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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (96590)	4/28/2003 8:10:32 AM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 281500

OT I have to be off this morning. Will probably be the evening before I can get back on this.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (96590)	4/28/2003 9:42:18 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

OT ok, I'm back. I think Christianity has a different feel than Mithraism, as you said, because they are different religions with only superficial similarities. Re. Anahita - I think she was actually the consort of Mithra not his mother as he emerged from a rock as I understand it. Re. Mary - only the RCC venerates Mary and much of that veneration is of recent origin. It was only in 1854 that the Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary "preserved free from all guilt of original sin". In 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed that Mary had been "taken up body and soul into heaven" and there "exalted as queen of the universe". Then in 1964, pope Paul VI proclaimed her as "mother of the church". The perpetual virginity doctrine goes back longer to 649. I don't know where the RCC is going with this but I do know none of it comes from the Christian scriptures. No offense meant to any Catholic who reads this but...(Sheesh, I hope this doesn't start a brand new discussion. -g- I'd rather avoid that.) I find it very likely that when Constantine claimed himself to be "Pontifus Maximus" or "the high priest" (title given to Mithraists) and tried to recreate the "lost" Christian ways, he would have been very very likely to have borrowed liberally from Mithraism and its related gods and saints. Constantine did change the course of Christian history profoundly, making it an established religion vs a persecuted one. And he may not have converted till his death-bed - if then. His mother was a Christian though. He also called a council which produced the Nicene creed. I suppose since he was making it the official religion he wanted to get defined what was officially christian and what wasn't. In so doing, he set up Christianity to be standardized with the existing variations in belief, like non-trinitarian arianism, stamped out. But he didn't create anything NEW in Christianity that didn't already exist. The Christian scriptures and key Christian doctrines all predate him. And I don't see how any of those originated from Mithraism. One can read Clement's letter from the last decade of the first century, long before Constantine, and see nothing foreign to modern Christianity. One last thing about Mithraism. It seems difficult to pin down exactly what Mithraism was because we have no scriptures from that religion laying out what its beliefs were. Was Anahita Mithra's mother or consort? Maybe Mirthraism never had any scriptures at all. It was a mystery cult with mysteries explained to members only as they went through 7 grades of initiations. I think Ulansey has the best view of it because he can explain the central iconography of Mithraism, which is something we can know for sure as it was left behind all over the place, as being an enactment of astrological and astronomical observations. well.com And I just can't see anything in Christianity except superficial things like the timing of Christmas as being related to Mithraism. And in closing, all this stuff happened long ago in FOREIGN countries so I guess this could be called a foreign affairs discussion with a really big stretch.