• ernestm
    1k



    Vilifying Christianity because politicians make use of whatever they can to control the world, including religion, results from delusional fantasy, sometimes bordering on psychosis. Perhaps blaming a religion for the misdeeds of religious authority is due to the aggressors' repressed childhood dread of going to church on Christmas day, before being allowed to open their presents. Whatever the reason, the extent people argue that religion only serves those desiring power is rather disturbing, Some have taken the assertion to amazing academic and theological extremes. So I am obligated to address some words to it, for the sake of their own sanity. In so doing, I am also obligated to address the actual historical events leading to the Nicene creed, which remains rather undisputed as absolutely true throughout almost all current Christian churches.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Of Constatine's Motive to Form the Nicene Council

    It starts with Emperor Constantine funding a council to make Christianity a state religion. Cynics frequently advocate the Nicene council sole intent was to execute a state takeover from the very beginning. To me at least, that is a complete fantasy. Constantine just sent the council money because he wanted to make Christianity a state religion. From what we know of the character of the man, Constantine might have found "bishops," per se, demanding that he make them in charge of the world amusing, but beyond that, he really had his own agenda and rather ignored everyone.

    Beyond making Christianity a state religion, Constantine was not particularly concerned about it at all. He didn’t even take the committee's decisions that seriously either. There is NO DENIAL of that from historical evidence. The council tried to figure out how to make a state religion, and who should do what, and all of them had different side agenda, and agreeing on anything was very difficult. One thing the council could NOT do was challenge Constantine's authority. He had hired them.

    Thus the Nicene creed carefully avoids exclusion of OTHER Gods besides the three-in-one Trinity. Hence, Egyptian concepts of the absolute ruler being necessarily divine continued. One after another divine ruler controlled the world, Christian or not, all the way through the Roman Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, Western Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, and even the Papacy after the empires were gone, over many centuries, extending beyond a millennium.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Of the Nicene Creed, Nicene Canon, and Self Castration

    Regarding the Nicene creed itself, it addressed two man concerns at the time: Arianism and Self Castration. The first concern, to establish the Trinity over Arian ideas, led to the creed being very long, but otherwise was not that significant. It was a complex cover up of the fact that there could be more than one God, without actually saying Constantine was a God too.

    The REALLY significant problem confronting the good people on the council was the spreading amount of self mutilation, particularly self castration. Self Castration was such a big problem, the Nicene council had to make it the first law in the Nicene canon. So frequently and entirely ignored, the Nicene canon, a set of rules for all churches, was far more significant at the time than the creed, which really was more of a justification of the canon rules at the time. The rapid spread of self mutilation by those wishing to prove their admission before God is not a particularly pleasant subject. Documents describing the practice from Egypt make it clear it had reached all the way there from Turkey, where a Phrygian myth from ~400BC had started the practice. One may challenge the rather large amount of evidence that the church father Origen castrated himself, and rather liked it--although one may legitimately question the motives of those advocating anyone would ever want to fabricate such a fact. One can debate the authenticity of ancient documents from that time lauding the virtues of self mutilation as a path to salvation, citing one o rmore of a dozen New Testament verses as theological validation. Some may even enjoy such debate, for what reason I would rather not conemplate. Personally, I find the law forbidding castration being the FIRST in the rules of the Nicene Canon, quite sufficient to consider by itself as evidence for the rapidly spreading problem.

    Hence the Nicene creed's primary purpose was to stop self castration, but its specific wording has perpetuated long after the actual reason for its statement was far more than forgotten. It was intentionally ignored. Hence the Nicene creed clearly specifies that personal salvation is ONLY possible through one single route that denies all alternatives,.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Long and Continuing Influence
    of the Nicene Creed's Misconstrued Intents


    While human Godhods eventually disappeared, we still live under the Nicene's creed's claim to exclusivity in defining the only path to salvation, despite the creed's primitive nature and intent. After the crucifixion, the creed claims the Old Judaic Law requiring sacrifice for redemption was replaced by the New Law, even while Jews still practiced sacrifice, for a long time even unaware the Law might have changed. Just as emperors and popes continued to enforce primitive Egyptian concepts of human Godhood, defining themselves as divine rulers, for more than a millennium, the exclsusivity of redemption, only possible through Christ, remains two millenia later, an absolute requirement for faith in virtually all Christian churches today, and even frequently stated as the only important belief, superceding all others--just as it was held during the Dark Ages, when most people could not even read.

