http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Olympics-Story-Ancient-Games/dp/081296991X  /ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221384630&sr=8-3

312 A.D. Emperor Constantine makes Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire; as paganism fades, the prestige of Olympia declines rapidly.

394 A.D. Emperor Theodosius I bans all pagan festivals. The Olympics are officially disbanded -- although archaeologists now suggest they kept going in some form, perhaps in Christian guise.

426 A.D. The Temple of Zeus [at Olympia] is burned on the orders of Theodosius II. Christian fanatics destroy the rest of the sanctuary.

522 A.D. The first of a series of devastating earthquakes hits Olympia.

Oh, It was a good read. Thx.

According to Larry Gonick's excellent Cartoon History of the Universe...

The Spartans used to train their males and females naked. Thus, when the Olympics started circa 776 BC, the Spartans took the traditions along with them and competed naked. Being very successful at the Olympics, the idea took hold with the other Greek states. See, it's a bit wrong to talk about the ancient Greeks as if they were one people. The states hardly ever got along and frequently fought each other.

Also an interesting tidbit - boxing was the only sport where you had to concede to have a winner. But Spartans didn't ever concede. Eventually they would boycott the boxing event (unless they knew they would win).

While I do consider the religious beliefs of ALL Christians (and all Jews, Muslims, Hindus, devotees of Ahura-Mazda, Voodoo practitioners, Cybelians, Druids, Appolonians, etc. etc. ad consummatio) to be entirely irrational, I do reserve the bulk of my mockery and vitriol for those, like Chuichupachichi, who fail so magnificently and so vocally to be even remotely Christ-like.

Forgive me for apparently lumping you all together, but (1) in America at least, the type of Christian that you profess to be is decidedly the exception, while the type of Christian that Chuichupachichi represents is the rule; and (2) as noted above, I do still consider you lamentably irrational if you believe in Jesus as an historical person who came back from the dead and was the actual, non-allegorical product of some mystical tryst between God and Mary.

On the other hand, I do have a certain amount of grudging admiration for anyone who recognizes the need to emulate Christ in order to be a good and proper Christian, no matter how irrational they are otherwise. Never mind that this need should be glaringly obvious to anyone with a clear head who has read the New Testament... there are few enough of you out there that it should be considered some kind of accomplishment. The fact that Christ-like Christians are such a minority suggests to me that there is some kind of direct correlation between the tendency to be religious, and an inability to think clearly and/or rationally.

Mere irrationality I can be good-natured about, but those aggressively bellicose types who seek to codify their irrational beliefs into our lawbooks I regard as dire enemies of humanity who richly deserve to have the embarrassing light of plain fact shone upon them whenever possible, along with heaping helpings of caustic derision.

I will say this about Christianity: If you define Christianity as simply the teachings of Jesus, unsullied and unvarnished by opportunistic interpretations, and without all the value-added nonsense embellishments about the prophecies of the Jews, virgin birth, healing of lepers with a word or a touch, walking on water, turning water into wine, coming back from the dead, etc., it doesn't offend me a bit.

What Jesus said was noble and beautiful, and unlike the things said about Jesus by other people, that nobility and beauty defy even an over-simplified satirical treatment like "HAY GUYZ, LET'S ALL TRY BEING NICE 2 EACH OTHER 4 A CHANGE, EVEN IF PEOPLE AREN'T NICE 2 US BACK, KTHXBAI". I'm a fan of that basic message, and it shocks, disturbs, and angers me no end that the majority of Christians in America today are somehow able to twist it into "God wants us to kill those Satan-worshipping Muslim ragheads, reject science, persecute homosexuals, shred the Constitution, and take over the government".

Unfortunately, nobility and beauty is not enough to make an idea practical. Karl Marx had some pretty noble and beautiful ideas too, and they also defy that satirical boiling-down treatment: "HAY GUYZ, LET'S ALL B EQUALZ & SHARE EVERYTHING, K?". I'd buy Marx a beer and call him a great-hearted giant among men if he wasn't dead, but his ideas still fail miserably when people try to put them into practice. People simply are not as motivated to be virtuous as Marx (and Jesus) apparently gave them credit for being, which is why attempts to put Christianity and Communism into practice inevitably result in atrocious, disastrous failures like the Inquisition or the Soviet Union.

