I thought the Soviet Union closed all the churches and even imprisoned Christians including clergy. Stalin was maybe baptized but I don't think he had any interest in the faith. There are photos of Putin lighting candles and taking communion but we know he is nothing close to being Christian. The Nazi also oppressed the Church and I believe Hitler denounced Christ.
I wanted to learn from you. How do you feel about the wars started by Obama? What about the way Democratic FDR managed to get the Japanese to attack our country at Pearl Harbor?
Frankly I do not believe they bothered to study the book called The Rise and Fall of the third Reich at all. Not sure what they studied. More than that, I was in Germany living there for about 15 months.
All Christians excoriate Hitler: "Was Hitler a Christian, an atheist, or neither?" https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/10/26/was-hitler-a-christian-an-atheist-or-neither/
The record is clear and I have submitted proof enough times which clearly show Hitler proclaimed himself a Christian. Ditto for Stalin and for Bush.
Are you a Christian? At one point the answer would have been probably, but only because I was young and it was expected of me. As I have gained life experience the answer has changed to a definite no.
Is there any evidence that Hitler "went to church"? I think he was a baptized Catholic but was responsible for the deaths of many priests. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed for being a Christian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
I prefer the god exhibited by the teachings of christ, as that one seems to be more worthy of people holding IT in high regards. To me, Paul, the self appointed apostle, and whose letters make up most of the NT is suspect. He seems to be the person who gave christians their theology, and is recited more than the teachings of christ, who was supposely GOd speaking through a human being. One would think his teachings would be the last word, instead of Paul having it. ha ha Christ like other religious figures, outside of christianity seemed to be teaching of an essential revolution in human consciousness, symbolized by the rebirth, and this revolution in consciousness is essential to being saved. That seems clear when reading His teachings. And this revolution in consciousness changes man, to the very core of being. You get a being of love in the process who is non judgemental. So, not quite what we perceive most christians as being.
I live my life the way most people imagine a christian should. However, I'm an atheist and not a christian. Being a christian requires blind faith similar to what the people who followed Jim Jones had.
Excellent post I believe we are of "One Mind" in this respect That problem is then "what are the teachings of Christ" - a problem I have wrestled with for years - especially given the distant relationship of the authors to the subject matter. The closest we get is Mark - purported have had direct association - an interpreter and pupil of Peter - with an actual disciple. The next the author of Matt. While we do not know anything about this author - we do know that he used almost all of Mark but then added some stuff - perhaps from another tradition. I like Matt because of the Sermon on the mount - this seems to me to be authentic. Unfortunately - the author of Matt does engage in a bit of "pious fraud" - he includes all of Mark "except" a few passages that he considered derogatory to Jesus and the disciples - as per the Catholic Encyclopedia if you would like the link/reference. After this is is anyone's guess. The author of John does not come along until much later and is writing in a Pauline/Hellenistic Perspective. The Church had change dramatically - completely separated itself from its Jewish origins and the "Church of Jerusalem" and in fact had become quite anti-Jewish - same with Luke. Paul does not know anything about the life of Jesus. We learn nothing about the life of Jesus in Paul. Paul never knew Jesus while alive and did not have much association with the disciples or the Church of Jerusalem -and in fact was not a member of the Church of Jerusalem. Paul made things up as he went - sometimes in contradiction with the teachings of Jesus - but you know already. Then we have the other non-canonical writings. I find these of interest - such as the "Gospel of Thomas" because some of these seem to be in keeping with the Jesus of Mark/Matt.
I find the gospel of thomas interesting as well. It consists primarily of just the teachings, attributed to christ and is quite mystical, and speaks of a hidden knowledge, or plumbing into this knowledge that is on a spiritual level, for lack of a better term. And this knowledge plays a very important role. I have always been amazed that we don't have any writings of the original apostles, that we know came from them. Actually, it is astounding, given how important christ was to these men, and how important his words should have been. Perhaps those words were passed on, by word of mouth, and only written down later by non apostles. It just seems that to his apostles, recording the teachings of christ were not important, and that only became important later on. But how can this be? There is more mystery in regards to real early christianity, than some might want to admit.
Solving this mystery is not helped by the fact that the Church after Constantine went on a 1000 year destruction of knowledge binge - in particular anything that conflicted with their dogma of the day and the Church Leaders being more interested in power than religious integrity. If these folks had come across writing that were thought to be from the apostles- these writings would have been burned if they did not conform directly to the dogma of the day. What happened to all the source material that Eusebius had access to = including the massive library of Origen ? Gone - not a trace of any of that. Perhaps in a dark basement of the Vatican this may exist but is "verbotten" to the eyes of the public. This stuff was intentionally destroyed .. Why. Eusebius was the one that put the first Bible together which included the NT. He was the fellow who had access to all the known writings of the day. What happened to all his source material ? Poof !! Eusebius was "excommunicated" in 325 BC at the council of Antiochia for believe in the Arian "heresy" and that he would not sign off on the Trinity Doctrine "Homoousios" .. he later recanted but still. What did Eusebius know that we don't ? Alot !
