Questions About Christianity
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The Roman Catholic Church takes Jesus' words in the gospels very literally when he says "this is my blood" and "this is my body." They adopted an Aristotelian idea of substances, which would have been rather foreign to 1st century Jews, to try to explain how this works. The actual substance of the bread and wine are believed to transform into the body and blood, even though all the accidents (i.e., all physical properties that could ever be detected in any way) remain unchanged. (Many other Christians emphasize the "do this in remembrance of me," and consider it a symbolic reminder rather than actual transubstantiation.)
Catholics believe that when Paul spoke of taking communion in an unworthy manner, not perceiving the body of Christ, he meant that anyone who does not believe in transubstantiation damns himself. In the context I think it makes more sense for taking communion in an unworthy manner to refer to being gluttonous rather than sharing with the poor who need the food and drink. The next chapter goes on about how the community of believers is the body of Christ, so not perceiving the body of Christ could mean not loving one another and treating each other with the same respect due to the lord.
It may be worth noting that the oldest christian text outside of the new testament cannon (The Didache, which is probably older than any of the gospel accounts and several of the epistles) goes into detail about how to conduct the Eucharist but does not mention anything about the body or blood. It portrays the wine as symbolizing the holy vine of David from which Jesus spring. It compares the bread to the church, which is to be gathered from all nations and brought together into one just as many grains are gathered from diverse hills to make one loaf of bread.
Trinitarian Christianity asserts that The Son is just as much God as The Father or The Spirit. The book of John portrays Jesus as the Logos (which means not only "word" but also "reason," "meaning," "order," "plan," etc) through which all things are made. Even if The Father is ultimately responsible, The Logos is the agent through which every act of God is done.
There is a lot Jewish about Christianity. Unfortunately, many Pagan Greek ideas slipped in too, usually without much apparent reasoning. Many of the problems with Christianity arose because Hellenistic converts were not careful to analyze their preconceptions and just assumed that some things were more like what they were used to.
Probably. Apparently the Eastern Churches tends to emphasize the incarnation more than the crucifixion of Christ though. Salvation is through a mystic union with Christ, which perhaps could have happened somehow without such a death. It is thought that when the incarnation merged the nature of God and the nature of Man in one being, it did not merely make one God-Man but forever combined the nature of all men with God. While union with Christ is a far more biblical soteriology than penal substitution, I tend to think that this argument goes to far into the nonsense of Platonic Forms.
There is quite a bit in bible, including the Old Testament, of God the Father being very forgiving to those who sincerely repent too. The Son isn't portrayed as particularly forgiving when he forces the money changers out of the temple, or when he returns in the Apocalypse.
I've read that in the original languages, God is never actually described as punishing anyone. The words used instead have meanings like "correct, "refine," and "add value to." The word for punish in those languages denoted receiving satisfaction from harming someone back, which is very human rather than divine.
Nothing in the bible says that Adam and Eve had only two sons. It actually mentions three sons, although Seth was not born until after Abel was murdered. It is generally assumed that this is far from an exhaustive list, and that there were many daughters that it neglected to mention...or how did the human race continue if they only had two male sons
There is no good reason to believe that Jesus was a poor carpenter. We are simply told that Joseph was a "tekton," which is often translated as carpenter in English but is much broader that that in Greek. The word literally means "skilled laborer." There is no reason to believe he worked exclusively with wood. He could have been a blacksmith, a jeweler, a siege engineer, a shipwright, a painter, an architect, or many other things. As the word is likely being used to translate a similar but not identical Aramaic term, he could even have been a scribe, scholar, or rabbi. Most experts tend to assume he was most likely a stonemason though. There were many major construction projects going on near Nazareth a generation before Christ, and evidence of may very prosperous masons. Jesus probably grew up in a middle class family, far better off than the majority of his society.People worship Jesus as god because Jesus is god's avatar, who sacrificed himself to save the souls of man from sin. Sooooo Jesus is the Last Airbender.
But really if you study what was going on during that time period, Joshua bar Joseph ("son of Joseph"; also Jesus is Greek for Joshua) was a jewish carpenter from a poor family who may have learned teachings from traveling Buddhist monks, or reached enlightenment in his own manner, whether it be drugs, meditation, etc. He wish to teach the jewish population, who were at the time occupied by the Roman empire, that we are actually all divine sons and daughters of god (Christ-beings), don't be material-obsessed, mean-spirited, etc. which countered the Roman culture of orgies, vomitariums, vicious gladiator duels, population control through propoganda, war.... all the workings of a dystopian empire on the verge of collapse.
