How much of Christianity is based on Paganism?

@FBM,

Without going into the details of the article you've linked, i would just point out that for two years now, all of the articles at Wikipedia concerning christianity have been relentlessly vandalized by christian activists. For example, the article you linked was last edited on February 12th. At the top of the article, you'll see a tab marked "Talk," i advise that you read and see the objections--the continu9ing objections, which have been posted to the articles content.

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@Setanta,

Thanks for the tip. I'm not deep into Wiki culture. I read down for a bit, and I'm not surprised it's receiving so much heated resistance. What I didn't see so much were factual contributions that refute the statements made in the mainpage article. But one thing I like about Wiki is that, over time, facts tend to float to the top and stay there. More or less.

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@FBM,

Since the christian vandalism began about two years ago, that is no longer something you can count on at Wikipedia. Initially, they re-wrote entire articles, and editors would come along and simply replace the new text with the previous text. So they got smarter, and simply edited text by removing what was offensive to them, and inserting the "truth" as they thought it ought to read. That was more insidious, because they were no longer technically vandalizing the articles. One response has been to insert "citation needed" tags in the text, and the vandals will go to the talk page to complain about that ("volunteer" editors cannot remove tags). But it's getting worse. This sort of vandalism is now showing up in articles which have political or ideological content, and even scientific or historical articles (conservatives have been attempting to re-write history for several generations now).

The old, idealistic days of Wikipedia seem now to be gone--and probably forever. People are no longer interested in anything which might be called truth--they have agendas, and they intend to forward them.

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@Setanta,

I have come across articles at Wikipedia I know to be blatant lies. I corrected one. Next day the other jerk changed it back. I finally gave up after a few days.

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Thanks for the heads-up, guys. The sort of things I generally read on Wiki aren't controversial or subject to so much politically motivated revisionism. I'll be more careful from here on out.

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@FBM,

They are victim of their success. But they are holding on. Take the complains from A2Kers with a grain of salt. They could bd oissed of precisely BECAUSE it's generally objective, and they don't find their own bias in there.

No evidence, no cigar... Wiki gives the evidence, the links, the tools to learn more. It documents its own deliberations... It's a great tool for those who want to learn. Also for those who like to complain.

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@Olivier5,

Well, Set and Edgar, being atheists, pointing out a politically motivated and subjective agenda by other atheists in religion-related Wiki pages suggests to me that they (Set and Edgar) have the interest of fairness at heart. I do hope and expect that those pages will eventually be informed by verifiable, objective data, rather than slanted emotions. I'm not in a position to say what the situation is at the moment, as I don't pay that much attention to it. Wink

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@FBM,

Not saying manipulation cannot occur, but in my experience, the system is sound and has the tools necessary to ensure a fair representation of the present status of knowledge. It's still and by far one the best things to come out of the internet.

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@Olivier5,

I do agree there. I'm pretty confident that bullshit-peddlers on Wiki will be eventually overwhelmed. It may take longer on issues related to religion, however. Wingnuts are persistent on both sides of the aisle.

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@FBM,

Don't assume there is currently a horde of vandals wrecking wikipedia just because someone said it. That's paranoid. There has always been editor wars on wiki, since the begining. As the site and its use are growing, so is the editing war phenomenon. It's still the best encyclopedia ever, and that is no small feat, in the grand scheme of things.

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@Olivier5,

Oh, I don't think it's paranoid on the whole. If I were to google Warren G. Harding or Pyrrho of Elis or the price of tea in China, I would expect less of a controversy about the contents that Wiki had to offer. But those are not political or religious (insofar as those differ) hot topics.

But I still think Wiki is on the whole very dependable and a valuable, albeit informal, resource for many, many inquiries. When scholarly sources are linked to, which is most often the case, the whole effort is helped, I think.

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@FBM,

Exactly. Let's not throw the baby with the bath water.

Coming back to the thread, it is a well-known fact that Christianity co-opted a number of local gods as saints, and pagan feasts and festivals as Christian ones. Easter bunnies, etc. That's a big deal for some people who think bad of pagans... I don't, personally. For me, monotheism emerged from polytheism and is just a slightly different form of religion. The link between the two being "monolatry": to acknowledge several gods, but to worship only one of them.

Quote:

Scholars are in bitter disagreement over the origin of the the Yahweh religion and the identity of its founder, Moses. While Moses is an Egyptian name, the religion itself comes from Midian. In the account, Moses lives for a time with a Midianite priest, Jethro, at the foot of Mount Sinai. The Midianites seem to have a Yahweh religion already in place; they worship the god of Mount Sinai as a kind of powerful nature deity. So it's possible that the Hebrews picked up the Yahweh religion from another group of Semites and that this Yahweh religion slowly developed into the central religion of the Hebrews. All scholars are agreed, however, that the process was slow and painful. In the Hebrew history, all during the migration and for two centuries afterwards, the Hebrews follow many various religions unevenly.

The Mosaic religion was initially a monolatrous religion; while the Hebrews are enjoined to worship no deity but Yahweh, there is no evidence that the earliest Mosaic religion denied the existence of other gods. In fact, the account of the migration contains numerous references by the historical characters to other gods, and the first law of the Decalogue is, after all, that no gods be put before Yahweh, not that no other gods exist. While controversial among many people, most scholars have concluded that the initial Mosaic religion for about two hundred years was a monolatrous religion. For there is ample evidence in the Hebrew account of the settlement of Palestine, that the Hebrews frequently changed religions, often several times in a single lifetime.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/birthintro.html

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@Olivier5,

I see that, and it's a significant point. It's one thing to say that your personal/ethnic/traditional god is the only one that exists, and entirely something else to say that it's the only one you should worship.

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You people always jump to conclusions. An atheist complains about a wrong article, it must be because of his bias against religion. This said without an inkling of which articles I complained about. In fact, the two I mentioned were related to health and healing. I don't think you need to provide credentials regarding gods and atheists in that arena do you? If so, please show me how.

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@FBM,

Quote:

It's one thing to say that your personal/ethnic/traditional god is the only one that exists, and entirely something else to say that it's the only one you should worship.

Right. And it explains why YHWH is such a jealous god: He is worried about the competition from REAL other gods. Otherwise there's nothing to be jealous of.

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@edgarblythe,

Just saying Wikipedia is NOT broken. As an internet-based tool for knowledge, it's without rival. A2K could take a leaf or two from Wikipedia's manual, me think...

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Thumbing monkey is back...

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@edgarblythe,

I wouldn't waste my time on Olive Tree, if i were you. He is a contrarian, he argues for argument's sake. Wikipedia has serious problems, serious flaws. They are getting worse, not better.

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@Setanta,

When anybody that wants to can sign up and edit an article, all in ten or fifteen minutes time, the possibilities are endless.

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@Olivier5,

So let him know he's getting to you. That should work.

Stop behaving in such a stereotypically French way by letting things like that get to you. Ignore them, don't give them the satisfaction.

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How much of Christianity is based on Paganism?

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