Why deny man immortality

You can only fabricate real things, "my" God isnt real. He doesn't have a gender, it is simply easier to say and understand. I have listened and learned, truely learned. What did I learn? How to act. Time is always being wasted, it's just up to us how to waste it. I am not diferent in this sense from anyone else, I believe, that anyone who tries can listen as I do, I know others who do this as well. I commune with him in the purest place I know, the place I believe to be the "center" of my being, that is more real to me than the birds chirping outside my window. I believe the world has no diference in and of itself. Reality is literally what you percieve it to be, because it is based on your perception which is what you act upon. We as civilized beings, form societies, that requires at least similar realities for us to coexist. We can only coexist peacefully when people take possesion over their own perception. You could in a way say perception is my God.

"As far as incalculable distortions, this is only incalculable in your own mind, for they are now discovering second and first century fragments of manuscrips and they have only confirmed what we find in our Bibles today. The majority text which numbers in the thousands of copies from all over the world agree, which only confirms all the more that the Bible we have today can be depended on."

The period of greatest distortion occured during the time of the oral telling, before any of what you see now was written. Biblical scholars agree that there was a period of approximately 40 to 70 years between the time when Jesus died and the "Q" source was written. Even that "Q" source was lost.
The texts from the first and second century may match up quite closely to todays texts, but it matters not, the damage was done, the distortion is beyond repair. What actually happened and what was written are certainly to entirely different things.

You remind me of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, US Army, eastern Cambodia.

"The Bible is a very detailed Book that cannot be thrown together with some kind of quick fix and have everything come out 100% accurate."

The bible as you know it was woven into the form you recognize by Constantine in the 4th century. Up until that time a multitude of Christianities flourished: Gnosticism, Montanism, the radical Paulism of Marcion, and the communities that formed around men such as Irenaeus in Lyons or Tertullian in North Africa.(there is a long list) Each viewed the others as heretical and each authenticated its own scriptures in various forms and views by an appeal to the various criteria of legitimacy: Posession of the true interpretation of the Septuagint; or of the true christian scriptures all based on "authentic" oral traditions. It is important that you understand that the church upon whose canon subsequent christianity eventually depended upon was the survivors of these early power struggles. The survivors emerged as the indisputable victors only in the fourth century, when Constantine became the patron of a particular sect and suppressed it's rivals. Constantine proceeded to create the bible we know today, selecting only the gospels and books that authenticated his sects particular view of Christianity. It took many years for the bible to be completed in the form you now know. It was never just thrown together. But it was still based on oral traditions and not only that, but it did not take form until the fourth century.

What else would you like to know about your bible's history?

"The Bible is a very detailed Book that cannot be thrown together with some kind of quick fix and have everything come out 100% accurate."

The bible as you know it was woven into the form you recognize by Constantine in the 4th century. Up until that time a multitude of Christianities flourished: Gnosticism, Montanism, the radical Paulism of Marcion, and the communities that formed around men such as Irenaeus in Lyons or Tertullian in North Africa.(there is a long list) Each viewed the others as heretical and each authenticated its own scriptures in various forms and views by an appeal to the various criteria of legitimacy: Posession of the true interpretation of the Septuagint; or of the true christian scriptures all based on "authentic" oral traditions. It is important that you understand that the church upon whose canon subsequent christianity eventually depended upon was the survivors of these early power struggles. The survivors emerged as the indisputable victors only in the fourth century, when Constantine became the patron of a particular sect and suppressed it's rivals. Constantine proceeded to create the bible we know today, selecting only the gospels and books that authenticated his sects particular view of Christianity. It took many years for the bible to be completed in the form you now know. It was never just thrown together. But it was still based on oral traditions and not only that, but it did not take form until the fourth century.

What else would you like to know about your bible's history?

This occured in the year 382. Long after Constantine was dead. The Council if Naceea (sp?) took place in 325, 57 years earlier. Constantine converted to an orthodox form of Christianity in 312 after he claimed to see a sign from God in the sunlight. Before that Constantine was a Pagan worshiper.

The books on the list of which you speak were created at and after the Council of Niacea (sp?). It was one of Constantines greatest desires, to create a standard set of scriptures from which Christianity could go from, in order to bring about more unity.

Before Constantine there was no wide spread consensus, the Christian sects were just struggling to survive the wide spread persecutions that were common place in that time. Before Constantine became it's patron there wasn't a central church to bring about the consensus you speak of.

sorry Pino, He didn't Git'r Done, he didn't have his facts straight

The early history of Christianity was an extremely turbulant time. Immediately after Jesus death up until Constantine the Great's council of Nicea (sp?) in 325, there was no Holy Roman church. The Romans fed Christians to the lions, and so on and so forth. The Holy Roman Empire did not exist until Theodosius I around 382. It is hard for people to accept that for that long of a period Christianity was divided into many different sects. Each Sect with their own influences being interwoven into the fabric of the their oral traditions and writings. Paganism and Jewish traditions wee absorbed into these sects and influenced their development of Christianity. With so much flux and so long of a time between when Christ died and when the Bible was composed, it is in conceivable that all these influences did not radically alter the telling of what actually occured during Jesus life. The Bible is not a Historically accurate document, it is a theological proclamation.

There were many different versions of the Bible leading up to Nicaea. The first of witch was composed by a group of bishops around 100 AD. Nicaea is widely rcognized as the first council to unify the concepts of christianity into one church. The council also declared which sects of Christianity were heretical. Before Nicaea, they were all accusing each other of being Heretics. This lead directly, in the years following, to the bible that became the basis for what we see today.

Constantine did not become baptized until right before his death in 337 AD. But if you look up the Battle of Milvan Bridge in 312AD, you will see for yourself that it is at this point in time that Constantine embraced Christianity.

I am a terrible speller and I was quoting from memory so there it is. If you wish to begin insulting me for it, then by all means do so, it doesn't help your argument any, nor does it make that fact that you are incorrect less obvious.