Jesus and his sacrifice is Satan’s test of man’s morality.

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OXFORD DICTIONARY OF WORLD RELIGIONS
p.226
Clement of Rome, St. Traditional third *bishop of Rome, perhaps to be connected with the fellow worker of *Paul (Philippians 4.3). A letter from the Roman church to that of Corinth is ascribed to him and is known as 1 Clement. The letter, a somewhat pompous appeal for peace in the church of Corinth, shows the beginning of Roman claims to authority over the churches.

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Just partial quotes from articles mind you.

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Marcion.
...rejected the Old Testament, and from the New Testament admitted to his cannon only the letters of Paul and an edited version of the gospel of Luke. His orthodox opponents reckoned him among the *gnostics, but his system lacks typical gnostic mythology. Marcion was sympathetically studied by A. von *Harnack who saw him as a kind of ancient *Protestant.

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Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
1997
p.647-648
Mithra. God worshipped in four different religions: ...and in the Roman Mithraic mysteries *Mithras). Why this Zoroastrianized Indo-Iranian deity was the focus of a cult in the enemy empire of Rome remains something of a historical puzzle. The first evidence for the cult comes from the end of the 1st cent. CE. ...The cult explicitly claimed to have been founded by *Zoroaster and cecame known as the Persian mysteries. ...The main cult relief (tauroctony) depicted Mithras slaying the bull, a scene thought to have soteriological significance, understood at least in part in astrological terms. Other scenes depicted Mithras and Sol banqueting in what was probably the mythic prototype of the community ritual meals of bread and wine. The death of the bull and the ritual meal were both depicted taking place in a cave, for the universe was thought of as a cosmic cave, and the temple structures were commonly made cave-like to emphasize the cosmological significance of the acts within. Side scenes in the temple showed the birth of Mithras from a rock (he was known as Mithras Petrogenes). Some older popular books state that the cult included the rite of the taurobolium in which an initiate descended into a pit over which a bull was slain and in whose blood the initiate bathed. This could not have been practiced in Mithraism, because virtually all known temples were too small for a bull to enter. The death of the bull, therefore, appears to have been thought of as a unique inimitable act of the god himself, who is described in one inscription as having saved the initiates by the shedding of eternal blood. ...interesting both in its own right and as a mystery cult whose growth, and some of whose ideas, paralleled emerging Christianity.

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It seems that the religion might reflect a movement away from animal sacrifices that Zoroaster noticeably disliked. A parallel to Christianity for sure.This Oxford dictionary seems conservative in its dates of Mark.

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ibid.
p.618
Mark, St. ...There is no reason to discount the traditions linking the gospel with Rome. A date in the 60s is most likely.

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The bull slaying scene does slightly predate the life of Jesus and Mark though. Ill look into it.

Hi, Faith.I wrote a reply a couple days ago, but I guess I failed to submit it. The basic premise of the distinction is that if "God told me to do it" is a legitimate motive for killing someone, it opens a lot of doors for a lot of corrupt people to justify a lot of senseless killings with spurious claims to divine appointment. God seems fully capable of precise, surgical killings without the collateral damage and ambiguity about ulterior motives that inevitably follow killings carried out by the hands of mortal men, so it seems curious to me that He sometimes prefers to use the messier, bloodier way. The Bible clearly has been manipulated to legitimize the actions of malicious parties. You yourself believe that the Catholic Church appropriated and molested biblical authority to justify a large number of heinous crimes throughout the centuries. They believed they had a divine "license to kill," and the reason they believed that was because the Bible is filled with rhetoric about divinely-sanctioned killings.

