I would like to point out that Roger Federer is a little girly:


I mean the guy cried.  I don’t think its only because he lost; I think he loves tennis, and was touched by the fans, and is aware of his place in tennis history, etc….but the fact still remains he cried:  Not very manly.  Nadal did give him a man hug though, which I thought was sensitive, but not overly girly.  1 point for Nadal (besides being the Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon champion).

In the end, I think I like Federer more.  A little humanity in our sports stars is nice when contrasted with other sports.

The “man bag” is a bit much though (or should I just call it a purse?):

Next Topic, Jesus:

Remember in college we all took the World Religion class?  I think its a requirement at most schools, so everyone took something at least similar.  We learned about Joseph Campbell and the common myths/stories inherent in all religions.  The Greek gods and the Roman gods….pretty freaking similar.  Greek/Rome is just one instance; however, we learned that obviously the religions are borrowing from each other.

Islam as well borrows from Christianity, which borrows from Judaism, which borrows, I assume, from something else all the way back to pagans and two cavemen smoking weed and staring at the stars under a moonlit sky.

I never noticed I suppose in that religion class that the Jesus myth was not treated the same; we never studied its antecedents.  We assume it happened (virgin birth, son of god, rise from the dead, etc) in a vacuum for the first time.  That it was special.

Guess what?  The Jesus story had already been told….in Egyptian mythology (one of the oldest in existence).

Old testament: “I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.” Hosea 13:4″.  But lots of things are said in the Bible.  What does difference does one verse make?

Well…I used to read these crazy book by Graham Hancock, and while most of it was shite, some of it was interesting:

The life of the Egyptian God of Horus closely resembles that of Jesus.  There are a lot of comparisons in the chart in this link, and some of them are tenuous at best; however, the fact remains that the similarities (special births, son of god, miracles performed, crucifiction, resurrection after 3 days, etc.) are likely more than coincidence.

It is significant because we remember the Isrealites were formerly Egyptian slaves, so it would’ve been natural to co-opt Egyptian mythology (which was still worshipped when the Israelites were there), just as the Romans did with the Greeks.

I’m not making any comment on whether Jesus really existed, whether he rose from the dead, or whether people added to his story where convenient after he as gone (would he have been any less significant if he’d not been born under a star, had a virgin birth, or hadn’t turned water into wine?)….I simply do not know that.  But what I do know is that people make shit up….and usually when they do, they steal ideas from other people.  The Jesus myth is not unique.  The Hebrews took the framework from Egpytian mythology, with which they were very familar…having been in Egypt for 400 years.

Next Topic, the mind of God:

To simplify, being that there are so many commonalities in our myths and religions, that either means a) people borrow from each other (if we assume people are making up the myths), or b) God tells the same story over and over again (if we assume God is handing down the stories as the religions say).

If I were God (funny to think about), would I tell the same story over and over, or would I tell different stories?  I think I would tell the same/similar stories, because if I told different stories the people would eventually share the stories and thus they could converge anyway.

Alternatively, if I told different stories, people naturally war with each other, and so only the winning stories would remain…thus again you end up with the same/similar stories.

All roads lead to the same/similar stories.  It doesn’t matter what you start with.  In this case, the mind of God is not required.  All the stories will end up similar.

And this I think is what I took away from my World Religion class:  The winners tell the stories, the story remains the same.

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One Response to “Roger Federer, the Story of Jesus, and the mind of God”
  1. Cookie Cawthon says:

    Interesting. Religion – any or all of them – can easily be reduced and quantified into graphs, charts, timelines, and map routes to “prove” whatever assertion one seeks to promulgate. That kind of intellectual reduction totally misses the point of why people – from the ancients to the present – espouse religion in the first place. They want to understand the spiritual component to their existence. Studying religion from a purely historical and/or literary perspective is ridiculously limited in scope. It seems ironic to me that those who devote themselves to this kind of study, perhaps even make it their life work, can die having missed the whole point. I would argue that delving into the spiritual is far more challenging than studying the stories; it’s where the real mystery lies…

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