{"id":2062,"date":"2016-07-29T01:07:41","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T01:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nogodbutallah.org\/?page_id=2062"},"modified":"2022-05-02T17:36:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T17:36:57","slug":"christianity-is-paganism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nogodbutallah.org\/?page_id=2062","title":{"rendered":"Christianity-is Paganism"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the name of All\u0101h,<\/span>
\nthe Beneficent, the Merciful.<\/span>
\nPeace and Blessings of All\u0101h on Mohammad.<\/span>
\nDEDICATED TO<\/span>
\nAll\u0101h\u2013the Glorious and the High,<\/span>
\nLord of the worlds<\/span>
\nAND TO<\/span>
\nMohammad\u2013who brought the world<\/span>
\nto our feet and eternity to our arms.<\/span>
\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 CHRISTIANITY IS PAGANISM<\/span><\/span>
\nAllah tells us in His Qur\u2019an 9:30 that the Christian Son of God belief is an imitation of paganism: \u201cand the Christians say: The Messiah (Jesus) is the son of Allah. These are the words of their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/span>
\nTo which Muhammad Ali notes that Paul \u201cintroduced the pagan doctrine of sonship of God into the Christian religion, so that it might become more acceptable to the pagans.\u201d<\/span>
\nAnd research has proven the truth of this Qur\u2019anic revelation.<\/span>
\nMaurice Bucaille states in his book The Bible, The Qur\u2019an, And Science<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as the decades following Jesus\u2019s mission are concerned, it must be understood that events did not at all happen in the way they have been said to have taken place and that Peter\u2019s arrival in Rome no way laid the foundations for the Church. On the contrary, from the time Jesus left earth to the second half of the Second century, there was a struggle between two factions. One was what one might call Pauline Christianity and the other Judeo-Christianity;\u201d<\/span>
\nand<\/span>
\n\u201cPAUL IS THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE IN CHRISTIANITY. HE WAS CONSIDERED TO BE A TRAITOR TO JESUS\u2019S THOUGHT BY THE LATTER\u2019S FAMILY AND BY THE APOSTLES WHO HAD STAYED IN JERUSALEM IN THE CIRCLE AROUND JAMES. PAUL CREATED CHRISTIANITY AT THE EXPENSE OF THOSE WHOM JESUS HAD GATHERED AROUND HIM TO SPREAD HIS TEACHINGS.(While others \u2018combated\u2019 Paul\u2019s writings)<\/em> PAUL\u2019S STYLE OF CHRISTIANITY WON THROUGH DEFINITIVELY, AND CREATED ITS OWN COLLECTION OF OFFICIAL TEXTS. THESE TEXTS CONSTITUTED THE \u2018CANON\u2019 WHICH CONDEMNED AND EXCLUDED AS UNORTHODOX ANY OTHER DOCUMENTS THAT WERE NOT SUITED TO THE LINE ADOPTED BY THE CHURCH<\/span>.\u201d<\/strong> 2<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unlikely that he ever met Jesus. In Jerusalem, however, he learned enough about Jesus to regard him as a menace to Pharisaic Judaism, for Paul first appears on the scene of history as a persecutor of the Christian Church. In the Judgment of Paul the Pharisee, Jesus had broken the Law and taught others to break it and had been justly condemned under the curse that the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy pronounces on law-breakers.\u201d3<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Reza Aslan \u2013a Muslim who had converted to Christianity and reverted to Islam after researching Jesus\u2013<\/span> has shown in his book Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth<\/em> (pp.133-134; 165; 177-178) that:<\/span>
\n\u201cthe gospels are not about a man known as Jesus of Nazareth who lived two thousand years ago; they are about a messiah whom the gospel writers viewed as an eternal being sitting at the right hand of God;\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cDespite two millennia of Christian apologetics, the fact is that belief in a dying and rising messiah simply did not exist in Judaism.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cIn the entire history of Jewish thought there is not a single line of scripture that says the messiah is to suffer, die, and rise again on the third day\u2026.To the Jews, a crucified messiah was nothing less than a contradiction in terms. The very fact of Jesus\u2019s crucifixion annulled his messianic claims.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din has detailed the pagan sources of Christianity in his book The Sources of Christianity<\/em>, from which the following excerpts are taken. (The Sources of Christianity<\/em> may be obtained from<\/span> www.muslim.org<\/a><\/span>).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we study the Gospel without reference to the writings of\u00a0 St. Paul<\/a>, <\/span>the words of Jesus do not substantiate the teaching of his Church to-day.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cThe Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of St. Paul are two different entities, and irreconcilable to each other. So they have appeared to many thoughtful people. Count Tolstoy among them. He would not accept Jesus and Paul together, so he rejected the latter absolutely, and thus cut the knot. No doubt, the Apostle to the Gentiles had suffered much for the cause of the Church that he made, and was a martyr. But the reason is obvious. He had gone too far to go back, and could not avoid the consequences.\u00a0 The deliberators of the Cambridge Conference of 1918 came to the same conclusion. They could not see the hand of Jesus in the superstructure of the Church so erected by St. Paul and his followers. \u201d (pp. 15-16).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of the man-God was not strange to the Gentiles. Their mythologies were teeming with God Incarnate. His suffering for human salvation, his resurrection, human sin and its expiation through God\u2019s sacrifice, were things rampant in Greek and Roman literature. The gentiles of the days of St. Paul could easily see in Jesus, as portrayed by Paul, a reflection of their own God and accept him as representative of the class that were believed to have visited the earth in the olden days (as is for example, the opinion of Gibbon), and participated with them in human affairs. The vigilant eye of St. Paul and of the monks who were really the builders of the Church, could easily see that side of human psychology. They, therefore, clothed Jesus with Divinity, and saturated their writings with phraseology current in Pagan and other philosophic literature of the days, as I will show later on.\u201d (p. 17).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Modernist Church, after arriving at the conclusion mentioned above, at Cambridge, could not accept the son of Mary as their God, and were bound, therefore, to explain their conception of the Divinity of Jesus. This they did, in 1921, when they met at Oxford in a representative conference comprising many bishops and other Church dignitaries.\u201d<\/span>
\n(KK goes on to note the views\/observations of participants that:<\/span>
\n\u201cJesus did not claim Divinity for himself;\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cJesus was in the fullest sense a man;\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cThe virgin birth, if it could be historically proved, would be no demonstration of Christ\u2019s Divinity\u201d;<\/span>
\n\u201cHe claimed to be God\u2019s son in a normal sense, in the sense in which all human beings are sons of God\u201d). (pp. 17-18).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the appearance of Jesus there were temples without end dedicated to gods like Apollo or Dionysius among the Greeks, Hercules among the Romans, Mithra among the Persians, Adonis and Attis in Syria and Phrygia; Osiris, Isis and Horus in Egypt; Baal and Astarte among the Babylonians and Carthaginians, and so forth.<\/span>
\nAll these Deities were sun-gods, and of all or mostly all of them, as Edward Carpenter says, it was believed that:\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

