Does Christianity derive from Paganism?

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Isn't it possible that all the early pagan religions were off shoots/distortions of Judaism thinking they had found the Messiah written in the Old Testament?
No. Judaism had to deal with plenty of pagan religions as well. Abraham was called out of paganism and Judaism isn't as old as Abraham (notice the name is taken from one of Abraham's descendants, not one of his ancestors). But Zoroastrianism isn't one of those that was around at the time of Judaism's beginnings for it only dates back to about 600 BCE, the time of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, whereas Moses probably dates from about 600+ years before that.


Rough (in some cases very rough) estimations for the beginnings of the major world religions.

2000 BCE Hinduism
1500-1250 BCE Judaism
628-527 BCE Zoroastrianism
599-527 BCE Jainism
563-483 BCE Buddhism
580-500 BCE Taoism
551-479 BCE Confucianism
6 BCE -30 CE Christianity
100 CE Shintoism
570-632 CE Islam
1469-1538 CE Sikhism
1817-1892 CE Baha'i
 
YusufNoor said:
and maybe the connection between Easter and Pagan spring fertility festivals.


At the last supper, Christ was celebrating the Jewish Passover festival with his disciples.

And that is why Easter is held at the same time as Passover. It has nothing to do with Pagans !

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What does Hindus know about the One G-d?

The Highest G-d in Vedic Hinduism is called as Brahman. Brahman is infinite, never changing, imminent, transcendent reality. The Divine base of all matter, time, energy, time, being, space, and everything beyond the Universe. The nature of this Highest G-d had been described as transpersonal, personal, and personal by different Hindu philosophical schools.

In Rig Veda, Brahman gives rise to the primordial being "Golden Womb" that is equated with the Creator G-d, Brahma. Trinity is considered a personification of "Golden Womb" as the active principle behind the phenomena of the Universe. Brahman contextually means from Him grows everything.

Brahman is the Absolute Reality or universal substrate (not to be confused with the Creator god Brahma). It is said to be eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and ultimately indescribable in human language. The sage-seers of the Upanishads had fully realized Brahman as the reality behind their own being and of everything else in this universe. They were thus Brahmins in the true sense of the word. These rishis described Brahman as infinite Being, infinite Consciousness, and infinite Bliss (saccidananda). Brahman is regarded as the source and essence of the material universe. The Rig Veda says that by the desire of the Supreme Being (RV 10.129.4), the initial manifestation of the material universe came into being from "Golden Womb", out of which all worlds, organisms and divine beings (devas/celestial beings/angels) arise:

"Great indeed are the devas who have sprung out of Brahman." — Atharva Veda

Para Brahman corresponds to the concept of god-head and Saguna Brahman to G-d as the Primordial Being.

It is said that Brahman cannot be known by material means, that we cannot be made conscious of it, because Brahman is our very consciousness. Brahman is also not restricted to the usual dimensional perspectives of being, and thus enlightenment, moksha, yoga, samadhi, nirvana, etc. do not merely mean to know Brahman, but to realise one's "brahman-hood", to actually realise that one is and always was Brahman. Indeed, closely related to the Self concept of Brahman is the idea that it is synonymous with jiva-atma, or individual souls, our atman (or soul) being readily identifiable with the greater soul (paramatma) of Brahman.

Generally, Vedanta rejects the notion of an evolving Brahman since Brahman contains within it the potentiality and archetypes behind all possible manifest phenomenal forms. The Vedas, though they are in some respects historically conditioned are considered by Hindus to convey a knowledge eternal, timeless and always contemporaneous with Brahman. This knowledge is considered to have been handed down by realised yogins to students many generations before the vedas were committed to writing. Written texts of the Vedas are a relatively recent phenomenon.

The teaching of Monotheism had been early known to Adam (pbuh). Noah Ben Lamech too had taught about Monotheism before the Big Flood. Human imagination that made many imaginary gods sprung and being idolized.
 
You can see for yourselves how Monotheism evolves to Pantheism when Hindu Rishis interprete the concept of G-d, and later evolves to be Ploytheism when tribal gods being integrated into Hinduism and G-d been personified into everything.
 

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