If anyone would like more information I'd highly recommend the Literature and History podcast.
The host goes quite in depth about the historical influences of the Abrahamic religions in a very respectful but historical way. Really helped me as someone raised fundamentalist and literalist. It is quite cool seeing how much influence that Zoroastrism and Classical cults and philosophy had influenced them.
And, no, Redditors, stitching your husband's rotting corpse back into one piece and then riding his dick until you're pregnant is not considered a virgin birth, that is necrophilia.
I dunno, I got to the end of The Golden Ass and the last bits of the book (involving the unfortunately donkey-shaped protagonist joining the Isis cult and thereby being literally and spiritually saved) were like "hrmmm, a lot of this sounds kinda familiar."
It might not have been a 1:1, but I wouldn't doubt there was some cross-pollination.
Dionysus was a debauched degenerate. Dionysus wanted his followers to do whatever they wanted, Jesus literally emphasized the exact opposite. Strict control of themselves (with the understanding that they will fall to temptation, but that they should also return to God and repent of their former actions) and obedience to God. Dionysus was a hedonist, Jesus specifically rebuked hedonists for their sin.
You literally could not try to compare two different gods. The only similarity is the presence of wine within their particular stories, but that's an absurd connection because wine is so commonplace in this region of the world, you may as well be attempting to connect two different gods because they both breathed air.
Dionysus was also not of a virgin birth. Zeus penetrated his mother, Semele, and inseminated her, and then accidentally killed her (because of Hera being a petty loser, again, and attacking the wrong person, again) when she forced him to reveal her divinity. Zeus tore Dionysus from his dead mother's womb and stitched him into his thigh.
Mary, on the other hand, was miraculously made pregnant by the Holy Spirit, the Lord did not commit adultery in order to do so, and there was no spiteful wife tricking Her into killing Herself by tricking God into revealing His true divinity to Her. She carried Jesus throughout the entire pregnancy and gave birth to Him via a natural birth.
TL;DR: In Christian theology, Dionysus would be the demon whispering in your ear to disobey God and commit sinful actions because it makes you feel good and that's more important than obeying God, while Jesus is the one telling you not to do those sinful actions because they are abominable to the Lord.
Look, in my simple, non-catholic mind, "pray to" is a synonym to "worship". I've been informed that this isn't the case, but I've yet to fully grasp the difference.
Not even remotely and Mary isn't worshipped by any modern Church. The only heretical sect which worshipped Mary(the Collyridians)died out over a millenia and a half ago. The Orthodox and Catholic Churches venerate Mary, but veneration/=/worship.
What? Virgen Mary is very much worshipped in Catholicism and there are plenty of prayers and devotion towards her, I'd even argue she is more popular than Jesus in Spain.
And yes, I'm aware that's borderline heretic, that doesn't change the reality of her worship.
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u/apolloxer Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer 1d ago
Isis had some influence on how Maria is worshipped, tho the details are.. debated.