Amos

That makes it all the more fantastic because myth is myth is myth and I am sure it was not easy to uproot the existing norms and religious practices at that time. Remember its a game, like you said, but a game that we play for keeps and that will determine the destiny of an entire civilization. And so it did.

Biff the unclean

I don't mean to defend someone else's arguments for them, but this is surely false--Deism had it's origins around the time of Galileo, and Voltaire was an 18th-century thinker.
You must have missed the part where we established that we were talking about the Age of reason.

Newton wrote his principia in 1687,
He wasn't a Deist. He was only mentioned as an attempt at misdirection.

It's true that many natural sciences were not developed until the turn of the 18th/19th century, but it's false that the 18th century was altogether pre-scientific.
The Natural sciences are the ones that are pertinent to the topic and they didn't start until the mid-nineteenth century.

I don't understand how this is relevant.
The OP of this thread accuses Catholicism of changing Christianity. I am demonstrating that the Protestants changed from the Catholic base and again from original Protestantism in the hopes of ending this anti-Catholic hypocrisy. I'm also pointing out that the vision of "early Christians" is tainted and suspect.

Oh, they were not--not by the 18th century in Europe. Name one. Persecuted, I'll grant you, but not "tortured and killed".
I think if you'll take a glance at enlightened Christian twentieth century Europe you can find millions upon millions of corpses of the above named.

So the catacombs have pagan art--so what? Why does that mean it's the Christians making it?
That's what the church claims, not me. The church, the tour guide, every book on the catacombs you can find and the Discovery Channel. They claim it is Christian art that is metaphoric...but it obviously isn't.

Because the question has to come up that since the proof that the Christians were there are the catacombs that they built--if the catacombs weren't made by the Christians why is the church claiming that they were and where are the early Christians anyway?

Why does it mean art that Christians make isn't Christian art?
Because it's of Hellenistic Gods.

All art adapts the symbols, tropes, narratives, and representations of its time. Christianity is no different--as a Christian, I have no problem with that.
Really? The Christian claim was that these were false Gods…devils. The Christian claim was that the Pagans were throwing them to the lions for not accepting their heathen Gods.
It is like a Jew calling paintings of Hitler paintings of Moses. It's got to make you suspicious when things like that happen.

Radorth

Shall we try again?

1. Fact: The founders invariably held Jesus himself in high regard, even those who denigrated Christianity. NOT ONE would blame him for the killing of heretics, or assert that Jesus told his disciples to burn them. It is you who are imagining things.

(Biff's apparent answer: there was no Jesus, but he told his followers to kill heretics anyway).

2. Fact: Jesus called Bacon, Locke and Newton the "three greatest men in history" for their accomplishments "in the physical and moral sciences." All Christians.

(Biff's answer: He meant something else.)

3. Fact: Your theory that Christianity is "evolving" doesn't work. Islam isn't "evolving" in spite of the age of reason, scientific and medical discoveries to which Muslims have widely contributed. I'm saying the more they study the Koran, the more violent they will become. The more Christians study the NT, the less violent they will become. It has nothing to do with "reason" or "evolving."

(Biff's answer unintelligible)

4. Fact: Yet they (Muslims) do every thing pretty much the way Muhammed taught them because HE WAS A VIOLENT PERSON, AND TAUGHT VIOLENCE.

(Biff's answer: You're a bigot.)

5. Fact: The Christians before and after the period between 400- 1700 were ignorant of the teachings of Jesus, and therefore prone to violence. The founders recognized this fact as well. often pining that the nascent teachings of Christianity had been lost.

(Biff's answer: Untintelligible. Best guess: There was no community of Christians to compare to modern Christians. Acts and any other reports of Christian behavior at the time are bogus.)

If you have a contrary fact to present, present it. There are rational people listening. (In theory anyway).

Then they elected him President.

Another Jesus-myther trips over his own logic, resorts to namecalling and pidgeon-holing. What a surprise. That's because "novel" thinking is often mistaken for intelligent thought and invariably leads to self-contradiction.

Rad

Biff the unclean

Shall we try again?
I don't really think that you are up for it. You seem disorented. But if you insist.

1. Fact: The founders invariably held Jesus himself in high regard, even those who denigrated Christianity. NOT ONE would blame him for the killing of heretics, or assert that Jesus told his disciples to burn them. It is you who are imagining things.
I supplied you with the biblical quote that Christians used as their rational to burn heretic alive. That had ceased before the American revolution. Even in Salem they only hung heretics and witches they didn't burn them. Spain and Portigal kept up the burning alive for some time though.
Your response 'I never happen, history is wrong."

