Jesus, virgin mary and Christmas

There has always been speculation on the existence of Jesus. Was he real, Who did he claim to be,What did he do, are just a few of the countless questions posed.

The fact of the matter is, we don't know. When we take a deeper look into the character of Jesus, it's a carbon copy of Mithras, the ancient God of the Persians, known as the ruler of the universe and sometimes referred to as the sun, born roughly 600 years before Christ.

Lets examine Mithras on a deeper scale. Mithras:

- was born 25th December

- had 12 companions who traveled with him

- was known as the good shepherd, the 'way, truth and light', the redeemer and the saviour

- commonly performed baptisms to remove sins

- practiced sacred meals which included bread and water while consecrated was believed to hold great spiritual power

Most importantly, Mithras was born of a virgin and was buried in a tomb only to be resurrected three days later.

This sounds awfully familiar.

Jesus by all accounts was NOT born 25th of December. It is generally accepted that his birthday would have been sometime in May. The date of 25th December was established by the Catholic Church in the year 349 AD. It is likely that this was done to stop the celebration of Mithras' birthday.

Considering the fact that the new testament was not written until decades after Jesus died, we have to consider the very likely possibility that much of what is contained in the bible was written to mirror age-old pagan beliefs. If this man was indeed real, there is no proof that the stories written about him are anything more than an attempt to immortalize Jesus as something as something much more than he really was, just a man.

Mary and the virgin birth

A virgin/non-sexual birth was in no way an original story. It is understood that Mithras was also born of a virgin. Horus and Krishna are also speculated to have been born either from a virgin or conceived through non-sexual means.

Aside from this, there is no proof that Mary was a virgin. It is just as likely, if not more, that this came about through exaggerations or translation errors. the word used to describe Mary is 'alma' which was originally translated as 'virgin'. The correct meaning of this word however is a woman who hasnt had a child yet. If they specifically meant 'virgin', the word used would have been 'betulah'.

So, who was Jesus, really?

refuting arguments part 1

I've heard these arguments time and time again. The interesting thing is that when it comes to some of these arguments (the ones about science), creationists actually don't understand what they'r saying. A good example is when they argue about the existence of God using the law of thermodynamics (without understanding it themselves), which I feel is used to try and confuse atheists that don't study science.

Argument no. 1: The Evolution concept

Humans could not have evolved from apes/monkeys because then there wouldn't be any apes/monkeys left and there is also no evidence whatsoever of evolution because it is 'just a theory'

I always have to hold my tongue here out of annoyance because it shows just how uneducated they are when they use this. Its a classic argument, passed on and repeated over and over and over again like a broken record.

The Theory of evolution is NOT that humans evolved from apes, but rather that humans, apes, monkeys, chimpanzees and so on have a common ancestor. This is the basic fundamental idea behind the theory and to get it wrong is just embarrassing.

A scientific theory is a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts

Also, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. I wont go into it at the moment, perhaps a separate blog post. The evidence consists not only of what the fossil records show, but what the understanding of DNA shows.

Just to quickly list some interesting ones - evolution in the human body

- goosebumps (we lost the excess hair that could be manipulated to make us look bigger and more threatening, but not the ability to manipulate them)

- coccyx (remnants of what used to be tails)

- muscles in our ears (as primates we were able to move em, now they'v gotten so weak, the most we can do is wiggle them)

- wisdom teeth (as the earlier humans were herbivores, they needed to ingest more plants in a day and the extra teeth helped. Now many of us do not even produce them anymore)

I recommend all books by richard dawkins as these are the easiest ones to get, but the most important would probably be 'the selfish gene', 'the extended phenotype' and my favorite when it comes to evolution - "The greatest show on earth" which highlights all the evidence for evolution. I also strongly recommend a thorough read of Charles Darwin's "the origin of species" as this would not only help you understand evolution, but the process of natural selection.

Argument no.2: Archeological proof

I remember sitting in sunday school, years and years back. Our teacher was a pretty charismatic person. We were discussing all the religions and I remember what he said, "Christianity has been proven right by archeological findings". I took it all in, didn't question any of it until much much later.

Archeological proof. It is such a powerful phrase, but where is this proof? Before writing this post I watched a few documentaries on archeological findings relating to religion and I have yet to see anything conclusive. What most of these findings are, are merely proof of events that you would expect to be right anyway, in terms of history.

