[b]Then why did you, copy my message as if answering it, and bring that subject in, if it had nothing to do with Hislop]/b]? Yes, I believe it had something to do with Hislop.

So what didn't I believe? I knew the videos weren't BY Hislop, that was obvious.
But it also seemed obvious they were shared as a some kind of reason that I should accept Hislop. were they not?

OK, I guess my quoting the birth/death date bio information triggered your response.
But do you know where I found that? On a site called "Dark Books" where a person who calls herself a witch, is putting links to "her favorite books" explaining the occult. It is a bit scary when searching for his book to land in that kind of webpage.
Not a site I recommend.

From that bio, it seems you ASSUMED I was prejudice against other religions?
You assumed, just because Hislop was not an Adventist is why I shared the problems I have with his writings?
None of that is true.

If you would have just ONE video of Hislop praising Christ, maybe I wouldn't have a problem. Hundreds from someone else don't mean anything as far as the topic of this thread.
Christianity is very much part of Hislop's book.
Does he think EVERYTHING in Catholicism is pagan?
The title on the edition I own, reads that it is "proof Roman Catholicism's practices and beliefs came from pagan babylonian religion not from Christ or the Bible."




So yes, I do expect him to define truth, especially in relation with Jesus Christ as the most important thing, not endless details of paganism and goddesses and child concepts.
The reason, in my mind why there are so many counterfeits, is because the truth is of utmost importance.

That is a big issue for me. Are you saying he doesn't ?

Then, without delay, as Bede informs us, this important revolution was accomplished
144
by royal authority. He sent agents into every province, and caused all the ministers and
monks to receive the circular tonsure, according to the Roman fashion, and thus to submit to
Peter, "the most blessed Prince of the apostles." "It was the mark," says Merle D'Aubigne,
"that Popes stamped not on the forehead, but on the crown. A royal proclamation, and a few
clips of the scissors, placed the Scotch, like a flock of sheep, beneath the crook of the
shepherd of the Tiber." Now, as Rome set so much importance on this tonsure, let it be asked
what was the meaning of it? It was the visible inauguration of those who submitted to it as the
priests of Bacchus. This tonsure cannot have the slightest pretence to Christian authority. It
was indeed the "tonsure of Peter," but not of the Peter of Galilee, but of the Chaldean "Peter"
of the Mysteries. He was a tonsured priest, for so was the god whose Mysteries he revealed.
Centuries before the Christian era, thus spoke Herodotus of the Babylonian tonsure: "The
Arabians acknowledge no other gods than Bacchus and Urania [i.e., the Queen of Heaven],
and they say that their hair was cut in the same manner as Bacchus' is cut; now, they cut it in
a circular form, shaving it around the temples." What, then, could have led to this tonsure of
Bacchus? Everything in his history was mystically or hieroglyphically represented, and that in
such a way as none but the initiated could understand.
One of the things that occupied the most important place in the Mysteries was the
mutilation to which he was subjected when he was put to death. In memory of that, he was
lamented with bitter weeping every year, as "Rosh-Gheza," "the mutilated Prince." But "Rosh-
Gheza" also signified the "clipped or shaved head." Therefore he was himself represented
either with the one or the other form of tonsure; and his priests, for the same reason, at their
ordination had their heads either clipped or shaven. Over all the world, where the traces of the
Chaldean system are found, this tonsure or shaving of the head is always found along with it.
The priests of Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, were always distinguished by the shaving of their
heads. In Pagan Rome, in India, and even in China, the distinguishing mark of the Babylonian
priesthood was the shaven head. Thus Gautama Buddha, who lived at least 540 years before
Christ, when setting up the sect of Buddhism in India which spread to the remotest regions of
the East, first shaved his own head, in obedience, as he pretended, to a Divine command,
and then set to work to get others to imitate his example.

It has been already shown that among the Chaldeans the one term "Zero" signified at
once "a circle" and "the seed." "Suro," "the seed," in India, as we have seen, was the sun-
divinity incarnate. When that seed was represented in human form, to identify him with the
sun, he was represented with the circle, the well known emblem of the sun's annual course,
on some part of his person. Thus our own god Thor was represented with a blazing circle on
his breast. (WILSON'S Parsi Religion) In Persia and Assyria the circle was represented
sometimes on the breast, sometimes round the waist, and sometimes in the hand of the sun-
divinity. (BRYANT and LAYARD'S Nineveh and Babylon) In India it is represented at the tip of
the finger. (MOOR'S Pantheon, "Vishnu") Hence the circle became the emblem of Tammuz
born again, or "the seed."