I answered this many times over by now, Blue Jay, and I don't want to spend much time on it now. [Msg=369] is probably the most complete answer I gave. In relation to the Bible this is absolute screaming nonsense. The number of deranged people who would read the Old Testament as such a license must be so minuscule as to be nonexistent. The OT accounts of God's commandments to kill a particular tribe of people are HISTORICAL accounts, nothing that could be rightly taken as a commandment to the reader; the context was always God's JUDGMENT of that people, the causes of which are given in the scripture. Also such events stopped, I don't know what date to give that but not long after the time of David I'd guess; not that wars didn't still occur, but the commandments people are complaining about here weren't part of them as I recall. I could be wrong about the dating though. Still, we're talking about ANCIENT history LONG SINCE over and done with.ALSO, clearly scripture does not have the people claiming "God told me to do it," Scripture itself quotes GOD HIMSELF giving the command. If you don't believe that scripture was inspired by God you'll impute it to the people, but believers impute it to God. Please don't give the obvious answer that comes to your mind. I don't know the reason for this though I suggested one earlier. Perhaps kbertsche does. But I don't care either because to me the Bible is God's word and if there is a reason I need to know I'll eventually know it. This is basically what I just said above. I refer you back to my [Msg=369] again. Prove that the RCC used the BIBLE to justify their murders. That's a false claim. They didn't even use the Bible in the churches in those days, they made up their own rules. The RCC is not a Bible-based religion, it's pure paganism and superstition with a little Bible thrown in here and there.ABE: ALSO, IT WAS THE BIBLE-BELIEVERS OR PROTESTANTS WHO WERE KILLED BY THE RCC IN THE GREATEST NUMBERS FOR THAT VERY CRIME OF BELIEVING THE BIBLE, AND OF HAVING IT IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGES. /abeIt's hard to take the things people have said against me in this thread for believing that the Bible is God-inspired. I think this needs to be my last post on this subject.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh, one last post: You seem to have missed that I was sarcastically talking about the beheadings of CHRISTIANS, which I see as the likely ultimate result of the kind of thinking you are doing. Whether you personally want to behead me or not, your words could certainly inspire others to do the job. You'd be sorry at that outcome I suppose, but read your own words. They're pretty incendiary.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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ALSO, clearly scripture does not have the people claiming "God told me to do it," Scripture itself quotes GOD HIMSELF giving the command. If you don't believe that scripture was inspired by God you'll impute it to the people, but believers impute it to God

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Most believers (especially before the time of Constantine) rejected the Old Testament.It was (for the most part)only the Roman Catholics (and those they influenced) that held the Old Testament in esteem.The issue is that most "Christian" people today follow the Catholics (with a high opinion of the Old Testament being God-inspired), but that wasn't true in the early centuries.

IIRC, according to the New Testament Jesus held the Old Testament in high regard and in fact used it and quoted from it to explain and justify his assertions.

Yawn.Come on Faith, the only way that could happen in the US is if the nightmare of a US Christian Nation happened to become true. The only reason to fear that in the US is if those YOU consider Christian actually gained power and authority.

Well, we used to have it so I don't know what point you think are making. You seem to be missing mine though. The probability of anti-Christian violence happening soon isn't the point, the point is that the accusatory rhetoric is the sort of propaganda that could provoke something if circumstances warranted it. The condemnatory vilifying language is quite severe, just read it. It took decades for the anti-Jewish rhetoric to issue in the Holocaust. Such incendiary rhetoric in fact is far more likely to provoke anti-Christian repercussions than anything that's been quoted here from the Bible would provoke violence against anybody. But as I said, I personally will probably not be around for any such consequences.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That is so absurd I can't even imagine where you got such an idea. Throughout Jesus' ministry and for some years afterward before the New Testament gospels and letters were all written and circulated among the churches, all they had was the "Old Testament." It was those writings that are referred to in the NT as the scriptures. When Jesus quotes from the scripture He's quoting from the Old Testament; when Paul taught in the synagogues from the scriptures he taught from the Old Testament. It took a while for the New Testament documents to accumulate but meanwhile the Old Testament WAS the Bible for the believers in Christ. As He Himself told the disciples on the road to Emmaus, all the scriptures (the Old Testament) testify of Him. May I ask what denomination or church or religious organization you belong to? Where are you getting these absolutely absurd ideas?

But Faith, so far there has been no anti-Christian rhetoric posted.

I worded that poorly but Manicheans, Gnostics, and Marcionits outnumbers Catholics.

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Early Christian History / Controversies: Donatism
the last decade of the 3rd century CE, Emperor Diocletian ordered persecutions of various groups he blamed for a wave of plagues and pestilences which had swept the western Empire and resulted in economic and social instability. The chief target-groups ended up being (initially) Manicheans, and then Christians

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I have noticed as far back as 2000 that Catholics were outnumbered by other Christians, and that the pre-Constantine persecutions were mostly made up. Finally leading historian has shown us amazing things (that I never even could have imagined)

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The Myth of Persecution
by Candida Moss
p.256
I’ve argued that the view of the church as continually and unrelentingly persecuted throughout history is a myth, a myth that was solidified after the conversion of the Emperor Constantine for the purposes of retelling the history of Christianity, supporting the authority of bishops, financing religious buildings, and marginalizing the view of heretics.

