Christianity's Intolerable Past

By: Hera Tihk
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:24:37
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In 324 AD. The Roman Emperor Constantine held a council, which we know as The Nicene Council. The Council's purpose was to compile the religious works of the day into a large compilation of religious texts, which we now call The Holy Bible. The Holy Bible was originally, at its inception, much different than the current version that most Christians of the world use today. The original material held other Gospels that were not included in the Bible at the Nicene Council, some of these Gospels include; Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, and Gospel of Philip. Of those Gospels, The Gospel of Thomas, was left out, because although it had many of the same things in it attributed to Jesus, it differed on some basic structures, so the things where similar to that which was written in the four accepted Gospels. It seems from the cantons left out of the Bible, the common theme was they often offered a slightly or sometime largely different ideals versus that of what the four accepted Gospels. Its interesting to note that the only known full copy of The Gospel of Thomas was found at the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt.

After the Council of Nicene decided on which religious texts they would use and which ones they would not, Emperor Constantine then set up the Catholic Church in order to make the new Religion the official religion of the Empire. Thus the Church and The Emperor, armed with the Bible, proceeded in converting the Empire to Christianity. The majority of the Roman Empire refused to follow, some of the Roman subjects included the Jewish people, and one could understand why the Jewish would refuse this religion. Many others in the Roman Empire refuse, as most of the empire (excluding the Jews) were poly-theists, that is they believed in many Gods not one. In fact they believed that Ceasar himself was a decedent of the gods. Up until the Emperor Constantine, the Romans flat out rejected Christianity, and even persecuted the early Christians, for they believed so strongly in their current religions of poly-theism, that the Emperor Constantine actually had to enforce it with deadly force, killing many thousands of Romans who refused. Poly-theism had worked out well (in the past) for the Romans, for it allowed their subjects to retain much of their religious ideals after they were conquered by the Romans, thus allowing the Romans to assimilate their new subjects into their Empire. This worked for the most part, but the Jewish people actually revolted on the Romans, because the Romans were trying to incorporate the Jewish religion into the Roman poly-theism, but the Jews refused, which ultimately lead to the Romans burning down the Great Jewish Temple, in a effort to destroy the Jewish peoples faith.

So it would seem that from the time well before Jesus, until the 4th century, the Romans believed in many gods, and the things that changed that were; The compilation of religious texts into the Bible, the creation of the Roman Catholic Church, or the official act of making Christianity the Religion of the Romans, and Emperor Constantine's use of force to persuade the Roman Empire to convert to Christianity. What the Emperor was asking of his subjects was the same as asking a Christian to convert to Greek Mythology, which one could imagine just would not be acceptable to the Christian. This path that the Emperor set The Church down, continued, and eventually the Roman Catholic Church was the ruler of the land. We call this period of time, "The Dark Ages" for a reason, mostly because the Roman Catholic Church continued on the path Constantine laid for them, which took force to change peoples ideals. If your ideals differed from the Church, the Church would convert you, or you died. The Crusades and the Inquisitions are a prime example of what the Church was willing to do to enforce or to convert you to their ideals.

Now imagine that one Institution had the rule over the majority of the world. What would that Institution be able to do? It is commonly known that in past conflicts through out history, the history as recorded by the victors of the contest are not always as the events actually happen. Now imagine that this institution ruled for over One Thousand years? What do you think the institution could do with history, if it could actually control what was recorded as history for over 1000 years? It would be easy to imagine that one institution could make up what ever history it wanted, and make people believe it. The Roman Catholic Church is such an institution, and has used its influence, to mold history, in some of the most horrible ways man has ever seen.

Once one is aware, that Christianity is built upon a foundation, not the foundation of love and compassion that the Bible teaches, but one of torture and intolerance, then one has to call into question why torture and intolerance was needed for the Church to exert its control. I contend that reason is simply cause the idea was flawed, and people of the time knew it, from the everyday layman, to the scribes who compiled the Bible in the first place, to the Emperor and Priests of the Church. They all knew it was flawed, and this made the Roman Catholic Church use force to convert people. This practice of forcibly pushing the Church's ideas on people continued from the inception of the religion and reached its height of practice during the Inquisitions.

I understand the problem this raises for most Christians. It sounds real bad, even like I am tearing your religion apart, but I am not. I am merely trying to point out, that the Roman Catholic Church, and the Bible, are only narrow, and terribly skewed interpretations of a vast amount of religious texts, some taken nearly in whole, and some changed in order to fit into an idea, the idea of Jesus. This idea is the personification of the Ideas from all of the religious texts that were considered for, or included in, the Bible. The fact that the Holy Bible consists of not just one all encompassing book, but of two different books each of which in themselves are a compilation of religious ideals and morals, The Old Testament and the New Testament. The idea that the Christian religion borrowed from other earlier religions is supported in the fact that the Jewish Torah is included as the Christians Old Testament. I would imagine the inclusion of the Jewish Torah was an attempt at adding history to the Christian movement, thus giving an illusion of validity. Its not the whole part of the Religious equation, its only a narrow part of the whole idea, changed by some, to try to fit it in with what was the popular religious ideals of the time.

The understanding of what the history of Christianity is, at least from the point of the compilation of the Bible in 324 AD. to the present, should give you the idea that there is something flawed with an idea that takes so much violence to convince people its God's will. You should also realize now the origins of the Bible, and that there was many other religious text not included in the Bible that tells similar stories, but some ideas are different, some subtle, some not so subtle. I urge you to go and look at the books that were not included in the Bible, as well as religions other than Judaism or Christianity, find their similarities and their differences, because only then can you start to understand where you and your religion came from. Only then can you have the knowledge to make a decision for yourself, and not because someone told you to believe and not because it is what everyone else believes, but because its what you choose. Its the knowledge of where the religions of the world come from, and why we choose to believe what we do, which will help Mankind have more tolerance for other peoples religious ideals. Only then will the insane practice of killing in the name of God end.

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