Yes that's very true and it also explains how ancient writings can become tainted after many hundreds of years of translation and modern cultural spin on words and phrases.

For the world it could be marriage. But for the actual act of being married, no. The vows is an act of professing your love for one another.

Johnny on the spot, you are. Well where Adan and Eve are concerned, I would guess that free will was for man, considering Adam may have had a choice where Eve did not - of course maybe it was Eve who expelled Lillith - didn't want the competition. Who knows maybe Lillith was a lesbian and Adam expelled her????

And in the very early days when LANGUAGE did not exist... How then were VOWS taken.

A man takes a woman as a wife. A woman takes a man as a husband. There is no need of the exchange of gold that a religion needs to promulgate its own agenda.

Nobody said that vows have to be "spoken". Could be sign language, or any form of communication two may have had in those days.

having sex would not be the sin....the sin would be to use birth control

Is Prsident Roosevelt a myth? OR just the history of events which he influenced?

Jesus may not be a myth despite the fact that many believe so.

Certainly the New Testament provides much information about life and lifestyles, at the time, which have proven accurate by many sources that are not specifically relavent to anything having to do with Chriatianity.

The problem we have with both the old and new testament is a nearly total lack of verification of 'events' which the bible documents.

While there is some evidence that Jesus existed (Josephus)there is no evidence to support the events directly related to Jesus' acts.

There have been several archeological discoveries of ancient cities that some think may be related to biblical stories. The problem is, that those cities may be way out of line in location and the findings also indicate that the names of cities are not the same. Often the reason the city ceased to exist does not equate to biblical accounts.

So at best, we know that the writers of the New Testament existed in close proximity of the time period they wrote about. Some prominant people and places are known to have existed and customs of those cultures are also accurately described in many other sources.

That's about it - so it comes down to understanding how historical events are determined to have taken place and understanding through research of many unconnected sources in support of the historical view.

Many attempt to equate the record of history with myth and certainly we need to be aware that slices of history can include misinforamtion and can even be used out of context for a specific purpose - such as the misdirection of propaganda.

This is why it's important to consider the source of a specific writing and a variety of information from the pool of historical archives before accepting the validity of any slice of history.

In the case of the bible, what we have is little more than supporting evidence of the accuracy of culture, some locations, and some prominant people of those times.

It takes quite a stretch of the imagination and a will to support a belief to conclude that the biblical history pertaining to Jesus or God is equal to the history of the time Roosevelt or even the development of the Church itself.

Understand that the Church and the Christian religion, like all great religions of our time, have a wealth of history and how they developed and evolved is no mystery.

However,there is a pool of historical evidence to suggest that Christian beliefs include a rich collection of beliefs that preceeded it.

We also know how many of those mythologies began (by men)and so the beliefs that seem to stem from the New Testament are accurately described as myth for the lack of historical support.

I think that because some Christians believe the Old Testament was rendered impotent by Jesus, there is a severe lack of understanding of Christianity itself. This is a great discovery for me because I better understand why and how the fundamentalist view of some Christians evolved.

The combination of the enmity portrayed in the NT between the Jews and the followers of Jesus and the idea that the OT was invalidated, seems to have given many Christians a lack of understanding of the major connecting themes between the Old and New Testament.



According the accepted values of the culture in biblical times, marriage was not about love. Marriage actually stemmed from betrothal which was the verbal contractual agreements between the families of the couple being betrothed. It didn’t even require a bride and groom to have an acquaintance with each other.



The actual act of marriage served two purposes. First, it was a fulfillment of the betrothal (contracts). Secondly, it was a spiritual act in which the couple agreed to bind their relationship to God with a vow to accept and commit to The Law of God.

That’s why adultery was such a major sin, because the two VOWED to accept and live by The Law, while fornication (between unmarried couples) included no such vow. So committing adultery is a higher order sin because it directly involves, and affronts, the spiritual bond between the couple and God. While the sin of fornication was between all other people who had not bonded their physical relationship spiritually with God.