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Moss also examines surviving Roman records. She notes that during the only concerted anti-Christian Roman campaign, under the emperor Diocletian between 303 and 306, Christians were expelled from public offices. Their churches, such as the one in Nicomedia, across the street from the imperial palace, were destroyed. Yet, as Moss points out, if the Christians were holding high offices in the first place and had built their church in the emperor’s own front yard, they could hardly have been in hiding away in catacombs before Diocletian issued his edicts against them.

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"The Myth of Persecution": Early Christians weren't persecuted | Salon.com

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I wish I had access to my zip drive (computer issues), as I had a good (long) journal article by a scholar named Hoffman who showed that Marcionites were much more numerous than thought (and this scholar is considered on par with Adolf von Harnack, one of his Marcion works was referenced by my Oxford Dictionary quoted above - infact he was the only one, aside from Harnack, referenced. I can't find much from him on the net. I was disappointed to see that he has some website promoting atheism lol )Here is the Amazon blurb of Moss' book

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In The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors.

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According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today.

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Moss, however, exposes that the "Age of Martyrs" is a fictionthere was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches.

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The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians wereand always will bepersecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.

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I wonder if the book covers the Manicheans who suffered a lot (after Constantine and the 380 outlawing)Here is a quote from a fundamentalist below.

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The Little Church Has Grown ( 2006 )
by
Daniel Barwell
pp.213-214
Yet for several hundred years the Manicheans gained ground faster than Christianity as they moved into western culture. This fact is almost totally obscure in Christianity today as most theologians have never even heard of the Manicheans

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The Little Church Has Grown - Daniel Barwell - Google Books

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This quote is interesting. False though

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Catholic Encyclopedia
1910
In A.D. 1000 the Arab historian Al-Beruni wrote: "The majority of the Eastern Turks, the inhabitants of China and Tibet, and a number in India belong to the religion of Mani". CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Manichaeism

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People are starting to get some alternative views on the diversity of early Christianity.

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Writings of opponents Until the middle of the twentieth century our knowledge of Gnostic Christianity came primarily from its opponents, various Proto-Orthodox Christian writers such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius. These authors regarded Gnostics as "heretics" and summarized their views in order to refute them. From the amount of attention that these writers gave to the matter, it is clear that Gnostic Christianity was widespread in the early Christian centuries. Some scholars have argued that the Gnostic Christians outnumbered the Proto-Orthodox Christians in some areas. This state of affairs began to change when Constantine became emperor. Constantine and other emperors after him made Christianity the religion of the state and sought to unify it as a means of unifying the empire. In 38 1 the emperor Theodosius I recognized the Proto-Orthodox tradition as normative Christianity and outlawed all other perspectives, including that of Gnostic Christianity. After that time, Gnostic Christianity faded from the scene in the Roman Empire. To the east of the empire, Gnostic ideas have survived down to the present in the religion of the Mandaeans in Iraq and Iran.
http://www.cambridge.org/...res/0521007208/qanda/qanda_8.htm

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Manicheans outnumbered Catholics in the early 4th century IMO.

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Manichaeism | Definition, Beliefs, History, & Facts | Britannica
The Manichaean Church from the beginning was dedicated to vigorous missionary activity in an attempt to convert the world. Mani encouraged the translation of his writings into other languages and organized an extensive mission program. Manichaeism rapidly spread west into the Roman Empire. From Egypt it moved across northern Africa (where the young Augustine temporarily became a convert) and reached Rome in the early 4th century. The 4th century marked the height of Manichaean expansion in the West, with churches established in southern Gaul and Spain. Vigorously attacked by both the Christian Church and the Roman state, it disappeared almost entirely from Western Europe by the end of the 5th century, and, during the course of the 6th century, from the eastern portion of the Empire.

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During the lifetime of Mani, Manichaeism spread to the eastern provinces of the Persian Ssnian Empire. Within Persia itself, the Manichaean community maintained itself in spite of severe persecutions, until Muslim ʿAbbsid persecution in the 10th century forced the transfer of the seat of the Manichaean leader to Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan).

