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| Posted by: sexkitten Oct 15 2004, 12:07 PM |
| Printable Version of Topic Click here to view this topic in its original format ExChristian.Net Open Forums > Critics Corner > The Christ Conspiracy Posted by: Joshua May 22 2004, 10:17 PM I would just like to get anyone's opinion on this book. It is an interesting read although I don't necessarily agree with all of her views. I am not sure if a guy named Jesus Christ ever lived, but if he did then he was no different then any other person who thought they were inspired by God. He can be added to the list along withj Abraham, Moses, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and even David Koresh, and the thousands of others -- all who thought they were "touched" by god and told to reveal the "truth." While it is apparent to anyone who reviews history that the Christian Church is an institution that has evolved slowly by accretion (not by the teachings of one man), I don't buy into the conspiracy theory that it was a deliberate effort to full the masses. I know that pagan and other influences were added in order to make it more appealing to non-Christians, but I doubt that it was a totally conscious effort to deceive, at least not in the conventional sense. Posted by: formerfundie May 22 2004, 11:31 PM QUOTE (Joshua @ May 22 2004, 10:17 PM) I would just like to get anyone's opinion on this book. It is an interesting read although I don't necessarily agree with all of her views. I am not sure if a guy named Jesus Christ ever lived, but if he did then he was no different then any other person who thought they were inspired by God. He can be added to the list along withj Abraham, Moses, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and even David Koresh, and the thousands of others -- all who thought they were "touched" by god and told to reveal the "truth." While it is apparent to anyone who reviews history that the Christian Church is an institution that has evolved slowly by accretion (not by the teachings of one man), I don't buy into the conspiracy theory that it was a deliberate effort to full the masses. I know that pagan and other influences were added in order to make it more appealing to non-Christians, but I doubt that it was a totally conscious effort to deceive, at least not in the conventional sense. I read the book cover to cover. I found it very informative and it made a lot of sense to me. I DO think that much of what was written in the bible was written as a purposeful conspiracy. I DO think that some of it was written to control the masses. Acharya goes into way too much detail about the astrological parallels - the whole masonic thing - even details some archeological discoveries and some conclusions, one being that at one point in man's development there seems to have been one world-wide religion, I found that very interesting, to just choose not to give any credence to it. She debunks the "holy writ" from end to end in several ways. Not only that, but to me, although some of what she writes is pure emotional bias, but I think it's 'cause she gets angry when she realizes how much the mythology takes advantage of people, which is possibly why she wrote the book in the first place, for the most part I found it pretty objective. Enjoy the read. I sure did. (It does get 'dry' in spots) FF Posted by: Joshua May 24 2004, 07:24 PM QUOTE deliberate effort to full the masses. I am always really picky about grammer. I should have checked this before I posted. I almost feel embarrassed. It should have said fool the masses. Yeah, I didn't buy into that whole primitive one world religion thing either. Acharya definitely is a mystic, and it shows in her work. I thought the discussions of the parallels between ancient myths and Christianity were interesting but she leaves out a lot. I mean, she doens't lie, but she sort of gives a false impression that some of these stories are exactly like the Christ story. I don't a lot about mythology, but from what I do know there are definite similarities, but they are not exact. I personally think that most of Christianity (at least Catholicism) is a dereivative of Mithraism (which in itself seems to be a syncretism of many other myths. I have always been fascinated with the parallels of Mithraism and Christianity because they are too numerous to discount. I would have liked to see Acharya discuss more of this. One of my favorite parts was when she was saying that the "passion play" is really an appropriate term because it was written almost exactly as a play would have been written with the time compression and all. I had never thought about that before, but since reading that, I can't see it any differently now. I mean how would the synoptic gospel writers have known that Jesus prayed three times in Gethsemane if they were asleep? They wouldn't, nor would