowly birth and a father who was a mountain god. In a motif which would later be borrowed and attributed to Horus and Moses, Sargon's mother placed the child in a basket of rushes and sent him down a river to protect him from the god's enemies. The babe was rescued downstream by simple folk and the goddess Ishtar loved and guided Sargon through his early childhood and to his final destiny: the ascension of the throne. Sargon's biography started a "tall tale" tradition that subsequent kings felt the need to match. The attribute of divine birth and predestination became an important vehicle whereby a mortal king was said to be god-favored; gaining recognition and power during his life which often continued into posterity long after death. By 1000 BCE, we find this tradition improved upon so that the biography of kings and important men insist that they were not only divinely born, but said to have transcended death to become gods themselves. Zoroaster, the Persian prophet and patriarch who lived and preached in ancient Babylon, was said to have been God-begotten and virgin born. Virgin-birth was the responsibility of the Ishtar priestesses, who conducted fertility rites, prophesied and performed elaborate rituals in the temples throughout Babylon. The priestesses who administered the temples also managed a lucrative prostitution business that provided a steady stream of financial support for temple activities. Upon their return to Palestine, Hebrews of the Babylonian captivity brought back to the Mediterranean peoples wondrous tales of the priestesses and their blasphemous sexual ministries to the men who visited them. The role of the Ishtar priestess was to act as both mother to the prospective man's child and minister to the child's divine needs: The Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the gospels, relates that Jesus is a Jewish Messiah, and so born quite naturally in the manner expected of the Davidic Messiah. The Jewish ascetic sects who were expecting a son of David to arrive who would invoke the Parousia and regain the throne, said that he would be born in Bethlehem. The earliest references, upon which Mark's gospel is based, insist that Jesus was instead born in Galilee at Nazareth. The last two synoptics, Matthew and Luke, attempt to correct Mark's error by again placing Jesus' birth back in Bethlehem. The Gospel of John, which is totally unconcerned with any notion of Jewish expectations of the Messiah, places Jesus back at Nazareth merely for the sake of argument ascribing the conflict as a "division among the people over him" (Jn. 7:43). The conflict would be a minor one if it were not for the fact that there was no such town in Galilee named Nazareth during Jesus' birth. In a humorous self-fulfilling prophecy, the Galilean town was established in the third century after news of Jesus' birthplace had become famous. This curious insistence on associating Jesus with Nazareth may predate the Christian oral traditions and told among apocalyptic groups like the Essenes, who practiced a form of sun worship. Early Christians may have considered Jesus a sun-god. Nazareth is very closely worded to Nazaroth which in Hebrew is "the twelve signs (of the zodiac)." The root verb nazar means to "surround" as in the twelve constellations of the zodiac which pass overhead each night, thus surrounding the earth.[22] Job is reminded of his human limitations and the celestial astrological power of Yahweh, when the latter speaks to him from a raging desert whirlwind: Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Nazaroth in his season?[23] This theory is supported by the evidence that the inhabitants of Qumran by the Dead Sea, who Pliny referred to as Essenes, used a solar-based calendar, rather than the traditional lunar-based Judaic calendar. Pliny the Younger reported in a letter to the emperor Trajan in 112 CE that "Christians appear to be harmless people who meet at daybreak and sign hymns to the honor of the Christo quasi deo (the Christ as if he were a god)." Matthew and Luke sought to fill in the missing genealogy for Jesus. Jewish Messiah's were considered important only in the capacity that they fulfilled the role of a "Son of man" and told their people the message of God who had appointed them. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/virgin_birth.html
There is just SO much wrong with your source. So much so, that I will only waste time with the one of the errors. Your source states that by 2200 BCE Ishtar was fully absorbed and relegated to a secondary status. As late as B.C. 1425 (according to the "Synchronous History"), Puzur-Ashur, king of Assyria, and Burnaburiash, king of Babylonia, took an oath, and established the "boundary in friendly agreement" I referenced the above for dating purposes, to state the following: "..One of the immediate successors of Puzur-Ashur was a king named Ashur-nadin-akhe, who, according to the text on the "Broken Obelisk" preserved in the British Museum, carried out building operations on a considerable scale in the city of Ashur. In one of the Tell el-Amarna letters, now in the National Egyptian Museum at Cairo, it is stated that Ashur-nadin-akhe was father of Ashur-uballit, king of Assyria, and that he (Ashur-nadin-akhe) had established friendly relations between himself and the king of Egypt........." I referenced the above for dating purposes and context, to state the following: "....In another letter from Tell el-Amarna, which is addressed to Amen-hetep III., king of Egypt, by Tushratta, king of Mitanni, the writer announces that he is sending to his brother and son-in-law whom he loveth (i.e., Amen-hetep III) a statue of the goddess Ishtar of Ninevah, which the goddess herself had permitted him to send; and it is clear that he did this in order that his daughter might not be deprived of the presence of a tutelary deity in a strange land. It is important to notice that the statue is one of Ishtar of Nineveh, and not one of Ishtar of Mitanni, which is sent, for this fact proves that Nineveh was at that time one of the principal religious centres in Northern Mesopotamia........." The above quotes are from the book "Annals Of The Kings Of Assyria, The cuneiform texts with translations and transliterations from original documents, E.A. Wallis Budge, 1902" (It is interesting to note that the goddess Ishtar is invoked by Tushratta in another letter which he wrote to Amen-hetep III) So, why would one king send another king, the king of Eygpt no less (and his son-in-law), around B.C. 1400, a statue of a rather secondary and long past prime female deity ?? The reason that your source would like to have us think Ishtar, and female deities were absorbed by warrior and male gods by 2200 BCE is rather obvious. Sorry, but free thinking folks just don't buy it ! In fact, the Tablet of Adad-Nirari I, King of Assyria (about B.C. 1325) Inscription on a Limestone Tablet from Kal'at Sherkat (#90,978 at the British Museum) reads as follows: (The numbers follow the translation by George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, pp242; Pognon, Inscription de Merou-nerar I, J.A., 1884) 1. Adad-nirari, the illustrious prince, duly appointed by god, 2. the ruler, the viceroy of the gods, 3. the founder of cities, the destroyer of the mighty 4. hosts of the Kashshi, the Kuti, the Lulumi, 5. and the Shubari, annihilator of all 6. foes in the upper and lower countries, trampling down 7. their lands from Lupdu and Rapiku 8. up to Elukhat, who hath taken possession of hosts and men, 9. who hath enlarged boundary and frontier, 10. the king at whose feet all rulers and princes 11. Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Adad 12. and Ishtar have forced into submission, 13. the exalted priest of Bel; 14. the son of Pudi-ilu, governor of Bel. I wont continue to bore, however , regarding female deities after 2200 BCE, there is an inscription of Ashur-Resh-Ishi, king of Assyria upon a clay bowel, dated around B.C. 1140, in which line 5 reads as follows: "...[the....] of the goddess Irnina, the mighty one in battle, who showeth no mercy upon the enemies of Ashur, the great, the strong one who consumeth the disobedient.............." In closing, the reason your source would desire to have female deities on the wane around 2200 BCE is transparent, and might I add just wrong. Your source did make a statement that is astonishing to me, and rather arrogant, and I will respond to it once I have researched the material available to me. Your source has stated that Nazareth was not in existence until the third century A.D. !! This one should be fun !