GT

Satori, I have no idea what you said, but I like it and think I might agree with it.

There is an edit button...

Belle, ladies can choose whom they want to perform the cavity search.

I don't see how the driver's license example shows that we should only go to "the word" and not outside sources. A driver's license is proof of who you say you are and proof that you are authorized to operate a vehicle, so a cop doesn't have to believe what you say. He can verify it. If you are going to apply the example to going only to "the word," then the cop should only be asking you who you are and believe what you say. It goes like this: Cop: What's your name? Driver: Jesus Christ Cop: Where do you live? Driver: Other side of the universe. Cop: What are you doing in town? Driver: Just crusin. Cop: Are you aware that were going 15 mph over the speed limit? Driver: Oh no, that's not possible. I was doing the speed limit, I'm sure of it. Believe me. Cop: OK, must be something wrong with my equipment. Have a good night. Rather silly. Where's "the word's" driver's license? I'd like to see it.

If your drivers license is a forgery, better get ready for that cavity search.

We could dissect the finer points of Constantine down to minutia, but I think the discussion can be boiled down to a difference of opinion whether authority to establish and enforce religious belief is good or bad -- with state-sponsorship of such authority being an extension outside of that religion. I suppose if my beliefs were of the same opinion as the majority bishops establishing the official doctrine of Christianity, then what Constantine did would be a godly thing and much appreciated. But since I have no beliefs (at least none that I know of), it is very easy for me to see why Constantine would be attracted to Christianity and thus wanting to promote it. Rather than having many gods, with the people free to choose whom they are pleased to serve, having only one god who by definition claims to be the only god and all others are false gods, with an established doctrine that excludes all others, becomes very appealing -- especially for someone who wants to be ruler of the world. Without a religious filter, the political advantages are rather glaring. For me, giving anyone the authority to enforce any doctrine is dangerous. Even though it may seem to be good to preserve what is thought to be pure doctrine, such authority will eventually be abused. I'm hard pressed to find an example where it has not -- TWI being only the latest incarnation to repeat its ugly history. Giving the state the authority to establish a religion magnifies the potential for abuse, bringing it outside of the religion's adherents and putting it on the populous of the state. If it were not for the first amendment, this country would have had an official religion long ago. I'm thankful it never has and hopeful it never will. Can you imagine TWI being the official religion of the United States **shudder**. But what if President Bush was a TWIt? What if he started building TWI new root locals all over the place, every state getting their own root local -- using tax-payer money? What if he consulted with Rosalie on matters pertaining to state? Scary huh? Without agreeing with the resolutions of the Council of Nicea, what's the difference? The author gave two foot notes for the Eusebius quote: * Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia is to be distinguished from the church historian Bishop Eusebius of Ceasrea, both of whom were Arians, and a third Eusebius, who served Constantine as chief imperial eunuch. * Quoted in Smith, Constantine, 202. -- Smith, John Holland. Constantine the Great. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971.

Sorry for the delay in responding. Life gets busy sometimes. The Donation of Constantine really has nothing to do with my views on him, and you never stated such. But it keeps coming back. I can see some Protestants pointing to it as an excuse for the rise of Roman Catholicism rather than what they consider to be truth, but I'm not a Protestant (or any other ---ant or ---ian) and I really don't see how it plays into the discussion here. His late baptism can also be used to provide evidence that he was never really a Christian, but only using it for his own political motives. The Arians being "put down" is a nice way of saying they were tortured and murdered. Since the official religion of Rome was the approved form of Christianity, do you think Theodosius is solely responsible for this? Would he do such a thing without the backing of the religious leaders (were they calling themselves popes by this time yet?). You may want to do a little more historical research outside of official church history. There was never a set official form of Christianity from its beginning. Even Acts shows two forms of it, Paul's and James' (three if you include the followers of John the Baptist). But outside of Acts, beliefs were all over the board. To arrive at your conclusion, one must assume that Paul's version is the only correct one, making everything else heresies. That's too big of an assumption, not only to Paul, but also assuming that most of what it is in the Bible credited to him was actually written by him. It can be shown, without too much effort, that most of the writings with his name on it were not written by him and are in fact much later creations. It also assumes that the entire history of the first century is contained in the New Testament. I haven't seen anything that suggests disputes were resolved at the Council of Nicea. In fact, quite the opposite. Nothing was resolved. Even the simple topic of dating Easter was left divided along ethnic and regional rivalries and to this day is celebrated on different dates, one by the Roman Catholic Church (and its off-shoots), the other by various churches that constitue Eastern Orthodoxy. To quote the book I recommended previously: On the hottest point of all, the Arian heresy, the Council of Nicaea showed its greatest impotence. To be sure, the bishops were coerced into adopting a formal confession of faith, the so-called Nicene Creed, which declared God and Jesus to be homoousion rather than homoiousion -- "of the same essence" rather than "of similar essence" -- and thus repudiated the teachings of Arius. But many of the clerics, including one who served as a counselor to Constantine himself, soon renounced their vote and repudiated the Nicene Creed: "We committed an impious act, O Prince," wrote Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia to Constantine, "by subscribing to a blasphemy from fear of you." [emphasis mine] You got me on that one. Been awhile since I've studied this and yes, it was Theodosius who made the official declaration. It was inevitable though. What Constantine did was take a "subversive movement that set itself against the power and glory of Rome" and move it to a cult that had "sealed an alliance of throne and altar and the church could be regarded as a branch of the Imperial civil service. The Christian church now functioned as 'the Christian state-within a state'." I did not intend to infer that Constantine had the library destroyed. I was inferring that since the wonderful act of setting what is approved doctrine and texts placed the unapproved texts in the heretic classification, the library's destruction was a result of it -- because it contained these texts. Just because the mob was encouraged by monks who wanted it destroyed due to its pagen texts, does not change the fact that the mob destroyed it because it contained Gnostic texts. I was also inferring the absolute stupidity of such logic, whether of the monks or the mob. I'm unsure when the "really bad" pagan persecution began, but I am sure that the Nicene Creed was used as a weapon against those who opposed it. I think Constantine's "open mind" is best summarized by: Begin now to cast aside the causes of the disunity which has existed among you, for by so doing, you will with one stroke be acting in the manner most pleasing to the Supreme God, and confer an extraordinary favor on me." [emphasis mine] --Constantine to the bishops at the Council of Nicaea Constantine never fully grasped the finer points of the argument that he was called upon to decide one way or the other -- but he was quick to understand the dangers of dissent against authority, and he knew well how to go about suppressing it. Indeed, his preference for monotheism over polytheism reflected his own ambition to achieve the same absolute power on earth that the Christian god was believed to exercise in heaven. "The division of the Empire into four sections by Diocletian required four divine patrons for the four rulers," explains historian Andrew Alfoldi. "The restoration of the unity of the Empire, on the other hand, led inevitably to the belief that a single divine power must watch over the single earthly ruler." "Just as there is only one God, and not two or three or more," affirms Eusebius, "so there is only one Emperor." -- God Against The Gods, p.169-170 Without Constantine seeing the political advantages that Christianity offered him in securing his authority and him giving the cult the backing of the Roman Empire, it seems to me very plausable that the hotly divided cult would have continued to fight each other and eventually been taken over when Islam came knocking on the door. Therefore: "Constantine, though only seeing political advantage and control, doesn't get enough credit for Christianity as we know it."