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The religion’s expansion to the East had already begun in the 7th century with the reopening of caravan routes there after China’s conquest of East Turkistan. A Manichaean missionary reached the Chinese court in 694, and in 732 an edict gave the religion freedom of worship in China. When East Turkistan was conquered in the 8th century by the Uighur Turks, one of their leaders adopted Manichaeism and it remained the state religion of the Uighur kingdom until its overthrow in 840. Manichaeism itself probably survived in East Turkistan until the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. In China it was forbidden in 843, but, although persecuted, it continued there at least until the 14th century.

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Christian Gnosticism
Gnosticism can be viewed as one of the three main branches of early Christianity. The others are Jewish Christianity, which was practiced by the disciples of Jesus; and Pauline Christianity, which rejected Jewish traditions. German biblical historian Adolf von Harnack said that while Paul's teachings represented the hellenization of the original Jewish Christianity, gnosticism represented its "extreme hellenization."[1]

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....
Manichaeism was a distinct gnostic religion that originated in third century Babylon, a province of Persia at the time, eventually reached from North Africa to China. Named after its prophet, Mani, its teachings moved west into Syria, Northern Arabia, Egypt and North Africa, where the future Saint Augustine was a member from 373-382. From Syria it progressed into Palestine, Asia Minor, and Armenia. There is evidence for Manicheans in Rome and Dalmatia in the fourth century, and also in Gaul and Spain. Many of the members of earlier Christian gnostic sects may have drifted into the orbit of Manichaeism. It possessed an organized clergy, liturgies, scriptures, and monasteries.
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Manichaeism was attacked by imperial edicts, church councils, and polemical writings by critics such as Augustine, but the religion remained strong in the western Roman Empire until the sixth century. In Islamic lands, which normally tolerated both Christianity and Judaism, it was repressed as a form of paganism. In the early years of the Arab conquest, however, Manichaeism found followers in Persia and flourished especially in Central Asia. There, in 762, Manichaeism became the state religion of the Uigar Empire.
Gnosticism - New World Encyclopedia

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The beginning of Manichean missionary activities. Hardly any other religion has undertaken its missionary activities with a view to winning the world for the truth of its faith in a better designed and more systematic way than the Manichean church. According to its hagiographical tradition, as attested in the CMC (pp. 17-19, 73; ed. Koenen and Rmer, pp. 10-13, 50-51; Cameron and Dewey, pp. 18-21, 56-57) and in Ebn al-Nadim’s Fehrest (ed. Flgel, pp. 50.15-51.7, 84; tr. Dodge, p. 775), the missionary work is based on a command given to Mani by his Sysygos (spiritual Twin) when he had completed his 24th year of life. According to the CMC, the command was: You have not only been sent to this religion [of the Baptists], but to every people, every school, every town and place; for [by you this] hope will be explained and proclaimed in all [zones] and regions [of the world]. [Men] in great numbers will accept your word. So step forth and walk about; for I shall be with you as your helper and protector at every place where you are proclaiming all that has been revealed to you. So do not worry and do not be distressed (CMC, pp. 104-05; ed. Koenen and Rmer, pp. 74-75). Therefore, the worldwide mission is inseparably tied with the separation of Mani and his followers from their paternal, Elkhasaite community and with the foundation of the Manichean church. What really happened is that Mani himself came to be the first missionary of his community.

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Encyclopaedia Iranica-

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MANICHEISM i. GENERAL SURVEY — Encyclopaedia Iranica

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Endless links on Manichean issues in this site.http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/author_mani.htmThe Alawaites of Syria are an avatar, reincarnation religion (Shi'ites have a "Light of Muhammad" concept which some call the Muslim "Holy spirit" and many Shi'ite sects across the world are avatar religions) and it is interesting that they outnumber Christians (numbers from before the ISIS-caused migrations, they were outnumbered).

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Syria's Alawites are secretive, unorthodox sect

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Sunnis Muslims make up 74 percent of Syria's 22 million population, Alawites 12 percent, Christians 10 percent and Druze 3 percent
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The Alawite religion is often called "an offshoot of Shi'ism," Islam's largest minority sect, but that is something like referring to Christianity as "an offshoot of Judaism."
But several beliefs differ sharply from traditional Islam. Named after Ali, Alawites believe he was divine, one of many manifestations of God in a line with Adam, Jesus, Mohammad, Socrates, Plato and some pre-Islamic sages from ancient Persia.