    The creed ALSO led to OTHER dismissals of alternative ideas of salvation, but that was not its intent. Its intent, at the time, was to curb as quickly as possible the dreadful spread of castration, and according to some historical sources, EVEN WORSE acts of self mutilation.

    Since then, humankind in its usual trite manner has adopted the Nicene creed as the absolute and total, single, and exclusive way to find redemption. This is so obviously not true, merely by considering people born before Christ or in places where Christianity was not known, not even considering alternate Christian creeds at all. Nonetheless it has become a petulant, childish, and totally ridiculous simplistic interpretation, not only dominating the mind of ignorami, but forcing them to accept supernatural events beyond explication of the laws of science as defined by the Creator, which is hardly good for any person's mental health, let alone those least endowed with intelligence.

    Moreover, the myopism exacerbates cynicism, attacking the good nature of Jesus, supplementing the hatred of people who as children had to wait to open their presents until after church.

    (As a sidepoint, the division between first, second, and third councils is almost entirely an academic convenience. Just like all committees, it wallowed around, with membership and authority within itself continuously changing, and had recesses at various times. As to how the council and its actions overall should be divided up is really a matter of personal preference. Now, we look back, and see identify three distinct sets of actions over time. So during this millennium, its become popular to think of it as three separate councils. Now we look back and say, their mission was to make a creed. Well even the council itself didn’t know that was what it was going to do when it started. This division into three councils over time is a relatively recent emphasis that appears to me largely contrived.)

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Of Augustine's Influence

    The 'domination of thought and conduct' now frequently claimed as the main intent of Christianity clearly arose from a different source: Augustine. But he shouldn't be blamed either. At the time Augustine wrote them, THEY WERE MEDITATIONS, NOT DOCTRINES, which came to have a disproportionate affect on the religious practice due to the sheer volume of thought on the topic for the time that he expressed in writing, rather dwarfing alternative views for people who might have thought otherwise but were not that inclined to think about it so much. It is a continuing pursuit of cynical pleasure to blame a person who thinks of an idea for the acts of people who use that idea vindictively.

    Augustine had no intent that the church power replace Roman power either. He just objected to Romans feeding Christian's to lions, etc., and provided spiritual justification for questioning their authority to do so. As a side poiint, Augustine's Apologetics were the first MAKOR attack on Arianism, which is more doctrinal, and has nothing to do with controlling power.

    The first major attack on denial of secular law can be found in Augustine' CITY OF GOD, which states secular law (and therefore secular authority) is insignificant compared to the needs of personal salvation. That was seized upon by those thirsting for power as a legitimate excuse to depose the Roman empire and place religious authority in its stead. THAT wasn't Augustine’s intent either.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Conclusion

    The extensive infatuation with blaming the use of religion to obtain political power, and saying religion is for nothing else--particularly blaming the Nicene Council which wrote the first Christian creed--is rather psychotic, with delusions of grandeur.

    Regarding the insistence of there being only one single path to salvation as defined by the Nicene creed, I make one final assertion. The differences between creeds, both within and across religions, are human inventions, not God's invention. Certainly it is possible that Christ provides the only route to salvation, if consciously known or not. However, the significance of the claim rather diminishes after one adds such a condition, and the claim cannot make sense without it. For more significantly, no human has the right to say all people who do not specifically follow the Nicene creed are condemned to hell. Whether or not conscious acknowledgment of Jesus is necessary for redemption is almost entirely ancillary. If we are to believe in a benign, judging God, then we must allow Him to make the decision as to whom deserves what in any afterlife of any faith, and never take that decision upon ourselves.

    Thank you for reading.
  • Outlander
    1.8k
    A great read. My thoughts.

    People want to be part of the majority. Depending on where you are, that's Christianity. Anyone can say they're anything and be accepted as that solely by the fact they said so. Not everyone lives by the main tenets of their own professed religion. This one being "Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul" and "Love others as you love yourself". A wonderful ideology. There would be much less suffering, strife, and war if this was adhered to by all.