It’s almost impossible to come to these conclusions by omitting the validity of the Old Testament, because accepting that the OT is invalid means, for many, that it (OT) is not necessary to understand their own Christianity.

Therefore, without acceptance and understanding of the OT, it is necessary to form a fundamentalist view. With such a view every verse in the bible is true without regard to context or overall themes that MUST extend form Old to New Testaments.

Genesis 1:28 is a blessing, not a commandment. Commandments are obeyed through actions and behaviors. Each commandment applies to everybody and everyone inherently has the ability to obey the commandments. There are many people who can't have children due to age, injury or congenital birth defects.

This scripture is often taken out of context by Christians to justify the ban on contraceptives or as another leg in their case against Homosexuals. In either case, they are wrong, because this verse is clearly a blessing and not a commandment. God is not telling Adam and Eve what they have to do, but what they were made to do as a couple.

Why is it that you don't then believe in Greek Mythology?

Why don't you believe in Wanka Tanka of the American Indians?

Why don't you believe in the Religions of the Aztecs and Incans, etc.

Why don't you believe in Hindusim?

Why don't you believe in Shamanism?

Why don't you believe in Witchcraft?

Why don't you believe in Faeries? You don't seem to have any problem believing in Angels.

All of these things have some historical basis and reflect the cultures from whence they arose.

I most certainly don't doubt that the Bible was written by human beings. And thus it's safe to assume that these humans did indeed write about their experiences, beliefs, and superstitions.

I believe in the Bible as much as I believe in anything else. Do I believe that the Bible is the "Commandments" of some jealous God? Of course not. Why should I? The stories in the Bible don't exhibit divine wisdom, IMHO. On the contrary they don't even exhibit the amount of wisdom that I personally possess, so why should I believe that these stories are the word of any male-chauvinistic God?

I don't believe that our creator would be a male-chauvinistic bigot.

Why should I believe that? I see that kind of mentality in humans as being immature and uneducated. Why should I believe that the creator of this universe is immature and uneducated?

We know that men make up creation myths. They do this all over the planet, the Israelites were no exception. In fact, they clearly even borrowed ideas from other cultures when they created their myths. The very idea that Jesus might have been a demigod is not a new idea. There were many myths of demigods that predate Jesus.

In fact, even the Christian Clergy who study these things are fully aware of this FACT. They attribute this to the idea that Satan knew ahead of time what God's plans were and purposefully created similar myths prior to the coming of Jesus in order to confuse men and throw doubt on the truth of Jesus' divinity.

I mean just look at how convoluted these excuses become in order to try to support these myths.

You'd need to believe that Satan KNOWS the mind of God and what God is going to do NEXT! That's giving Satan one hell of a lot of power over God.

I personally don't doubt that some guy named Jesus most likely lived, taught against the moral values of the Torah as the Gospels claim, and was crucified for blaspheme. I do not believe the hearsay rumors that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead.

You speak about history, but there are many things in history that people often question as well. And rightfully so. Even history becomes distorted with exaggeration. A lot of historians who teach history confess that much of what is actually in history books need to be taken with a grain of salt. Some of it may very well be rumors and/or exaggerations. Very few honest historians would demand that everything they have learned about history necessarily unfolded precisely the way that it has been recorded.

So why should Christians demand such foolishness from an extremely ancient text that has been KNOWN to have been edited and transcribes solely be people who are EXTREMELY BIASED toward a particular conclusion of what these texts are supposedly claiming?

The Biblical cannon is extremely BIASED.

In fact, if you're going to consider these things as HISTORY, then you MUST ALSO consider the FACT that the Jews themselves rejected this particular historical account! And that COUNTS for a LOT!

You can't just point to the Bible and say, "Here's HISTORY". That's bull crap. A large part of that HISTORY is the fact that both the Jews and the Arabs dismissed the Christian version of history and wrote their OWN versions of HISTORY.

And then you have the Catholics writings theirs, and the Protestants writing theirs, etc.

