soul rattler
New member
pissedoffnobody;7280893 said:Abraham was basically the surviving son of a dead empire, an uncrowned king empowered by divine right, so basically the story is really about testing his devotion to his divine right by being willing to kill his sole potential rival, his own son and heir, and by showing that abject devotion he was promised a new empire that would last through the ages. That empire is still going based on faith. It's all adapted allegorical tales of previous faiths.
From that debate link...
Saint Augustine, the eminent early Church leader, himself admitted "That which is known as the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist", i.e. that christianity is simply a retelling of the ancient savior mythologies that have always existed among civilizations. The Christian Father Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 CE) even admitted that christianity offered nothing new that did not exist in ancient pagan religions. In Justin Martyr's First Apology and his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Justin Martyr admits to similarities between Christianity and the many ancient savior gods; he admits to virgin births, of miraculous healings, and deaths and resurrections, of other savior gods outside of christianity (e.g. Justin admits to Hercules' virgin birth, resurrection, and ascension to heaven. Justin admits to Perseus' virgin birth, and how Aesculapius raised the dead and did miraculous healings and imitated the prophecies about Christ). Lactantius (240-330 CE), an early Church writer, wrote, so as to convince the pagan elite to convert to christianity, about how the ancient pagan savior-god stories were proof that christianity was a valid religion, since christianity was thus as valid as those religions
So it's basically a case of "well they told a story, why can't I? WTF is plagiarism? It's inspiration and a homage!" but then in later years it turned into a case of trying to claiming original ownership. It's why the Romans feared the Moors so much when they came as conquerors, why they destroyed and "reinterpreted" so many texts, why the different empires fought for influence using the same basic ideals, whether Byzantine or Roman or any other.
It all seems to be originally rooted in Akkadian myths.


If this doesn't hurt some feelings or change some minds, nothing will.