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THE ANGEL POSSENTI:
I know it's been awhile since I've looked at that sorry excuse of a website called godisimaginary.com, but I think it's about time to take apart some of its bogus arguments again. Once again, the rest of this post will be from an article with my refutations in red. To prove this is the real article from the website, click here.
The belief in "god" seems to be ubiquitous through the ages.
(Funny how no civilization based itself on atheism, isn't it?)
We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians believed in their gods so fervently that they built massive structures like the Great Pyramid -- still today one of the largest and most enduring human constructions ever created. Despite that fervor, however, we know with complete certainty today that the Egyptian gods were imaginary. There is no evidence of their existence. Thus we do not build pyramids anymore and we do not mummify our leaders.
(Yeah…ancient Egyptians did build giant pyramids, but they were built as tombs for the pharaohs, not as temples. They stopped being built after Egypt stopped having pharaohs.)
More recently we know that tens of millions of Romans worshiped Jupiter and his friends, and to them they built magnificent temples. The ruins of these temples are popular tourist attractions even today. Yet we know with complete certainty that these gods were imaginary. There is no evidence for their existence and thus no one worships Zeus any more.
(You might have noticed Jupiter and Zeus were both used here, despite the fact ancient Romans didn't use the name Zeus; ancient Greeks did.)
Much more recently, we know that the Aztec civilization believed in their gods so intensely that they constructed huge temples and pyramids. In addition, Aztecs were so zealous that they were sacrificing hundreds of human beings to their gods as recently as the 16th century. Despite the intensity, however, we know today that these gods were completely imaginary. The Aztecs were insane to be murdering people for their gods. Killing a person has no effect on rainfall or anything else. We all know that. And there is no evidence whatsoever demonstrating that the Aztec gods exist. If the Aztec gods were real, we would still be offering sacrifices to them and these sacrifices would be effective.
(Notice the writer can't make up his mind: on one hand, he seems to say if there was evidence of them, we would still be worshipping them but on the other, given the author's attitude towards transcendent realities, would that be true in his case?)
Today's "God" is just as imaginary as were these historical gods. The fact that millions of people worship a god is meaningless.
(That statement is nothing more than a gambler's fallacy. It's no different than if I were to claim I tossed a coin three times, it landed heads all three times, and thus the fourth toss will also render a head. Also, following what little logic is used here, does that mean I'm free to dismiss what atheists say because they're so few of them?)
The "God" and the "Jesus" that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods.
(Wrong. That idea has been dismissed long ago)
The idea of a "virgin birth", "burial in a rock tomb", "resurrection after 3 days" and "eating of body and drinking of blood" had nothing to do with Jesus.
(Name one other person this could apply to. Sorry: dumb question as you will soon see)
All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions.
(Oh, spare me. Even the ancient Romans never made that accusation, and they accused Christians of many things.)
As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals and beliefs in order to be more palatable to converts. You can find accounts like these in popular literature:
- "The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating" - were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions.
(Yeah, I can quote The DaVinci Code too, but that doesn't change the fact all these claims have been dismissed as junk history.)
- "Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans."
(The earliest known record of Mithra worship dates SEVERAL DECADES after Christianity. There is no record of December 25th having anything to do with Mithra, he came from a rock--not a rock tomb--, and no resurrection story is involved. I also find it odd that although the writer uses Wikipedia as a source material, it disagrees with him when it comes to the other two points.)
his article points out that, "It has been noted since antiquity, and in modern scholarship since the 19th century, that Jesus Christ has striking parallels to other deities worshipped in Hellenistic religion, specifically to the cult of Dionysus in the Greek mystery religions and with the Buddha." The article goes on to demonstrate striking similarities between Christianity and the religions that came before it.
(It does no such thing. The quote cited isn't in the article, but this one is:
A number of parallels have been drawn between the Christian views of Jesus and other religious or mythical domains.[5][1] However, Eddy and Boyd state that there is no evidence of a historical influence by the pagan myths such as dying and rising gods on the authors of the New Testament, and most scholars agree that any such historical influence is entirely implausible given that first centurymonotheistic Galilean Jews would not have been open to pagan stories.)
It is extremely hard for a Christian believer to process this data, but nonetheless it is true.
(HA! As the guard said to King Arthur in Holy Grail: "pull the other one.)
All of the "sacred rituals" of Christianity, and all of Christianity's core beliefs (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.) come straight from other religions that were popular around the time of Jesus.
(Except for all the REAL evidence that says otherwise.)
Articles like this and this can help you learn more. Once you understand the fundamental truth of Christianity's origins, the silliness of the whole thing becomes apparent.
(The this and this refer to either a wiki article that's dubious at best, and an another article filled with junk history.)
Obviously the pagan believers, from whom Christianity derived its myths, worshiped gods that were imaginary. If Gods such as Horus, Ra, Mithras, etc. were real, we would have proof of their existence and everyone would be following those gods.
(My guess is people like you would come up with any bogus excuse to not do anything.)
Our "God" and "Jesus" today are simply extensions of these imaginary forerunners. Therefore God is imaginary.
(Wrong. We'd just dismiss what you said as a gambler's fallacy. You fail.)
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