So this bread, which tastes the same as it did before, appears the same as it did before, digests the same as other bread, is actually the body of a man who has been dead for 2000 years. When you say nothing more needs to happen, I don’t anything has happened at all. I could back that statement up scientifically, as the bread is literally the same as it was before.
If something has happened, how do you know? If I gave you a piece of bread that has been blessed and piece that has not been “transformed”, would they be any different?
Even in your document about celibacy in the church it is stated that
580- Pope Pelagius II: his policy was not to bother married priests as long as they did not hand over church property to wives or children.
So obviously losing money and land to the wives and children has been a long concern of the church? Stinks to me of what I said about money and the Church looked for a spiritual reason.
As regards the Pope being the bishop of Rome and just an honorary title, that is what we learned in school, though that could just be old school Catholic from pre Vatican 2 or earlier.
This IS inaccurate, though not entirely. Jews and early Christians claimed the agreement of their traditions with the great philosophical schools and traditions of the Greeks, but these groups were influenced by Greek thought and interpreted and harmonized their beliefs with the philosophical tradition. It is NOT the case that two independent streams of thought (Greek philosophy, Jewish-Christian religion) happened to agree with one another.
Always a good idea to clarify “early” in these contexts. You mean in the 4th century C.E. and following? True to a certain extent, though ancient sources aiming polemic against Christian aren’t to be trusted uncritically anymore than Christian polemic against non-Christians. Before that? Not so much. It remains a hotly debated question what caused the “early” (1st-3rd century) spread of Christianity. After Constantine, there’s no question that political clout “won converts.”
I’m a PhD student in early Christianity, by the way. Haven’t been here for a few years, but glad to see good conversations still going on.
That’s what I implied. The reason why Catholic teachings seem to have elements in common with Aristotle is not because Aristotle had something in common with Catholicism but because Aristotle influenced Catholicism. It was mainly the Neo-Platonists who tried to find syncretic connections between the Greeks, Jews, ancient Egyptians, etc. Hence, hermeticism.
There was also opposition within the Church when it came to Aristotle’s influence at the expense of Plato.
I was just agreeing with you and expanding on your point, not attacking you. Though we do have different definitions of “implied” - the phrase “this is wrong” does not imply anything other than that the referent of the deictic “this” is false.
Also, there was a whole lot of syncretism going down… it’s difficult to identify one group as the primary player
Yes, starting from 4th century CE up to Justinian’s persecution of the last neoplatonists, including the stylite craze in Syria. And of course, the persecution of frequent bathers.
Wasn’t Marcellus Gibbon’s favorite source?
Was the early spread of Christianity different from other religions in Roman times? Cult of Mithras for example? The only difference is that Christianity offered a binary choice - either you are with us (or later our interpretation) or you’re not. The same principle would be later applied more severely by Islam.
No welcoming of other gods in the local provincial pantheon - here, put your local deity next to Jupiter or Mars Ultor.
Do you believe in GOD Drew1411? Honest question by the way.
Without Faith, nothing can convince you of transubstantiation. I can try and show you why I know there is a Catholic GOD but that is a whole different conversation.
Like any group of people, the Church’s thinking changes and the intention becomes better understood over time. I have never said and I never intended to come across in saying that celibacy was never started because of property and money. The Catholic Church is ran by fallible men but She is protected by the Son of GOD; hence she has the greatest and longest history in all of Christendom.
In my life I have been very blessed to know some very, VERY holy people. There are some married lay people I know who are holy individuals. My grandmother was a very kind and holy lady. The holiest man I know was a priest in Phoenix who was killed literally the night before I moved out of the city. The holiest men I know are all priests. I am not saying you have to be a priest to be holy, but devoting your life to GOD and living your life as a virgin and chaste has to do something to your thinking.
Now this can also go the other way. There is a retired priest where I grew up and he was caught with ecstasy, LSD and weed in his house along with child torture porn on his computer. I didn’t even know that was a "thing" until I heard that!
This is something I just thought about; how many doctors of the Catholic Church were celibate? St. Augustine comes to mind right away. He was originally quite the player but he left that life behind and went on to become one of the greatest saints in the Church’s sacred two thousand years of history.
For some peculiar reason, religions tend to spread best when accompanied by the explicit or implicit threat of physical force, or when bringing tangible worldly benefits to the newly converted, not by debating finer theological points.
For example, what do you get when your remove the implicit threat from the equation - “Africa’s greatest missionary” David Livingstone (yeah, I know he was protestant but still) converted a grand total of of one African during his decades long missionary efforts.
People think and do all sorts of weird things. If I was Muslim and I died doing jihad, I would die with something like thirty-two virgins. Does it make their thinking wrong for that reason alone? Actually yes, it does. For a person to authentically believe something or in something, they have to come to that place on their own. The threat of death is far from authentic faith.
So you’re saying millions of Muslims don’t authentically believe? I’m disputing the “authenticity” qualification because I assure you they really do believe it.
First generation converts opportunistically - the English/French/Portuguese have rods shooting lighting and cannot be defeated on the field of battle (Subsaharan Africa 16th - 18th century), slaves of Allah get tax breaks and eligibility for government offices (Arab and Ottoman conquests 7th to 15th century) and so on, while the following generations forget the reasons behind the conversion and start really believing
