Quote:
Originally Posted by Twistys Tim
And that is why the purveyors of God's message -- such as the Catholic church gained such power. If you are some simple peasant illiterate farmer on a wind swept hillside, and some guy turns up from the Vatican (with a load of Roman soldiers) and tells you that you must convert to Christianity or else, you do as your told.
The decision the elevate Jesus to the status of son of God was taken by a committee in Rome, with the blessing of the Roman Emperor Constantine. There was need to unite all of Roman Empire under one God (any God would have done) so that the population could be controlled. This is why Jesus' birthday falls on the winter solstice, and his death and resurrection on the spring solstice. This was so the pagans could be easily converted to Christianity, and these events would not interfere with their established celebrations. Before Christ was elevated to the son of God by committee, Christians were being fed to lions in Rome. After the decision of Constantine to convert his empire to Christianity it was the Christians feeding everyone else to the lions (and worse) to eradicate any remnants of earlier beliefs.
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Skipped a whole shitload of years there didnt ya.
Not about to rip apart what you just said as parts are taken from current fiction and other parts from two different religions.
Lets just say when Constantine was Co-Emperor along with Licinus and they issued the Edict of Milan which declared Christianity to be a legal religion in 313, however Galerius had issued a similar Edict in 311. Regardless the majority of Rome was already on its way to becoming Christian. Was not until 380 that Emperor Theodosius made it the official religion of Rome.
Also the Muratorian Canon in 200 provided a list of new testament books that very closely match the list found in todays bible. Other lists that are also very close can be found when Origen did his writting in 250 and Eusebius of Caesarea in 300. I can only say it is true the Constantine did order the destroying or burning of some books by the Novatians, the Marcionites, Arius, Porphyry and a few others. However the fact remains that the biblical canon was already in place by the time Constantine became an Emperor. Other writings show that Christians switched from Saturday to Sunday as a day of worship long before him as well. In essence he did not add much of anything nor really change shit.
Damn, had to google a shit load of names as my spell checker went totally ape shit.