what other religions or faiths was christianity based on???

i heard from various people during my life that christianity was based on OTHER religions and faiths...

is this true???

and if it is, wouldn't this contradict the teaching of christianity that states: "this is the best / only true religion"???

thanks...

Well, i dont know about hte beliefs and crap, but the traditions of Christmas come from a Pagan holiday called Yule. So if the Christians stole that, they could have stolen other stuff from other religions.

Yep, Christianity is a blatant mesh or copy of several other organizations. Google the Mithras cult if you want more information.

Christianity copies of Mesopotamian mythology, mainly but there are other religions in it. Oh and about Christmas being Yule holiday. Christmas was INVENTED by a Roman Emperior, to stop all the paganism in Rome, cause an important holiday for the Roman pagans is on the 25 of December it's call Saturnanus (sp?).

Christianity isn't directly based off of any other religion, just to get that out first, at least not in the way you can point to, for example, modern Wiccan practices being an offshoot of Gardnerian Wicca.

Christianity, though, is heavily influenced by several other religions. In some cases this influence can be seen in the form of religious practices, and others in the imagery invoked in Christianity's stories[1].

Judaism, obviously, is perhaps the strongest influence on Christianity, Jesus being a Jew and all Beyond that, though, Zorastrianism has a number of myths that are very similar to Christianity. This isn't that surprising as it was a strong religion in the same area around the time of Christ's life. It has stories of a god being born in mortal form, and an apocalyptic fight at the end of time between the god of good and the god of evil. Some folks say that Christianity stole these stories, others that the were stories that early Christians would have been familiar with so they used the familiar themes in a new way to illustrate Christ's teachings.

During the time when Christianity was no longer so persecuted in Rome, it was spread far and wide by the Roman soldiers, as were a number of other mystery cults at the time. Mithrasism is considered one of the other leading cults at this time, along with Christianity. As has been mentioned, the timing of Christmas is based off of the celebration of Mithras' birth (December 25th). Early Christianity did this with a number of now-traditional holidays such as Easter (Esotara). In some cases this was a way of showing the indiginous people in an area "Hey, Christianity is what you're doing already, we're just giving you the proper name" and in others it's simply that the native people didn't want to give up traditional celebrations, so they found Christian excuses to have a party that same day I wish I knew of more primary documentation from the time when Christianity was expanding throughout Europe, syncreticism is something that fascinates me and I'd love to know more of the syncretic elements that have become part of traditional Christianity.

[1] "Stories" doesn't imply that the stories are false or made up, it's just a much warmer word than "accounts" or "claims."

Christianity was heavily influenced by other belief systems.

Other than the idea of hell, Jesus brought nothing new in the way of philosophy, as far as I can tell.

What influenced Christianity?

Judaism
Paganism (traditions, and the man-god myth, Mithra)
And, as far as I'm concerned, Jesus was a Buddhist, so: Buddhism.

And, it doesn't necessarily contradict the "Christianity is the best" viewpoint, as you put it earlier. If Christianity is influenced by *all* religions, it can't be worse or better than any of them - or so I'm told anyway.