    Taking history at face value (did you witness it or any 'evidence' being discovered yourself? You can carve over a 5,000 year old artifact and guess what. It will carbon date the same.) I read Constantine (or others near him) witnessed miracles first hand one of which being Christians thrown into boiling oil yet being unharmed. Let's face it that's pretty cool and more than enough to make you think.

    As far as the 'domination of thought and conduct' aspect that's one of the main criticisms of all religion. It's a control mechanism. It definitely is used as such by some however if the premise is true, there is a God and we are to live peacefully 'or else', well that would be that wouldn't it? Look at some factions of society, here and everywhere. The violence, animosity, and suffering. An atheist would note the positive benefits religion has for not just others but even them.

    From my understanding Christianity is essentially the belief that the prophecized Messiah or 'redeemer' who allows us to make mistakes and sin or essentially 'just be human' without eternal damnation was in fact, Jesus Christ. Older religions do not believe this and that the Old Testament laws still apply. Some do believe in a Messiah/redeemer who will arrive and do this, simply that it was not Jesus.

    All that aside I'm skeptic minded myself. I wouldn't say it's impossible the religious books we have today are not the original texts. Or that things weren't added or omitted.
  • ernestm
    1k

    Thank you for your reply. I take it you are rather disinterested in considering whether the Nicene creed should not contain statements of exclusive rights to redemption through belief in it alone?

    I should mention that I do try to update the original post to include any valid comments, and I just did so, from some comments on another board.
  • hachit
    237
    you made some big errors when talking about the Nicene Creed
    castration was handled by the the power of the church (at the time the council of apostles) not the nicene creed.

    The nicene creed made because people were questioned the divinity of Jesus and\or God.


    This was a problem because the sacrifice means nothing if Jesus was less then God then he was not the perfect sacrifice.

    Then there were others that believed in two Gods one that was evil (the God that the Christian belief now) and another that was trying to save us from him.

    The nicene creed was use used to set the standard that made God in all parts and purposes the divine.

    Lastly the Christians are stll debates salvation, i believe in by faith, others the book of life, and others good works (these the ones I know but there could be more).
  • ernestm
    1k
    castration was handled by the the power of the church (at the time the council of apostles) not the nicene creed.hachit

    To resolve this diffrence of opinion, submit your change to the wikipedia and see if others agree with you.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea#Promulgation_of_canon_law

    The nicene creed made because people were questioned the divinity of Jesus and\or God. This was a problem because the sacrifice means nothing if he was less then God then he was not the perfect sacrifice.hachit

    Your deductoin relies on acceptance of the Holy Covenant, and frankly, it is a savage and primitive concept that sacrifice is necessary to correct a human fault in the first place. You are asserting your creed as if you have divine authority to know it. You don't. See:

    The differences between creeds, both within and across religions, are human inventions, not God's invention.ernestm

    There is no rational reason, in terms of philoosphy, why God would need to sacrifice his own son in order to fuflifll some kind of law which apparently you insist even God must obey. See statement above:

    Then there were others that believed in two Gods one that was evil (the God that the Christian belief now) and another that was trying to save us from him.hachit

    Irrelevant.

    Lastly the Christians are stll debates salvation, i believe in by faith, others the book of life, and others good works (there the ones I know but there could be more).hachit

    nonsensical. Pelase revise to indicate your meaning.
  • hachit
    237


    After looking at the wickapeta article I see that you misread, that was there reason the council was called it had nothing to do with the Nicene Creed. Wich I'm assume you did actually read.

    Yes castration was still an issue at the time because not everyone listened to the apostles when thay said not to.

    First God clearly gave power to the church Matthew 18

    "There is no rational reason, in terms of philoosphy, why God would need to sacrifice his own son in order to fuflifll some kind of law which apparently you insist even God must obey."

    There is it has to do with two concepts.
    One God cannot be in the presence of that wich disobedience to him or else it is destroyed.
    Second the concept of sacrificing the "clean" to make the "unclean" "clean" and remember God is transcendent (He doesn't follow are logic and reason).

    The statement you said was irrelevant was meant to be another example of the problems before the Nicene creed.