So if you want to view the Bible as a "PIECE" of history then you need to take into account all the other HISTORY that surrounds it!

I even take into consideration the fact that Mahayana Buddhism was a major factor at that time in HISTORY, and that they wouldn't even take in a disciple unless the disciple swore an oath to become a Bodhisattva.

As far as I can see, this philosophy fits Jesus to a "T".

Jesus didn't support the moral values of the Torah. Instead he supported the moral values and the parables of Buddhism. He taught like a Buddha, said things a Buddha would be expected to say, and even set up his own disciples to become Bodhisattvas just like he was.

So HISTORICALLY my conclusions make perfect sense as far as I'm concerned.

1. The Old Testament is entire fables with poor moral values.
(even Jesus didn't support the moral values of the Torah, and when he referred to it he referred to it as "Your Law", not "God's Law")

2. Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva, this makes perfect sense in terms of HISTORY and what was popular as a philosophy in that time period.

3. The New Testament is hearsay superstitious rumors that try to make Jesus out to be a demigod and the "sacrificial lamb" of the God of the Old Testament. Personally I feel that this is utterly absurd and doesn't even FIT into the the fables of the God of the Old Testament at all.

So all of my beliefs are solidly based on viewing all of this from a historical perspective.

I see no historical reason whatsoever to accept the outrageous claims made by the authors of the New Testament. Those claims don't even make any sense in terms of the previous Old Testament fables, much less any kind of rational sense.

Truly!

It's utterly absurd to claim that Biblical marriage has anything at all to do with any loved professed between the couple being married. Because the Biblical stories aren't love stories, they are stories about daughters being SOLD and TRADED as wives like cattle.

So the idea that Biblical marriage has anything at all to do with love is truly groundless.

The love didn't come into marriage until people started ignoring the kinds of traditions that existed in the culture that wrote the Bible.

So there we go! The biblical account of marriage is nothing at all like the more civilized and compassionate secular institution that marriage has ultimately become. And it is 'secular' too, even when being performed by Christians or religious people because they are no longer doing it the way it was done in the Bible.

They are applying BETTER STANDARDS to marriage! (i.e. LOVE)

So much for the Biblical version of God. That God didn't even care about love in terms of marriage at all. Not in the slightest.

The number of contradictions that continue to surface is just unbelievable. The entire biblical account of "God" is nothing but an cesspool of contradictions.

It's exceedingly simple. The historic events recorded in the Bible are confirmed by archeology. There is no other religion on earth that can make that claim. The Greeks never made it to the top of mount Olympus, but we have. There are no gods there. No city. No throne. No ambrosia. We know that storms aren't caused by giant birds. We know that modern witchcraft (Wicca) was created in the 1930's based on falsified theories. We know that faerie circles are actually fungus and not a supernatural event. Science has proven the Bible historically accurate, while shattering any historical credibility of other religions.

But that's a Christian lie right there.

The historical events recorded in the Bible have not been confirmed by archeology. The Biblical flood could not have possibly occurred as the Bible claims. There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Evidence that could not possibly exist if such a flood had occurred.

So if you're going to dismiss Greek Mythology because there are no Gods on Mt. Olympus, then you must also dismiss the Biblical Mythology because there was no world-wide catastrophic flood.

To teach otherwise is to support a lie. But for some reason Christians never seem to have any problem at all lying to support their mythology.




Once again, lies. You call other people's theories, "falsified", yet refuse to acknowledge when your own theories have been clearly falsified.

The Bible has thorns coming into existence on plants with mankind's fall from grace. Not only do we now know that thorns existed on plants that predate humans, but we also know that death, disease and all manner of imperfection also predate humans supposed "Fall from Grace".

Therefore the claims made in the biblical fables have indeed been falsified. To claim otherwise is a lie.

Clearly you're speaking "modern" witchcraft here, in fact your reference to 1930 implies Gerald Gardner's version. Even if you could find fault with his particular version that would hardly scratch the surface of this very ancient spiritual belief system and philosophy.