And so the jewish rebellions that were going on at the time in Jerusalem and such used Joshua, and another man I forget his name, as idols, their "saviors", and the Romans were all like "HEEELLLLLLLL NAW" and so there was much fighting, conspiring, and ultimately Jesus was betrayed, killed and martyred by his people to give them hope in the continuing battle against Rome. Years later, some followers of Jesus got together, may have conspired with priests of Rome, formed Christianity and what once was a pure philosophical teaching of a wise man became an evil power structure used by Rome for millenniums well into today.
In fact, if you study symbols, history, follow the money and what not, you can see that Rome may not have actually fell, but changed it's face...
There is no good reason to believe that Jesus had any contact with Buddhist or any other adherents of an eastern religion/philosophy.
A vomitorium is not what many people think it is. It is true that many wealthy Romans were gluttons who stuffed themselves and then forced themselves to throw up in order to eat more, but there was not a special room for that. The term vomitorium referred to the exits of buildings like Theaters, Amphitheaters, and Circuses. While there were strong pagan associations with those things of which Jesus likely did not approve, there is little reason to believe he would oppose people being able to leave the buildings.
Christianity did not go from a philosophy to a power structure due to any conspiracy. The hierarchy emerged gradually from what were original rather egalitarian communities of devout believers. Rome was actually adopted a monarchical episcopate much latter than most centers of the church.
The great commandment and the second great commandments were actually direct qutes from the Law of Moses. Jews have not traditionally believed that the Mosaic Law ever applied to non-Jews though. Gentiles are bound only by the Seven Noahide Laws, which include the 4 commandments which the Apostles decided are all that gentiles should have to follow.
It wasn't. They didn't destroy the Library at Alexandria, but there wasn't much need to do what they did do either.
Julius Caesar burned down the Library of Alexandria in 48 BC. Some of the texts were salvaged and another library may have been rebuilt, but it was hardy worth comparing to the original.
In around AD 274, the Emperor Aurelian burned the entire Royal Quarter of Alexandria to the ground. This is where the Great Library had been located. Its last remnants were probably destroyed then. It should be noted that while Aurelian was not a traditional pagan he was certainly not a christian. He was devoted to Sol Invictus, a syncretic pagan sun god derived from combining Apollo, Bacchus, Mithras, and a various other minor or local deities. He also minted coins on which he declared himself to be a god. Aurelian was tolerant of other religions during his sort reign, but many believed that would have changed if he had lived much longer. (Emperor Constantine was also a devotee of Sol Invictus, even during most of his reign. His mother and many of his friends were Christians, but he did not officially join the church until he was on his deathbed.)
In AD 391 Emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the empire and outlawed paganism. This was more his doing than the Church's though. Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria supported it, but many other Christians at the time got along rather well with many Pagans (certain church fathers praised the ethics of certain contemporary pagan Neo-Platonic philosophers, and engaged in a sort of Platonic philosophy themselves; Christians still tended to dislike Aristotle though), and did not want to persecute others as they had once been persecuted. Part of the order involved demolishing pagan temples such as the Serapeum, which had been built on the site of the Great Library. The best evidence we have suggests that the Serapeum was first built before Aurelian burned the Royal Quarter, and that at that time it included a small library housing the remnants of the Great Library. It seems that those were all lost in the fire though, and that the even smaller library of the new Sarepeum contained only very recent literature (mostly poetry devoted to false gods) at the time that the Christians destroyed the temple. There were no great scientific works destroyed by the christian mob.
Ouch!
Unless I'm the one person, then that's ok.
If not, then I reiterate my initial statement.
Ouch!
If you crushed on me or [MENTION=6214]Ada[/MENTION] I wouldn't blame you. We are both fabulous ladies. True story. lmao. You are pretty fabulous too and if I went that way I'd be all over that (ya know).
I don't know who is or isn't taken either, not that I even care. Flirting is fun. It's a forum. IT'S JUST A FORUM!
LOL
you ladies [MENTION=6281]lisamarie[/MENTION] [MENTION=4871]CindyLou[/MENTION] can both crush on me, I'm fine with it
ound: I can crush on you ahah I guess it only sums it up that we're not true obedient Christians hahaat first I was like "why is it I'm mentioned in the Christianity thread?!". You got me by surprise, girls haha
Tin Man
"a respectable amount of screaming"
It's those shoes...
