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Forums - General Discussion - Common misconceptions about Christianity.

richardhutnik said:
spdk1 said:
 

You seem to have a christian view rather than a historical view on Gnostics....

Most Christian Gnostics (the ones directly at odds with the Orthodox church of the time) did not believe in what you speak, in fact gnosticism was a large movement of many unrelated groups.  Some were more philosophers, as Plato's teachings were found in the Nag Hamandi texts, Some Worshipped John the Baptist, others worshipped Seth from the bible, some saw the creator God as pure evil and worshipped anything that stood against him such as Cain.  Most Gnostics actually believed that Christ was still the son of God, but not the son of the Demiurge (their name for the creator God), and others believe that Christ and Jesus were two seperate entities merged only temporarily.  The Gospel of Judas, a recently discovered Gnostic text, lays out exactly how Jesus plays into the Sethian  grand scheme of things, and it is not the "we hate Christ" mentality you are speaking of.   

Of course some of the apostles hated the Gnostics, they had a book of Mary Magdalene that basically said "men and women are equal" as well as a book that showed Jesus not to be completely free of flaws.  They also did this with the Apocryphal texts by making Simon Magus look like a crazed madman even though what happens in the text is obviously false. 

On Heresy hunters: actually Christian persecution of Gnostics by heresy hunters is fairly well documented by scholars.  Someone had to have made many of them dissapear from history didn't they?  By the fourth century Christianity was the ONLY religion allowed in the Roman Empire, so a mass wave of "false doctrine" burnings, temple burnings, and a "witch hunt" for heretics began.  This can be seen the most eloquently by The utter destruction of a few Gnostic sects  caused by one of the movers and shakers of the old Orthodox church, Iraneus.  Iraneus did not hold a sword by himself, as I can recall, but his writings incited mobs of "heresy hunters" much in the same way that Eupopean witch hunts began after writings were published.  This is ironic, as Iraneus was one of the folks that had to flee Rome when Christian persecution was going on. 

Iraneus's book "against heresies" http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm

The first recirded man killed by heresy hunters was Pricillian, who was thought to be a magician, this continued well into the 1800's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscillian

I'm not sure how you can claim that there was no persecution as many of these groups went as far as to hide in mountains, bury their holy books etc..  Obviously something went down... 

Also the same thing about "not loving" and "hating the material word" can be pretty well observed by many Christians - Monks for instance don't want any sort of pleasure in their lives, some monks even mutilate themselves to repent for their sins.  how is that mentality any better? 

You are showing the said first one from the fourth century.  What I wrote about is second century, before Constantine decided to become a benefactor of the Christian faith.  

The tendency of the gnostic camp was to elevate personal revelation and knowledge above what happens in the world.  Such individuals will come up with new revelations and insights and work out all sorts of theological variants that deviated from the traditions that were handed down.  That was a source of flak.

In regards to the rest, it isn't a case of "hating Jesus".  It is a case of denying the flesh and the physical world.  There is issues with Jesus as God coming in the flesh, that is found offensive.  One can't say this is a universal given, but it is a norm among gnostics.   One can actually believe they love Jesus, as an entity, but then totally undermine what really mattered.  But there were also individuals who were mostly in the Christian camp who had gnostic influences.

Anyhow, here is Wikipedia on the gnostics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnostics

ah ok, sorry I was under the impression that you thought there was no persecution at all, my bad.



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This is a weird discussion to be having o n a gaming site. lol



do you have anything back up your statements or is this just stuff that has popped up from your head?

I'll refer you to a site that deals with this issue, and some of the text is pasted here:

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/950-does-the-bible-conflict-with-itself-in-the-matter-of-incest

"(2) There is another factor that must be considered. In the early days of the human family, before sin, disease, and genetics took such a deadly accumulative toll, Adam’s offspring were much more physically vigorous than they now are. And so inter-family unions would not have resulted in the debilitating effects that are characteristic of such relationships in the modern world. Adam himself lived to be 930 years of age, yet by the time of Abraham, 175 was a “good old age” (Genesis 25:7-8); eventually human longevity would level out at approximately 80 years on average (Psalm 90:10). “Time,” in a sinful world, has extracted a high cost."

