Durant, Will: The Story of Civilization

Decepto-Meter

Satanic Quote: Christianity Trasher

Trashes whole of Christianity and actually accuses the apostles of borrowing their doctrine from Paganism!

Durant, Will: The Story of Civilization

	"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. . . . From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity." ("Will Durant", quoted in, Should you believe the Trinity?, Watchtower booklet) "Christianity was to him a means, but not an end... While Christianity converted the world, the world converted Christianity and displayed the natural paganism of mankind." (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, III, 1944, 653-664; quoted by UPCI)
What else did they fail to quote from this source?	Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it ... From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity, the Last Judgment, and ... reward and punishment (The Story of Civilization, Caesar and Christ, Will Durant, Part III, 1944, p. 595) from Syria the resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps, the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving god. From Persia came millennarianism, the "ages of the world," the "final conflagration," the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness and Light; already in the Fourth Gospel Christ is the "Light shining in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it Out." The Mithraic ritual so closely resembled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds." (The Story of Civilization, Caesar and Christ, Will Durant, Part III, 1944, p. 595) Mithraism, Neoplatonism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and the local cults of municipal or rustic gods... these mystic ideas left their mark on the apostles Paul and John (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, The Age Of Faith, ch 1, p 9) When Julian sought to restore paganism he found it not only irreconcilably diverse in practice and creed, but far more permeated with incredible miracle and myth than Christianity ... One could no more discover when myth was originally invented(Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, The Age Of Faith, ch 1, page 16) "Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world." (The Story of Civilization, Caesar and Christ, Will Durant, Part III, 1944, p. 595)
Our comment	Durant is universally recognized as a modernist and a secularist. Durant does not exempt Jw's from his comments, in fact he would certainly include them! Notice all the thinks he says the Apostles and early Christians borrowed from the pagans in addition to trinity! Yet both Jw's and UPCI (modalists) use him as proof that trinity is pagan! (Its the best evidence they can find!) Notice this first quote where Durant trashes the whole of Christianity, not just the trinity: "Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world." (The Story of Civilization, Caesar and Christ, Will Durant, Part III, 1944, p. 595) Durant states that even Apostles Paul and John were influenced in their theology by these pagan religions. Do Anti-trinitarians agree? Such selective quoting from a Bible hater like Durant is nothing short of dishonest and proves nothing about trinity being from the pagans, unless we accept all the other things Durant says was borrowed from the pagans into Christianity!
Proof from Will Durant's own mouth that he was a Christianity Trasher:	Did Will Durant believe in God? Durant was, by his own definition, an agnostic. His views on God can be best explained in his own words from his Dual Autobiography, written a few years before his death. Below is his personal signiture! "I am still an agnostic, with pantheistic overtones. The sight of plants and children growing inclines me to define divinity as creative power, and to reverence this in all its manifestations, even when they injure me. I cannot reconcile the existence of consciousness with a deterministic and mechanistic philososphy. I am skeptical not only of theology but also of philosophy, science, history, and myself. I recognize supersensory possibilities but not supernatural powers."

Full texts

"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries passed down into the impressive mystery of the Mass. Other pagan cultures contributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity, the Last Judgment, and a personal immortality of reward and punishment; from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child, and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian creed; there, too, Christian monasticism would find its exemplars and its source. From Phrygia came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps, the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving god. From Persia came millennarianism, the "ages of the world," the "final conflagration," the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness and Light; already in the Fourth Gospel Christ is the "Light shining in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it Out." The Mithraic ritual so closely resembled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds." (The Story of Civilization, Caesar and Christ, Will Durant, Part III, 1944, p. 595)

"Fourth-century paganism took many forms: Mithraism, Neoplatonism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and the local cults of municipal or rustic gods. Mithraism, had lost ground, but Neoplatonism was still a power in religion and philosophy. Those doctrines to which Plotinus had given a shadowy form-of a triune spirit binding all reality, of a Logos or intermediary deity who had done the work of creation, of soul as divine and matter as flesh and evil, of spheres of existence along whose invisible stairs the soul had fallen from God to man and might ascend from man to God-these mystic ideas left their mark on the apostles Paul and John, had many imitators among the Christians, and molded many Christian heresies. (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, The Age Of Faith, ch 1, p 9)

When Julian sought to restore paganism he found it not only irreconcilably diverse in practice and creed, but far more permeated with incredible miracle and myth than Christianity; and he realized that no religion can hope to win and move the common soul unless it clothes its moral doctrine in a splendor of marvel, legend, and ritual. He was impressed by the antiquity and universality of myths. "One could no more discover when myth was originally invented ... than one could find out who was the first man that sneezed." (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, The Age Of Faith, ch 1, page 16)

Three books made and almost filled the Age of Faith: the Bible, the Talmud, the Koran-as if to say that in the rebarbarization of the Roman Empire only a supernatural ethic could restore order to society and the soul. All three books were Semitic, and overwhelmingly Judaic. (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, The Age Of Faith, ch 9, p 186)

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