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It is not a matter of religion or theism vs. atheism. It is a matter of society making it socially acceptable to take the Bible as a source of absolute truth, including its falsehoods and immoral claims. Learn more |
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• All About Atheism
What is an Atheist? What is an Agnostic? What is an Agnostic? Are they attacking Christians? Wars in the name of Atheism? Is Atheism a Religion?Learn more
An atheist is one who does not believe in a god
due to the lack of evidence.
NOT one who claims a god doesn't exist.
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Constantine & Modern Christianity
For almost 300 years after it started Christianity remained to have a
rather small following. It was not until the Emperor Constantine of
Rome adopted it as his personal religion that it spread out of the
Mediterranean area and really caught on. Constantine converted in 312
CE to Christianity after claiming to have a vision on the battlefield
of the Holy Cross in the heavens with the words "In this sign you
shall conquer." During that time Rome was a crumbling nation that was
divided within and under heavy attack from the outside.
Christianity was a tiny insignificant religion until the 4th century when Constantine adopted it and forced it onto others through laws, dictatorship and mass genocide! It was not divine intervention that made Christianity successful but rather a power hungry political war lord.
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Constantine decided to use Christianity as a way of unifying his
fragmented empire but before doing so he had to organize the religion
its self. Using his powers to directly influence Christian doctrine,
Constantine introduced and presided over the first ecumenical council
at Nicea in 325 to settle ideological disputes in the Church.
Constantine treated religious questions solely from a political point
of view and assured that his decisions were unanimous by banishing all
the bishops who would not sign the new profession of faith.
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Inspired by Marcion who was the first to make a set collection of
"acceptable" Christian scriptures Constantine set forth to gather the
Council of Nicea and assemble the first major canon which would later
be known as the Bible. During this canon process Constantine's council decided which texts would be considered divine and which ones
would be considered heresy. If Constantine
never converted to the faith then neither would have the Roman Empire
and we would never have the Western Christianity that all of us know of today.
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The Canon |  |
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By end of 2nd century signs of efforts in stopping certain texts while promoting others began to emerge. These efforts ranged from letters encouraging others not read certain texts to bishops charging half way across Europe to stop the circulation of unfavorable texts. The next 300 years would see the emergences and enforcement of an official list of accepted works, a cannon. Canonizing is the process of picking and choosing which scriptures make it into the Bible. There are hundreds of scriptures and gospels that have claimed to be the inspired word of God or Jesus, some are even supposedly written by close friends or even relatives of Jesus. There is no way to know which ones were fake or legitimately divine so man voted on which ones they wanted to be divine or thought to be divine. Yup, what Christians worship and believe in today was decided by guys voting with no holly intervention from a god. If one person had decided to vote differently on one scripture Christians could have be following a different set of beliefs.
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The Bible we know today did not exist in its current form until 1647 at the Assembly of Westminster, the most recent major Canonizing of the Bible. The most influential canon in the history of Christianity is the one ordered by Constantine during the Council of Nicea in 325 CE. The creeds established during this canonizing of scriptures eventually became the foundation of modern Christian beliefs even though this version of a Christian bible did not lead to the version we have today. With all of the various bibles being canonized and the multiple canonization of our current bible one must wonder what was the selection process of gospels and books based on? Why were Mark, Matthew and Luke accepted into the cannon and not the writings of Peter, Marry or Thomas? There were various deciding factors but all of them were based on personal motives. Below are a few examples.
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| Suffering is Needed
In the 3rd and 4th centuries Christians throughout the Roman world including Egypt suffered persecution. Their refusal to worship other gods and their persistence to flaunt their own beliefs created tension and suspicion. Because of this the Romans slaughtered thousands of Christians in brutal and dehumanizing ways so any gospel that didn't speak directly to the suffering of the people wasn't going to catch on. A gospel like Thomas would bring no reinsurance for those facing martyrdom. Writings of a Jesus who simply was a teacher of wise words would not have appealed to the general public unless Jesus suffered like his followers.
