There can only be one redeemer

 

“But all religions must have a founder”. That´s a common argument against Mythicism. As in: who founded Christianity, if not Jesus? Well, how about Paul? Secular historians *really* regard Paul as the founder of Christianity. But there is a deeper problem at work here. Why does a religion need “a” founder? In plain English, “one” founder.

There are many examples of religions who clearly lack a founder. Who founded Shia Islam, for instance? Was it Ali? No. Was it Husayn? No. Was it Jafar al-Sadiq? Kind of, yes. But really no, since notions we would today call “Shia” had floated around long before Jafar. Or who founded the Druze religion? Was it al-Darazi or Hamza? Or al-Hakim himself? 

Or we could look at Christianity. Does Christianity *really* have just one founder? Does Paul and Matthew agree, for instance? What about Matthew and John? Or take Acts, which harmonizes Paul and James (=Matthew?). What about the Wisdom of Solomon, which tells the entire Gospel story long before Jesus was even born? Where does Philo fit in, and so on, and so forth.

But surely sometimes ideas just appear, de novo? Akhen-Aten´s monotheism, for instance. Well, wrong. A near-exclusive cult of the sun existed already before him. Maybe Zoroaster came up with something new, but even his new revelation seems to have had *some* connection to the past. For instance, the struggle between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman might be inspired by the struggle between devas and asuras (but with “Ahura” Mazdas role strangely switched).

Ideas usually don´t just appear from a clear blue sky. They evolve gradually. Or in leaps and bounds. But still evolve. “Evolution is a bush, not a tree”. There is a yuge undergrowth before certain versions of the new idea gets hold and becomes successful. And then seemingly looks “new” and connected to one single man. Religions appear like this. So does…well, everything else. Even the theory of evolution evolved gradually, with many false starts! Same with technology. This shouldn´t surprise us. Genetic evolution works like this. So why not memetic evolution?

So where does the idea that religion needs “a” founder come from? Remember, “a” really means “one”.

Bingo. *It comes from the monotheist religions themselves*. It´s part of the self-conception of the monotheist religions. In other words, it´s theology masquerading as history. It´s time we end the masquerade. A religion (your religion, presumably) only needs one founder if it´s monotheist and believes in a single prophet, or a single Son of God, or perhaps a string of prophets were your guy is the last and best one. So still really a single prophet.

*That´s not how ideas actually develop in the real world*.

The theological nature of the argument is obvious if we state it clearly: “Jesus must have been the real founder of Christianity, since that´s what the sources say. And of course a non-pagan monotheist religion must have one, and only one, founder”… 

There can only be one redeemer, it seems. (With apologies to Monty Python.)