Under "early Christianity" the Apostle John might hint that you are a heretic. (John was always soft spoken and gentle, unlike Peter)
We often forget to define Children in the sense of biblical perspectives, Samuel was on his way up a mountain and 40 "Children" started to call him a bald head, and he called down evil upon them and they were killed by bears. Notice, he did not kill them, it may have been mere coincidence, I guess reviling others is a poor idea at best. We tend to see children as innocent bystanders and not responsible for their actions, yet when I was 9 years old, I saw other children of 8 or 9 do heinous acts of Pure Evil that defied explanation and I feared to turn them in. These children made the child Damien seem like a boy scout in comparison. Remember that young boys of 7 - 11 years of age have intentionally murdered and raped other children of their own age group without getting caught. Cases of suspicion without proof, as in the Jon Benet Ramsey case, the younger brother knew more than he let on. Children follow their parents Evil ways, and continue those practices as tradition and were subject to the same punishment.
So you make the point that the children were evil; what about the sucklings - babies at their 'evil' mothers' breasts? Samuel is strikingly specific (see my concluding remarks on 'evil') It's an image of God likely responsible for much carnage down through the ages (because, like Ghegis Khan, anyone can claim he is enforcing God's will), rightfully rejected by Marcion, and certainly not consistent with the concept of a Creator Deity, Source of Justice, Love and Joy in the universe. Islam of course was tainted by the same vengeful God, which I presume is the source of barbaric punishments prescribed for criminals and infidels in the Koran, still handed out in Islamic lands today. One day, hopefully, the world's theologians of the religions of all peoples will proclaim the "One True God" . [My own view of 'evil': we are all children evolving in and from the tooth and claw natural law of the jungle; instincts of survival and self interest are still powerful in the affairs of men; the concept of Justice is God-given and is ours to develop, as manifested eg in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
You think so? The American founders, flush with enlightenment ideals and reformation theology, 'banished and executed' any who disagreed with the Christian faith? They didn't include 'religious freedom' in the constitution, but 'banished and executed' any outliers? Modern Christians do this, too? Seriously? You think your life is in danger from 'modern Christians!' who can't handle your disbelief? You think 'Christians!' are shocked and apalled that there are heretics and unbelievers in this world? Really? These are pretty bizarre conclusions, and might be construed as fear mongering, to demonize a particular ideology, that does not toe the line with the Official State Religion.
So you don't accept the "Acts of the Apostles" ? Well I do. Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead after crucifixion. He appeared to Mary and the apostles and over 500. Likewise, he appeared to Paul. Christians had much to fear about Paul as he persecuted them and put them to death. Paul had a miraculous conversion after Jesus ministered to him. Such a conversion that it convinced Peter James and Paul to not only accept him.....but to embtace him. See, they believed. So if you don't accept the Book of Acts, what other parts of the scripture do you deny? Are parts of it just heresay?.....or human invention??? Do I misunderstand what you are saying? I cannot dismiss the testimony of Paul any more than that of the other apostles.
?? I see no connection between the impotence of 'modern Christianity' and the Centrality of Jesus and His deity. Elaborate?
Forutuneatly, God within His charactor, does have mercy as He sees fit. Don't know if Muslims care to know that.....but then they believe in a different god.
We don't "evolve". "There is nothing new under the sun" as Solomon has said. We are inherently evil from birth aside from the saving Grace provided for us by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We may seem "good" for a season without Him, but we always will revert to our ways. Sin is inherent to our nature. It challenges us to find a way to become Holy as God is. We can't do that by our own effort. We can only "trust" that God will perform the work through us. And He does.
I like those last two sentences. But the evidence is for evolution, not 'original sin' (Genesis)...so my view of reality is not based on ancient Biblical texts, though to be sure Jesus' Two Great Commandments, the Sermon on Mount, and the Lord's prayer are inspiring for their life-affirming nature.
The God of Abraham, (Jehovah, among other names, to Jews; Allah to Muslims - chosen by Mohammed as the True God . but not conflating Jesus with this God, seeing Jesus as a messenger of God (or prophet) - hence the three 'Abrahamic faiths' or 'Peoples of the Book'.
