Reasonably written from a historical perspective, but it's missing a few points:
1)
The 'monotheistic' religions, particularly Christianity and Buddhism (though Buddhism is not exactly 'monotheistic' it's not 'pantheist' in the classical sense) - represented a fundamental shift from pantheism.
It's wrong to claim that 'Pantheism = many gods' and 'Monotheism = one god'. This the literal meaning, but it's not remotely accurate.
Pantheistic gods were almost always a soap opera of 'super human like' people who loved, fought and interacted with each other like a superior cast of beings.
'Pray to me and I'll smote your enemy'
'Give me offerings or I'll hurt you'.
Montheism wasn't just about having 'one god' - monotheistic religions were about ideas not so much rites and rituals (as mentioned in the article). Particularly - monotheistic religions required moral and conscientious behaviour.
Jesus had only two commands: 'Love God and love one another'. In a more secular sense that could be 'Recognize the divine and knowing that - do your best with what you have to make the world a better place'.
Buddhists are required to be 'more enlightened' and more civilized people lest they be reincarnated as animals, if they want to 'escape the cycle of reincarnation'.
Christian and Buddhist religions centre around moral philosophies at least in terms of how they apply to the real world.
The Christian God is not a 'bearded buy in the sky' (even though he is often presented as such). He's 'unknowable' and completely transcends our understanding. 'I am that I am'. This is not like the Greek gods who all have very tangible attributes and are mostly interested in human like things - i.e. power.
Similarly, though Buddhists are technically 'atheists' in that they don't have a 'God' per say - they do have a kind of 'monotheism' in that they present very specific ideals of 'nothingness' etc.. They definitely present a metaphysical construct for us. And it's not a bunch of angry super-dudes.
Monotheism is a huge leap forward in terms of our metaphysical evolution.
2)
It's not fair to use the word 'exclusive' so many times in this text.
The most powerful element of Christianity is that it was open to anyone. For the first time slaves were equal to kings. This was a very, very powerful idea, and obviously scared the bananas out of the elite.
Status and class were clearly delineated in terms of class in Greek mythology. Higher status = more 'godliness'. That's an artifact of human culture ... but it's rejected in Christianity (and Buddhism).
Your 'status' in Christianity is dependant on how good you are, not 'how much money you have'. For the first time, you couldn't just buy your way out of bad deeds (at least in theory, obviously not in practice, quite often).
Christians were the first international solidarity movement. They were the first 'social movement of equal peoples'. The first to feed the poor as moral action, not just a political action. Moreover - they were organized. What the article failed to mention was that Constantine had a political motivation to be Christian because he could leverage the international network of organized and efficient non-state bureaucracy that the Christians had. Their 'system' had efficiency on some level - and authenticity.
A strict historical articulation of the facts, I think fails to illustrate what it was that made Christianity so widespread.
I think the key to understanding is that 'common era' religions such as Christianity and Buddhism are completely unlike their predecessors.
> The Christian God is not a 'bearded buy in the sky' (even though he is often presented as such). He's 'unknowable' and completely transcends our understanding. 'I am that I am'. This is not like the Greek gods who all have very tangible attributes and are mostly interested in human like things
'I am that I am' was said by Jesus who ate, defecated and did everything else like any other human being, and he is considered being the God by Christians, so he's very much like the Greek gods walking around the Earth all the time, eating with humans. Read the Odyssey.
Even more so, the act of Jesus' mother being impregnated by the God is something that Zeus did in many many occasions (producing god-children with the human mothers) and was retold for centuries before Christ exactly in the areas where the Christian myths started to spread. The impregnation story is obviously an one-upmanship one (well my God is a son of God too!) and not present in the earliest Gospel.
Once that simple one-upmanship trick got to be popular, there was a need to explain the logic of God producing a child who's still himself while not directly being involved in the sex act (which would be too dirty for the God), and the Trinity was invented: the God is at the same time the father, the son and the holy ghost, the third one, the most 'transcendental' one, the only one being involved in the sex act.
Learning about the ancient Greek gods helps making sense of a lot of weird Jewish and Christian stories. Also learning about the Mesopotamian and Egyptian gods and stories.
