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Eternal Damnation & other thoughts

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by CParso, Jan 10, 2006.

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JSracing Founding Member

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Interesting

Peter and Paul eventually traveled to Rome, where an underground church had established itself. Both were martyred during the mid 60s C.E. At some point in all this, the official story goes, Peter formally became leader of the church. Before his death, Peter allegedly passed the torch to Linus, who is believed to be the second pope despite a dearth of historical documentation.

James and the Jerusalem Church saw their influence dwindle in the decades that followed Christ's death. When Peter left for Rome, it reflected a power shift that had already been underway for some time. The final blow came when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 C.E. The carnage scattered the Jewish Christians and removed their power base. In the ensuing void, Paul's Gentile converts easily took control.

Bust even among Paul's followers, the first several decades of Christianity were fractious and inconsistent. Making religion is like making sausage; you're probably happier not knowing.

The early church was a haphazard collection of disparate sects with often wildly divergent beliefs that all centered around the figure of Jesus to a greater or lesser extent. Early Christian theologians desperately tried to create a single orthodox base for Christianity, but none of these efforts succeeded until the fourth century.

Christianity had been outlawed in the Roman Empire for its entire history. Then, in 313 C.E., a woman named Helena converted to Christianity. Helena just happened to be the mother of Roman Emperor Constantine, and she prevailed on him to legalize the religion. Constantine did her one better, not only legitimizing Christianity for the first time but exerting his political might to force the divergent Christian sects into an uneasy unity.

Constantine was motivated by a desire for political stability. He was not a Christian and wasn't baptized until he lay on his deathbed. Nevertheless, he was a force to be reckoned with.

Although he didn't directly shape the theological content of Christianity, Constantine convened the Council of Nicea in 325, bringing together the scattered bishops of Christian communities around the ancient world. Basically, he locked them in a room and told them not to come out until they had agreed on a definition for orthodox Christianity. The resulting "Nicene Creed" defines Roman Catholicism today. Everything else was designated as heresy and targeted for extermination.
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JSracing, Jan 14, 2006

#131
Frogleg Registered Best

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martin said:

ok, me neither.

why doesnt that logic apply to the koran?

but not the koran huh? only the precious bible. the koran isnt influential at all.
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i never said that the koran wouldn't be on the aliens reading list. it would be top ten.

are you saying that the koran is as or more influential than the bible?

...and, okay, i should have said "for the mere fact that it's the most influential book that affects my society",

Frogleg, Jan 14, 2006

#132
JSracing Founding Member

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WOW...:shock:

The Papacy
The one point that irrevocably sets the Catholic Church apart from all other versions of Christianity is the issue of the papacy. Catholics believe that the pope is the direct successor to Peter, a concept known as the apostolic succession, which invests the papacy with a mandate to lead Catholicism which supposedly dates back to Jesus himself.
In its modern form, the most meaningful part of this mandate is known as infallibility. The doctrine of papal infallibility teaches that the pope is incapable of making an error when it comes to matters of religious teaching. In recent years, this concept has been sharply limited in its application and includes only specific kinds of papal proclamations.

The need for such a limitation became clear pretty early in Church history. By the close of Christianity's first millennium, the papacy had been occupied by some truly mindblowing hedonists and degenerates.

The phrase "died while committing adultery" appears surprisingly often when you review the annals of the Vatican. The list of popes includes such distinguished figures as John XII, who had sex with his mother and sisters; John VIII, who may have been a female transvestite masquerading as a man; Clement V, who unleashed the terrors of the Inquisition against the Knights Templar in a naked grab for the society's valuable real estate; and Sergius III, who reportedly fathered an illegitimate child through incest and then installed that child as Pope John XI.

Many non-Catholics have trouble understanding how this extremely uneven track record can possibly reflect the divine mandate implied by the doctrine of the apostolic succession. The confusion deepens when you see just how spotty the actual succession can be.

For the first 100 years after the birth of Christ, there exists only a bare approximation of a historical record to vindicate the notion that the papacy goes all the way back to Peter. If you can get past that rather significant point, you then find that there is no particular indication that the early Christians gave any special or universal rank to the pope, who was then known simply as the bishop of Rome.

The most powerful early Christian bishoprics included Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, but many other bishops were well-represented and politically powerful.

When Constantine wanted to unify the church, he didn't rely on Sylvester, the Bishop of Rome at that time. He called in all 250-plus bishops from around Christendom, all of whom had their own special ideas of what constituted a Church. Pope Sylvester I was barely a footnote to the proceedings.