To me the summary here is objective but a bit superficial. God is a sin incompatible entity. He's building an eternity we call heaven where He will live with humans as well as His angels happily forever (the banquet). Everyone is invited but not everyone is chosen. That boils down to the question who, humans and angels alike, can be qualified to enter this eternal heaven and to live with the sin incompatible God forever? Law is thus established to qualify entities, humans and angels alike, by a final judgment to determine who will in the end enter this eternal heaven. Law is established based on the purpose of assessing whether an entity, human and angel alike, has the capability to live with such a sin-incompatible God in a forever realm. Basically this refers to 3 key and crucial factors, namely, faith, obedience, and of course you need to love God and others in order to live long in such a realm. Law and covenants are thus all tied up with these 3 key factors. Humans are designed to be with low intelligence (i.e., relative to angels, men are only intelligent relative to other creatures on earth). Humans are creatures of the present, it means that they are cut from direct access of both the past (well you may fail to realize this) and the future. They however can have indirect access to both the past and the future. This indirect way of access is called human witnessing. Through the process of human witnessing we humans can indirectly get to know what could possibly happened in the past, which is our history recorded in the various history books. Similarly, we can have limited indirect access to access the future through the same process of human witnessing. Human witnesses wrote down about human activities for later humans to believe with faith, this is our history. Human witnesses wrote down about God's activities for later humans to believe with faith, this is our religion. God told His witnesses about the future events for later humans to believe with faith, this is the only possible way for humans to reach a possible truth lying ahead. This is the only way how humans can access the future indirectly via the process of human witnessing. The fall of Adam actually implies the existence of such a set of Law qualifying entities to enter the final and eternal heaven. Both Satan (an angel) and Adam (a human) broke this set of Law. Angels choose to break this set of Law will be chained in the darkest Abyss. Humans are driven out of Eden and since then living outside God's realm. Earth is not inside God's realm. Earth is a place outside God's dwelling realm and is under the deep influence of Satan and his angels. That's why the Bible even describes Satan as the god of our world. The problem is that Adam as the first lineage of humans broke the Law and was driven out. Can Adam's descendants, who are living under Satan's deep influence, abide by God Law to be qualified to enter the final Heaven? The answer is no, not even one man can be righteous in front of God's Law (righteous actually means "you are qualified" by the set of God's Law). God actually proves this point under the witnessing of angels through the period of time from Adam till Noah. It's solidly proven that humans as a species have no chance to enter heaven, when the set of God's Law is applied. After point being proven, it's time to put an end to this world and everything in it, using water! It means Satan won by screwing up God's plan. God has to sound the retreat......but not yet. God has Jesus Christ. Jesus' blood shed (at a future time relative to Noah) actually brought Noah a covenant for Noah to be deemed righteous (qualified to enter heaven). In front of the set of God's Law (which is applicable to humans and angels alike), no one human is righteous, not even one. However, under the covenant granted through the blood of Jesus Christ, humans can be deemed righteous and saved (qualified to enter heaven), even none of them can pass if judged by the set of God's Law. How clever and awesome God is! Mosaic law is a set of law bound to a covenant and thus is only applicable to humans but not angels. All covenants are the alternative assessment of humans under the scope of these covenants. Mosaic Law is thus for the assessment of humans under the scope of the Mosaic covenant, they are referred as the Jews (and converts). All mankind today are under the coverage of the New Covenant. The righteous who are qualified by such a New Covenant are the Christians. That's the big picture of what Christianity is. It is a religion because only documents kept by religious people can survive history to bring forward the information of God and His covenants to humans along the timeline of humanity. Secular sources are incapable of bringing forward a whole theology of God's message.
Well we've been on this earth quite a long time. Thimgs are so much better since we've evolved. No more killing, no more sex slavery, no more child sacrifice.....oh wait!
Your response is bizarre... seriously. Rather than respond to any of the content of my post you have avoided that content and tried to demonize the messenger. You do not get to make up your own definition of the Trinity and apply it backwards to early Christians... nor do I. The point of this exercise is to try and figure out what the early Christians believed. And Yes .. its complicated. Its complicated because various Christian groups held different beliefs. The Church fought over the nature of the divinity of Christ for over 500 years. The disagreement was settled by force and anything that conflicted with the doctrine forced on Christians was destroyed or persecuted out of existence. The Logos concept given by John is similar to your Sun analogy - why is it that you missed that ? You say "study scripture in that context" and that is exactly what I did. You want to make scripture fit into doctrine that you have ingested rather than try to understand what the ancients believed and figure out what the authors of Scripture wrote from that perspective. Putting blinders on and trying to wish scripture away - because it does not fit with your pre-ordained dogma - is an exercise in denial.
what did he accomplish? can you even show he existed? you need to do that, before you can assert he was not a mere man.
Oh dude. Sorry to inform you but the US wasn't founded until over 1400 years after various early Christian beliefs such as Arianism, Gnosticism and Docetism were deemed heretical in the 4th century, over 300 years after Christ.
That's because mankind is "the naked ape". The veneer of civilization is easily stripped away from human beings in a survival situation such as a sinking ship or New Orleans after Katrina.
Why do you bear false witness? Dude, that's a mortal sin. Sorry, but I've never seen neither Luke nor Acts being attributed to Paul, but maybe your sect does teach that to be true.
This is not true as evidenced in scripture and a product of Unbelief. Stan Satan constantly deflects people into useless Heresies and Apostasy and are given over to a Reprobate mind.
Jesus was born into the World as a Perfect Human life, that was the Physical or Natural Jesus as he had a Human Body, He was also Devine, as "The Son of G-D.
nope. all 3 worship the same god of Abraham. They just have their own twist on the same made up stories.
