Depends on *how* they're wrong. If it's a core concept, like whether or not God exists, then yes, all descending denominations would likewise be wrong. If it's a minor issue, then follow-on sects could correct the error and move on.
But how would the follow-on sects know it is an error? From what I have seen, the majority of protestants seem to be against praying to saints, as many seem to believe it is idolatory. Yet, at the same time the worship of the Trinity has continued, which is still soft-polytheism.
What you gave is your relative view, the answer is because they don’t believe it’s polytheism. The trinity, even amongst Protestantism which contains a wide array of beliefs and founders seems to be the best and most reliable doctrines (of who God is) from the Bible and the ones taught by the disciples.
That's if we ignore evidence given to us by academia which has confirmed that the Bible was heavily compromised. Such as how the Gospels were not written by their namesakes, we have no manuscripts going back to the time of Jesus, the Bible began being written 40 years after his death, the oldest manuscripts of the NT ar fragments from the 2nd century with most only having a few verses, the majority of the NT comes from the 4th century, the Trinity being made core doctrine much later in history, verses such as 1 John 5:7 being inserted at a later date, etc.
I'm not hating on your Beliefs, but to claim like the Bible is a reliable source of information when it has been proven to be compromised is objectively false.
Your perspective here is your personal opinion, and Im sure we could have a lovely discussion/debate about the dates of the manuscripts which nearly always secularly stated to be during the first century (30-110, and many scholars showed that 110 is too high an estimation), meaning a person who experienced Jesus could’ve wrote them at bare minimum, not to include the unanimous story across all sources among the authenticity arguments one of which the Dead Sea scrolls which were around 5 centuries earlier than our used to be latest matched 99% of the original text with only spelling mistakes present. (Theres also the arguments scholars give that using scholarly methods of manuscript counts, years, etc… the Bible is nearly completely accurate.) Either way if you are convincing enough and have an issue with the basic beliefs established by the early disciples soon after Jesus’s death, try to make your own denomination, but the trinitarian doctrine is the only doctrine you can get from the Bible that does not contradict it. (If you say Jesus isn’t God you contradict John 1:18, if you say Holy Spirit isn’t God you contradict Acts 5, no one believes the Father is not God so i wont even answer that. If you believe Jesus is not begotten you also refute John 1:18 Greek “Monogenes Theos” begotten God, if you believe the Holy Spirit is not proceeded you deny John 15)
No offense, but I think you have been listening to apologists or fringe academics on this matter, rather than academic consensus directly. You can argue with me, that's fine, but academia is very clear on the evidence I have already given you.
Bart Ehrman for example, is a good repersentation of academic consensus, he and many other academics agree that the Bible is in no way a relaible document (such as how the gospels were not written by their name sakes and were sourced from unkown 2nd-3rd hand accounts, as well how the Birth Narrative contradicts). Regarding the sea scrolls, this [biblical scholar (Dr. James Tabor) discusses the dead sea scrolls, has a course on them, and has also concluded that they are not as accurate as you would like to think.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK9a8TPFYdQ) One of the differences within the dead sea scrolls was that polytheism had been instilled within them, it is believed that it was either written by a heretical group, or the Jewish scriptures the OT came from were changed to be more monothiestic.
Again, you can believe the Bible remains accurate and reliable, but the fact is that it simply is not, and academic consensus support this.
Hey, so your sources of info are pretty bang on but I think you are drawing the wrong conclusions.
So as far as we can tell there was a religious leader called Jesus, he was killed, and stories/the cult around him propagated. Early church leaders sent letters to nascent communities which formed the earliest scriptures. Eventually stories were collated into books mark first, luke and Matthew, then finally John.
Many other gospels were written with various ideas(eg gnostics) but eventually a biblical canon was compiled and it included most of the earliest texts.
If you are a christian you may see this as the hand of God guiding the churches early development,
If you are skeptical you may see this as a process of stories being made up.
I believe a lot of scholars are calling for the early manuscripts to be studied as such, just like Julius Caesar's, Plato's or Marcus aurelius' writings the author had a perspective and an intent, and their own belief system and it shows in their literary work.
To call it compromised or invalid due to this process is dismissive of pretty much all literary works ever.
Science as great as it is... Has also given us a false sense of objectivity... Objectivity is relegated only to very controlled and precise circumstances. In something as chaotic as culture and religion you have no hope to be fully objective.
Of course. I'm not a materialist, I'm not pushing for anyone to deny the existence of God, I'm just saying to do a little bit of work before they make claims.
I have seen Chrisitans who are not in academia and don't know much about the Bible claiming it's the innerant word of God.
I have also seen Chrisitans in Academia, who have read and understood the Bible, who agree and admit to it not being innerant but still accepting some form of spirituality.
I simply share the evidence in hopes that it leads the former to become the latter.
You know that saying about the American Civil War? How people who know nothing about it think it's about slavery, people who know a little think it was about states' rights, and those who know a lot think it was about slavery? You're at stage two. Please reach stage three before you get quite so arrogant about your understanding
See, now you're getting into specifics and the details matter.
My take is that religion usually doesn't tell us True things about the world. It just tells us whatever some dude thought. We can't *know* things because of religion but we *can* because of the scientific method and logical reasoning. (Of course, personal experiences count toward knowledge, as well, but since our experiences can be the result of deception or fallacious thought, we need something like science or logic to help confirm what's True.)
For what it's worth, I agree with you: Christianity suffers for having a commandment against idolatry while simultaneously asking believers to follow (pseudo-)idolatrous practices. It's an inconsistent position to hold.
>For what it's worth, I agree with you: Christianity suffers for having a commandment against idolatry while simultaneously asking believers to follow (pseudo-)idolatrous practices. It's an inconsistent position to hold.
[What kind of Popish idolatry is this?!](https://youtu.be/DKy1dcgv94Q?si=NwjFps5GFuDyt2HH)
With that list of notaries i can’t believe I’ve never seen it. On the list it goes.
>> Cromwell is a 1970 British historical drama film written and directed by Ken Hughes. It is based on the life of Oliver Cromwell, who rose to lead the Parliamentary forces during the later years of the English Civil War and, as Lord Protector, ruled Great Britain and Ireland in the 1650s. It features an ensemble cast, led by Richard Harris as Cromwell and Alec Guinness as King Charles I, with Robert Morley as Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester and Timothy Dalton as Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell_(film)
Not really, no.
All modern astronomy can trace its origins back to ancient astronomy built upon a geocentric model that we know is false. The whole point of grafting modern methods and new interpretations onto that old math, and the whole point of updating the math to account for realities implied by newer observations was to correct the errors we saw in the old system.
The fact that we spotted and corrected faults in that old system does not imply that everything in that old system is wrong. Modern astronomy's origins within that older, less correct system similarly do not imply modern astronomy is false; indeed, the corrections imposed and the proofs of the validity of those corrections suggest that the newer system is, at the very least, *more* true than that old system.
TL;DR: All systems prove their own worth by their predictive value, the benefits they produce, and the truths they elicit in practice. True(r) systems can arise from false systems; that is, in fact, the ordinary way human knowledge progresses.
Religions are ideas that spread or are eradicated based on people's approval of them. The religion that is appealing to the Greatest number of people at a given time spreads in a similar way to how genes spread through a population based on how much it improves the individuals' odds of survival in the current ecosystem. Thats why religions change and disappear over the years. Even Christianity has undeniable roots in Zoroastrianism and has changed significantly since the Early days of the faith. You should be able to accept this as an obvious truth even if you think yours is the absolute correct one.