    Again lastly the church cannot agree on the way to salvation
    I believe in salvation by faith "

    if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved." Romans 9-10

    Others the book of life
    "You cannot enter heaven unless you name is in the book of life" calvinism teaching

    Others salvation by good works
    Simply you get into heaven if your a good person in general

    (Again there may be others I'm not aware of)
  • ernestm
    1k
    After looking at the wickapeta article I see that you misread, that was there reason the council was called it had nothing to do with the Nicene Creed. Wich I'm assume you did actually read.hachit

    Im sorry I have no idea what you are talking about here. At all. the council addressed many other issues, but the biggest problem they had with church behavior at the time was castration. Its often drawn as being an Atis faith, but frankly, theres no way that could have suddenly made it all the way to the far end of the roman empire from Phrygia. Thats ridiculous. Its mostly from biblical verses, frequently quote Matthew 19:12 now, but the far more common one is 'if your hand offends you cut if off,' and yes people were cutting off their hands too.

    As I wrote, and I didnt want to go into that level of detail, they tried to stop it, and the people who were doing it carried on, and argued with them. So they made a creed and kept revising it unti it was strict enough to stop it, a generation later, which finally brought the self mutilation almost entirely to an end, for which we can only be grateful that humanity did not decide it was a good thing. There is only a few cases of extreme masochism cited in William James Varieties of Religous Experience later. Its not a pleasant subject, and if you wish to argue about it, thats the current book to read, and please find a sadist to do argue with you, not me.

    Regarding your other statements, the problem is, many people isolate particular phrases, sometimes deliberately out of context, to make a point. The practice is called 'cherry picking' and its particularly popular in church sermons and eulogies of all denominations. Exactly the same practice is used for promoting Islamic terrorism. That is a philosophical point.

    All the examples you give derive from different interpretations of the Nicene creed. If you ask the churches, they will say so. There are a small number that have even more oddball or different assertions that arose around the turn of the last century, at which time a very large number of churches split off and most have disappeared.

    The remaining ones to my knowledge are the 7th day adventists, mormons, and Jehoavahs' withnesses. The shakers are gone but the memonites are still around in small numbers. Also there is the Unitarians, but due to internal conflicts they now dont even consider themselves necessariiy Christian. Other fringe beliefs include the quakers, which were christians but now are even divided on theism. Other than that, all Christian churches are founded on the Nicene creed. the main branch of churches points to the 'fall' of quakers and unitarians to uphold the necessity of keeping to traditional principals. There are splits regarding iconery, succession of saints, etc, and some have winnowed to a more fundamentalist position, but they still all are based on the Nicene creed's statement of the Holy Covenant, that shedding of blood is necessary for God to grant redemption, and as I say, that is an extremely primitve, and almost savage, concept.
  • Outlander
    1.8k


    Anytime. I love this kind of stuff. Honestly I had to Google 'Nicene creed' to learn what exactly it was. Was raised Baptist myself. Seeing as it was established A.D. by men and just a title I wouldn't say it's so much believing in 'it' as much as it is believing in what it states is Truth on the basis of Scripture.

    Now bearing in mind I'm not exactly what you'd call devout nor a scholar in religion or philosophy nor do I have any understanding of the 'Nicene creed' other than what I've read about it from Wikipedia in five minutes. Here is my view. I don't know. Lol. Let me ask a few questions so you can help me define what exactly it entails.

    The divinity of Jesus. I believe this. However. What does divine mean? From or of God? So are angels. Fallen ones even. Should we worship them? No, right? That's awesome sure but seems a bit like idolatry.

    The cosubstantiation bit. By the right hand of God. I believe this as well. Now where I start to question things is the equivalence and/or replacement of God/the Father. Not to say I don't believe God/the Holy Spirit was there when important things were spoken or miracles were performed just to say depending on what the creed specifically implies one should make sure to not get confused.

    At the end of the day I don't know. And I don't think anyone else does either. I believe in a loving and merciful God. Say you're born in a remote village in the mountains or the Sahara. You're told God is some guy sitting on a chair in a royal hut. You know nothing else but this. You live a selfless life helping others and putting yourself last doing great things for your community in the process. Would you exclude this person from salvation?

