WWMD

I finished reading the Da Vinci Code. I'm avoiding a normal book review, because I frankly couldn't care less about Holy Grails and secret documents exposing the lies of the Church. That's equivalent to secret documents exposing the sexual preference of George Michael. Sometimes the truth is rather obvious.

I was absolutely intrigued by the history, however. If you've ever taken even 30 minutes to research any pre-Christian religion, you can find numerous correlations with Christianity itself. But then if you spend a little more time searching, maybe 2-3 hours, you'll find out that absolutely nothing in Christianity is original.

Mithraism is credited in the Da Vinci Code as one of the origins of Christianity. Here's a quick quote from Wikipedia, comparing the two (bear in mind that Mithraism predates Christianity by about four centuries):

"The resemblances between the two churches were so striking as to impress even the minds of antiquity" (Cumont, 193). Like Origen (an early Christian writer and in this respect a peculiarity among the other patrsitic writers), Mithraism held that all souls pre-existed in the ethereal regions with God, and inhabited a body upon birth. Similar to Pythagorean, Jewish, and Pauline theology, life then becomes the great struggle between good and evil, spirit and body, ending in judgment, with the elect being saved. "They both admitted to the existence of a heaven inhabited by beautiful ones. . .and a hell peopled by demons situate in the bowels of earth" (Cumont 191).

Both religions used the rite of baptism, and each participated in an outwardly similar type of sacrament, bread and wine. Both the birth of Mithra and the birth of Christ have been celebrated on December 25th, although nowhere does the Bible claim that Christ was born on this day. Both Mithra and Christ were supposedly visited by shepherds and Magi. Both Mithraism and Christianity considered Sunday their holy day, though for different reasons. Many have noted that the title of Pope (father) is found in Mithraic doctrine and seemingly prohibited in Christian doctrine. The words Peter (rock) and mass (sacrament) have significance in Mithraism.

Mithraism and early Christianity considered abstinence, celibacy, and self-control to be among their highest virtues, though Judaism did as well. Both had similar beliefs about the world, destiny, heaven and hell, and the immortality of the soul.

Sounds like pure coincidence, eh? But you can't trust Wikipedia alone, so get some more information from this Google search while you're at it, and do your own research.

Early Christian leaders were so distraught by the similarities between the two popular and competing religions, that they claimed Satan, with foreknowledge of Christ's appearance on Earth, founded Mithraism ahead of schedule to confuse humanity and diminish the glory of Christ. Also consider that the Vatican is actually built on top of the ruins of a Mithraic temple. Most likely it was burned down in one of the many orgies of violence and suppression that Christians are famous for.

Anyway, if you've made it this far into my rant, your reward is a quote I found poking around tonight that made me lol:

Have you ever thought about how bizarre the crucifixion story is? Imagine the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe sitting on his magnificent throne in heaven. He looks down onto earth and says to himself:

Those evil humans down on earth. I hate what they are doing. All this sin...
Since I am all-knowing I know exactly what the humans are doing and I understand exactly why they commit each sin. Since I created the humans in my own image and personally programmed human nature into their brains, I am the direct author of all of this sin. The instant I created them I knew exactly what would happen with every single human being right down to the nanosecond level for all eternity. If I didn't like how it was going to turn out, I could have simply changed them when I created them. And since I am perfect, I know exactly what I am doing. But ignore all that. I hate all these people doing exactly what I perfectly designed them to do and knew they would do from the moment I created them...

So here's what I am going to do. I will artificially inseminate a virgin. She will give birth to an incarnated version of me. The humans will eventually crucify and kill the incarnated me. That will, finally, make me happy. Yes, sending myself down and having the humans crucify me -- that will satisfy me. I feel much better now.

Credit for that quote goes to the wonderful site: Why does God hate amputees? I strongly suggest you follow that link, but only when you've got a lot of time to kill. The Bible-bashing is hilarious and addictive, and it'll be tough to rip yourself away and go back to work.