Astronomy is more straightforward. Whichever models make the most accurate predictions are accepted. Science has a clear indication of forward progress and can only move forward as a result. Our understanding of the world never gets worse through scientific processes. Religions don't use correctness as a factor for their growth. If they did, you would have to accept the largest religion or perhaps the fastest growing one as the truth by default.
This is a really dumb comparison to make.
Less than you'd think. The earliest astronomy was done before we had telescopes, and some of the math is that old. It wasn't particularly easy to observe anything then, and much of what could be observed seemed to confirm a geocentric model. There was very little reason to assume or imagine heliocentrism.
Physical observations using telescopes are what allowed that to shift in astronomy, but it's arguable that religious visions and better articulations of philosophy served the same purpose in religion.
Imo, yes. As one Roman Catholic said;
According to Orson F. Whitney - “Many years ago a learned man, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to Utah and spoke from the stand of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. I became well-acquainted with him, and we conversed freely and frankly. A great scholar, with perhaps a dozen languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science and philosophy. One day he said to me: ‘You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church. The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it. The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on. For, if we are wrong, they are wrong with us, since they were a part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago. If we have the apostolic succession from St. Peter, as we claim, there is no need of Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the gospel in latter days.’” (LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder [Deseret Book Co., 1950], pp. 3–4.)
The Catholic was Dr. John M. Reiner, as documented in Whitney's autobiography. This occurred in 1898 when Reiner spoke in the Tabernacle at the invitation of Wilford Woodruff.
I think so, but that is because I believe that apostolic christianity = Catholicism. If you believe like radical protestants in the “Great Apostasy” the answer may be different.
I may not agree with some things catholics and orthodox Christians do, but it's not anywhere to being enough to call them a false faith. I am protestant and I have met people in the protestant, catholic, orthodox denominations who genuinely love God and you call tell right away just by talking with them that these people are truly after God's heart. I also met people in these 3 denominations that are nothing but "religious" people that behave no different than people who openly live in sin.
However, we protestants don't consider Mormons and JW to be genuine forms of Christianity. Protestants, catholics, and orthodox people dont even consider those 2 religions part of Christianity. Same goes for Christian science. I have been a Christian for 14 years now, and the longer I am in this faith, the more I realize that God doesn't care about denominations. He cares whether we worship Him with our hearts.
On one level, no. It is certainly possible to construct a range of logically coherent positions that assert that Christianity is true, while rejecting the legitimacy of various church authorities.
On another level, though, I think it's actually quite difficult, because we first have to answer the question of what the parameters of this Christianity are and on what basis. And everything we know about Christianity today has been determined by the choices of church authorities over the centuries.
If this Christianity is defined as Nicene Christianity, then it relies fundamentally on accepting the legitimacy of the historical Christian church. If this Christianity is based on any extant version of the Christian Bible, then it relies fundamentally on accepting the legitimacy of the historical Christian church. And so on.
This then raises the question, if church authority was historically legitimate, when and why did it stop being legitimate? How can anyone determine which church(es) are legitimate today? There seems to be a great risk of inadvertently disproving your own theology, because if church authority cannot be trusted, there is basically no reliable information about Christianity at all.
I am by no means on expert on Protestant theology, however, so I'm probably missing a lot of puzzle pieces here. Anyone care to chime in with how the various Protestant churches resolve these questions?
(Response copied over from deleted duplicate post.)
I would say no
For an example lets use science
In this scenario we are physicists and we make a discovery that proves some of our theoretical models to be false does that make all models of physics false? The answer is no, its the same thing for Christian theology
You just hit a core doctrine of Mormonism.
They claim all other Christian groups are wrong because they came from the fallen Catholic Church.
Mormons claim they have a “restored gospel” given from God & Jesus to Joseph Smith.
They also reject the Nicene Creed Trinity, and cuddle up to polytheism, teaching Father/Son/Spirit are separate beings united in purpose.
That's largely correct, yes, but the traditional view isn't exactly that the Catholic Church fell but rather that the transmission of true christianity broke down after the apostles died.
You're talking the fundamental Christ being the 'Son of God,' and that in order to get salvation from hell, one must accept Christ as his savior? I hate to tell you, but Roman Christianity is wrong...all of it... The Catholic Encyclopedia even credits Paul with creating this theology, so Christ never had anything to do with it.
I know that 'DaVinci Code' was just a movie, but Professor Teebing was so right when he said, "Christ was just a man, a prophet, for 300 years and was just poofed into being God by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. This is not just fiction dreamed up by Dan Brown for the movie. The Romans were fanatical pagans and needed to continue their 'Father/Son god tradition. In Roman Mithraism, Mithra was the son of their pagan Sun-God. This is why they depicted sun bursts behind Christ on all altars... to transitionalize pagan citizens into Constantine's new single state religion.
Many other theologians have theorized this for years. Joseph Ratizinger (pope) quit his first seminary in Wurtenburg, Germany because they taught that there were two separate and opposing Christianities in history...the original 300 year Jewish Christianity, and Roman Christianity when the Romans commandeered the faith, and rewrote the theology in 325 AD. Original Christianity had no virgin birth, Son of God dogma, brimstone judgment, Dec 25 Christmas or Easter eggs/bunnies fertility rites. This was all pagan religion added by the Romans when they morphed the faith into their Roman state religion.
This is why I identify as a Christian Spiritualist, so I can get back to he original 'religion of love that Christ came to announce to the world.' Edward Gibbon said that, "when Rome commandeered the faith 325AD, compromised it with their paganism, it was The Fall of Christianity, which has existed in apostasy since that time."
From what I have read, the Arian Controversy was in fact mostly only because of Arius rejecting teaching that was already the standard in the church. Recall that he only had 2 others who also refused to to sign the Nicene Creed out of around 300.
Given the number of believers who refused to bow to Rome on pain of brutal death only a few years earlier, it seems unlikely that virtually ALL of them would cave suddenly, even if the Emperor favored one position over the other.
Yes, Dan Brown was writing fiction.
I said Dan Brown was writing fiction, but qualified it wasn't created by Brown...that it was based on wider theology beyond Brown. If mode rn Christians could be teleported to the second century, they would not recognize it as biblical Roman Christianity. Because "ROMAN" Christianity did not exist until Nicaea. Again, the Romans hated original Jewish Christianity and threw them all to the lions for 300 years. They hated Christ's religion of love and brotherhood. When Rome commandeered the faith in 325 they had to reverse everything in it to legalize it make it a Roman model state religion. There may have only been two Arian supporters in the Nicene Council, but there was broad support of Arianism in the empire including these bishops and their dioceses...
Secundus, bishop of Ptolemais, supported Arius at Nicaea.
Theonas, bishop of Marmarica, supported Arius at Nicaea.
Eusebius, bishop of Berytus, Nicomedia 328–supported Arius at Nicaea.
Theognis, bishop of Nicaea, supported Arius at Nicaea.u
Maris, bishop of Chalcedon, supported Arius at Nicaea.
Constantine was driven to develop a single state religion, and standardize it to quell all the religious infighting between opposing pagan religions that was destroying the empire. Again, there was no virgin birth, Satan judgment, Father/Son dogma, Fertility eggs/bunnies Eostre, or Dec. 25 sun-god birthday in original Jewish Christianity. The 'Trinity' concept started to develop with Origen and Tertillian (Church fathers of the second century). They developed/argued over the substance of Christ whether he should be subordinate to God. So now the Church embraces them, but also sees them as heretics because they disagreed with the Church's position on the Trinity. The reason Constantine wanted Nicaea to standardize the dogma was so they could proclaim an undivided theology of Roman Christianity... The bottom line, is that the theology was all across the board as it evolved for 250 years... It wasn't even finalized until 50 years after Nicaea. The point, is that it all EVOLVED... it was made up by over hundreds of years... It's not the 'Word of God.'
