IT is difficult for this age to estimate correctly the profound effect produced upon the religions, philosophies, and sciences of antiquity by the study of the planets, luminaries, and constellations. Not without adequate reason were the Magi of Persia called the Star Gazers. The Egyptians were honored with a special appellation because of their proficiency in computing the power and motion of the heavenly bodies and their effect upon the destinies of nations and individuals. Ruins of primitive astronomical observatories have been discovered in all parts of the world, although in many cases modern archæologists are unaware of the true purpose for which these structures were erected. While the telescope was unknown to ancient astronomers, they made many remarkable calculations with instruments cut from blocks of granite or pounded from sheets of brass and cop per. In India such instruments are still in use, and they posses a high degree of accuracy. In Jaipur, Rajputana, India, an observatory consisting largely of immense stone sundials is still in operation. The famous Chinese observatory on the wall of Peking consists of immense bronze instruments, including a telescope in the form of a hollow tube without lenses.
The pagans looked upon the stars as living things, capable of influencing the destinies of individuals, nations, and races. That the early Jewish patriarchs believed that the celestial bodies participated in the affairs of men is evident to any student of Biblical literature, as, for example, in the Book of Judges: “They fought from heaven, even the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.” The Chaldeans, Phœnicians, Egyptians, Persians, Hindus, and Chinese all had zodiacs that were much alike in general character, and different authorities have credited each of these nations with being the cradle of astrology and astronomy. The Central and North American Indians also had an understanding of the zodiac.
The Greeks, and later other peoples influenced by their culture, divided the band of the zodiac into twelve sections, each being sixteen degrees in width and thirty degrees in length. These divisions were called the Houses of the Zodiac. The sun during its annual pilgrimage passed through each of these in turn, Imaginary creatures were traced in the Star groups bounded by these rectangles; and because most of them were animal–or part animal–in form, they later became known as the Constellations, or Signs, of the Zodiac.
There is a popular theory concerning the origin of the zodiacal creatures to the effect that they were products of the imagination of shepherds, who, watching their flocks at night, occupied their minds by tracing the forms of animals and birds in the heavens. This theory is untenable, unless the “shepherds” be regarded as the shepherd priests of antiquity. It is unlikely that the zodiacal signs were derived from the star groups which they now represent. It is far more probable that the creatures assigned to the twelve houses are symbolic of the qualities and intensity of the sun’s power while it occupies different parts of the zodiacal belt.
Among the ancients the sun was always symbolized by the figure and nature of the constellation through which it passed at the vernal equinox. For nearly the past 2,000 years the sun has crossed the equator at the vernal equinox in the constellation of Pisces (the Two Fishes). For the 2,160 years before that it crossed through the constellation of Aries (the Ram). Prior to that the vernal equinox was in the sign of Taurus (the Bull). It is probable that the form of the bull and the bull’s proclivities were assigned to this constellation because the bull was used by the ancients to plow the fields, and the season set aside for plowing and furrowing corresponded to the time at which the sun reached the segment of the heavens named Taurus.
Albert Pike describes the reverence which the Persians felt for this sign and the method of astrological symbolism in vogue among them, thus: “In Zoroaster’s cave of initiation, the Sun and Planets were represented, overhead, in gems and gold, as was also the Zodiac. The Sun appeared, emerging from the back of Taurus. ” In the constellation of the Bull are also to be found the “Seven Sisters”–the sacred Pleiades–famous to Freemasonry as the Seven Stars at the upper end of the Sacred Ladder.
Nearly every religion of the world shows traces of astrological influence. The Old Testament of the Jews, its writings overshadowed by Egyptian culture, is a mass of astrological and astronomical allegories. Nearly all the mythology of Greece and Rome may be traced in star groups. Some writers are of the opinion that the original twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet were derived from groups of stars, and that the starry handwriting on the wall of the heavens referred to words spelt out, with fixed stars for consonants, and the planets, or luminaries, for vowels. These, coming into ever-different combinations, spelt words which, when properly read, foretold future events.
Via: Hall, Manly P. – The Secret Teachings of All Ages
ALL regions have their bases in the same thing, the holy science of Astrotheology. The inability to understand this is what leads to division, dogma and false beliefs. I believe it is of extreme importance to debunk and expose religion as a Mind Control government sanctioned project that truly has become the opiate of the masses (why do you think they don’t pay taxes?) Now where I disagree with this movie is in the dismissal of the validity of mythology. Myth is the only way the invisible can communicate to the material mind. The Black Magick was the government taking control of religion, especially Judeo-Christian Western religion and Islam. (Buddhism is a philosophy and therefore not a religion). Granted there is NOTHING more futile than to debate a Christian or Muslim. They can twist reality in more ways than the most insane in society. Here in this short video is proof that Xtianity was plagiarized from pagans, that there were at least 20 previous god-men with the same story as the jesus story. It’s only about 20 minutes long, if you haven’t seen it you really should. How much can Xtians twist reality? The Church Father Justin Martyr said that the previous stories were implanted by the Devil to confuse and fool the “unfaithful.” Now, if that makes just me laugh my ass off, the world really is nuts. This is a clip from the full movie Zeitgesit, the full wonderful movie can be watched here:
Here is the part about the origin of religion:
I am very anti-religion because it is definitely Mind Control, an obvious fiction, obviously a fabrication by those with no spirituality, only ego filled religious nuts. They not only think everyone who doesn’t agree with them is damned to hell, they will gladly go to war because god is on their side and everyone else is unworthy. The Jewish mistake was claiming they were god’s only chosen people, setting themselves apart from everyone else. All religions are like this. It’s not extremists that alarm me, it’s those who think a little religion is OK. People are easily hypnotized by crap like this, ya know, belief in bullshit that serves only the elite’s divide and rule agenda. It’s mind boggling to me that it’s lasted this long. I believe the Dark History of Xtianity speaks volumes (of which more is being uncovered daily). I have determined through my research that there was no historical jesus portrayed in the bible STORY. Jesus is the sun, the 12 ‘opossums’ (note attempt at humor) are the 12 signs of the Zodiac, the 12 months of the year. But who looked into the sky and separated the cosmos into 12 animal signs? Is that not also merely a belief? Of course it is! We’re talking about ancient ‘stone age’ attempts at science. Their science later became religion. It’s amazing how precisely their mysticism corresponds to modern quantum physics. They were not stupid and uncivilized (like we are today). Yeah, so nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about.