The first chapter of Genesis tells us that everything God made was good, and Romans 5:12 tells us that death entered the world through sin. The 930 years part is found in Genesis 5:5. If you want to check these yourself, go to biblegateway.com.



"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' " ~John 14:6 (NKJV)

spdk1 said:
 

ah ok, sorry I was under the impression that you thought there was no persecution at all, my bad.

Nope.  As in the case with all religions, whenever governments take it on and try to support it, they have the annoying tendency to do persecution on the behalf of their religion of choice.  Constantine took what the Roman Empire did to Christians early and then turned it against the those who had teachings different than what the establishment liked by the government has (I guess closing down places with temple prostitution can be seen as persecution). Similar happened with the Inquisitions where governments in European states tried to purge heretics to try to strengthen their own power.

The first few centuries had Christians persecuted by the Roman Empire, because they refused to do emperor worship.  They were in no position to persecute others.  Oh, you see letters getting upset internally at people who had no ties through relationships of those who knew the apostles, via multiple generations.  

I would say by the time the persecution came the other way, Christian doctrine was set for the most part.  The greatest controversy had to do over Arianism, which pretty much had Jesus as the Son of God, but said that he wasn't eternal (Western attempts to counter this resulted in a permanent schism with the East, due to changing of the creed).  Then the rest of the arguments, which mostly were in the East, had to do with the nature of the humanity and divinity of God, and splitting of hairs and miscommunications between languages, where the Coptics left. 

There is a lot more here, where even those in what are considered to be orthodox, and normal Christian theology, were put in a place of being put in prison, because they disagreed with how the Emperor understood the nature of Christ.  There was a case of a Byzantine emperor, for example, deciding he would end up destroying icons, because he thought they were idolatry, because his empire was suffering and thought maybe they were a reason why.  And then you have the Western Crusaders sacking Constantinople, also (the Pope wrote a letter condeming the Crusaders for that behavior).  And the beat goes on.



Jirakon said:

do you have anything back up your statements or is this just stuff that has popped up from your head?

I'll refer you to a site that deals with this issue, and some of the text is pasted here:

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/950-does-the-bible-conflict-with-itself-in-the-matter-of-incest

"(2) There is another factor that must be considered. In the early days of the human family, before sin, disease, and genetics took such a deadly accumulative toll, Adam’s offspring were much more physically vigorous than they now are. And so inter-family unions would not have resulted in the debilitating effects that are characteristic of such relationships in the modern world. Adam himself lived to be 930 years of age, yet by the time of Abraham, 175 was a “good old age” (Genesis 25:7-8); eventually human longevity would level out at approximately 80 years on average (Psalm 90:10). “Time,” in a sinful world, has extracted a high cost."

The first chapter of Genesis tells us that everything God made was good, and Romans 5:12 tells us that death entered the world through sin. The 930 years part is found in Genesis 5:5. If you want to check these yourself, go to biblegateway.com.

If you believe humans could live up to 930 years in the past then you are a blind follower.  The life expectancy has only risen with technology/medicine.  Humans could barely get past age of 20 in the early days.  Must take a lot of faith to believe in bullshit.



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I might have faith in some force outhere that we cant control and sometimes makes inexplicable things happen.Im not goona start a thread about that tho, but just to say that to believe in the bible is believe in somethin some other humans wrote without you even been there to know if its true.(no facts)

Just think about that last sentence. 

 

 



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Currently Playing: 1.Monster Hunter tri 2.MegaMan 10

If you believe humans could live up to 930 years in the past then you are a blind follower.  The life expectancy has only risen with technology/medicine.  Humans could barely get past age of 20 in the early days.