they know what he said. That to me proves that they were definitely making it up as they went. Have you seen her website? I tried to email her a few times, but she never deigned to email me back. I guess I wasn't worthy of her time. http://www.truthbeknown.com Posted by: nightbreeze May 24 2004, 10:25 PM She gets a lot of e-mail. She's very controversial. Posted by: formerfundie May 24 2004, 10:39 PM Gee, I wonder why, exactly? Posted by: Fweethawt May 24 2004, 10:51 PM QUOTE (Joshua @ May 24 2004, 11:24 PM) Yeah, I didn't buy into that whole primitive one world religion thing either I don't know about this. I don't remember when, or where, but I read something a while back that showed religiously themed petroglyphs that were pretty close to being identical, and yet, they were found in caves on opposite sides of the planet. Now, how true that article or book is/was? I don't know. But I remember reading something like that. Either way, Acharya S. is bad to the bone! Posted by: Lokmer May 25 2004, 03:24 AM I do enjoy Acharya's work very much - her research is very well referenced and checkable, and she's a very thorough scholar. However, you do have to take a lot of her conclusions with a salt lick. On the good side, her mythic parallels research is some of the best around, and she goes a long way on very sound research towards proving that Chistianity is a mystery religion decending from the Sacred King tradition of old, and that the biography of Jesus differs in no significant way from that of other sacred kings and god-men saviors from millenia past. On the bad side, her political conspiracy theories, from the freemasons to the deliberate writing of the Bible whole cloth, tend to stretch credulity more than a bit for those that know Christian origins well. And I suppose the thing that sticks in my craw about it is that much of it is as unneccesary as it is far-fetched. It's a simple thing to prove that enlightenment thinkers believed X was a politically-constructed cult, it's a different thing to prove that those thinkers were correct. That Christianity became political very early on is evident and easily demonstrated, but that it was a deliberate conspiracy is a very tenuous theory at best with several points of evidence against it. Nonetheless, it does make entertaining reading. I'm very much looking forward to her new book "Suns of God" where she delves deeper into the mythic parallelisms and leaves the political stuff alone. For another excellent book that does not range nearly as far afield, check out Robert Price's Deconstructing Jesus - his approach is historical-critical rather than literary, and I'm of the opinion that you really need both the literary and the historical-critical to begin to construct a more balanced and accurate picture. If you are unfamiliar with the historical-critical method, start out with his The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, which is a prequel to Deconstructing and is geared more for a lay person (Deconstructing is decidedly an academic book). In the cases of both Price and Acharya, neither are without their flaws, either in their arguments or their conclusions, but they are both generally honest scholars who heavily reference their work allowing the reader to do some serious fact-checking (which the reader really ought to do). I find Acharya to be the more reckless of the two as far as what she accepts as authoritative, but that does not mean her books are without value. She lets her contempt for Christianity influence her conclusions in many instances, but she is open about that hostility and honest about her biases. Price suffers from the opposite problem, although he is a very dogged scholar his deep affection for the Christian story prevents him from asking some of the questions that Acharya (to her credit) asks, but then (to her shame) runs with rather recklessly. Were the two of them not such bitter rivals with a great level of personal animosity for each other (both suffer from the sort of popmosity that scholars tend to develop on subjects that they are experts in and that has caused them to lock horns quite spectacularly on a few occasions) it would be interesting to see them collaborate on a book together - I'd love to see Price's conservative scholarly ethic paired off with Acharya's fire. Until then, one must be satisfied with reading books from both authors, and doing so with great care to check the cited sources and make up one's own mind. For what it's worth. -Lokmer Posted by: Joshua May 25 2004, 08:19 PM QUOTE (nightbreeze @ May 24 2004, 10:25 PM) She gets a lot of e-mail. She's very controversial. I realize that, but I was not condemning her or showing her that Christian trait of telling her she is going to hell. In one email I was making a few comments on her book and praising her on a job well done. In another I was commenting on her "institute