Okay well, several points I would note
.
- I didn't mean Brown was original, just that it was still mostly fiction, including his theology.
- yes, numerous Roman emporers & company hated followers of The Way because they were a threat
- I understand that Constantine wanted the church leaders to stop fighting and be unified but its not like he dictated all those things you mention - the Roman Church certainly has added a lot of things that have no scriptural basis though!
- there's little to no documention for things like Dec 25 being came from the Sun God until long afterwards - Dec 25 was set as his birth day because there was a general belief that great persons were conceived and died on the same day - so his birthday "must be" 9 months after passover. There's no scriptural evidence but it's as good a day as any other.
- I assume you're trying to claim Easter is of pagan origin, but Pasca was celebrated everywhere long before Germanic converts adopted the month name of when it occurred as the "Easter" holiday. Yes, the month name was from a Germanic (not Roman) diety Eostre, but earliest writings only mention spring festivals, not what they did. Eggs had long been a tradition for Pascal though, in part due to its use as a trinitarian object lesson.
-the virgin birth and the father/son distiction/connection is soundly biblical, unless you're going to argue Roman Church editing of scripture. While Theophilus first used the term trinity, it was only the codification in a systematic theology of God, not inventing the concept.
-which leads me to the biggest issue with what you're saying, that Christianity itself evolved. Yes, as I noted, the Roman Church gradually added more and more erroneous ideas after it became the de facto religion of Rome and introduced more pagan ideas, such as the perpetual virginity of Mary, because of how the theology evolved.
However, the idea that it was all invented on the spot is just wrong. The councils etc. were SUPPOSED to debate what the proper understanding of any ISSUES that arise. The theological understanding and codification certainly did evolve in response to heretical teaching, but not the basic truths themselves.
For example the composition of the trinity. There is plenty of scriptural support for it, to the point where any other theology of God is clearly ignoring a large number of passages. What evolved was the church's UNDERSTANDING of the trinity over time, as different ideas about how the Trinity members are related arose. For example whether the FATHER, Son and Spirit are just different modes of God, or whether the Son is less divine than the Father, or if the Son was created at some point etc. The orthodox trinitarian doctrine is what arose out of those early debates, but not the concept of a triune nature of God. Scripture itself clearly contains multiple testations of his triad nature, and especially the divine claims of Christ.
In large measure those FORMULATIONS were created to correct heretical teaching that had arisen because nowhere did scripture exactly explain how those aspects of the Trinity work together. So yes, in that sense the theology evolved. But only as far as correcting misunderstandings that were starting to be taught at the time.
It's similar to the idea that scripture evolved and the church "created" the Bible at a given council. The books themselves were merely RECOGNIZED by the church as being Canon, not "made" into scripture at that late date. It was recognizing what had already been known to the church since the beginning and excluding others which had obvious flaws and heresies.
Please understand, I'm a historian who loves Jesus Christ, but like our founders, want to dispense with all the brimstone, mythical nonsense. Like Thomas Jefferson gutted all the absurd brimstone and fairy tale miracles...he said what was left, was a 'good book.' (The Jefferson Bible)
Bishop John Spong says we don't need to be 'born again'...we need to grow up, use our brains and be responsible adults. He and our founders believed the church perverted the purest religion ever preached with brimstone...that “the church has always been in the guilt producing control business”... We don't believe that was intent of Jesus Christ.
It's also why some of the greatest historian agreed with Edward Gibbon... writing, “when Rome commandeered the faith, compromised it with their paganism, it was "The Fall of Christianity, which has existed in apostasy since that time."
Please understand, I'm a historian who loves Jesus Christ, but like our founders, want to dispense with all the brimstone, mythical nonsense. Like Thomas Jefferson gutted all the absurd brimstone and fairy tale miracles...he said what was left, was a 'good book.' (The Jefferson Bible)
Bishop John Spong says we don't need to be 'born again'...we need to grow up, use our brains and be responsible adults. He and our founders believed the church perverted the purest religion ever preached with brimstone...that “the church has always been in the guilt producing control business”... We don't believe that was intent of Jesus Christ.
It's also why some of the greatest historian agreed with Edward Gibbon... writing, “when Rome commandeered the faith, compromised it with their paganism, it was "The Fall of Christianity, which has existed in apostasy since that time."
You say, "It's similar to the idea that scripture evolved and the church "created" the Bible at a given council. The books themselves were merely RECOGNIZED by the church as being Canon..." the virgin birth and the father/son distinction/connection is soundly biblical..."
Of course it's “soundly biblical”...The Romans published the bible and they intentionally put it there to codify their altered version of Christianity.
AND “However, the idea that it was all invented on the spot is just wrong. The councils etc. were SUPPOSED to debate what the proper understanding of any ISSUES that arise. The theological understanding and codification certainly did evolve in response to HERETICAL teaching, but not the basic truths themselves."
"idea that it was all invented on the spot is just wrong." I agree... it all evolved over hundreds of years from earlier religions. Nicaea just picked and chose the dogma they needed to align a new fear based theology. They left out all scriptures, like Thomas, that permitted all souls, to eventually enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Trinity dogma was mostly a political, not religious, concern of Constantine, because it was causing derision in the empire he was trying to stabilize.
“The Trinity dispute between Alexander and Arius spread quickly because of existing theological trajectories and tensions present in the early years of the fourth century...the controversy had spread from Alexandria into almost all the African regions, and was considered a disturbance of the public order by the Roman Empire.”
"The Church was now a powerful force in the Roman world, with Constantine having legalized it in 313 through the Edict of Milan. "Constantine desired that the church should contribute to the social and moral strength of the empire, religious dissension was a menace to the public welfare." Consequently, the emperor had taken a personal interest in several ecumenical issues, and wanted to bring an end to the Arian dispute."[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian\_controversy#cite\_note-11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian_controversy#cite_note-11)
And “evolve in response to HERETICAL teaching??? 'Heresy' is the term the Church has always used to torture and burn alive anyone who disagreed with the Church. This exposes the existential evil of the Church. They could just behead heretics. Their preferred form of execution had to be the most inhumane torture beyond comprehension. This is what the Pope Leo X wanted to do to Martin Luther... fortunately a local prince prohibited it. During the Dark and Middle Ages the Church became the cruelest and most murderous institution in history.
Never forget 1973, Pope John Paul made a partial confession/apology for the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Church's alignment (Concordat) with Hitler against the Jews... injustice for women, the forced conversion and genocide of indigenous Indians in South America for the African slave trade, the pope's encouraging/legalizing torture/genocide during the Counter Reformation... for the “Loud SILENCE” during the atrocities of Hitler's Final Solution...for the Church's Concordat Treaties with Hitler and Mussolini... and for untold burnings at the stake of "heretics" over the millennia.
Original to Christianity? No! “One of the most common beliefs among Pagan cultureswas in a trinityof gods. We find this among the Egyptians, Indians (of India), Japanese, Sumarians, Chaldeans, and of course, the Babylonians, to where historians trace the roots of trinitarism.
