Yeah, sure, your Bible is historically accurate. Go ask an agnostic historian– they will give you the complete, unbiased truth.

@Chaos: I totally agree. Although your first statement I beg to differ with, because I feel that the logical course of action is to make no assumptions at all (I’m an agnostic, but I have moral and ethical beliefs).

We don’t hate your God, Henderob, we just don’t believe in him, or as Chaos said, know that he is less powerful and and morally inferior to us.

If you have such a huge problem with us, why are you using our mighty prophet’s nickname? (Henderbob– you just left out the B)

Peace, Love, and Pirates!
RAmen.

Congratulations, poster! The odds are overwhelmingly good that you are physically and morally superior to God.

To start simply, and then work your way back, I believe I should suggest you look up the background behind Judaism. When Jesus Christ was born, some believed him to be the son of God, and others did not. Those who did not were the Jewish, those who believed it became the Catholics. The Catholics later diverged into other groups, Luthernism, Antibaptism, and many more — the protestants. Because of this diverging tree, “Christianity” is now a loose term including all of the aforementioned groups aside from the jews. Basically all religions that believe in Jesus Christ. In modern days the word has been mistaken as a term purely for the protestants, which it is not.
So as you can see from that miniature history lesson, the branches and intricaces of “Christianity” and what was created first is not so clear cut as you suggest.
A major goal of the Catholic Church (The first true “christian” religion) was often to convert other religions. If Christianity is so common and the first created, I fail to see why the Catholics would have to enter the primitive countries on their missions to convert. Modern scientific evidence has found that the human race most likely began in Africa. Africans didn’t even know about Jesus Christ, and therefore Christianity, until the Spanish Inquisition and other such of the like. Neither did they know about Judaism until the incidents of Moses in Egypt. Why? Because these religions were not yet created. Judaism is based on the principle of Moses as the first prophet, Christianity is based on the principle of Jesus Christ as the second. People couldn’t foresee that someone would be born in exactly that year in that exact place, to become a great prophet, giving oh such orders from God. It doesn’t work that way. For a religion to be founded, the historical events around it and the specific geography must be found. It is impossibe for that religion to start simultaniously everywhere.
To suggest simularity between christianity and all other religions is ludacris. Christianity’s teachings are very different from that of the Hindus for example. Or the Greeks. Greek myth is extremely differential in story than Christian myth. A perfect example might be the Druids, who originally thought there was a female god who had several different faces — the crone, the goddess, and one other that escapes my memory, hah. Probably something relating to war. In any case, when the Christian religion was being spread to Druidic land, the missionaries often focused on the concept of trinity and these three faces to convince the druids. One of the first parts of the converting process was to spread more sexist idealogy in the community, changing the druidic Goddess to a God, from a mother to a father, to put it lightly. This created a further parallel to Christianity. Another tactic Christians often used was the creation or movement of holidays to simular times that other groups had them, to ease that group into the culture of Christianity. Halloween, a traditionally Christian holiday, was actually created to mimick a Druidic holiday celebrating the harvest in November. The holiday was christianized and moved to a time that the Druids were more used to, and several druidic traditions were incorporated. Such behavior can also be seen with Christmas in December. We all know that December 25th is not the day Jesus was born. However, the holiday is celebrated on that date in another tool used for christinization.
Not to say that all converting curtesy of the Christians was done in such passive techniques! The term “St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland” refers to the brutal slaughter of many celtic tribes that the catholic St. Patrick conquered and/or converted in his paths through Ireland. Quite a lovely ditch of information also exists regaurding the Spanish Inquistion.
The point of that whole bit, in any case, was to show you that perhaps many of the parallels you are seeing between Christianity and other religions is not quite how you think it is. Christian doctrine and folklore was changed frequently in the converting process to allow for a better “matchup” with adverseries. It was actually a remarkable tactic, politically. Successfully converting a country to a religion that your own people share is brilliant. It creates a common thread in the people, and lowers the chances of revolt and discontent in the conquered territory.

Lastly, I’d like to address your statement that the bible is historically correct. I’m not nearly enough of a history buff to explain this one quite so well but I would like to point out that the Bible has many scientific, aristotlean errors in its pages. That fact in itself makes me mistrust the words and stories it writes down as history. The bible contained multiple references and support of geocentrisism, the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe while all other stars, planets, the moon, and the sun float in orbit around it, as heaven floats high above. Calendars were very confused and made very little sense under this theory. As every young student knows, geocentrisism is a false belief. Heliocentrisism, first hypothesized by Copernicus, is a far more accurate theory. The sun is the center of gravity in our universe, pulling all other particles in orbit around it. Copernicus published this theory on his deathbed. Later, when Galileo proved and published this theory, he was punished for heresy.

With so many other comments, I’m sure my arguments have already been stated and further explained, so i think i’ll end here.

By the time I was 21 I could no longer cling to such nonsense as an afterlife and a sky-god who was as fallible as the crazed one described in the bible……A book that never condemned a wrong as insidious and evil as SLAVERY!!! Give me a break!