of Historical Accuracy" and how she seems to analyze certain things anachronistically, which is not historically accurate. I also sent her an essay that I wrote to get her opinion and comments on it, but she never emailed me back. I was kind of sad about that. I will post the essay here, but I am waiting for the copyright confirmation to get back. I think you guys will like it. Posted by: Joshua May 25 2004, 08:24 PM Thank you, Lokmer, for your post. That basically encapsulates my views. I, too, am looking forward to her new book. I have to amit, while I disagree with her on certain points, I am a fan of her. I will also check out that book you recommended by Robert Price. Posted by: AggieNostic May 26 2004, 07:09 AM I bought the book a few months ago but I have yet to read it. Posted by: AggieNostic May 26 2004, 07:12 AM QUOTE (Joshua @ May 24 2004, 10:24 PM) QUOTE deliberate effort to full the masses. I am always really picky about grammer. I should have checked this before I posted. I almost feel embarrassed. It should have said fool the masses. Joshua: You can go back and edit your own posts. We all make mistakes. Posted by: Tanz May 26 2004, 07:36 AM I've always been suspect of Conspiracy theories. I'll be the first to say that Oswald did it alone. I've never read this book, although I'd like to. You can't find this one at your local Barnes & Noble for some reason. The thing is, it sounds a little far-fetched. Granted, she's right in saying that there's no real evidence that Jesus existed (despite the rantings of many Fundy apologists, i.e. Shroud of Turin). But the idea that a Roman secret society conspired to create Jesus to control the masses, seems a bit out there for me. In my opinion, there's several reasons for the Jesus story to have emerged. I: There could have actually been a Rabbi named Jesus who the myth was based off of and his life was enanched by adding in miracles and being the Messiah. II: There were several Jews who were pissed that their Messiah was taking his sweet ass time getting there. They wanted the Romans out of Judea and fast. In order to help the population not lose faith, several Jews wrote the Gospels, based on other religions (Mithra) and gave the new diety the name of Jesus. He was crucified by the hated Roman Governor Pilate and promised to rise again during the same generation. What great propaganda this must have been during the Judea uprising! I think the latter is the most probable answer. No big conspiracy, it just sort of happened. And since many Roman soldiers stationed in Judea were Mithrans, it's not much of a stretch to belive they shared their faith with the local population. Thus, Jesus was born. Out of curiosity, what reason does the author give that the Romans conspired to invent Jesus? I mean, why create a new religion? Posted by: Joshua Jun 2 2004, 07:22 PM QUOTE (Tanz @ May 26 2004, 07:36 AM) I've always been suspect of Conspiracy theories. I'll be the first to say that Oswald did it alone. I've never read this book, although I'd like to. You can't find this one at your local Barnes & Noble for some reason. The thing is, it sounds a little far-fetched. Granted, she's right in saying that there's no real evidence that Jesus existed (despite the rantings of many Fundy apologists, i.e. Shroud of Turin). But the idea that a Roman secret society conspired to create Jesus to control the masses, seems a bit out there for me. In my opinion, there's several reasons for the Jesus story to have emerged. I: There could have actually been a Rabbi named Jesus who the myth was based off of and his life was enanched by adding in miracles and being the Messiah. II: There were several Jews who were pissed that their Messiah was taking his sweet ass time getting there. They wanted the Romans out of Judea and fast. In order to help the population not lose faith, several Jews wrote the Gospels, based on other religions (Mithra) and gave the new diety the name of Jesus. He was crucified by the hated Roman Governor Pilate and promised to rise again during the same generation. What great propaganda this must have been during the Judea uprising! I think the latter is the most probable answer. No big conspiracy, it just sort of happened. And since many Roman soldiers stationed in Judea were Mithrans, it's not much of a stretch to belive they shared their faith with the local population. Thus, Jesus was born. Out of curiosity, what reason does the author give that the Romans conspired to invent Jesus? I mean, why create a new religion? I think it was more political than anything. If I'm remembering correctly she just says that they wanted to consolidate power of the empire, which might not be entirely false although, like you, I don't buy into the secret society theory. Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com) © Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com) |