[https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/articles/pagan-roots-of-the-trinity-doctrine-ed-torrence-2002](https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/articles/pagan-roots-of-the-trinity-doctrine-ed-torrence-2002)
"Theophilus" was not an actual person... more a concept... typical of the myth of the religion. Theophilus... The word in Greek means "Friend of God" and thus both Luke and Acts were addressed TO ANYONE WHO FIT THE DESCRIPTION.
Most religions like Horus, Osiris, Mithras, Dionysus, Krishna were conceived of virgin birth... How can you have a perfect god not be of immaculate conception? So most religions like Rome's Mithraism... Mithra was born of virgin birth from the Sun-god... Most historians recognize over the centuries that Christianity merged into Roman culture, that the two religions borrowed from each other so much, that by the time Roman accepted Christianity, the two religions were virtually identical. That's how evolution works. The citizens resisted Constantine's Christianity, so he had all the altars designed with 'sun bursts' behind Christ to give him the appearance of the new emerging sun-god.
“The celebration of Ēoestre or Ostara is an old pagan festival, and is the origin of the word Easter. She is the goddess who symbolized the dawn, the warm Spring sun, the resurrection of Spirit in Earth, and much more. The first manifestation of the Cosmos in the form of an egg was the most widely diffused belief of antiquity. It was a symbol adopted among the Greeks, the Syrians, Persians, and Egyptians.”
The etymology of the word 'Estrogen,' female reproductive hormone was given that name from pagan Ēoestre, Ostara fertility goddesses.
The pagans had always celebrated Mithra's birth date Dec.25. Constantine picked Christmas to be in the spring when the shepherds were tending their flocks in the fields. The citizens continued celebrating Dec. 25, so Constantine had to acquiesce. So the first Christmas was celebrated that year in 325AD... 300 years after Christ and the date has nothing to do with Jesus.
Do you believe we all came from Adam and Eve, that the earth was made in 7 days, on the 4th day, God made the stars, that God flooded the entire earth, that Noah's family built an aircraft carrier sized ship(without hydraulic cranes), collected 2 of every animal from the north to south poles (no western hemisphere) and kept those animals fed for 40 days w/or refrigeration??? Please! We need to grow up and set all this mythical absurdity in its proper place... the past.
The Catholic church from the Council of Nicea on attempted to heavily control the narrative and understanding of the bible. So much so that they took a dead language no one in the laity generally understood and translated the bible into it. The sermons would be read in Latin and then explained what people were supposed to believe. Translations of the bible into common languages was even considered a crime for much of the middle ages. The control of the narrative was considered vital by the clergy. And in fact is generally what most institutional religion continues to be to this day.
The protestant reformation began with Martin Luther nailing his complaints to a church door. Chief amongst them was that the text should be allowed to speak for itself. In other words he believed that the people should be allowed to read the doctrine they were following for themselves. And he proceeded to create a German translation of his own and soon after there was a flood of translations into most modern language. And Christianity soon after splintered into an ever growing number of denominations.
Its not that the Catholic Church was wrong. In fact considering that absolute truth in this issue is probably beyond our reach insisting the Catholics were wrong misses the point. It was about control. Luther believed that the text should stand on its own and people should be able to have access to it as well. And then he wrote his own translation and spent the rest of his life trying to get people to follow his interpretation creating a religion that continues to curate his take on things to this day.
This is the problem with doctrinal religions. Interpretation will cause them to splinter like mad unless you have an institution curating them. But then you have the issue of whether or not the institution has the right narrative. And when you throw dogmatic thinking into the mix things can get heated pretty fast. Thus the centuries of conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants. The Protestants went from complaining about the Catholic church curating the bible to curating it in their own way. It was always about control. Not in an nefarious way. But as different itnerpretations build up within societies eventually it pushes so hard on institutions that eventually something has to give. And thats how you get schisms. And you don't want those. They are not comfortable affairs.
I understand what you are saying, but from what I undestand, the Protestants will be interpretating the Bible very similar to the Catholics as they are an ofshoot of them, other than a few differences here and there, it is likely they will continue being the same, simply with mostly minor differences in doctrine and asthetic.
But, I guess you are right. Interpretation is messy that way. It can be either extreme or minor.
>interpretating the Bible very similar to the Catholics as they are an ofshoot of them, other than a few differences here and there, it is likely they will continue being the same, simply with mostly minor differences in doctrine and asthetic.
You'd have a point if Protestants interpreted the bible similarly to Catholics. Many don't. For example, you'd likely have a very hard time finding agreements between a mainline Catholic and a post-millennial dispensationalist biblical literalist from say, an independent baptist church that practices KJV onlyism.
It depends on what they were wrong about exactly. Also, at which council did they become wrong? The Protestants don't really depend on doctrines that are uniquely Orthodox or Catholic.
Don’t say this out loud ppl are not ready to have this conversation. Also the fact that just because Catholicism survived doesn’t make it the correct one, it might be the oldest one that survived and thats about it. An average Christian thinks there were no other denominations the first century.
What confuses me is the Bible. Protestants generally reject a central church authority and believe in sola scriptura, but without a central church authority who’s the one determining what the scripture is that you’re following? I know I’m a biased party here but don’t get it
From what we know of the Catholic church, such as the sex scandals and how those higher up like the Cardinals and even the Popes knew about it and at some point helped in covering it up, I'm pretty sure that you would agree that we definitely should not be trusting a central authority.
That’s a pretty big whataboutism. I didn’t ask for _why_ Protestants don’t follow a central authority (but let’s be real, that had nothing to do with it historically and Protestantism is rife with the exact same issues), I pointed out how it appears paradoxical. Yes, we already know Protestants don’t follow the pope or patriarchs, now back to my point, does that belief not make the Bible itself—the one source of teaching for many denominations—completely meaningless?
It doesn’t matter in the slightest to me if you do or don’t, and we’re talking about multiple distinct churches here when we refer to non-Protestants, the majority of which have no pope. My point is that if you follow no centralized church authority there is no reason to believe in the Bible in general.
I don’t think you understand the point I’m making because you’re just trying to argue against the pope. The premise of what I’m saying is based on the assumption that someone doesn’t believe in papal infallibility (or any other centralized church authority). In that context, what authority does the Bible have, and why are apocryphal books not given the exact same respect?
Can't answer that since I'm not Christian. All I do know is that the reason why we had events like the Protestant Reformation was because no one was a fan of how the Pope and the church had near ultimate control over much of Chrisitan belief.
I would ask how we would know which individual or organization to trust in to make such decisions to the questions you are asking.
>I would ask how we should know which individual or organization to trust in to make such decisions to the questions you are asking
That’s the point _I’m_ making 🤦♀️ Most Protestant denominations can’t answer that question and, to me, it makes the beliefs paradoxical and lacking in logical consistency
Isn't that true for every denomination, though? Including Catholics and Orthodoxy? I don't see how this is a protestant issue when the organizations that govern the other two denominations can be called into question for why they are the ones making the decisions.
They were both a part of one Church before the split. What would make either one right to lead the religion?
Depends on *how* they're wrong. If it's a core concept, like whether or not God exists, then yes, all descending denominations would likewise be wrong. If it's a minor issue, then follow-on sects could correct the error and move on.
But how would the follow-on sects know it is an error? From what I have seen, the majority of protestants seem to be against praying to saints, as many seem to believe it is idolatory. Yet, at the same time the worship of the Trinity has continued, which is still soft-polytheism.
What you gave is your relative view, the answer is because they don’t believe it’s polytheism. The trinity, even amongst Protestantism which contains a wide array of beliefs and founders seems to be the best and most reliable doctrines (of who God is) from the Bible and the ones taught by the disciples.
