Sheshbazzar

If you were to review every post that I have made in this thread, never once have I so much as mentioned, or in any way referred to a 'Paraclete'.
I am a Gileadite foot soldier, a sentry stationed at my post. It is not my horse to ride; I have never sat in that saddle, and never ever travel in its racab.

I do not 'deny that they believed that Mani was the Paraclete' _ in fact, in previous posts I stated that his followers were syncretizers who attempted to borrow and attribute just about anything they thought to be impressive, to their cult figure Mani.

I do not however give much credence to Roman Catholic Church writings that attempt to create the appearance of an 'historic' Catholic Apostolic succession, and imply that a powerful and influential catholic 'Christian' church was established and flourishing prior to the late 2nd century C.E., through the means of forged Church Father writings.

stephan huller

Shesh

So you acknolwedge that there was a 'Mani the Paraclete of Jesus' paradigm at the earliest period of Manichaeanism?

stephan huller

History is a science:—
From the following points we can define history as a science.
1) History aims at discovering facts of the past events and interprets them objectively.
2) History uses various traits of enquiry such as observation, classification, formulation of hypothesis and explanation of evidence before reconstructing the past.
3) History follows the trends of enquiry to find out.
4) History seeks to tell the fact by giving a scientific method, hence, it is a science.
5) Is history a science as physics or chemistry or biology are? It is of course a negative question. History is a social science. It deals only with the experiences of human beings and human civilizations.
6) Historical facts cannot be observed.



Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/college-...#ixzz151Yi66BE
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Sheshbazzar

I acknowledge that there was a 'Mani as the Paraclete of Jesus' paradigm in the 3rd and 4th centuries, -possibly- originally so proclaimed and promoted by Mani himself.

Chili

That is the problem. Jesus was crucified and died but not until 'son of man' was set free under the name of Barabbas (in Mark he escaped = to hell with Marks Jesus).

Mary is the queen of angels and controls the paraclete because Christ stayed and moved to Rome because the trinity collapsed and the dove descended when the "father and I[became/become] one.' Nothing magical here as with the convergeance of the twain mind the HS is redundant and Jesus a thing of the past = no paraclete for Jesus . . . except for Jesus worshippers who are born again from below and with their eyes half open are represented by the second beast of REV.13 from where they worship the first beast = naked animal man. It makes Manichaeanism a heresy.

Toto

[staffwarn]Please avoid insults and/or demands for apologies for perceived insults.[/staffwarn]

Transient

I for one will demand an apology if I am insulted, especially when it continues unabated. I am a reasonable person but I will not put up with continual abuse and insult.
There is a person here that is very insulting and divisive, it must be obvious to anyone who can read.

Well it seems I have received a notification that I cannot defend myself against an insult in the same thread - maybe I should just become the insulter then instead.
However I withdraw all the comments I have made in this post to keep everyone except me happy.
Have a nice day.

Song of Erra

Life is beautiful, everybody

Sheshbazzar

But we are not discussing 'last year', but rather the reality of events and situations claimed by Christianity to have taken place some 1600 to 1900 years in the past, events and personages for which there is a rather inexplicable lack of that abundant and non-Christian contemporary attestation that should, and would certainly exist if the catholic Christian church was even 100th as large, widespread, as powerful, and politically influential, and actually raising the ruckus that these writings, attributed to the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, present it to be.
There should be hundreds of contemporary Non-Christian reports and governmental letters of concern and of protest.....
instead we get a little piddly-pfffft brought forth and presented by the Church. The sewers of ancient Rome still stink to high heaven.
Well in this case, the lack of the tangible NON-Christian manuscript and archaeological evidence, that should, and that would be found IF the catholic Christian church was anywhere as near as widespread, and as politically powerful as presented by Eusebius and the writings of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, by its very silence, speaks volumes.

The economical, simplest and THE BEST EXPLANATION for such an extreme paucity of contemporary NON-Christian attestation and confirmation of the catholic Christian church's extravagant claims of influence and power, and the lack of tangible pre-Nicene, and unmistakably Christian archaeological artifacts, inscriptions, and edifices, is, quite simply that they did not actually exist as presented within these Pataristic religious manuscripts.

Just as with OT claims of some 3 million Israelites wandering around the Sinai for 40 years, there is that same lack of physical evidence which could not help but to exist IF the Pataristic Church writings were true accounts.

The economical and inescapable conclusion is that these ante-Nicene Pataristic accounts were fabricated for political/religious reasons.
Oh not wholly forged, rather simply grandiosely fudged to impress a gullible population and elevate the authority of Christian religious clerics.
Same as the fabricated and fudged 'history' in the OT served to elevate the authority of the Levitical priesthood. In both cases the fudged documents are simply self-serving religious woo, not history.
Again not so much 'forge' as fudge, revise, and rework, to provide appropriate fodder for the church's desired strawman theological arguments.

If the opponents didn't actually write quite what it was that the church's clerics wished to argue, a small slip of the pen, or simply 'borrow' a line or two from a different document, and Walla! 'conformance' with exactly what the church needed to construct the desired theological strawman arguments needed to assert its own power, while effectively discrediting and potentially serving to permanently eliminate its detractors or competing philosophies.
Worked really great once it got military power behind it to carry out its instructions, mandates, and penalties;
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! became the resounding cry of 'Christian love' for the next 1300 years.
I beg to disagree with you for all the foregoing reasons, there were plenty of motives for the early Christian church Fathers and founders to edit and alter the writings of competing or 'obstinate' sects or individuals.

Bottom line. Due to the methods employed by the early Christian church, no Christian 'preserved' document can be trusted, not even documents ostensibly penned by the church's enemies.
If it ever passed through multiple Catholic hands, it is almost assured that it has been beneficially fudged and smudged by those selfsame grubby theological fingers.

Toto

Wait a minute - this thread is about Mani. Most of the documents that we have relating to Manicheanism are not from the Church fathers.