"'I am that I am' was said by Jesus who ate, defecated and everything else like any human being, and he is considered God by Christians, so he's very much like Greek gods walking around the Earth all the time.
"
First - "I am that I am" is God - to Moses. Not Jesus.
And by the way - that very line betrays your argument: the Monotheistic 'God' is nothing like Zeus, who would never say something so abstract :). Zeus was knowable. 'God' is a metaphysical concept.
And no - Jesus not 'like the Greek gods because he 'ate and defecated'.
Zeus was a powerful war lord, who ran around screwing women, got pissed off at others, demanded offerings - he was not a moral example, nor did he demand morality. He was like a superhuman Chieftain.
Zeus was the Donald Trump of religions. (Bad joke).
Jesus wanted his followers to 'have faith and love one another' - and not necessarily make offerings, worry about money, or get too involved in rituals. All are equal before God, and are judged for their actions - not their power, money or social status. Yada, yada, yada. Nothing like the Zeusinator.
There are really few if any theological similarities between Zeus and Jesus. They are 'far apart' on the religion scale :)
"earning about the ancient Greek gods helps explaining a lot of weird Jewish and Christian stories. Also learning about the Mesopotamian and Egyptian gods and stories."
Yes - some bits of narrative are similar, and the 'nativity' bit is a rather common theme in the era. But it's not about the 'magic tricks' :).
Put another way: Greek pantheism is about the Greek Gods. Christianity is about the teachings of a man (or son of god, or god incarnate, depending on ...)
And finally - a lot of formal Christian groups that do not believe Jesus was a God. That's been a big debate since the beginning i.e. Nicaeae etc. :)
> There are really few if any theological similarities between Zeus and Jesus. They are 'far apart' on the religion scale
To properly compare you have to compare Yahweh, the god from Jewish scriptures (a.k.a the Old Testament for the Christians, for who Yahweh is a father-god) and Zeus, the Greek father god. Both are hungry for the animal sacrifices. The God personally visits Abraham who prepares a meal (freshly baked bread and flesh) for him and the God eats, under a tree. Not "transcendent" at all.
For their children: Jesus, the son of the God and a human mother, and Heracles, the son of the God and a human mother. Heracles rises to Olympus as he dies, unlike the other mortals, just like Jesus rises to heaven.
And both Jesus and Heracles visit Hades (Hell) only to get out of there:
Learning about the Greek gods is really enlightened.
By the way, the name of the Jewish father-god is Yahweh, and "Jesus" comes from the Greek "Iesous" rendition of a Hebrew common name "Yehoshua" (Joshua) which means "Yahweh is salvation." Also a convenient element for the later "the father is also a son" idea. Only, there were a lot of Joshuas living around for more centuries.
"I am" - and - "I am that I am" are two different things. :)
And yes, I agree - 'Yahweh' from Jewish antiquity is more comparable to Zeus, for sure. (Though Yahweh evolved a lot over time, and was something else by the time Jesus came)
But you were comparing Jesus to Zeus. Those two are not very comparable.
Zeus belongs in the Egyptian/Roman/Mesopotamian camp. a little bit like Yahweh.
Jesus belongs more with Buddha, and Mohammed.
The former were 'myths to believe that explained things', the later were 'historical figures' and 'teachers' of 'how we ought to be as moral and spiritual beings'. These are very different eras, different kinds of religions, is my whole point.
FYI - that's why in 2016 there are tons of Buddhists, Muslims and Christians, and basically zero followers of 'Zeus'. Which further validates 'how different Jesus is to Zeus & Co'
The Christians actually call that what you call "Jewish antiquity" "the Old Testament." And they don't pronounce the name of the God, just like Jews stopped doing that, but only after names like "Yehoshua" (Joshua and Jesus) and "Yohanan" (John) (both constructed from Yahweh) already became common.
This simple "his name can't be told" rule is the primary spark for the whole "transcendental" buildup and people naming "the only" "God" for any formally unrelated belief. And the Jews got that idea (keep the name secret) from the Egyptians.
> But you were comparing Jesus to Zeus.
No, check for yourself, I have explicitly compared the father of Jesus with Zeus, Zeus being the inseminator just like Jesus' father.
> Jesus belongs more with Buddha, and Mohammed.
