Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Here is one thing that always happens: when groups of people exist together, their beliefs get mixed together into some other version of the belief.
Once upon a time there were Jews. They had their Jewish beliefs. Then they moved to live among Greeks. So some new form of belief was destined to be born. Christianity was that mixture. Christianity has some of Jewish beliefs, some of Greek beliefs and some of something else (whatever was currently circulating there).
As one example, Jewish traditional faith did not have the idea of a fiery eternal lake of fire called hell. Jewish idea of hell was something related to the soul disappearing at some point if not properly buried. But Greeks had beliefs about the underworld, a fiery place where souls were tortured in Hades and where the ruler of this underworld was Hades. So this belief became a part of the mix called Christianity, eventually. I don't think this part (hades/hell) was a part of first Christians during Peter's and Paul's ministry. Peter only mentioned Jewish kind of hell, and Paul never mentioned any kind at all. Paul believed that if you sin, then you die. (In other words, you don't get resurrection.)
Satan character from the Bible resembles Hades from Greeks. Also, sometimes Satan is pictured as a monster with many heads (In Revelation for example). There were some evil monsters with many heads in Greek beliefs also. God of the Bible was fighting against this monster (Satan) and Zeus (the biggest god of the Greeks) was fighting against this other monster. And at the end, Zeus bound this monster somewhere under earth. So this element sounds similar to God binding Satan in the abyss.
According to Greek beliefs, King of Hades was in control of fame and fortune. So, some Christians believe that the Devil is responsible for fame and fortune and money. And also the idea of making a deal with the devil and becoming rich evolved from this Greek belief.
Religions also get modified by new ideas which arise within society.
God of Christianity used to be seen as a King, someone to be afraid of, someone to tremble before. And it's because this was the Jewish part of Christianity mix and Jewish religion was born during the time of the kings and so someone like a God was similar to a king figure. And kings weren't very nice and you had to be afraid of them.
In traditional Christianity (from the older days) people believed that they have to be quiet in the church/temple because it was a sacred place.
But the ideas within Christianity are changing. The God of new form of Christianity is more like a pal. Because people don’t have kings anymore and don’t really go for that concept of trembling before God. People are embracing their identity as a part of God and boldly come to the throne of God, to borrow Paul’s terms.
In fact, Jesus and Paul both encouraged this kind of behavior in the early days of this new faith. But people were still under the spell of the older religions where you had to tremble and not walk into the holy of holies and so they couldn’t embrace it yet. But that time has passed. Now, the idea of "God and me are pals" is very popular. And it’s all because Christianity, just like any other belief in the world is subject to the same laws of nature: beliefs get modified by current age and current beliefs.
...Christianity, just like any other belief in the world is subject to the same laws of nature: beliefs get modified by current age and current beliefs.
Conservative Christians, Catholics and many other Christians are married to the idea that god never changes and his word never changes and therefore the faith can trace its heritage right back to Peter, Paul and Mary (no, not the ones from the 1960s, but their namesakes). Variances are dismissed as drift away from some supposedly objectively determinable straight and narrow, correct interpretation of scripture which, through constant reform, the church keeps returning to.
The truth is that it's much easier to "wrest the scriptures to your own destruction" (to borrow from 2 Peter 3:16) than one would think, in fact it's quite easy as the Bible is actually a cherry picker's paradise. This is why you have a-, post- and pre-millennialists, calvinists and arminians, purgatory and straight-to-hell-forever, once-saved-always-saved and unpardonable sins, snake handlers and high church, infant baptism and total immersion, worship on Sunday or Saturday, celibate priests and married pastors, and on and on. All these conflicting doctrines, including some within the same denomination depending on the need of the moment, all come from the same Bible.
I very much doubt that a denizen of the "primitive" church would recognize the content of a modern church service. They would see of it as a bizarre congregation of magicians and harlots; the culture shock would be incredible. But even if they got past that I don't think they'd recognize the theology other than that it has something to do with Jesus. It would likely be seen as some kind of heresy, particularly if the time traveler was from before the early church councils that settled things like the canon of scripture.
I think most Christians would be shocked to learn just how much of what they are compelled to accept as God's word is really just the results of political struggles. My church (non-Christian) is the indirect descendant of the Arians while the Christendom is the direct descendant of the Athanasians. The early church vacillated back and forth between the Arian and the Athanasian Creeds, and who knows what would have been different in human history of our people had won that struggle?
It was such a freedom when I opened to the fact Christianity was not "true".
Feb. 2010...I remember the moment of awakening...ha, the look on my face.
What i'd like to say to Christians that see posts like this as some threat
or blasphemous...
It doesn't mean you can't follow Jesus' teachings of love and how to live
this life, but you just let go of what is simply made up.
Be still and know God....period...for yourselves...ahh...
It was such a freedom when I opened to the fact Christianity was not "true".
Feb. 2010...I remember the moment of awakening...ha, the look on my face.
What i'd like to say to Christians that see posts like this as some threat
or blasphemous...
It doesn't mean you can't follow Jesus' teachings of love and how to live
this life, but you just let go of what is simply made up.
Be still and know God....period...for yourselves...ahh...
Which God are you alluding to if Christ is not a part.
During the Bronze age , God chose man to be His family , so God took a man Adam aside to prove His character , but Adam was given Greatness and rebelled against God and never listen to God Words ........... Four thousand years later God brought Lord Jesus who dead on a cross and God raised Jesus from the dead and gave Jesus the Greatness which Adam had lost by Adam rebellion , and Jesus because to governor of the earth for the faith of Jesus followers , and Jesus Holy Spirit brings Jesus the power to achieve the call of Jesus obedience ..........So the followers of Lord Jesus who engage in obedience to this call are the Christians of the earth
It is understandable that the image and character of god would be altered with the passage of time. The Hebrew Yahweh was a hyper involved, hands on micro manager who made numerous personal appearances, made direct interventions in human affairs, and staged spectacular miracles so that no one would question the validity of its power.
You could get away with a book full of such claims thousands of years ago, but the further we move into the age of science with systematic recordings of events and reactions, the harder it becomes. That hands on Yahweh has morphed into a more ethereal presence who still is out there, but no longer gets personally involved with the lives of the chosen people, and has retired from the Cecil B. DeMille stunts.
It had to change to sustain credibility of any kind in the age of verification.
During the Bronze age , God chose man to be His family , so God took a man Adam aside to prove His character , but Adam was given Greatness and rebelled against God and never listen to God Words ........... Four thousand years later God brought Lord Jesus who dead on a cross and God raised Jesus from the dead and gave Jesus the Greatness which Adam had lost by Adam rebellion , and Jesus because to governor of the earth for the faith of Jesus followers , and Jesus Holy Spirit brings Jesus the power to achieve the call of Jesus obedience ..........So the followers of Lord Jesus who engage in obedience to this call are the Christians of the earth
Like someone posted on another thread, it makes more sense that the christian god seems be more Satanic, demented and perverted than Satan would be.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
