Christianity and Paganism...

[The Illusive Man]

Most forms of paganism is due to uneducated, blasphemic people. When people say 'the oldest religions' and such, they are referring to barbaric people in a barbaric world. There was no education and a mans life was dirt cheap. The reason why the Bible is held in such high regard because it is very, very intelligent and unrivaled by any other form of ancient record. I mean, it was practically the first book to ever be duplicated.
It's responsible for dismay, dismissal, death, greed, tyranny, death, fear, and, oh yeah... peace.
Buddhism is one of the oldest religions, and I respect it because it's the only one that makes sense when you think of barbaric people: they worshipped no God. And their religion has no room for misinterpretation, such as the list of things above. It can't be proven right or wrong by even the smallest context<<< very impressive for coming from practical cavemen (pun intended)

Misinterpretation can be taken in many forms, such as the whole "the bible was the first intelligent book ever written".

So Rome had no scholars that studied and wrote many different works and scrolls throughout there time?

The Ancient Chinese never had scribes writing an entire honor code that they would follow for thousands of years?

The Egyptians never wrote hyroglyphics, that to this day are still not fully deciphered due the complexity of there nature?

The form of paganism you are mentioning is the Norse form of Paganism, the religion of the Barbaric horde of the Skandinavian Vikings. It was fact that many of the Celtic pagans were all well educated peoples, covetting knowledge above all else, they were persecuted by Christianity for not sharing the same beliefs, which would not be the first time the Celts would be persecuted for there relgion, and definatley not the last time, it still goes on even today for those that follow the teachings of Celtic paganism.

To back my statements, ill ask a simple question, who were the biggest commiters of Atrocities during the middle ages?

I'll give you a clue, they killed people in hundreds of thousands during the Inquisition and Slaughtered what is estimated to be millions during the Crusades.

To claim that early christianity was not barbaric and evil driven by men that covetted power and wealth above all else shows a lack of knowledge of the Dark/Middle ages imho.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

Misinterpretation can be taken in many forms, such as the whole "the bible was the first intelligent book ever written".

So Rome had no scholars that studied and wrote many different works and scrolls throughout there time?

The Ancient Chinese never had scribes writing an entire honor code that they would follow for thousands of years?

The Egyptians never wrote hyroglyphics, that to this day are still not fully deciphered due the complexity of there nature?

The form of paganism you are mentioning is the Norse form of Paganism, the religion of the Barbaric horde of the Skandinavian Vikings. It was fact that many of the Celtic pagans were all well educated peoples, covetting knowledge above all else, they were persecuted by Christianity for not sharing the same beliefs, which would not be the first time the Celts would be persecuted for there relgion, and definatley not the last time, it still goes on even today for those that follow the teachings of Celtic paganism.

To back my statements, ill ask a simple question, who were the biggest commiters of Atrocities during the middle ages?

I'll give you a clue, they killed people in hundreds of thousands during the Inquisition and Slaughtered what is estimated to be millions during the Crusades.

To claim that early christianity was not barbaric and evil driven by men that covetted power and wealth above all else shows a lack of knowledge of the Dark/Middle ages imho.

Have you ever read the Bible? It has everything all these things have plus much much more. These Egyptian/Chinese/etc. writings are not intelligent in relevance of the Bible. Egyptians wrote about spooks in the sky like the sun and the clouds, and the Chinese wrote exactly what you said: scrolls of their codes. These are not duplicated pieces of mass history and they do not define half the world.
I never said that the Bible wasn't written and took place in barbaric times. I simply stated that the book is very blissful and intelligent for people of that age. In fact, the New testament wasn't even written until the time of Jesus, so to say that the Bible is not barbaric would be ridiculous. The Old Testament speaks on things that the world today couldn't fathom with it's new age morals.
The Bible is the oldest book to be duplicated for the masses. People spent years copying it because there were no machines for reproduction. Noone is going to spend half their lifetime copying books of philosophy and Chinese conduct.

And trying to insult my intelligence is ridiculous. Why is it that people feel the need to add on that little extra to prove a point?

 

[The Illusive Man]

Have you ever read the Bible? It has everything all these things have plus much much more. These Egyptian/Chinese/etc. writings are not intelligent in relevance of the Bible. Egyptians wrote about spooks in the sky like the sun and the clouds, and the Chinese wrote exactly what you said: scrolls of their codes. These are not duplicated pieces of mass history and they do not define half the world.
I never said that the Bible wasn't written and took place in barbaric times. I simply stated that the book is very blissful and intelligent for people of that age. In fact, the New testament wasn't even written until the time of Jesus, so to say that the Bible is not barbaric would be ridiculous. The Old Testament speaks on things that the world today couldn't fathom with it's new age morals.
The Bible is the oldest book to be duplicated for the masses. People spent years copying it because there were no machines for reproduction. Noone is going to spend half their lifetime copying books of philosophy and Chinese conduct.

And trying to insult my intelligence is ridiculous. Why is it that people feel the need to add on that little extra to prove a point?

I have, its full of untruths and fantastical mythology, but at the same time, laden with contradictory points, and diabolical threats.

The new testament, the part you seem to be refering to wasnt written until some time after, popular belief states it was written after the crusades as an attempt to appease the unsettled masses and bring them back into the "flock", the book im refering to is the one most commonly used throughout the dark ages and most of the middle ages, the infamous Old Testament.