No, Mohammad was a jealous supremacist murderous warlord, killing hundreds of people even after they surrender, torturing the captives, taking the female slaves as sex slaves, ordering the killings for revenge to somebody making some funny poems about him, ordering stonings of others for having extramarital sex, but for himself organizing "legal" sex with a 9-year old, inventing special messages from God to allow him having more wives than other Muslims etc (all documented in the religious texts). Jesus was just an apocalyptic religious hippie announcing that "the end is coming soon" who died once he tried to cause the change in the middle of Jerusalem, the governmental, financial and religious center of Judea at the peak of its yearly activity (overturning the tables in the "banks" there effectively(1)).
Buddha is not comparable to both Jesus and Mohammad, as Buddha was the one who recognized that he can chose to not believe in the religious dogma of his environment (Hinduism) and be free and happy instead, not ending in the Hindu equivalent of Hell (which was for them "being reborn again") but simply dying (which is called the "nirvana" -- simply ending being "blown out" like a candle, that's the meaning of that word). But the Buddhists, conveniently for them, made a new religious dogma out of Buddha.
----
1) The term "bank" actually comes from Italian "banca" which simply means "the table" -- the tables were used as "the banks" to perform the money transactions in the old times. Jesus actually disrupted the banks in the city. Which were very stressed at the Passover, the time he decided to do it. But it wouldn't be enough to sentence him to death, the reason for that was that there were the witnesses who confirmed him claiming to be the "King of the Jews" -- he was sentenced for leading the "regime change" during the times of the festival. By the oldest Gospel, Jesus, poor believer, didn't understand why the God didn't intervene then ("Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?")
"'I am that I am' was said by Jesus who ate, defecated and did everything else like any other human being, and he is considered being the God by Christians, so he's very much like the Greek gods walking around the Earth all the time, "
1) You were comparing Jesus to the Greek gods, not 'The Father of Jesus'. That's your quote right there.
2) You're a little off on your 'comparative religion'.
Jesus, Mohamed and Buddha were human beings, who were spiritual teachers, not quite 'gods' (although many people consider Christ 'God incarnate' - he was ultimately human as well.).
We follow Jesus, Mohamed and Buddhist teachings, and spiritual which are all 'monotheistic' - or in the case of Buddhism, not quite 'theist' but nevertheless a singular presentation of a 'higher concept'.
This is fundamentally different from Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman religions.
I am not saying that 'Jesus is the same as Mohammed and the Buddha' - I am saying that they are all basically Common Era religions which are in a different category than the others.
Your comments about Mohammed are incomplete to the point of misrepresentation. Yes - he did some crazy things, but he also said many more good things, and his writing is in fact quite beautiful.
Finally - you picked a very poor example of how Jesus is different than Buddha: "as Buddha was the one who recognized that he can chose to not believe in the religious dogma of his environment"
Jesus indeed, asked his followers to not get caught up in dogma as well and simply 'have faith'. In a manner of speaking, that's pretty close to accepting divine notions of 'nirvana'.
Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Basically he is saying 'all the other religious stuff doesn't matter' - this two things are what matters.
There are many other similar quotes where he calls out the 'hypocrisy' of certain Pharisee acts.
So in fact - Jesus and the Buddha are pretty similar at least on that point.
Summary:
Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed - Common Era human beings who are Spiritual Teachers: followers do as they say.
Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian polytheistic Gods and myths - a soap opera of 'super humans' doing various things. There's no moral philosophy or spiritual premise, though you do get some metaphysical ideals I guess.
I'm comparing there Jesus, who's for the Christians "THE God." One part of the "one God in three Divine Persons", the "central mystery" of Christianity for most of its existence.
Your claim that Jesus is "ultimately human" and at the same time that Mohammad "wrote" "beautiful" things leaves me wondering how much you actually know about the religions.
Even if you belong to, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses, you have to be aware that a) your denomination didn't exist before 1870s and the rest of the Christians believe in Jesus the God for at least 17 centuries b) your beliefs are distinct from the mainstream Christianity and c) your number is minute compared to all other Christians.
Can you please specify which Mohammad's "writing is in fact quite beautiful"? What have you read that Mohammad wrote? Thanks.
