Is christianity personified sun worship?

Question

If you haven't seen the first part of the zeitgeist movie (zeitgeistmovie.com), you may have no idea what I'm talking about (even if you are christian).

Examples of christian beliefs explained by sun worship/astrology:
- The Jesus fish symbol
- Death on the cross
- Dead for 3 days
- Birth on Dec 25
- 3 wise men following star in East
- Born of a virgin
- 12 Disciples

According to the video, most of these are common elements of many ancient religions and come directly from sun worship. I am interested in finding how many people are familiar with this view and whether anyone can provide solid objections. I don't feel strongly about this (yet), and am asking out of pure curiousity.

If you think it is crap, please explain why.

Angel of Death,
OK, how about 3 kings, like the song,
"We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star

O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy Perfect Light"

The three stars on Orion's belt are called the "Three Kings" and they point in line with Cirius (the star in the East) to the point on the horizon where the sun goes down on Dec. 21. The sun stays there for "3 days" and then moves northward on Dec 25.

Maya,
it's not "my tape". I'm just curious about
1. whether the source of these stories is astrology
2. how many people are familiar with this connection

It's the dismissive answers that I find offensive. Please don't just dismiss my question - answer it directly - why is this premise wrong?

LEW,
I didn't get the email. Can you send it to my 360?

No s/he didn't address them. No one did. I guess no one here has a real rebuttal then.

Answer 1

I've watched it and I'll give you my opinion for what it's worth.

1. I think the facts he presents in the first part of the film (we'll ignore the other two parts) are fairly accurate, but HIGHLY selective - to make his point, obviously. For all of the points of the myths that correspond, he ignores the innumerable points which don't correspond.

2. That said, there ARE a lot of significant points of correspondence between Jesus and other mythical figures - not merely solar myths but especially agricultural ("corn-king") myths. My take on it is that this doesn't lessen the story of Jesus - it reinforces it. All those myths are taken from images of the Divine (God or Goddess) as revealed in nature. If the Divine author of Nature really became a human and walked among us as one of us - as Christianity teaches - you would expect to find striking similarities in his life and the myths drawn from Nature. Also, the authors of the Biblical narratives often chose mythical references specifically to make points or to leave an impression in the minds of the hearers - these were oral tales meant to be told and hopefully remembered. From both of these perspectives you OUGHT to see a lot of points of comparison between the life of Christ and other myths.

Peace to you.

Answer 2

Christianity Is Sun Worship

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Is christianity personified sun worship?
If you haven't seen the first part of the zeitgeist movie (zeitgeistmovie.com), you may have no idea what I'm talking about (even if you are christian).

Examples of christian beliefs explained by sun worship/astrology:
- The Jesus fish symbol
- Death on the cross
- Dead for 3...

Answer 4

Just to add to Angel of Death's answer, no one where in the Bible does it say there were three wise men, only that the wise men brought three gifts.

The star was a supernatural occurrence that could only been seen by some and was not some kind of astrological planet/sun/star alignment.

He's addressed the other issues you brought up.

Now in general, I'll add that all of creation testifies to God's existence AND the law of God is written on everyone's heart, so finding out there are similarities between ancient pagan beliefs and Christianity only bolsters Christianity's claims, not lessens them.

Finally, the shortest answer was the best. We don't worship the sun, but the Son.

I think it's great you're reading and researching about this Tik. I do wish you'd answer my email about the evolution book.

Answer 5

All of which is irrelevant to comtemporary practice. This government was founded by wealthy slave-owners. But that has no bearing on the conduct of government today. Few Christians care whether or not the fish symbol has this or that origin or antecedent since whatever meaning it might have had for some other religion 2000 years ago or more is irrelevant to the meaning they assign to it today. It makes no difference how many religions celebrated the winter solstice. Christians are not celebrating the winter solstice on Dec. 25th. Christians use the day to celebrate what they believe to be the birth-date of Jesus. As a non-theist,I personally think all this atheist propaganda where they imagine they will undermine a religion by dredging up ancient - truly ancient - commonalities is just a waste of everyone's time. I've studied comparative religion,as have most college graduates. This is nothing new,in your videotape.

