The story of Christ is so original, so human, so compelling. How can people deny he is Christ?

Question

If you read the bible or seen movies, like the Passion of Christ, how can you not be moved to believe that Jesus is Christ and died for our sins?

Answer 1

First of all, the story of Christ is NOT original. So much of the story of Jesus is borrowed from Zoroastrianism that it's not even funny! Not only that, ALL religions borrow from preexisting beliefs. The history of spiritual beliefs starts simple, with animism and evolves over time to become more complex and fulfulling to modern man. Once you know this, Christianity can lose a lot of its luster.

In the beginning, men were animals. Although they had human brains, there wasn’t a lot of abstract thought going on; they were mostly concerned with mere survival. The sun, the moon, the stars, volcanoes, weather and seasons were utter mysteries to them.

Over time, they developed enough language to ponder life and death. This led them down a path of spiritual evolution; beginning with animism, and progressing through polymorphism, polytheism and, finally, monotheism. As with the evolution of species, their spiritual evolution carried through some old traits while acquiring new ones.

ANIMISM
Primitive man’s fear of death aroused speculation about the nature of life, which in turn led to the concept of the soul. Man extended the concept of soul to significant objects in his external world. This is known as animism. That primitive man engaged in animism is abundantly documented by archeology and anthropology.

Animism doesn’t confer godliness and doesn’t ,of itself, constitute a religion. However, most religions stem from a belief in god(s), which in turn stems from a belief in souls. Fear of death brought gods into this world.

Animals were undoubtedly among the first to be bestowed with souls by early man. Of these animals some were vital to man’s survival. This key relationship led to man’s next baby-step on the path to religion – anthropomorphism.

ANTHROPOMORPHISM
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of uniquely human characteristics and qualities to animals, inanimate objects, or (super)natural phenomena. With human emotions and motives thus attributed to: animals, volcanoes, the sun, the moon, rivers and oceans; many gods were born.

POLYTHEISM
Gods proliferated. The more important they were to survival, the more revered they became. There were gods of: the sun, woolly mammoths, aurochs and rams, etc. Stone, then metal, idols of these gods were created, worshipped and sacrificed to. Primitive man was very much polytheistic.

Worship evolved into full-blown religions. Hinduism is the first great religion and is still practiced by a billion adherents – making it the third largest religion in the world.

MONOTHEISM
The first claim of a supreme God was made in the Late Bronze Age, by pharaoh Akhenaten, who proclaimed that Aten was the only god allowed. This monotheism was short lived and Egypt reverted back to polytheism 20 years later, after Akhenaten’s death.

ZOROASTRIANISM
At about the same time as Atenism, another new monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism, claimed Ahura Mazda as the Supreme God and Creator. He was the only god of the Avesta (their scripture).

Zoroastrianism spread throughout the Babylonian Empire, into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, and even the Roman Empire, during the 800-year period (1000 to 200 BCE) in which the Jewish Torah was being written. Many scholars see Zoroastrianism as the most influential religion in history, either directly or indirectly. This is because Zoroastrianism is the originator of many concepts appropriated by the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Some of these “borrowed” beliefs include: the virgin birth of a great prophet; a belief in God and Satan; a belief in angels and demons; a belief in heaven and hell; a belief in individual judgment at death; a belief in physical resurrection and the coming of a redeemer; and a belief that the world will culminate in a final battle between good and evil.

THE ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS
The Book of Genesis is sacred to 3 religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The 6 key biblical figures before Abraham – Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Enoch and Noah – are revered by all 3 religions, as well.

Moses, Jesus and Muhammad are all claimed to be descendants of Abraham through one of his sons. Abraham is: the patriarch of Israel to the Jews; a major prophet to the Muslims; and to Christians he is a symbol of faith, as well as a physical and spiritual ancestor of Jesus.

These 3 religions share a lot in common, such as: monotheism; a prophetic tradition; Semitic origins; a basis in divine revelation; a belief in good and evil based on obedience to God; a history beginning with creation; and shared stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses.

The history of these 3 religions reveals another commonality: an enmity and outright hostility that continues to this very day. The religious wars and petty reprisals between these factions of Abraham have resulted in thousands of years of misery and suffering and millions of deaths.

This undeniably divisive component of the Abrahamic religions offers little or no hope of reconciliation, leaving mankind with the prospect of continued turmoil for the foreseeable future. We seem hopelessly doomed to kill each other in God's name unless or until the adherents of these religions finally understand that their religions need a "zero-tolerance policy" against violence of ANY kind – especially that performed in the name of God.

So there you have it. Fear brought gods into the world and ignorance is keeping them here. In the words of Voltaire:

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.

