REPENT!!! THE END IS HERE????

xingu wrote:

The author was not writing about Christians in general, just the very conservative ones. You should know that there are many different kinds of Christians. The more conservative they are the more dangerous they become. That plainly can be seen in the Muslim religion.

Perhaps you should have made that clear at the beginning.

Foxfyre wrote:

The New Testament was never formally canonzied but has become what it is through common use over the decades and centuries.

Maybe not formally, but I assure you the Council did do this. Any book that contradicted the Trinitarian Doctrine was removed and possibly destroyed. The fact that some offshoots like the Eastern Orthodox Church do not have the same list of books that other factions do cannot dispute the fact that the Nicean Council was there to formally ensure the canonisation of books that related to the Trinitarian Doctrine.

There were no books nor do any remain with a "Trinitarian Doctrine" though the components of a Trinity are found in the Scriptures that we have. The doctrine of the Trinity mostly emerged in the Second Century; albeit by people who had lived or personally knew people who had lived the First Century events. I'm pretty up on the Council of Nicea and canonizing New Testament writings was not on the agenda. The Church that became the Roman Catholic Church did decide which manuscripts THEY would use at the Council of Trent in the 16th century. Until then, there were no rules and guidelines other than Scripture must have been devinely inspired. The Council of Trent list has not held up among all denominations since, especially after the Reformation.

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Since I wasn't there, I am in no position to say, but based on the date(s) of the writings and the burning of Rome, I am inclined to believe that the Emperor was a nut of the highest degree and he needed to divert criticism from himself. The Church was a handy scapegoat for him. I don't think it had anything to do with the texts themselves. It is highly unlikely that the Emperor even had access to (or any interest in) the manuscripts that eventually became New Testament scriptures at the time Rome burned. (First Century AD) Even all the Christian didn't have access to all the manuscriptes at that time.

No, you misunderstand me.

Emperor Nero clearly didn't have access to the manuscripts and I never said that. I stated they were widely circulated amongst the Christians.

Historians agree that he clearly couldn't have been behind the Burning of Rome because even he wasn't such a fool as to piss of the commonfolk like that. The only people he pissed off were Jews and the aristocracy and eventually he was murdered at the behest of the Upper Class.

I stated that the Christians, not the Church, were very likely culprits and that the apocalyptic texts that floated around at the time inspired them, and one of them may have even been some kind of encoded message.

So you think the Christians burned Rome? Do you have any basis whatsoever for that other than personal speculation?

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That, however, does not necessarily take them out of the realm of real prophency and/or an image of the what is in store for humankind.

On the contrary, if they are based on the reality of the time, they are merely allusions to what was then the present. They are not prophetic in that case.

Intrepid wrote:

xingu wrote:

The author was not writing about Christians in general, just the very conservative ones. You should know that there are many different kinds of Christians. The more conservative they are the more dangerous they become. That plainly can be seen in the Muslim religion.

Perhaps you should have made that clear at the beginning.

Intrepid, the article was quite clear about which faction was being discussed.

There were no books nor do any remain with a "Trinitarian Doctrine" though the components of a Trinity are found in the Scriptures that we have. The doctrine of the Trinity mostly emerged in the Second Century; albeit by people who had lived or personally knew people who had lived the First Century events. I'm pretty up on the Council of Nicea and canonizing New Testament writings was not on the agenda. The Church that became the Roman Catholic Church did decide which manuscripts THEY would use at the Council of Trent in the 16th century. Until then, there were no rules and guidelines other than Scripture must have been devinely inspired. The Council of Trent list has not held up among all denominations since, especially after the Reformation.

So you think the Christians burned Rome? Do you have any basis whatsoever for that other than personal speculation?

I think the words used to describe a prophecy could be limited by the writer's language and experience, but prophecy by its divinely inspired nature would not be limited to the writer's language and experience.

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance [ek tes ousias] of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of the same substance with the Father [homoousion to patri], through whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us men and our salvation descended, was incarnate, and was made man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven and cometh to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. Those who say: There was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten; and that He was made our of nothing (ex ouk onton); or who maintain that He is of another hypostasis or another substance [than the Father], or that the Son of God is created, or mutable, or subject to change, [them] the Catholic Church anathematizes. (as translated literally from the Latin by the staff of the Catholic Encyclopedia)

The nineteenth ecumenical council opened at Trent on 13 December, 1545, and closed there on 4 December, 1563. Its main object was the definitive determination of the doctrines of the Church in answer to the heresies of the Protestants; a further object was the execution of a thorough reform of the inner life of the Church by removing the numerous abuses that had developed in it.

Well it certainly escapes me how Christians, fundamentalist or otherwise, are such a subversive group, and it certainly sounds more dangerous to me to call them 'dangerous' than does any 'danger' they could possibly present.

President Bush and the Republican Party in his home state of Texas are being criticized by Democrats on the touchy issue of whether America is a Christian nation.

At its convention in Austin, the Texas Republican Party voted to reaffirm a plank in its platform that disputes "the myth of the separation of church and state." The plank celebrates the United States as "a Christian nation."

An official of an organization affiliated with the Democratic National Committee castigated the action.

"This is part and parcel of who the GOP and their conservative base are," said David Harris, spokesman for the National Jewish Democratic Committee. "While this is nothing new, it certainly raises to new excesses the lengths this Republican Party is going to in order to tear down the wall separating church and state.

"It is a wall deeply cherished by American Jews -- and many other Americans for that matter," Mr. Harris added.

A prominent Democrat called on Mr. Bush to repudiate the Texas party's action.

"The Texas party has been off the charts for a long time," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. "Frankly, I would hope President Bush would repudiate that. We are calling on him to do so."

Mr. Zogby said the Texas conservative platform "goes against what Bush has said and flies in face of what he has stood for, but it reflects more a policy of [U.S. Rep.] Tom DeLay and some of those hard-liners on the Christian right."

I have given this long account of the Baptist heritage for religious liberty for a reason. It serves as a preface to what I am about to say and must say. The Baptist presence -- and it is a significant presence, upwards from 25% at last count -- within the "Religious Right" is an aberration. It is a repudiation of all that Baptists stood for until the last 20 years. That may surprise you since so many Baptists are prominent in the leadership of the "Religious Right" which has been working overtime to tear down the wall of separation between church and state. Surprise alone, however, is not an adequate emotion for this situation. I now must tell you why you should be alarmed by this development.

Baptists are "born again" Christians. No one is born a Baptist. We are the ones who believe that each person must come to faith by individual and personal conviction and commitment. Baptists have always believed in the power of the gospel to win hearts and change lives. All the gospel needs is a free and open hearing. That is why religious liberty is so important to Baptists. For us, real faith can never be produced by compulsion or coercion. For us, real faith can never be passed down like an heirloom from one generation to the next. For us, real faith must be accepted freely by individual commitment and conviction.

The "Religious Right" has a different understanding of faith. They intend to make the United States a Christian nation by political action and legislation. For them, politics is a mission field. For them, getting voters to the polls is like raising armies for crusades to reclaim the holy land. For them, faith can be spread by inquisition, imposition, and coercion.

Frankly, i wish all those fundie creeps would rapture on up out of here so we can be rid of them.