Dan - one of the reasons why I have never answered your question is that I just simply have not had enough time or energy to look through that long list of gods. I do not know enough about them... however I will now endeavor to go through your list. And yes if this is your great Christian God killing argument – I will “bother” to take time to answer it, refute it and show that you have no idea what you are talking about other than the fact that you seem to be on a anti-God polemical crusade based on nothing more than the fact that you cannot stand the idea of Him being real.So your question is two fold: 'What makes the God of the Bible the real one? And what makes Him so Great?' Also do these other gods feature your following points:Born 25th December… just for the record – the Bible does not say Jesus was ever born on the 25th Dec…Born of a VirginAdored by 3 Kings??? Er you mean visited by 3 magi wise men?Birth accompanied by a StarBaptised at 30 yearsWorked with 12 disciples (aprx)Performed miraclesWas betrayedWas crucified / killed (or as the Bible says ‘willingly gave up his life’)Was dead for 3 days and then rose again (came back to life) Interestingly you haven't included many other gods in your list, including Allah. Is this because you are scared of reprisals? Or is it because you know He is very different from the God of the Bible? Oh and just in case you have been plundering – and believing Graves’ book, ‘The worlds 16 crucified saviours’ which it looks like you have got most of your material from – then check out this website where the author goes through each one – plus many more – and proves that none of these demi-gods or false idols can be compared credibly to Jesus or God Almighty of the Bible. So check out http://www.kingdavid8.com/Copycat/Home.htmlThe guy from this website refutes all of the gods Dan lists (23 of them to be precise) plus 55 more… and he has the balls to also look at Mohammad. So check him out. OK here goes - a crash course for me and other readers who are ignorant of these gods (with a little help from wiki): Horus (Sun God, Egypt): Horus was the national god of the ancient egyptians. Their Kings were said to be incarnations of Horus in life and Osiris in death. However He was not the only god. The ancient egyptians were pluralists and worshipped many deities. This, on a purely theological level has never worked when looking at The Almighty God. This also shows that this idea of god was fully inferior to that of the Almighty God talked about in the Bible. The only thing that you could possibly show as a similarity to the God of the Bible is Horus’ incarnation… but that is really stretching it. No 25th Dec (not that that was Jesus birthday anyway according to the Bible!!), no virgin birth, no 3 Kings, etc etc etc…So who does Dan say is up next? Addis (Greece): No mention of this god at all on any major websites.Next…Krishna (India) Krishna is the second person of the Hindu Trinity. He is considered to be one of the incarnations of the God Vishnu. There are some things that seem similar to the God of the Bible (as you would expect if trying to describe an Almighty deity! This is basic theology) but much that is absolutely, fundamentally different. God Almighty can only be mono-thiestic. Pluralism does not work when it comes to God in the ultimate sense.Oh and by the way – Krishna’s existence was a myth. There is no evidence for his existence. There is plenty for the physical, dated existence of Jesus.Dionysus (Greece) He was the god of the grape harvest. A god only responsible for a tiny part of creation… not God Almighty as the Bible describes. My God wins…Oh… and don’t want to sound like I am repeating myself, but ‘His existence was a myth. There is no evidence for his existence. There is plenty for the physical, dated existence of Jesus.’Mithra (Persia) …is the Zoroastrian divinity… again just a myth… compared to Jesus physical existence, there is no evidence for Mithra’s existence. No contest.Budha Sakia (India) Not actually a god – but a tradition founded by Drogmi – a Buddhist monk… no similarities to Jesus’ life and evidence of existence or indeed the Almighty God described in the Bible.Salivahana (Bermuda) I cant see anywhere on the net that this was a god/divinity or indeed similar to Jesus.Odin (Scandinavia) A major God in Nose mythology. But that’s the problem – One of many gods – not God Almighty AND he is rooted in mythology – not fact and physical evidence. Go see Stew Dean for a good telling off.Zoroaster (Persia) An Iranian/Persian prophet and philosopher who is the founder of Zoroastrianism. Zoroaster was murdered> He did not come back to life. Therefore he is mortal – not divine. And certainly not akin to an Almighty God.Indra (Tibet) Indra is one of the chief deities in the Rigveda. King of the demi-gods and Lord of heaven. But again one of many Gods – not God Almighty. This is just mythology – not like Jesus at all.Bali (Afghanistan) ????? Tell me about these, Dan… nothing online about them.Jao (Nepal) ?????? Tell me about these, Dan… nothing online about them.Wittola (Balingonese) ?????? Tell me about these, Dan… nothing online about them.Thammuz (Syria) Errr he died. His followers have a festival to recognize he died. He cant be God Almighty… and also there are no similarities between him and Jesus.Atys (Phrygia) He was originally a local semi-deity of Phrygia, associated with the great Phrygian trading city of Pessinos, which lay under the lee of Mount Agdistis. Legend and myth – hardly God Almighty equivalent stuff and definitely not as much evidence there as Jesus.Wow this is boring! I thought Dan had something there for a minute….Xamolxis (Thrace) A so-called divinity of the Getae… The Zalmoxis story was written by Herodotus around 440 B.C., so, yes, it does pre-date Christianity. Herodotus wrote that Zalmoxis was a man who pulled a fast one on the "poor, ignorant" Thracians. According to Herodotus, Zalmoxis preached to them while building an underground chamber, which he eventually disappeared into. The Thracians "regretted his loss, and mourned over him as one dead". After three years, Zalmoxis emerged from his chamber, making them think he'd come back from the dead. Since this story was one of mere trickery and did not involve any sort of actual physical resurrection, any comparisons to Jesus are pretty minor. There are no claims of evidence