Talk:Christianity and paganism

Good idea

I think this article has good potential, and I look forward to seeing what you develop here. -- Pastordavid 16:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a good idea for an article but I think it is misnamed. Check out the wiki pagan article and you will see it is a term that would not have been recognised in the early days of Christianity. In actual fact the term Pagan is a Christian term - used in a derogatory way. None of the groups currently identified would have called themselves pagan at the time the Gospels were being cooked up. Sophia 17:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeh... OK, so that's my Christian background showing. But what would you title this article then? I'm at a loss to come up with a better title. --Richard 18:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

How about Extra-biblical influences on Christianity? George 18:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Nope - we'd have to write about the Pope then ;o) - I'll have a think and get back to you as I agree it's not easy. Sophia 20:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm not sure that is a problem with this aritlce. :) George 17:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

As extra-biblical influences on Christianity go they don't come bigger ;o) Sophia 17:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, very comprehensive for a starup. I hope it does well. George 18:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Look at this definition of Pagan, I think it is appropriate to use the word for the title of this article.Kljenni 04:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, what about something on the consumer mindset of churchgoers? Zantaggerung 20:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the above suggestion reveals a flaw in the title. What's really meant here is "Pagan influences on early Christianity". Secular influences of the 20th and 21st centuries are really out of the scope of the article as I originally envisioned it. --Richard 05:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Zantaggerung, I am interested, what do you propose? Ice9Tea 17:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

the article needs to clearer distinguish between influence on mythology and on doctrine, between influence by pre-Christian religion on 1st century scripture (gospels, acts), the syncretism with Hellenistic and Roman religion in the 2nd to 4th centuries, and the influence of pagan and Gnostic religion on later Christianity (veneration of saints, Marian apparitions etc.) Most of this is or should be treated on other articles, such as Christian mythology, folk Christianity, Christianity and Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, Fathers of Christian Gnosticism, Christianity and Freemasonry, Germanic Christianity, Hellenic philosophy and Christianity and Jesus Christ as myth. dab (𒁳) 12:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Disputation

Tons of problems. Declares ancient Christianity a mystery religion right off the bat, which is in no way a fact. Declares the Old Testamant "mythology" which is POV, has far too many fringe conjectures not labeled as such (Buddhism, secret initiates before Paul ect...), too many weasly statements like "has been suggested" and "is being debated". I can also see nowhere where the scholarly consensus is given on any of the issues. Come on guys, clean it up. Roy Brumback 08:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

feel free to help. This isn't more than a crude outline so far, and needs lots of attention to flower into a useful article. dab (𒁳) 16:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no conceivable way that Christianity has anything to do with any mystery religion. Of course one would have to know the nature of Christianity to understand this. Take for example Mithra. He was born before any humans existed on earth. Mithra has nothing to do with any historical figure. This particular mystery religion changes with time. The Mithra of one year shows no comparison with the Mithra later in time. Mithra didn't die. It is basically a polytheistic religion. Let's now look at Christianity. Jesus was born in time. There were actually historical figures that come up in stories of His existance. Jesus died and was resurrected. The Christian God, unlike any polytheistic religion, is One. There are no other gods besides Him. Mithra is a myth. Jesus is a fact of life.Anathasius (talk) 04:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Christianity is mythology by the definition of mythology. Wiktionary:

Mythology - A similar body of myths concerning an event, person or institution.

Myth - A story of a great but unknown age which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; an ancient story of a god, a hero, the origin of a race, etc.; a wonder story of prehistoric origin.

Negi(afk) (talk) 20:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

---

I dont like that the title automatically suggests 'right off the bat' that Christianity is correct while all other are false (pagan) —Preceding unsigned comment added by KazuoBR (talk • contribs) 19:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope, it refers to the relationships between Christianity and certain other specified religions during a certain period -- not the contrast between Christianity and all other religions. AnonMoos 19:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The simple fact is that any Roman or scholar of classics will tell you that Christianlity was, in fact, considered a mystery cult and was started as a cult within Judaism. The Old Testament is mythology. If something cannot be proven with facts and it is taken to be truth without any presence of said facts, then it is considered mythological. The evidence is very clear about Christianity borrowing extensively from so-called Pagans and the Mithraic myths of a virgin birth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.15.20.102 (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

please read our mythology article. --dab (𒁳) 18:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Get real

I'm afraid this article, like some of you writers, is quite mistaken. A lot of evidence shows that Christianity started in the first century AD. Mithraism, which was different from the original Persian Mithraism, was also too likely a copycat of Christianity used by the Roman Empire shortly after Christianity began. Atheism, in many ways, is equivalent to racism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevin j (talk • contribs) 21:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

wow, that's textbook non-sequitur. I just read this about four times, and can see no way this makes any sense at all. --dab (𒁳) 10:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeh, I don't get the "Atheism is equivalent to racism" as following from the rest, either. Nonetheless, the points made by Kevin_j could be included if he can cite reliable sources to back up this Point Of View.