Cranberry Sauce …
George Carlin — Religion is Bullshit:
To debate God, you must first define God. I do not consider myself an Atheist, and if anyone thinks I’m singling out Islam for a good bashing, I have also exposed zionism and chrisitnaity’s lies, fabricated history, hypocrisies, acts of terror and falsehoods. This is where religion has taken us, into a fantasy land of separateness and hate. We mustn’t fear truth, we should fear false beliefs. I am sure there are good people that belong to all religions, but since I started seeking truth and umcovering lies I have become more anti-religion, anti-superstition, anti-dogma, and anti-beliefs based on another human being’s imagination. A belief fills in the gap of not knowing and creates ignore-ance, causes division, delusion, feeds the ego, and induces violence. I really believe religion is bad for mankind. I think it’s time for a new paradigm based on the True Nature of Reality (which is what many of us refer to as God). If you call yourself a christian or muslim you set yourself apart from the rest of the world, do you see where this is going? I believe the entire cosmos and everything in it is of One Self. When we see ourselves as humans, made of stardust, interconnected and that we are each other, we will then end hunger, war, elitism, hatred, crime and so on. We need to understand that religion is manmade for political purposes, and spirituality is growth, not just personally but for the whole creation. I prefer John Lennon’s “Imagine NO religion” myself, but if we’re going to have such large numbers of entranced sheeple, Islam must at least reform. (What is it with people that makes them fear truth and cling to beliefs? We must and will evolve toward real enlightenment when religion becomes extinct). Any anger felt by exposing the truth is based on fear. Follow that fear to it’s root then analyze it and let it go. Love will replace it.
The Muslim religion is obviously built upon the Judeo-Christian religion, but it is also a reaction to said religion, which excluded and vilified the various Arab cultures. Like their Jewish brothers and sisters, the Semitic Arabs trace their lineage to the biblical patriarch Abraham, who is depicted in the Bible as having mated with Hagar the Egyptian, producing the progenitor of the Arab race, Ishmael. While the Jewish contingent interprets this tale to justify its own ethnocentric ideology, Muslims interpret it to fit theirs, claiming that “God” would make of Ishmael’s people a “great nation” (Gen 21:18).
Typically, instead of searching for the truth about this tale, its proponents have turned it into a political competition for global domination. The Islamic world today is much closer to the kind of primitive Judaic society of 2000 years. It is a legal and political system. In the 21st century where many of us live at the apex of the scientific and technological revolutions of the last 200+ years, the “regressive,” overtly superstitious, primitive, religiously indoctrinated and (mostly) uneducated mind has a tendency to look back to the past and to consider some ancient prophet’s metaphysical and legal ramblings to be somehow more “enlightened” or even more “progressive” than that of a modern educated philosophical and political person. This is not a good sign.
Like numerous biblical characters, Abraham is evidently a mythological construct, not a “real person.” As scholar Barbara G. Walker states in The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (5-6) concerning Abraham:
“This name meaning ‘Father Brahm’ seems to have been a Semitic version of India’s patriarchal god Brahma; he was also the Islamic Abrama, founder of Mecca. But Islamic legends say Abraham was a late intruder into the shrine of the Kaaba. He bought it from priestesses of its original Goddess. Sarah, ‘the Queen’ was one of the Goddess’s titles, which became a name of Abraham’s biblical ‘wife.’ Old Testament writers pretended Sarah’s alliances with Egyptian princes were only love-affairs arranged by Abraham for his own profit—which unfortunately presented him as a pimp (Genesis 12:16) as well as a would-be murderer of his son (Genesis 22:10).
“In the tale of Isaac’s near-killing, Abraham assumed the role of sacrificial priest in the druidic style, to wash Jehovah’s sacred trees with the Blood of the Son: an ancient custom, of which the sacrifice of Jesus was only a late variant. Jehovah first appeared to Abraham at the sacred oak of Shechem, where Abraham built his altar. Later Abraham build an altar to the oak god of Mamre at Hebron. Even in the 4th century A.D., Constantine said Abraham’s home at the Oak of Mamre was still a shrine: ‘It is reported that most damnable idols are set up beside it, and that an altar stands hard by, and that unclean sacrifices are constantly offered.'”
Allah—Remake of the Moon Goddess
This description of Abraham’s origins means that Judaism is built upon hoary myths, such that neither of its offshoot religions, Christianity and Islam, can truthfully claim to be of divine or “inspired” origin. As concerns the god of Islam, Allah, Walker (22) has this to say:
“Late Islamic masculinization of the Arabian Goddess, Al-Lat or Al-Ilat—the Allatu of the Babylonians—formerly worshipped at the Kaaba in Mecca. It has been shown that ‘the Allah of Islam’ was a male transformation of ‘the primitive lunar deity of Arabia.’ Her ancient symbol the crescent moon still appears on Islamic flags, even though modern Moslems no longer admit any feminine symbolism whatever connected with the wholly patriarchal Allah.”
Indeed, the Koran verifies Allah’s lunar or night-sky status: “Remember the name of our Lord morning and evening; in the night-time worship Him: praise Him all night long.” (Q 76:23) And at Q 2:189: “They question you about the phases of the moon. Say: ‘They are seasons fixed for mankind and for the pilgrimage.'”
In Pagan Rites in Judaism (97), Theodor Reik states, in a chapter called “The ancient Semitic moon-goddess”:
“All Semites had once a cult of the moon as supreme power. When Mohammed overthrew the old religion of Arabia, he did not dare get rid of the moon cult in a radical manner. Only much later was he powerful enough to forbid prostration before the moon (Koran Sure 4:37). Before Islamic times the moon deity was the most prominent object of cults in ancient Arabia. Arab women still insist that the moon is the parent of mankind.