To any Christian to whom my point of view sounds at all reasonable: I'd be more than happy to sit down and have a genuinely friendly meal with you, and even discuss your religious beliefs without any rancor whatsoever... though I wouldn't be able to help but be at least a little bit amused by them. I could never do the same with a 'Christian' like Chuichupachichi, because I'd either lose my appetite completely, or have my entire day ruined by an unfulfilled desire to stick my salad fork in his eye.

I just wanted to let you know that there are probably plenty of open-minded Christians that have read this post (and the flame war that ensued) and simply didn't reply. I hope you don't wrap "us" up with some of the crazies here on this page.

I actually found this post from a link from the blog of a well known Christian, Mark Oestreicher. So I know that there were probably at least a few hundred fellow youth pastors like myself who have looked at this page the last few days.

I understand that your beef was mainly directed at a few specific people here and since I try to separate myself from plenty of people who call themselves "Christians" (but seem to have a hard time figuring how to live that out daily), I just wanted to let you know that I didn't take offense of anything here and I hope that someday even though we have differing opinions, that maybe we can find some common ground.

I understand your need to wake up some of the "sheep" that have never actually studied the history of their faith before, but I hope you can understand that when you say "Christians" that you are throwing a lot of very different people, with extremely different point of views into the same bucket. One you don't seem to like, and neither do I.

I hope you have a nice day.

-James

Those are some severely specious statements you've made about Christianity vs. Paganism.

You said:

"It has become quite a popular, spreading belief that Judaism & Christianity is simply an adaptation or a reinterpretation of previous pagan religeons."

First of all, this is not anything recent. It goes back to the very beginnings of your silly delusional religion. Second, what does 'popularity' have to do with it? Are you trying to imply that because many people agree that Christianity blatantly appropriated many elements from older religions, that the assertion is false? Your grasp of logic is as poor as your grasp of reality, Mr. Believes-in-a-Giant-Magic-Superhero-Who-Lives-in-the-Sky.

You said:

"Propagating this view is intended to refute or discredit the validity of Judeo/Christianity’s teaching of that its source is the only true god and that he is someone other than the false gods of Paganism."

No. Propagating this view is intended to propagate sane, reasonable, rational, historical truth, unlike anything in the Bible or the withered heads of religious zealots like you. It's got nothing to do with promoting some set of irrational beliefs (i.e., religion) alternative to your own. Rational people aren't religious, and rational educated people laugh at the idea that your Bible is an historical document.

You said:

"The intention to disprove that is obvious from the implication of that Jud/Chr. is no different than the previous pagan religeons since it is merely a recycling of them. If this were true, and if at their core, they were really just the same thing. Then why would they have always produced different cultures/lifestyles/values that have always been at odds with eachother?"

First of all, it's spelled R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N. I didn't point that out the first time because I figured it was a typo, but you seem consistent about spelling the word with too many 'e's and not enough 'i's. I hate to make a spelling flame out of this, but seriously: if you can't even SPELL 'religion', then how on Earth could anyone take you for a serious enough scholar of religion to know diddly-squat about it?

Second, your argument here is very typical of the "oversimplify, misinterpret, then leap to a conclusion that does not follow" style of debate that is so frequently employed by clench-fisted, belligerent 'religeous' zealots like yourself. Christianity and Paganism have not "always been at odds with each other". Christianity became intolerant of Paganism, but the so-called Pagan religions have often been noted for their tolerance of other belief systems. In Pantheistic Rome, the common wisdom was that worshippers of different gods were basically doing the same thing, only putting a different face on it. Christians, by contrast, from the very beginning took the attitude (inherited from the Jews, from whom you cribbed and stole even before appropriating all those pagan traditions) that theirs was the ONE, TRUE GOD, and that all other gods were false. I see that you yourself are particularly strident about this point, as you go out of your way to characterize pagan deities as "false gods".

