Ok, so there's a lot of confusion when you say "cosmolgy" when what you are referring to is basically astrology. The mythicist argument only relates that the ancients came to understand things like the precession of the equinoxes and how it was revered in religious and mystical terms by these peoples. Mythicism doesn't imply anything about cosmology, aside taking a scientific approach and therefore probably implying that people stick with the science of today when it comes to something like cosmology. Now you want to take it a step further and go beyond just a basic study and investigation of comparative religion and mythology and base religious belief around the findings of astrotheological study and investigation. This can be confusing to people and indeed it has been confusing here at BT and elsewhere. You will present your religious ideas as astrotheology, or mythicism, giving some the impression that astrotheology or the MP is some kind of religious cult. And with good reason too, because something like the above last few paragraphs comes off as some type of New Age cult material.

The MP has simply to do with scholarly oriented investigation and research. And as Murdock said it should call to attention how many ancient cultures were good observers of their natural environment which led to survival. The cycle of the sun and of organic life had to be known in order to survive the seasons. They weren't as ignorant as some would like believe. Meanwhile these people had placed a lot of mysticism into their observations of the natural world, such as believing that an inner mystery spiritual cause was responsible for the effect of the energy coming down to the earth from the sun, they parted ways in that respect with what we understand as a real scientific understanding of the universe today. There actually was a mystery within the sun, but that mystery turned out to be nothing more than solar fusion going on within the sun, causing solar light to radiate towards the earth and sustain life. Superstition about the sun eventually gave way to scientific knowledge about the sun.

If I reflect back on the general observation that life has emerged on the planet and then gradually sought out knowledge through observation as a possible meaning of life, in terms of the universe having to produce living material with observational capabilities in order to gain an understanding of itself, then these episodes of observing the natural world and speculating on the causes of the effects they were observing falls into place as something necessary on the road to true knowledge. The sun was viewed as a God and then gradually we realized that it isn't actually a God at all. Then mystics came up with the idea that a transcendent energy source within the sun is responsible for the energy, and the sun was viewed as "Gods Sun". A mediator between the transcend and the material world. That went along until we realized what the composition of the sun actually consists of of where the energy actually comes from.

There's nothing wrong with noticing that the people were good observers for their time and did much to the best of their abilities. But to call them scientific or rational stretches things quite a bit. To assert that Christianity can be reconciled with modern science simply on the grounds that Christianity made use of astrotheological allegories that state ancient knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes in the sense of ancient astronomy, is a stretch as well. Christianity can be reconciled with what science exactly, the science of the BCE - CE dates or the science of today? They were still dealing with a multi-leveled universe of near eastern thought. Is that reconcilable with modern science? Their precession observations were based around a cosmology that has long since been over turned.

These are the things that come to mind when someone is trying to merge Christianity with science in order to try and pass it off as having some type of valid core. Lots of apologists have a wide variety of ways of trying to make this very claim. The only thing valid that I can see is that there are some valid observations about the precession of the equinoxes, though they likely had no idea why it happened or what the causes were. They understood the yearly cycle as well, which is pretty basic because happens over and over again all of our lives from birth to death. If we're to advance in life, to keep moving forward and get increasingly better and better at observation and knowledge gathering, then these outdated cosmologies and the mysticism associated with these outdated cosmologies doesn't strike me as something that we should be desperately trying to tow along and keep afloat. I think that the big changes that will be taking place as we leave the current age of Pisces (vernal equinox sunrise in the constellation of Pisces the fish) behind us is that Christianity will break apart on it's own accord just as the Egyptian solar religion of resurrection did in it's own time. How did the priests reform the Egyptian religion religion of resurrection and keep it going along? Well, we can see that it was transformed into a newer system with an entirely different name, while passing along the same basic mystical beliefs about the afterlife.

