[Vision2020] Cal Thomas and "Copycat" Religions: A Christmas Column

[Nicholas Gier]

Season's Greetings Visionaries:

In the fall of 1983 I met Cal Thomas in the Jansen Engineering
Auditorium at the University of Idaho.  Thomas was then vice-president
of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, and I had invited him to debate the
right-wing charge that humanism was a danger to American culture.

For the first time in my public speaking career, I had stage fright
for the first five minutes.  I soon recovered and drove home my thesis
that humanism—widely endorsed by our founding thinkers—was as American
as Apple Pie.  (For more see www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/humanism.htm.)
At the end of the debate Thomas put his arm around me and said: “I
would love to take a course from you sometime.”  That is the nicest
compliment (among very few) that I’ve received from a Christian
conservative.

I'll send Cal my column and asked him to send me a plane ticket to
Virginia.  I raised money to buy him one in 1983, and I want to hold a
private tutorial for him and his buddies on the world religions.

Merry Christmas to All,

Nick

CAL THOMAS AND “COPYCAT” RELIGIONS

Many people know Cal Thomas, former vice-president of the Morality
Majority, as the syndicated columnist who regularly appears together
with liberal Bob Beckel in US Today. It is not surprising that Thomas
has joined others in demonizing the Muslim religion.

In a broadcast from Buddhist Thailand on December 8, Thomas criticized
Islam as a “copycat” religion—“taking from Old and New Testaments;
denying some of it while adding to it.”

As Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of their savior, it is
significant to point out at other religious leaders were said to be
born of virgins, descend from royalty, and fulfill ancient prophecies.
These saviors were threatened in infancy, tempted by demons, worked
miracles, worshipped as a triune deities, offered redemption through
grace, and transfigured themselves before their disciples.

The Buddha, Zoroaster, and Krishna all lived hundreds of years before
Jesus did, so will the real copycat religion now please stand?

The Jewish historian Josephus hated King Herod and chronicled his life
in great detail, but it is very odd that he never mentions the
slaughter of infants found in Matthew 2:16.  A bas relief in the
Indian Mathura Museum dated to the 3th Century B.C. shows the demon
prince Kansa standing on a huge pile of dead infants, whom he ordered
killed when he heard that the baby Krishna would grow up and dethrone
him. The pre-Christian Dinkard tells the story of a wicked ruler who
repeatedly and vainly attempts to kill the young Zoroaster, a prophet
who foretold the coming of a ancient Persian savior.

Luke tells the story about an old man named Simeon who was moved by
the Holy Spirit to go to Mary and Joseph to witness the Christ Child
(2:25-35).  Secure in knowing that the Messiah had come, Simeon was
able to die in peace.
At least 400 years before Simeon, an old Hindu sadhu by the name of
Asita heard about the birth of the royal prince Siddhartha Gautama. He
was allowed to examine the child and discovered that he had all the
bodily signs of that he would become the Enlightened One, the Buddha.
Asita lamented the fact that at 90 years old he would die before the
Buddha starting teaching.

The idea of sacred meal also comes from pre-Christian sources.  The
cultic meal of the Roman god Mithra was so much like Christian
Communion that Christian fathers Tertullian and Justin Martyr believed
that Satan must have given the Communion to the Mithraists so as to
mislead Christians. Before his ascent into Heaven, Mithra had a sacred
meal of bread and wine with his twelve disciples. One Mithraic text
parallels the famous passage in John. 6:53-58:  “He who will not eat
of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me
and I with him, the same shall not know salvation.”

When the Jews were carried off to Babylon in 597 B.C., the religion of
ancient Persia was Zoroastrianism.  Zoroaster believed in one God
expressed as a double Trinity, angels, heaven and fiery hell, Satan as
the enemy of God, a final judgment, the resurrection of the body, and
a thousand year reign of the righteous.  None of these doctrines
appear in Hebrew writings before the Babylonian exile.

Except for these profound influences of Zoroaster and Roman religions,
there is no proof that the major religions copied much from one
another.  The similarities are best explained by what I call that
“Savior Archetype,” a socio-psychological pattern to attribute divine
attributes and miraculous events to great prophets and sages.  For
more read the article at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/archetype.htm.

The conclusion I draw for 50 years of research is that, instead of
casting ignorant and unkind aspersions, we should respect the
sincerity, the devotion, and rich literary imagination of those who
developed the great world religions. Only then will there be peace on
earth and good will toward all humankind.

Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho
for 31 years.  Read all of his articles on religion at
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/religion.htm.
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