Biff's apparent answer: there was no Jesus, but he told his followers to kill heretics anyway
I'll assume that you are just trying to make fun of me because you are upset over my opinion of your beloved Jesus. And not that you really are as "slow" as this comment makes you seem.

2. Fact: Jesus called Bacon, Locke and Newton the "three greatest men in history" for their accomplishments "in the physical and moral sciences." All Christians.
Fact even when your typos are pointed out you have not the wit to fix them.

3. Fact: Your theory that Christianity is "evolving" doesn't work.
Unless you look at Christianity. Or read your own blurbs about how they did wonderful things for the first time.
Islam isn't "evolving" in spite of the age of reason,
The Age of reason happened only in Europe and European owned countries.
scientific and medical discoveries to which Muslims have widely contributed.
The contributions to science and medicine that were made by the Muslims were made in the early days of Islam when it was liberal and open to learning. Unfortunately for them (and the rest of the world) their learning and science were stopped because of the power Fundamentalism gained over them. A good object lesson for us, as if the attempts to ban basic science in public schools by our own Fundamentalists wasn't warning enough. The same thing could easily happen to us if religion achieved such power.

I'm saying the more they study the Koran, the more violent they will become.
Probably.
The more Christians study the NT, the less violent they will become.
There's 2000 years of history, most of, which had religion reigning supreme, that say you are wrong.

Biff's answer unintelligible
If you prefer I could "dumb down" my responses to you.

4. Fact: Yet they (Muslims) do every thing pretty much the way Muhammed taught them because HE WAS A VIOLENT PERSON, AND TAUGHT VIOLENCE.

(Biff's answer: You're a bigot.)
Text book.

5. Fact: The Christians before and after the period between 400- 1700 were ignorant of the teachings of Jesus, and therefore prone to violence. The founders recognized this fact as well. often pining that the nascent teachings of Christianity had been lost.
If it's a fact then prove it.

Biff's answer: Untintelligible. Best guess: There was no community of Christians to compare to modern Christians. Acts and any other reports of Christian behavior at the time are bogus.
Acts!!!?? I read Acts and I see the conversion of Paul stolen dialogue and all from Euripides play The Bacchae
I see the shipwreck story lifted from first century Roman novels.
I see Peter extort all their money out of his followers and the murder of a husband and wife who keep a little of their own money for themselves.
I see Paul blind a man because he warned one of his friends about what Paul was up to.
I see a book burning where a fortune in books and a wealth of information is destroyed by the Christians.
I don't see crap like that being done by modern day Prods.

It drove the church councils of the USA to distraction that he was.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then they elected him President.
Apparently the voters didn't listen to their ministers when it came time to elect the president. Florida wasn't a state then.

Another Jesus-myther trips over his own logic and resorts to namecalling.
Would you prefer that you be allowed to attack Catholics and Moslems and whatever other religions meet your disfavor without being called on it?

What a surprise. That's because "novel" thinking is often mistaken for intelligent thought and invariably leads to self-contradiction
You probably had a hard time when you heard the truth about Santa Claus too.
:boohoo:

Fiach

Splendid old boyo. That makes my point about Flavius Josephus. Because Flavius copied it down doesn't mean that it's authentic history! I agree that all of this remote history is questionable.

Remember that Christianity triumphed and essentially exterminated those pagans who failed to convert after the reign of Theodosius I. Then there was a widespread burning of books, pagan books. Many of the old debates with Origin and pagan philosophers are the only evidence we have of the pagan point of view. Unfortunately their greatest works were destroyed by the blokes who won the religious war. Christians proceded to re-write history much as Americans wrote the history of your West not the Indians. Only in recent years have we recovered much of our Celtic ancestors because the English destroyed many of our old manuscripts to convince themselves that Celts were barbarians who deserved no sympathy. They even tried to outlaw our Gaelic Language, and for a while outlawed the Pipes and the Kilt.

Winners, almost always try to erase the defeated culture and its religion.

Fiach

Marduk

“Islam isn't "evolving" in spite of the age of reason”

I think what keeps Islam from evolving is their refusal to give up feudalism more so than anything. Just my 2 cents.