The Old testament often discusses how the Wrath of God will smite unbelievers and wash away the sins of humanity, only those that followed the word of God would be protected from his divine Judgement, there was not a thing that was blissful about the old testament, constant warnings of impending doomsday, insulting of others for being of different colour, sexual preference or creed (all despite the bible being laden with extra marital relations and heavy references of homosexuality, the very things they were marking down as sinful behaviour) Remember, the mormon bible was derived from the old testament, the mormon bible is quite possibly one of the most racist and despicable books ever written.

Also it is well known that Buddism is still the most followed relgion within the world, Christianity may be the most followed religion in the west, but the numbers of followers of the Buddist teachings number in there billions, of course being part of the Western world, and a media that only tells us what we want to hear, we are not going to know these facts unless we check them for ourselves.

You say I insulted your intelligence, yet within the first 3 lines of your reply, you insulted many of what today's historians would call the most brilliant creative geniuses of there time.

The Egyptian methods of building would become intermarried with the Roman masonry techniques to form the style of building techniques that are still utilised to this very day.

Gunpowder was discovered by Chinese alchemists, which before the discovery of Steam power and Electricity was known as one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs. One great Chinese General and Scholar would redefine the entire art of warfare, there are very few people that do not know about Sun Tzu. There are many that argue that Sun Tzu's art of war scrolls were one of the first reproduced works, but im more inclinded to believe the first mass produced works would be Roman law documents, some of which still remain in tact to this day in museums throughout the world.

Afterall, Rome was the first civilised nation of the world, much of what we take for granted today came from the ancient teachings and scholars of the Roman empire

to add:

A line that was quoted infamously in Pulp Fiction taken from the Bible

Eziekel 25:17

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

The reason I bolded that part, is this is a prime example of how Christianic early teachings often threatened reprisal to anyone that did not follow the word of God, it can also be intepreted as God judging the wicked, but this just shows how each saying from the bible can have dual meanings.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

Eziekel 25:17

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

Pulp Fiction

Anyways, Christians started the 3rd Crusade in an attempt to take the holy lands, in which they essentially failed to do. The Old Testament still stands even though the New Testament overrides many of the things stated before it.
Whether or not the Bible is true in whole or not, it holds many truths and morals that stands to this day the cornerstone of most the world's law. And that's not one country, that's many many countries. Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Christians.. they take much more room in this world than any other religions.
I hardly take ingenuity of building and masonry as being more important than the philosophies and laws of worldwide order. We can live without building. We can't live without order.

 

[The Illusive Man]

Pulp Fiction

Anyways, Christians started the 3rd Crusade in an attempt to take the holy lands, in which they essentially failed to do. The Old Testament still stands even though the New Testament overrides many of the things stated before it.
Whether or not the Bible is true in whole or not, it holds many truths and morals that stands to this day the cornerstone of most the world's law. And that's not one country, that's many many countries. Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Christians.. they take much more room in this world than any other religions.
I hardly take ingenuity of building and masonry as being more important than the philosophies and laws of worldwide order. We can live without building. We can't live without order.

True but through established order and forced order there will always be bouts and periods of disorder, even disorder in its entirety.

For me there is no truer saying than:

Through Order comes Disorder
Through Harmony comes Chaos
Through Life comes Death

Basically this saying is entirely reflective of mankind and its greatest strengths and weaknesses. Whenever there is an Established Order, there will always be those that disagree or feel persecuted by this form of Order, and will seek to break the order through disorder. Riots, protests and even civil wars have been a biproduct of established order, its impossible for humanity with all its differences to get along all the time.

Harmony is often brought to Chaos through dispair or Jealousy either self inflicted, through intereference or generally through time itself. One may be at peace and feel harmonious now, but once that harmony is disrupted it quickly folds into Chaos.

Life to Death is basically simple, everything that lives..as morbid as it sounds, inevitably dies, us, nature, even the sun and our planet will Eventually die, these feelings of mortality are also often the Catalyste behind Disorder in Order, and Chaos in Harmony, as morbid and possibly emo sounding as it is, Mankind can never be entirely happy because through independent thought and freedom comes the inability to always to agree.

Although the teachings of the new testament and other relgions may be admirable in some points, they often forget of the flaws of mankind and that Order can never exist without periods of Disorder or Chaos would reign over Harmony indefinatley, bringing about Death and a reduction in Life.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

True but through established order and forced order there will always be bouts and periods of disorder, even disorder in its entirety.

That is very true. Even God can't control that. Perfection is quite literally impossible by all technical means, which includes, especially, the order of man.

But it can't be excluded that the Bible makes very fine points on how man could prosper. Though it ignores the instability of mankind at large, the philosophy it teaches is far beyond other pagan beliefs.
Eye for an eye is a small, but very good example. The Bible has it's own form of karma that is hard to stomach for some ppl, such as God cursing a lineage for one man's doing or having to sacrifice an animal to be repented. But underneath what seems cruel, there is a master plan at work that always comes out in the end for the greater good. Karma in it's most pure form..
For example, look at Jews. God chose his own people to die.
But the enemy was still defeated in the end.
Pretty much, what seemed cruel turned out to be a blessing for the rest of the world because it brought out the enemy.
Should we curse Jews for not believing in Jesus, or should we praise them for being God's children and salvaging the rest of man? The Holocaust was set in motion by Moses saving the Jews from Egypt. Like a butterfly effect, if you will. Maybe it was already known by God that Germany would one day want to seize the world..
Now I have no take on this, but you can see the idea of what kind of vast philosophy the Bible holds for interpretation.
It dwarfs pagan beliefs by it's volume and complexity.