If a religion is to continue from Christianity it will probably come from a similar case of starting something new after it's become more than obvious that it was astrotheological the entire time, there is no literal second coming event to be sought after in the first place, and all of the so-called prophecies of end times based around the restoration of modern Israel become so long past that the whole thing turns into one big dud. And indeed, in Revelation the writer had Jesus going on about having a "New Name" during the drama. If we know the drama is about precession, and we see the writer speaking of Jesus taking on a "New Name" after the ages have changed, then it's pretty clear that the writer expected that a new solar avatar for the next world age would be in order during that future time, several thousand years away. That much would have been clear to someone writing an allegory about the ages. They always change, and there's always new avatars for the different ages as they change. But I have a hard time seeing a scenario where in another 140 years, at the rate knowledge and awareness is increasing, that there would be any reason to try to continue the old tradition of constructing a solar avatar for the new age, in this case a solar avatar for the age of Aquarius. Who's going to buy in to something like personifying the age in the modern world when everyone can clearly see what is going on as the personification is being constructed and knowing that personifying the age is pretty ridiculous at this point because society is not run by astronomer - priests anymore? The writer of Revelation couldn't have known that by the time of the next age the world would be too advanced for such nonsense. The sun is the sun, an age is an age, existence is simply existence, there is no need to continue personifying everything when we speak about these things in clear scientific terms and understanding. These are things that I have to consider when approaching Christian reformation and ideas hinging around trying to reconcile Christianity with science.

Fusion is not the only scientific fact about the sun. The cyclic pattern of the position of the sun is also scientific. In terms of cosmology, we see that our lives exist within nested cycles of increasing size and duration, from the day and year up to the spin wobble of our planet as the next level, and then to the 200 million year period of the sun's orbit around the galaxy and on to the whole universe with its billions of galaxies originating in the big bang.

Modern cosmology looks to observation of the whole universe. I am suggesting that ancient cosmology looked to the scale of the universe that was then observable, the effects of terrestrial spin wobble on observation of the heavens, and used this to enframe the shorter periods of the day and year. We see it in the idea in Ezekiel of 'wheels within wheels'.

So it is not correct to say that observation of precession presents an obsolete cosmology. Rather, it presents a cosmology geared to how our planet relates to the cosmos over historical time. This is an astronomically correct framework, limited to finite planetary scope. If the ancients used observation of the slow movement of the stars as the seed for their ideation, it presents a plausible scientific basis for the emergence of the Christ myth. I am not saying that the astrological content is necessarily scientific, only that the originators of the Christ myth probably believed it. The suggestion that the Great Year has a cyclic structure is confirmed by the effect of its patterns on long term climate. This cycle must have repeating patterns over the long stable natural history of the earth, just as the annual cycle has repeating patterns.

This framework explains the idea of the second coming of Jesus Christ as the dawn of the Age of Aquarius, as a vision that the first coming of Christ would be into an age of belief, in which the truth would only be dimly grasped, while the second coming would inaugurate an age of knowledge, in which the mythical ideas would be understood against scientific observation of reality.

As to the question of the status of astrology, the fact is that we have no scientific evidence for astrological claims, and all statistical tests, even those of Gauquelin, have failed to provide evidence that is incontrovertible. If there is an 'as above so below' mechanism that means people's natal chart reflects the positions of the planets at the time of their birth, the effect is too weak to be reliably detected. However, the ancients certainly believed in this Hermetic framework, out of Egypt and Babylon, and it is entirely reasonable to explore how it informed the Christ myth.

If we see the moment of the turn of the Ages as also the moment of the turning over of the Great Years, then Christ may also be considered the avatar of the Great Year, incorporating the spirit of all twelve ages.

You use a lot of fuzzy language Robert. Who authorizes us to "consider" Christ as the avatar of the Great Year? What do you mean by avatar? Is there some residue of him sitting out there in space? What you are doing is what the biblical authors have already done, constructing a story to go along with movements of the stars. Which does nothing for our understanding, other than to reframe the same information. I'd also wonder if the interpretations mean anything if they differ from the intent of the biblical authors.

There is nothing objective being discussed in this specific instance. What is being discussed are "beliefs". What the authors of the bible believed. That is the object of this analysis, their beliefs. You are going a step further and hoping to show that their beliefs are grounded in some objective phenomena. Or am I mistaken?

Attributing meaning to such patterns is an entirely human, and almost certainly false, endeavor. It's no different than seeing mother mary in a piece of toast and believing that means the toast is therefore more nutritious for you.

