The Early Church and Infant Sacrifice

[changingmyself]

Originally Posted by exu156

Being born in a cave is very interesting and it is keeping in line with Mithras who was also cave-born. In fact the Verjuy Mithra Temple in Iran is not only one of the oldest Mithraic temples but an example of where his worship took place.



read more here:
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Archae...hra_temple.htm

Same type of thing with Jesus being crucified on a tree and a cross, both of which are associated with the Djedd Tree and the Ankh.

[michaelsherlock]

Well, OK - we looked at Tertullian a bit at school but that was 20+ years ago now, and all my books are up in my parent's loft, so I am stuck with the Internet which, as we know, can admittedly be an unreliable resource!

A good online resource for early Christian literature that is reliable (the site, not the literature itself) is Christian Classics Ethereal Library, ccel.org

I hope this helps you when you need some of this work, for whatever purpose you require it for.

I believe it's important to consider context, and look at things from all angles before coming to any conclusions, especially controversial ones!

I agree. That is why I used words like "seem" and "appear" and "if".

Anyway, luckily God isn't interested in how much knowledge we can cram into our skulls, and is compassionate with us over our limited human understanding. IMHO, he's much more interested in the state of our hearts, and whether or not the things we do or say are motivated by love.

I like your outlook here, but I think some qualification is needed. We do not know what god wants, or even if there is a god. Some people, most people, believe there is a god, or gods, yet that is belief, not fact, so I think we need to be a little more open minded on the issue, as it is one which is both unresolved and has, in the past, led to all manner of evil.

Notwithstanding your beliefs, I think your ideas about god, which are reflected in many early "pagan" and modern non-Christian religions, is a positive one.

[knightstemplar]

This is why we came out with a new book that was less bloody and did not require sacrifices. You know, The New Testament? The same Bible that has managed this age for the last 1500 or so years where we had changed blood into wine and instead of sacrificing our children, we sacrificed a ram
--------------------------

According to the biblical story, God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. (Genesis 22:5 and 22:8). After Isaac is bound to an altar, the angel of God stops Abraham at the last minute, saying "now I know you fear God." At this point Abraham sees a ram caught in some nearby bushes and sacrifices the ram instead of Isaac.

Binding of Isaac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Binding of Isaac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Binding of Isaac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[jesusistruth]

My God this is a stupid thread. Where in tghe Christian religion do you find room for child sacrifice, or any other sacrifice? Even if we believe the Father of Jesus was Moloch, like the Catholics and JWs do, then Christ's sacrificed has covered all the need for sacrifice and further sacrifice would not only be vain but heretical.

[kitabatake]

Originally Posted by jesusistruth

My God this is a stupid thread. Where in tghe Christian religion do you find room for child sacrifice, or any other sacrifice? Even if we believe the Father of Jesus was Moloch, like the Catholics and JWs do, then Christ's sacrificed has covered all the need for sacrifice and further sacrifice would not only be vain but heretical.

Ah yes of course. The jews are so sacred and godlike that the name of their people must be abbreviated like "g-D". Laughable jew worshiping zealot. Ha. Typo or not, I found it humorous indeed.

[danceswithbunnies]

Wow...just wow.

Well you know Tertullian was a literalist, so perhaps we should apply the same standard to his writings that he applied to scripture.

At any rate, right now i am reading "Jesus Potter, Harry Christ" (among other books)that show the similarity to harry potter a fictional character to Jesus, and goes through gleaning writings of church fathers , takes a hard look at the many various pagan elements incorporated into christianity..

I am finding out all sorts of stuff..
Here is an interesting example:
apparently human spit was supposed to have healing properties...remember Jesus Healing the blind man?
He mingled spit with mud and rubbed it into the man's eyes?

Didja know that Tacitus records emperor Vespasian healing a blind man in a similar manner?
It was accepted then as propaganda and apparently everyone acknowledged stories like that as propaganda
So the argument runs...how do we know that christianity is not just propaganda..

Innit wild?


Anyway getting back to the child sacrifice thing...i had read that at the time of Christ, for the most part the pagans no longer even sacrificed animals..let alone infants.
I do know i read that there was evidence of infant sacrifice on a massive scale in the Levant..(or Israel if you will)

Who knows what the hell was going on..

[jesusistruth]

Originally Posted by kitabatake

Ah yes of course. The jews are so sacred and godlike that the name of their people must be abbreviated like "g-D". Laughable jew worshiping zealot. Ha. Typo or not, I found it humorous indeed.

