Debunking Lies: Are Christians Copycats? Part 3: Mithras

In the past two parts of this series, I’ve debunked the claims that Jesus is a copy of the Egyptian god Horus or the Greek god Dionysus. Now for the first of these claims I ever heard: Jesus copied the Mithras cult.

Mithras was  a Persian god who supposedly was born of a virgin. Nope. Wrong. Most sources do not say virgin birth. There were three versions of Mithras, but since most of the claims are based on the Roman version of him, we’re sticking to that one. That virgin of Mithras came AFTER Jesus. If anything, they were the copycats, not the other way around.

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Debunking Lies: Are Christians Copycats Part 2: Dionysus

Last time, I broke down why Jesus is not a copy of Horus. But the atheists don’t stop with him. They’ve also proposed Dionysus. So for part 2, let’s continue debunking the meme.

Dionysus was a lesser god in Greek mythology, not even one of the major ones like Zeus. The whole thing started because someone wrote a book called The Jesus Mysteries, featuring an amulet that had an image of Dionysus on a cross. So does this mean we copied crucifixion from the Greeks?

Debunking Lies: Are Christians Copycats Pt. 1–Osiris and Horus

 

Some years ago, a so-called documentary called Zeitgeist circulated YouTube, supposedly exposing the myth of Jesus. It said that He was nothing more than a copy of various gods from ancient mythology: Horus, Osiris, Dionysus, Mithras, even Krishna. So-called comedian Bill Maher, host of the HBO series Real Time With Bill Maher used it as the basis of his satire, Religulous.  But how true is this, really? We’ll start with the supposed connection to Osiris and Horus.

First of all, the date’s wrong. Horus was not born in December, he was born in October. And even if it was December, the Bible does not give an exact date for Jesus’s birth, because we don’t have one.

Second, Isis, Horus’s mother, was not a virgin she conceived him. She was impregnated as a bird flying over Osiris’s corpse. (Yeah, mythology is weird, but fascinating) The text of the myth implies a sexual union, not what we see with the virgin Mary.

Horus did not have 12 disciples. He had followers, yes, but followers are not the same as disciples. And they were more than 12.

Nor was Horus crucified. Crucifixion was not only practiced by the Romans, they also invented it. And their civilization comes AFTER Egyptian civilization, not before it.

Debunking Lies: The Sex Abuse Scandal

Many times in autism groups on FB when I or someone else break the unwritten rule that the atheists there have specified–never mention Christianity in any way–the atheists there will use different tactics. There are some that I can just shrug off, but one tactic that is so misinformed really bothers me: the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church. So I’ve decided to talk about it. Originally, I wasn’t because I wasn’t quite sure how to address the issue. But I’ve recently learned some methods that I can use.

First of all, the media misrepresents the issue. The number of priests who are pedophiles is actually not as big as the media would like you to believe. The secular media has been against the Catholic Church for a very long time. I think it stems from the fact that the Catholic Church has always opposed many things that the secular media promotes, such as abortion. The media see Catholicism as an enemy, so they look for anything that happens within the church to use against us, whether it’s taking the pope out of context or the scandals. That’s not to say the scandals don’t exist at all; that just means it’s overblown. Also, there are steps being taken. Why isn’t that reported? Because why talk about a positive, when the negative is far more interesting and appears to be more damning.

Debunking Myths: Just How Many Atheists Are There, Anyway?

If you were to go on YouTube or Facebook, you would see a largely atheist presence. Go on any YouTube video about Christianity or atheism, and you will find the most vile attacks on Christianity from atheists. They seem to outnumber Christians comments. I’ve even seen a video once (it’s taken down by now, I think), where a vicious atheist claims victory, only by the sheer numbers of pro-atheist comments he’s seen on his own videos and the number of likes his videos have received. But are these a good gauge of the influence of Christianity vs. the influence of atheism? What is the reality?

According to a recent Gallup poll I looked up to research this post, 77% of the US identified as Christian (despite our current President saying that we “are no longer a Christian nation”), while 2.4% say they are atheist. Something seems wrong to me. The atheists are often saying that their arguments are winning, that Christians are leaving churches in droves. They say that in a matter of time, Christianity will be outmoded by atheist philosophy. I disagree. They are still a small segment of the population, and they can push us out of the “public square” all they like. Many other hostile groups have tried the same, and instead of Christianity dwindling, it has thrived.

So, why is it different online? Why do we appear to see a trend towards atheism? To be honest, I think the “trend” is a myth. I think what’s really going on is that these people see the advantage of the anonymity that the Internet gives them.  They can say things they wouldn’t dare say in public. You can troll all you like. No one will hunt you down.