Felicity Chicane wrote: The fictional story of Jesus is based on the fictional Sun God "Horus".
(snipped)
Christianity is fiction.
Bro, you're a novice at this, trust me. I'm quite sure I have looked into these issues far more seriously than you have. Why do I say that? Because it is likely that you were already a sceptic, and merely looked for some info to prove what you already believed to be true. This would mean you found some info that satisfied you and your search was effectively over. For me, it was not that simple. This was not a hunt merely to disprove something, but a search for truth, wherever it lead me. For this reason, I had ALOT of investigating to do.
Horus is only one of myriad myths which find similarities in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection. Look up Mithra, a deity in Zoroastrianism. Or Dionysus, the greek deity, whose mother was mortal and father was the king of the gods. There are too many to list really. And why limit this to Jesus? The Epic of Gigamesh very neatly parallels the Old Testament account of the flood, in more than a dozen ways, easily, from a flood due to wickedness, to an order to build a boat, complaining about the mission, bringing all species of animals on board, the flood coming, sending birds out, landing on a mountain, offering a sacrifice immediately afterward, and others.
All we can do is make suppositions where myth accounts like this parallel. Are they ALL myths? Is there a mixture of truth and myth? Do they copy from one another? Is it really myth or a shared ancestral memory? Is it a revelation of God to many cultures, assimilating itself to each particular culture, using names common to that culture? There are any number of possibilities.
But here is the real issue...
These similarities, myth or not, are used to "prove" that Jesus never existed. This is perfectly false. Jesus DID exist, and there is historical documentation, even by non-christian historians to prove that he did.
Accepting this fact, was Jesus a prophet? A miracle worker and healer? A mystic? Did his disciples expand upon his history, recognizing similarities in Greek myths and others as well?
Two things are certain:
1) Jesus existed
2) His followers believed in his divine nature, to the point that nearly to a man, they willingly accepted death as martyrs for the sake of testifying to the things they claimed were true and that they personally witnessed.
That doesn't in itself, mean that they were right in who they believed Jesus to be, but it certainly means they BELIEVED it absolutely. They faced death, because in witnessing the resurrected Jesus, they were absolutely convinced that He had power over death. They trusted that they had no need to fear death, because he had conquered it, and that gave them faith, that they would as well. That in itself doesn't mean they were right. After all, Muslim suicide bombers die almost daily with the same belief.
I doubt that you really care to delve into this any deeper, and we are not going to change each other's opinions, but you should recognize at least, that Jesus WAS an historical and ACTUAL human being, who lived and assembled followers, and upon which one of the largest faiths in the world, sprang forth from.
You have acceptably logical reasons to doubt the veracity of many claims about Jesus. But stay within logic, and at least recognize HE WAS.
...later ...