(1) They were born on or very near Christmas Day.<\/span>
\n(2) They were born of a Virgin Mother.<\/span>
\n(3) And in a cave or underground chamber.<\/span>
\n(4) They led a life of toil for mankind.<\/span>
\n(5) They were called by the names of Light-Bringer, Healer, Mediator, Saviour and Deliverer.<\/span>
\n(6) They were, however, vanquished by the Power of Darkness.<\/span>
\n(7) They descended into Hell or the Underworld.<\/span>
\n(8) They rose again from the dead, and became the pioneers of mankind to the Heavenly World.<\/span>
\n(9) They founded Communions of Saints and Churches, to which disciples were received by baptism.<\/span>
\n(10) They were commemorated by Eucharistic meals.\u201d (pp. 29-30).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMithraism came from Persia, where it seems to have been flourishing for about six hundred years, the cult reaching Rome about 70 B.C. It spread through the Empire, and extended to Great Britain. Remains of Mithraic monuments have been discovered at York, Chester and other places. Mithra was believed to be a great Mediator between God and man. His birth took place in a cave on December 25th. He was born of a virgin.<\/em> He traveled far and wide; he had twelve disciples; he died in the service of humanity. He was buried, but rose again from the tomb. His resurrection was celebrated with great rejoicing<\/em>.4<\/sup> His great festivals were the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox \u2013Christmas and Easter. He was called Saviour, and sometimes figured as a Lamb. People were initiated into his cult through baptism. Sacramental feasts were held in his remembrance. These statements may excite surprise in the mind of the reader of to-day; he may be disposed to doubt their genuineness, as while on one side he reads the story of the Jesus of the Church, in the legend of Mithra on the other Mithraism has left no traces in the world, although it was so powerful in the third century A.D. that, had it not been suppressed in Rome and Alexandria by the Christians with physical force, as has been admitted by St. Jerome, it would have left no chance for the flourishing of Christianity; and that it died only when most of its legends became incorporated in the simple faith of Jesus,5<\/sup> and the Church lore fully saturated with Mithraic colours, so much so that Tertullian had to admit the fact, though in a way befitting his position. He says that the learned in his days considered Mithra-ism and Christianity identical in all but name.\u201d \u00a0St. Jerome and other Early Fathers became puzzled at the similarity existing between the two faiths, but their ingenuity ascribed it to the machinations of the Devil to mock their faith.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It will not be out of place if I quote certain of the observations made by these Early Fathers on the subject. They leave no room for any doubt or conjecture; they, on the other hand, conclusively prove the case. The following is from Tertullian:\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Devil, whose business is to prevent the truth, mimicks the exact circumstances of the Divine Sacraments in the Mysteries of Idols. He himself baptizes come<\/em>, that is to say, his believers and followers; he promises forgiveness of sins from the sacred fount<\/em>, and thereby initiates them<\/em> into the religion of Mithra. Thus he marks the foreheads of his own soldiers, thus he celebrates the oblation of bread<\/em>; he brings in the symbol of resurrection<\/em>, and wins the crown with the sword. He limits his chief priest to a single marriage, he even has his virgins and ascetics.\u201d (Our Sun-God<\/em>, p.179. Italics are KK\u2019s).<\/span><\/p>\n