[video=youtube;hcSahWlDVqY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcSahWlDVqY&feature=fvwp&NR=1[/video]
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Ouch!
Unless I'm the one person, then that's ok.
If not, then I reiterate my initial statement.
Ouch!
You were the one person
Why not? The silk road ran right into the region, and just because there's no records written of it, the undocumented 18-year period of Jesus known as the "lost years," doesn't mean it isn't possible.
I have heard that Jesus might have been a rabbi, but yeah he could have been anything; I didn't know about the Greek "tekton" translation, but have generally heard he was a carpenter.
Rome adopted Christianity in the early 300s AD when Constantine and Licinius declared the Edict of Milan to grant religious freedom, mainly for the Christians.
If you read the Edict, it's basically saying the Roman's allowed these freedoms to Christians as an act of benevolence to keep the peace in the "commonwealth," and let them gather at the temples and properties they traditionally gathered at; a very Machiavellian-esque strategy on their part.
There was also the Edict of Thessalonica and the formation of the Council of Constantinople, which basically made Roman Catholicism the state religion of the Empire.
The Romans killed Jesus because he was angering the Orthodox Jews by thinking outside their strict religious laws, and was gaining a strong following of jewish defectors from the Pharisees, and other peoples. (The Jews originally started their rebellions because of the Roman occupation and the Hellenistic people practicing their pagan rituals in the holy cities, as well as taxation.) Pontious Pilot placed the guilt of killing Jesus on the Jews because of their condemning of him.
I'm not sure Jesus's views of the Roman empire, but his mythology is very similar to the pagan mythologies of Horus/Osiris and it could be possible that Rome manipulated Christianity; Rome ended up favoring the orthodox Nicene priests who believed in the "trinity" which mimics the Hellenistic myths, vs the Arian (followers of Arius) belief that Jesus was a separate, perfect being created by god, therefore unequal and finite to him.
But what did God have to say? I can tell you the same thing, will you believe that I am the son of God? It's a matter of security. One cannot claim authority unto himself, it must be granted by one with the authority to do so.
Interesting. I did not know that. But ultimately they believed it was the miracles of God, otherwise, he would've been burned at the stake or drowned or some such.
Sounds like a dick-move then. If you're all powerful, why kill your son? RIDICULOUS: If He planned to kill his son, then it was pre-meditated... isn't that called murder? In any case, it violates the commandment of thou shalt not kill. Now, I know those are His commandments unto us, not Him, however, lead by example... geez!
Incorrect. The Romans did set fire to ships in the port and the fire spread and hit the museum at the time, but the volumes of works were damaged by Fanatical Christians 1st then finished by Muslims.
Originally built to house the massive collection of books accumulated by the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, the library had been devastated by fire several times. During Julius Caesar's Alexandrian campaign in 47 B. C., Caesar set fire to ships in the port. The fire spread to the library, which was called the Museum at that time.
In A. D. 391, riots instigated by fanatical Christians damaged the collection heavily. During the years between disastrous events, the library collection had been gradually restored. In 641, the Caliph of Baghdad exhibited the same spirit of religious fanaticism in ordering Amrou to burn the books stored there. The loss of the library at Alexandria was a particularly grievous blow because the works of so many Roman scholars. literary geniuses, and historians were destroyed.
http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/archive/alexandria.html
They didnt even kill him, all this talk about sacrifice and the fucking dude comes back 3 days later. Wheres the sacrifice? If Death was just a long weekend I wouldnt mind it either.
So I had to google and find out what happened to Jesus after he was resurrected so that I can counter with some witty and/or ridiculous statement; and in my search, I came across this quote:
You're shitting me, right? Are there any Mormons or people familiar with The Book of Mormon who can confirm that this? I have an extremely high willing suspension of disbelief, but this sounds bananas to me.
Makes sense, because at the time Christianity had already been installed as the new religion of the Empire for decades at that point (see my post above). Rome was using this new religion to manipulate the people. The whole thing was about control of info and people, until Luther started calling out the Church/Empires's BS. Ironically, Joshua (Jesus) was basically doing the same thing to the Jews which is why he was persecuted by them, and had the Romans execute him through fear of civil disorder.
There are numerous Scriptures I could quote, but here's one:
Matthew 17:1-5
Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”
Again, they accused of him of doing miracles by the power of Satan. And they crucified him.
If you really want to understand, you're going about it completely the wrong way.
If you're serious about this, I'm glad to be of service. But I'm very seriously questioning whether my time would be better spent doing something else.
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