For example, the existence of pontius pilate and crucifixion as a method of execution. These are found to be true based on findings. This doesn't surprise me at all. The scriptures are based on events that happened in that timeline and those who wrote it had to base it on current events.

Findings such as these in no way proof the accuracy of scripture or the existence of god anymore than an archeological dig 2,000 years from now uncovering the lost vatican city would prove the accuracy of Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code' as a historical event.

If religious texts are truly accurate, would we not have found more evidence, such as of noah's ark, or perhaps the stones where the 10 commandments are written (which in my opinion would still be around if God wanted them to be)? Sure, one may argue that Noah's ark would probably have been taken apart due to lack of wood but there is no evidence whatsoever, at all. there were no breaks in other civilizations such as the babylon societies, the egyptian eleventh dynasty or any of the chinese dynasties.

Argument no.3: Scientific proof

The argument of scientific proof. The argument that religious scripture hold scientific facts that could not have been known at the time the scriptures were written.

Again, where? This applies mainly to the Quran and muslims who claim that their religious scripture is full of scientific facts that prove the existence of God. I have highlighted a number of them in a previous post (http://nealjordan.blogspot.com/2010/10/scientific-miracles-in-quran-where.html) and there are "miracles" that even prove the Quran to be wrong.

Argument no.4: The growth of the human population

The current growth rate is roughly 2%. If we take an even smaller number (0.2%), the calculations would eventually show that there were only 700 people in 6000 BC, which roughly fits with creation.

The idea of a constant growth rate is comical to say the least. This argument doesn't account for food/water sustainability, environmental disasters, mortality rates, technology and so on. I see a serious lack of common sense in this argument. Life would be extremely different 10,000 - 100,000 years ago. Imagine a small group of humans, maybe around 50. Given what we know, their average lifespan would be around 20-40 years tops. Lack of food or disease could easily reduce their numbers to the single digits, not to mention natural disasters and other predators. In a world of 6.8 billion people, 100 people dying in a flood doesn't make a dent in the total population, but it would have a significant impact on a population of 200.

Argument no.5: The 'different time' concept.

Very commonly during discussions, usually about the morality of certain things in scripture such as murder, incest or anything else, I'l get the standard response of "those were different times".

This is a ridiculous sentence.

Your holy scriptures are either eternal, or they are not. You cannot claim that they came about through divine intervention and that they are meant for all time, and then argue that 'some' of what is written isn't applicable today. It is self contradictory.

Argument no.6: The morality issue

Creationists believe that the only possible way a person can have morals is to be religious. Many creationists I'v had discussions with always bring up hitler and Stalin when the topic of religious violence comes up.

It is true that Stalin was an atheist (Hitler's religious views are questionable), but to link what they did to atheism is absurd. They did not do what they did in the name of atheism, unlike the crusades, jihads and so on which were/are done in the name of different Gods. As Dawkins points out, Hitler was also a vegetarian, so are we to believe that all vegetarians are out to commit moral atrocities?

I've also discussed this topic in a slightly deeper sense in an earlier post (http://nealjordan.blogspot.com/2010/11/religion-and-morality.html)

Argument no.7: Thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics (as written by Henry Morris) states that "All processes manifest a tendency toward decay and disintegration, with a net increase in what is called the entropy, or a state of randomness or disorder, of the system".

Creationists often quote this text because according to them, it disproves evolution as evolution states that entropy decreases whereas complexity and order increase (which is the opposite of the law of thermodynamics).

entropy is 'disorder'

The problem here is that they do not quote the full text. Morris' conclusion was incorrect. While all processes do not exhibit a tendency towards decay and disintegration, it is only the overall entropy of the universe that increases. It is possible for entropy on earth to decrease. For example, the formation of snowflakes and formation of crystal salts.

Argument no.8: The uncaused-cause argument

The first time I came across this argument I had absolutely no response to it, cause much like the thermodynamics argument, all the rapid fancy talk pretty much confused me.

The idea behind this argument is that all things that exist were brought into existence because it is impossible to have an infinite regression of causes unless an infinity was crossed.

In simple terms, everything that happens has a "cause" but if this was the case, to get to where we are now, there would have to have been an infinite number of causes. This supposedly "proves" the existence of god because there has to have been something, somewhere that was not caused by something (God), which then caused everything else.