Justin Martyr says:\u2013<\/span>
\n\u201cThe apostles, in the commentaries written by themselves which we call Gospels, have delivered down to us how that Jesus thus commanded them: \u2018He having taken bread, after that he had given thanks, said: Do this in commemoration of Me; this is My body; also having taken the cup and returned thanks, He said: This is My blood, and delivered it unto them alone; which things the evil spirit have taught to be done out of memory in the mysteries and ministrations of Mithra\u2026..For that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.\u201d (Justin Martyr, Apol.II)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Cortez, the explorer of Mexico, also complained that the Devil had positively taught to the Mexicans the same things which God taught to the Christians.<\/span>
\nSt. Jerome admits that Mithra and Baal were the same, and called sons of the Lord. He says: \u201cThe Sun whom the heathen worship under the names of Lord Sun (Baal Samus) and Son of the Lord (Bor Belus.\u201d (pp. 30-32).<\/span>
\n(KK. points out that there is no proof that Jesus was born on the 25th of December \u2013that no one knows when Jesus was born. Which date, \u201cwithin a day or two, is the date of the supposed birth of many of the sun-gods.\u201d<\/span>
\nKK also states: \u201cThere are some other dates as well, in the Catholic Calendar, that give rise to the same presumption, that sky-scriptures, and not Sacred Scriptures, are to be searched for their origin. Such are the Assumption of the Virgin; her Nativity, Annunciation and Purification, the birthday of John the Baptist, Candlemas and Lent.\u201d And KK explains their relation to the Zodiac).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe read nothing of the Madonna and the Child, either in the evangelical record or in the writings of Paul and other apostles. The conception, most assuredly, came from Alexandria to the Western world, where the Mother Goddess with the Child Redeemer Horus had been honoured centuries before the Christian Era, and worshipped under the names of \u201cOur Lady,\u201d \u201cQueen of Heaven,\u201d \u201cMother Goddess\u201d and so forth \u2013words that were afterwards used in reference to Mary, the Mother Goddess.<\/span>
\nIsis was not the only Virgin Mother worshipped in the olden days.\u00a0 Osiris had also been believed to be born of Neith, the Virgin of the World\u2026The sacred groves of Germany exhibited the image of the Goddess Hertha, a Virgin with a Child in her arms, in the old Teutonic days. She also gave birth to a child that was of Immaculate conception. She was impregnated by the Heavenly Spirit.<\/span>
\nFrigga conceived of the All-father, Odin, bore a son, Balder of Scandinavia, called the Healer and Saviour of mankind.\u201d6<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

The force of Cortez\u2019s remark quoted elsewhere becomes significant when we read the following in Kingsborough\u2019s famous book, Antiquities of Mexico:\u2013<\/span>
\nAn ambassador was sent from heaven on an embassy to a Virgin of Tulan, called Chimalman\u2026. announcing that it was the will of God that she should conceive a son without connection with man, and having delivered her the message, he rose and left the house; and as soon as he had left it, she conceived a son, without connection with man, who was called Quetzalcoatle, who, they say, is the God of air. Further, it is explained that Quetzalcoatle sacrificed himself, drawing forth his own blood with thorns, and that the word Quetzalcoatle means \u201cour well-beloved son.\u201d7<\/sup> (p.p. 35-36).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c.The Virgin Mother suckling her Child is a common figure on the Mithraic monuments. So are other legends of these gods being born in a cave, which have been reported from Guatemala, the Antilles and other places in Central America.8<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

