Christendom Exposed by News Report >:D

[Bro.David Drake DeLaurento]

News24 Reports

I simply want to expose the pagan rituals still very much alive in Christianity today.

Mithraism - Yet another Jesus-like story

In Part 3 we covered the striking similarities between Jesus and Horus. It is also worth reading up on Mithraism, which I will summarise below:

1)  Hundreds of years before Jesus, according to the Mithraic religion, three Wise Men of Persia came to visit the baby savior-god Mithra, bring him gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense.

2)  Mithra was born on December 25 as told in the “Great Religions of the World”, page 330; “…it was the winter solstice celebrated by ancients as the birthday of Mithraism’s sun god”.

3)  According to Mithraism, before Mithra died on a cross, he celebrated a “Last Supper with his twelve disciples, who represented the twelve signs of the zodiac.

4)  After the death of Mithra, his body was laid to rest in a rock tomb.

5)  Mithra had a celibate priesthood.

6)  Mithra ascended into heaven during the spring (Passover) equinox (the time when the sun crosses the equator making night and day of equal length).

In Mithraism, Sundays were regarded as holy, much like Christians regard the sabbath to be on Sundays, while it is in fact on Saturday.

I think we have sufficiently covered that the story of Jesus is not unique.

The True Meaning of Christmas

The customs of Christmas pre-date the birth of Christ. The date of December 25th comes from Rome and was a celebration of the Italic god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god.

It was noted by the pre-Christian Romans and other pagans, that daylight began to increase after December 22nd, when they assumed that the sun god died. These ancients believed that the sun god rose from the dead three days later as the new-born and venerable sun. Thus, they figured that to be the reason for increasing daylight.

The evergreen tree was a symbol of the essence of life and was regarded as a phallic symbol in fertility worship. (Keep in mind your children are decorating a penis when you let them put up the tree this year.)

Some people also think the tree represents Thor's Oak, where humans were sacrificed to Thor.

Pagans regarded the red holly as a symbol of the menstrual blood of the queen of heaven, also known as Diana.

The white berries of mistletoe were believed by pagans to represent droplets of the semen of the sun god.

Both holly and mistletoe were hung in doorways of temples and homes to invoke powers of fertility in those who stood beneath and kissed, causing the spirits of the god and goddess to enter them.

The Roman church was so desperate to spread Christianity that they invited the pagan tribes to bring their customs along. The church then absorbed these customs to increase the number of people under their control.

The Origins of Easter

The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess. She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. 

In Part 3 I mentioned the god Attis, another virgin-born god remarkably similar to Jesus. Attis was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period 22 - 25 March. He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection.

Wherever Christian worship of Jesus and Pagan worship of Attis were active in the same geographical area in ancient times, Christians: "... used to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on the same date; and pagans and Christians used to quarrel bitterly about which of their gods was the true prototype and which the imitation."

If things had turned out just a little differently during the course of History, it seems all you Christians could have been Attisians, with little to no change in your religion!

The name "Easter" and the traditions actually represent several godly couples: Tammuz and Ishtar (Babylon), Attis and Cybele (Phrygian), Adonis and Astarte (Phoenician), Baal and Ashtoreth (Canaanite Israel). They are all linked to fertility, including todays Easter celebrations. (Notice how similar the names sound to Easter, that's no coincidence.)

The Easter Bunny and Eggs

The Teutonic deity Eostra was the goddess of spring and fertility, and feasts were held in her honor on the Vernal Equinox. Her symbol was the rabbit because of the animal’s high reproduction rate. (The chocolate manufacturers can make those bunnies look as cute as they want, it's still all about the pagan goddess.)

Spring also symbolized new life and rebirth; eggs were an ancient symbol of fertility.

Birthdays

You didn't see this one coming did you? If you celebrate your birthday, you are partaking in a pagan ritual. 

Birthdays are mentioned 3 times in the Bible (Gen. 40:1-23, Matt. 14:3-11, Job 1:4-5), and in each case, something bad happened. I think the message is that if you celebrate your birthday, bad things will happen.

Also, the gifts given to the baby Jesus are not birthday gifts. It was an ancient custom during that time to give gifts when you were in the presence of a king. According to the bible, the baby Jesus was seen as a king.

Then where did birthday celebrations come from? The answer is from the pagan practice of astrology. 

In ancient Egypt, the pharaohs ordered businesses to close on their birthdays and gave enormous feasts for hundreds of servants. In ancient Greece, wealthy males joined birthday clubs composed exclusively of men who shared their birth date. Once a month, the club celebrated with a feast. In Persia, noblemen observed their birthdays by barbecuing an ox, a camel and a donkey and serving hundreds of small cakes to the celebrants.

The Greeks believed that everyone had a protective spirit or daemon who attended his birth and watched over him in life. This spirit had a mystic relation with the god on whose birthday the individual was born. 

The Romans also subscribed to this idea. This notion was carried down in human belief and is reflected in the guardian angel, the fairy godmother and the patron saint. The custom of lighted candles on the cakes started with the Greeks. Honey cakes round as the moon and lit with tapers were placed on the temple altars of the god Artemis. Birthday candles, in folk belief, are endowed with special magic for granting wishes. Lighted tapers and sacrificial fires have had a special mystic significance ever since man first set up altars to his gods. The birthday candles are thus an honor and tribute to the birthday child and bring good fortune.

