Perhaps we forget that we’re in the middle of human history rather than at its end. That being said, we can only wonder how the religious landscape would appear two millennia from today. What would these religions preach that we find familiar? What strange, new developments may there be? Is there anybody left from the plethora of today’s faith traditions?
Within the history of religion, non-eastern religions aside, we went from polytheism to monotheism, to a monotheism of three, to becoming gods ourselves, hitching up with other gods, and together taking ownership of another planet.
. . . were one to deny the claim presented above, and that denial drew the accusation of atheism, it would follow that the accusation remains unsubstantiated. One cannot conclude that denying the Bible to be God’s word is to deny ipso facto God’s existence.
Not only does this “conversion” not distinguish the “righteous” from the “unrighteous”, but it also fails to distinguish the “righteous” from the mere beast.
An objection here may be that I’m expecting God not to administer justice to the wrongdoer. So be it. But I object to this deception that God’s love is unconditional as long conditions x, y, z are met.
There are billions of people who say one of these is true. That means there is a set of billions that is correct, and a set of billions that is wrong. Or maybe they’re just both wrong.
We have institutions. Supposedly, they are real because physical infrastructure is the outgrowth from these institutions . But the engine behind the physical, man-made realities we see is what lies in our collective conscious. Once the multitude holds an idea in common, it becomes an institution.
Nicaea was the first of the ecumenical church councils that would articulate more clearly over time the nature of the Trinity. This is important because it allowed Christianity to assert the divinity of Jesus while seemingly escaping accusations of polytheism.
“Oh, Lord! If only I was there! I would have offered you my cigarrillo! But maybe that cigarrillo would have given you pleasure, alleviating your pain, the only pain that could save the world from its sin! If you had found relief from that one cigarrillo, maybe even the smallest hit, even without inhaling, the world would have been lost! All for one puff!”
They have a pope, another papa … again. He calls himself Leo. That’s an interesting name for an American pope, but the choice shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, the last pope named Leo complained about “Americanism” to Cardinal Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore. Granted, Leo was critical of the ideals of the Age of…