Then there's the "unbroken succession" issue. For most of the Catholic Church's history, the selection of popes has been a haphazard affair. Sometimes popes were elected, at other times they were appointed. Some popes chose their own successors. On several occasions, popes were installed or deposed by the military might of Roman emperors and Italian kings.

Sometimes there were two claimants to the papacy at once, or even three. Such "antipopes" began to appear with alarming regularity as early as the third century of the Church. There were at least 30 before the election of popes was standardized in the 16th century.

The leading status of the Bishop of Rome was, at first, a secular political consideration. Rome was the heart of the Roman Empire, which became Christian in the wake of Constantine I. Naturally, the Bishop of Rome was in a position to represent himself effectively.

Up until the fourth century, the word "pope" wasn't even specific to Rome and applied to any bishop. Etymologically speaking, the beginning of the papacy can be traced to Pope Siricus — the 38th bishop of Rome installed at the end of the fourth century, according to the list used by the church, who ruled on various doctrinal matters as if his opinion was the one that mattered. The actual stated doctrine of infallibility evolved slowly over the centuries that followed, but it wasn't precisely codified until the end of the 19th century.

The nature of the papacy has also varied wildly throughout the years. From the eighth century through medieval times, popes frequently took an active role in global politics, even going so far as to launch wars from time to time. In contrast, the 21st century papacy is politically impotent, ruling a few square miles of Vatican City.
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JSracing, Jan 14, 2006

#133
LSUsupaFan Founding Member

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You sure thats secular history and not cut and paste out of Boatner's "Roman Catholism." Come on JS Boatner is one of the greates anti-Catholics of all time. At the very least you can credit your source.

For those of you who don't know Boatner he is the equivalent of a Bob Jones or other such vennom spewing Zealot.

JS why don't you post his article on the Spanish Inquisition where he says that the Catholic Church executed 90 million people. Nevermind the fact that of the time of the enquisition the population of all of Europe was around 30 million.

Nice try though.

LSUsupaFan, Jan 14, 2006

#134
JSracing Founding Member

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WOW amazing all the secular info, since the Bible isn't complete.

How the Papacy Originated in Rome
Catholics believe that the bishop of Rome inherits the mantle of Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ who was entrusted with the administration of his church after he died. Peter travelled to Rome where he is believed to have established a Christian community before he was martyred. All popes are, then, successors of Peter not only as leading the Christian community in Rome, but also as leading the Christian community in general, and they maintain a direct connection to the original apostles.

Peter’s position as leader of the Christian church is traced back to the Gospel of Matthew:

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
(Matthew 16: 18-19)
Based upon this Catholics have developed the doctrine of “papal primacy,” the idea that as successor to Peter, the pope is the head of the worldwide Christian Church.

Although principally the bishop of Rome, he is much more than just “first among equals,” he is also the living symbol of the unity of Christianity.
Even if we accept the tradition that Peter was martyred in Rome, however, there is no direct evidence for his having established the Christian church there. It is likely that Christianity appeared in Rome some time during the 40s, about two decades before Peter would have arrived. That Peter founded the Christian church in Rome is more of a pious legend than historical fact, and the connection between Peter and bishop of Rome was not even made explicit by the Church until the reign of Leo I during the fifth century.

There isn’t even any evidence that, once Peter was in Rome, he functioned as any sort of administrative or theological leader — certainly not as a “bishop” in the way we understand the term today. All available evidence points to the existence not of a monoepiscopal structure but instead to committees of elders (presbyteroi) or overseers (episkopoi). This was standard in Christian communities all over the Roman empire.

Not until a couple of decades into the first century do letters from Ignatius of Antioch describe churches led by a single bishop who was merely assisted by the presbyters and deacons. Even once a single bishop can definitively be identified in Rome, though, his powers were not at all like what we see in the pope today. The bishop of Rome didn’t call councils, didn’t issue encyclicals, and wasn’t sought after to resolve disputes about the nature of Christian faith.

Finally, the position of the bishop of Rome was not regarded as significantly different from the bishops of Antioch or Jerusalem. Insofar as the bishop of Rome was accorded any special status, it was more as a mediator than as a ruler. People appealed to the bishop of Rome to help mediate disputes arising over issues like Gnosticism, not to deliver a definitive statement of Christian orthodoxy. Quite a long time went by before the Roman church would actively and on its own interfere in other churches.

Why Rome?

