@citizenschallengev3
Mriana, that sound interesting, I only know the simpleton’s version. If you were ever into writing more about it, I’d love to read it.
Oh I do know that Sun Worship makes more sense to me than a lot of other worshipful beliefs – after all, we pretty damned well dependent on it* after all.
It makes more sense to me and to view Xianity and other mythologies under that lens, it put them all in perspective for me, make them make more sense to me also.
Simply put, if you see the “son of god” as the “sun of god”, then you see Easter or even Xmas, though that one is more difficult, as being what it is- sun worship, even though Easter is set by the moon. Easter Sunrise Services help to make it all clearer, if one is open to see it. If you understand animism, then you may understand this: So the sun goes down into the “underworld” (below the equator) for three days. The days are shorter and the nights are longer because the sun is in the “underworld”, (Yule keep the log burning all night long on the longest night of the year, awaiting the sun’s return or something like that) on the third day, the sun returns and the days become longer. Now put Ra in place of the sun. Then for the ultimate mind blower, place the Xian deity in place of the sun, as well as replace “underworld” with “he descended into hell (or the dead) and on the third day, he rose again”, and add the sunrise worship services. That’s when you really see the pagan influence on Xianity. There is also the Southern Crux during that time too, but I made things easier with this rendering.
I’ll use the version from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, which is similar to the Catholic and Lutheran version, https://episcopalchurch.org/files/book_of_common_prayer.pdf :
The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Just focus on the dying and rising part and given what we know about animism and the evolution of religion and the human mind, you can see the relationship between solar mythology and modern day religion in the Apostle’s Creed along. Of course, I can take this even deeper, but just starting with that alone, is IMO, a good start to seeing that it’s only metaphorical and no real person died, descended, and rose again. Bishop Spong even touches on the metaphoric symbolism of Judaism and Xianity too, but not quite in the way I do. That thing is, Robert Price was right when he said if there ever was a historical Jesus, he never existed as portrayed in the Bible (that’s a paraphrase of what he said). Anyway, if you look at the Apostle’s Creed closely you can see the solar mythology in his dying and rising, especially if you turn Jesus, son of god into sun of god and what the sun die and rise in the sky, mentally. It’s all there, if one’s mind is open to it.
