What is Christianity? The way I see it Christianity is Judaism for goyim. Judaism is a strictly monotheistic religion. Abraham, Moses, the prophets etc. are fully human and not divine.

From Pagan and Christian Creeds by E. C. Carpenter

"At the time of the life or recorded appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, and for some centuries before, the Mediterranean and neighboring world had been the scene of a vast number of pagan creeds and rituals. There were Temples without end dedicated to gods like Apollo or Dionysus among theGreeks, Hercules among the Romans, Mithra among the Persians, Adonis and Attis in Syria and Phrygia, Osiris and Isis and Horus in Egypt, Baal and Astarte among the Babylonians and Carthaginians, and so forth."

"I cannot of course go at length into these different cults, but I may
say roughly that of all or nearly all the deities above-mentioned it was said and believed that:

(1) They were born on or very near our Christmas Day.
(2) They were born of a Virgin-Mother.
(3) And in a Cave or Underground Chamber.
(4) They led a life of toil for Mankind.
(5) And were called by the names of Light-bringer, Healer, Mediator,
Savior, Deliverer.
(6) They were however vanquished by the Powers of Darkness.
(7) And descended into Hell or the Underworld.
(8) They rose again from the dead, and became the pioneers of mankind to the Heavenly world.
(9) They founded Communions of Saints, and Churches into which disciples were received by Baptism.
(10) And they were commemorated by Eucharistic meals."

The above sounds a lot like Jesus. The New Testament incorporates the legends of the pagan religions and tacks it on to the Jewish Bible (only 20% of the BIble is the New Testament) to form a new religion with a humanoid god. As they say the rest is history.

Dear David,

«I feel no need for any religious belief and can see no point in it, but I am interested in explaining why the need persists.»

You may not like the answer, but if you really want to know - religious belief in the supernatural is a good antidote for the obsessional belief in the natural.

«From statistics the poorest and most ignorant countries are those which have the greatest proportion of religious believers.»

Yes, because the poor are not that attached to the natural - they don't enjoy it that much, actually most of the time they suffer, so they are happy to look around for alternatives.

The problem with the ignorant, is that they are not really ready for religion. They think they want to be released from the world, but really they just want a better version of it: give them better conditions and suddenly they will forget God and want to stay!

Perhaps they see the religious worshipping deities and think that doing the same will improve their worldly lot, but then it's not genuine religion, then it's merely a superstitious imitation.

To succeed in religion, most people need to first be successful in their mundane life until they had enough and become fed up with it - only then they experience the futility of it all and develop the sincere desire to renounce the world and seek God.

In that context, however, Judaism has a unique view, whereby most of the time it actually supports superstitious imitations, because:

"A person should always be involved in Torah and mitzvot even not for the right motives because from doing them for the wrong motives, one will come to do them for the right motives." - http://dafchat.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/the-wrong-and-right-type-of-berachot-17a.html

Karl Marx, rightly referred to religion as "the opium of the people". The basis of Marx argument against religion is that humans should be led by reason and that religion was masking the truth and misguiding followers. He believed that when one views society and life through the lens of religion, they are blinded to the realities of their life. Religion, then, was a false hope and comfort to the poor. He saw that poor used their religion as a means to find comfort in their circumstances, thus aiding in the process of alienation.

In poor oppressive states, where religion is at it strongest, it is no accident that the institutions of religion, and the hierarchy of the state work hand in glove to oppress and control the majority by feeding them false hope through religion.

Marx and Marxists down the ages were opposed to religion and the church.

The main reason for that was that the church and religion was an alternate power structure to the state which therefore made them the enemy of the state. Everything had to be suborned to the state by which they meant suborned to themselves.

All alternate power structures had to be smashed in order to usher in the socialist utopia - the church, religion in general, the family, the upper class, the middle class, the kulaks, intellectuals. Anybody and anything that stood in the way of socialism was its enemy.

(as an aside, what Stalin and his henchmen did in destroying churches and church records was an historic disaster surpassed only by what ISIS did in Palmyra and Nimrud).

Stalin said that, in order to make an omelette, eggs had to be cracked. Eggs like the church, the family etc.

The only problem was they never got around to making the omelette.

David f. You said:

[I cannot of course go at length into these different cults, but I may
say roughly that of all or nearly all the deities above-mentioned it was said and believed that:

(1) They were born on or near our Christmas Day.
(2) were born of a Virgin-Mother.
(3) Born in a Cave or Underground Chamber.
(4) led a life of toil for Mankind.
(5) were called by the names of Light-bringer, Healer, Mediator,
Savior, Deliverer.
(6) were however vanquished by the Powers of Darkness.
(7) And descended into Hell or the Underworld.
(8) rose again from the dead, and became the pioneers of mankind to the Heavenly world.
(9) Founded Communions of Saints, and Churches into which disciples were received by Baptism.
(10) And were commemorated by Eucharistic meals."]

This sounds bogus to me. Do you have a reference so I can look this up myself. I have heard the theory that Christianity borrowed from other stories and from myths in that area. But this is an exaggeration of even that. To say that most of those religions are carbon copied on these very indivual details, and share the same mold as Christianity sound like a real bogus lie.

Hercules for instance I assume was mirrored as Jesus. Son of a god and half a god himself. But nowhere have I ever heard of another religion having a virgin birth. Expecially not the more well known Greek a gods and the stories of their children. It seemed to me that the gods in those stories all had their avatar form which looked like a man or a beast or a mixture of the two. In those stories the Greek gods had sex with women which gave birth to heroes like Hercules. No virgin birth that I know of from those well known stories.

If you have a reference I'd like to see it. If not, I assume it's what I thought it was before. A bogus claim that is an exeggeration of another claim that might have something to it but probabley also just as bogus.

To David f. You also wrote:

[I don't think you want religion tested. If you really wanted religion tested you would compare the different kinds of religion with one another and see the different effects. From your postings it is obvious that you want people to try your kind of delusion rather than other kinds of delusion.]

What good of a test can I give you on a religion I am not familiar with? In order to test something with a worth while test (something that might give it a chance to fufill it's claim) it would be best to have that test suggestion come from someone of that religion. I can not offer you a means to test Buddhists search for spiritual enlightenment. Offering you one would be meaningless and would be better suited coming from a Buddhists. Same for coming to terms with Hindu beliefs of multiple lives. I would not be the one to offer his to get answers on that so someone can see for themselves.

What I have given was an attempt to offer a means to test the vilidity of Christian Faith by one observation I have as a Christian. Something others can see for themselves if they are willing to test it's merrit and say it does or does not hold merrit.

Your complaint makes a much sence as saying the math teacher should teach history, when the math teacher's speciality is with math and has only a limited knowledge or no knowledge of the other subjects that other teachers specialize in.