Don't even start with any nonsense about Christians being persecuted by the Romans. That was not a matter of Paganism being intolerant of Christianity, it was a matter of a profoundly martial society being intolerant of people who believed that killing was a sin, because such people make very poor soldiers.

You said:

"There is obviously a huge fundamental difference between them. Differences which are so different, that they are in fact, opposites. There are reasons why those similarities/mirrorings between Jud/Chr. and earlier Pagan religeons exist. Reasons of which their explaination would be to long for this already long post. Though I’d explain if requested."

The "huge fundamental difference" was not always there, and the two are not opposites. Early Christianity, particularly the flavor promoted by Paul/Saul of Tarsus, was deeply Gnostic, just like paganism. In other words, Christ was viewed as an allegory, not a real person, and the path to becoming a true Christian was an inner voyage in which symbolic figures (like Jesus) and events (like the Resurrection) were used as waypoints to finding the Christ within yourself, and actualizing it in your external life. Saul/Paul's Gnostic form of Christianity was suppressed by what became the Catholic church because Gnosticism is not compatible with the idea that you need a lot of clergy and bishops and a Pope to communicate with God for you and tell you what to do. There was a lot of money and power at stake, Paul's Gnosticism got in the way of the church getting at that money and power, and no further explanation is necessary to anyone who isn't so delusional as to believe in bearded robed giants who lounge around on clouds and watch with disapproval when humans masturbate. Suffice it to say that although Paul was extremely important to early Christianity and did more to spread the faith than anyone who came before him, his writings were shrewdly left out when the canonical New Testament was forged out of an incoherent pile of zany, foamy-mouthed ramblings about a parthenogenetic Jewish zombie whose vampiric God needed blood for some reason (yet couldn't just magic up an ocean of it to swim in to fill that need).

I laugh at your assertion that your post was too long to continue, as it was much shorter than other posts you've made in which you pitched hissy fits, blatantly flamed other people, and revealed your intolerance and homophobia (incidentally, did you know that a recent university study reveals that, as long suspected, homophobes find homosexuals repellent because they are themselves repressed homosexuals? Come out of the closet, Mary, and be the butterfly you are for once).

But I won't bother any more with it, since you might get crude in your comments again.

Constantine simply made Christianity legal. Since during his time, it had been made a matter of official policy to persecute Christians within the empire. Neither Constantine nor the Roman empire persecuted pagans. That is a flat out lie, with no historical evidence of it. During Constantine's reign Paganism was still alive and well, and there was no decreed banning of it. He merely caused Christianity to be tolerated along with the previously existent Roman religeons. Constantine resurected the Roman Senate, of which most of its members were Pagans during his rule.

"Herods" temple(the 2nd) in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 a.d. while they were still completely pagan. That was about 230 years before the time of Constantine's reign.

@ Ted
(Christianity was adopted by the state as its official religion. I haven't read of any Christians at the time saying, “Oh, but maybe we should remain separate from the state…” or “Do we really have to destroy and loot these pagan temples?)

Why would they have said "maybe we should remain separate from the state." The Romans didn't have any policy of "separation of church and state." Why should they have been expected to adopt such a policy at that time? Since throughout the empires entire history, the Roman politicians had all always been religeous. They had always been pagans. With rituals conducted even at the Senate building.

As a matter of fact, not even America has such a
"separation of church and state" official policy.
At least not in the way in which its been interpreted by atheists and the ACLU. "Separation of church and state" was ammended in the 19th century by a hugely majority, Protestant America. Ammended during a time in which there was a giant wave of Catholic immigrants coming to the U.S. from Europe. Americans, having been aware of European and Latin American history, as well as the then, present time. Knew all too well of what had always been the case whenever the rulers of a state were Catholic. That in fact, the rulers would soon become the Vatican. "Separation of church and state" was ammended by, the mostly religeous, representatives of religeous people in America to guard against Vatican rule. Not for a tyranical minority in the 20th century and beyond, to use it as a weapon against them. In that tyranical minority's quest to eliminate that which they are so extremely intolerant of. Not to mention, ignorant of. As well as of Americas true history. Such as Congress' nickname during the war of Independance.........
"The Bible Congress". Kind of a strange name for a bunch of national founding, supposed, secularists. Would'nt you say?

