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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Groundhog has seized upon HM as in his/her view it is evidence that the Jesus story was inspired by these myths and, thus, itself is a myth, showing that Jesus did not exist and Christians are seriously misguided or worse for believing in him and following cultic pagan Christian teachings.

That is why we get the constant groundhog day of the HM-Christ connection and when it repeatedly gets rejected on historical accuracy/chronology grounds, Groundhog segues immediately that none of our refutations of the HM-Christ axis proves that Jesus existed.  Groundhog does not believe the historical references to Christ and his followers are solid enough to believe he physically existed.  So, if he physically did not exist, he must be a myth dreamed up by a group of people in the first century AD.

But since, as Ecclesiastes says, there is nothing new under the sun, Groundhog feels the need to source the outlines of the cooked up Jesus myth and alights upon Horus and Mithra as the inspiration.  Posters have pretty well demolished this last part of the Groundhog hypothesis.

There are other holes, however.  In the mileu of the time--and actually of later times--those constructing elaborate theories that explain the secret of the universe have a very strong tendency to want to keep this knowledge to themselves and a chosen few.  In other words, they are gnostic, and available only to select initiates.  (Mithraism had strong overtones of gnosticism.) But the followers of Jesus felt impelled to spread the good news to whomever would listen--the very opposite of gnosticism.  The gnostic offshoots that developed were early on denounced as antithetical to the message of Christ as most Christians saw it.

Groundhog's theory of the made up mythic origins of Christianity would perhaps historically makes sense in the context of a gnostic cult, but far less in the context of such an outward reaching religion as early Christianity.

The other hole in Groundhog's theory is that the basic message of Christianity is not that if you believe in his death and resurrection you will be saved.  If Christianity were simply a pagan cult, that would naturally be the message.  Rather, the overarching message of Christianity is that if you live a life loving others you will be saved.  There are rituals that are outward signs you have accepted this message like baptism but they are secondary to the message.  And belief in Jesus's death and resurrection underpins why loving others will save you but that belief alone is not sufficient, and in many versions of Christian teachings not strictly necessary to be saved if you live a life in accordance with Jesus's message of love.

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^^groundhog debunker has entirely too much time on her hands.[/quote]

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