    Nah I just imagine all the atheist philosophers here (who are exceptionally brilliant btw and can't wait to meet them later) reading this like .. Ha! Look at these guys debating their fairy tales :D
  • ernestm
    1k
    Well, I appreciate your faith. I do. I think its good you stand on something good. I could quibble with the ratoinalism of believing that Christ actually had to die and be reborn. I could assert that he 'just' went into a coma and came to again. So what if he did. What if he did? You're a baptist, so you'll understood this. He came to wrapped in bandages. He could have just lain there, cleaned up, scent of myrhh around him, but he didnt. He got up. He culdnt walk on those feet. He had to tie splints on his legs to stand on those feet, splits held with bandages wrapped around by hands like sticks, with usuable fingers. He stood up, pushed a boulder aside, and walked out, without complaining. That's enough for me. Without complaining. Not a word of anything bad to anyone, even doubting Thomas, love all around. That's enough for me. He was dead enough as it was, and dead enough was dead enough already.

    So they want to say his blood was shed because God had to shed his own blood, to keep the laws of sacrifice. They want to say that, fine. If that what pleases them, fine. Thats what the nicene creed says. Fine. It's only the exclusivity of it that I find difficult. Why do I even have to believe he actually died? Hadnt he suffered enough to make his point? Wouldnt it be even more amazing if God's son saved the world without actually needing to break the scientific laws of His Father's Creation?

    Personally the whole death of God being necessary for redemption thing is, sorry to say, um,. well, barbaric to me. We are told to look to a benign, loving God in the afterlife. Well, I cant imagine a benign, loving God creates a Universe where blood sacrifice is necessary for forgiveness. Its like some tribal, voodoo thing that just exceeds my bounds of rational acceptance so much, I would have to reduce myself to an imbecile with an IQ of 70 to accept it.

    But what would a baptist church say to that, I wonder? Its not as if I havent been excommunicated by other churches already.
  • Outlander
    1.8k


    Hm. Yeah. I suppose if you're bungee jumping a harness is good too.

    Never heard that explicit depiction before got to say. You got to remember you're talking about the guy who (according to Scripture) rose a man from the dead by uttering a few words and healed a gash on a soldier's face/head by merely touching it. Pretty sure, again according to relevant text, the guy could've done a little something something for himself. Then again. You visit a third world country what would it really be worth if you don't do like the locals do.

    Personally, I just noticed one day it said 'Baptist' on the sign. One time I asked the pastor 'what is Baptist? What makes this a Baptist church?'. He said something along the lines of 'oh it's from John the Baptist.' Maybe I didn't pay much attention but I don't ever remember him speaking about him once. Point being I have no real understanding of what makes 'Baptist' different from other denominations it was just the closest church and I had to go there.

    Anyhow. I often wonder about that same thing, why would God, who created everything, the universe, humans, angels, and everything in between need the offspring to die. Used to think about all this pretty often, the fact the 1st Commandment acknowledged there are (or were) multiple gods, etc. I came to the conclusion, absurd or irrelevant or simply incorrect as it may be. As a human do you really want a bunch of vengeful supermen running around, raising the dead, controlling the elements, duplicating anything and everything, and inevitably enslaving a bunch of people who really don't know any better? Probably not right?
  • hachit
    237

    "Im sorry I have no idea what you are talking about here. At all. the council addressed many other issues, but the biggest problem they had with church behavior at the time was castration. "

    I'm saying your correct with your understanding of why the counsel was called. However in order to understand why you must understand that the Christian were trying to fugue out what thay were. The biggest problem they realised was that there was no unified doctrine and so the nicene creed along with a few other was put into affect to be that unified doctrine. However because the creed said nothing about castration the debate was not over. The Creed simply made in optional not mandatory for salvation. In the end it was decided no because of verses in the book of Acts and the letters. Note the bible was treated and good wisdom rather than law at this point.

    There were several proclamations the nicene creed
    "We believe in one God,
    the Father, the Almighty,
    maker of heaven and earth,
    of all that is, seen and unseen.

    We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
    the only Son of God,
    eternally begotten of the Father,
    God from God, Light from Light,
    true God from true God,
    begotten, not made,
    of one Being with the Father.
    Through him all things were made.
    For us and for our salvation
    he came down from heaven:
    by the power of the Holy Spirit
    he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
    and was made man.
    For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
    he suffered death and was buried.
    On the third day he rose again
    in accordance with the Scriptures;
    he ascended into heaven
    and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
    He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
    and his kingdom will have no end.

