Cool.
Thanks for the info.
An Absolute Must See!
by AK - Jeff 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Snoozy
I was on a Atheist talk board today set up like this board and was amazed..it had like 426 posts for today alone. WOW!
Seems like not believing in a God is real popular..
I too lean that way but part of me still believes.( Not JW stuff). There has to be something out there..we can't just exist...but if that is the case who made God?...
And where did time come from?
The old who came first the Chicken or the egg....
Snoozy...
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Leolaia
Another list of faux parallels. Some memes really get around and around.
Here is something that is more representive of actual Egyptian traditions about Horus: http://ct.grenme.com/index.php/Horus-Jesus_Correlations
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Twitch
lol
and the beat goes on,.....
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AgentSmith
All very very interesting. Thank you Leolaia for the opposite point of view.
I 'stumbled' across the Zeitgeist stuff yesterday. For a moment it seems that it all makes sense, untill you test what these people have said. The Horus-Jesus thing would have been the ultimate silver bullet if it was all true. Which just goes to prove once again, investigate, find the truth of what is written.
Just because someone (regardless of his/her authority), says its true, does not mean that it is.....and for the lurkers, that applies to the WTB&TS too.
Agent Smith
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AK - Jeff
How does one sort the bogus from the factual? Anything presented that is not in harmony with apologist' ideals, brings out all the 'experts' who begin to throw out a few straw men. Same with the other side of the issue. Or any side of the issue for that matter, I don't think there are just two.
Aside from the Horus/Jesus comparisons - other opinions of this film.? Maher makes some good points. I find them hard to ignore.
I am not an atheist - at least not yet. I don't even know that I lean in that direction. But I doubt much of what these Holy Books present as anything close to factual. One cannot deny the divisive nature of those who follow them as guides.
Jeff
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SixofNine
Maher makes some good points. I find them hard to ignore.
Yes, aside from the Horus/Jesus stuff, which I only knew was (mostly) bogus due to having read Leo's previous deconstructions, the movie was brilliantly done, imo. Very funny.
I think it's important to note that there are legitimate reasons to believe that Horus and other myths influenced the Jesus myths that we all learned from the bible, but the one-for-one comparisons are over-reaching and often dishonest.
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Leolaia
I always love watching Bill Maher and thanks for the link where I can view his movie. Having seen him talk on TV on the same subject, I know he makes good points in a very funny way. It is just unfortunate that he has to accept some internet memes at face value without checking them out.
How does one sort the bogus from the factual? Anything presented that is not in harmony with apologist' ideals, brings out all the 'experts' who begin to throw out a few straw men.
Sound scholarship and research is what sorts out the bogus. My point is that if you make a bad argument that misrepresents the facts, you do not help your case; you just give the other side of the debate ammunition. Unfortunately, Egyptian religion is not the kind of stuff that is widely known so the Zeitgeist Horus=Jesus thing spreads pretty easily. The main thing is to check out the sources and see what the claims are based on. What ancient Egyptian or Greek sources describe things like Horus transfigured on a mountain, preaching a Sermon on the Mount, being crucified, etc.? You will find out that these claims have their origin instead on 19th-century and early-20th century theosophical, Masonic, and other non-scholarly sources (especially the writings of Gerald Massey). The idea that Horus was crucified, for instance, I discovered originated in a book written by someone who believed in a lost continent of Mu and who looked at Mayan pictoglyphs in Central America and surmised that they depicted Horus being crucified. The claim simply arose from this person's imagination. There is no basis whatsoever in actual documentary sources. And many other things on the list (like transfiguration and a Sermon on the Mount) simply take things attributed to Jesus and attribute them to Horus, and then claim that these are parallels showing that these things originated from Horus.
All that being said, there are some legitimate parallels, the most distinctive of which is the connection with the myth in Revelation 12 (concerning the birth of the Messiah) with both the Matthew nativity story and the Egyptian story about Horus (which was syncretistic with the Apollo-Leto myth). The Matthew story however is clearly based on OT haggadaic traditions about Moses, and in fact OT intertextuality better explains a whole gamut of traditions of Jesus. It is also clear that later Christian religion, especially that in Egypt, was influenced by the Isis-Horus tradition -- as can be seen in the rise of Mary iconography or the legends of St. George (who was a Christian counterpart of Horus). As far as 'pagan' antecedents of Christianity are concerned, a far better case can be made for influence from Canaanite myth (which was influential in OT kingship traditions) and Zoroastrian religion (the savior figure Saoshyant, in particular) which posed a strong formative influence on Jewish and Christian apocalypticism and eschatology.
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AK - Jeff
Thanx Leo.
I was not referring to you specifically in my quote. Sorry if it looked like that.
Can you suggest a reputable reference to read regarding the myth of Horus? Thank you.
Jeff
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Leolaia
You can start with these books:
Geraldine Pinch (2002). Handbook of Egyptian Mythology. Oxford: ABC-CLIO.
George Hart (2005). The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. New York: Routledge.
I have these in PDF....if you PM me your email address I can send them to you. You might also want to research books that present scholarship specificially about Horus and Egyptian kingship ideology, such as J. G. Griffiths' (1960) The Conflict of Horus and Seth from Egyptian and Classical Sources: A Study in Ancient Mythology, or H. W. Fairman's (1974) The Triumph of Horus: An Ancient Egyptian Sacred Drama, or similar studies.