I Wish Christianity Could Admit its Stories Came From Earlier Religions



It would be very helpful to children if they were taught that their favorite Sunday school Bible stories came from earlier religions before Christianity existed.

What an enlightened country we would have if each Sunday School teacher told its little children, "Today we're going to draw pictures of flood stories. Some of you can draw the Austrailian Kunai flood, others the Huarolchiri flood of Peru, others the Muasi of East Africa and you can draw Noah if you like.  There were more than 500 flood stories." If the teacher was in the Middle West there is a local story in the Native museum near Rapid City. The world was flooded except a native man who floated it out in a canoe. He arrived at a mountain near the Black Hills and all the peoples of the world go back to him.

Sunday School teachers could also explain to children at Easter time that there were almost as many stories of heroes coming back to life after being dead as there are flood stories. It seems to be a requirement of great religious figures that they are killed and come back to life. The late Professor Joseph Campbell told of hearing so many of these stories while traveling among tribes and learning about their gods.

I recall hearing him tell of listening around a camp fire to a tribe telling of their god. When he was on earth he was ridiculed, his head chopped off, his body tossed in a river where it turned into a log. Campbell said at this point he leaned forward because he knew the god would come back to life--which he did.

The Christian faith would be of more service to man kind if it would admit its own teachings are mere myths, not historical facts.

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