The Chinese had also a Mother Goddess Virgin, with a child in her arms.9<\/sup> The ancient Etruscans had the same.10<\/sup> In this connection Justin Martyr again comes with the same interesting apology when writing to the Emperor Adrian, the Devil being the only prop on which he could lay hands to strengthen him in his beliefs. He says:\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt having reached the Devil\u2019s ears that the prophets had foretold the coming of Christ (the Son of God) he set the heathen poets to bring forward a great many who should be called the sons of Jove. The Devil laying his scheme in this, to get man to imagine that the true history of Christ was of the same character as the prodigious fables related of the sons of Jove\u2026.By declaring the Logos, the first begotten of God, Our Master Jesus, to be born of a virgin, with-out any human mixture, WE (Christians) SAY NO MORE IN THIS THAN WHAT YOU (Pagans) SAY OF THOSE WHOM YOU STYLE THE SONS OF JOVE. For you need not be told what a parcel of sons the writers most in vogue among you assign to Jove. (Just as the Bible assigns a legion of sons to God)<\/em><\/span>\u2026.As\u00a0 to the Son of God, called Jesus, SHOULD WE ALLOW HIM TO BE NO MORE THAN MAN (note well, it is Christians who \u201callow\u201d Jesus to be \u201cmore than man\u201d)<\/em>,<\/span> yet the title of the son of God is very justifiable upon ACCOUNT OF HIS WISDOM (not upon any \u201cETERNAL RELATIONSHIP;\u201d this \u201cwisdom\u201c should make Einstein super son of God)<\/em>, considering that you (Pagans) have your Mercury in worship under the title of the Word, a messenger of God\u2026.As to his (Jesus) being born of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that \u2026.if Jupiter could send a parcel of sons out of VIRGIN mothers; the Father in heaven assured-ly could do the same at least in our case.\u201d\u201d11<\/sup> (True He could, but He did not). <\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe ancient literature of India also speaks of Virgin Mothers and their sons being worshipped.<\/span>
\nThe Gospel of St. Matthew no doubt makes the birth of Jesus a fulfillment of a prophecy by Isaiah (7:14) which it quotes in the following words: \u201cBehold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us\u201d (Matthew 1:23).<\/span> But the oldest manuscripts of Isaiah do not read \u201cvirgin,\u201d but \u201cyoung woman.\u201d And the original is not \u201cshall conceive,\u201d but \u201cis with child\u201d \u2013i.e. had already conceived. Moreover, it does not state that \u201cthey shall call\u201d his name Emmanuel or Immanuel, but \u201cthou shalt,\u201d it being a command to King Ahaz so to call a child about to be born; which child, as an encouragement to the King, Isaiah prophesied would be a boy, and therefore a sign of good luck. And the Child was called \u2013Jesus.<\/span>
\n\u201cThe fact that in the later versions of the Hebrew, such as the Septuagint and Vulgate, the word used for \u2018young woman\u2019 has been altered into \u2018virgin\u2019 is very significant. The misrepresentation of Isaiah\u2019s reference to a young woman, who, at the time the prophet spoke, was about to bear a child\u2026is clear evidence of an attempt to connect a presumably real Jesus with the Sun-God,\u201d all of whose other incarnations came from a Virgin Mother.\u201d (p. 36-38).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOsiris was born on December 29th. He was a great traveller<\/em>. He tamed people by gentleness <\/em>and not by force. He discovered corn and wine.<\/em> He was betrayed by Typhen, slain and dismembered. <\/em>He was interred, but came again to life. <\/em>In the mysteries of Osiris, his Image was placed in a box and brought forth before the worshippers with cries of \u201cOsiris is risen.\u201d
\n<\/em>Adonis, the Syrian God, born of a Virgin, was killed and rose again in the spring. Every year the maidens wept for Adonis<\/em> (Ezekiel 8: 14), and then rejoiced over his resurrection.<\/em> Attis, the Phrygian God, was also born of a Virgin named Nana. He<\/em> was bled to death at the foot of a pine tree. His blood renewed the fertility of the earth, and thus brought a new life <\/em>to humanity. He also rose from the dead \u2026.In celebrating his death and resurrection, his image was fastened to a pine-tree on March 24th, and the day was called the \u201cDay of blood\u201d<\/em>\u2026The image was then laid in a tomb with wailing and mourning, but the coming night changed sorrow to joy. The tomb was found to be empty on the next day, when the festival of the resurrection was celebrated.<\/em> These mysteries seem to have included sacra-mental meal and a baptism of blood.12<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Quetzalcoatle, the Mexican Saviour, was born of a Virgin, Chimalman. The Virgin Mother received the message of being the Mother of a Son without any connection with man, through an embassy from heaven. She conceived. Quetzalcoatle \u2013the word in that language means \u201cour beloved son\u201d\u2013 also fasted forty days, and was tempted. He was crucified, when the sun was darkened and withheld its light. His second coming was looked for so eagerly that when Cortez appeared the Mexicans greeted him as the returning God.13<\/sup>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 .<\/span><\/p>\n