I meant Jehovas Witnesses.

I personally think the state of Israel should be destroyed. Go China! Go Russia! Go Iran!

And if the US meddles itself in there, let it be destroyed as well!

OK, let me refute that. If Israel attacks Iran, then let it be destroyed, and let the US be destroyed if they ally. I understand there are two different zionisms, one where the Jews just have a land of their own, a promise made in the Bible, and one where the Jewish elite rule the world, nothing of which is stated in the Bible yet some try make it appear so. I think however that the khazarian, Satanworshipping Rothschilds jumped on the zionism wagon to carry out their agenda with such a cover. In any case, Israel is a terrible nation.

[monay]

Originally Posted by danceswithbunnies

Wow...just wow.

Well you know Tertullian was a literalist, so perhaps we should apply the same standard to his writings that he applied to scripture.

At any rate, right now i am reading "Jesus Potter, Harry Christ" (among other books)that show the similarity to harry potter a fictional character to Jesus, and goes through gleaning writings of church fathers , takes a hard look at the many various pagan elements incorporated into christianity..

I am finding out all sorts of stuff..
Here is an interesting example:
apparently human spit was supposed to have healing properties...remember Jesus Healing the blind man?
He mingled spit with mud and rubbed it into the man's eyes?

Didja know that Tacitus records emperor Vespasian healing a blind man in a similar manner?
It was accepted then as propaganda and apparently everyone acknowledged stories like that as propaganda
So the argument runs...how do we know that christianity is not just propaganda..

Innit wild?


Anyway getting back to the child sacrifice thing...i had read that at the time of Christ, for the most part the pagans no longer even sacrificed animals..let alone infants.
I do know i read that there was evidence of infant sacrifice on a massive scale in the Levant..(or Israel if you will)

Who knows what the hell was going on..

J. K. Rowling is Christian. She wrote the Harry Potter books. There are no pagan secrets in them. We are back to the Easter Bunny thing.

http://thehogshead.org/guest-blogger...christian-340/

[jamesredford]

Originally Posted by michaelsherlock

Whilst doing research for my book series, ‘I Am Christ,’ I came across this rather curious admission within the works of the 3rd century Church Father, Tertullian.

In his ‘Ad Nationes’ (‘Address to the Nations’), in which he attempted to answer some of the criticisms laid against the Christian religion, by the non-Christians of his day, Tertullian said:

Since we are on a par in respect of the gods, it follows that there is no difference between us on the point of sacrifice, or even of worship, if I may be allowed to make good our comparison from another sort of evidence. We begin our religious service, or initiate our mysteries, with slaying an infant. As for you, since your own transactions in human blood and infanticide have faded from your memory, you shall be duly reminded of them in the proper place…. Meanwhile, as I have said, the comparison between us does not fail in another point of view….Yet there is no great difference between us, only you do not kill your infants in the way of a sacred rite, nor (as a service) to God.

What this church father seems to be admitting is that the early church, in like manner to other surrounding religious traditions, killed babies at the beginning of their services. If in fact this be the case, in Tertullian’s defence, they were killing babies for Jesus’ sake and no matter how savage and barbaric their custom, their motivations were pure! Upon this rationale however, most serial killers in prison today would be exonerated and released by the likes of these bloodthirsty Christians, so long as the killer heard the voice of their god telling him to kill. But, to be fair, it must be conceded that no longer do Christians brutally sacrifice children to their god (exceptions do apply), instead they merely rape them repeatedly!

1. Philip Schaff. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 3. Latin Christianity; Its founder, Tertullian. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. (1885). Pg. 192

Hi, Michaelsherlock. Tertullian wasn't admitting that Christians sacrificed children. Rather, Tertullian was using a technique of argumentation known as arguendo, i.e., "for the sake of argument". Tertullian was here replying to false charges that had been made against Christians by the pagans by assuming that the charges were true and then investigating the implications of them. Tertullian's point here is that even if one assumes that such false charges are true, the pagan critics do far worse things to children, which the full passage makes clear:

Chapter XV.—The Charge of Infanticide Retorted on the Heathen. http://st-takla.org/books/en/ecf/003/0030155.html

The use of arguendo also applies to the other such passages which people have posted in this thread.

