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.
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.
If reading the Bible is a necessary means toward faithful discipleship, then Christians of the modern fundamentalist persuasion can only conclude that Hell is very likely full of most of their Christian ancestors since they were illiterate. Too bad they lived in the wrong century, right? This brings to mind Augustine of Hippo asserting that…