> Montheism wasn't just about having 'one god' - monotheistic religions were about ideas not so much rites and rituals (as mentioned in the article). Particularly - monotheistic religions required moral and conscientious behaviour.
I think you should take a look at judaism.
> Christians were the first international solidarity movement. They were the first 'social movement of equal peoples'. The first to feed the poor as moral action, not just a political action.
The greeks would like to have a word on that one.
> I think the key to understanding is that 'common era' religions such as Christianity and Buddhism are completely unlike their predecessors.
There are oh-so-many parallels and straight up plagiarisms in christianity I don't know how you can say that and back it up. The truth is all religions are evolutions from the ones before, adapted to fit in with their times.
I get what you are saying - but Judaism was the religion that went through the gambit to produce Christianity.
Yes - Yahweh in the old days, was very much like a 'Greek God'. Arguably, he's just one of the pantheon of those gods! After all - 'Bal' the God of the Canaanites, kind of 'existed' and Yahweh was just 'more badass' than him.
But Judaism evolved and provided the foundation for what I described. Yahweh went from a 'personified entity' to basically 'an unknowable centre'. In practice, today - the Jews have a powerfully distinct moral motivation built into their religion. Rabbis have long been an important source of intellectual and motivation for a lot of people.
"The Greeks would like to have a word with you"
The Greek philosophers, yes, the religionists, no. And if you'd argue that some of these social ideals are 'Greek founded' - I'll give you that argument. But it was the Christians who got people inspired, and into to it for real. Not the Greeks. Otherwise, Constantine would have bought into a different religion.
"There are oh-so-many parallels and straight up plagiarisms in christianity I don't know how you can say that and back it up."
The difference between Greek polytheism and Christianity is more than obvious.
Aside from some obvious creation-myth overlaps borrowed from other Mesopotamian/Egyptian stories, if you actually look at the Bible (New Testament) page by page, it's so much like any other religion that one can even wonder how they can be compared.
Buddhist, Christian and Muslim works are a totally different ballgame than the works before them. At least in religious terms. And at least in the West, the Asian lineage is not so clear I suppose.
This is a classic case of "seeing what you want to see"; You agree with all my points yet remain with your original statement.
> Aside from some obvious creation-myth overlaps borrowed from other Mesopotamian/Egyptian stories, if you actually look at the Bible (New Testament) page by page, it's so much like any other religion that one can even wonder how they can be compared.
Just off the top of my head, Dionysus turning water into wine at least a century before Jesus.
You keep wanting to make christianity something special when in reality it is just another amalgamation of beliefs and rituals from the area at the time (and since, christmas, easter, halloween, because it has not stopped evolving). It just happens to be the one that "won".
"You keep wanting to make christianity something special when in reality it is just another amalgamation of beliefs"
Well, since there are no 'Christian rituals' in the New Testament, because Christianity did not exist at the time, I'm going to assume that you have not read it.
From cover to cover, there's nothing Greek, Roman or Egyptian that resembles the New Testament, it doesn't even resemble the Old Testament. Arguably, it's closer to the Koran, or other Eastern works.
And if you think it's about a (cherry picked) handful of similarities and borrowed 'magic powers' story bits like a'water into wine' or a 'Horus-like nativity story', then you're missing the point anyhow.
> Well, since there are no 'Christian rituals' in the New Testament, because Christianity did not exist at the time, I'm going to assume that you have not read it.
See? classic case of cherry picking. You probably don't consider baptism a ritual, or the allegory of Yom Kippur a ritual. Or drinking wine and eating bread. You just read it like you want to.
> And if you think it's about a (cherry picked) handful of similarities and borrowed 'magic powers' story bits like a'water into wine' or a 'Horus-like nativity story', then you're missing the point anyhow.
Yes, forget that all the miracles of Jesus were "borrowed" from earlier gods, forget that all the life of Jesus is a carefully scripted retelling of the tales of the old testament. In fact, lest forget all the pieces that don't fit with your uniqueness narrative. After all, the point of the book is what you said it is, there is no one in the world who would read it any other way.
Ok, you have 'baptism' as one ritual in 500 pages, which by the way, is originally a Jewish thing anyhow.
Now that's exactly what I am calling 'cherry picking'.