It is, no doubt an interesting argument but a flawed one. You cannot argue that everything has to be created and has to have a cause, and then argue that it must have started by something that did not have a cause. It is self-contradictory. Even so, if you argue this case, then you accept the idea that something could have been caused without a cause and this in no way proves the existence of a god because you would have to consider the possibility then that the big bang could have happened without a cause.

Argument no.9: You cannot explain/understand it, therefore it is proof that God created it.

Worst argument I have ever heard, but unfortunately a common one, though not always in this exact wording.

As Dawkins put it - This argument is equivalent to having to sides to an argument, theory A and theory B. If theory A has some difficulty explaining phenomenon X, or it is too complicated to understand, then theory B must be right.

theory B being creationism. Dawkins termed this as "God of the gaps".

The question here is why is creationism/religion the default answer to everything. If another theory fails, religion automatically claims credit, without even attempting to understand the other 50 theories laying around. I have yet to see a shred of solid evidence that would prove creationism.

I love this quote from another blog - "Why is God considered an explanation for anything? It's not - it's a failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders, an 'I dunno' dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to god, what it usually means is that they haven't got a clue, so they'r attributing it to an unreachable, unknowable sky-fairy. Ask for an explanation of where that bloke came from and odd are you'l get is a vague, psuedo-philosophical rely about always having existed, or being outside nature. Which of course, explains nothing."

Religion and morality

I had a really good discussion with an old friend yesterday and she posed a very interesting question. I believe it was somewhere along the lines of "religion also does good, shouldn't it be kept around for that reason".

what she meant was that, although religion does have its downsides, there is some good that comes out of it and that cannot be ignored just because there is some bad.

what it all comes down to, in essence is morality. Common understanding, especially with theists is that their religion promotes good moral values and that without religion, the human species would fall under chaos, with no moral values whatsoever. These moral values then indirectly spawn all other 'good' qualities.

For this I reference some work from both richard dawkins and christopher hitchens.

The first issue is whether or not we get our moral values from religion. The answer is a very simple no. Humankind is a remarkable species, capable of thought processing and reasoning. Human populations lived for decades without murdering every single other person they found. There's no denying that our moral values are very different now from what they were 300 years ago, or 2000 years ago, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with religion. In fact, religion changes to fit our moral values when it is pressured.

When looking through our own evolution of moral values, it is clear that religion has changed itself, evolved to fit our understanding of moral values, not the other way around.

Crusades, inquisitions, slave trades, genital mutilation, gender and sexual discrimination, religious oppression.

These have all been condoned by religion at some point and some, such as gender and sexual discrimination, are still practiced by religion today. But as humans we have developed our own moral sense. I have gay and lesbian friends, I love them and there isn't a part of me that believes they do not deserve the same rights as I have. Religion continues to discriminate against them. The pope himself announced that homosexuality is a "moral evil" and in many Islamic countries, homosexuality is punishable by execution.

As soon as we come to the understanding that we are responsible for our own moral values, the sooner we'l realize that we do not the the enticement of heaven or the fear of hell to influence our decision.

As for whether or not religion should be kept around just because there is a possibility of some good coming out of it, if a murderer was on trial, would you sentence him for the lives that he has taken, or you would grant him a free pass because he helps out at an old-folks home and donates half his annual salary to charity?

We are responsible for the moral values we hold today, it is through our reasoning that we have come this far. there will come a point in time where Christianity will apologize for all the sexual crimes and for its discrimination against homosexuality, just like it has recently apologized for the slave trade, the torture of Galileo and the crusades. There may even come a time where Islam apologizes for inciting violence and discrimination.

One has to think, where would we be today without religion? Would the Hindu-Islam riots in India still be around? Or the oppression of the Palestinians by the Israelis? How about the conflicts between the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, or the clashes between Muslims rebels and the government in Thailand.

The point we take from that, again is that Religion does not shape our moral values and it certainly isn't the main force of all that is good and pure in the world, rather it is the opposite and we cannot let it take the credit it obviously has no claim to. And if you truly believe that the only thing that keeps you in line, the only reason you do good, is the prospect of heaven and the fear of hell, then I highly suggest you do some self-reflection.