Quote Originally Posted by headshake
i guess every biblical scholar and most skeptics are wrong. wow. all they had to do was come to cancom to find the truth.

good points, mr. clandestine!

religion has been going on since the beginning of time. ancient egypt had religion, the mayans, aztecs, incans, greeks, romans and just about every other civilization since the beginning of time.

(granted, most of those religions were polytheistic, although the idea of monotheism goes back to ancient egypt. akhenaten (who most think is tutenkhamun's dad) tried to get rid of all idols except, aten (disk of the sun).

on an interesting side not, akhenaten was more than likely a bisexual and possibly the first known homosexual in history. pretty interesting to think that maybe the first (possibly known homosexual) was also responsible for trying to buck polytheism for monotheism.)

once a civilization is defeated by another (obviously not applicable to the ones that just disappeared) then some of the defeated civ's religious ideologies, customs, traditions etc are absorbed into the victor's. often it's easier to keep some aspects of culture.

i can't remember the two major religions before christianity, but both of their "gods" had birthdays on december 25. what, wait a minute, that's the same as jesus' birthday. no, actually it's not, jesus was born in march. and you can ask any biblical scholar this. it was just easier to keep it the same. christmas was a pagan holiday, although it obviously didn't go by the same name.

it might have come from the roman Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or the birthday of the unconquered sun. Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") was the Roman sun god.

the tree part comes from other pagan traditions.

why would we celebrate jesus birthday on a pagan holiday? because it's just easier that way!

christianity was taken, by constantine, a pagan, because he knew it was starting to spread like wildfire. he used this to his advantage. so in a way, christianity was stolen from the "true followers".

or so some think.

anyhow, enough with the random history. i think a more appropriate question would be, "organized religion, a plot to keep man tamed?"

but that's just me.



-shake
Yaeh thats the main issue. Was religion used as a tool to tame man. I think it probably was but yet you see how much violence was perpetrated in the name of religion. As we see Islam today. You either join Islamic faith or you die. That is the simple bedrock of Islamic Faith. They do not believe nonbelievers should live.