Christianity vs Atheism

[I am God]

mind = blown

What other books didn't make the cut? I'd like to look them up!

I remember when the Deep Sea Scrolls popped up. I was 10, my brother 8. My dad read it to us and we cried because surely that was not the Jesus we knew! In the end my parents (after great discourse) concluded it to be false and the work of the devil.

Why would the Romans allow the Christian propaganda to exist in the first place?

Search for "Gnostic Gospels" A very good read on the subject is the book with that title by Elaine Pagels who basically the foremost expert on the subject. There are stacks of Gospels about Jesus that were considered heresy.

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Why would the Romans allow the Christian propaganda to exist in the first place?

Christianity was an odd cult before the Romans took it over. The first Christians were called Gnostics meaning to know. And they were fairly broken into sects that would study one or a handful of gospels. Gospels like the gospel of Judas (Which is a crazy read by the way... almost reads like a Science Fiction story where Jesus comes from another dimension and is trying to get back).

The Roman Empire was at the beginning of its end. Many had stopped believing in the old Gods. It was the perfect time for a new belief system to creep in. When Constantine decided that Christianity would now be the state religion of Rome you soon after have the birth of the Holy Roman Church. And there is where you have the construction of what we now call the New Testament. And it was nothing like the religion followed by the first followers of Christ. I doubt Jesus himself would recognize much of what he was trying to convey in modern Christianity at all.