That would be like finding a modern "Gay Christian Church" and renouncing all of Christianity because you claim to have found where the idea of a "Gay Christian Church" is in contradiction with the biblical doctrine it is ultimately founded upon.

Gerald Gardner is not the spokesperson for Witchcraft anymore than Cowboy is the spokesperson for Christianity. It's just that Gardner attracted a lot of followers, is all, and that's why Gardner's form of Wicca has become the most popular today.

He was also the only witch to go through the paperwork and politics of filing to have his version of "Wicca" listed as a formally recognized religion.

Personally I wouldn't have bothered.

Post Genesis, many, if not most of the historical events are confirmed. Rulers, kingdoms and events have all been confirmed to some degree or another. There is even historical evidence for a great famine and a "Joseph" who was in charge of food distribution (which is recorded in Genesis). The spiritual events, like the flood and the burning bush, cannot be confirmed. There is some evidence for a world wide flood, but it's not anywhere near conclusive. The fact that you can point to one event and say "We don't have proof of that" doesn't mean that the Bible isn't historically accurate. There are many events and people that we first knew of through the Bible and later found archeological evidence for.

All of the branches of Wicca were invented in the 1930's. There is absolutely NO historical evidence that says otherwise. Your hypocrisy is in full display here. You deride Christianity as non-historical because of lack of evidence of a flood, but accept the claims that Wicca is an ancient religion based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever. I would be surprised, but now that I know that you freely claim to have "Studied Christianity for nearly 50 years", while you were actually just studying wacky new age religions and rehashes of ancient religions and claim that as authority on the Bible.

But that's not impressive at all. On the contrary we would EXPECT these stories to reflect the culture the people lived in.

In fact, you stated that no other religion can make that claim, but that's totally untrue. All mythologies from all societies reflect events that have actually occurred in the societies where the myths were written. So all religious myths have this in common, the biblical myth is no exception in any way.



Exactly, and this precisely why the Biblical myths are no different from any other superstitious mythologies in any way.



No, you misunderstand entirely. First off, there is no evidence for any world-wide flood of the catastrophic proportions of the Biblical fable. None. Period.

Moreover, there exists evidence that forbids any such flood to have occurred. Geneticists have obtained fossil records of the entire evolutionary picture of mankind on a global scale. If any such flood had existed the evidence they have found could not exit.

Therefore we don't merely have no evidence for a world-wide flood, but we actually have evidence that shows that no such flood could have taken place. So it's not just lack of evidence for a flood, but rather we have evidence that shows otherwise.



Again, not impressive at all. In fact the same could be said for other myths and stories. For example, at one time it was believed that the Trojan war and the fables of Helen of Troy was just a work of fiction, but since people have been searching for "evidence" of such an actual event they have indeed found "evidence". The question then becomes, "Is the evidence they found truly evidence for what they think it is?"

The very same thing is true for the Bible.

For example, supposed there was a very rare earthquake during an ancient battle. It wouldn't be surprising in the least that rumors, and subsequently STORIES, would be told suggesting that God caused this earth quake or even FORETOLD IT!

So then a millennium or two later people read these fables, go back and look and sure enough they found a city made of stone walls that obviously crumbled due to an earth quake, and guess what? That city is precisely in the location where these rumors claim it was!

Holy CRAP! The rumors must be TRUE! God must have FORETOLD the earthquake!!!!!!!!

Yeah right.

Of course we'd EXPECT these kinds of events to be the source of mythologies. There's no surprise there at all. Not in the least.

I'm have no problem believing that the story of the great flood was indeed inspired by some catastrophic flood somewhere. The story of an Ark being built to save the animals species is a bit overkill. But it was necessary to add this to the story since the fable took on the unrealistic agenda that it was supposed to be God killing off all the sinners.

And you just said yourself:



Well we also know that floods aren't caused by angry gods either.

So where's the difference?

That is absolute utter baloney. Do you honestly expect ANYONE to believe that Gerald Gardner entirely made up Witchcraft in 1930?



Who's being a hypocrite here?