Long post, will take awhile to respond. But until then, could you favor me a summary of what the point is? Is it to conteract Constantine bashing?

Well, your first link doesn't go anywhere, so I can't really comment on it. The Donation of Constantine doesn't really apply to my view of what Constantine is responsible for. I do recall studying it for a bit and the part of it being a forgery sounds familiar, but it really doesn't play into my prior comments. My comment is based, in its simplest form, that by the 4th century: Christianity had no set standard and beliefs were varied from extreme to extreme. The largest division that could possibly group groups into agreement was the subject of the deity of Christ. Constantine saw the empire in religious turmoil, not only between Christians and "pagans" but between Christians and Christians. Constantine called the council of Nicene, with orders to establish a standard. I believe his words were something to the effect of, "I don't care what you decide, just give me a standard I can enforce." The decisions at these councils were not unanimous, but very divided. Voting was along religious affiliations (much like how Congress works today). Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, giving it the backing of its military. Dissenters of the decisions of Nicene (the first and the following) were rounded up, tortured till they recanted, or murdered. Documents the dissenters cherished were ordered to be destroyed, which were done in orderly fashion -- so much so that we did not know most of them until the last 60 years when some that were hidden by a monk in a cave were discovered (the worst destruction being the library at Alexandria, the best accumulation of all knowledge up to that point, burned because it contained some Gnostic texts). Thus my comment on Constantine. There is ample evidence that Constantine never believed in Christianity. It's been awhile since I studied it so I'm lacking specific examples. But it seems plain to me that the whole process was only politically motivated and used as a weapon. Whether they picked the right books or not matters not to me. Christianity was a sick joke from its founding, apparently designed to counteract the beliefs of the problematic Sicari. But that's a discussion for another thread -- or maybe not, isn't this thread about the will of Yahweh? A good book on the subject, which influenced my opinion of the events of the 1st - 4th century to the point of disgust of what people can do to people in the name of God, is God Against the Gods, The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism by Jonathan Kirsch.

Someone a little on edge?

**sigh** apostle successors.....utterly rejected... Again, winners writing history few will question. When you've got the power of the Roman military behind you, fairly easy to do. Just torture and kill the dissenters and obliterate any trace of them. Constantine, though only seeing political advantage and control, doesn't get enough credit for Christianity as we know it.

Must be the version Doc Vic studied.

A good write-up by Catcup on Ramona: http://www.greasespotcafe.com/editorial/dr...-to-suicide.htm

Libraries are littered with books with evidence, including topics in history, archeology, and comparative religion (very enlightening). The question is, does one want to take an honest look at it? Or, as is usually the case, the fear of loosing one's faith in God and risking eternal damnation (or lose of eternal life, rewards, etc) take precedence? The converse is an equally good question: Do you have any proof that the Bible is the will of God, outside of the Bible claiming such? Or are we required to believe it is because someone says it is? And why is it any different than every other religion claiming the same?

Therein lies the problem. Most people are unwilling to question such an assumption, even though there is no evidence to support it. Even though there is ample evidence that points to the contrary.

Nice picture Tonto. Does it have a date? I copied it to The Way section in the Gallery. First picture in there.

Well then, I guess I need to go out and buy me a slave.... Apparently never changed in the New Testament: God's will for people to own people?

Thought this thread might help someone being at the top for awhile.

**BARF** Another reminder of how stupid I was for 10 years.

Changing it in any topic changes it for every topic. Options button is on the same line as the topic title, toward the top, on the right hand side, under the Add Reply button.

Not sure I understand what you're asking. Is it starting a new topic and then wanting to remove it? Or are you seeing the initial post for a topic on pages 2,3,4.... I suspect the latter. When viewing a topic, click on Options (should be on the same line as the topic title, next to rating) and select "Switch to Standard"

Flickr is rather popular and easy to use. http://www.flickr.com/

Flashback: http://web.archive.org/web/20010201090700/...sespotcafe.com/ Images don't load well but....