A friend of mine recently said "I will forgive, but I will never forget."

It occured to me that if you never forget the transgression against you, have you really forgiven the person?

Just curious to what everyone thinks.  Let me know!!!

"Well, what does it matter, your going to hell anyway."

This was a direct quote I found out the other week that one of my christian friends said to my buddhist friend at my former work.  I was talking to my buddhist friend about God and Jesus when he let me know what was said to him there.  I was a little shocked and even disgusted when I found out what my friend said. 

And you know what the discussion was about: Whether or not Roman Catholics are Christians.  My Christian friend said they couldn't be and my buddhist friend said they could be (Hey, while we're at it, let's all say Baptists can't be Christians, United can't be Christians, Protestants can't be Christians, it's just stupid).  The conversation didn't bug me, it was how it ended.

Before I continue, I just want to say that my christian friend is a great person and I'm sure they would take it back if they could.  I also want to say that I am not trying to point fingers at anyone nor am I saying I am better than them.  The only person I should be comparing myself to is Jesus and I have fallen way short.

The header to this blog is a quote from Gandhi.  He said it at a time when he was having bad experiences with Christians.  I had also heard a quote, can't remember where, that said "the greatest cause for atheism is Christians."

It is our attitudes towards other people and other people's religions that turn them off.  Jesus wants us to show them respect and love.  We can't force anyone to believe in God.  They have to make that choice for themselves.  And telling people that they're going to hell isn't really a good thing to do since we don't have any say in it at all. 

Take care everyone.

"Light of light, very God of God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made."

Okay, I know I was going to write again on the Council of Nicaea but I'm going to write on Gnosticism instead.  Over the past week I've seen so many people quoting from the Gnostic bible as if it is credible or based on any sort of fact.  One person quoted the Gospel of Mary saying that it showed proof that Jesus and Mary were married.  I have a couple reactions when I hear someone guote the gnostic bible as fact.  In no particlar order they are laughter and dissapointment.  I will tell you why since I took the time to research what Gnosticism is all about.

The Gnostic bible contains about fifty books and you may have heard some of the names of them.  The Gospel of Mary, Thomas, Philip and Truth.  And there are people out there who prefer this bible over the one we are aquainted with.  They like what it says about God, Jesus, mankind and women.  The Gnostic bible gives people permission to make God into whoever we want him (or her) to be.  This bible accepts the feminine divine and personel esoteric knowledge.  At last we are free from such restricting doctrines such as the Virgin birth and the deity of Christ.  This new bible is broad enough to let us embrace our culture and lifestyle and let us pretty much believe what we want.  Whew!  Thanks God for that.  I know the bible was really beginning to cramp my lifestyle.  Good thing we have this one.

There is a growing perception that an alternate canon has been discoveredthat gives us a "different way of being Christian."  People argue that these so-called gnostic gospels give us a more reliable account of the life of Jesus and his teachings and is a better representation of early Christianity than the bible we grew up with.  The introduction to the gnostic bible says, "We  are presenting these texts as sacred books and sacred scriptures of the gnostics and, collectively, as sacred literature of the gnostics."  So, side by side with our bible we now have competing sacred texts.  Actually, not really.

The word gnostic comes from the greek word for "knowledge," or more precisely, it refers to the hidden knowledge only avaiable to the enlightened.  The gnostics believed they were privy to spiritual experiences that gave them an inside track on a religious interpretation of the world.  Their version of Christianity was, among other things, profeminine.  God is often described as adrogynous, both male and female.  Some of the writings speak of sexual rituals and others make convulated references to Jesus and his disciples.

Our bible, which has stood the test of time and the disciplines of history, science and archaeology, is it not fair that we critique the gnostic version with the same historical scrutiny?  That may be harder and easier to do than expected.  Harder because because the gnostic bible makes no references to cities, rivers, valleys and specific sequential events as does our traditional bible.  Easier because we know enough about the gnostics and their modus operandi to call their reliability into questions.  To put it mildly, there is no reason to accept the gnostic gospels as historically worthy; their value lies in telling us what the gnostics believed, even though their writings shed no new light on Jesus, Mary, or early Christianity.

I will write more shortly.  Take care everyone.