The only reason I deride Christianity is because it's an arrogant bigoted religion that continually derides all other faiths, INCLUDING it's own sister religions!

One thing you fail to realize is that even if you could confirm parts of the biblical folklore you'd still be STUCK with the highly unpleasant FACT, that you end up SUPPORTING, Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism with EQUAL vigor as you try to make a case for Protestant Christian bigotry in the name of Jesus.

You people are the one's who are constantly deriding everyone else's religions (even including other Abrahamic religoins!).

But then when someone gives you a sip of your own bigoted medicine you puke.

Now you see how the rest of the world views YOUR constant arrogance and bigotry as you deride against THEIR religions and faiths!

Welcome to the MIRROR!

The other important concept here too is that you clearly don't even begin to comprehend what a religion like Wicca is even about.

It's not a dogmatic religion like Christianity. It doesn't even rely on the same kinds of dogmatic principles that the Abrahamic religions are based on.

It expresses a spiritual philosophy, that cannot even be said to be 'falsifiable'.

It would be like someone proclaiming that a particular day is "Beautiful" and you are trying to claim that their view is 'falsifiable'.

To claim that the foundational philosophy of Wicca is 'falsifiable' is to show a blatant ignorance and misunderstanding of the spirituality.

I think in terms of Gardenarian Wicca it has necessarily become attached to a 'doctrine'. The reason being quite simple. Gardener's entire purpose was to have his spiritual views accepted by a bureaucratic government as an "officially recognized religion". To accomplish this required writing down what his religious beliefs consisted of. And that's a very difficult thing to do in Wicca.

I personally do not care for Gardner's approach to documenting his beliefs. If I were going to write something up for Wicca it would be significantly different from what Gardner wrote.

In fact, my views on Wicca might not even be accepted by the government as being a "religion". After viewing my views they might reject it as a 'religion' and simply classify it as a philosophy instead.

I think Gardner was hemmed in by what the government required in terms of a 'religion'. I think Gardner felt that he had to include a 'Goddess figure' in an almost "Christian" sense of a personified Godhead.

I wouldn't have given in to that kind of requirement. But then again, it has always been totally irrelevant to me whether the government officially recognizes my spiritual philosophy anyway, so I really would have no need to cater to their requirements.

It'd just say, fine, don't recognize it then. I don't care.

No, you assume that. You honestly seem to believe that if you don't believe something, it can't be true. It's sad really, that you are so incredibly closed minded. Tell me, if a God existed, why wouldn't that God be able to cause a flood?

As to the rest of your post... Your question was why we don't accept Greek Mythology. I should have been more wise and not jumped into this with you. Historicity is a very weak reason to believe in a religion, but it is only one of the reasons I accept Christianity. While some points of Greek Mythology can be confirmed to archeology, Greek Mythology fails to met the rational test.

A strong point for Christianity to me is that the people described in the Bible, act like real people. Jesus is incredibly well fleshed out as a person. The disciples and followers of Jesus risked their very lives to hold their faith. What stronger evidence could exist that the disciples weren't lying than the fact that they didn't recant their faith to save their own lives?

The story of Jesus isn't presented as mythology would be presented. Jesus' own mother and brother denied his god-hood. That's a pretty damning piece of information right there. If Christianity were a myth, why wouldn't that be changed to claim that Jesus was immediately accepted as divine by his family? His mother was even told in a dream that he was divine, but she later rejected that idea. That's normal human behavior. We rationalize away the miraculous, unless we hold onto the constantly reaffirm the miraculous in our life.

Look at the lesson's Jesus taught. His insight into life after death was earth shattering. How he took two scriptures combined to show that there was life after death, why would anyone who came up with that teaching accredit it to someone else? Any Sadducee would have been delighted to use that logic to prove the Pharisees wrong. In that culture, every Rabbi taught by saying "Rabbi soandso said this..." If you had created that lesson, you would quickly become famous throughout the Jews, because of the very clever use of those two verses. Why give up that fame, fortune and respect to create a myth, which could result in your own death?