Christianity has roots in other religions besides Judaism.

"All of my opponents arguments rest on one conjecture: Parallelomania. Parallelomania refers to a phenomenon where authors perceive apparent similarities and construct parallels and analogies without historical basis. " There is historical basis for these arguments. Not only are they incredibly similar, but the early Christians in the area of Judea during the Roman empire would have had massive exposure to these religions, as they were widespread in the eastern half of the Roman world. I don't believe in coincidences. If many eastern Mediterranean religions contain similar elements of a story, that is not coincidence. Are you meaning to say that a group of people, happened to be exposed to these beliefs and create a belief set that shares many similarities, that there was no influence? My argument isn't that there are similar faiths, it is that they shared similar practices "My opponent offered various comparisons between Horus and Christ, and offered a link to validate the claims. Here is a quote from the source given under the heading 'Reactions of Egyptologists': "There is no evidence that Horus was born of a virgin, that he had twelve disciples, or that he was considered incarnation of God." I re-read it, and I admit that I was incorrect and had not read the full report. That does not take away a lot of what we do know for sure about Horus, many of the similarities I presented are still valid. I find that some of the stories were infused from Christianity to Egyptian mythology, but many of them are common elements in both stories. I find it hard to believe that if one religion could influence the other, than the other could not have influenced the first. The early Christians would have been exposed to these beliefs. Are you saying that none of the similarities found are copies? "To further validate my point, here is a list of common deities that are generally attributed (through false information) to have correlations with Christ: Krishna, Buddha, Horus, Zoroaster, Mithras, Attis, and Dionysus, and here is a link that shows that none of these deities actually do have substantial correlations: http://thedevineevidence.com...; I find your link weak. It (Some examples from the link is that some of these deities do not actually have a virgin birth, specifically Horus, who was born from his mother using magic to make sperm from her dead husband to be able to become pregnant, etc.) Pro "Although passed down mostly by oral tradition" "I argue that pagan mythologies borrowed from the Christian religion. We have accurate accounts of prophecies that the Messiah was supposed to fulfill that can be demonstrably be proven to have been written before Jesus. However, with pagan mythologies, there is very little written material, and as they relied on oral traditions, additions are inevitable. Unless my opponent can validate the argument by providing adequate references to pagan texts that predate Christ, there is no case here other than certain historians using their credibility to create erroneous arguments for Christian/pagain parallels." The Egyptian texts were preserved in tombs that existed long before the Roman takeover of Egypt, around the time of Jesus. The Roman temples kept somewhat accurate records of their practices and their faiths. Although Krishna was not well documented until after Jesus, we can see isolated areas in the Indian peninsula that have well informed knowledge of Krishna and his stories. Areas that are not really connected to the outside world. If anything the Christian's didn't even have their bible written for a hundred years after Jesus was supposedly around. http://en.wikipedia.org... "(Also, it doesn't matter that we celebrate Christmas on December 25th, because, as my opponent has proved, Christ was not born in December. Yes, later Christians celebrated this date to increase their number of converts, but that isn't paganism influencing Christian theology, it's just Catholics willing to do anything for converts.) " I'm sorry, but that is influence. That is one faith having an affect on the beliefs and practices of another without conversion, that is influence. This is a clear example of how a religion was influenced by those around them, and changed to be more like them. One more thing I have to say. The idea of a heaven and hell, and an ultimate battle between them, was original used by Zoroastrianism, another religion that the Christians would have had exposure to. And the link below, is not about their oldest book, yet it dates back to before Darius the first. Who in turn outdates the Roman victory over the Carthaginians. (before Christ) http://en.wikipedia.org... To summarize. My opponent seems to think that there is some coincidence. I will admit that some of the similarities I pointed out tend to be random archetypes for characters, and not very convincing. For all of these similarities to be completely random, when they developed in the same area, and Christianity had exposure to it early on, is ludicrous. Failing in this I will stick to my claim that when a religion clearly changes a belief because of another faith, regardless of the purpose, that is religious influence. Therefore the fact that Christian's changed the date of Jesus's birthday party, is obvious influence of other religions on Christianity.