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Dan8267
2012 Jan 25, 12:45am
But you claimed that Constantine, specifically, cartoonified him and essentially made up everything about his life, and you have yet to offer any specific evidence for that claim.
Correction, what I said was:
Christianity was a radical religion when it was started. That's why Christ was crucified. He was a threat to the establishment. After he died, like all rebels, he was cartoonified and incorporated into the state by Constantine, who found Christ useful for manipulating the peasantry of the Roman empire. Had that not happened, Christianity would not even exist. But when that happened, Christianity ceased being a radical religion and started towing the state line.
And this is well supported. For example, the book Constantine: Roman Emperor, Christian Victor goes into detail about how Constantine manipulated Christianity for political gains. Publishers Weekly book summarizes this book and Constantine's motives
Stephenson, a historian at the University of Durham, successfully combines historical documents, examples of Roman art, sculpture, and coinage with the lessons of geopolitics to produce a complex biography of the Emperor Constantine. Rather than the divinely guided hero of legend who singlehandedly brought pagan Rome to Christian orthodoxy, Constantine is depicted as very much a product of his political environment. Recognizing the growing influence of the Christian Church, he adapted the generally pacifist faith to the Roman theology of victory and created a newly militant Christianity that would sustain his rule. Constantine wisely sought to impose religious toleration on the diverse Roman Empire while discouraging trivial disputes among the Christian faithful. Stephenson examines the variety of religious beliefs in the early fourth century with emphasis on Mithraism, a pagan mystery cult practiced by pre-Constantine soldiers, and on the bitter divisions within victorious Christianity that ultimately led to the Council of Nicaea. Constantine is revealed as a master politician who, while delaying his own baptism for reasons not fully explained in the text, became the ruler of both church and state.
But all the physical evidence and historical documents isn't going to convince you that Christianity could have easily been a footnote in history if it weren't for Constantine. After all, if Christianity exists only because a corrupt politician -- and I know that's redundant -- decided that it would be useful for controlling the masses, then surely Christianity has no merit and is nothing but lies. Since you cannot accept the conclusion, you ignore the facts. That is the entire basis of faith. Science, on the other hand, says that the facts determine the conclusion and whether or not you like the conclusion has no bearing on whether or not it is correct.
freak80
2012 Jan 25, 1:06am
But all the physical evidence and historical documents isn't going to convince you that Christianity could have easily been a footnote in history if it weren't for Constantine.
Why do you say that? If Chrisitianity is little more than Constantine's invention, I don't want anything to do with it. Why live for a lie? That would be tragic.
If there's good evidence that Christian beliefs were not actually established by Jesus and Paul in the first century, but rather by Constantine, I will reject Christianity. I will read that book.
At this point, I just want the truth.
freak80
2012 Jan 25, 1:47am
Dan,
I'm behind a Websense firewall, so I cannot watch any videos right now. What is the video about? Can you explain it in words?
freak80
2012 Jan 25, 2:18am
That's an extremely rude comment, is it not? Why should I take you seriously any longer?
Dan8267
2012 Jan 25, 3:56am
That's an extremely rude comment, is it not?
No, your humor detector is malfunctioning. Try hitting it on the side.
Dan8267
2012 Feb 1, 4:05am
"all catholic woman are sluts."
Homo Economicus. Like Bigfoot, reported to exist in fantasy books, but never seen in the wild.
Is that pedophile Cloud still stalking me? I have him on ignore but, this comment seems to indicate that the stalker is still jizzing out his mental masturbation. Talk about obsessive. It's like I'm reliving Single White Female.
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In this famous thought experiment, which could actually be done, someone might say, "well, since by definition, we don't know whether the cat is alive or dead, the statement that the cat is alive is by definition false."
True, it is false in the sense that we can not know that it's alive. Therefore the statement that it's alive is false.
What might be easy to miss though, by someone who is only parroting this argument and using it in a fallacious way, is that the exact same reasoning can be made regarding someone who says the cat is dead.
That statement is also false.
We just don't know.