As (barely) a Protestant - I don't see any of those other things as 'rituals' of any relevance.
If you throw in 'wine and bread' - you have two. Wow. Two whole rituals.
I'd argue that it's you that are 'seeing what you want to see'.
Nobody would deny that many elements of Jesus story are borrowed for other narratives.
Just as nobody would imply that the New Testament is 'just an amalgamation of a bunch of other stuff'.
Ironically, both examples you gave: 'Baptism' and 'Wine and Bread' - are not based on some 'borrowed ideas' - they are effectively original in their own context.
You were the one saying there were no rituals, I just mentioned two because it's been a while since I've had to argue this stuff. By the way, praying is also a ritual, as is Saving the sabbath (still performed by some christian denominations). And baptism being jewish (and not only jewish but practiced by many other faiths at the time) just proves further my point of unoriginality. And when there is a whole branch of christianity founded on the baptism ritual, the Baptists, I say you are the one cherrypicking the parts of the bible you want to ignore to fit your narrative.
> Ok, you have 'baptism' as one ritual in 500 pages, which by the way, is originally a Jewish thing anyhow.
> Ironically, both examples you gave: 'Baptism' and 'Wine and Bread' - are not based on some 'borrowed ideas' - they are effectively original in their own context.
This is the main problem. You contradict yourself on every point.
Baptism is a ritual, but the only baptism in the Bible (that I can recall) is pre-Christian. It has a relation to the Christian ritual, but is not a Christian ritual.
> or the allegory of Yom Kippur a ritual.
Not a Christian ritual.
> Or drinking wine and eating bread.
The Last Supper may be the closest thing to a Christian ritual in the Bible, since that account is he really held to be the establishment of a key Christian ritual (though not generally as an instance of the ritual this established.)
Yom Kippur is not christian per se, what I was talking about is the allegory of Yom Kippur, namely easter and the killing of Jesus in the name of the lamb that is "celebrated" each year.
Baptism, wine and bread (aka communion), etc -- these are not religiously necessary rituals in Christianity, not in the way they are to Catholicism (which I think can be considered a completely different religion). And they don't compare to rituals of other religions which are necessary for salvation/enlightenment/whatever.
Going back to what edblarney said above, "Jesus had two commands; love God and love one another". Christianity, in its purest form, is unique in that it gives salvation away completely free. We are not required to do anything, only to believe that we require forgiveness and to have faith that God will give it freely. The act of Jesus' sacrifice being a demonstration that in fact God has already forgiven every one of us, and that all we need do is recognize it. If you believe that, you will, naturally want to live your life according to some notion of christian ethics, but striving to do "good" in whatever way you like is in no way a requirement for salvation.
All the rituals -- baptism, spiritual giftings, recognition of the sabbath, circumcision -- there are a ton of them -- are trappings of religious authoritarianism if they are incorporated as requirements for salvation. I know lots of churches and denomination do this (or come perilously close), and it is quite unbiblical.
> Baptism, wine and bread (aka communion), etc -- these are not religiously necessary rituals in Christianity, not in the way they are to Catholicism (which I think can be considered a completely different religion).
By the usual restrictive mainstream definition of Christianity by reference to the early creeds, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, (most) Protestant Churches, and a number of independent (often ancient) churches, many of which are styled "Catholic" but have no current and often no past association with Rome, are all Christian.
True, and the usual definitions are useful in many ways, but I would argue that the Catholic church (big "C", as opposed to the various catholic structures and practices found in many non-Catholic denominations) has larded up their religion to the point that it's barely recognizable as christianity. The idols (incendiary term, I know), the various levels of hell, the duties and bribes to church officials in return for forgiveness. A preponderance of Catholic doctrine and church structure has nothing to do with Christ's promise of utterly free redemption.
> I would argue that the Catholic church (big "C", as opposed to the various catholic structures and practices found in many non-Catholic denominations) has larded up their religion to the point that it's barely recognizable as christianity.
You probably mean the Roman Catholic Church (the usual particular name for the Church composed of 24 sui iuris particular churches united by various unifying factors, including recognizing the Bishop of Rome—the same one that is head of state of Vatican City—as head of the church.)