Ah, we are of one mind on these issues! I am hoping for a new discovery in the middle east, perhaps a gospel recorded by an apostle, that may have been intentionally destroyed by the organized church, when christianity became fit, by hook or crook, a religion suitable for the roman empire. I have a sneakin' suspicion that some tweaking and rewrites were done long ago, to get this new religion, based upon a revolution in consciousness(buddha's enlightenment) into line with what an empire needed in so far as a religion was concerned.
Yes .. there was definitely an enlightenment - no doubt about it. The religions of the day were what anyone wanted to believe in. They took the Gods seriously but they did not take the depictions of God seriously. The Romans worshiped fertility - as in the Penis - as much as anything. Walking around Rome at the time of Christ there were Penises everywhere .. statues - ornaments frescos - what most people today would find lurid was quite the norm. Trinket sellers would have all kinds of penis pendants and ornaments that people would wear. The point is was that the idea of God was vastly different ... Ceasars cast themselves as Gods or Gods representative on Earth - Pontifex Maximus as has many Emperors in the past. How the average citizen viewed religion and how the elite viewed religion were two separate things. To the elite religion was a means of controlling the raging masses. A very important means of control that was viewed as very important. The rational for killing Christ or at least part of it, was because he claimed to speak for God... this was usurping the power of Caesar. You can see the evolution of religious control through the millennium. The ancient Egyptians had the concept of "maat". This was like karma. At the end of days your deeds were weighed on the scales of Justice - if you were found too light you were fed to the monster .. but, that was it. There was no "eternal punishment in the afterlife". This was one effective way of keeping the masses under control -a form of self discipline. The use of Religion as a control mechanism was "Secret knowledge" and passed down by the elite. This idea arose with Zoroastrianism - one of the main Persian religions 500BC and earlier. As was the case with all the Empires - these ideas spread. Zoroastrianism was also monotheistic - long before Judaism. It is not that the Israelite's were polytheistic but they believe in the existence of many Gods. They were however only to worship one of the many. Judaism got much of its present day monotheism from Zoroastrianism. The concept of eternal punishment in the afterlife- the first that we know of - was in Zoroastrianism. This ramped up the "fear factor" - helping to further increase control Fast forward to Constantine and you have a new and revolutionary idea. Rather than deeds being the basis for eternal punishment - If you "Questioned" or "disbelieved" certain dictates from some Holy Book - or more importantly the dictates of interpretations of Church leaders of those books - you would roast in hell for eternity. This ramped up the fear factor to even higher levels and with it the sophistication of these mind control techniques. This was a widely successful control mechanism. To ramp up the fear factor further the Church leaders created hell on earth .. killing and torturing anyone deemed to be a "disbeliever" and those who had thoughts contrary to that which the Church deemed appropriate. What is interesting is that heretics were treated worse than the pagans. It was one thing for a Pagan to be a Pagan but, the worst punishments were reserved for Christians who professed thoughts contrary to Church doctrine. Mohammad or those who came after - recognized the value of this very successful formulation and copied what the Christians had done. They use the same book of fables as a base (the Torah) and introduced a new prophet. The Qu'ran however is a piece of work. It ramps up the fear factor to yet new levels. Every second page of the Quran threatens something .. Do this and you will be roasted over the coals like a pig - do that and you will suffer horribly for eternity .. on and on and on and on - every second page. It is a true book of terror. While the masses were under the control of these sophisticated mind control techniques - the elite - not so much. Again this knowledge was passed down over the years - although became more relegated to the priestly class. The dumbing down of the population under Christianity was so complete that by the middle ages - even Kings and Queens were illiterate ... even some priests. This did not happen by accident.
You know guys from my earlier age my reaction on being exposed to religion with special note of Christianity due to my family background is that this is all complete no question about it nonsense. So I will ask the same question that came to my mind when I was around eleven years old how can any rational mind be a so call believer in any of the world religions as none of them come near to passing the tests of logical or even commonsense. The Romans and Greece gods or any of the thousands of tribal gods that mankind imagination had dream up in our history have the same standing as far as any claims to reality as the current existing faiths including Christianity.
The evidence is clear. Here is a good read on the 19th century con man. http://sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/smith-conman.htm
I don't believe that for a NY minute. Then I'd say it's passing strange that such people managed to found a country that explicitly affirms the right to vomit anti-Christian bigotry without any threat of government reprisal. Wouldn't you?