[danceswithbunnies]

Originally Posted by monay

J. K. Rowling is Christian. She wrote the Harry Potter books. There are no pagan secrets in them. We are back to the Easter Bunny thing.

http://thehogshead.org/guest-blogger...christian-340/

Whether or not she is christian is kinda a moot point...

i do know that she is VERY much interested in Alchemy
she has said

“I’ve never wanted to be a witch, but an alchemist, now that’s a different matter. To invent this wizard world, I’ve learned a ridiculous amount about alchemy. Perhaps much of it I’ll never use in the books, but I have to know in detail what magic can and cannot do in order to set the parameters and establish the stories’ internal logic.”

Actually the "christian" themes she is incorporating into Harry Potter have Pagan Antecedents as attested by the church fathers themselves.
The whole point is that Christianity is an amalgamation of earlier pagan themes melded syncretically with Judaism.

[jamesredford]

Originally Posted by danceswithbunnies

Whether or not she is christian is kinda a moot point...(i do know that she is VERY much interested in Alchemy)

Actually the "christian" themes she is incorporating into Harry Potter have Pagan Antecedents as attested by the church fathers themselves.
The whole point is that Christianity is an amalgamation of earlier pagan themes melded syncretically with Judaism.

Hi, Danceswithbunnies. One cannot use the passages which have been posted in this thread to demonstrate your above factually-incorrect claim. As I wrote above:

Originally Posted by jamesredford

Hi, Michaelsherlock. Tertullian wasn't admitting that Christians sacrificed children. Rather, Tertullian was using a technique of argumentation known as arguendo, i.e., "for the sake of argument". Tertullian was here replying to false charges that had been made against Christians by the pagans by assuming that the charges were true and then investigating the implications of them. Tertullian's point here is that even if one assumes that such false charges are true, the pagan critics do far worse things to children, which the full passage makes clear:

Chapter XV.—The Charge of Infanticide Retorted on the Heathen. http://st-takla.org/books/en/ecf/003/0030155.html

The use of arguendo also applies to the other such passages which people have posted in this thread.

[danceswithbunnies]

Originally Posted by jamesredford

Hi, Danceswithbunnies. One cannot use the passages which have been posted in this thread to demonstrate your above factually-incorrect claim. As I wrote above:

that is a matter of opinion not fact.
Just because you state something does not make it true.

[kenan]

Originally Posted by michaelsherlock

Whilst doing research for my book series, ‘I Am Christ,’ I came across this rather curious admission within the works of the 3rd century Church Father, Tertullian.

In his ‘Ad Nationes’ (‘Address to the Nations’), in which he attempted to answer some of the criticisms laid against the Christian religion, by the non-Christians of his day, Tertullian said:

Since we are on a par in respect of the gods, it follows that there is no difference between us on the point of sacrifice, or even of worship, if I may be allowed to make good our comparison from another sort of evidence. We begin our religious service, or initiate our mysteries, with slaying an infant. As for you, since your own transactions in human blood and infanticide have faded from your memory, you shall be duly reminded of them in the proper place…. Meanwhile, as I have said, the comparison between us does not fail in another point of view….Yet there is no great difference between us, only you do not kill your infants in the way of a sacred rite, nor (as a service) to God.

What this church father seems to be admitting is that the early church, in like manner to other surrounding religious traditions, killed babies at the beginning of their services. If in fact this be the case, in Tertullian’s defence, they were killing babies for Jesus’ sake and no matter how savage and barbaric their custom, their motivations were pure! Upon this rationale however, most serial killers in prison today would be exonerated and released by the likes of these bloodthirsty Christians, so long as the killer heard the voice of their god telling him to kill. But, to be fair, it must be conceded that no longer do Christians brutally sacrifice children to their god (exceptions do apply), instead they merely rape them repeatedly!

1. Philip Schaff. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 3. Latin Christianity; Its founder, Tertullian. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. (1885). Pg. 192

Yes, there was a lot of infant sacrifice in the early Church.
Pagans didn't care.
They killed lots of young innocent Christian babies and children just like they do it today legally, approved and organized by your local Abortion Clinic. All those who don't speak against Abortion agree with it and are held accountable before God and are labeled as cowards, indifferent and murderers.

[jamesredford]

Originally Posted by danceswithbunnies

that is a matter of opinion not fact.
Just because you state something does not make it true.

This is a matter of your functional illiteracy. Tertullian is replying to charges against Christians which he holds to be false. No competent academic has ever maintained that Tertullian is claiming that such charges were true, since the full reading of his reply against such charges makes clear that he's refuting them, not agreeing with them. That was the whole point of Tertullian's reply to such false charges.