--Richard 15:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe that Kevin_j was trying to directly respond to anonymous IP 66.15.20.102's comments above... AnonMoos 16:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

My (unlearned) opinion is that both are valid POVs. If this article suggests that Christianity IS or IS NOT a mystery cult based on Mithraism, it has gone off the rails regarding NPOV. This article should present both POVs without giving undue weight to either one, cite the sources and then let the reader decide. --Richard 16:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any dichotomy of two povs here. Mithraism and Early Christianity have influenced one another. The question is not "yes or no", but in what ways and to what extent. A position of "first there was Mithraism, and then Christianity came along and ripped it off" is silly. The actual situation is that both movements originated more or less simultaneously, and out of the same Roman vogue for mystery religions. They existed alongside each other for full two centuries as parallel and competing 'underground' cults. Influence will have passed both ways, and showing that Christianity influenced Mithraism does by no means imply that Mithraism did not also influence Christianity, much to the contrary, it establishes interaction. Christianity only took off and marginalized Mithraism in the mid-to-late 4th century. --dab (𒁳) 16:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

There may have been some influences, but I imagine that they were somewhat tangential as far as Christianity was concerned, because of the very great differences between the two -- such as Mithraism being an all-male mystery religion with elaborate degrees of initiation, while Christian services were always open to all men and women who had been baptized (as opposed to Catechumens); Mithraism being strongest among the professional army, while Christianity was strongest among the urban lower classes; Mithra was not claimed to have lived during any particular known historical period, while Jesus was born under Augustus and died under Claudius etc. etc. There were other influences on early Christianity (such as a general cultural climate of asceticism among those spiritually seeking) which I imagine were far more important than Mithraism.

Meanwhile, the main point of IP 66.15.20.102's remarks was actually that Jesus never existed at all as a historical person, but was a purely mythological Dying God figure like Adonis -- so in that respect IP 66.15.20.102's remarks are in fact completely incompatible with Kevin_j's remarks -- and Kevin_j appears to believe that 66.15.20.102 was motivated more by a hatred of Christians than a disinterested pursuit of knowledge... AnonMoos 20:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Reworking intro

Although I started this article, I haven't reviewed it for a long time. After re-reading the intro today, it did seem disputable because it makes bald assertions about the origins of Christianity being in Paganism. I have reworded the intro to make it clear that this is ONE theory about the origins of Christianity and not necessarily "THE TRUTH".

I haven't reviewed the rest of the article to clean up POV issues but I do believe it should be made clear that the material presented in this article are theories (and non-mainstream minority ones at that).

--Richard 16:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge

Since we have this article anyway, I think it would be appropriate to merge some of the content of the old Historical Persecution by Christians here. Regardless whether the article is called this or Christian debate on persecution and toleration, it would be undue to debate the relations between Christians and Pagans in detail there; But I suppose that from a Neopagan perspective there is some interest in the topic, and in this article we would have enough space for that. Zara1709 (talk) 11:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Scope

OK, this is quite important. What is the intended scope of this article? With the current intro, it takes "Paganism" as a sort of reference for any ""primitive"", "tribal", indigenous religion. I don't know it that is actually a correct use of the word "Paganism", after all the word "Paganism" is a little pejorative. Hey, you dumb villagers haven't converted to Christianity yet? But - for the lack of a better term - Paganism was used in the (few) articles and books I read Persecution by Christians in the late Roman Empire, and since there seems to be a greater interest on WP to take a look at the relations between Christians and Pagans (people apparently care less about the Christian heretics), I thought that it would be best to centralize this topic here (instead of having it split out at various 'Christinization' and 'Persecution' articles. of course, there were conflicts and cooperation between Christians and Pagans and debating one without the other should be avoided (for wp:NPOV and such). The relations between Christianity and the indigenous religions outside Europe is a different topic. I really hope that I don't need to point out that there is a difference between Christianity and the Europeans in general. Probably I am going to rewrite the into to something more like the previous version. Zara1709 (talk) 17:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that "paganism" is a rather biased term (unless used in as a term of endearment in the way that neo-pagans have adopted it), I don't see how the syncretism between Christianity and European indigenous religions is that much of a "different topic" than syncretism with non-European indigenous religions. Of course, each particular culture that converted Christianity brought their own unique traditions and influences to their local form of the religion, but if we're looking at broader trends, there's not much of a rift between "Western" and "non-Western" except perhaps in terms of length of time. That's not really that clear cut either, as the Lithuanians were only Christianized a few decades before, say, the Kongo or the Aztecs. Meanwhile, other non-European indigenous cultures were only Christianized within the past hundred years. If you look closely, the way in which the "pagan" Europeans interacted with Christianity and the native peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa and the New World did take on some suprising comparisons. --173.59.59.164 (talk) 01:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Opinions of those writing the article

Hi Folks, At the beginning of this article it mentioned how there are many opinions and disagreements on the content of the article. As I read over this talk page I realized that there was actually no one that took the Catholic side of the discussion. Everyone appeared to be, if not anti Catholic, then they had no sympathies with the Catholic Church. I suggest that the reason there is so much dissension in the article is because the article is very inaccurate. You unquestionably need someone on the Catholic side to balance off the topic. I do volunteer to be that person if I'm allowed to do so.Anathasius (talk) 05:30, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

No references/citations

Just wanted to leave a note that I put the {{Unreferenced}} box on the article page. Can somebody get the references done? Cuine100 (talk) 05:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Christianity vs. Catholicism

These are not the same thing. "Catholicism and Paganism" would be a much more apt title. 72.240.177.210 (talk) 21:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

what are you talking about? There was no schism between Eastern and Western Christianity prior to the High Middle Ages, and by that time there was hardly any paganism left. This is obviously about pre-schism Christianity. --dab (𒁳) 22:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)