Answer 2

The story of Christ is so original? Oh, no, dear heart, there are several similar stories in other religions that pre-date the one of a Jewish 'street' preacher at the onset of the first century AD. When Christianity was being pasted together, the holy men were picking and choosing like crazy--a little bit from there, a little bit from here. Meanwhile, love, basing one's beliefs on a movie, especially one that's S&M porn posing as the story of Jesus, and produced by a drunk third-rate actor and anti-Semite, leaves commonsense greatly to be desired.

Answer 3

Most of the story of christ is borrowed from earlier myths and legends, notably Mithras

So it's hardly original. In fact if it were published for the first time today the author would be sued for plagiarism.

The Vatican was built upon the grounds previously devoted to the worship of Mithra (600 B.C.). The Orthodox Christian hierarchy is nearly identical to the Mithraic version. Virtually all of the elements of Orthodox Christian rituals, from miter, wafer, water baptism, alter, and doxology, were adopted from the Mithra and earlier pagan mystery religions. The religion of Mithra preceded Christianity by roughly 600 years.

Mithras had twelve companions as Jesus had twelve disciples. Mithras also performed miracles.

Mithra was called "the good shepherd,” "the way, the truth and the light,” “redeemer,” “savior,” “Messiah." He was identified with both the lion and the lamb

The International Encyclopedia states: "Mithras seems to have owed his prominence to the belief that he was the source of life, and could also redeem the souls of the dead into the better world ... The ceremonies included a sort of baptism to remove sins, anointing, and a sacred meal of bread and water, while a consecrated wine, believed to possess wonderful power, played a prominent part.

See here for much more>>> http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html

Answer 4

Christianity may fit you like a glove, Clair, and fill all of your spiritual needs. But it doesn't have the same power for everyone, and the story of a god being born through a human woman, or even the story of virgin birth is not unique to Christianity. Nor is it unheard of for a god to sacrifice himself for man. While the basic premise of your religion is beautiful, there have been atrocities committed the world over in the name of Christ. I realize that this is not solely the province of Christians. But through out history and on into present times, religious zealotry has been the cause of more hate & death than any other thing you can think of. Keep in mind, Sweetie, that the KKK thinks they are upholding the will of god. The man who beat one of my best friends very nearly to death thought he was doing god's will, and made it a point to tell us so. He said god hates queers. There are very few Christians right now living the life that your dogma tells you to live. I speak as a person raised as a Baptist. I've been around it all of my life, and what I've seen led to me to seek another spiritual path. As long as the leaders of your faith persist in delivering a message of hate & intolerance, I find it impossible to be moved to accept that particular path. I respect your right to believe as you feel led to, to worship who you want and I have no desire to brow-beat you with testimony compelling you towards Wicca. (my spiritual path) All I would ask is to be treated witht he same respect. That's all any of us want, really. The one undeniable tenet of my faith, the one "commandment", if you will, is "An it harm none, do what ye will". To me that is more a comfort than an injunction to root out other beliefs & destroy them.

Answer 5

The Passion was one of the worst movies that I have ever seen. It was overdone many many times over. In some scenes there were pools of blood in the streets, all over "Christ", all over the Romans, and then at the end when Capt. Longinus stuch the spear in, out squirted another couple of quarts. That just doesn't happen in real life.
There must have been four or five barrels of Hollywood "blood"used in that one scene.
If you base your beliefs of movie makers, you're in big trouble.

Answer 6

The story of Snow White is so original, so human, so compelling. How can people deny she is the Goddess?
If you read the book or seen the movie, like the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, how can you not be moved to believe that Snow White is the Goddess and slept for our sins?

Answer 7

The bible is a book. So is Alice in Wonderland. Actually, Passion of Christ is a movie, just like Alice in Wonderland too. Could that cat be Jesus? He always smiled like he knew something we didn't.

Answer 8

That's what they wanted you to think. That's why it is written so well. Besides there are other stories like the Christ story in other cultures before Christ

Answer 9

i got into this debate with my father in law, and he like you couldn't get the concept that some people just don't believe it,
i can give you a thousand books where people sacrifice themselves to save another, in the movie Armageddon Bruce Willis sacrificed himself to save the world,

his argument was that that was just a movie, and my argument to him was, that's what some say about the bible,

believe what you like hold tight to your faith, but also remember to allow others to do the same,

Answer 10

First of all, let me say that I am a christian before I get 30 thumbs down but you asked a logical question therefore I will give you a logical answer. Just because someone is a good person and had a moving life, it doesn't mean that they are our savior. The only way to truly know the savior is to feel him in your heart and if someone is not receptive to that, then they will not feel him.

Answer 11

Honey, you're really setting yourself up here.

I am with you, I'm a Christian and I fully believe in the story of Christ, but you have to accept the fact that there's some people out there who just don't believe it and no matter how compelling you find the story, they don't.