Big-C Catholic is a bad descriptor for that, because there are quite a lot of big-C Catholic Churches which are not in union with Rome, and have varying degrees of dissimilarity in theology, ritual, and law when compared to the Roman Catholic Church.
> The idols (incendiary term, I know), the various levels of hell, the duties and bribes to church officials in return for forgiveness.
Aside from the false bit about idols, you've mentioned, in order, a feature of a popular work of medieval literature that has never been a matter of Catholic doctrine, and what seems (though it's hard to tell what specifically it intends to refer to) to be a oblique reference to a combination of abusive practices and erroneous (compared to the official doctrine) teachings about indulgences that were frequently criticized by Church leaders prior to Luther and fairly definitively addressed in and shortly after the Council of Trent.
> I know nothing about the Orthodox churches.
The same appears to be true of the Roman Catholic Church.
Well... it seems clear that I have a lot to learn about Catholicism, and I'll gladly yield to your arguments. May I ask your opinion about the effect of Roman Catholicism -- whether it is a faithful and effective bearer of Christ's message of salvation?
> Well, since there are no 'Christian rituals' in the New Testament, because Christianity did not exist at the time
At the time of the stories relayed in the Gospels, sure. The rest of the NT, from Acts on—but excluding Revelation—is either narrative about or discussion within the early Christian community.
OTOH, I think it is correct that it doesn't describe Christian ritual to any significant degree.
1)
The 'monotheistic' religions, particularly Christianity and Buddhism (though Buddhism is not exactly 'monotheistic' it's not 'pantheist' in the classical sense) - represented a fundamental shift from pantheism.
It's wrong to claim that 'Pantheism = many gods' and 'Monotheism = one god'. This the literal meaning, but it's not remotely accurate.
Pantheistic gods were almost always a soap opera of 'super human like' people who loved, fought and interacted with each other like a superior cast of beings.
'Pray to me and I'll smote your enemy'
'Give me offerings or I'll hurt you'.
Montheism wasn't just about having 'one god' - monotheistic religions were about ideas not so much rites and rituals (as mentioned in the article). Particularly - monotheistic religions required moral and conscientious behaviour.
Jesus had only two commands: 'Love God and love one another'. In a more secular sense that could be 'Recognize the divine and knowing that - do your best with what you have to make the world a better place'.
Buddhists are required to be 'more enlightened' and more civilized people lest they be reincarnated as animals, if they want to 'escape the cycle of reincarnation'.
Christian and Buddhist religions centre around moral philosophies at least in terms of how they apply to the real world.
The Christian God is not a 'bearded buy in the sky' (even though he is often presented as such). He's 'unknowable' and completely transcends our understanding. 'I am that I am'. This is not like the Greek gods who all have very tangible attributes and are mostly interested in human like things - i.e. power.
Similarly, though Buddhists are technically 'atheists' in that they don't have a 'God' per say - they do have a kind of 'monotheism' in that they present very specific ideals of 'nothingness' etc.. They definitely present a metaphysical construct for us. And it's not a bunch of angry super-dudes.
Monotheism is a huge leap forward in terms of our metaphysical evolution.
2)
It's not fair to use the word 'exclusive' so many times in this text.
The most powerful element of Christianity is that it was open to anyone. For the first time slaves were equal to kings. This was a very, very powerful idea, and obviously scared the bananas out of the elite.
Status and class were clearly delineated in terms of class in Greek mythology. Higher status = more 'godliness'. That's an artifact of human culture ... but it's rejected in Christianity (and Buddhism).
Your 'status' in Christianity is dependant on how good you are, not 'how much money you have'. For the first time, you couldn't just buy your way out of bad deeds (at least in theory, obviously not in practice, quite often).
Christians were the first international solidarity movement. They were the first 'social movement of equal peoples'. The first to feed the poor as moral action, not just a political action. Moreover - they were organized. What the article failed to mention was that Constantine had a political motivation to be Christian because he could leverage the international network of organized and efficient non-state bureaucracy that the Christians had. Their 'system' had efficiency on some level - and authenticity.
A strict historical articulation of the facts, I think fails to illustrate what it was that made Christianity so widespread.
I think the key to understanding is that 'common era' religions such as Christianity and Buddhism are completely unlike their predecessors.