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| Need for Antiquity
The Marcionites were the followers of Marcion and unlike the Ebionites they believed Jesus came to abolish the old laws and defeat the evil god of the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament is murderous, demanding and jealous. The God of the New Testament appears to be largely removed, highly spiritual, and quite a bit more peaceful. Because of this Marcion believed in 2 gods. The God of the Old Testament was actually a different god than the god of the New Testament.
The Marcionite scriptures would have done away with all the Old Testament scriptures since they believed Jesus came to do away with Yahweh, the god of the Old Testament. During this time however the people thought antiquity was very important. They thought that religious scriptures had to be ancient in order to be true. Without older scriptures in the Bible the general public would not believe in this new religion.
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| Non-Elitist
The Gnostic scriptures stated that only a select few insiders could understand the true message of salvation. If any of the main Gnostic texts were selected to be in the Bible then Christianity would have become a closed elitist society and this would not appeal to the general public.
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| Sexism
Throughout the Roman church the positions of power are filled with men. Women have a role but it is as a mother or wife. The four gospels record that Jesus chose 12 disciples and that they were all men. In Matthew, Mark, Luke and John women are barely mentioned but in the suppressed gospels of Philip, Marry, and the acts of Thecla and Paul woman took center stage. Many of the excluded scriptures even suggested that a woman was Jesus' favorite disciple instead of Peter. In a political system where men claim superiority it is obvious why scriptures that place women as equals would not be accepted into a canon.
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The Trinity | |
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The concept of Christ being human and divine only emerged after 3 centuries of debate. It was not until the Council of Constantinople in 381 CE that doctrine of the Holy Trinity was established. This council expanded on the previous Nicene Creed and settled the question of how Jesus could be divine and also a human who suffered by declaring equality among all three members, the father, son and holy spirit. The decision to make all three as one was also decided upon to remove paganism from the Bible which the Roman Empire was trying push away from. Because of this new doctrine of the Holy Trinity scriptures that said Jesus was 100% human and those like the Gospel of Peter that said Jesus was 100% god and only pretended to suffer were removed or rejected from acceptance into the Bible.
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| Not original to Christianity
The concept of a trinitarian godhead is found in both Egyptian and
Hindu religions/mythology of ancient times. Both cultures had heavily
influenced Roman thought by the time the Christian trinitarian
disputes came about.
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| I John 5:7
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
The only Bible verse the explicity claims a holy trinity is
recognized as an interpolation, an added forgery, by reputable Bible
scholars and apologists alike. I John 5:7 is not found in any ancient
manuscripts prior to 500 CE.
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Spreading Modern Christianity | |
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For the next 16 hundred years after Emperor Constantine decided to rewrite both Christianity and history, the Vatican maintained a political strangle hold on all of Europe. This political desire to force Constantine's version of Christianity on the world brought forth events such as the Crusades, the Dark Ages and the Inquisitions. Constantine and his legacy stopped at nothing when it came to wiping out any knowledge of other, especially earlier, forms of Christianity along with any competing religious beliefs such as Mithraism. The means of suppressing involved the burning of books & writings, the destruction of non-Christian temples, the imprisonment or murder of heretics and mass genocide. Christianity was not spread throughout the world by means of divine intervention but rather it was forced onto people through tyranny, massacres and war.
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Why Brutally Suppress Other's Religions?
Original versions of Christianity posed a threat because they pre-dated Pauline Christianity, challenging its legitimacy. Older Christian writings also showed Jesus' in a far different manner than that of Paulinism and challenged Constantine's Jesus. The early Christian writings like those collected by or written by Marcion were burnt and destroyed by the violent and aggressive Pauline Christians who did not want competition.
The various polytheistic religions of the surrounding area also posed a threat because the stories of Christianity are not original ones and have clear origins in local pagan myths. Knowledge of this also would challenge the legitimacy of Pauline Christianity, thus they had to be suppressed too. Religion can only be used for political power if you can convince people it is true.
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