It has become quite a popular, spreading belief that Judaism & Christianity is simply an adaptation or a reinterpretation of previous pagan religeons. Propagating this view is intended to refute or discredit the validity of Judeo/Christianity's teaching of that its source is the only true god and that he is someone other than the false gods of Paganism. The intention to disprove that is obvious from the implication of that Jud/Chr. is no different than the previous pagan religeons since it is merely a recycling of them. If this were true, and if at their core, they were really just the same thing. Then why would they have always produced different cultures/lifestyles/values that have always been at odds with eachother?

There is obviously a huge fundamental difference between them. Differences which are so different, that they are in fact, opposites. There are reasons why those similarities/mirrorings between Jud/Chr. and earlier Pagan religeons exist. Reasons of which their explaination would be to long for this already long post. Though I'd explain if requested.

@Ted, appreciate you know your stuff and not trying to twist your words but it was the line "To say, “There’s nothing in the Bible that says the Olympics were bad or Christianity is a state religion” is specious." that needed refuting. Perhaps I could have addressed the rest of your comment too as I don't disagree with everything else you said.

@Seth, thanks for balanced the insight!

The penis restraints were not worn for prudish reasons: they were worn to keep the penis from flapping and causing pain while an athlete ran.

Also, though women were officially banned from the games, in practice they probably did attend.

Furthermore, Christianity was responsible for the end of the original Olympics, but they were, in fact, a religious festival honoring Olympic Zeus. It's unfortunate that that tradition was lost, but don't get too busy bashing Christianity and forget that the only reason Latin and Greek poetry, drama, comedy, and rhetoric survive is because Christian monks cared enough to preserve the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Vergil, Catullus, Homer, and numerous others, even in the face of the numerous conflicts that occurred between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, including Moorish invasions, Genghis Khan, the Viking menace, and the ubiquitous political upheavals (this from a non-Christian, by the way).

The fact of the matter is that for the Greeks, sexual relations between two adult men was frowned upon. Sexual relations between men and boys was acceptable. You will see this sort of behaviour in even the most strict societies today, including the Muslims, where according to the Iraqi Prime Minister, homosexuality is non-existent. Boy will experiment with other boys. Older men will abuse boys (and girls, too).

Most cultures rightly oppose the sexual abuse of children, but the abuse is often covered up and ignored, in the hopes that it will simply "go away".

Most gay men have no interest in pursuing boys for sexual relations. Simply pointing your finger at them and calling them "fags" who are "all up" in boys is pointless, inaccurate, and hateful.

Some Greeks did participate in such activities. Not all did. Some Christians destroyed pagan temples, ended the Olympics, tortured heathens, and went on crusades to pillage the Holy Land. Not all did.

Your comments show that aside from dipping in and out, you haven't studied what I've said at all.

What I said above was that I would have to check Leviticus to see if the Bible recommends torture for heathens. The fact that it may not recommend it certainly didn't stop Torquemada.

In Leviticus, the Bible does recommend stoning for some sins and death for others. Although many Christians reject these laws today, many still agree that death is a fair penalty for homosexuality - kinda harsh, don't you think?

Jesus's words about "rendering unto Caesar" would also seem to recommend keeping church and state separate, but as I said already, that didn't stop the church from heartily agreeing when the state welcomed it with open arms.

Any other points you care to belabour?

Otherwise, I suppose you'll also have a reasonable explaination for why it is that when they weren't "all up" in eachother, they were "all up" in adolescent boy's. Nothing new under the sun. Modern fags are no different.