You also mention that the average psychological disposition of everyone on Earth will change because the Earth has rotated around the sun a few more times. Any change of zeitgeist in or around 2150 can be justified post hoc by cherry picking characteristics you think fit.

In my head, the things you write mix a good deal of science with a pinch of subjectivity. And you're good enough at it that the fuzzy language clouds out the intersection between the two. The year 2150 is a designation that means nothing to objective reality. Only in our human heads does it make sense, as a marker for Earthly rotations.

You can't understand reality without first interpreting it, but while doing so I think you forget to re-distinguish the two after you gain understanding. You mix the subjective in with the objective, as if it's intrinsically linked, rather than a figment of your mind.

However, the ancients certainly believed in this Hermetic framework, out of Egypt and Babylon, and it is entirely reasonable to explore how it informed the Christ myth.

If it's too weak for even science to explore, what makes you think this hypothesized effect would be strong enough to influence what the ancients believed? Especially when they would have came up with the same stories just by watching the stars? That is called parsimony; the stories would be the same with or without an influencing phenomena. Observing the heavenly patterns is enough to have created the stories.

Robert Tulip wrote:So it is not correct to say that observation of precession presents an obsolete cosmology.

Who said that? I said the multi-leveled universe cosmology of the near east is obsolete. They were viewing the movements of precession from the perspective of an obsolete cosmology. So the MP is clearly not implying a cosmology based on what we find during precession myths of the near east such as we find in Judeo-Christianity. The ancients were able to deduce that if the constellations are precessing then the entire cycle of the zodiacal constellations will complete a much larger cycle than the cycle of the annual year. Hence the Great Year mythologies. So in a multi-level universe, they saw the constellations in one layer of the universe precessing backwards and assumed that spiritual causes were behind what they were observing. That was an advancement towards a true cosmology, but still worlds away at the same time.

The MP or mythicism in general doesn't really suggest that we believe in the Vedic Yuga's or the Greek version or any of this applied to the myth making of Christianity. That's why no one aside from the two of us have really engaged this topic at FTN. I've engaged it because I'm curious about the old Great Year myths and have wondered if there's any truth to the idea of the ascending and descending halves of the Great Year. As you've said this is entirely speculative and I agree. That's why the MP and mythicism doesn't really engage whether or not the ancient myths were correct or not. When discussing this we're always off onto an aside from what standard mythicism and the MP are concerned with. The theosophists were into believing these ancient cosmologies are real, but Massey sharply disagreed with Theosophy as is evident from his correspondences with Blavatsky. And to take these speculative inquiries and post them as coming from the MP can be misleading and cause a bit of confusion, which I think that it has.

Take for instance my own personal feelings. I like to look to the pioneering front when dealing with cosmology. I want to see what is coming ahead which will change and correct our current misunderstanding, because to see our current understanding as anything other than a partial understanding would be the height of all ignorance IMO. It will change. Unless of course we currently know everything there is to know and it's impossible to imagine our current standard model becoming obsolete with time. Just because I'm a mythicist and I think this way, doesn't mean that the MP or mythicism also is concerned with checking out every new theory that comes along to try and change or adjust the current standard model. The MP implies comparative mythological and religious studies. It doesn't imply a cosmology other than that it could be associated with the standard model because that's the accepted science of the day and the MP is about keeping to the scientific method. So in a loose way the only cosmology implied by mythicism is the current one. And that's fine with me because if the current cosmology changes, so too will the MP change along with it because it's simply a scientific perspective and not religious in any way. That's why we have some religious folk and mystics and some complete atheists. The same is true of any other science. That's why it's an all inclusive position to take on the study of comparative mythology and religion.

This doesn't add much to what's been so well said, but in many ways the interpretation of the past is strongly affected by the the concerns and needs of people in the present. I might study for my lifetime and then feel that I know the textures and currents of a past era well enough to think that I could make a judgment on it without backward projecting, but maybe not even then.