"Light of light, very God of God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made."

All right, it's been awhile since I've posted.  Just when I was starting to feel better, I get bronchitis.  That was two weeks ago and I still got it.  My brother-in-law (doctor in training actually) said it should take about 2 weeks to clear up, maybe a little more.  So I haven't been able to do too much.  I've gotten caught up on tv though.  I also thought that it would be time for the sequel to my first DaVinci code blog.

For people who are reading this for the first time, I've read the book, I even thought it was enjoyable.  What I didn't like was Dan Brown saying that this is all researched and is true (although I think he put that in there to make more $$$).  I even have friends believing what was in the novel.  So I decided to do some of this research for myself and find out the real truth.  It tested my faith, and my faith came out stronger because of it.

Emperor Constantine- The DaVinci Code says that it was he who invented the deity of Jesus Christ and it also says that he eliminated certain gospels to forward his political agenda.  Brown asserts that by declaring the deity of Christ, Constantine solidified his rule and earned the right to declare anyone who disagreed with him, heretics.  Dan Brown says this happened when the Council of Nicea met in 325 A.D.  Also, the novel states that Constantine rejected other gospels that were favorable to the divine feminine.  The book says that more than eighty gospels were considered for the new testament, yet, only a relative few were chosen, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John among them.  So, in other words, Constantine recognized a good deal when he saw it and called the council to ensure male power and further his political goals.  In the novel, Langdon states that ,"The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever."

All right, let's seperate fact from fiction.  Church Historians agree that next to the events in the New Tetament, the most important event in the history of Christianity is the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 A.D. (if you would like me to post the events which led up to his conversion, let me know).  In the fourth century, doctrinal disputes were tearing Constantine's empire apart.  For example, it was said that if you bought a loaf of bread in the marketplace of Constantinople, you might be asked whether you believe that God the Son was begotten or unbegotten or you might be told that the Father is greater and the Son less. 

Adding fuel to these disagreements was a man named Arius, who was gaining a wide following by teaching that Christ was not fully God by a created God of sorts.  He believed that Jesus was more than a man, less than a God.  Arius was a great communicator, and becase he put his doctrinal ideas into musical jingles, his ideas became widely accepted.  Many church bishops declared him a heretic, but disputes nonetheless continued.  Constantine called the first ecumenical council at Nicaea, hoping to depress dissent and unite Christianity. 

At the meeting, more than three hundred bishops attended and one of the things Constantine told his delegates that doctrinal disunity was worse than war.  Here are some of the things discussed, agreed upon and disagreed upon when the proceedings started:

- Arius was given an opportunity to defend his views but overwhelmingly, the council declared him a heretic.  The delegates recognized that if Christ was not fully God, then God was not the redeemer of mankind.  To say that Christ was created was to deny the clear teaching of scripture.  If God created all things, how could he create himself (see Colossians 1:16).

-affirming the divinity of Jesus, they then turned their attention to how he related to the Father.  Eusebius the historian presented his view claiming that Jesus had a nature that was similar to that of God the Father.  The theologian Athanasius (who was not invited to the actual proceedings), believed that to even say that Christ is similar to God the Father is to miss the full biblical teaching about Christ's divinity.  He argued that Christ could only be God in the fullest sense if his nature was the same as the Father was expressed by his representative, Marcellus, a bishop from Asia Minor.  The council agreed that the Son had the very same nature as the Father. (homoousion, greek for "one and the same).

-The council agreed and today we have the famous Nicene Creed.

Although there was a debate between similar and same at the council, the issue was very important.  Even if Christ, were the most noble creature of God's creation, God would only be indirectly involved in the salvation of man.  As Athanasius, an historian, said, "only if Christ is God, without qualification, has God entered humanity, and only then, have fellowship with God, the forgiveness of sins, the truth of God, and immortality been certainly brought to men."

I know the DaVinci code says that the doctrine of the deity of Christ passed with a relative close vote.  Let's see here, out of over three hundred bishops, only five protested.  Wow, thanks for getting your facts right Dan!  What a close vote.  That's all for now.  I will post more tomorrow.  Take care.

"Jesus, you are my Light of Light, very God of God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made."