“Sir G. Rawlinson traces the name Chaldeans back to the designation of the ancient capital Ur (Chur) to be translated as moon-worshipers. The Semitic moon-god was ‘the special deity and protector of women.’ The Babylonians worshiped the goddess Ishtar, who is identical with the great Arabian goddess and has the epithet Our Lady… She also has the title Queen of Heaven, which really means the Queen of the Stars. She was horned and was, as all lunar goddesses, represented by a heavenly cow.
“The Hebrew tribes, or rather their ancestors, were the latest wave of migrants from Arabia. The cult of their god was associated with Mount Sinai—the mountain of the moon. The experts assume that the name Sinai derived from Sin, the name of the Babylonian moon-god. In Exodus (3:1) Sinai is called the ‘mountain of the Elohim. This suggests that it has long been sacred.’
“In the Old Testament, which is a collection of much earlier, often edited writings, the moon appears as a power of good (Deut. 33:4) or of evil (Ps. 12:16). Traces of ancient moon-worship were energetically removed from the text by later editors. A few remained, however, and can be recognized in the prohibitions of Deuteronomy. In 4:19 the Israelites are warned: ‘And lest thou lift up thine eyes upon heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, and be led astray to worship them, and serve them,’ and in 17:3 the punishment of stoning is prescribed for the person who ‘hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven…’ The Lord predicts (Jer. 8:2) that the bones of kings and princes of Judah will not be buried, but spread ‘before the sun, and the moon, and all the hosts of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and whom they have worshipped.'”
In The Origin of All Religious Worship (25-26), concerning Arab astrotheology, which was a continuation of this ancient Semitic lunar tradition, Charles Dupuis states:
“The Moon was the great divinity of the Arabs. The Sarazens gave her the epithet of Cabar or the Great; her Crescent adorns to this day the religious monuments of the Turks. Her elevation under the sign of the Bull, constituted one of the principal feasts of the Saracens and the sabean Arabs. Each Arab tribe was under the invocation of a constellation Each one worshipped one of the celestial bodies as its tutelar genius.
“The Caabah of the Arabs was before the time of Mahomet, a temple dedicated to the Moon. The black stone which the Musulmans kiss with so much devotion to this day, is, as it is pretended, an ancient statue of Saturnus. The walls of the great mosque of Kufah, built on the foundation of an ancient Pyrea or temple of the fire, are filled with figures of planets artistically engraved. The ancient worship of the Arabs was the Sabismus, a religion universally spread all over the Orient. Heaven and the Stars were the first objects thereof.
“This religion was that of the ancient Chaldeans, and the Orientals pretend that their Ibrahim or Abraham was brought up in that doctrine. There is still to be seen at Hella, over the ruins of the ancient Babylon, a mosque called Mesched Eschams, or the mosque of the Sun. It was in this city, that the ancient temple of Bel, or the Sun, the great Divinity of the Babylonians, existed; it is the same God, to whom the Persians erected temples and consecrated images under the name of Mithras.”
Astrotheology at Mecca
One of the sites for this Arab worship of the “hosts of heaven” was Mecca. Regarding the Kaaba of Mecca, that holiest of Muslim holies, Walker (487) writes:
“Shrine of the sacred stone in Mecca, formerly dedicated to the pre-Islamic Triple Goddess Manat, Al-Lat (Allah), and Al-Uzza, the ‘Old Woman’ worshipped by Mohammed’s tribesmen the Koreshites. The stone was also called Kubaba, Kuba or Kube, and has been linked with the name of Cybele (Kybela), the Great Mother of the Gods. The stone bore the emblem of the yoni (vagina), like the Black Stone worshipped by votaries of Artemis. Now it is regarded as the holy center of patriarchal Islam, and its feminine symbolism has been lost, though priests of the Kaaba are still known as Sons of the Old Woman.”
And a translator of the Koran, N.J. Dawood (1), says:
“Long before Muhammad’s call, Arabian paganism was showing signs of decay. At the Ka’bah the Meccans worshipped not only Allah, the supreme Semitic God, but also a number of female deities whom they regarded as daughters of Allah. Among these were Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat, who represented the Sun, Venus and Fortune respectively.”
Concerning the nation of Arabia, prior to the encroachment of Islam, it was a matriarchal culture for over 1,000 years:
“The Annals of Ashurbanipal said Arabia was governed by queens for as long as anyone could remember….
“Mohammed’s legends clearly gave him a matriarchal family background. His parents’ marriage was matrilocal. His mother remained with her own family and received her husband as an occasional visitor….
“Pre-Islamic Arabia was dominated by the female-centered clans. Marriages were matrilocal, inheritance matrilineal. Polyandry—several husbands to one wife—was common. Men lived in their wives’ homes. Divorce was initiated by the wife. If she turned her tent to face east for three nights in a row, the husband was dismissed and forbidden to enter the tent again.
“Doctrines attributed to Mohammed simply reversed the ancient system in favor of men. A Moslem husband could dismiss his wife by saying ‘I divorce thee’ three times. As in Europe, the change from matriarchate to patriarchate came about only gradually and with much strife.
“…However, the history of early-medieval Arabia is nearly all legend. Like Buddha, Confucius, Jesus and other founders of patriarchal religions, Mohammed lacks real verification. There is no reliable information about his life or teachings. Most stories about him are as apocryphal as the story that his coffin hangs forever in mid-air ‘between heaven and earth,’ like the bodies of ancient sacred kings.
“With or without Mohammed, Islam succeeded in becoming completely male-dominated, making no place for women except in slavery or in the seclusion of the harem. Islamic mosques still bear signs reading: ”Women and dogs and other impure animals are not permitted to enter.’
“Nevertheless, traces of the Goddess proved ineradicable. Like the virgin Mary, Arabia’s Queen of Heaven received a mortal form and a subordinate position as Fatima, Mohammed’s ‘daughter.’ But she was no real daughter. She was known as Mother of her Father, and Source of the Sun…” ~ Walker
Who Wrote the Koran?
As for the Koran, the Muslim holy book:
“Mohammedan scriptures, often erroneously thought to have been written by Mohammed. Moslems don’t believe this. But many don’t know the Koran was an enlarged revised version of the ancient Word of the Goddess Kore, revered by Mohammed’s tribe, the Koreshites (Children of Kore), who guarded her shrine at Mecca.