    We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
    who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
    With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
    He has spoken through the Prophets.
    We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
    We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
    We look for the resurrection of the dead,
    and the life of the world to come. Amen." (English translation)

    Was simply the second most famous, the bible (scriptures) being the first.

    " Regarding your other statements, the problem is, many people isolate particular phrases, sometimes deliberately out of context, to make a point. The practice is called 'cherry picking' and its particularly popular in church sermons and eulogies of all denominations. Exactly the same practice is used for promoting Islamic terrorism. That is a philosophical point."

    I am a Christian and I understand that point. That is why in the Wesleyan tradition (the denomination i believe in) were taught to read the entire chapter not just the one verse.

    With that understanding "Matthew 19:12 now, but the far more common one is 'if your hand offends you cut if off,' and yes people were cutting off their hands too " that was actually in part what it meant, but it also meant more to get of everything that might make you sin, now i can see how some may have misused this and did it for the wrong reasons.

    "but they still all are based on the Nicene creed's statement of the Holy Covenant, that shedding of blood is necessary for God to grant redemption, and as I say, that is an extremely primitve, and almost savage, concept."

    If you think so, can't really change your mind there.
  • ernestm
    1k
    Personally, I just noticed one day it said 'Baptist' on the sign. One time I asked the pastor 'what is Baptist? What makes this a Baptist church?'. He said something along the lines of 'oh it's from John the Baptist.' Maybe I didn't pay much attention but I don't ever remember him speaking about him once.Outlander

    LOL!

    Well Ive only been to a 'good baptist' service, that is, 'white baptist,' once, and I was as much perplexed as you about the point of the thing, But I did go to several 'bad 'baptist' churches: Russian baptist, and "omg I am the only white person in here" baptist.

    They were both REALLY nice to me, and both tried to find me a girfriend to marry. Unlike the white baptist one where I was 50 and the youngest person there, there were a huge number of young adults in the russian and sourthern ones. The first fact I could not help noticing was the enormous size of the families. In the Russian one, they were even arranged in lines, sets next to each other in each pew, from tallest to smallest, sort of like duks with ducklings, and many had five or more children, with two VERY proud parents.

    Both the bad baptist churches asked me to baptism services, during which about half a dozen people were dunked entirely underwater. The Russian one was in a river, and the Southern one, it had an arch over the altar with a jacuzzi thing on it.

    I like jesus' baptism. Its one of the few times in the whole bible someone was nice to him. When talking about his life rather than death, its almost entirely about people chasing him wanting this, wanting that, asking to heal this, asking to heal that, saying to explain this, syaing to explain that, poor guy! One he keeps talking about loving one another, but do people want to think about the nice things that happened to him much? No, that doesnt happen very often in the bible.

    So they really liked me saying that, and after only 3-4 services, I found myself standing in front of a future wife elect. The Russian girl was REALLY HOT. We dated a couple of years while she was single, but I was 30 years older, and I said she really should marry someone her own age. Her father was kind of confused, almost insulted, because I clearly loved her very much, and he didnt understand why I said paying the $25,000 dowry he wanted was backwards, and he should be paying me, and I would have paid actually, but then I die way before her and she's alone, so I couldn't. The African American girl was nice, not as sexy, but I couldnt date her, I was living in a mixed neigborhood and the black gangs do not take kindly to white people taking their own.

    After I was set up with a girlfriend, they kind of just left me alone, and other families besides those of the girlfriend didnt even want to talk much, except about business. I did notice, outside the churches, the baptist families really did not seem that 'religious,' and did not discuss the sermons or any theological issues, it was all taken rather much for granted or ignored. Except for the baptisms, which were really important. Were you baptised with the dunking thing, and how old were you? That seemed to be the landmark feature: adult baptism.
  • ernestm
    1k
    The biggest problem they realised was that there was no unified doctrine and so the nicene creed along with a few other was put into affect to be that unified doctrine.hachit

    That’s what they say, isn’t it. Why is that necessarily true? Who said it was necessarily true?