Robert Tulip wrote:Fusion is not the only scientific fact about the sun. The cyclic pattern of the position of the sun is also scientific. In terms of cosmology, we see that our lives exist within nested cycles of increasing size and duration, from the day and year up to the spin wobble of our planet as the next level, and then to the 200 million year period of the sun's orbit around the galaxy and on to the whole universe with its billions of galaxies originating in the big bang.

Modern cosmology looks to observation of the whole universe. I am suggesting that ancient cosmology looked to the scale of the universe that was then observable, the effects of terrestrial spin wobble on observation of the heavens, and used this to enframe the shorter periods of the day and year. We see it in the idea in Ezekiel of 'wheels within wheels'.

So it is not correct to say that observation of precession presents an obsolete cosmology. Rather, it presents a cosmology geared to how our planet relates to the cosmos over historical time. This is an astronomically correct framework, limited to finite planetary scope. If the ancients used observation of the slow movement of the stars as the seed for their ideation, it presents a plausible scientific basis for the emergence of the Christ myth. I am not saying that the astrological content is necessarily scientific, only that the originators of the Christ myth probably believed it. The suggestion that the Great Year has a cyclic structure is confirmed by the effect of its patterns on long term climate. This cycle must have repeating patterns over the long stable natural history of the earth, just as the annual cycle has repeating patterns.

This framework explains the idea of the second coming of Jesus Christ as the dawn of the Age of Aquarius, as a vision that the first coming of Christ would be into an age of belief, in which the truth would only be dimly grasped, while the second coming would inaugurate an age of knowledge, in which the mythical ideas would be understood against scientific observation of reality.

As to the question of the status of astrology, the fact is that we have no scientific evidence for astrological claims, and all statistical tests, even those of Gauquelin, have failed to provide evidence that is incontrovertible. If there is an 'as above so below' mechanism that means people's natal chart reflects the positions of the planets at the time of their birth, the effect is too weak to be reliably detected. However, the ancients certainly believed in this Hermetic framework, out of Egypt and Babylon, and it is entirely reasonable to explore how it informed the Christ myth.

The ancient Babylonians were one of the first ancient civilizations to use astrology around the 7th millennium BC. Though there are those that say the Sumerians were practicing it around the 3 millennium BC but from what I understand there is no solid proof of this fact. But it is obvious to me that these civilizations were knowledgeable about the sky above them. And there are text from the Babylonian period that support the use of astrology its called the Enuma Anu Enlil a collection of about 70 stone tablets.These tablets supposedly cover a wide range of astrological,celestial and atmospheric phenomena but these were mean't almost exclusively for the king and the state at the time.

Discussing Dendera, Budge cautions that it should not be concluded that the Egyptians were the “inventors of the zodiac” and asserts that they “borrowed their knowledge of the Signs of the Zodiac, together with much else, from the Greeks, who had derived a great deal of their astronomical lore from the Babylonians,” including the zodiac.[1227]

S, Acharya; Murdock, D.M. (2011-01-29). Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection (Kindle Locations 6482-6485). Stellar House Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Robert Tulip wrote: However, it still remains entirely possible, and I think more likely on the balance of probabilities, that the mystery tradition was still dominant when the gospels were written, and that the writers knew full well that all the history was allegory aimed at a popular audience, fiction that presented a hidden meaning for the initiates wrapped in a popular tale aimed at church expansion. The abundant presence of allegory suggests the authors knew the historical Jesus was imaginary. For example, the miracle of loaves and fishes appears six times overall in the gospels, and is the only miracle in all four books. It must have originally been read as a heavy hint of the astrotheological.

Considering what I would need to be able to think of the astrotheological thread as primary, I come up with two major points. First would be some assessment of astrotheology itself--what you seem to equate with mystery religions--in the period around Jesus' supposed dates. I'm thinking about what those traditions contained in terms of "wisdom," how far they penetrated into Jewish culture, and whether they themselves would have had the impetus or motivation to invent a man, complete with quotidian details, as sort of a cover story for what they really wanted to promulgate. If the mystery religions would also be roughly equivalent to the gnostic sects that were quite numerous, I'm not sure that I'd endorse the "wisdom" of the texts they produced. A goodly amount of mumbo-jumbo in them, unless I'm being unfair to them. I also am not so sure that in the observation of the stars and planets I see wisdom, although I recognize the achievement of those proto-scientists. I may look at wisdom a little differently than you do.