Technology/medicine wasn't needed before "the early days". As the human genome (and behavior) got more and more corrupted, life expectancy dropped dramatically. As technology/medicine arose to combat this, life expectancy went up. Is it really that hard to comprehend?

Im not goona start a thread about that tho, but just to say that to believe in the bible is believe in somethin some other humans wrote without you even been there to know if its true.(no facts)

I can't be sure, but I think you're trying to insinuate that there isn't much evidence for the truth of the Bible, which is an overwhelmingly false statement. There's plenty of evidence from manuscripts, archaelogicy, prophecy, science, history, statistics, and many other fields. A quick search can show you everything you need to know, and there are hundreds of books that go into detail. Here's a quick link with just a small portion of the vast amount of evidence:

http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/maps/manuscript-evidence



"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' " ~John 14:6 (NKJV)

Jirakon said:

If you believe humans could live up to 930 years in the past then you are a blind follower.  The life expectancy has only risen with technology/medicine.  Humans could barely get past age of 20 in the early days.

Technology/medicine wasn't needed before "the early days". As the human genome (and behavior) got more and more corrupted, life expectancy dropped dramatically. As technology/medicine arose to combat this, life expectancy went up. Is it really that hard to comprehend?

Im not goona start a thread about that tho, but just to say that to believe in the bible is believe in somethin some other humans wrote without you even been there to know if its true.(no facts)

I can't be sure, but I think you're trying to insinuate that there isn't much evidence for the truth of the Bible, which is an overwhelmingly false statement. There's plenty of evidence from manuscripts, archaelogicy, prophecy, science, history, statistics, and many other fields. A quick search can show you everything you need to know, and there are hundreds of books that go into detail. Here's a quick link with just a small portion of the vast amount of evidence:

http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/maps/manuscript-evidence

that link was interesting but

 I meant that people can have faith but its wrong to believe in the bible when alot of the things in it seems implausible and some more plausible. So how can you believe in just a half of it? When peoples dont have any answers for things they try to invent one,thats my point of view of the bible.

You can correct me if Im wrong but in the viking era, Norway and Sweden peoples used to believe in what we call now the Norse mythology but then got converted into believing in the Christ. But why would it be more right to believe in Jesus Christ than to believe in Loki when you never seen any proof of both.

Moses story in the bible is even less plausible than the Valkyries of the Norse and why would be wrong to believe in Valhalla,Odin,Brynhildr or Ragnarok but is right to believe in Heaven,God,Jesus Christ and the Apocalypse.

I bet no one is gonna try to argue that to believe in the Bible is about the same as to believe in a myth.



Nintendo made me a gamer so I'd be stupid to ever try to forget that                                             like so many people nowadays

The Top  Best Consoles Are SNES and PSX 

Currently Playing: 1.Monster Hunter tri 2.MegaMan 10

It's not the same at all. Myth don't have archaeological evidence. They don't have scientific or corroboratory evidence. They weren't written by people who were persecuted and even killed for their refusal to renounce their beliefs. Though the Bible was written by 40 authors over thousands of years, it's still incredibly coherent within itself. It's true that one shouldn't solely believe in the "plausible" parts while leaving the rest out, but the simple fact that something is implausible is definitely no sufficient reason to disbelieve it.



"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' " ~John 14:6 (NKJV)

Jirakon said:

It's not the same at all. Myth don't have archaeological evidence. They don't have scientific or corroboratory evidence. They weren't written by people who were persecuted and even killed for their refusal to renounce their beliefs. Though the Bible was written by 40 authors over thousands of years, it's still incredibly coherent within itself. It's true that one shouldn't solely believe in the "plausible" parts while leaving the rest out, but the simple fact that something is implausible is definitely no sufficient reason to disbelieve it.


Yeah certain parts of the bible probably are true.Most of the locations are real but i think the stuff about Jesus was exaggerated.There are records of him existing but there is no evidence of him doing any of his miracles or being the son of god.



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