Today is Easter. Colorful eggs (pagan tradition), bunnies and chicks (pagan symbols), and consuming dangerous levels of foamy sweetener in scary yellow bites (Peeps™). Let’s not forget the “meaning behind it”: The anniversary of yet another demi-god risen from the dead. I enjoy this take on that subject.
Anyway, why not use this day to remember others of the many born-to-a-virgin half-breed godlings whose power was recognized at adolescence, who grew to great renown at maturity, who were persecuted, exiled, and/or executed by the powers that be, and died and came back to life, somehow earning eternal reward for themselves and others. Like Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Adonis/Bacchus, Krishna, Dionysus…
Dan: Wilson's Almanac has charted out many of these similarities among the various gods who were allegedly born of virgins, were gods-on-earth, resurrected after death, etc etc.
http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/jesus_similar.html
A quote on the Wilson's Almanac home page: "… the Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun …"
Thomas Paine, 'Origin of Free-Masonry'
The site's home page features a lenghty video on the "solar gods." This is the first time I've heard such detailed claims about the astrological bases for the existence and lives of the "solar gods." Interesting claims that, if true, would suggest why there are so many similarities among the "solar gods."
You'll also hear of many fascinating claims of plagiarism in the video, as the narrator discusses the many attributes of the numerous "solar gods." Egyptian ideas that long pre-dated Christianity are posited as the basis for most of the ideas of Christianity.
The Bible itself is presented as an "astrotheological literary hybrid."
Although I found the first 40 minutes of this video worthwhile, it then turned into a 9/11 conspiracy video with which I vigorously disagree.