    Why is John 3:16 so much more important than any other of Jesus teachings on how to find the kingdom of heaven? Who said it was more important? God? What does God do about people who never heard of Jesus? According to the doctrine they all go to hell. Is that the right thing for a benign, loving God to do to His children>

    Have you noticed, despite almost all denominations accepting the primary doctrine of the Holy Covenant, many worshipping it in communion every week, it does NOT unify them? Why can virtually no one go to a church of different denomination at all? Or if they do, they have major arguments about secondary doctrines and cant just accept each other as they are? Why is that exactly? That's clearly a violation of the primary creed of the holy covenant. Why do all the churches claim their own creeds are mutually exclusive, if they are all saved by the doctrine of God killing himself for the salvation of all?

    Hence, does it not strike you as odd that a committee attempting to define a state religion would deliberately make a creed which excluded many churches at THAT time? Even when it was first written, this creed caused much disruption between different denominations. Why would a committee with the charter to make Christiantity a state religion DELIBERATELY define a creed which caused distuption to the state religion in the first place? Obviously they were not unintelligent people. Why did they NOT write a more inclusive creed at the beginning, then refine its theological principals later?

    Didn't strike you as odd before, did it? Maybe it should?

    However because the creed said nothing about castration the debate was not over.hachit

    The FIRST LAW of the CANON was no castration. CANON, not creed. The CANON was much more important to churches at the time. It was written FIRST. Then 25 YEARS LATER they finally got a creed together. As I said, there were alot of things in it, but the two most significant primitive and savage ideas to note here are

    (1) It was deliberately written so as not to exclude OTHER Gods. The covenant is named as exclusive. But it does not say the Trinity is exclusive. And this is important, because it allowed Constantine to continue saying he was a human God. They had to do that because Constantine was hiring him. It was never rewritten. None of the new versions say the Trinity is exclusive either. Even after the popes stopped calling themselves gods, papal infallibility has been claimed since 1870. Human gods continued to run Roman and Byzantine empires up to 1453 AD.

    (2) The second primitive and savage concept is that a God's blood must be shed for all sin to be washed away. Now this does remain a matter of opinion, unlike the God Emperor thing that finally stopped 1200 years later.

    To me, this covenant thing of 'only one way to afterlife through Christ' is JUST AS INSANE as the Mayans blood letting of its kings to get good crops. To me, its voodoo or something, frankly. To me, it just seems uncanny to me people continue to follow it without ever thinking they are behaving like Neanderthals. Currently, there are many such Neanderthals saying the creed was written to unify them.

    But the historical evidence, given that the Nicene creed SHOULD have been more inclusive of other interpretations to make a unfired state religion, is that castration continued to be a problem, even after the canons were issued. The council discussed less exclusive versions of the creed. Origen and others said, the less exclusive versions did not mandate the first canon forbidding self castration. So they rewrote it until we have the current extremely restrictive version. Now, church authorities do not want to undermine their own authority. That is the ONLY reason the primary condition in the Nicene creed has not been changed.

    And they do not even want anyone EVEN TO THINK about how the creed was written the way it was to stop self castration. So it continues to be the basis of almost all churches even in the current day.

    As I’ve repeated this two or three times now, I have to ask you repeat back to me what I am saying, first, in your own words, before telling me its wrong again. thank you.
  • hachit
    237



    "Thats what they say, isnt it. Why is that necessarily true?"

    "Does it not strike you as odd that a committee attempting to define a state religion would deliberately make a creed which excluded many churches?
    Didn't strike you as odd before, did it? Maybe it should?."

    Well all these questions can be answered with a concept of the Holy Spirit. The idea is that thè Spirit will lead us in the right direction. One alone may be deceived but it harder for the entire congregation to be deceive and when we here the truth the Holy Spirit will help us recognize it. Of course this only works if you believe in God before hand.

    "The FIRST LAW of the CANON was no castration. CANON, not creed. The CANON was much more important to churches at the time. It was written FIRST."

    Ah yes. That makes much more sense.

    I should let you know that no church follows the Nicene Canon anymore.
    In fact only The Catholic Church uses any Canon and it there own.

