RetroActive said:Have you ever studied Pythagoras at all rhub.? Mystery schools (Eleusinian for ex.)? I'm afraid what you're doing in your strict adherence to "the facts" (which change, and are historically conflicted) is reducing a multidimensional story down to too fine a point and missing the point entirely. Rather like saying a dodecahedron is simply a pentagon.
We're talking about stories that are filled with symbolism, analogy and metaphor with what we today would call fractally embedded information that pertains to the human experience of consciousness.
Do you think that every polymath, every "genius" throughout history up to and including Newton (and beyond) was reading and interpreting these myths factually?
Today we still don't truly understand consciousness, light, gravity, magnetism, electro magnetism, the sun etc. We have some facts but that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" remains true. Life is a mystery, a miracle beyond our discernment.
To me the story of Christ on the cross is the story of the sun on it's annual journey. The benevolent sun that gives of itself freely, without distinction so that life is constantly renewed. To me the story is about our consciousness being trapped on the cross of matter, in earth, on earth. It's about the potential to see beyond our individuated self, to transform our perspective, our way of being from petty distinctions and opinions to one of empathy, compassion and love. It's about the potential to know peace within oneself, for the eternal conflict within man to find balance, harmony within oneself. For heart and mind to be as one. To grow beyond the individuated ego in awareness.
It doesn't really matter to me if there was a historic Christ or not. It's about the message not the messenger. That message is a step up from eye for an eye tribalism. Maybe someday we'll realize the message but it's a world of individuals in love with distinctions. It's interesting to attempt to see beyond that though.![]()
I could go on but I'm hung-over.![]()
Oh, please, I am well aware of the symbolic meanings behind the imagery of Christ-Sol Invictus, Christ-Philosopher-Teacher, Christ-Cosmic Emperor, as well as Mithras-Sol and that of the Neopathogoreans, the Dionysian elysian rights and the whole private mystery-savior religion mania that gripped the ancients at the time Paul began his religion.
My point was other, in looking at this phenomenon not in light of the iconographic elements, focused as they were upon the sun and other astronomical and calendar symbolism. Rather it was the result of conclusions about how a religion is historically constructed: in this sense an inquiry on the origins of Christianity.