Second would be simply a compelling reason not to take the Gospels at their face value in terms of intent. The parables of the Bible don't have to be read as allegory for the cognoscenti. Parables were a common way of conveying a spiritual message to the people.

All I'm saying here is that I haven't come across material that would remove my doubts, not that it doesn't exist.

All religions are false to the degree they depart from reality. Knowing reality is the challenge of enlightenment. If Christianity originated in an enlightened vision that was in tune with reality, then it is scandalous that the Gospels represent a degraded fragment of an original high wisdom, especially in the way the church destroyed spiritual traditions that conflicted with its dogmas.

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If Christianity began as such an enlightened state. Again, what I lack in order to take up the side of Egyptian religion, the mystery religions, astrotheology, or whatever, is a persuasion that these Christian forbears had it so right. I'd prefer to be skeptical about it all (including, of course Christianity), appreciate what is appreciable but not commit to partisanship. Give me that old-time religion? Not really.

This thread is interesting as it is based on attempting to throw out a life raft to those sinking into a meaningless abyss due to discovering the mythicist arguments and how Christianity is a re-hash of older mythology - stated in the opening thread. A newer and bigger meaning based in objective observation coming from these ancient myths. The problem is coming to terms with what exactly this new meaning is. So far it seems so obscure that it's difficult pin down. I can tell that it most certainly isn't a replacement for the traditional Christian view of "The Meaning of Life" because that view is simply that life was created to praise and glorify God. The angels and man were created for no other reason as per scripture. Obviously this meaning is suddenly lost with the loss of taking scripture literally.

The response I've received has not been for a replacement for "The Meaning of Life" but instead a meaning for life right now based in humanitarian efforts viewed from the precession of the equinoxes. The new proposed underlying meaning of life is absent at this point and simply left avoided in the rebuttle. I'm not sure how well that will sit with people wanting to know more about this shift of meaning from a traditional Christian view to this re-formed Christian view. I'd say that if it has been that the meaning of life is viewed in terms of life being created to praise God, and then one continues on to eventually discover that God is but a metaphor for the mystery underlying life and existence, which is simply existence itself, then it's very simple. The meaning of life changes to giving all of the glory and praise to existence itself every day that you exist. All of the religious devotions formerly addressed to a personified deity or whatever, apply the same way but directly to existence instead of filtered through a symbol for it. And that's the actual reality that the myths can be deconstructed down to at the foundational level. Now that includes consuming everything you've offered here Robert. The humanitarian effort meaning, breaks down to this underlying meaning beneath it all from the foundational level up.

Existence is praised by every act of science and discovery. It's mysteries are meant to be revealed, but all in good time. This runs parallel to what people have been given but from a much deeper understanding of the "mythos". But you haven't seemed to catch on to this yet. If my interests were in trying to cause reformation I'd be focused on penetrating down to the foundational level, having a realization there, and then carrying that underlying realization back up through the strata changing the perspective of the strata on the way back up again. I wonder if you can do this, and if you can do this, I'm left to wonder how it would unfold?

Dwill wrote:I'm thinking about what those traditions contained in terms of "wisdom," how far they penetrated into Jewish culture, and whether they themselves would have had the impetus or motivation to invent a man, complete with quotidian details, as sort of a cover story for what they really wanted to promulgate.

That's what is dealt with in the chapter on the Alexandrian roots of Christianity. If you could get the kindle version of the book or something and read through that chapter you'd see what we keep referring to as a new hypothesis unique to Murdocks studies. You'd be surprised to see what we can find happening in the first century and how it penetrated Jewish culture. It's sort of crucial when trying to understand people like us and why we think it's entirely possible that there were proto-gospels that were pure allegory which evolved into the second century and finally began to emerge into history as the gospels very late. Now that I've been through all of this I see a clear progression from allegorizing to historicizing happening in that sequence according to the historical record that we do have to go by. I'm out and about right now but when I'm home again I'll try to go through some of the quotes from the chapter progressively addressing Philo and the Therapuets...