saints and angels

now we come to the pinnacle of polytheism, and I will admit, not every sect of Christianity agrees with this aspect, or even believes in it.  However many do, and still use the saints for special requests for luck, fertility, safety, happiness, etc...  the saints in Christianity were not originally a belief of the religion but evolved as Catholicism tried to convert different pagan regions.  They were actual people, but when they achieved sainthood they become the patron saint of a certain aspect of life.  yo have saints that range anywhere from alcoholics, to barbers to earthquakes, to farmers, and so on and so forth.  You ave four saints of pregnant women, and two for women in labor.  Three saints, and three angels that watch over travelers, and the list keeps going.  I asked a catholic once why they had so many saints and angels, and why they didn't just pray to God, and their answer was that God was too busy to be bothered with the likes of a lowly human, so they pray to his friends and relatives to get them to ask him for those favors instead.  it seemed to me a little bit like when the Greeks would pray to Athena for wisdom (by the way the patron saint of learning is St Ambrose), or when they would invoke the name of Hermes to speed their travel as we would one of the many saints that dominate that particular area of life.  There are literally hundreds of saints, in fact catholicexchange.com states there are between 810 to 921 saints that are officially recognized and canonized by the church.  that is a lot of saints, and I think if we were looking at deified figures, this would put Christianity in the top of the list of largest pantheons.  God checker dot com is a database which holds all the pantheons, and the next in line from Christianity, which they recognize 577 saints with 164 alternatives, is the Greek pantheon with 371 gods and 283 alternatives, and this is not including the angels, or the devil.  (the devil being the redheaded stepchild of the Christian pantheon, much as Hades was the unwanted runt of Cronos' Greek litter.)

The Demigod

Here we have the next belief in this religion.  Now there are many who will refute that Christ and God are one and the same in the trinity, however we are going to go off of what the bible itself states, (Simon saw God and Christ standing next to each other ergo they are two separate beings).  Jesus Christ is the son of a woman and a god.  There are many different forms of this in other polytheistic religions, but the religion most recognizable for this is the ancient Greek.  We have Hercules, Perseus Achilles, the list goes on and on.  Even the Greek creation myth involves Zeus turning into a bull and mating with the human Europa (the offspring being king Minos), this is why the continent is named Europe.   The demigod is not just any person though, they have special abilities and traits inherited by the deific parent, Hercules for example inherited godlike strength, whereas Perseus has a certain control over the water, and while Achilles had to be dipped in the river Styx by his mother to receive invulnerability, no mortal could have gotten even half the way with godly help.  Christ likewise has powers and abilities he inherited from his Father, the power to create for example, which was manifest in many different ways, from healing the sick, to feed five thousand on one loaf of bread and five fishes.  He also had dominion over demons and devils, and was invulnerable until the moment he chose to die, just like many other demigods.

Lucifer the trickster

The antagonist of most polythestic religions and myths takes the form of one of two categories, a blood enemy, who's entire purpose is to sow chaos, or the blood relative of the protagonist, who also wishes to sow chaos or discontent and generally changes his shape to do so.  We see the latter in the myth of Loki, who is jealous of his brother Thor, and is constantly doing things to discomfort him, or cause chaos in the realm of Asgard.  the thing most notable about Loki is that his son from a transformation into a wolf, will begin Ragnarok, or the last battle.  The Devil of Christianity is in many forms of the religion begins as one of God's angels.  during the war we discussed he rebelled against God out of jealousy and then fell or was cast down to the earth.  The first time we see him after he falls he changes his shape and tricks Eve into taking the forbidden fruit.  The immediate effect of which was that Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise and into chaos.

Lets start the discussion today with the creation.  Every religion out there has a creation myth, and they seem to have similar traits.  usually there is some form of conflict which is then resolved and the resolving of the conflict ends with the earth somehow being created.  The Hindu believe that there was a serpent who kept back the waters and their gods(depending on the sect it might have been Vishnu, it might have been Indra) then slew him.  From my time in Asia, the most common belief is that Vishnu slew the serpent and cut its belly open, although the serpent will reawaken at the end of the world for a final battle.  In Christianity the belief is that before the world was created there was a war in heaven, which resulted in the casting out of Lucifer and his followers.  When they were cast out they fell to the earth, the similarity between the two stories is not always prevalent, but if you were to create a timeline for the war in heaven, it would appear that during the war the creation was begun, but was not finished until after the war as Satan was already present when Adam and Eve were placed on the earth.

Polytheism versus Monotheism

One thing I want to point out very clearly is that Christianity as a religion goes is generally viewed as what I would call an offspring religion.  It follows the worship of Jehovah, as started by the Israeli people at least one thousand years before Christianity came on board.  So I am going to include some of the Jewish myths as they are generally the same beliefs that Christians share.  There are some major differences between Judaism and other belief systems of the same era.  for instance in Egypt you had a very loose worship system, in Greece it was even worse, you worshiped whoever you felt like, whenever you felt like, and no one would take offense at you worshiping Osiris over Horace, or Poseidon over Zeus, it just did not work that way.  In fact many of the ancient gods preferred the diversity, and were simply happy to be worshiped at all.  Then came Yahweh, Jehovah, the God of Gods, and king of kings, as preached by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and his first rule is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" imagine how different that would be to have someone challenge your entire belief system?  Jehovah took the idea of Polytheism, and crushed it, but there are still many aspects that are similar, and even today we see some Christian sects reverting back to polytheism.  The first aspect I would like to speak on is God vs. Jesus.  Many Churches have taught that God and Jesus Christ are the same being, but when you read the bible it shows aspects of their relationship that prove that they are not the same being.  For instance Christ calls out to God for strength while in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then He submits to God's will.  One of the many aspects that support the multiple Deity aspect of Christianity.

welcome

Welcome all to my first blog.  this blog is going to deal with the idea of Christianity, and specifically what the myths entail.  The first thing to note is my own personal belief is not truly reflected in this blog.  The effort of this blog is to draw parallels between the different myths, and to classify specific myths within the Christian faith.  That being said I specifically want to state not all Christians believe the same thing, and therefore not all of the myths and attributes are  accurate 100 percent across the board as there are many different sects of Christianity that one may choose to follow or not.