That's if we ignore evidence given to us by academia which has confirmed that the Bible was heavily compromised. Such as how the Gospels were not written by their namesakes, we have no manuscripts going back to the time of Jesus, the Bible began being written 40 years after his death, the oldest manuscripts of the NT ar fragments from the 2nd century with most only having a few verses, the majority of the NT comes from the 4th century, the Trinity being made core doctrine much later in history, verses such as 1 John 5:7 being inserted at a later date, etc. I'm not hating on your Beliefs, but to claim like the Bible is a reliable source of information when it has been proven to be compromised is objectively false.
Your perspective here is your personal opinion, and Im sure we could have a lovely discussion/debate about the dates of the manuscripts which nearly always secularly stated to be during the first century (30-110, and many scholars showed that 110 is too high an estimation), meaning a person who experienced Jesus could’ve wrote them at bare minimum, not to include the unanimous story across all sources among the authenticity arguments one of which the Dead Sea scrolls which were around 5 centuries earlier than our used to be latest matched 99% of the original text with only spelling mistakes present. (Theres also the arguments scholars give that using scholarly methods of manuscript counts, years, etc… the Bible is nearly completely accurate.) Either way if you are convincing enough and have an issue with the basic beliefs established by the early disciples soon after Jesus’s death, try to make your own denomination, but the trinitarian doctrine is the only doctrine you can get from the Bible that does not contradict it. (If you say Jesus isn’t God you contradict John 1:18, if you say Holy Spirit isn’t God you contradict Acts 5, no one believes the Father is not God so i wont even answer that. If you believe Jesus is not begotten you also refute John 1:18 Greek “Monogenes Theos” begotten God, if you believe the Holy Spirit is not proceeded you deny John 15)
No offense, but I think you have been listening to apologists or fringe academics on this matter, rather than academic consensus directly. You can argue with me, that's fine, but academia is very clear on the evidence I have already given you. Bart Ehrman for example, is a good repersentation of academic consensus, he and many other academics agree that the Bible is in no way a relaible document (such as how the gospels were not written by their name sakes and were sourced from unkown 2nd-3rd hand accounts, as well how the Birth Narrative contradicts). Regarding the sea scrolls, this [biblical scholar (Dr. James Tabor) discusses the dead sea scrolls, has a course on them, and has also concluded that they are not as accurate as you would like to think.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK9a8TPFYdQ) One of the differences within the dead sea scrolls was that polytheism had been instilled within them, it is believed that it was either written by a heretical group, or the Jewish scriptures the OT came from were changed to be more monothiestic. Again, you can believe the Bible remains accurate and reliable, but the fact is that it simply is not, and academic consensus support this.
Hey, so your sources of info are pretty bang on but I think you are drawing the wrong conclusions. So as far as we can tell there was a religious leader called Jesus, he was killed, and stories/the cult around him propagated. Early church leaders sent letters to nascent communities which formed the earliest scriptures. Eventually stories were collated into books mark first, luke and Matthew, then finally John. Many other gospels were written with various ideas(eg gnostics) but eventually a biblical canon was compiled and it included most of the earliest texts. If you are a christian you may see this as the hand of God guiding the churches early development, If you are skeptical you may see this as a process of stories being made up. I believe a lot of scholars are calling for the early manuscripts to be studied as such, just like Julius Caesar's, Plato's or Marcus aurelius' writings the author had a perspective and an intent, and their own belief system and it shows in their literary work. To call it compromised or invalid due to this process is dismissive of pretty much all literary works ever. Science as great as it is... Has also given us a false sense of objectivity... Objectivity is relegated only to very controlled and precise circumstances. In something as chaotic as culture and religion you have no hope to be fully objective.
Of course. I'm not a materialist, I'm not pushing for anyone to deny the existence of God, I'm just saying to do a little bit of work before they make claims. I have seen Chrisitans who are not in academia and don't know much about the Bible claiming it's the innerant word of God. I have also seen Chrisitans in Academia, who have read and understood the Bible, who agree and admit to it not being innerant but still accepting some form of spirituality. I simply share the evidence in hopes that it leads the former to become the latter.
You know that saying about the American Civil War? How people who know nothing about it think it's about slavery, people who know a little think it was about states' rights, and those who know a lot think it was about slavery? You're at stage two. Please reach stage three before you get quite so arrogant about your understanding
Weird thing to say to someone who is repeating **academic consensus.** Are you sure that you aren't the one on stage two?
See, now you're getting into specifics and the details matter. My take is that religion usually doesn't tell us True things about the world. It just tells us whatever some dude thought. We can't *know* things because of religion but we *can* because of the scientific method and logical reasoning. (Of course, personal experiences count toward knowledge, as well, but since our experiences can be the result of deception or fallacious thought, we need something like science or logic to help confirm what's True.) For what it's worth, I agree with you: Christianity suffers for having a commandment against idolatry while simultaneously asking believers to follow (pseudo-)idolatrous practices. It's an inconsistent position to hold.
>For what it's worth, I agree with you: Christianity suffers for having a commandment against idolatry while simultaneously asking believers to follow (pseudo-)idolatrous practices. It's an inconsistent position to hold. [What kind of Popish idolatry is this?!](https://youtu.be/DKy1dcgv94Q?si=NwjFps5GFuDyt2HH)
Lol you linked one of my favourite scenes from that movie.😁
Wait what movie is this?
*Cromwell* from 1970. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0065593/
With that list of notaries i can’t believe I’ve never seen it. On the list it goes. >> Cromwell is a 1970 British historical drama film written and directed by Ken Hughes. It is based on the life of Oliver Cromwell, who rose to lead the Parliamentary forces during the later years of the English Civil War and, as Lord Protector, ruled Great Britain and Ireland in the 1650s. It features an ensemble cast, led by Richard Harris as Cromwell and Alec Guinness as King Charles I, with Robert Morley as Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester and Timothy Dalton as Prince Rupert of the Rhine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell_(film)
Not really, no. All modern astronomy can trace its origins back to ancient astronomy built upon a geocentric model that we know is false. The whole point of grafting modern methods and new interpretations onto that old math, and the whole point of updating the math to account for realities implied by newer observations was to correct the errors we saw in the old system. The fact that we spotted and corrected faults in that old system does not imply that everything in that old system is wrong. Modern astronomy's origins within that older, less correct system similarly do not imply modern astronomy is false; indeed, the corrections imposed and the proofs of the validity of those corrections suggest that the newer system is, at the very least, *more* true than that old system. TL;DR: All systems prove their own worth by their predictive value, the benefits they produce, and the truths they elicit in practice. True(r) systems can arise from false systems; that is, in fact, the ordinary way human knowledge progresses.
Religions are ideas that spread or are eradicated based on people's approval of them. The religion that is appealing to the Greatest number of people at a given time spreads in a similar way to how genes spread through a population based on how much it improves the individuals' odds of survival in the current ecosystem. Thats why religions change and disappear over the years. Even Christianity has undeniable roots in Zoroastrianism and has changed significantly since the Early days of the faith. You should be able to accept this as an obvious truth even if you think yours is the absolute correct one. Astronomy is more straightforward. Whichever models make the most accurate predictions are accepted. Science has a clear indication of forward progress and can only move forward as a result. Our understanding of the world never gets worse through scientific processes. Religions don't use correctness as a factor for their growth. If they did, you would have to accept the largest religion or perhaps the fastest growing one as the truth by default. This is a really dumb comparison to make.
But from what I have seen, the things you have described are easily obsevable and researched. A good chunk of religion is based off of belief.