Bacchus, sometimes called Dionysius, was born of a virgin named Demeter on December 25th. Her other name was Semele.<\/span>
\nEvil having spread over the earth, the God of Gods was begged to save mankind. Jupiter hearkened to the prayer, and declared that his son will redeem the world from its misery. He promised a Liberator to the earth, and Bacchus came as Saviour. He was called the only begotten son. \u201cIt is I,\u201d so says the Lord Bacchus to mankind, \u201cwho guide you; it is I who protect you, and who save you; I who am Alpha and Omega.\u201d14<\/sup> He was also a great traveler, and brought the gift of wine to mankind. It will remind the reader of the first miracle of Jesus when he converted water to wine. \u201dSuffering was common to all the sons of Jove,\u201d as Justin Martyr says, and for this reason they were called \u201cThe Slain Ones,\u201d \u201cSaviours,\u201d and \u201cRedeemers.\u201d Bacchus was also slain for redeeming humanity, and was therefore called \u201cThe Slain One,\u201d \u201cThe Sin Bearer,\u201d \u201cThe Redeemer.\u201d His death, followed by resurrection, was celebrated with festivities of a horrible nature.\u00a0 Then was celebrated the representation of the passion of Bacchus, dead, descended into hell and rearisen.<\/em>\u201d (pp. 39-41).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe story of the Lord of Christianity is not the first of its kind. The passion play of Baal, the Babylonian Sun-God, was in existence centuries before the birth of Jesus. It was acted as a popular mystery drama. The Jews were taken as prisoners by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, where they remained for generations. They saw the mystery drama acted every year in the beginning of spring on Easter Day. The captives, on their return, brought with them many traditions of sun-worship which one can easily trace in Jewish literature\u2026.The main features of the play have recently been deciphered from some tablets discovered from Babylonian ruins. There are two Babylonian tablets, says the Quest<\/em>, belonging to the cuneiform documents which were discovered by the German excavators in 1903-1904 at Kalah Shargat, the site of the ancient Assur. They belonged to the library of Assur, formed in the ninth century B.C. or even earlier\u2026The tablets disclose astounding facts\u2026The two are one and the same. It therefore not only deprives the evangelical records of the claim to be genuine; it makes them complete plagiarism.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

(Quoting from the \u201cJanuary 1922 issue of the Quest<\/em>,\u201d Khwaja lists, side by side, fourteen (14) features of Jesus\u2019 passion that are identical with the passion of Baal. The following is a brief entry of these fourteen features, in revised format):<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01.<\/span> Baal is taken prisoner<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus is taken prisoner.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 2.<\/span> Baal is tried.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus is tried.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 3.<\/span> Baal is wounded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Jesus is scourged.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 4.<\/span> Baal is led away to the Mount.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Jesus is led away to Golgotha.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5.<\/span> Along with Baal two malefactors are charged\u2013one is executed, the other is set free.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with Jesus, two malefactors are put to death, and one, Barabbas, is set free.<\/span><\/p>\n

6.<\/span> After Baal is gone to the Mount, the city breaks out into tumult, and fighting takes place in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the death of Jesus, there is destruction in the city. (Temple\u2019s veil is rent, graves are opened etc; Matt. 27:50-52).<\/span><\/p>\n

7.<\/span> Baal\u2019s clothes are carried away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 robe is divided among the soldiers (Matt. 27:35; John cp. Psalm 22:18).<\/span><\/p>\n

8.<\/span> Baal is wounded by a weapon. Woman wipes away the heart\u2019s blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus is wounded by a lance (John 19:34). Mary Magdalene and two other women wash Jesus for embalming (Mark and Luke).<\/span><\/p>\n

9.<\/span> Baal goes down into the Mount away from sun and light, disappears from life, and is held fast in the Mount as in a prison.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus, in the grave, in the rock tomb (Matt. 27:60), goes down into the realm of the dead (1 Peter 3:19; Matt. 12:40; Acts 2:21; Romans 10:17, \u201cdescent into hell\u201d dogma).<\/span><\/p>\n

10.<\/span> Baal is watched over by guards.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus is watched over by guards (Matt. 27:64-66).<\/span><\/p>\n

11.<\/span> A goddess sits with Baal; she comes to tend him. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sit before Jesus\u2019 tomb (Matt. 28:1).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

12.<\/span> People seek for Baal at the Mount. In particular a weeping woman seeks him at the \u201cGate of Burial.\u201d When Baal is being carried away she lamented \u201cO my brother! O, my brother.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the case of Jesus. Women, in particular Mary Magdalene came to the tomb to seek for Jesus where he is behind the door of the tomb. Mary stands weeping before the empty tomb because they have taken her Lord away. (John 20:15-16).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 13.<\/span> Baal is again brought back to life (as \u00a0 \u00a0the sun of spring), he comes again out of the Mount.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus is restored to life, rising from the grave (on a Sunday morning).<\/span><\/p>\n

