I am sorry to say you claim many things founded on pure guessing.

Let us look at the Norse Gods you mention.

Tor: Tor is a sun god. He rides his chariot over the sky bringing the sun from the east to the west. I recommend you read up on the symbolism about sun-chariots in many ancient cultures. Mjølner, his hammer, is shaped like a swastika. Again I recommend you read up on the real symbolism the swastika represents. At dawn when he comes home with his chariot
he slaughters his rams for feasting. Knowing that when the sun once more will rise, they will come back to life in order to pull his chariot. Tor was the god closest to humans. And when Ragnarok comes, he will die fighting Midgardsormen on behalf of the humans. Thus sacrificing himself for us.

The son, and the father.

Odin. The sun god. Father of Tor. He is the all seeing. His ravens watches the land for him. Like the symbol of Horus, Odin is represented as “one eye”. To gain knowledge of humans and their suffering, he hangs on the tree of life for several days. He is also while he hangs on his tree, penetrated by a spear into his heart.

It is possible to expand the symbolism very much. But I would like to mention that in old Norwegian churches from the “dark ages” historians have found symbols of Odin, Tor and Jesus inside them. This perhaps because the people of that time did not see them as entirely different. They represented more or less the same.

cheers mates

Originally the name Giuli signified a 60 day tide beginning at the lunar midwinter of the late Scandinavian Norse and Germanic tribes. The arrival of Juletid thus came to refer to the midwinter celebrations. By the late Viking Age, the Yule celebrations came to specify a great solstitial Midwinter festival that amalgamated the traditions of various midwinter celebrations across Europe, like Mitwinternacht, Modrasnach, Midvinterblot, and the Teutonic solstice celebration, Feast of the Dead. A documented example of this is in 960, when King HÃ¥kon of Norway signed into law that Jul was to be celebrated on the night leading into December 25, to align it with the Christian celebrations. For some Norse sects, Yule logs were lit to honor Thor, the god of thunder. Feasting would continue until the log burned out, three or as many as twelve days.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice)

I agree with Nick we have some physical/chemical leftover from our distant past to cause some people to be more susceptible to thinking this way (the fact that a religious “experience” can be manufactured easily in some people and not at all in others leads me to believe that). How we breed this trait out, I don’t know.

Bring on the aliens maybe to fast track that process~!

Cameron, I know this is just a blog post and all, but some citations of the scholars who discuss the apostles stuff would be cool.

An alternative: that we are alone on a small planet in this incarnation of the universe is a hard, cold reality for many child-like minds to understand.

I for one find it difficult to reconcile our minute place in this universe. Regressing to wish for a parental god (or gods) is a sad reflection on how little our stone age evolved brains have moved on.

I do believe that there is something intelligent going on – ‘Intelligence Energy’ as Sailor Bob refers to IT. And despite your thoughts about Christianity I do have ‘faith’ in something infiniately wiser than what my puny mind can fathom. Whatever assembled this body and makes it go, whatever causes synchronistic, ‘personally’ meaningful moments of grace, I refer to it as God for lack of a better term.

But I digress. I come here because I’m open minded and you are so freakin’ funny. Keep on telling your truth!

I mean, this was a person that routinely performed miracles, was a “political activist”, was crucified and then resurrected. And the most we hear from him outside if its own religion is “And oh yeah, there was this guy Christ which I don’t think he was human because he did some amazing shit”.

The only explanation I can think of is that miracles were so common back then that nobody paid special attention to them. For some reason, though, since we have more or less detailed and accurate historical records nobody seems to bother in doing miracles anymore.