“The original writing was done long before Mohammed’s time by holy imams, a word related to Semitic ima, ‘mother.’ Like the original mahatmas or ‘great mothers’ of India, the original imams were probably priestesses of the old Arabian matriarchate. It was said they took the scripture from a prototype that existed in heaven from the beginning of eternity, ‘Mother of the Book’—i.e., the Goddess herself, wearing the Book of Fate on her breast as Mother Tiamat wore the Tablets of Destiny. Sometimes the celestial Koran was called the Preserved Tablet. There was some resemblance between this and other legendary books of divine origin, such as the Ur-text, the Book of Thoth, and the Emerald Tablet of Hermes.
“As in the case of the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Koran was much rewritten to support new patriarchal laws and to obliterate the figures of the Goddess and her priestesses.” – Walker (513)
In The Great Religious Leaders, Charles Frances Potter says of Mohammed, “It is very doubtful that he read any of the Bible: indeed, it has not been proved that he ever read anything, or wrote anything. He called himself ‘the illiterate prophet.'” Of course, much of the Koran is based on the Bible, both Old and New Testaments (including a lot of mistakes and mistranslations), combined with pre-Islamic Arab and other traditions.
Regarding the unoriginality of the Koran, Islam expert Dr. Daniel Pipes says (The Jerusalem Post, 5/12/00):
“The Koran is a not ‘a product of Muhammad or even of Arabia,’ but a collection of earlier Judeo-Christian liturgical materials stitched together to meet the needs of a later age.”
Biblical scholar Dr. Robert M. Price likewise concurs as to the pre-Islamic nature of various koranic texts:
“The Koran was assembled from a variety of prior Hagarene texts (hence the contradictions re Jesus’ death) in order to provide the Moses-like Muhammad with a Torah of his own….”
Islamic expert Dr. Gerd-R. Puin concludes:
“My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate….”
Thus, the Koran was not written by Mohammed.
The Yemeni Koran
Adding significantly to this important scholarship was the discovery in 1972 at Sana’a, Yemen, of thousands of parchment fragments from the Koran, consisting of possibly the oldest extant quranic manuscript ever found, dating to the 7th-8th centuries. Regarding these fragments, the professor who photographed them, Dr. Puin, remarks:
“So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God’s unaltered word. They like to quote the textual work that shows the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana’a fragments will help us do that.”
Concerning the texts and Puin’s conclusions, The Atlantic Monthly‘s Toby Lester states:
“…some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the stand Koranic text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God…. What the Yemeni Korans seems to suggest, Puin began to feel, was an evolving text rather than simply the Word of God as revealed in its entirety to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century A.D.”
Others weighing in on the value of the Yemeni discovery have included Dr. Andrew Rippin, a professor of Islamic Studies:
“The impact of the Yemeni manuscripts is still to be felt. Their variant readings and verse orders are all very significant. Everybody agrees on that. These manuscripts say that the early history of the Koranic texts is much more of an open question than many have suspected: the text was less stable, and therefore had less authority, than has always been claimed.”
In this same regard, Islamic history professor Dr. R. Stephen Humphreys summarizes the importance of the study of how the Koran was created and the Yemeni hoard in this quest:
“To historicize the Koran would in effect delegitimize the whole historical experience of the Muslim community. The Koran is the charter for the community, the document that called it into existence. And ideally though obviously not always in reality Islamic history has been the effort to pursue and work out the commandments of the Koran in human life. If the Koran is a historical document, then the whole Islamic struggle of fourteen centuries is effectively meaningless.”
The evidence reveals that the Koran was created over a period of decades, if not centuries, by a number of hands, rather than representing a single, divine “revelation” from the Almighty to Mohammed.
Like that of Buddha, Jesus, Moses, et al., Mohammed’s historicity is questionable. He seems to be yet another religious figurehead invented to create a “state” religion. His “history” is full of fantastic legends, but even if we were to find a “historical person” there, it would not be one of very high or affable character. As Potter says:
“Of women, his taste ran to widows with a temper… For recreation he delighted in cobbling shoes. Perhaps his greatest joy was when he beheld the severed heads of his enemies.
“His dislikes were just as varied. He detested silk-lined clothes, interest charges, dogs, others’ lies, Jews and Christians. He hated poets, and said, ‘Every painter will be in hell.’
“He was inordinately vain. A clever woman poet satirized him. She was slain when asleep with her child at her breast, and the vengeful Muhammad praised her murderer. Once he tortured a Jew to find the location of hidden treasure and then had him killed and added the widow to his harem. Strange indeed was the character of the prophet. How could such a person inspire such reverence and devotion? It is one of the puzzles of history.
“It was not that he developed a great theology, either, for what little theology Islam has, worthy of the name, was built up after Muhammad had long been dead.”
According to the hadiths or hadees—records of the purported sayings and acts of Mohammed and his companions—the Prophet was indeed of a character that would repulse any decent human being. One after another of the hadiths discuss Mohammed’s insatiable sexual appetite, which included having sex with his “wife” ‘Aisha, who was 9 years old and had not even reached puberty. Various Islamic authorities have also claimed that Mohammed began “thighing” ‘Aisha when he married her at the age of six.
As to how such a character could inspire such reverence and devotion, we would submit that it was because Mohammed and Islam were created by yet another faction of “the brotherhood” for purposes of competition with Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and other religions. As N.A Morozov says:
“…until the Crusades Islam was indistinguishable from Judaism and…only then did it receive its independent character, while Muhammad and the first Caliphs are mythical figures.”
Behind the creation of such ideologies are usually those who benefit the most, particularly “third-party” weapons manufacturers, since these divisive creeds are forever setting one culture against another.
Despite the unconvincing attempts by well-meaning individuals to assert the pacificism of Islam, the fact is that it is a desert warrior’s religion and was not spread by peaceful means. As Gerald Berry says, in Religions of the World (62):
“Partly because he needed funds and partly because his followers were not skilled in agriculture as were the natives of Yathrib, [Mohammed] organized fighting bands to raid caravans. Having no ties with the older religions, he sent them out even in the peace months. This started Arabia’s Holy War. Mohammed’s whole movement took on the character of religious militarism. He made the Moslem fanatic fighters by teaching that admission to Paradise was assured for all those who died fighting in the cause of Allah.”
