How much of Christianity is based on Paganism?

Of course, that bit of hilarious nonsense on the part of Fox ignores that so many christians claim that scripture is the inerrant word of god, and it ignores that the validity of the claims to authority about god and religion on the part of church leaders and theologians depends upon a contention that the scripture is inerrant and divinely inspired.

Pagans killed christians because christians had taken to killing pagans. It was really a very simple equation.

rosborne979 writes


No, I have provided a reasonable explanation for variations and inconsistencies in the text, and I am saying that the inevitable contradictions and even error that are evident do not matter within the broader context, intent, and meaning of the scriptures as they were seen through the eyes of those who wrote them. To have any chance to discern that context, intent, and meaning, they must be considered through the eyes of First Century Christians and not as 21st Century Christians and/or skeptics might prefer that they be.

Foofie makes a valid point: In Spain there is a period called the Conviencia, where christian, jews and moslems lived in peaceful co existence for several centuries, they actually mixed their religious practices. Christians began lighting candles, moslems started drinking, etc, the word "ole" at bull fights is a corruption of Allah.
What setanta fails to take into account is the central governments weren't very strong, and that communications were a lot more difficult. Local differences could flourish.
Even today Spain has bizarre mixtures of rituals in some areas, with animals being sacrificed to consecrate churches.
The Spanish Inquisition was originally designed to standardise religious practices, that is to stop Jews from becoming baptised but following their own beliefs.
However, altho race can be determined, it is much harder to determine religion.
Christianity is a world religion ever today, and there are many variations on their rituals. At a Spanish wedding it is traditional to cheer during the I pronounce you man and wife part of a marriage ceremony. This would be seen as very rude in England.
Sadly the idea of the inclusive "Catholic" church, has been corrupted by a vision of christianity that is wholly an American Invention.
One of the most amusing examples of this is the silver ring thing. A silver ring was traditionally worn by "witches" to demonstrate their virginity, they were persecuted mercilessly. If Americans understood irony they'd be chuckling.
This is a very brief overview of the period, I have simplified it for purposes of brevity. For my American googler friend La conviviencia is a term applied to parts of moslem occupied Spain before the reconquest. And yes there were local differences including fights and lynchings

Foofie makes a valid point: In Spain there is a period called the Conviencia, where christian, jews and moslems lived in peaceful co existence for several centuries, they actually mixed their religious practices. Christians began lighting candles, moslems started drinking, etc, the word "ole" at bull fights is a corruption of Allah.
What setanta fails to take into account is that central governments weren't very strong, and that communications were a lot more difficult. Local differences could flourish.
Even today Spain has bizarre mixtures of rituals in some areas, with animals being sacrificed to consecrate churches.
The Spanish Inquisition was originally designed to standardise religious practices, that is to stop Jews from becoming baptised but following their own beliefs.
However, altho race can be determined, it is much harder to determine religion.
Christianity is a world religion and there are many variations in its rituals. At a Spanish wedding it is traditional to cheer during the I pronounce you man and wife part of a marriage ceremony. This would be seen as very rude in England.
Sadly the idea of the inclusive "Catholic" church, has been corrupted by a vision of christianity that is wholly an American Invention.
One of the most amusing examples of this is the silver ring thing. A silver ring was traditionally worn by "witches" to demonstrate their virginity, they were persecuted mercilessly. If Americans understood irony they'd be chuckling.
This is a very brief overview of the period, I have simplified it for purposes of brevity. For my American googler friend La conviviencia is a term applied to parts of moslem occupied Spain before the reconquest. And yes there were local differences including fights and lynchings. It ended with the fundamentalist reign of Ferdinand and Isabella

Leaving aside the undeniable fact that we have no historical basis for assuming that scripture as it is known today is the same as what was known in the first century of the common era, your response ignores that the authority for christian teaching derives from a contention that scripture is inerrant, and the divinely inspired word of god. It that were true, there would be no "inevitable contradictions," no variations, no inconsistencies in the text, no errors of any sort.

There is no basis upon which to determine context, intent and meaning in the eyes of first century christians, because there is no reliable record of what they believed about scripture, and no reliable historical basis for inferring what it might have been, or even that the scripture which exists today is the same as what existed then.

Modern scripture is based upon one of several "text types." The most prevalent was once the Byzantine text type, also known as the majority, traditional, ecclesiastical, Syrian or Constantinopolitan text type. The mere fact that there was a "majority" text type implies that there was a minority text type, which was not consonant with the majority text type. The majority text type is found in the most surviving manuscripts, and those manuscripts date from the fourth century or later. Reformation era translations of scripture were based on the Textus Receptus, which was produced by Erasmus in the early 16th century, before the Protestant Reformation. He also produced a new Latin version. He considerably altered the texts with which he worked, in one case saying: "It is only fair that Paul shouldaddress the Romans in somewhat better Latin." He also said: " . . . that often through the translator’s clumsiness or inattention the Greek has been wrongly rendered; often the true and genuine reading has been corrupted by ignorant scribes, which we see happen every day, or altered by scribes who are half-taught and half-asleep." In fact, the first published version was full of typos, and as he did not have available to him complete texts, he sometimes translated the available Latin texts back into Greek, most notably in the case of Revelations. It's pretty damned silly to attempt to claim anything about what first century christians believed about scripture, and even sillier to contend that scripture is the inerrant, divinely inspired word of god, when the sources for it are so unreliable.