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To orthodox Muslims, this eclectic synthesis of Christian, Gnostic, Neoplatonic and Zoroastrian thought violates Islam's key tenet that "there is no God but God."

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Syria's Alawites are secretive, unorthodox sect | Reuters

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I find it so interesting that a Manichean offshoot outnumbers Christians in Syria! Should give us a clue about the past.Here is a long New York Times article on the avatar religion in the middle east. Full of academic references and quotes.Syria's Ruling Alawite Sect - The New York TimesEDIT I just noticed the Druze are mentioned. They are a reincarnation religion too. Not what I was talking about though.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

I guess you are following Catholic bogus history in constructing yet another bogus history. The fact is that there were NO Catholics before Constantine. The Roman Church didn't get established until a couple of centuries after Constantine. And all those gnostic type heretics were dealt with by the early church and didn't outnumber Christian believers. What ARE you talking about? What are you talking about? When? There was no Roman Catholic Church before Constantine, and the Catholics are outnumbered by nobody today, except barely by Islam, not by any Christians. The RCC that claims it WAS the Christian church wouldn't make such a distinction, they just think ALL Christians R them. All those persecutions by the Caesars that drove the Christians into the catacombs, that included Christians being thrown to the lions in the arena, that included Nero's burning them as torches for his garden, were made up?You mean that quote by Candida Moss? Here's one unfavorable review of her book, and you can find others if you google her. Oh well, I guess you're ready to believe any oddball who comes down the pike claiming to see history better than anybody else.ABE: I realize rather late that you have a habit of exaggerating things. Moss' book according to the link I gave was not anywhere near as provocative as the titles suggest, or that you suggest. Apparently she pointed out facts that should be well known anyway, such as that the persecutions were not continuous. But nobody has ever disputed that. It's factually true as stated. In the end the book sounds like it didn't contribute much if anything new to the study of the early persecutions, didn't overturn the previously held views, just seems to have been designed to sound like it does. What you say above, "... that the pre-Constantine persecutions were mostly made up" is nothing her book proved or even tried to prove, just your own imagination. [/abe]After scanning the rest of your post I'm abandoning mine. Yours is all about silly rewrites of history to no purpose. The Catholic Church did enough damage to the history of the church in order to pretend they were the original church, we don't need more bogus history to confuse things.I recommend the History of Romanism by John Dowling, and the History of Protestantism by J A Wylie. Both are online.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You posted a link from a person who said that Constantine should come back from the grave and sue Dan Brown for defamation of character.Dan Brown actually didn't say a whisper about all the murderous things Constantine did (he had his own son killed and then his wife), so far as I know.Maier said about Constantine, "He couldn't do enough for the church."The worst turning point in Christian history is something Maier thinks was wonderful.I don't have a problem with modern Catholics btw. The Catholic church finally allowed the Pastoral Epistles to be critically examined, in 1943, by the Vatican's academic wing (the Pontifica Biblical Institute), and Catholics have been peaceful for a good while.I object to the early Catholics for forgeries (100 AD) and then killing off everybody and everything once they got governmental power (after 300 AD).Just remember Faith.The only Church Council that Catholics reject is the 50 A.D. Apostolic Council of Acts 15.Catholics brought the Council of Nicaea of 325You can tell who follows the (old)Catholics by looking at the Council's they value. (hint that website obsesses over "heretics" like Jehovah Witnesses)Paul Maier has made it clear that the Roman Empire had a leader that "couldn't do enough for the church" while excluding 99% of Christians as not "the church" (I suppose). Yes, "all those gnostic type heretics were dealt with by the early church and didn't outnumber Christian believers" indeed.Interesting that the Alawites outnumber Christians in Syria.Manicheans would outnumber "Christians" in Italy if they would have been "dealt with" peacefully instead of by the sword.That would be true in any century.4th5th6th7th8thChristianity has been spread with the sword.

NO idea what you are talking about. Paul Maier was the author of the review of Moss' book. Where did he say anything about Dan Brown and Constantine? Please provide quotes and links if necessary. You write so disconnectedly I can't follow you. You write gobbledegook. That website is Christian Research Institute, it's not run by Paul Maier. They merely included his article about Moss. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.