14.<\/span> Baal\u2019s chief feast, the Babylonian New Year\u2019s festival in March at the time of the spring equinox, is celebrated also as his triumph over the powers of darkness (cp. The creation hymn \u201cOnce when on high\u201d as the New Year\u2019s festival hymn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 festival, approximately at the spring equinox, is also celebrated as his triumph over the powers of darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is not the Biblical story a recast of the story of B\u0113l (Baal)? Apart from the similarity of the details, the very occurrence of the crucifixion in the way narrated in the Bible seems now to be fictitious. The Qur\u2019an denies the event in the clearest terms. It would, indeed, seem to lack independent evidence. We owe all our knowledge of Jesus to the Bible, before the revelation of the Holy Qur\u2019an; there are, however, two other pieces of evidence: first, a reference to the crucifixion in the history of Josephus, a contemporary of Jesus; and secondly, a letter alleged to have been written by Pilate to the Roman Emperor, speaking of the crucifixion. This letter exists in the archives of the Vatican, but both these testimonies seem to be inadmissible. The original MS. of Josephus does not contain the page referring to Jesus, which is admitted to be a subsequent insertion; the letter of Pilate, with the signature on it as well, is now considered a pious fraud. Thus we are left no other course than to rely on the Bible and the Holy Qur\u2019an. The last Book of God totally denies the event, and the Bible story is only a remoulding of the Babylonian legend, which is decidedly a myth of the Sun-worship. Apart from the verdict of the Holy Qur\u2019an, could any person accept the Gospel story as original, in the name of honesty and truth, after reading the contents of the said tablet? Besides, the multiplicity of the various events recorded to complete the Gospel story, makes it a physical impossibility. From the Last Supper, up to the Crucifixion, all events have been recorded in one night \u2013the agony in the Garden, the betrayal by Judas, Jesus brought before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, and then to the Hall of Judgment, the intermediate visit to Herod and coming again to Pilate, who speaks and washes his hands; the scourging, the mocking of Jesus arrayed in purple, and the crown of thorns, the preparation of a cross, and the painful journey to Golgotha.<\/span><\/p>\n

Events with characters coming out of the \u201cgreen room\u201d or on the film, may receive their full development within a few hours, but when they actually occur they must take some reasonable time; and it is a matter of surprise, as Edward Carpenter thinks, to find the trial of Jesus in the middle of the night, as courts do not generally sit to try malefactors at that hour of the night. But if the story was taken from the Babylonian mystery play, the multiplicity of the events within the short space of night, and the time of night chosen for their occurrence, afford us an explanation. The date of the crucifixion is another stumbling block. in the way of a seeker after truth, because he finds the date of Good Friday to correspond closely with the dates of the Passions of the various deities, and so it is with the time of the resurrection. No doubt we find its mention in the Gospel as occurring near the date of the Passover Feast. But it was a time-honoured date in the Pagan world.<\/span><\/p>\n

The movable nature of the Church Easter, occurring as it does in March or April, according to the moon phases, makes it still more doubtful. The date, had it any connection with such a remarkable event as the Resurrection, must have been fixed. But if the festival arose from the rise of the vegetation depending upon certain phases and seasons of the luminaries \u2013as both the Sun and the Moon play great part in this phenomenon\u2013 the reasons for the festival occurring on changing dates is obvious. It must occur after the full Moon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Easter (Anglo-Saxon, Eostre, O.H.G. Ostera) was the goddess of Light and Spring in whose honour the festival was celebrated everywhere at the said dates. Hot cross-buns and eggs were distributed and eaten in Egypt and Ireland, in the same way as it is done now in Christendom, at the time of Easter, This, again, shows the descent of the Church Easter from the olden days, The whole of Nature is risen again at Easter time, and a new life is coming to humanity. Do we not find the same story in the Church-covering \u2013Easter Sunday being the resurrection of the Lord that brought new life to the human race? Some of the Western writers are of opinion that the Passover Feast of the Jews besides being held to commemorate the crossing of the Red Sea, was taken from the Sun-worship festival celebrated on the day when the sun crosses the Equator.<\/span><\/p>\n