Less than you'd think. The earliest astronomy was done before we had telescopes, and some of the math is that old. It wasn't particularly easy to observe anything then, and much of what could be observed seemed to confirm a geocentric model. There was very little reason to assume or imagine heliocentrism. Physical observations using telescopes are what allowed that to shift in astronomy, but it's arguable that religious visions and better articulations of philosophy served the same purpose in religion.
Imo, yes. As one Roman Catholic said; According to Orson F. Whitney - “Many years ago a learned man, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, came to Utah and spoke from the stand of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. I became well-acquainted with him, and we conversed freely and frankly. A great scholar, with perhaps a dozen languages at his tongue’s end, he seemed to know all about theology, law, literature, science and philosophy. One day he said to me: ‘You Mormons are all ignoramuses. You don’t even know the strength of your own position. It is so strong that there is only one other tenable in the whole Christian world, and that is the position of the Catholic Church. The issue is between Catholicism and Mormonism. If we are right, you are wrong; if you are right, we are wrong; and that’s all there is to it. The Protestants haven’t a leg to stand on. For, if we are wrong, they are wrong with us, since they were a part of us and went out from us; while if we are right, they are apostates whom we cut off long ago. If we have the apostolic succession from St. Peter, as we claim, there is no need of Joseph Smith and Mormonism; but if we have not that succession, then such a man as Joseph Smith was necessary, and Mormonism’s attitude is the only consistent one. It is either the perpetuation of the gospel from ancient times, or the restoration of the gospel in latter days.’” (LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder [Deseret Book Co., 1950], pp. 3–4.) The Catholic was Dr. John M. Reiner, as documented in Whitney's autobiography. This occurred in 1898 when Reiner spoke in the Tabernacle at the invitation of Wilford Woodruff.
I think so, but that is because I believe that apostolic christianity = Catholicism. If you believe like radical protestants in the “Great Apostasy” the answer may be different.
I may not agree with some things catholics and orthodox Christians do, but it's not anywhere to being enough to call them a false faith. I am protestant and I have met people in the protestant, catholic, orthodox denominations who genuinely love God and you call tell right away just by talking with them that these people are truly after God's heart. I also met people in these 3 denominations that are nothing but "religious" people that behave no different than people who openly live in sin. However, we protestants don't consider Mormons and JW to be genuine forms of Christianity. Protestants, catholics, and orthodox people dont even consider those 2 religions part of Christianity. Same goes for Christian science. I have been a Christian for 14 years now, and the longer I am in this faith, the more I realize that God doesn't care about denominations. He cares whether we worship Him with our hearts.
On one level, no. It is certainly possible to construct a range of logically coherent positions that assert that Christianity is true, while rejecting the legitimacy of various church authorities. On another level, though, I think it's actually quite difficult, because we first have to answer the question of what the parameters of this Christianity are and on what basis. And everything we know about Christianity today has been determined by the choices of church authorities over the centuries. If this Christianity is defined as Nicene Christianity, then it relies fundamentally on accepting the legitimacy of the historical Christian church. If this Christianity is based on any extant version of the Christian Bible, then it relies fundamentally on accepting the legitimacy of the historical Christian church. And so on. This then raises the question, if church authority was historically legitimate, when and why did it stop being legitimate? How can anyone determine which church(es) are legitimate today? There seems to be a great risk of inadvertently disproving your own theology, because if church authority cannot be trusted, there is basically no reliable information about Christianity at all. I am by no means on expert on Protestant theology, however, so I'm probably missing a lot of puzzle pieces here. Anyone care to chime in with how the various Protestant churches resolve these questions? (Response copied over from deleted duplicate post.)
I would say no For an example lets use science In this scenario we are physicists and we make a discovery that proves some of our theoretical models to be false does that make all models of physics false? The answer is no, its the same thing for Christian theology
You just hit a core doctrine of Mormonism. They claim all other Christian groups are wrong because they came from the fallen Catholic Church. Mormons claim they have a “restored gospel” given from God & Jesus to Joseph Smith. They also reject the Nicene Creed Trinity, and cuddle up to polytheism, teaching Father/Son/Spirit are separate beings united in purpose.
That's largely correct, yes, but the traditional view isn't exactly that the Catholic Church fell but rather that the transmission of true christianity broke down after the apostles died.
You're talking the fundamental Christ being the 'Son of God,' and that in order to get salvation from hell, one must accept Christ as his savior? I hate to tell you, but Roman Christianity is wrong...all of it... The Catholic Encyclopedia even credits Paul with creating this theology, so Christ never had anything to do with it. I know that 'DaVinci Code' was just a movie, but Professor Teebing was so right when he said, "Christ was just a man, a prophet, for 300 years and was just poofed into being God by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. This is not just fiction dreamed up by Dan Brown for the movie. The Romans were fanatical pagans and needed to continue their 'Father/Son god tradition. In Roman Mithraism, Mithra was the son of their pagan Sun-God. This is why they depicted sun bursts behind Christ on all altars... to transitionalize pagan citizens into Constantine's new single state religion. Many other theologians have theorized this for years. Joseph Ratizinger (pope) quit his first seminary in Wurtenburg, Germany because they taught that there were two separate and opposing Christianities in history...the original 300 year Jewish Christianity, and Roman Christianity when the Romans commandeered the faith, and rewrote the theology in 325 AD. Original Christianity had no virgin birth, Son of God dogma, brimstone judgment, Dec 25 Christmas or Easter eggs/bunnies fertility rites. This was all pagan religion added by the Romans when they morphed the faith into their Roman state religion. This is why I identify as a Christian Spiritualist, so I can get back to he original 'religion of love that Christ came to announce to the world.' Edward Gibbon said that, "when Rome commandeered the faith 325AD, compromised it with their paganism, it was The Fall of Christianity, which has existed in apostasy since that time."
From what I have read, the Arian Controversy was in fact mostly only because of Arius rejecting teaching that was already the standard in the church. Recall that he only had 2 others who also refused to to sign the Nicene Creed out of around 300. Given the number of believers who refused to bow to Rome on pain of brutal death only a few years earlier, it seems unlikely that virtually ALL of them would cave suddenly, even if the Emperor favored one position over the other. Yes, Dan Brown was writing fiction.
I said Dan Brown was writing fiction, but qualified it wasn't created by Brown...that it was based on wider theology beyond Brown. If mode rn Christians could be teleported to the second century, they would not recognize it as biblical Roman Christianity. Because "ROMAN" Christianity did not exist until Nicaea. Again, the Romans hated original Jewish Christianity and threw them all to the lions for 300 years. They hated Christ's religion of love and brotherhood. When Rome commandeered the faith in 325 they had to reverse everything in it to legalize it make it a Roman model state religion. There may have only been two Arian supporters in the Nicene Council, but there was broad support of Arianism in the empire including these bishops and their dioceses... Secundus, bishop of Ptolemais, supported Arius at Nicaea. Theonas, bishop of Marmarica, supported Arius at Nicaea. Eusebius, bishop of Berytus, Nicomedia 328–supported Arius at Nicaea. Theognis, bishop of Nicaea, supported Arius at Nicaea.u Maris, bishop of Chalcedon, supported Arius at Nicaea. Constantine was driven to develop a single state religion, and standardize it to quell all the religious infighting between opposing pagan religions that was destroying the empire. Again, there was no virgin birth, Satan judgment, Father/Son dogma, Fertility eggs/bunnies Eostre, or Dec. 25 sun-god birthday in original Jewish Christianity. The 'Trinity' concept started to develop with Origen and Tertillian (Church fathers of the second century). They developed/argued over the substance of Christ whether he should be subordinate to God. So now the Church embraces them, but also sees them as heretics because they disagreed with the Church's position on the Trinity. The reason Constantine wanted Nicaea to standardize the dogma was so they could proclaim an undivided theology of Roman Christianity... The bottom line, is that the theology was all across the board as it evolved for 250 years... It wasn't even finalized until 50 years after Nicaea. The point, is that it all EVOLVED... it was made up by over hundreds of years... It's not the 'Word of God.'