Radorth

I never said any such thing, which proves you are either a liar or completely deaf to anything but your own opinions. I clearly said it stopped because people were reading the Bible and finding out what Jesus really wanted his followers to do and not do. I never once said any of that never happened, ever.

Oh boy.

Well that's BS too, isn't it. I clearly said several times that they did them before 300, and after 1700. That was the whole point, but if you once acknowedge it, your argument is dust while mine has historical and factual support.

That's funny. My daughter is taught evolutionary theory in Christian school. You're just paranoid, like a surprising number of other Jesus-mythers, who I think I can now spot after listening to them for 5 minutes.

Or you're just so bigoted against Christians, you can't think of an answer. They had reasons for wanting church and state separated. Still do.

Argue all you want. It only helps prove my claim and vindicate the whole truth. I'm not attacking anybody with anything but historical facts. And of course it is skeptics who find no redeeming features in theist history. I find all sorts of them, (particularly the preservation and copying of history, and scientific knowledge, and educating poor people who might otherwise have not recieved education). I also forgive the Catholics for their crusades, etc, because they were ignorant of Christ's teachings and example- a point you have avoided like the plague. In the case of Muslims, they are not ignorant. They are taught Jihad- yesterday, today and forever while the moderate Muslims have not a leg to stand on in the Koran.

And I suppose you should just be able to blather on, based on one single tortured verse, without anyone arguing with you as well.

Rad

the_cave

He certainly spoke of God, however abstract his conception was. Personally, it doesn't matter to me what he was, I just want to get the history straight. But it's not worth arguing about further.

Oh--well, I'd definitely agree with that!

Hitler slaughtered millions of Communists and Jews--but he didn't kill the Communists because they were atheists, and I will admit his anti-Semitism was surely influenced by Christian anti-Semitism, but his beliefs were racist paranoia, based on pseudo-economic and cultural arguments, not because he was a religious zealot! And Stalin simply killed anyone he could get his hands on. I'll even concede that many Christians were complicit in these killings--but it was also Christians (and Jews, and believers of other faiths) who were battling Germany and the Soviet Empire, so what am I to conclude from that?

[shrug] Frankly I have no idea. Maybe to help out the tourism industry? Probably some Christians hid in the catacombs, I don't know. It's an old tradition, and that's what the tourists like to see. It's not very important to my faith. Probably they were just meeting in each others' houses or something.

Agh, this is very compicated...I understand your point, but it's not a matter of Christians changing the labels on statues (though I suppose this could have happened from time to time...) It's a matter of recasing their ideas in the artistic style of paganism. If someone makes a statue of Isis holding Horus, and I make a statue of Mary holding Jesus, I have every right to label my statue "Mary and Jesus", and then that's what it is in fact a statue of! If someone made a sculpture of someone sleeping, and called it "Jim" (after someone they had in mind), and someone else liked the idea and made a sculpture of someone sleeping, and called it "John" (after someone else they had in mind), the first sculpture is a sculpture of Jim, and the second one is a sculpture of John.

If someone sees a painting of someone awful like Hitler looking "noble", and thinks "This is crap, I'll show them who's noble!" And then makes a painting of someone they actually admire looking noble, the second painting is a painting of the someone they admire, and it is rightly a painting of that someone looking noble (in contrast to Hitler, who was not.)

Radorth

Er, that absolute power corrupts absolutely? That paranoid people (of any ilk) with lots of power and no accountablility think nothing of wasting human life?

Hitler slaughtered Communists but didn't kill Communists? You'll have to explain that to us, even to we who embrace the paradox.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

I'd tell you to take a Zen course,but your problem seems to have more to do with reading comprehension. But it might simply be caused by dishonesty on your part and an overwhelming desire to be as difficult as possible. I dunno.

Lets take another look at what he said OK?

"Hitler slaughtered millions of Communists and Jews--but he didn't kill the Communists because they were atheists, and I will admit his anti-Semitism was surely influenced by Christian anti-Semitism, but his beliefs were racist paranoia, based on pseudo-economic and cultural arguments, not because he was a religious zealot!"

Now take your time and try to show us where he said that Hitler slaughtered people BUT didn't actually kill them.
If you ponder this mysterious marvel long enough,even you should be able to see that he's talking about the REASONS Hitler killed people and not constructing a bizarre paradox for you and your weird little friend M. Scott Peck to ponder.