I will give that even the most vociferous Atheist, hell bent on getting you thinking really hard about something they think it's a waste of the world's time to think about, is nowhere near as annoying as proselytizing Christians

The idea that atheists want to encourage thought is mildly amusing. If you hold most atheists up to the light, they come out with streams of excuses about how atheism isn't a religion, doesn't have to prove anything, etc, etc, and change the subject quickly back to "why Christainity is shit".

Enough atheist propaganda. Atheism isn't about thinking, as any acquaintance with them shows. It's about convenience.

Roger Pearse -kia ora.
Atheism is a religious position only inasmuch an atheist excludes all religions(deities) or any religious perspective from it's view of the world-as-we-know-it-

Any definition of atheism that treats it as other than a religious position is rather silly, surely? These definitions all seem to be invented for the convenience of atheists.

There is no real purpose in playing games with words. Atheism is one of the possible views people have; and only one. Every set of views must offer a validation for itself, I would have thought. We can't very well allow any political or religious position to try to keep themselves off the table and away from examination.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Because religion *qua religion* is not part of modern science. Which isn't to say that religious people aren't or haven't been scientists or that, historically, science and religion have not intermingled - just that modern science doesn't have a place for faith-based thinking and it shouldn't have to.

Indeed not; so long as we remember that the same applies to *all* religious positions, including "secularism" and "atheism", and not merely to ones with which we happen to disagree.

Religions are part of the humanities, not the sciences. The sciences take no position on the subject. If you can stick it in a testtube and boil it, reproduceably, it can be studied scientifically. If it can't be studied scientifically -- as most things of importance cannot, such a life, love, money, weather, history, politics, religion, and the reason why my car won't start sometimes -- then that does not mean it is not important. It merely means the method of investigation doesn't work for it.

No treating science as a religion, please.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

I'm mighty glad you showed up Roger, you're doing good work and so polite to boot.

You're very kind. I sort of presume that most of us would rather have the basic facts straight -- the sort of things that can be looked up, if we had the time. Opinions, of course, we can all do for ourselves. There's simply too much muck being dropped in the hive-mind from some quarters; stuff which is not true, regardless of the religious questions. I don't see who benefits from that.

Nearly everything you can find online about "Mithras and Jesus" is twaddle, unfortunately. Probably other things are too, but that is one I got irritated enough to research.

I see there is discussion about religion and science at the renaissance, and some old "religion is hostile to science" stuff coming in. Now it isn't a field I pay much attention to -- being a scientist by training -- but I do know that James Hannam would have a definite view on some of the statements being made, since he wrote "God's philosophers" on the subject, and runs a blog about it too. I think he would describe most of them as myth. (Not my subject, as I say). So we need to be careful. We should bear in mind that "do not commit adultery" is not exactly convenient to the Selfish Generation (remember "if it feels good, do it"?), and they are the ones in power and so in control of the media agenda in our day. We should probably all be more sceptical of what the powerful wish us to think, and the presumptions with which they fill our minds (which are amply represented in the "opinions" in this thread).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

<quote>I happened to see this thread, and wonder if I can contribute on this? This "Jesus=Mithras" stuff floats around on the web. A few years ago I got tired of seeing it and researched it. The *facts* involved turned out to be wrong.

... it does appear that when you scratch the surface of many religions that have their origins in Europe and the Middle East, a lot of interesting parallels come up. It does strongly suggest that there was a lot of borrowing and swapping of concepts going on. Which I think does need to be acknowledged</quote>

People do say this, don't they? But I don't find any evidence ever offered beyond "this looks like that, therefore this is a copy of that". The same argument is used by people who believe in Atlantis, using pyramids in Mexico and Egypt, so it's a bad type of argument on the face of it.

I don't have a general view on this. I would only plead for caution, and specifics. You will quickly find that actual evidence -- rather than supposed parallels -- is rather hard to come by.

as each of these religions seem to spend an awful lot of time trying to convince people that there particular flavour is The One True Flavour, and anything else is false.

A wicked thought: surely atheism is the most definite advocate of this particular view, in our day?

Being more specific, tho; most of paganism didn't hold this view, because it didn't work like that. Again, we need to be very careful and seek specifics.

I'd point out in relation to Mithras/Christ, that both appear to do a lot of 'washing in the blood of' (bulls or lambs, take your pick).

You're thinking of the taurobolium. Unfortunately this is not part of the cult of Mithras at all! (See what I mean about being sceptical about stuff floating around? Some muppet got that wrong, circulated it, and all of us would naturally presume it was so. But I checked. It's part of the Cybele cult.)

<quote>The Norse material is genuine, I believe, but I don't know the sources. I hope there is no insinuation that the Greeks ca. 30 AD were borrowing from the old Norse? (!)

No, not at all. But the Norse did travel very widely. I'm pretty sure they regualrly travelled and traded as least as far as Constantinople/Turkey, which isn't so far away from Greece.

Indeed so. The Swedish vikings sailing down the rivers of Russia is a phenomenon ca. 1000 AD, not 1AD, tho.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

<quoteThere are some interesting parallels between a lot of mediterranean/middle-eastern religions and christianity once you start looking.

Mithras was 'born of a virgin'. And did the whole nailed-to-a-tree-and-coming-back-to-life thing.

Which also appears in Norse mythology, Odin sacrificing himself by being hung from the world tree.

And the number 12 crops up an awful lot.</quote>

I happened to see this thread, and wonder if I can contribute on this? This "Jesus=Mithras" stuff floats around on the web. A few years ago I got tired of seeing it and researched it. The *facts* involved turned out to be wrong.

For instance Mithras was born from a rock, holding a dagger and a flame. He was a deity, not a man; the idea that he was crucified, or born of a virgin, appear in no ancient text.

The whole thing seems to derive from a statement by Ernest Renan in the 19th century that "if the world had not gone Christian it would have gone Mithraist". (Although since Renan was writing before Franz Cumont gathered the raw data on Mithras, ca. 1900, he really knew very little about Mithras - this too is bunk). The rest is embroidered on top of it by atheists of limited education who were rather too willing to state as fact whatever would be convenient.

The standard textbook on Mithras is Manfred Clauss, "The Roman cult of Mithras". Have a look in that.

The Norse material is genuine, I believe, but I don't know the sources. I hope there is no insinuation that the Greeks ca. 30 AD were borrowing from the old Norse? (!)

Be very sceptical of material of this kind that appears online. Almost all of it contains gross factual errors, apparently motivated by religious animosity.

All the best,

Roger Pearse