If there is little or no evidence linking Peter with the establishment of the Christian church in Rome, then how and why did Rome become the central church in early Christianity? Why wasn’t the wider Christian community centered on Jerusalem, Antioch, Athens, or other major cities closer to where Christianity got its start?

Actually it would have been surprising if the Roman church hadn’t taken on a leading role — it was, after all, the political center of the Roman empire. Large numbers of people, especially influential people, lived in and around Rome. Large numbers of people were always passing through Rome on political, diplomatic, cultural, and commercial ventures.

It’s only natural that a Christian community would have been established here early on and that this community would have ended up including a number of important people. At the same time, though, the Roman church did not by any means “rule” over Christianity in general, not in the way that the Vatican rules over Catholic churches today. Currently the pope is treated as if he were not merely the bishop of the Roman church, but rather the bishop of every church while the local bishops are merely his assistants. The situation was radically different during the first centuries of Christianity
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JSracing, Jan 14, 2006

#135
JSracing Founding Member

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LSUsupaFan said:

You sure thats secular history and not cut and paste out of Boatner's "Roman Catholism." Come on JS Boatner is one of the greates anti-Catholics of all time. At the very least you can credit your source.

For those of you who don't know Boatner he is the equivalent of a Bob Jones or other such vennom spewing Zealot.

JS why don't you post his article on the Spanish Inquisition where he says that the Catholic Church executed 90 million people. Nevermind the fact that of the time of the enquisition the population of all of Europe was around 30 million.

Nice try though.
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No actually it is from several sources, try google. Most come from About.com and several authors, those first ones weren't given but this last one was Austin Cline. BTW it is NOT one person's view it is ACTUAL history, although you deny it. Want me to keep finding sources? There are HUNDREDS of hits. Furthermore many authors. The History is simply this, there ISNT ANY HISTORY. You just miss the history boat man....

Also if you want to post something from this fellow whom I never heard of, help yourself. I am sure as in the middle ages, Catholics have identified all those with any objective ability to think for themselves as heretics as you just did, along with Martin Luther, simply because they speak the truth which goes agaisnt your fuzzy warm feeling about Catholicism.

That's scary, Hitler relished the thought of finding people who were dogmatic even when faced with obvious flaws in theory. I had a bulldog like that once, wouldn't let go if a train ran over him.

whatever man, I'm not posting this for you, I'm posting it to show the ACTUAL known History, what the world has recorded about the situation. Only Catholic Doctrine differs, so the rest of the world is wrong..... uh huh riiigghhttttt.

JSracing, Jan 14, 2006

#136
JSracing Founding Member

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OK you want a source? this is from: http://www.religionfacts.com/index.html

yes they are no doubt heretics and should be tortured in the grand inquisitor's manner of placing them on the rack...... :dis:

History of Catholicism
Roman Catholicism traces its history to the apostles, especially the Apostle Peter. St. Peter is considered the first pope, and every pope since him is regarded as his spiritual successor. This gives the leader of the church spiritual authority and provides a means for resolving disputes that could divide the church. Through trials like persecution, heresy, and the Reformation, the notion that the church leadership represents the continuation of an unbroken line from the apostles and their teachings ("apostolic succession") has contributed to the survival of Christianity.

However, the idea of the "pope" did not exist from the beginning of the church. It was not until several centuries after Christ that the church began to develop into the "Roman Catholic Church" as we think of it today, with its particular doctrines, practices, and hierarchical system of authority. Thus Catholics and non-Catholics alike are able to claim they are most faithful to the message of the apostles and the early church. From the Catholic perspective, the early church is faithfully continued in the developments of later centuries, while non-Catholics tend to regard the church as having corrupted the original message of Christianity.

In the years of persecution prior to the Emperor's conversion, the church was focused primarily on survival. There were prominent church leaders whose authority was recognized - primarily those who had known the apostles - but no central authority.

But with the conversion of Emperor Constantine in 318 AD, the church began to adopt a governmental structure mirroring that of the Empire, in which geographical provinces were ruled by bishops based in the major city of the area. Soon, the bishops of major cities in the empire emerged as preeminent, including the bishops of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople. It was natural that Rome would eventually become the most important of these. It was not only the capital of the empire, but the city in which the apostles Peter and Paul were believed to have been martyred.

The Roman bishop Leo I (440-461) is considered the first pope by historians, as he was the first to claim ultimate authority over all of Christendom. In his writings one can find all the traditional arguments for papal authority, most notably that which asserts Christ had designated Peter and his successors the "rock" on which the church would be built.

