I'm not sure that I asked the question clearly enough in the OP.
When discussing flaws in Christianity, is it valid to state that the Bible draws heavily on pagan myths in the construction of what we now consider to be the life of Jesus? The provided link would say "no," other sources say "yes."
The link you provided was interesting, however there is the
usual reason behind the thinking employed by the author, namely, that the author is obviously
christian.
At that point of recognition one is dealing with a biased viewpoint, the defence of the person's own faith.
Because of the nature of faith based enquiry, this has to be taken into account when reading it . Faith uses bias to support its own claims. It has to. Otherwise it suffers....(loses converts).
It is not an objective viewpoint, is it?
However subtle the words the author uses and the reference points they provide, the bias shows clearly in the general direction and goals that the author tries to guide the reader towards .
In this case additionally the references seem to be biased towards books that were published a long time ago, as if old books are,
by default, unsurpassable by current knowledge.
Thats often a common clue as to what type of evidence the author accepts, that is, evidence that supports by cherry picking the claim put foward.
How come there is no material on the site that he can find that opposes the viewpoint he holds?
As for the validity of the case itself, those findings that indicate that earlier texts of comparable or assimilated belief existed before even the OT was compiled in the hands of the particular tribe that is purported to "have the truth", probably do have some
relevance on the cultural inheritance of that tribe (in this case the Jews).
In modern times christian teaching either ignores these findings, or tries to erroniously and clumsily fit the earlier writings into some sort of catagory that incorrectly considers them to be supportive.
This misses the point, and is an attempt to brainwash the convert into thinking the wrong way round when regarding the historically contextual implication of the discovery of earlier, similar, works .
Earlier religions and ancient writings that have what looks like simliarities to the early christian faith fall into catagories;
1/ Coincidently similar, as in a byproduct of the human brain that process the world view held, and arrives at a faith based on that. ie sungods (the sun is the common denominator), fear of death or some other common factor that humans share by experience.
2/ Inherited from an earlier culture, as in passed down to the current culture through imposition through invason, or inheritance, or contact with an culture that already holds the worldview through trading and interbreeding.
Of course if Christian-inanity had
not pursued the ideology of its own originality and sacredness in particular, it would lose (or not gain so many) converts most likely, so to keep its own definition the meme has to defend itself by refutation based on any (biased) viewpoint it can use (and thats any viewpoint that humans can find) to outright deny, obscure and deflect what it considers a threat to its existance.
And there are real threats to the particular christian faith, and they
will not go away.
Classic stuff really and very very common in the defence systems of
religious mind viruses generally.....
As to whether the
mythical Jesus was or was not pagan, that only is relevant within the mindset of the convert.
If one considers the existance of Jesus an irrelevant nonsense, then it is only seen as infighting between the deluded faithful.
Surely they have better things to do?..............maybe not.