On them is the Assyrian Hercules strangling the lion between two winged human-headed bulls, back to back, as at the grand entrances of the palaces of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad. Above this group is the king, worshipping between two deities, who stand on mythic animals, having the heads of eagles, the bodies and fore feet of lions, and hind legs armed with the talons of a bird of prey. The height of the whole sculpture is 24 feet, that of the winged bull 8 ft. 6 in.

It has been already shown that among the Chaldeans the one term "Zero" signified at
once "a circle" and "the seed." "Suro," "the seed," in India, as we have seen, was the sun-
divinity incarnate. When that seed was represented in human form, to identify him with the
sun, he was represented with the circle, the well known emblem of the sun's annual course,
on some part of his person. Thus our own god Thor was represented with a blazing circle on
his breast. (WILSON'S Parsi Religion) In Persia and Assyria the circle was represented
sometimes on the breast, sometimes round the waist, and sometimes in the hand of the sun-
divinity. (BRYANT and LAYARD'S Nineveh and Babylon) In India it is represented at the tip of
the finger. (MOOR'S Pantheon, "Vishnu") Hence the circle became the emblem of Tammuz
born again, or "the seed."

We will continue to worship our idols, and to serve our priests.
We will continue to offer human sacrifices to our gods. We will never
cease to call upon the name of Thor, who holds the seven planets in his left
hand, and a sceptre in his right. We will never cease to worship the sun when he
rises and sets, and when we behold his image, as half a man, with the rays
of light proceeding from his face, and with a ftaming wheel on his breast ;
and we will never cease to worship the moon and the starry host'.

It has been already shown that among the Chaldeans the one term "Zero" signified at
once "a circle" and "the seed." "Suro," "the seed," in India, as we have seen, was the sun-
divinity incarnate. When that seed was represented in human form, to identify him with the
sun, he was represented with the circle, the well known emblem of the sun's annual course,
on some part of his person. Thus our own god Thor was represented with a blazing circle on
his breast. (WILSON'S Parsi Religion) In Persia and Assyria the circle was represented
sometimes on the breast, sometimes round the waist, and sometimes in the hand of the sun-
divinity. (BRYANT and LAYARD'S Nineveh and Babylon) In India it is represented at the tip of
the finger. (MOOR'S Pantheon, "Vishnu") Hence the circle became the emblem of Tammuz
born again, or "the seed."

Images and pictures of VISHNU, either representing him in his own person, or in
any of his Avataras, or incarnations, may be generally distinguished from those of other
deities by a shell, Chank, and a sort of wheel, or discus , called Chakra .The Chank is the
large buccinum, sometimes seen beautifully coloured like a pheasant's breast. The Chakra
is a missile weapon, very like our quoit, having a hole in its centre, on which it is twirledby
the fore finger, and thrown at the destined object. Whatever mythological mischief may
have ensued from its effects, it does not appear to me as capable of producing much,
sent from a mortal finger. It has a sharp edge, and irresistible fire flames from its periphery
when whirled by VISHNU.

As Diodorus makes Ninus "the most ancient of the Assyrian kings," and
represents him as beginning those wars which raised his power to an extraordinary height by
bringing the people of Babylonia under subjection to him, while as yet the city of Babylon was
not in existence, this shows that he occupied the very position of Nimrod, of whom the
Scriptural account is, that he first "began to be mighty on the earth," and that the "beginning of
his kingdom was Babylon." As the Babel builders, when their speech was confounded, were
scattered abroad on the face of the earth, and therefore deserted both the city and the tower
which they had commenced to build, Babylon as a city, could not properly be said to exist till
Nimrod, by establishing his power there, made it the foundation and starting-point of his
greatness. In this respect, then, the story of Ninus and of Nimrod exactly harmonise. The way,
too, in which Ninus gained his power is the very way in which Nimrod erected his. There can
be no doubt that it was by inuring his followers to the toils and dangers of the chase, that he
gradually formed them to the use of arms, and so prepared them for aiding him in establishing
his dominions; just as Ninus, by training his companions for a long time "in laborious
exercises and hardships," qualified them for making him the first of the Assyrian kings.

I. ORIGINALLY,5 the government of nations and tribes was in the hands of kings; 6 whom it was not their flattery of the people, but their discretion, as commended by the prudent, that elevated to the height of this dignity. The people were not then bound by any laws; the wills of their princes were instead of laws. It was their custom to defend, rather than advance, 7 the boundaries of their empire. The dominions of each were confined within his own country.