”In the end, Islam, which means “submission,” is built upon older myths and traditions and was designed to usurp the power of Christians, Jews and women. While we have no quarrel with all Arabian culture, we do have a big problem with ideologies that are filled with half-truths and lies. Because of arrogance and bigotry, ancient cultures, along with their variety, justice and beauty, have become nearly obliterated. In effect, the Western monolithic religions represent a massive degradation of culture.
”If this planet’s inhabitants would simply become educated to the origins of their traditions in full, we could live in a world of tremendous beauty and knowledge, as opposed to ugly, superstitious and repressive ideologies that are exclusionary and bigoted. Islam arose because of the repression of Christianity and Judaism, as well as an unbalanced female-oriented culture. Like those traditions, Islam is utterly out of balance, and we may all suffer for it, particularly if the predictions come true that Islam will be the most dominant religion in the world in the next decades.
”As previously stated, there are few non-Muslim women or men who would wish to live in such a world. Because of this aversion, we would expect to see in the future innumerable ghastly battles and wars waged in the name of one god or another, as has happened far too often in the past, especially with these monotheistic Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All told, these three are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, so why are they deemed “Great religions?” The “greatest” thing about them is their death toll.” – D.M. Murdock/Acharya S
72 virgins in the Muslim Paradise is borrowed pagan astrotheology
When Muhammad based his ministry and teachings on Moses, Christ and the Jews theology, he inadvertently incorporated the pagan’s astrotheology system whose remnants can still be found in Judaism, e.g. the “12 Tribes of Israel” referring to the 12 Signs of the Zodiac. Christianity contains far more Egyptian astrotheological concepts but of course it too has the 12 Signs which become in Christianity, the 12 Disciples.
“There are also 72 extra-zodiacal constellations known as the paranatellons. This is why Jesus is said to have officially had 12 servants with 72 others that also carried the message.
The 72 angels on Jacob’s ladder and the 72 nations in Genesis also relate to these 72 decans, 1 for every 5 degrees of the zodiac. It serendipitously takes 72 years to move 1 degree through the zodiacal precession of the equinoxes.
Hence Confucious (6th century BC China) had 72 initiated disciples and Set (ancient Egypt) had 72 accomplices in the death of Osiris.”
The Septuagint, the Torah/Tanakh in Greek was supposedly authored by 72 authors in keeping with the hidden astrotheology numbers.
And of course, the 72 Virgins in the Muslim heaven refers to this same pagan astrotheology number.
The Qur’an tells us: “not to make friendship with Jews and Christians” (5:51), “kill the disbelievers wherever we find them” (2:191), “murder them and treat them harshly” (9:123), “fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem” (9:5). The Qur’an demands that we fight the unbelievers, and promises “If there are twenty amongst you, you will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, you will vanquish a thousand of them” (8:65).
While claiming to be a religion of peace, Islamic doctrine is anything but “peace-loving,” as it constantly calls for the slaying of “idolaters” and “infidels” (e.g.,Q 2:191, 9:5, 9:73), among other harsh commentary in the Koran as well as other texts such as the hadiths. Islam is taken more literally than any other religion. It is actually a political movement/cult. All fundamental religions use brainwashing, so I expect muslims to be offended by truth, just as I expect the same from Christians. I am anti religion, anti belief, anti ignorance. If it floats your boat, that’s you. I have my own theory of reality, based on nature. You religious nuts have a doctrine other humans invented and that has NOTHING to do with god. So, dream on. You have a fantasy movie playing in your head written and directed by men for their own agenda. God is within you, It is your higher Self, you can talk directly with It. Religious nuts are so violent that the Apocalypse will become a self fulfilling prophecy. WWIII might be fought between christians and muslims, and in the name of a loving god!
Female oppression and cultural bigotry is the hallmark of Islam. This religions teaches that there is some separate outerspace god who is exclusively male. In Islam, this god is interpreted through the minds of Muslims as being an Arab or Persian man who hates the Jewish man of the Judeo-Christian ideology. This racist, ethnocentric, culturally bigoted and sexist interpretation of any “infinite” “loving” “peaceful” god would appear to be complete nonsense. Yet, in what seems to be supreme arrogance and megalomania, many individuals would like the entire world to believe it is true. The lunatics are on the path.
Inventing a definition for God is after all what theologians do, and if I were to invent a definition a just and good “God” I think I could do a lot better than the ancient Israelites, Jesus or Mohammad.
“There is no god but man and woman”
Sources & Further Reading
main source: http://www.truthbeknown.com/islam.htm Acharya S
Internet searches and forums
Berry, Gerald. Religions of the Word. Barnes & Noble, 1955.
Dawood, N.J. The Koran. London: Penguin Books, 1995.
Dupuis, Charles. The Origins of All Religious Worship.
Glazov, Jamie. “The Yemeni Koran.” FrontpageMag.com
Potter, Charles Francis. The Great Religious Leaders. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1958.
Reik, Theodor. Pagan Rites in Judaism. New York: Farrar, Strauss, 1964.
Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. HarperSanFrancisco, 1983.
What is faith? What path best promotes spiritual growth? Does religion good for us? What is our purpose? How does this reality work? Is to “BE” the better part of believe?
Quotes by Tom from this discussion: “Truth is universal”, “The Truth isn’t owned by an organization or religion”, “The reality we live in is a creative process” (explains why enlightened people from all disciplines are so in touch with the same larger reality?)
The Pagans argued that their God was older and therefore original. The Christians admitted Christ came later, but claimed Attis was a work of the devil whose similarity to Christ, and the fact he predated Christ, were intended to confuse and mislead men. This was apparently the stock answer — the Christian apologist Tertullian makes the same argument.
The following are some of the similarities between Attis and the Christian story of Jesus:
Attis was born on December 25th of the Virgin Nana.
He was considered the savior who was slain for the salvation of mankind.
His body as bread was eaten by his worshippers.
His priests were “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.”
He was both the Divine Son and the Father.
On “Black Friday,” he was crucified on a tree, from which his holy blood ran down to redeem the earth.