The presumption becomes stronger, when many other things in the Jewish traditions are traced to Sun-worship.<\/span>
\nThe sun was the Dying God of the ancient world. After his birth on December 25th the young deity increases every day in his power and strength, and defies the demon of darkness in the struggle, till the final week in the March comes, when his progress is retarded and he becomes stationary. The struggle between the two seems to have come to a climax, and the devil appears to be going to have the better of the conflict. Therefore it is a time of great anxiety and apprehension \u2013a day of mourning and weeping for the maidens of Adonis; the suffering God undergoing his last ordeal; Hercules gone into Hades; Attis nailed down to a pine trunk\u2013 in short, the dead God is interred in the tomb, but two days after, all sorrow and weeping change into merriment, the Sun-God overcoming the forces of darkness (the Rubicon, i.e<\/em> the Equator, passed); Hercules ascending from the underworld; their respective tombs. The date of the Dying God and that of the Rising God, therefore, become great events, and are attended respectively with mourning and rejoicing \u2013just as find on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.\u201d (pp. 44 -49).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe sign of the Cross also is not of Christian origin. It does not date from the crucifixion. Clement, in his list of Christian symbols, does not make mention of it. Constantine saw the Cross in his vision, as he says, and took it as a symbol of the faith. But what he saw in the vision he must have seen also in a normal condition with his waking eye, for the Cross was the sign of life in the Pagan symbolism I saw an ancient Egyptian cross in July when I visited Alexandria, in the Municipal Museum in the town. Curiously enough, the cross in Christendom signifies the same as did the Egyptian cross \u2013the sign of new life brought by the crucifixion. In Ireland a similar cross has been discovered, with a crucified effigy, but it is the effigy of a Persian prince and not that of the Nazarene, as the head of the crucified bears a Parthian coronet, and not the crown of thorns; which identifies it with the Mithraic cult, originally from Persia. It left many other signs in Ireland and Cheshire. (p. 50).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRead the history of the Early Fathers, and you are more and more convinced that while the Church was using sword and fire in destroying every trace and memory of Sun-worship in its original form \u2013as in the burning of the Alexandrian Library and the killing of Hypatia\u2013the great teacher of the Sun-worship cult\u2013 it was taking everything and anything of the heathen days into its own teachings and traditions in order to make the new faith popular. Fish was taken as a Christian symbol be-fore the introduction of the Cross\u2026.The Gospel cannot explain the why and how of the Fish symbol, excepting that Jesus often ate fish. But the sun-scripture is the real explanation. The sun passes the Zodiacal sign Pisces \u2013the Fish\u2013 in February, and if the date of the Epiphany is in February, Christ, as a Sun-God, must be symbolized by the Fish.<\/span><\/p>\n

The evidence that the Church, as built by the priests of the dark mediaeval days, owes everything to the Pagan world, and not in the sacred name under which it passes, is so over-whelmingly preponderating in nature that one becomes compelled to say with full justification, in the words of the Archbishop of York, that the Church repels. If the laity has realized that in their worship in the Church they are worshipping only the Sun-God, and keeping up the tradition of the Pagan cult, will they not resent it? No wonder the pews have be-come empty, and the clergy have no chance but to address empty benches.\u201d (pp.51-52).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sabbath of Jesus was the Sabbath of the Jews. He was a Jewish Rabbi and Teacher among them, as admitted by Dean Inge in the paper read to the Modernist Conference at Cambridge in 1917. Jesus would refer his disciple to the scribes for the religious lore. He was averse to any schism or innovation in the faith. He would have heaven and earth pass away but not allow a jot or title of change in the faith and its observances. Saturday was the day of Sabbath,<\/strong> and not Sunday, which was the day of the worship of Apollo the Sun-God. How and why the sacred day of the God of the Israelites, to be observed as one of the Ten Commandments, gave way to the day of the Pagan God \u2013perhaps through St. Paul\u2019s or Constantine\u2019s instrumentality\u2013 is a mystery, but open enough to admit of easy explanation in the light of the multitude of facts, some of which have already been dealt with.\u201d (p. 54).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Emperor Hadrian intended to build a temple to the Christ and to rank him in the number of the gods (Lampridius I.43). This intention was carried out by his successor, Constantine, whose patron God was Apollo. He retained Apollo\u2019s figure upon his seal, even after establishing Christianity as the State religion \u2013a representative of the sun, with the inscription \u201cTo the Invincible Sun, my Companion.\u201d The conversion of Constantine to Christianity was more a political adventure than a search for truth. His murder of his nephew, and despotic disposition as a ruler, could not find favour with his equals, the senators. He had to go to the plebeians, most of whom were Christians. But he could not go against the popular faith to which he himself was so tenaciously attached. He, however, solved the problem in a most diplomatic way. He took the name of Jesus as a figure-head, and recognized the title \u201cChrist\u201d as but another name for the Sun-God;<\/strong> in all other respects he kept the Pagan Church intact in all its traditions, ritual and mode of worship. Sunday was the day of the worship of the Sun \u2013the Roman Dies Soli. To respect the religious susceptibilities of the Roman Sun-worshipper, Constantine could not do better than to keep the same day as the day of the Christian Sabbath. An average Roman Catholic Cathedral, with its altar facing towards the east, the monks and nuns with the tonsure, the acolytes, the choir and the rest of the paraphernalia, carries us at once to the temples of the Pagan world.\u201d(p. 55).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe institution of monks and nuns can also be traced to the same origin. Jesus neither advocated nor recommended celibacy. The single life of Jesus \u2013though his first miracle took place on an occasion of marriage, and his participation in it give sanctity to the marital institution\u2013 might encourage monasticism, but how are we to explain the tonsure (circle shaved on the top of the head)<\/em>?\u00a0 Even Paul, with all his tendency to use most of the older cult as material for the Church he built, is silent on the question. Sun-worship alone can explain it. Mithraism had its monks and nuns, as Tertullian admits, with the tonsure in honour of the disc of the Sun. To be shorn of hair is, doubtless, a sign of asceticism; but it is the form of the tonsure \u2013the round bare place on the head of the Romish priests and monks, formed by shaving the hair, that bears resemblance to the disc of the Sun. Does it not show that, as Apollo came to supplant Mithra, so the place of the former was given to Christ, while everything of their religion was kept intact with all its legends, festivals and forms of worship?\u201d (p. 57).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Holy Communion also represents the ancient Eucharistic Ceremony, which was observed from Persia to Peru, in every Sun-worship country. The idea of Sin and Expiation is also an ancient idea. The sacrificed animal represented the Dying Deity, as Lord Krishna says in the Bhagwat Gita, \u201cI am the oblation, I am the sacrifice, I am the ancestral offering.\u201d \u201cIn the truly orthodox conception of sacrifice, says Elie Reclus, \u201cthe consecrated offering, be it man, woman or virgin, lamb or heifer, cock or dove, represents \u00a0the deity himself.\u201d (Primitive Folk<\/em>, ch. vi.).<\/span><\/p>\n