for his resurrection.Adad (Assyria) The Sumerian god Adad also known as Ishkur. A god of ‘thunder’ storms. But not an ultimate Divinity. Once again. A lesser amongst others. The Sumerian Ishkur appears in the list of gods found at Fara but was of far less importance than the Akkadian Adad later became, probably partly because storms and rain are scarce in southern Babylonia and agriculture there depends on irrigation instead. Also, the gods Enlil and Ninurta also had storm god features which decreased Ishkur's distinctiveness. He sometimes appears as the assistant or companion of one or the other of the two.Mikad (Sintoos) Can hardly find anything about this one on the web – so hardly an influential ‘God Almighty’ at large today.Beddru (Japan) This is an anti-Christian hoax. A mis-spelling of the word ‘beddo’ or ‘Buddha’ as more commonly known. What, exactly, are the Beddru stories? Skeptics claim that this was a Japanese god who influenced Christianity, but Japanese mythology shows no such god. Neither does the mythology of any other country. In fact, the name 'Beddru' couldn't be Japanese, since the letter combonations of 'ddr' and 'dru' do not exist in the Japanese language (and 'dd' itself exists only in words borrowed from other languages). Some sites note that his name is also 'Beddin', but the combination 'ddi' doesn't exist and, again, the 'dd' itself is problematic. The Encyclopedia Mythica lists over 200 Japanese gods, and there's no 'Beddru' or 'beddin' on the list. Unless anyone out there can familiarize me with past or present worshippers of 'Beddru/Beddin', this can be safely written off as an anti-Christian hoax.Cadmus (Greece)Cadmus was a Greek god from mere mythology that some critics say parallels the Jesus story, though once again they don't say how. Cadmus was the son of Agenor. His story is that when his sister, Europa, was kidnapped by Zeus, Agenor ordered Cadmus and his two brothers, Phoenix and Cilix, to find Europa. All three failed. Cadmus consulted the oracle at Delphi, which told him to follow a cow around and, when it laid down, to found a city at that spot. Following these orders, he founded the city of Thebes. The city had some trouble with a serpent or dragon, and Cadmus slayed it. As punishment for killing the serpent, he spent eight years serving Ares. He eventually married Ares' daughter, had five kids with her, and then somehow got transformed into a serpent. He was also the first person to combine consonants with vowels, thus created speech as we know it. As you can see, this doesn't parallel the Jesus story at all. Quexalcote (Mexico) Quetzalcoatl was a South American Aztec god. This causes one very strong problems for critics trying to claim that the Jesus story borrowed from the Quetzalcoatl story. How do they suppose the Israelites heard about Quetzalcoatl? Yet another problem is that many historians believe that the Quetzalcoatl stories sprang up in the Americas around the 10th century A.D., roughly 900 years after Jesus walked the Earth. Another serious problem for the critics here is that almost everything we know about Quetzalcoatl comes from documents written after Europeans started visiting the Americas. Since the Europeans were there to spread the Christian religion, it's likely that the religion of Quetzalcoatl would have absorbed much Christian influence, making any similarities between Jesus and Quetzalcoatl most likely the result of Christian influence on Quetzalcoatl, not the other way around. Critics are fond of pointing out that Quetzalcoatl was a white man. When Cortez arrived, the Mesoamericans apparently thought that he was Quetzalcoatl returning to them. However, it should be noted that Jesus was not white, but Jewish. Some critics claim that Quetzalcoatl also wore a white robe like Jesus, but the only references to Quetzalcoatl's clothing refer to a cloak with green feathers. Quetzalcoatl's mother was Coatlicue, and in some versions of the legend she was a virgin somehow impregnanted by a ball of feathers. But again, his 'virgin-born' status likely arose from Christian influence. Another similarity that critics point to is that Quetzalcoatl was tempted as Jesus was. There's no indication that this story predates Columbus, and, besides, in Quetzalcoatl tradition, he gives into his temptations, committing incest and getting drunk. All things considered, the idea that the Jesus stories borrowed from the Quetzalcoatl stories is one of the least likely to be valid. Fohi / Fu Xi (China) More commonly known as "Fu Xi", Fohi (as the critics tend to call him) was a mythological emperor who ruled somewhere between 2900 and 2700 B.C. He supposedly taught mankind the use of fishing nets, the breeding of silk worms, and the taming of wild animals. He also supposedly invented the Chinese family names and first forbid marriages within families (though he himself married his sister, Niu-Kua). He was sometimes depicted as being half-serpent, or as having four faces so that he could look in every direction. Some unbiased sources claim that he had no father, but only a mother. This would likely mean a virgin birth (assuming his mother hadn't been with anyone prior to Fohi's miraculous conception), though I cannot find an unbiased source specifically claiming that she was a virgin. Of course, this doesn't exactly compare to the Jesus story, since Jesus DID have a father, which was God. I'll leave it up to you to decide how close this is. But it is rather unlikely that the Israelites had heard of Fohi, and since the differences between Fohi and Jesus far outweight this one similarity, it's really not possible that the Jesus story was based on the Fohi story.Quirinus (Rome)Not much is known about Quirinus, a god worshipped by the Sabines, people who lived north-east of Rome. He was believed to wear a beard, and have clothing that was semi-military in style. He had a festival, the Quirinalia, which was celebrated on February 17th. I haven't seen any parallels between him and Jesus. Some critics claim he was born of a virgin, but this claim does not exist in any writings.Dan this is a long post as I always will answer a question – even if the poster can’t be bothered to listen to the answer. I hope you have the (Christian) decency to read the answers and check out the website so you can come to an informed scientific change in your thinking.Love,L
Laurence Truett ● 5096d