He descended into the underworld.
After three days, Attis was resurrected on March 25th (as tradition held of Jesus) as the “Most High God.”
It is recorded that Attis was represented as a “a man tied to a tree, at the foot of which was a lamb, and, without doubt also as a man nailed to a tree…”
Itis reported that on March 22nd, a pine tree was felled and “an effigy of the god was affixed to it, thus being slain and hung on a tree…” Later the priests are supposed to have found Attis’ grave empty.
Birth Attis of Phrygia was born of the Virgin Nana on December 25th. He was both the Father and the Divine Son.
The Festival of Joy — the celebration of Attis‘ death and rebirth
On March 22 a pine tree (origins of the christmas tree?) was brought to the sanctuary of Cybele, on it hung the effigy of Attis. The God was dead. Two days of mourning followed, but when night fell on the eve of the third day, March 25th, the worshippers turned to joy. “For suddenly a light shone in the darkness; the tomb was opened; the God had risen from the dead…[and the priest] softly whispered in their ears the glad tidings of salvation. The resurrection of the God was hailed by his disciples as a promise that they too would issue triumphant from the corruption of the grave.” [for more see Frazer, Attis, chapter 1]
Attis‘ worshipers had a sacramental meal of bread and wine. The wine represented the God’s blood; the bread became the body of the savoir. They were baptized in this way: a bull was placed over a grating, the devotee stood under the grating. The bull was stabbed with a consecrated spear. “It’s hot reeking blood poured in torrents through the apertures and was received with devout eagerness by the worshiper…who had been born again to eternal life and had washed away his sins in the blood of the bull.” [for more see Frazer, Attis, chapter 1]
Attis was called “the Good Sheppard,” the “Most High God,” the “Only Begotten Son” and “Savior.”
[In Rome the new birth and the remission of sins by shedding of bull’s blood took place on what is now Vatican Hill, in our days the site of the great basilica of St. Peter’s]
The Early Church, Henry Chadwick, Penguin Books, 1993, page 24
I came across this website in my search for the beginnings of Christianity. I have since become convinced that Jesus was first a symbol of the sun, as is the case for all main religions. They are all first based on Astrotheology, and then go deeper from that starting point. I differ with some of the anti-historical Jesus thinking about the Christ figure. Many of them are Atheists, I am not. I think Atheism is a reaction to finding out the church has been lying to you for almost 2,000 friggin years! I understand it. BUT, if one would become able to read the allegory with the spiritual eye and see the meanings of the symbolism, you would see that myth is the best way to teach the nature of reality. I certainly dig it. It is ever pregnant with deeper meaning and was designed to confuse the ‘profane.” In modern times we have quantum physics, which speaks in modern language (non mythical), and yet mirrors precisely what the ancients said in their scriptures about nature of reality and our interconnectedness with creation.
By researching certain scientific test results and comparing it to ancient mythological wisdom, I’m convinced that we are PARTICIPANTS and CO-CREATORS of reality. That was the essence of Jesus’s message. And of Buddha, Krishna and the now lesser known mythical figures. The exoteric story, cloaked as history, is quite meaningless unless you can grasp the esoteric meaning. That’s why I believe it’s important to know Jesus was a mythical person and Christ a form of Consciousness, symbolic of ourselves and other things ordinary language doesn’t convey. Thus the use of mythology. Myth doesn’t mean LIE, it doesn’t negate the existence of God, but rather better explains it. Perhaps the Gnostics were the fist Christians. (It is known Jewish Gnosticism goes back further than Christianity). The details have intentionally been lost, and as much as I’d like to know the facts, ultimately it’s not really important. It’s fascinating to know our core beliefs shape our reality. Notice the new paradigm since 9/11? FEAR! FEAR! FEAR! Even the weather is sensationalized to sound worse than it is. But Love conquers fear, we need to have love as part of our core belief, deep in our hearts, because it has been proven that our belief co-creates reality. We are truly Divine Spirits having a human experience. We are entangled with the whole universe, essential to it’s very existence, so much so that the Cosmos is actually a mirror of ourselves and could not exist without us, as above so below.
By – January 03, 2007
The majority of people in the world today assume or believe that Jesus Christ was at the very least a real person. Perhaps he wasn’t really “the Messiah”, perhaps he was not “The Son of God”, and perhaps he didn’t actually perform miracles and rise from the dead, but he really was a great moral teacher who traveled around Galilee with followers and got arrested by the Jews and crucified by the Romans right?
Not likely. In fact, a close examination of the evidence shows that the best explanation for the story of “Jesus Christ” is what we call “mythology”. The case that I will be outlining here is that there never was any “Jesus Christ” nor any meaningful real life basis for the story of “Jesus Christ”. Like many other religious figures, “Jesus Christ” began as a theological concept, was later used as a character in allegorical stories, and was then historicized as someone whom people believed really existed. The belief in a literal “human” Jesus most likely emerged as eucharist rituals and theology developed around the concept of the “flesh” and “blood” of Christ and these concepts merged with allegorical narratives about the figure.
What is the basis for the claim that “Jesus never existed”?
Actually, there are many important facts that support this conclusion. First let’s look at an outline of some of the major points in this case:
- The Gospel of Mark was the first story of Jesus that was written, and all others are dependent on it
- The Gospel of Mark shows clear signs of being written as an allegorical fiction
- Virtually every detail of the life of Jesus comes from “Old Testament” scriptures
- Some of the details of the life of Jesus are based on mistranslations of the Hebrew scriptures
- Jesus’ crucifixion on Passover defies historical believability, yet makes perfect sense metaphorically
- The Gospels make many claims that are contradicted by the historical record
- The earliest writings about Jesus, from Paul and others, contain no details of his life
- Many statements in the letters of Paul only make sense if Paul does not view Jesus Christ as a historical person
- There is not one single writing from or about Jesus during his supposed lifetime
- Philo, a prolific Jewish writer who lived from 20 BCE to 50 CE, wrote extensively about the political and theological movements throughout the Mediterranean, and his views foreshadowed Christian theology, yet he never once wrote anything about Jesus. Not only this, but he actually wrote about political conflicts between the Jews and Pontius Pilate in Judea
- All of the non-Christian references to Jesus can be shown to have either been introduced later by Christian scribes or were originally based on Christian claims
- There is no evidence of any knowledge of a tomb of Jesus (empty or occupied) prior to the Gospel stories
- There were many conflicting beliefs about who Jesus Christ was in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries, including beliefs that he had never existed on earth “in the flesh”
- The Catholics made purely theological arguments as to why Jesus Christ had to have existed “in the flesh”
None of these points are meant to stand on their own, but collectively they provide a very strong argument against the story of Jesus Christ being based on a real person.
