Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
Quote Originally Posted by DrB0b
The earliest Buddhism quickly incorporated local Gods and spirits into it's beliefs
As did Christianity. Several aspects of pagan beliefs were absorbed into the Christian doctrine, even concepts and renderings of angels were 'borrowed'. Difference being of course it behooves Christianity to 'forget' this now - evidence to the contrary being at odds with the notion of the 'one and true God'.
True, Christianity is in many respects closer to pagan systems of belief than to its Judaic origins.

Evidence suggests Jesus Christ was born in early autumn, though his birth was announced as the 7th January in an effort to obliterate the pagan feast of that date by gilding it with a Christian myth. Much later, in the 4th century after his death, the date was changed again, since an important Mithraic celebration, profoundly menacing to Holy Fathers, occurred on the 25th of December. It is the Roman Saturnalia that remains immaturely disguised in Christmas celebrations.

The pagan goddess Eostre survives in the Christian ritual of Easter, which is hardly relevant to the Crucifixion or the Resurrection since it was created and the date for its celebration established at Nicea in 325 CE, by majority view.

The pagan feast of St Juno falls on the 14th of February. The halo is pagan, practical, and completely un-Christian in origin, as is the most important Christian accessory, the Cross. In Carthage, the cross was ornamental; Scandinavians set crosses as boundary marks and over graves of their great men; Egyptians employed it as a sacred symbol, and two loaves bearing a cross were discovered at Herculaneum. Pre-Christian Aztecs worshipped the Cross, as did the people of Cuzomel. At Tabasco the Cross represented the rain god.

Even the Vatican unashamedly retains its pagan beginnings in its name, standing as it does on Vatican Hill, so named because it once was occupied by the Vaticanatores, the Latin term for soothsayers.