Mythology-Christology

Jesus was claimed to have been divinely begotten, but if we look into our past we see that this is, in fact, a recurring theme among deities:


Horus - Egyptian god (The Falcon). Horus was born to the virgin goddess Isis after she became fertilized by a gold phallus. Horus is worshipped as the god of the sky, containing both the sun and the moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus


Attis - Greek eunuch god of vegetation. Attis was born to the virgin Nana, who then abandoned the baby (moses, anyone?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attis


Krishna - Hindu god born, not to a virgin, but through divine conception between Vasudeva (the supreme deity) and princess Devaki (whose birth threatened the current king's reign - this sounds familiar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishna


Dionysus - Greek god of wine and ecstasy. Father was Zeus (king of the gods) and mother was a mortal named Semele. Zeus' wife Hera wanted the child killed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus


Mithra - Persian god, Zoroastrianism, of covenant and oath, the god of truth and the god over pastures (ie shepherd).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra


Buddha - born to Queen Maya who conceived during a dream by a white elephant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha


Tammuz - babylonian/sumerian shepherd god born of the god Ea and virgin mortal Ishtar, hidden as an infant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammuz_(deity)


Quetzalcoatl - mesoamerican god (feathered serpent),  was the boundary maker between the earth and the sky, and was considered the morning sun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatl



It's quite obvious that ancient man, in his foggy interpretation of the awe and wonder of the natural world around him and his keen sense of the attributes of man, assigned human-like gods to the powers of the earth and the universe to help make sense of it all. These were passed down through legend and stories to explain to the common people how they got there and why things were the way they were. It's blatantly obvious that bits and pieces of these ancient tales made their way through the ages as gods became increasingly all-powerful and all-knowing. The similarities between these gods (and there are much too many with similar exaggerated tales to mention) is striking. Virgin births, sex between gods and mortals, the most powerful gods being associated with the sun and the motion of the planets and alignment of the constellations, gods of fertility and of harvest, you name it. Gods who died and were raised from the dead. There is so much to derive from, that when you read the stories in the bible, new and old testament, you can't help but be reminded of these ancient epic tales, and think how this is plagiarism, but slightly rewritten again for a specific audience who wanted their own god who watched over them, versus their enemy's gods. I wish I had paid more attention to the mythology lessons when I was a kid, it's something that fascinates me now. How I wish we could add the rest of the "gods" to the annals of the mythology lesson and out of the science lesson.