who created christianity

[dqualk]

Ding ding ding ding "We have a winner"

How else do you think they came up with such a hair-brained concept like the Trinity?

The only way to really understand the Trinity is it was a compromise made in committee.

That is silly. The Trinity was concieved of becasue of the fervent belief that Jesus was God. Overtime people began to question who was the better God. From this arose the Trinity, which states that they are coeternal and coequal. Also, the Trinity serves a special function in Theology. It allows for a completely just and loving God. It also allows for a God which is both outside of time and inside of time. I think it is sad that you think the Trinity is a half brained concept. This just shows that you have not learned enough about it to appreciate it. I'm not saying you would necessarily believe it but you would certainly see it as something more beautiful and complex.

Further, the theology of the Trinity was very well articulated before Nicea, and is pretty well articulated in the Gospel of John, and it is sprinkled throughout the NT, and even in a way in the OT.

Most scholars agree that John thought Jesus was God.

Well that's certainly the spin that Christian apologists use when confronted with an undeniable reality of different Christian groups. It can't be denied because the early struggles of Christianity are found in the Bible itself. The fact that Nicaea was such a contentious meeting is proof that these different forms of Christianity were divisive and had their own followings that persisted at least three centuries after Jesus supposedly came along. Ultimately, it required a Roman Emperor to force a resolution (along with centuries of persecution of heterodox Christians that followed).

Well the fact is that these various groups were ultimately not that influential and died out. They also did not have an organic connection to the apostles through the Holy Ordination of the Bishops. That is Polycarp was the disciple of the Apostle John and Irenaius was his disciple etc etc. This is the same for Peter, Cletus then Clement and so non. There was an organic development of Christian belief within the Church. These others groups were typically spin offs that did not last too long and did not have great influence for long periods of time. I suppose the most influential of Christian heresies was Arianism, but it was not articulated until Arius in the 4th century. And it was at first a minoirity opinion. It would gain strength in certain regions but ultimately its time faded and the Orthodox opinion was all that was left. I call it the "orthodox" opinion because that it typically what scholars refer to it as.

Assuming Jesus really existed, he evidently didn't make much clear, judging by how many different factions there were. Even the Gospels that were accepted into canon contain many contradictions on his teachings. There's no evidence to suggest the Christian fantasy of one unified theology in the early church is anything but.

Well, most scholars agree that He did exist. Once again there were not that many different interpretations of Jesus in the early days. Most of these were small and lost power quickly. However, I do not think this is because Jesus was easy to understand, I think this is becuase the first Chrsitians were mostly yokels, slaves and uneducated women. They did not waste time argueing about whether Jesus was this or that, they just accepted what their Bishops told them, and Bishops didnt aruge that much becasue they were too busy dying in the Roman persecutions. When Christianity began to gain respect, and eventually reached the mainstream, thats when we saw the Arian problem really escalate, and the Donatists etc. But these ultimately did not last long, and were certainly not as universally present.

There were the occasional really bright Christan, but they were clearly of the Orthodox opinion. I think the best example of one who was not would be Tertullian, who was Orthodox for most of his life, but converted to montanism later in life, but he was still largely orthodox in most of his beliefs. And once again the Montanist were a small group that did not last long, and they were limited to rural areas of Africa for the most part.

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Minimalist... lol what is your arguement here? That there were bad Christians in history? I agree with you, and frankly I am not surprised, there are bad people everywhere in every institution. Also, the article says that Cyril was disturbed by their evil, and it was condemned.

Did you know Stalin was an atheist? Does that shock you? Does that make you think all atheists are evil?