It is important to note that we have one, and only one, source of information about the life of Jesus and that is the Christian Gospels. The Gospels are the sole source of information about this figure; everything that we “know” about “him” depends on these sources.
There are two basic views of the Biblical Jesus as a real person today, the religious Christian view and the secular historical view. The religious Christian view takes the Gospels as accurate and reliable accounts of the life of Jesus, including all of the miracles. The religious Christian view demands that Jesus Christ was a popular and well known figure in the region, who drew crowds of thousands of people and performed great miracles, who was such a revolutionary figure that the Jewish priesthood was compelled to have him arrested and put to death in dramatic fashion before hundreds or thousands of witnesses.
The secular historical view, which may also be held by some Christians, takes the Gospels as exaggerated accounts of the life of a real Jesus. The secular historical view basically starts with the Gospels and then removes the fantastic or “supernatural” claims in the Gospels and accepts what is left as history. The secular historical view tends to minimize the role of Jesus in the region, stating instead that he was barely noticed by others. Secular historians who believe that Jesus existed rely on the Gospels as essentially historical, but inflated, accounts of his life.
But are the Gospels reliable historical accounts?
Connecting the dots concerning the fabricated “history” of Jesus has been eye opening to me. There’s overwhelming evidence the whole story of Jesus was invented by the political powers of Rome. Since so many people assume there was an historical Jesus, fear of the truth overcomes their reason, and they immediately defend their ego based false beliefs. I don’t want to convince anyone of what I’ve learned as the truth. My mother was indoctrinated into believing Jesus was a real person. I don’t want to kick her crutch out from under her. I have no reason to convince anyone who believes in Constantine’s cult that they are wrong. Their defenses range from childish to downright dangerous. Many immediately assume that if Jesus wasn’t real then there’s no God. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason there have been so many god-man heroes based on Astrotheology is because mankind is obviously attracted to it. Even if in it’s ignorance (ignore-ance) mankind blindly follows the saga of the Sun, the planets and other signs in the cosmos as historical events taking place in history, it is the opposite of Spiritual. Myth is a way of teaching ever deeper meanings. An historical superman is a dead end. It’s blind faith (requires no critical thinking), it is ignorance that goes nowhere. The shock of learning that this story is untrue historically is a slap in the face of one’s completely brainwashed stupidity, and it’s not pleasant at first. But it does wake one up! But it’s not my job to awake anyone but myself. If a person finds comfort in a lie, who am I to interfere? I’m interested in truth no matter where it leads. I have found the truth will absolutely set us free, and also enlighten us in a way the church doesn’t want. They have their agenda and it has nothing to do with what’s in our best interest. The Gnostics were destroyed, but amazingly some of their writings have been found, and at a time in history where they wouldn’t be burned again. And I’m living in a time where I won’t be burned at the stake for speaking the truth. The mystical side of various religions I find quite beautiful. The fundamental and literal part is 100% worthless hogwash. It’s embarrassing to me to be a part of such an ignorant and easily tricked group of zombie-like sheeple. If they use fake history to prove their point, they are fake people, living in a fake reality, and are as if already dead. The truth is hidden but can be discovered by anyone open minded enough to look for it. Yes, much of history has been altered for this myth, you do have to dig a bit. You cannot look up an early Church Father and quote them, because early pro-Christian quotes were interpolated centuries later. Hisorians have proven this. Hey, the built the town of Nazareth just to make the gospels literally true! They’ll stoop very low for this lie, because it is the lie upon which all other lies have been built upon. Rome lives on, trust me. Our laws and banks are made from Roman legalisms and Vatican maxims. They learned long ago to never inform or educate slaves.
“Osiris’s coming was announced by Three Wise Men: the three stars Mintaka, Anilam, and Alnitak in the belt of Orion, which point directly to Osiris’s star in the east, Sirius (Sothis), significator of his birth.”
Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (749)
“So this was the harbinger of the annual inundation of the Nile through her appearance with the rising sun at the time when the inundation was due to begin. The bright star would therefore naturally become, together with the conjoined constellation of Orion, the sign and symbol of new vegetation which the Year then beginning would infallibly bring with it.”
Dr. John Gwyn Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris and His Cult (157)
The three stars in the middle of the constellation form an asterism known as The Three Kings, or Orion’s Belt.
Dionysus: Born of a Virgin on December 25th, Killed and Resurrected after Three Days
The goddesses have stories to tell. One such story—far too long ignored—is that, in their original, unadulterated form, they were parthenogenetic. The word parthenogenesis comes from the Greek parthenos, ‘virgin’ more or less, and gignesthai, ‘to be born.’ It means, essentially, to be born of a virgin—that is, without the participation of a male. For a goddess to be ‘parthenogenetic’ thus means that she stands as a primordial creatrix, who requires no male partner to produce the cosmos, earth, life, matter and even other gods out of her own essence. Plentiful evidence shows that in their earliest cults, before they were subsumed under patriarchal pantheons as the wives, sisters and daughters of male gods, various female deities of the ancient Mediterranean world were indeed considered self-generating, virgin creatrixes.”
Dr. Marguerite Rigoglioso, Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity (1)
“Let our Christian readers bear in mind that the worship of the virgin and her child was common in the East, ages before the generally received account of Christ’s appearance in the flesh.”
Existence of Christ Disproved
“Crishna was born of a chaste virgin, called Devaki, who, on account of her purity, was selected to become the ‘mother of God.'”
Doane, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions
The Virgin Mary is called not only the Mother of God, but the Queen of Heaven. This connects her directly with astronomic lore. The ornamentation of many continental churches often includes a representation of the Sun and Moon “in conjunction,” the Moon being therein emblematical of the Virgin and Child.