Answer 6

My experience with DVDs, books, opinions relating to me the historic events of who Jesus Christ was, seem to have the common thread of humanizing Jesus Christ as being just another one of those pseudo gods. All this does is completely neutralize His divinity, kill the credibility of the Bible and leave me thinking there is no God. If you get a chance, pick yourself up a copy of the book A CASE FOR CHRIST - by Lee Strobel. He has a Master's degree in law and a degree in Journalism. He presents this issue about Christ more objectively than any movie, professor, book etc., than that of what I have seen or heard on this topic. I strongly believe you will have a more thorough understanding of this than this DVD presented to you. Strobel has plenty of facts pertaining to this issue which most people have never, even, considered. A very interesting read. He tackles a lot of those "grey" areas and also, the many misunderstandings in existence today - providing lots of factual proof and not conjecture oftentimes, held paramount within most of those "anti" Christian views.

Answer 7

Jesus was not born on december 25 (no one knows for sure when he was born. I've heard summer, fall and spring, but never winter).

I'm no expert, but I don't think the bible specified that there were 3 wise men. There were 3 kinds of gifts (gold, frankinscense, and myhrr), but they could have been given to him by 20 wise men in varying amounts. I don't think the bible says. But I'm sure there were more than 3 wise men in the world at the time.

Jesus was only dead for one day (24 hours). He died friday night and rose saturday night ('rested' on the 7th day).

I don't know if the fish thing is mentioned in the bible or not (again, I'm no expert), but I've never heard of it being mentioned there. It may have had to do with the first desciples being 'fishermen' (come with me, and I will make ye fishers of men).

Nice try, though.

Answer 8

- The fish was because in Greek fish was IXOYE and that stood for Jesus Christ Son of God Saivor
- Death on the Cross was Roman Custom
- Death for 3 days was prophecied
-He wasn't born on Dec 25, Dec 25 was made into christmas to convert pagans (prolly cos of sun worship)
- There wern't 3 wise men, there were wise men bringing 3 gifts
- This fulfils a prophecy in the OT
- The twelve were because of the significance of 12 aka 12 tribes of israel

I watched a few vids on YouTube concerning this and researched this hole Horus/Jesus deal, and there are no repudable sources for the Horus being crucified, walking on water, raising the dead, being ressurrected, or any more of these lies, as for the astrological stuff, the Virgo sign only looks like an M in English, this has no basis for Mary, The Constelation Virgo I don't believe is called the place of bread or something, and bethlehem doesn;t mean that. I didn't find any proof that the threee 'king' stars follow Sirus on Dec 25th, and regarding the three kings, there were magi bringing 3 gifts, not necceserally three magi, and the magi wern't kings, they were astrologers, so...

astrologers bringing three gifts= three kings?
I highly doubt it, regarding Joseph=Jesus, this is known to early Jews as midrash, the importance of one thing a long time ago may bring the same importance later, Moses was raised by the Pharoah's daughterto avoid death, Jesus fled Egypt to avoid death, this is an ancient Jewish concept, the devils fell from heaven, humans fell from grace, this midrash was something used to get more out of stories, the paralells between Moses and Jesus and Joseph and Jesus must mean there were unknown parallels between Joseph and Moses, you can say that there were no historians and that Josephus was a forgery, but what about early chrictians which shared a lifespan with the aging apostle John? They all mentioned Jesus, and believed in him, but when somebody believes in somebody, people argue that they've fabricated the hole thing when in fact they havn't.

ALSO

JESUS WASN'T BORN ON DEC 25TH!!! THAT WAS THAT DATE FOR CHRSITMAS BECAUSE THE REAL DATE WAS UNKNOWN AND THEY WANTED PAGANS TO JOIN THE CHURCH!!!

Anyone can make a rediculous clam but you need evedence, the only website that promotes any of these ideas is truthbetold.com, DON'T TRUST THEM, THERE FULL OF LIES!!!


May God lead you to Truth
God Bless!

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUEASTIONS E-MAIL THEM TO ME AT [e-mail]

Answer 9

Interesting question. I never thought of it that way before, although that I do know that Christianity took many of their practices, symbols, holidays, etc from the Pagans.

Answer 10

Christianity is the worship of God as revealed in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Son created the Sun. Christians do not worship created things.