In short, "scripture" as it exists today is not a reliable source either for the divinely inspired word of god, nor for what the earliest christians believed about scripture.

I cannot accept that explanation, since those early Christians have always been depicted as non-violent, and the pagans as the people with a more violent nature. I still believe the desire to proselytize was a threat to paganism, and they reacted hostilely. This does not make sense? This canard is still be made against Christians in some locales.

Just because Catholicism has given up proselytizing does not mean that all forms of Christianity have. It is alive and well.

I really don't give a rat's ass what you are prepared to accept, Foofie.

The fact is that for political expediency and in the interest of public peace, the Romans realized that they would have to kill all the Jews or allow them an exemption from paying homage to Roman Gods as the Jews would simply not do that. So, the policy handed down from emperor to emeror was to leave the Jews alone so long as they didn't make trouble and dutifully paid their taxes which they did. In fact, it is most probably the lucrative taxes paid by the Jews that made the Roman government decide not to kill the Jews.

Initially the Romans considered Christianity just another sect within Judaism and also mostly left them alone. But when the more militant Jews foolishly staged an uprising against Rome around 70 A.D., the Jewish Christians refused to assist them, the Jews lost, the temple was destroyed for the last time, and Jewish leaders were driven from Jerusalem. The refusal of the Christians to help was highly resented by the Jews and a final permanent and unreconcilable schism was created that was obvious even to the Roman government.

Like the Jews, the Christians also would not pay homage to Roman gods, and no longer recognized as a Jewish sect, they no longer enjoyed the special dispensations generally afforded the Jews. And they were handy targets for a few especially vindictive emperors who ruled from the late first century until the fourth. The Christians were accused of refusing to bow down to Roman gods along with assorted other crimes.

In the Fourth Century, Constantine recognized the superior organizational skills of the spreading Christian community and embraced it for the good of Rome eventually making Christianity the official state religion favored over any others. Other religions were permitted to exist, but did not enjoy the status that Constantine and those who succeeded him assigned to Christianity.

Thereafter, unfortunately most religious persecution was by the will and hand of Christians and not the state and that situation persisted into modern times.

This is ridiculous. 'Depicted' by whom, exactly? The early history of Christianity is extremely violent and it's suspected that between 500-1000 AD the Christian church put millions of 'holy women' to death in their conquest of Europe.

Cycloptichorn

A nice story. And nearly close to the facts.

(Perhaps you should update your information about the "Edict of Milan" and the earlier one from Nicomedia. Et cetera, et cetera ...)

In the Pagan versus Christians fight, I've got no money on either horse, and I don't really care who threw the first stone. In both cases, they are showing the ugly side of religion as a control and rule social device.

I think the question is less about whether Christianity is based on paganism, but instead is there anything unique about the Christianity. As far as I'm concerned, Christianity was well seated to become very popular that's all. Right place in the right time. I do not believe that it's popularity is due to it being more truthful than any other belief, just better seated along national and technological times in recent human history.

I have no reason to believe that in 2000 more years it will still be as popular. The way we honestly address the claims of paganism now I suspect will the the tone for then when addressing the (then) claims of Christians now (and before) in our history.

T
K
O

Thank you. The 'facts' are those taught at three different seminaries (Episcopal, Methodist, and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) that I used for source material, and like all history there are probably a few devils in the details, but I think the information is fairly reliable for the purpose I related it. I don't think the facts are significantly changed by the other sources you mentioned which I don't think are necessary in order to answer Foofie's question.

I should have mentioned probably that the persecutions were not universal throughout the Roman Empire but were found mostly in pockets targeted by the Roman government. For that reason Christianity continued to thrive and spread despite the incidents of persecution which, though significant, were not a crushing blow to the movement.

It contradicts what Lactantius has written (there isn't any older source for the text) or - if your Greek is better than your Latin what Eusebius translated.

And I wonder why you don't give Emperor Theodosius I the credit he has to get ...

Walter, I don't want to get into intricate ancient Christian history or theology here. I teach all that stuff in other contexts, but they simply are not important to the question Foofie asked. It was Constantine who made the Roman Catholic Church possible. It might have happened anyway, but he is the one who took the initiative. I didn't suggest that there were no others sympathetic to Christianity nor did I suggest that all emperors before Constantine persecuted Christians. Let's don't get too anal here, okay?

I don't teach such, I must admit.

I only learnt it at school, in history classes. And additionally a bit more when I studied history at university.


Your teaching seems to be ... flippant, it seems: the Edict of Milan is a proclamation that permanently established religious toleration for Christianity and any other "religion" within the Roman Empire, both in West and East Rome (thus signed by the Roman emperors Constantine I and Licinius.
While that happened in 313, in 380, Emperor Theodosius I enacted a law establishing Catholic Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire.

And such isn't "ancient Christian history" but 'ancient history', taught (here) at high school, history classes. (I had to translate the Latin text ... in Latin classes.)

Fine Walter. I have never suggested you were uneducated and I'm sure you would have told the story much better and more effectively than I told it. I profoundly apologize for being 'flippant' or using different words than you deem appropriate. Please feel free to write it exactly as you think it should be. I will stand by my version as adequate within the context I intended it and I acknowledge that you disapprove of it.

Happy?

He was merely pointing out that you were wrong; you ought to just have the grace to admit error instead of getting all pissy about it.

Cycloptichorn

He was pointing out that I was wrong, but he certainly has not shown in any way how I was wrong. I'm pretty darn sure that I was not.