5.2, part 2: Satan's pre-Christian virgin birth stories

This two-part series discusses pre-Christian religious stories from the Greeks, Romans, and Zoroastrians about unions between gods & mortals, miraculous virgin births, and offspring that were both human and god. It also covers the "Satanic pre-plagiarization" explanation from early Church Fathers Justin Martyr and Tertullian on how the pagans knew about these phenomena centuries before the time of Jesus.

By Todd Allen Gates, author of "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer."

This video series is also posted on the Rational Response Squad site, where there's no word/character limitation on the Comments section: see http://www.rationalresponders.com/pre_christian_virgin_birth_stories_and_the_...

An overview of whole series:

1 of 7: a brief description of videos 2 through 7.

2 of 7: a description of the Socratic Method.

3 of 7: the ground premises that the skeptic needs to establish with the Christian in order (a) for the Socratic Method to work, and (b) to focus on the issue at hand, which is "Are there valid reasons for me to believe that the Judeo-Christian Bible is the Word of God?"

4 of 7: the skeptic and the Christian read through scriptures and stories from non-Christian religions. Both agree that the following three characteristics are strong clues that a religion was not created by an Omniscient Wisdom, but just made up by people: (1) a cluelessness about the true layout of the universe, (2) senseless prejudices, (3) the borrowing of ideas & stories from pre-existing religions.

5 of 7: the skeptic and the Christian read through the Judeo-Christian Bible, and examine it by the same critical light just held up to non-Christian religions.

Science, Religion, and "truth" vs. "Truth": An explanation of how science and religion are opposites of each other when it comes to how permanent each considers its own knowledge to be--why religion spells its truths with a Capital T, and why science uses the lowercase t. This discussion is a continuation of a topic brought up in Video 5, but as my notes for this tangent issue grew longer and longer, I decided to give this 3-part series a separate title.

5.1 -- 5.4: Further details on the origins of the Judeo-Christian bible--how many of its ideas & stories can be found in religions that pre-date the bible by centuries.

5.1 explains why many of the baffling details within the tale of Noah & the Ark make sense once the story is read as a monotheistic version (in which God is said to be Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Benevolent) of a story that was originally polytheistic (in which the gods were none of the above).

5.2 discusses the pre-Christian religious stories from the Greeks, Romans, and Zoroastrians about unions between gods & mortals, miraculous virgin births, and offspring that were both human and god. It also covers the "Satanic pre-plagiarization" explanations from early Church Fathers Justin Martyr and Tertullian on how the pagans knew about these phenomena centuries before the time of Jesus.

5.3: Richard Dawkins refers to the Christian premises behind the belief that Jesus/God sacrificed Himself to appease Himself as "barking mad." This video looks at each of those premises--Divine Anger, the need for sacrifice, the use of a scapegoat--from the perspective of comparative mythology. A subtitle for this video would be "Richard Dawkins meets Joseph Campbell."

5.4: the evolution of the afterlife. Stage One - the 37 out of 39 Old Testament books that don't mention, or deny, an afterlife. Stage Two - the 2 Old Testament books that say there IS an afterlife. Stage Three - The New Testament, in which the afterlife becomes one of Christianity's main selling points.

6 of 7: a discussion of an abbreviated form of using the Socratic Method with proselytizers.

7 of 7: a discussion of why my approach focuses on skepticism of so-called revealed religions rather than skepticism of a Creator.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• virgin
• birth
• Jesus
• Zeus
• Perseus
• Tertullian
• Poseidon
• plagiarism
• anticipation
• diabolical
• mimicry
• Christ
• ToddAllenGates

[sulimon510]

Some good points. One thing I might say to the pre-plagirism argument is, If Satan is capable of doing this, who is to say he is not the author of the bible itself?

[MrFacet]

sulimon wondered "who is to say he [Satan] is not the author of the bible itself? "

If you look at the acts happening in the Bible, I often wonder why people think God is good.

[ToddAllenGates]

@rm02px

> I also subscribe (without getting too controversial) that some ancient texts have been manipulated by humans to coercive us.

I'm guess that you believe the original texts were better than what we have now.

Who do you think wrote the originals:

(a) just humans? (that is, no supernatural assistance)

(b) *some* sort of Higher Power (of which we may not fully grasp)?

(c) a god as represented by a specific organized religion?

(d) something else?

[rm02px]

@ToddAllenGates

I’m definitely open to the perspective that we are not alone in the Universe. I also subscribe (without getting too controversial) that some ancient texts have been manipulated by humans to coercive us. For example, the Bible before a 'book' was a series of popular manuscripts that were rearranged into a book by the same people that crucified him, the same people that silenced Galileo and the same people that created the banks.

[ToddAllenGates]

3 of 3:

Everything you're saying here—as well as your previous statement about the bible being a book that "deals with history, poetry, great literature, ethics, and morals; including the morality of treating compassionately the least fortunate among us"—is 100% compatible with the perspective that I happen to share: the bible is the work of people and people alone.

Do you think a Higher Power had *anything* to do with the Judeo-Christian bible?

The Koran?

The Rig-Veda?

[ToddAllenGates]

2 of 3:

As for *perfect*, I'm only saying it's a contradiction to think this is a Being who can do huge things like control solar systems, but can't do little things like control the text of a book.

> this text was written thousands of years ago and has undergone hundreds of translations and revisions while keeping the WORD intact of integrity and free from manipulation and counterfeit is something we should be more cynical about.

[ToddAllenGates]

@rm02px

1 of 3:

> *If* this being exists the probability of it catering to your assumptions about its sex and definition of *perfect* is subjective.

I use "He" out of convenience, mainly because the Judeo-Christian god is so often referred to as male, as Heavenly Father, etc.

I agree that it's sexist if not absurd . . . but it just gets awkward to repeatedly write She/He/It.

[rm02px]

@ToddAllenGates

Like I said, you’re a Biblical Literalist. *If* this being exists the probability of it catering to your assumptions about its sex and definition of *perfect* is subjective. Keeping in mind that this text was written thousands of years ago and has undergone hundreds of translations and revisions while keeping the WORD intact of integrity and free from manipulation and counterfeit is something we should be more cynical about. Especially when some are molesting little boys.

[ToddAllenGates]

@rm02px

If an Omniscient Omnipotent Creator had *anything* to do with the Bible, I would expect the He wouldn't use a sloppy / second-rate stenographer. I'd expect Him to use a dash of Omnipotence to ensure that His Word was perfect. After all, the all-too-human CEO of my company has no problem maintaining Quality Control over bulletins He broadcasts ... I would think on Omnipotent God would have no problem maintaining strict QC.

[ToddAllenGates]

@rm02px

> Religion gets into trouble in this case when it pretends to know something about science

If fundamentalists were right, their preferred Holy Book (be in the Koran, bible, etc.) really *would* know something about science. After all, if this book were inspired by an Omniscient Creator of the Universe, He'd know something about (1) the universe's layout, and (2) how to communicate clearly in a way that people would know what's poetry and what's literal fact.

[rm02px]

@ToddAllenGates

2 Of 2

The trouble comes with people that are Biblical Literalists who believe that the Bible is dictated by the creator of the Universe to an unerring stenographer and has no metaphor for allegory.

[rm02px]

@ToddAllenGates

1 Of 2

Religion deals with history, with poetry, with great literature, with ethics, with morals; including the morality of treating compassionately the least fortunate among us. Religion gets into trouble in this case when it pretends to know something about science. Faith is the belief in the absence of evidence. Believing when there is no compelling evidence is a mistake. The idea is to withhold belief until there is compelling evidence.