But in addition to being unable to read and understand the full passages and their context within the larger work, the concept of arguendo is also apparently too difficult for some non-academics to grasp.

[jamesredford]

Originally Posted by kenan

Yes, there was a lot of infant sacrifice in the early Church.
Pagans didn't care.
They killed lots of young innocent Christian babies and children just like they do it today legally, approved and organized by your local Abortion Clinic. All those who don't speak against Abortion agree with it and are held accountable before God and are labeled as cowards, indifferent and murderers.

Hi, Kenan. Your first claim above is false. There has never been a practice of human sacrifice in the Christian church, and no competent academic has ever claimed such a thing.

The passages people are posting here thinking that they somehow demonstrate pagan practices by the early Christians are due to such people's functional illiteracy, i.e., their inability to read the full passages in the context of their work and to understand them.

Again, no competent academic has ever claimed that such passages mean what some people within this thread have said they meant, since anyone who has the intellectual ability to read them in context and understand them would know that they do not mean what some here are claiming they mean, but instead mean the exact opposite.

As I wrote above:

Originally Posted by jamesredford

Hi, Michaelsherlock. Tertullian wasn't admitting that Christians sacrificed children. Rather, Tertullian was using a technique of argumentation known as arguendo, i.e., "for the sake of argument". Tertullian was here replying to false charges that had been made against Christians by the pagans by assuming that the charges were true and then investigating the implications of them. Tertullian's point here is that even if one assumes that such false charges are true, the pagan critics do far worse things to children, which the full passage makes clear:

Chapter XV.—The Charge of Infanticide Retorted on the Heathen. http://st-takla.org/books/en/ecf/003/0030155.html

The use of arguendo also applies to the other such passages which people have posted in this thread.

[danceswithbunnies]

Originally Posted by jamesredford

This is a matter of your functional illiteracy. Tertullian is replying to charges against Christians which he holds to be false. No competent academic has ever maintained that Tertullian is claiming that such charges were true, since the full reading of his reply against such charges makes clear that he's refuting them, not agreeing with them. That was the whole point of Tertullian's reply to such false charges.

But in addition to being unable to read and understand the full passages and their context within the larger work, the concept of arguendo is also apparently too difficult for some non-academics to grasp.

YOU are insulting me because i do not agree with you?

Do you know what the logical fallacy called "appeal to authority" is?
Do you know about a logical fallacy called "ad hominem"?

You have just committed both.
I may be "functionally illiterate"...but i am not logically illiterate.

[kenan]

Originally Posted by jamesredford

Hi, Kenan. Your first claim above is false. There has never been a practice of human sacrifice in the Christian church, and no competent academic has ever claimed such a thing.
As I wrote above:

You didn't understand me, I was sarcastic. I am not saying Christian sacrificed babies and children but pagans did so in the early Church during persecutions and martyrdom.

[jamesredford]

Originally Posted by danceswithbunnies

YOU are insulting me because i do not agree with you?

Do you know what the logical fallacy called "appeal to authority" is?
Do you know about a logical fallacy called "ad hominem"?

You have just committed both.
I may be "functionally illiterate"...but i am not logically illiterate.

I never insulted you. I used the term "functional illiteracy" merely as a statement of fact, not an insult.

[monay]

Originally Posted by danceswithbunnies

Whether or not she is christian is kinda a moot point...

i do know that she is VERY much interested in Alchemy
she has said


Actually the "christian" themes she is incorporating into Harry Potter have Pagan Antecedents as attested by the church fathers themselves.
The whole point is that Christianity is an amalgamation of earlier pagan themes melded syncretically with Judaism.

JK Rowling wrote her fantasies based on Nicolas Flamel and his wife. They were Roman Caltholic. Yet the Easter Bunny thing.

http://www.flamelcollege.org/flamel.htm

[danceswithbunnies]

Originally Posted by monay

JK Rowling wrote her fantasies based on Nicolas Flamel and his wife. They were Roman Caltholic. Yet the Easter Bunny thing.

http://www.flamelcollege.org/flamel.htm

Okay i am unsure WHY you keep bringing up the easter bunny...

Now it may have escaped your notice but most of the people around the 1300s in europe were Roman Catholic because if you were not, you were TORTURED AND THEN subjected to Auto De Fe

The roman catholic church executed its last heretic victim as recently 1875

since you keep mentioning the easter bunny.., did it strike you as odd that the jewish festivals like Pesach are based on the LUNAR calendar..?