As the Moon is the symbol of Mary, Queen of Heaven, so also a bright Star sometimes symbolizes him whose star was seen over Jerusalem by the Wise Men from the East.
Regarding the astrotheological nature of the gospel story, including the virgin birth/immaculate conception, the famous Christian theologian and saint Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great, (1193?-1280) admitted:
“We know that the sign of the celestial Virgin did come to the horizon at the moment where we have fixed the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All the mysteries of the incarnation of our Saviour Christ; and all the circumstances of his marvellous life, from his conception to his ascension, are to be traced out in the constellations, and are figured in the stars.” – Hackwood
Again, the Christian virgin birth is no more historical or believable than that of these numerous other gods. Moreover, as Robertson says, “The idea of a Virgin-Mother-Goddess is practically universal.” The list of Pagan virgin mothers includes the following:
Alcmene, mother of Hercules who gave birth on December 25th
Alitta, Babylonian Madonna and Child
Anat, Syrian wife of “the earlier Supreme God El,” called “Virgin Goddess”
Cavillaca, Peruvian huaca (divine spirit) impregnated by the “son of the sun god” through eating his semen in the shape of a fruit
Chimalman, mother of Kukulcan
Chinese mother of Foe (Buddha)
Coatlicue, mother of the Mexican god Huitzilopochtli
Cybele, “Queen of Heaven and Mother of God”
Danae, mother of Perseus
Demeter/Ceres, “Holy Virgin” mother of Persephone/Kore and Dionysus
Devaki, mother of Krishna
Frigga, mother of the Scandinavian god Balder
Hera, mother of Zeus’s children
Hertha, Teutonic goddess
Isis, who gave birth to Horus on December 25th
Juno, mother of Mars/Ares, called “Matrona” and “Virginalis,” the Mother and Virgin
Mandana, mother of Cyrus/Koresh
Maya, mother of Buddha
Mother of Lao-kiun, “Chinese philosopher and teacher, born in 604 B.C.”
Mother of the Indian solar god Rudra
Nana, mother of Attis
Neith, mother of Osiris, who was “worshipped as the Holy Virgin, the Great Mother, yet an Immaculate Virgin.”
Nutria, mother of an Etruscan Son of God
Ostara, the German goddess
Rohini, mother of Indian “son of God”
Semele, mother of Dionysus/Bacchus, who was born on December 25th
Shin-Moo, Chinese Holy Mother
Siamese mother of Somonocodom (Buddha)
Sochiquetzal, mother of Quetzalcoatl
Vari, Polynesian “First Mother,” who created her children “by plucking pieces out of her sides.”
Venus, the “Virgo Coelestis” depicted as carrying a child
“Both Mithras and Christ were described variously as ‘the Way,’ ‘the Truth,’ ‘the Light,’ ‘the Life,’ ‘the Word,’ ‘the Son of God,’ ‘the Good Shepherd.’ The Christian litany to Jesus could easily be an allegorical litany to the sun-god. Mithras is often represented as carrying a lamb on his shoulders, just as Jesus is. Midnight services were found in both religions. The virgin mother…was easily merged with the virgin mother Mary. Petra, the sacred rock of Mithraism, became Peter, the foundation of the Christian Church.”
Gerald Berry, Religions of the World
“Mithra or Mitra is…worshipped as Itu (Mitra-Mitu-Itu) in every house of the Hindus in India. Itu (derivative of Mitu or Mitra) is considered as the Vegetation-deity. This Mithra or Mitra (Sun-God) is believed to be a Mediator between God and man, between the Sky and the Earth. It is said that Mithra or [the] Sun took birth in the Cave on December 25th. It is also the belief of the Christian world that Mithra or the Sun-God was born of [a] Virgin. He travelled far and wide. He has twelve satellites, which are taken as the Sun’s disciples…. [The Sun’s] great festivals are observed in the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox—Christmas and Easter. His symbol is the Lamb….”
Swami Prajnanananda, Christ the Saviour and Christ Myth
Mithra has the following in common with the Jesus character:
Mithra was born on December 25th of the virgin Anahita.
The babe was wrapped in swaddling clothes, placed in a manger and attended by shepherds.
He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.
He had 12 companions or “disciples.”
He performed miracles.
As the “great bull of the Sun,” Mithra sacrificed himself for world peace.
He ascended to heaven.
Mithra was viewed as the Good Shepherd, the “Way, the Truth and the Light,” the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah.
Mithra is omniscient, as he “hears all, sees all, knows all: none can deceive him.”
He was identified with both the Lion and the Lamb.
His sacred day was Sunday, “the Lord’s Day,” hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.
His religion had a eucharist or “Lord’s Supper.”
Mithra “sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers.”
Mithraism emphasized baptism.
“In the ancient world there was a very widespread belief in the sufferings and deaths of gods as being beneficial to man. Adonis, Attis, Dionysos, Herakles, Mithra, Osiris, and other deities, were all saviour-gods whose deaths were regarded as sacrifices made on behalf of mankind; and it is to be noticed that in almost every case there is clear evidence that the god sacrificed himself to himself.”
Sir Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity
“Osiris…was successively god of the Nile, a life-giver, a sun-god, god of justice and love, and finally a resurrected god who ruled in the afterlife…. The most popular legend about Osiris is one of a resurrected god. He was killed by Set, the god of darkness… Osiris was then resurrected and went to live on high. Osiris became the first of a long line of resurrected deities—Tammuz, Mithras, Balder, Christ. Every spring the life of Osiris was re-enacted at Abydos in a stirring passion play, dating back to the eighteenth or nineteenth century before Christ. This play is the earliest record in history of drama.”
Gerald L. Berry, Religions of the World
“Osiris or the sun was now worshipped throughout the whole world, though under different names. He was the Mithra of the Persians, the Brahma of India, the Baal or Adonis of the Phoenicians, the Apollo of the Greeks, the Odin Of Scandinavia, the Hu of the Britons, and the Baiwe of the Laplanders.”
W. Winwood Reade, The Veil of Isis; Or, Mysteries of the Druids