The person, whose sacrifice was represented, was believed to be actually present at the time of the sacrifice, and his flesh, eaten by the worshippers, made the latter at one with the former. The flesh of the god entering into the body of man created a sort of holy communion between the deity and the votary. It is not I who make this assertion; the Early Fathers have said the same. Do they not say that the Mithraic Eucharist was identified with the Lord\u2019s Supper? Ponder over the words of the Lord Krishna quoted above. The same idea had been working in the minds of the ancients everywhere \u2013the atoning personality becoming God, and the belief that to eat anything taken out of the sacrifice, or from meals prepared in celebrating the ceremony, purifies the body of the eater and brings him into union with God. I admit that Jesus has been represented as saying something on this point, but it scarcely seems to convey the idea and beliefs that underlie the Church conception of the communion \u2013the at-one-ment<\/em> of the votary with the Lord by his participation in the supper. The idea is pagan, pure and simple, in its origin as well as in its conception.\u201d (pp. 57-58).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBe the memory of Muhammad glorified and remain evergreen! To keep his religion free from all pagan ideas and rituals, he would not allow his followers to say any prayer at the time when the sun assumes a conspicuous phase in his diurnal course. We Muslims have been enjoined to say our prayers five times a day. But we have been forbidden to say any prayer just exactly at the time when the sun rises, or at the time when it sets, or at the time when it passes the meridian, so that the Muslim Prayer may not become identified with Sun-worship. Islam is the only religion which did not need any incorporation of the existing ideas. It stood rather against them, if they were wrong, and tried to demolish them; yet the religion prevailed and purged the world of its polytheistic rituals and practices \u2013those of Sun-worship\u2013 among them while the religion of Jesus, through hands unworthy of the name of the Master, became absolutely metamorphosed into the pagan cult. They retained the name of Jesus, no doubt, but so did the worshippers of Apollo when he became the favorite deity after Mithra. The Mithraic cult flourished centuries before the Apollo-worship, but the two faiths are one and the same, the difference being in name. Apollo had to represent Mithra in the whole cult, and so Jesus was taken as a substitute for Apollo in Rome, but the cult was in all other respects the same \u2013the same birthday, the same Virgin-birth, and Immaculate conception, the same baptism, the same Eucharist, the same Passion Story, the same descent into hell, the same resurrection and ascension into heaven, the same Easter-day merriments, the same sign of the Lamb, the same hot-cross buns, the same eggs, the same Sunday \u2013the Roman Dies Solis\u2013 the Day of the Sun, the Lord\u2019s day, and the same phraseology and philosophy, as I will show in the ensuing chapter, apart from several festivals of the Catholic Calendar, which have been traced to the sky-scriptures.\u201d (pp.59-60).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe scholar may attempt to explain away the palpable similitude, as suggested by the early Fathers, but \u201cthe Pagans had their Christ everywhere, including India. The miraculous birth, the Immaculate \u00a0 conception, the birthplace, the star, the song of the heavenly host at the birth, the child God presented with gifts, the slaughter of the innocent, the temptations, the fast of forty days, the Crucifixion and the death to redeem mankind, the descent into Hell and ascension; the Second Coming, the anointed as Judge of the dead, the Alpha and Omega, the Trinity, in different accents and stress, are the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

The learned author of Bible Myths<\/em> lucidly draws some analogies between Jesus and Buddha. It should not be forgotten that not only does there exist remarkable similarity in the teachings of the two, but some of the parables and precepts that we find in the Gospels had been given, word by word by Buddha, some five hundred years before Jesus. The records of Buddha are not entirely unapocryphal, or altogether consistent, but the main features are the same everywhere.\u201d (pp. 60-62).<\/span>
\n(On pp. 62-70 Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din notes from T.W. Doane, Bible Myths<\/em>, forty-eight(48) similarities between Jesus and Buddha, such as their<\/span><\/p>\n