# Can you satisfactorily debunk Jesus/Horus and win $1000? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988 "2014-02-23T01:12:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/1 "2014-02-23T01:12:10Z")
While cruising the net earlier, I found [this](http://www.kingdavid8.com/_full_article.php?id=0485927a-641d-11e1-9d05-8e2c306f9bbb) site, where the author of the page says he will pay $1000 to the first person who can show him that the similar origin stories of Jesus, Krishna, Horus, Mithra are legitimate, and will stand up to the scrutiny of a religious person. In other words, it seems that the Bible is good enough for stories of Jesus, but he requires more detailed, cited info for any others, since they came before the Jesus mythos. My impression is that the author of the website _thinks_ he’s going to be objective about any evidence. But I get the feeling that anything that counters his pre-conceived notions is going to be discounted. So, Dopers…can you collect $1000? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/2 "2014-02-23T01:35:47Z")
Unlike the Amazing Randi’s foundation, who are willing to put the money in escrow and to follow other safeguards, this guy is probably just another Ken Ham, who demands that you prove the matter to his satisfaction. Okay, maybe I’m wrong. I’ll pay $5.00 to the charity of your choice if I am. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/3 "2014-02-23T01:56:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Can you satisfactorily **debunk** Jesus/Horus and win $1000? > [@Superdude](#): > > While cruising the net earlier, I found [this](http://www.kingdavid8.com/_full_article.php?id=0485927a-641d-11e1-9d05-8e2c306f9bbb) site, where the author of the page says he will pay $1000 to the first person who can show him that the similar origin stories of Jesus, Krishna, Horus, Mithra **are legitimate** , and will stand up to the scrutiny of a religious person. In other words, it seems that the Bible is good enough for stories of Jesus, but he requires more detailed, cited info for any others, since they came before the Jesus mythos. > > My impression is that the author of the website _thinks_ he’s going to be objective about any evidence. But I get the feeling that anything that counters his pre-conceived notions is going to be discounted. > > So, Dopers…can you collect $1000? Emphasis mine. :dubious: I think that the two diametrically opposed things to prove to him will make it hard to do this. Otherwise, the constraints seem to be incredibly convenient for him to dodge paying $1,000. A book with stories that are evidence otherwise can’t be used as evidence if he doesn’t agree with their author’s position? And the acts that are supposedly to be proven are likely to need interpretation from an originating language, which would give him a lot of flexibility. I dunno. You can try to track it down if you want, but I agree with Trinopus. It seems sketchy to me. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/4 "2014-02-23T02:27:46Z")
Trust me…I understand what you mean. In fact, I said as such in the op, where I said > [@](#): > > it seems that the Bible is good enough for stories of Jesus, but he requires more detailed, cited info for any others, since they came before the Jesus mythos I agree that it’s shady. But I wonder what the counter-argument is when the average layperson tries a tactic in a similar vein. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/5 "2014-02-23T15:49:58Z")
What a pointless exercise. One could prove that Horus was said to have been born on Dec 25, had 12 guys following him around, was crucified for our sins, was son of god, had the nickname “Jesus Christ Of Nazareth”, and that Mexicans like to name their kids after him, and the response will simply be “The Horus story was simply a prophecy of the Biblical Jesus”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/6 "2014-02-23T16:54:33Z")
It’s the equivalent of disproving the birther argument. No matter how much evidence you produce, a true believer can always say he’s not convinced and ask for more. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/7 "2014-02-23T17:04:01Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > What a pointless exercise. One could prove that Horus was said to have been born on Dec 25, had 12 guys following him around, was crucified for our sins, was son of god, had the nickname “Jesus Christ Of Nazareth”, and that Mexicans like to name their kids after him, and the response will simply be “The Horus story was simply a prophecy of the Biblical Jesus”. I don’t think you understand the challenge. It’s a common claim that Horus Mithra had a lot in common with the Jesus story. He’s calling bullshit. He wants you to prove that anyone _prior to Jesus_ actually attributed Jesus-like things to Horus or Mithra. You don’t have to prove they’re true claims. You just have to prove that when people say “Horus’s story is suspiciously similar to Jesus’s story,” that it actually was. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/8 "2014-02-23T17:15:04Z")
I think Cecil already won. > **[Was Jesus copied from the Egyptian god Horus?](https://www.straightdope.com/21344148/was-jesus-copied-from-the-egyptian-god-horus)** > [@](#): > > If it all sounds pretty crazy, nothing Gerald Massey has to say will convince you it’s sane. The man was an eccentric whose work has never been taken seriously by scholars. His book is a weird mix of historical speculation, philology, and theorizing about the precession of the zodiac, all presented as fact with minimal supporting evidence. > > Massey’s attempt to demonstrate that Jesus is merely a rewrite of Horus is tortured. Take the contention that Horus and Jesus were both of virgin birth. The most common legend about the birth of Horus is that the god Seth dismembered the body of Osiris, his older brother and husband of Isis. Isis collected the pieces of her husband’s body and sewed them back together, then took the form of a bird and fanned Osiris with her wings, reviving him enough to have sex and get herself pregnant with Horus. So it’s sex with a coma patient or necrophilia — not your classic virgin-birth story either way. > > As for the crucifixion and resurrection, the party involved wasn’t Horus but Osiris, as per the above. Except Osiris wasn’t crucified — Seth initially had him nailed into a coffin. And he wasn’t really resurrected, just revived long enough to be a sperm donor, after which he died again. > > Then again, there really isn’t a canonical version of the Horus story. Browsing through the stelae, I find a variant in which the child Horus is stung to death by a scorpion, then restored to life by the god Thoth. So OK, are there points of similarity between Jesus and Horus? I’ll be big about it and say sure. Is one copied from the other? Get out. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/9 "2014-02-23T17:22:50Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I think Cecil already won. > > [Was Jesus copied from the Egyptian god Horus? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3054/was-jesus-copied-from-the-egyptian-god-horus) Sadly, Cecil doesn’t get $1,000. He proved the opposite: That Horus and Jesus were nothing alike. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/10 "2014-02-23T17:32:27Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Sadly, Cecil doesn’t get $1,000. He proved the opposite: That Horus and Jesus were nothing alike. Oh, well, coffee has not kicked in yet. I misunderstood what **Chessic Sense** said. So to correct that, I think Cecil already showed that there will be no winners. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/11 "2014-02-23T17:32:51Z")
Has anyone ever won money from people promoting various “challenges”? Every one I’ve ever heard of (probably excepting Randi’s) is set up to be impossible to meet and/or to have enough weasel-exceptions to prevent a pay-out. They’re virtually all exercises in promoting a particular point of view (“see, no one could meet our challenge, we wins!!!”). ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/12 "2014-02-23T20:47:03Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Has anyone ever won money from people promoting various “challenges”? . . . Now and then… One of the funniest (or saddest) was [the Flat Earth bet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_Level_experiment), where a flat earther put up money, and a scientist took him up on it. The flat-earther lost, but resorted to endless litigation, but, at least for a short time, he had to pay. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-satisfactorily-debunk-jesus-horus-and-win-1000/681988/13 "2014-02-23T22:53:32Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > I don’t think you understand the challenge. It’s a common claim that Horus Mithra had a lot in common with the Jesus story. He’s calling bullshit. He wants you to prove that anyone _prior to Jesus_ actually attributed Jesus-like things to Horus or Mithra. > > You don’t have to prove they’re true claims. You just have to prove that when people say “Horus’s story is suspiciously similar to Jesus’s story,” that it actually was. Plus, if he had really meant it, he would have offered more money for winner.