quote:

Originally posted by CoffeeOwl:
Having Pagan roots does not mean that the religion itself is Pagan. Although Jesus Christ indeed continued the tradition of dying and resurrecting Sun Gods, his story is distinctively different from earlier myths.

The difference lies not in the form (which is taken rather frivolously in the video), but in the motives of the divine sacrifice. In pre-Christian myths, the God either dies because of the accident/murder or sacrifices himself to ensure physical well-being of the men. Sometimes the sacrifice is made to maintain order in both physical and spiritual worlds, again with the final purpose to create a safe environment for men. But Christianity was the first religion that adopted the old theme to convey the idea of purely spiritual well-being. No material interests of the physical life are a part of it. The Orthodox Christianity took is as far as condemning any physical needs that do not directly serve the purpose of receiving the eternal salvation.

This is not a Pagan trait at all, this is something for what Christianity never gets any credit from those who claim that all it did was raking up Pagan heritage and claiming their copyright over it. To say that Christianity is Pagan sounds like sharing the same surface-deep view.

If you look even deeper, Christianity explicitly says that a Christian can never be the one with his God, he can get close to Him at best. Which Pagan religion puts such division between men and their God?

Another tremendous difference is that those dying and resurrecting Gods of the past at one point or another were seen as both lovers and children of the Mother-Goddess. You know what Christianity has to say about such relationships, right? The fact that mystical part of it totally escapes a Christian mind does not change anything.

I won't even talk about how Attis, Horus, Osiris, and other predecessors of Jesus Chris were never crucified. Yes, some died on or under a tree, so what? And the info on Mithra's crucifixion that originally comes from an English archeologist Austen Henry Layard is not supported by any ancient texts or images.