Saying “happy birthday” to friends and loved ones was society’s superstitious way of protecting them from evil spirits. Birthday thumps, bumps, pinches, etc., were said to bring luck and send away evil spirits. Party snappers, horns and other noisemakers were also intended to scare off bad-luck spirits.

Conclusion

Be aware of the pagan roots of many of your christian customs as these are simply a few of them. 

The scary thing is, your pastor will know of the pagan origins, but gladly celebrate the pagan feast with you. 

Do you believe these feasts are Christian? Perhaps you're just making it seem more Christian by saying a quick prayer before indulging in the pagan festivities?

If you take your own belief seriously, don't celebrate Christmas, not even giving gifts or having a big meal. All of that is part of the pagan tradition, whether you agree or not.

[pucca]

This section on the series of reports was good. The other parts are not. Thank you for sharing.

[Bro.David Drake DeLaurento]

My wife said a comment that I'm sure that Jehovah made her analyze. Every time one of his creations celebrates or participates in a pagan custom with idolatrous origins, meaning the majority of mankind, Satan mocks and scoffs in Jehovah's face. We can just imagine how Jehovah feels that his children are worshipping some body else than him.

To get a perspective, Imagine if you were a loving parent and your children decided to go live with your neighbor after everything you have done for them. And You know your neighbor is wrong by his conduct and his lifestyle. That's heart breaking. Imagine that multiplied millions or billions of time in over thousands of years. We only imagine that type of sorrow. Now, imagine that when he has to punish his children soon in Armageddon. That is true sorrow.

[CMWYW]

News24 Reports

I simply want to expose the pagan rituals still very much alive in Christianity today.

Mithraism - Yet another Jesus-like story

In Part 3 we covered the striking similarities between Jesus and Horus. It is also worth reading up on Mithraism, which I will summarise below:

1)  Hundreds of years before Jesus, according to the Mithraic religion, three Wise Men of Persia came to visit the baby savior-god Mithra, bring him gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense.

2)  Mithra was born on December 25 as told in the “Great Religions of the World”, page 330; “…it was the winter solstice celebrated by ancients as the birthday of Mithraism’s sun god”.

3)  According to Mithraism, before Mithra died on a cross, he celebrated a “Last Supper with his twelve disciples, who represented the twelve signs of the zodiac.

4)  After the death of Mithra, his body was laid to rest in a rock tomb.

5)  Mithra had a celibate priesthood.

6)  Mithra ascended into heaven during the spring (Passover) equinox (the time when the sun crosses the equator making night and day of equal length).

In Mithraism, Sundays were regarded as holy, much like Christians regard the sabbath to be on Sundays, while it is in fact on Saturday.

I think we have sufficiently covered that the story of Jesus is not unique.

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Are you saying that the apostles borrowed some Mithraism to add into there gospels? Gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense, before Mithra died on a cross stake, he celebrated a “Last Supper with his twelve disciples,his body was laid to rest in a rock tomb,ascended into heaven.

[rbrown1205]

I can see that the things that make true Christianity unique and different from Mithra worship are the things that the scriptures precisely outline.

For instance, that Jesus was born from a virgin came from Isaiah's prophecy, and that he was born in Bethlehem came from the prophecy of Micah., centuries before Rome came to power.

Persian astrologers going to see a child king may not be unique to Jesus' account - the Persians through their astrology believe in the influence of the stars on human actions. But a clear examination of that account shows that Satan sent the star, and drew the astrologers, and it was a plot by him to kill Jesus.

I knew that the change from Saturday to Sunday was done by Rome, but didn't know that it was related to Mithra - I had thought that this change, along with the tradition of the use of pork and ham during Easter, was in order to separate the church of Rome from the Law of Moses.

Satan is a copycat. Jehovah isn't.

[Greenfield]

This news story is interesting but some parts are inaccurate because they go too far and claim that things that are in the Bible are copied from Mithraism. But it is interesting that others see the paganness of birthdays, etc. Still, I would use other sources to prove to non-Witnesses the pagan origin of Christmas and so forth.

[Bro.David Drake DeLaurento]

Satan is a copycat. Jehovah isn't.

WOW I LIKE THAT!!! Now, you know Im going to use that phrase in a conversation soon. ( You better copyright it)

[Hallett 82]

.

Satan is a copycat. Jehovah isn't.

Reminded me of an old casette tape of a drama decades ago where Moses & Aaron started the warnings of 10 plagues and all the Egyptian magicians could do to counter Jehovah's action was to replicate the plagues. They made more frogs, gnats and Gad flies. . and even Pharoah got impatient with their stupidity and said. . Jehovah has made these things . . now I need you to stop them. . or are you useless? LOL

They could only copy too. The only thing original about Satan is his capacity to do evil.

[LynnC]

That's the drama titled Jehovah's Name to be Declared in all the Earth.You can download it here: http://download.jw.org/files/media_dramas/iajn_E_01.mp3

This is off topic, but, I have that on my Kindle and listen to it quite frequently. I was thinking the other day, what if the Brother who was the voice of Pharaoh in the drama was in your congregation? Or the Brother who was the voice of Jehovah? Every time he gave a talk I would freak out!