Heaven: Beyond the Grave documentary

StormWarrior

I just watched a documentary on the sky history channel called Heaven: Beyond the Grave. It was really interesting and the part that interested me was about the Christian idea of heaven. It showed how what became the Christian idea of heaven developed over a long period of time from other beliefs such as those of the Egyptians and other early societies, and was altered and added to over the years by people like the early Greek philosophers, and all kinds of other religions and groups of people. It just generally showed how this belief came to be, and was really good evidence that it's a man made belief rather than a divine revelation. If anyone's interested I'm sure it'll be repeated again pretty soon.

sparkfire

StormWarrior wrote: »

I just watched a documentary on the sky history channel called Heaven: Beyond the Grave. It was really interesting and the part that interested me was about the Christian idea of heaven. It showed how what became the Christian idea of heaven developed over a long period of time from other beliefs such as those of the Egyptians and other early societies, and was altered and added to over the years by people like the early Greek philosophers, and all kinds of other religions and groups of people. It just generally showed how this belief came to be, and was really good evidence that it's a man made belief rather than a divine revelation. If anyone's interested I'm sure it'll be repeated again pretty soon.

No it does not. It shows that the idea of Heaven is beyond our understanding due to our limited intellectual capacity. Therefore when people think of Heaven they draw upon ideas from previous cultures as a framework.

crotalus667

sparkfire wrote: »

No it does not. It shows that the idea of Heaven is beyond our understanding due to our limited intellectual capacity. Therefore when people think of Heaven they draw upon ideas from previous cultures as a framework.

There is anobvious flaw in that statement

antiskeptic

StormWarrior wrote: »

I just watched a documentary on the sky history channel called Heaven: Beyond the Grave. It was really interesting and the part that interested me was about the Christian idea of heaven. It showed how what became the Christian idea of heaven developed over a long period of time from other beliefs such as those of the Egyptians and other early societies, and was altered and added to over the years by people like the early Greek philosophers, and all kinds of other religions and groups of people. It just generally showed how this belief came to be, and was really good evidence that it's a man made belief rather than a divine revelation. If anyone's interested I'm sure it'll be repeated again pretty soon.

Sounds like standard unbelievers fare to be honest. You should remember that the Christian idea is derived from the Bible - which predates Christ.

thewing

But the story of Jesus is based on Egyptian god Horus, which predates the bible...

sparkfire

crotalus667 wrote: »

There is anobvious flaw in that statement

Would you like to contribute to the discussion and actually point out what the 'flaw' is?

Fanny Cradock

thewing wrote: »

But the story of Jesus is based on Egyptian god Horus, which predates the bible...

No it isn't. It's a common fallacy that we see here far too often.

"Horus was born on the 25th of December to a virgin" - blah de blah. "He was crucified and rose three days later" - Zeitgeist Zeitgeist...

Do a search on this forum under the key word Horus. Better still, actually look at the sources (Book of the Dead, scholarly investigation etc.) to see how truthful the Jesus = Horus (or whoever) claims are.

PDN

thewing wrote: »

But the story of Jesus is based on Egyptian god Horus, which predates the bible...

It isn't, we covered this Zeitgeist nonsense before here.

Horus was born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris, except his penis which was thrown into the Nile and eaten by a catfish, and used her magic powers to resurrect Osiris and fashion a gold phallus to conceive Horus.

Since Horus was said to be the sky, he was considered to also contain the sun and moon. It became said that the sun was his right eye and the moon his left, and that they traversed the sky when he, a falcon, flew across it.

Horus participated in a series of battles with another god, Set. In these battles Horus was blinded in one eye, but managed to rip one of Set's testicles off. (ouch!)


Now, maybe I'm missing something obvious here - but could you point out which of the characteristics of Horus the story of Jesus was based on?

crotalus667

PDN wrote: »

Now, maybe I'm missing something obvious here - but could you point out which of the characteristics of Horus the story of Jesus was based on?

Your both righ and wrong so this could go on for a while :rolleyes:

antiskeptic

StormWarrior wrote: »

I just watched a documentary on the sky history channel called Heaven: Beyond the Grave. It was really interesting and the part that interested me was about the Christian idea of heaven. It showed how what became the Christian idea of heaven developed over a long period of time from other beliefs such as those of the Egyptians and other early societies, and was altered and added to over the years by people like the early Greek philosophers, and all kinds of other religions and groups of people. It just generally showed how this belief came to be, and was really good evidence that it's a man made belief rather than a divine revelation. If anyone's interested I'm sure it'll be repeated again pretty soon.

It might be worthwhile pointing out the dangers of assuming anyone has a neutral position. TV programmes like this are looking at things from an unbelievers perspective and must, per definition, construct an unbelievers argument (which is what this programme of yours has done). The same thing happens in the universities where unbelievers - atheists even - are the ones running Theology courses - and so you produce unbelieving theologians from unbelieving students who manage to deconstruct the Bible this way and that because that is what they have been trained to do.

The Bible is pretty clear on there being but two positions a person can occupy wrt God. Lost or Found. Believer or Unbeliever. Unbelievers do as unbelievers can be expected to do. If a believer puts up an opposing case then this too is just what is to be expected.

You, as an unbeliever (it appears) can be expected to find harmony with another unbelievers view (eg: this programme). It resonates with you because of who and what you are.

philologos

StormWarrior wrote: »

I just watched a documentary on the sky history channel called Heaven: Beyond the Grave. It was really interesting and the part that interested me was about the Christian idea of heaven. It showed how what became the Christian idea of heaven developed over a long period of time from other beliefs such as those of the Egyptians and other early societies, and was altered and added to over the years by people like the early Greek philosophers, and all kinds of other religions and groups of people. It just generally showed how this belief came to be, and was really good evidence that it's a man made belief rather than a divine revelation. If anyone's interested I'm sure it'll be repeated again pretty soon.

Sounds like yet another documentary about Christianity on UK TV with a skeptical bias. Nothing unusual about it.

The early Greek philosophers such as Aristotle thought that the universe had existed perpetually and will have no end, amongst other things that don't bode too well with Christian belief.

StormWarrior

It was about how they had added certain bits to the idea of heaven which became part of the christian belief, not about them writing the whole of the christian religion.

antiskeptic

StormWarrior wrote: »

It was about how they had added certain bits to the idea of heaven which became part of the christian belief, not about them writing the whole of the christian religion.

Could you summarise in a few sentences what this programmes idea of a Christian heaven actually is. I've a strange feeling it'll be off the mark and if so, it's be a straw-man heaven they're dismantling.

Sorry about being auto-dismissive about the programme but watching secularists understanding of "Christianity" is, typically speaking, like watching soap opera - far removed from reality and typically hysterical (even if that hysteria be muted)

StormWarrior

well I can't remember what they said now, but I'm sure the programme will be repeated many times if you want to watch it.

Fanny Cradock

Certainly Platonic belief heavily influenced Christian beliefs in the afterlife. However, it is important to consider that this was a later addition, and one that I don't believe was recognised by the earliest Christians.