HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALL YOU GUYS

So Jesus was born today (according to Robert, the Catholic Church and a whole lot of Christians out there).

In reality of course the prophet, scholar and teacher Jesus of Nazareth was born around the time stated, give or take a few years, but it's unlikely the date was December 25th. It's more likely he was born in the Spring as there were many mentions of shepherds tending to new born lambs and other springtime activities.

Jesus Christ being born on December 25th doesn’t appear in any historical record until the 4th century. The previous Christian, Roman, Gospellers and other writers made no mention of this. 

Late December is the time of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and was a time of pagan  celebrations. The Emperor Constantine, in the 4th century declared that Jesus was born on December 25th along with a lot of other nonsense about Christianity (done for political reasons of the day). He supported Christianity in the Edict of Milan and the first Council of Nicaea to placate the growing Christian faction in Rome. Selecting December 25th was no shot in the dark as this date was already the birthdate of the Romans adopted Syrian god Sol Invictus (done in in 274 A.D).  Lining up Jesus's birthday on 25 December with previous gods birthdays was a calculated, political decision.

Long before Yahweh and Jesus Christ, many religions had gods who were born in strange, miraculous ways, at times to virgins, who came to earth at Winter Solstice, performed miracles, taught about judgement and the afterlife, were killed, reborn, and ascended into heaven.

 December 25 was an important birthday for many human gods.

The following gods or demigods were born on December 25: 

Yahweh, Horus, Osiris, Attis, Krishna, Mithra, Zoroaster, Prometheus, Heracles, Dionysus, Tammuz, Adonis, Hermes and others. Some of these were also born to virgins.

An in depth look at this can be found here: OTHER GODS BORN TO VIRGINS ON DECEMBER 25TH

HELL BENT

HELL the concept or, more accurately the construct has featured quite a bit in Robert's recent posts and the lively banter in comments between him and Richard.

Most of his posts have been deleted but here's an excerpt from his latest (soon to be deleted post).

"Hell is one of those things you either love or hate.

Some think you should not mention it to children.
I think we underestimate the fortitude and intelligence of children.
Of course there will always be self opiniated  (sic) old fools.
Forget and ignore them.
Childhood is tough. It's often cruel. But lessons learned are important.
Hell is real."

 - ROBERT 2 December 2020

As usual there's a lot to decipher in this, or, to try and make sense of.

"Hell is one of those things you either love or hate."

Straight off I find this hard to understand. If such a thing as Hell existed who in their right mind would love it? Satan? Devil worshippers? Masochists? I think that Robert veered a bit off course here which is not surprising as it's a slippery slope to try and justify silly Christian - in particular Catholic - teachings and beliefs.

The middle bit of his proposal relates to the argument that he was having with Richard about the right or wrong of terrorising children with threats of their going to Hell if they don't pray to God and support the Catholic Church. I'll leave that to them to sort out.

Robert finishes, as is usual for him with another silly and unsubstantiated, typically Catholic statement - "Hell is real."

Let's explore that. "Hell is real." 

OK, if it is real then it can be investigated, analysed, visited, checked, verified and otherwise proven.

I really would like to know what Robert thinks Hell is.

Is it, in his mind, the early Hebrew place where the souls of all the dead were held  outside of the presence of God.? 

Or does he believe in a form of Hades which the ancient Greeks developed where all the dead lingered in the underground ruled by a god of the dead and which had a lower level for the bad people who were imprisoned?

Maybe he prefers the Medieval take that Hell is a place of eternal torment, burning in neverending fires and being prodded up the bum with pitchforks wielded by demons?

Or, is he one of the more 'enlightened' Christians who see Hell as being  God's absence and the chief pain of hell is eternal separation from God?

This idea of Hell being separation from God is about as nebulous as it gets and is an obvious cop out

 by the Church realising how stupid any other attempts at defining the place, concept or construct is.

In the exhaustive reading quick squiz at the internet I've done it seems that the Old Testament Hebrew view of Hell is quite different from that of Greek mythology and rabid Catholicism. The early Hebrew idea is more akin to the more recent and,'enlightened' Christian and even Catholic view where Hell is the separation from God. The Greeks and certainly the Medieval Christians had a fondness for  horrendous visions of a hell that burns, consumes, tortures and destroys the bodies of sinners, This stuff is scary and, here's the rub, it was designed to scare the bejesus out of people (including 6 year old children).

Why?

To continue to exert control and to keep the masses afraid and subservient. A nice Church wasn't going to bring in much in the way of tithes and be able to sustain its hunger for wealth and power. It needed cowed citizenry and  blindly obedient 'believers' to be in a position to take in all of the silly bullshit that was taught to them. All this to consolidate and expand political, financial, geographic and social control. 

So, I'd like to know from Robert, what he thinks Hell is seeing that he categorically believes that it exists.