The first of all princes, who, from an extravagant desire of ruling, changed this old and, as it were, hereditary custom, was Ninus, king of the Assyrians. It was he who first made war upon his neighbours, and subdued the nations, as yet too barbarous to resist him, as far as the frontiers of Libya Sesostris,8 king of Egypt, and Tanaus,9 king of Scythia, were indeed prior to him in time; the one of whom advanced into Pontus, and the other as far as Egypt; but these princes engaged in distant wars, not in struggles with their |4 neighbours; they did not seek dominion for themselves, but glory for their people, and, content with victory, declined to govern those whom they subdued. But Ninus established the greatness of his acquired dominion by immediately possessing himself of the conquered countries.10 Overcoming, accordingly, the nearest people, and advancing, fortified with an accession of strength, against others, while each successive victory became the instrument of one to follow, he subjugated the nations of the whole east. His last war was with Zoroaster, 11 king of the Bactrians, who is said to have been the first that invented magic arts, and to have investigated, with great attention, the origin of the world and the motions of the stars. After killing Zoroaster, Ninus himself died, leaving a son called Ninyas, still a minor, and a wife, whose name was Semiramis.12

II. Semiramis, not daring to entrust the government to a youth, or openly to take it upon herself (as so many great, nations would scarcely submit to one man, much less to a woman), pretended that she was the son of Ninus instead of his wife, a male instead of a female. The stature of both mother and son was low, their voice alike weak, and the cast of their features similar. She accordingly clad her arms and legs in long garments, and decked her head with a turban; and, that she might not appear to conceal any thing by this new dress, she ordered her subjects also to wear the same apparel; a fashion which the whole nation has since retained. Having thus dissembled her sex at the commencement of her |5 reign, she was believed to be a male. Sbe afterwards performed many noble actions; and when she thought envy was overcome by the greatness of them, she acknowledged who she was, and whom she had personated. Nor did this confession detract from her authority as a sovereign, but increased the admiration of her, since she, being a woman, surpassed, not only women, but men, in heroism.

It was she that built Babylon,13 and constructed round the city a wall of burnt brick; bitumen, a substance which everywhere oozes from the ground in those parts, being spread between the bricks instead of mortar. 14 Many other famous acts, too, were performed by this queen; for, not content with preserving the territories acquired by her husband, she added Ethiopia also to her empire; and she even made war upon India, into which no prince, 15 except her and Alexander the Great, ever penetrated. At last, conceiving a criminal passion for her son, she was killed by him, after holding the kingdom two and forty years from the death of Ninus.

Her son Ninyas, content with the empire acquired by his parents, laid aside the pursuits of war, and, as if he had changed sexes with his mother, was seldom seen by men, but grew old in the company of his women. His successors too, following his example, gave answers to their people through their ministers. The Assyrians, who were afterwards called Syrians, held their empire thirteen hundred years.

The first deified woman was no doubt Semiramis, as the first deified man was her
husband. But it is evident that it was some time after the Mysteries began that this deification
took place; for it was not till after Semiramis was dead that she was exalted to divinity, and
worshipped under the form of a dove. When, however, the Mysteries were originally
concocted, the deeds of Eve, who, through her connection with the serpent, brought forth
death, must necessarily have occupied a place; for the Mystery of sin and death lies at the
very foundation of all religion, and in the age of Semiramis and Nimrod, and Shem and Ham,

Egypt, Nineveh and Babylon culture is documented in many historical records. One can find many pictures of their "human-headed bulls," eagle or falcon headed gods, lion headed gods..
Winged bulls, winged lions--

Though it makes me wonder -- why this particular mixing of gods with these animals?

Sometimes I wonder if the veil that keeps us from seeing spirit beings (angels of either side) was a whole lot thinner before the flood.
The Bible tells us
Genesis 3:24 "After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."

So people could go to the Garden of Eden and actually see the cherubim guarding the way.

But notice in Ezekiel:
1:6 four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf. They had four faces -- eagle, ox (bull), lion, and man.

Curiosity --
I wonder if that had anything to do with the early ancients having this urge to have gods with eagle (falcon) bulls (ox) or lion characteristics?
Of course the biblical living creatures were cherubs or an order of angels, not gods. Colossians warns against angel worship???
Anyway just curiosity-- why this fascination for eagles, lions and bulls that which started BEFORE they even had a bunch of "heros" to worship.
Seems it dates back to something before the flood.