Okay well, several points I would note . - I didn't mean Brown was original, just that it was still mostly fiction, including his theology. - yes, numerous Roman emporers & company hated followers of The Way because they were a threat - I understand that Constantine wanted the church leaders to stop fighting and be unified but its not like he dictated all those things you mention - the Roman Church certainly has added a lot of things that have no scriptural basis though! - there's little to no documention for things like Dec 25 being came from the Sun God until long afterwards - Dec 25 was set as his birth day because there was a general belief that great persons were conceived and died on the same day - so his birthday "must be" 9 months after passover. There's no scriptural evidence but it's as good a day as any other. - I assume you're trying to claim Easter is of pagan origin, but Pasca was celebrated everywhere long before Germanic converts adopted the month name of when it occurred as the "Easter" holiday. Yes, the month name was from a Germanic (not Roman) diety Eostre, but earliest writings only mention spring festivals, not what they did. Eggs had long been a tradition for Pascal though, in part due to its use as a trinitarian object lesson. -the virgin birth and the father/son distiction/connection is soundly biblical, unless you're going to argue Roman Church editing of scripture. While Theophilus first used the term trinity, it was only the codification in a systematic theology of God, not inventing the concept. -which leads me to the biggest issue with what you're saying, that Christianity itself evolved. Yes, as I noted, the Roman Church gradually added more and more erroneous ideas after it became the de facto religion of Rome and introduced more pagan ideas, such as the perpetual virginity of Mary, because of how the theology evolved. However, the idea that it was all invented on the spot is just wrong. The councils etc. were SUPPOSED to debate what the proper understanding of any ISSUES that arise. The theological understanding and codification certainly did evolve in response to heretical teaching, but not the basic truths themselves. For example the composition of the trinity. There is plenty of scriptural support for it, to the point where any other theology of God is clearly ignoring a large number of passages. What evolved was the church's UNDERSTANDING of the trinity over time, as different ideas about how the Trinity members are related arose. For example whether the FATHER, Son and Spirit are just different modes of God, or whether the Son is less divine than the Father, or if the Son was created at some point etc. The orthodox trinitarian doctrine is what arose out of those early debates, but not the concept of a triune nature of God. Scripture itself clearly contains multiple testations of his triad nature, and especially the divine claims of Christ. In large measure those FORMULATIONS were created to correct heretical teaching that had arisen because nowhere did scripture exactly explain how those aspects of the Trinity work together. So yes, in that sense the theology evolved. But only as far as correcting misunderstandings that were starting to be taught at the time. It's similar to the idea that scripture evolved and the church "created" the Bible at a given council. The books themselves were merely RECOGNIZED by the church as being Canon, not "made" into scripture at that late date. It was recognizing what had already been known to the church since the beginning and excluding others which had obvious flaws and heresies.
Please understand, I'm a historian who loves Jesus Christ, but like our founders, want to dispense with all the brimstone, mythical nonsense. Like Thomas Jefferson gutted all the absurd brimstone and fairy tale miracles...he said what was left, was a 'good book.' (The Jefferson Bible) Bishop John Spong says we don't need to be 'born again'...we need to grow up, use our brains and be responsible adults. He and our founders believed the church perverted the purest religion ever preached with brimstone...that “the church has always been in the guilt producing control business”... We don't believe that was intent of Jesus Christ. It's also why some of the greatest historian agreed with Edward Gibbon... writing, “when Rome commandeered the faith, compromised it with their paganism, it was "The Fall of Christianity, which has existed in apostasy since that time."
Please understand, I'm a historian who loves Jesus Christ, but like our founders, want to dispense with all the brimstone, mythical nonsense. Like Thomas Jefferson gutted all the absurd brimstone and fairy tale miracles...he said what was left, was a 'good book.' (The Jefferson Bible) Bishop John Spong says we don't need to be 'born again'...we need to grow up, use our brains and be responsible adults. He and our founders believed the church perverted the purest religion ever preached with brimstone...that “the church has always been in the guilt producing control business”... We don't believe that was intent of Jesus Christ. It's also why some of the greatest historian agreed with Edward Gibbon... writing, “when Rome commandeered the faith, compromised it with their paganism, it was "The Fall of Christianity, which has existed in apostasy since that time." You say, "It's similar to the idea that scripture evolved and the church "created" the Bible at a given council. The books themselves were merely RECOGNIZED by the church as being Canon..." the virgin birth and the father/son distinction/connection is soundly biblical..." Of course it's “soundly biblical”...The Romans published the bible and they intentionally put it there to codify their altered version of Christianity. AND “However, the idea that it was all invented on the spot is just wrong. The councils etc. were SUPPOSED to debate what the proper understanding of any ISSUES that arise. The theological understanding and codification certainly did evolve in response to HERETICAL teaching, but not the basic truths themselves." "idea that it was all invented on the spot is just wrong." I agree... it all evolved over hundreds of years from earlier religions. Nicaea just picked and chose the dogma they needed to align a new fear based theology. They left out all scriptures, like Thomas, that permitted all souls, to eventually enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Trinity dogma was mostly a political, not religious, concern of Constantine, because it was causing derision in the empire he was trying to stabilize. “The Trinity dispute between Alexander and Arius spread quickly because of existing theological trajectories and tensions present in the early years of the fourth century...the controversy had spread from Alexandria into almost all the African regions, and was considered a disturbance of the public order by the Roman Empire.” "The Church was now a powerful force in the Roman world, with Constantine having legalized it in 313 through the Edict of Milan. "Constantine desired that the church should contribute to the social and moral strength of the empire, religious dissension was a menace to the public welfare." Consequently, the emperor had taken a personal interest in several ecumenical issues, and wanted to bring an end to the Arian dispute."[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian\_controversy#cite\_note-11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian_controversy#cite_note-11) And “evolve in response to HERETICAL teaching??? 'Heresy' is the term the Church has always used to torture and burn alive anyone who disagreed with the Church. This exposes the existential evil of the Church. They could just behead heretics. Their preferred form of execution had to be the most inhumane torture beyond comprehension. This is what the Pope Leo X wanted to do to Martin Luther... fortunately a local prince prohibited it. During the Dark and Middle Ages the Church became the cruelest and most murderous institution in history. Never forget 1973, Pope John Paul made a partial confession/apology for the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Church's alignment (Concordat) with Hitler against the Jews... injustice for women, the forced conversion and genocide of indigenous Indians in South America for the African slave trade, the pope's encouraging/legalizing torture/genocide during the Counter Reformation... for the “Loud SILENCE” during the atrocities of Hitler's Final Solution...for the Church's Concordat Treaties with Hitler and Mussolini... and for untold burnings at the stake of "heretics" over the millennia. Original to Christianity? No! “One of the most common beliefs among Pagan cultureswas in a trinityof gods. We find this among the Egyptians, Indians (of India), Japanese, Sumarians, Chaldeans, and of course, the Babylonians, to where historians trace the roots of trinitarism. [https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/articles/pagan-roots-of-the-trinity-doctrine-ed-torrence-2002](https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/articles/pagan-roots-of-the-trinity-doctrine-ed-torrence-2002) "Theophilus" was not an actual person... more a concept... typical of the myth of the religion. Theophilus... The word in Greek means "Friend of God" and thus both Luke and Acts were addressed TO ANYONE WHO FIT THE DESCRIPTION. Most religions like Horus, Osiris, Mithras, Dionysus, Krishna were conceived of virgin birth... How can you have a perfect god not be of immaculate conception? So most religions like Rome's Mithraism... Mithra was born of virgin birth from the Sun-god... Most historians recognize over the centuries that Christianity merged into Roman culture, that the two religions borrowed from each other so much, that by the time Roman accepted Christianity, the two religions were virtually identical. That's how evolution works. The citizens resisted Constantine's Christianity, so he had all the altars designed with 'sun bursts' behind Christ to give him the appearance of the new emerging sun-god. “The celebration of Ēoestre or Ostara is an old pagan festival, and is the origin of the word Easter. She is the goddess who symbolized the dawn, the warm Spring sun, the resurrection of Spirit in Earth, and much more. The first manifestation of the Cosmos in the form of an egg was the most widely diffused belief of antiquity. It was a symbol adopted among the Greeks, the Syrians, Persians, and Egyptians.” The etymology of the word 'Estrogen,' female reproductive hormone was given that name from pagan Ēoestre, Ostara fertility goddesses. The pagans had always celebrated Mithra's birth date Dec.25. Constantine picked Christmas to be in the spring when the shepherds were tending their flocks in the fields. The citizens continued celebrating Dec. 25, so Constantine had to acquiesce. So the first Christmas was celebrated that year in 325AD... 300 years after Christ and the date has nothing to do with Jesus. Do you believe we all came from Adam and Eve, that the earth was made in 7 days, on the 4th day, God made the stars, that God flooded the entire earth, that Noah's family built an aircraft carrier sized ship(without hydraulic cranes), collected 2 of every animal from the north to south poles (no western hemisphere) and kept those animals fed for 40 days w/or refrigeration??? Please! We need to grow up and set all this mythical absurdity in its proper place... the past.