Leo's claims were strengthened greatly by his own impressive career as Bishop of Rome. In 445 he earned the express support of Emperor Valentian, who said the Bishop of Rome was the law for all. In 451, he called the important Council of Chalcedon, which put to rest Christological issues that had been plaguing the church. In 452, he impressively saved Rome from Attila the Hun. It is said that the Pope met the warrior at the gates and somehow persuaded him to spare the city. Legend has it that Attila saw Peter and Paul marching along with Leo to defend their city. In 455 he was not as successful with Vandal invaders, but led negotiations with them and succeeded in preventing the burning of Rome (it was, however, plundered).
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JSracing, Jan 14, 2006

#137
martin Banned Forever

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Frogleg said:

i never said that the koran wouldn't be on the aliens reading list. it would be top ten.
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ok, well i guess the aliens will understand the humans better than you do, because you have no use for the koran. i have no use for the bible or the koran.

are you saying that the koran is as or more influential than the bible?
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i dunno, there certainly are lots and lots and lots of muslims. not as many as christians, but an argument could be made that if one agreed with you that they should read the most influential books, then you should read the koran. especially now when the biggest world events are shaped by islam.

your original argument was that one should read the bible to understand people and their morals. you gave the alien example. but i exposed your real motive, by showing that you dont care about the koran, which is clearly huge as far as explaining humanity.

...and, okay, i should have said "for the mere fact that it's the most influential book that affects my society",
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right, and that is fine, but you should have originally just said "i love the bible" instead of arguing that it is important reading if you want to understand the human species. it isnt. like i said earlier, i can explain the whole stupid bible and how it affects people in just a few pages. the bible as a whole is an incredible waste of time.

martin, Jan 14, 2006

#138
martin Banned Forever

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JSracingBBF said:

actually Martin the Bible is not hard to understand, the reason it get's mis interpreted so much is because it says things in there that MAN doesn't like or it isn't convinent to do. So he changes it in hopes that God will wink at it. Maybe he does. I kinda doubt it though. Even the VERY learned Bible scholars of different religions KNOW what the Bible says, they just don't agree with it entirely so they ignore it. Like that 45 MPH speed limit sign, you know what it means but when an officer stops you, you say I didn't see it.. or I saw it but I was late, always some excuse.
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i actually sorta agree with that, because people do change the bible to meet thier agenda. sometimes because they are lazy, other times because they understand that science makes the bible look like the work of a stupid child. like nolimit, thats what he does. he realizes the bible is way too stupid to take at face value, but he doesnt have it in him to escape all the forces in his head and in society that conspire to prevent him from being rational.

then again, the bible is full of contradictory crap, and lots of interpretations are just sincere eforts for people to understand the meaning that never was there in the first place. thats why you guys could argue here until the sun goes out, and nobody ever says anything conclusive. the is no reference point based on reality. thats the nature of fiction.

martin, Jan 14, 2006

#139
JSracing Founding Member

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martin said:

ok, well i guess the aliens will understand the humans better than you do, because you have no use for the koran. i have no use for the bible or the koran.

i dunno, there certainly are lots and lots and lots of muslims. not as many as christians, but an argument could be made that if one agreed with you that they should read the most influential books, then you should read the koran. especially now when the biggest world events are shaped by islam.

your original argument was that one should read the bible to understand people and their morals. you gave the alien example. but i exposed your real motive, by showing that you dont care about the koran, which is clearly huge as far as explaining humanity.

right, and that is fine, but you should have originally just said "i love the bible" instead of arguing that it is important reading if you want to understand the human species. it isnt. like i said earlier, i can explain the whole stupid bible and how it affects people in just a few pages. the bible as a whole is an incredible waste of time.
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Martin, Mohammed the author of the Qu'ran, studied and believed in the Old Testament. the Islamic religion has origins in Jewish religion. I can't figure out why they hate each other so. They actually believe in the Old Testament, a fact rarely heralded. from relgiousfacts.com

Other prophets are important in Islam as well, all of which are shared with the Jews or the Christians. Muslims trace their heritage to the Hebrew people. The term "Semite" derives from Shem, the son of Noah, and both Jews and Arabs consider themselves Semitic people. In particular, they trace their ancestry to Ishmael, the firstborn son of Abraham.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham and Sarah, approaching old age, had difficulty bearing a child. This problem was made even more serious by the fact that God had promised Abraham that he would become the father of many nations. So, with Sarah seemingly barren, Abraham took Hagar as a second wife. Hagar bore Abraham a son, named Ishmael.
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JSracing, Jan 14, 2006

#140

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