    As for the idea you claimed to be savage I have no way of convincing you otherwise so I'm not going to try.
  • ernestm
    1k
    Well all these questions can be answered with a concept of the Holy Spirit. The idea is that thè Spirit will lead us in the right direction. One alone may be deceived but it harder for the entire congregation to be deceive and when we here the truth the Holy Spirit will help us recognize it. Of course this only works if you believe in God before hand.hachit

    ALL of my questions cannot be answered that way, because ALL the OTHER churches that WERE EXCLUDED by the Nicene council ALSO said they were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and there is no way to tell WHICH OF YOU ARE HAVING TOTAL FANTASIES BORDERING ON PSYCHOSIS.

    For the fourth time, all churches except some modern ones and the quakers BASE

    >BASE< = ARE FOUNDED ON, DRAW ON, REST ON, RELY ON

    THE HOLY COVENANT AS FIRST DEFINED IN THE NICENE CREED. THAT MEANS THEY ARE >BASED ON< the Nicene Creed. It does not mean they have adopted the Nicene creed themselves. It means they are FOUNDED ON, DRAW ON, REST ON, or RELY ON the holy covenant. The holy covenant is the idea that sacrifice used to work for cleansing sin. But from the moment Crhist died, salvation is ONLY POSSIBLE through asking Christ, and only Christ, for forgiveness in prayer. According to this doctrine, even if you dont know, and never had a chance to learn who Christ is, thats the only way to get into heaven. Thats what it says, and thats what virtually all churches are based on.

    So you don't understand me AT ALL. NOT EVEN your one sentence criticism after I asked to repeat what I wrote was correct. My advice to you is to STOP TALKING LIKE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING PERFECTLY because as per first point you could end up on psychiatric drugs. Thats what usually happens to people who talk like you. Ive seen it more times than you want to imagine.

    Good luck.
  • Zophie
    176
    politicians make use of whatever they can to control the worldernestm
    Which?
    delusional fantasy, sometimes bordering on psychosisernestm
    What?
  • ernestm
    1k
    politicians make use of whatever they can to control the world
    — ernestm
    Which?
    delusional fantasy, sometimes bordering on psychosis
    — ernestm
    What?
    Zophie

    All of them. It varies.
  • Zophie
    176
    All of them. It varies.ernestm
    All of the members of x unless x somehow varies? You sound almost political, no?
  • ernestm
    1k
    Im sorry. You got as far as reading my first sentence. Thank you very much, and please excuse me for being so lazy as to answering both your questions on one line instead of separating them. If you would like to read the rest of what I wrote, by extapolation, you would have 4,000 or so questions, so please excuse me also for writing such brief answers.
  • hachit
    237

    " STOP TALKING LIKE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING PERFECTLY"
    I clearly stated that I cannot know everything.

    Second,

    "THE HOLY COVENANT AS FIRST DEFINED IN THE NICENE CREED. THAT MEANS THEY ARE >BASED ON<"

    No it was base in the Jewish scriptures wich I am not as familiar with that is why both Gods can be defined as the God of Abraham.

    Thirdly I'm explaining to concept behind the believe with full knowledge you CANNOT, WILL NOT, and SHALL NOT except the reason.
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    Perhaps blaming a religion for the misdeeds of religious authority is due to the aggressors' repressed childhood dread of going to church on Christmas day, before being allowed to open their presents.ernestm

    Ah, but I was an altar boy, and a good one I will say, for years. I arose in the wee small hours of the morning to participate in the ritual of the mass, which I learned in Latin, and though I greatly preferred the Latin rite to the uncouthness that replaced it after Vatican II (for aesthetic reasons), soldiered on through guitar masses and the like until high school. Fortunately, I was never molested, though I became aware that one of the priests I assisted at mass was found to have been a molester. I must have been an ugly child.

    But sorry, I doubt that a Roman emperor could have been convinced to preside over a Council involving hundreds of bishops brought together primarily to address castration, and whether one who had been castrated by pagans should be allowed as a member of the Church as opposed to one who had castrated himself. Even accepting, as I do, that he waffled between Christianity and traditional religion during his reign, and had a tendency to have the heads of statutes of the gods knocked off to be replaced by his own likeness, I think his involvement is better explained by the desire to maintain order in the Empire and prevent the fanaticism of the conflicting factions of the early Church from creating problems in governance. That may have been combined with his own eventual acceptance of Christianity and preference for a particular kind of Christianity. It actually took several Councils to finally result in an orthodoxy of sorts, so bitter were the conflicts among the early Christians.
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