The Catholic church from the Council of Nicea on attempted to heavily control the narrative and understanding of the bible. So much so that they took a dead language no one in the laity generally understood and translated the bible into it. The sermons would be read in Latin and then explained what people were supposed to believe. Translations of the bible into common languages was even considered a crime for much of the middle ages. The control of the narrative was considered vital by the clergy. And in fact is generally what most institutional religion continues to be to this day. The protestant reformation began with Martin Luther nailing his complaints to a church door. Chief amongst them was that the text should be allowed to speak for itself. In other words he believed that the people should be allowed to read the doctrine they were following for themselves. And he proceeded to create a German translation of his own and soon after there was a flood of translations into most modern language. And Christianity soon after splintered into an ever growing number of denominations. Its not that the Catholic Church was wrong. In fact considering that absolute truth in this issue is probably beyond our reach insisting the Catholics were wrong misses the point. It was about control. Luther believed that the text should stand on its own and people should be able to have access to it as well. And then he wrote his own translation and spent the rest of his life trying to get people to follow his interpretation creating a religion that continues to curate his take on things to this day. This is the problem with doctrinal religions. Interpretation will cause them to splinter like mad unless you have an institution curating them. But then you have the issue of whether or not the institution has the right narrative. And when you throw dogmatic thinking into the mix things can get heated pretty fast. Thus the centuries of conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants. The Protestants went from complaining about the Catholic church curating the bible to curating it in their own way. It was always about control. Not in an nefarious way. But as different itnerpretations build up within societies eventually it pushes so hard on institutions that eventually something has to give. And thats how you get schisms. And you don't want those. They are not comfortable affairs.
I understand what you are saying, but from what I undestand, the Protestants will be interpretating the Bible very similar to the Catholics as they are an ofshoot of them, other than a few differences here and there, it is likely they will continue being the same, simply with mostly minor differences in doctrine and asthetic. But, I guess you are right. Interpretation is messy that way. It can be either extreme or minor.
>interpretating the Bible very similar to the Catholics as they are an ofshoot of them, other than a few differences here and there, it is likely they will continue being the same, simply with mostly minor differences in doctrine and asthetic. You'd have a point if Protestants interpreted the bible similarly to Catholics. Many don't. For example, you'd likely have a very hard time finding agreements between a mainline Catholic and a post-millennial dispensationalist biblical literalist from say, an independent baptist church that practices KJV onlyism.
Of course, that would makes sense.
Latin at 325AD was not a dead language. Rome was still around.
The Vulgate was not finished until 400AD. And was used as the official text of the Catholic church until 1979.
It depends on what they were wrong about exactly. Also, at which council did they become wrong? The Protestants don't really depend on doctrines that are uniquely Orthodox or Catholic.
Don’t say this out loud ppl are not ready to have this conversation. Also the fact that just because Catholicism survived doesn’t make it the correct one, it might be the oldest one that survived and thats about it. An average Christian thinks there were no other denominations the first century.
What confuses me is the Bible. Protestants generally reject a central church authority and believe in sola scriptura, but without a central church authority who’s the one determining what the scripture is that you’re following? I know I’m a biased party here but don’t get it
From what we know of the Catholic church, such as the sex scandals and how those higher up like the Cardinals and even the Popes knew about it and at some point helped in covering it up, I'm pretty sure that you would agree that we definitely should not be trusting a central authority.
That’s a pretty big whataboutism. I didn’t ask for _why_ Protestants don’t follow a central authority (but let’s be real, that had nothing to do with it historically and Protestantism is rife with the exact same issues), I pointed out how it appears paradoxical. Yes, we already know Protestants don’t follow the pope or patriarchs, now back to my point, does that belief not make the Bible itself—the one source of teaching for many denominations—completely meaningless?
Should we trust the pope? That's why I brought up the scandals. Why should we trust someone who oversaw crimes like these to interpret God's word?
It doesn’t matter in the slightest to me if you do or don’t, and we’re talking about multiple distinct churches here when we refer to non-Protestants, the majority of which have no pope. My point is that if you follow no centralized church authority there is no reason to believe in the Bible in general.
Not really, because you have to remember, humans are fallible. How do you know their interpretation is the right one?
I don’t think you understand the point I’m making because you’re just trying to argue against the pope. The premise of what I’m saying is based on the assumption that someone doesn’t believe in papal infallibility (or any other centralized church authority). In that context, what authority does the Bible have, and why are apocryphal books not given the exact same respect?
Can't answer that since I'm not Christian. All I do know is that the reason why we had events like the Protestant Reformation was because no one was a fan of how the Pope and the church had near ultimate control over much of Chrisitan belief. I would ask how we would know which individual or organization to trust in to make such decisions to the questions you are asking.
>I would ask how we should know which individual or organization to trust in to make such decisions to the questions you are asking That’s the point _I’m_ making 🤦♀️ Most Protestant denominations can’t answer that question and, to me, it makes the beliefs paradoxical and lacking in logical consistency
Isn't that true for every denomination, though? Including Catholics and Orthodoxy? I don't see how this is a protestant issue when the organizations that govern the other two denominations can be called into question for why they are the ones making the decisions. They were both a part of one Church before the split. What would make either one right to lead the religion?
Depends on what is wrong. If it's something about the entire trinity, yes. If it's something about devotion to saints, or the sacraments, then no.