Ancient conspiracy to hide the Truth about Jesus Christ?

[joseph8th]

To our esteemed OP:

I made a joke a few years ago, on these very forums, that you can charactereize Christianity as the ultimate Jewish plot intended to undermine and destroy the pagan Roman Empire.

Seems to have worked, yes?

Gawd. I wish it'd work on astrology, too... pagan Roman social engineering, if ya axe me.

 

[Brainache]

To our esteemed OP:

I made a joke a few years ago, on these very forums, that you can charactereize Christianity as the ultimate Jewish plot intended to undermine and destroy the pagan Roman Empire.

Seems to have worked, yes?

No mushrooms required, unless you are ordering a Pizza Fungi

I think it was more like "Blowback" from Romans (or their Puppet Admins) trying to de-fuse the 1st century Jewish Messiah mania.

 

[Brainache]

Gawd. I wish it'd work on astrology, too... pagan Roman social engineering, if ya axe me.

I thought it was Babylonian.

 

[punshhh]

He is also known to be pretty Jolly. He can see into people's minds (knows who's naughty or nice) and spends most of his time off with the pixies...

This is not a reference to me I hope

 

[Brainache]

This is not a reference to me I hope

Only the bit about the Pixies...

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

To our esteemed OP:

I made a joke a few years ago, on these very forums, that you can charactereize Christianity as the ultimate Jewish plot intended to undermine and destroy the pagan Roman Empire.

Seems to have worked, yes?

Well, sorta.

The purpose of virtually all of those small Jewish sects at the time was to destroy the Roman Empire and end up with a world with them at the top. None of them really worked, because they were all the kind of pencils-up-the-nose underpants-on-head retarded plans that you get if you base real life plans on a fairy tale and the kind of intellect who'd find secret recipes for such a plan in a text that plainly says something else.

You know, the "oooh, god says you have to wash after touching the bed of a menstruating woman, therefore god likes clean people, therefore if we wash lots and lots and be squeaky clean, god will like us lots and will come and kick the Romans' ass for us" kind of retarded plan. It's not even a joke, they had literally dozens of "baptist" sects doing their best to enact that plan.

And others, of course, took the ever popular "maybe if we murdered everyone who doesn't believe in the EXACT same nonsense as us, or doesn't act EXACTLY like we want them to, then god will see we're really really devoted fanboys and come kick the Romans' ass for us" kinda plan.

Meanwhile abroad, out of the reach of the local theocracy, even more radical, proto-gnostic finding secret meanings in the Tanakh was happening. E.g., Philo inventing a whole second god, because a sentence in Genesis was in the third person in his hand-copied copy of a copy of a copy. And none of those worked either. There was no secret knowledge that would get the secret god to kick your enemies' ass for you.

Ironically enough, the sect that actually did have an impact on the Roman empire, really didn't seem to have that as its main goal.

Now don't get me wrong, a lot of these were slaves and underprivileged folks, and they would have liked nothing more than seeing Jesus come down and lay down the smack on the Roman Empire. And a lot even fantasized about it or had visions about it. See, Revelations.

But there is also evidence in the text that they took a lot of steps to distance themselves from those rebellious Jews. E.g., Joseph and his pregnant wife not only complying with a census (which the rest of the Jews had a serious religious problem with), but even with a ridiculous requirement to travel tens of miles across broken mountain terrain for it, is such a hint at being good Roman subjects.

It also had an impact because it dropped the whole rabid xenophobia that was the base of the others' hatred of the Romans. Paul from the start opened it to everyone.

So, anyway, ironically enough, the ones who had an impact were the ones who DIDN'T plot to bring down the Roman Empire.

 

[dafydd]

This is not a reference to me I hope

I hope the the grin means that you have given up your ideas about fairies in your foliage.

 

[sleepy_lioness]

In fact, if I were to digress into the Nicean Councils, I'd probably focus on the Arian controversy (after Arius of Alexandria, defending Athanasius) which would've became ortho Roman Xtianity if Constantine had his druthers. It wouldn't be hard to argue that Arianism, which continued as an influential "heresy" and wasn't stamped out until the 7th c., provided cover for the introduction of Hermeticism to the Pyrenees (cf, mea culpa "The Elixir & The Stone" by good ole Baigent & Leigh, which argues that alchemists manufactured and consumed recreational drugs). Or that this theory (whatever its merits) contributed to the resurfacing of Arianism in the 16th c. among Enlightenment types, including Isaac Newton.

Your whole approach to early Christian history comes under the heading "not even wrong". Just to take this bit: where do you get the idea that Constantine would have preferred the Arians to prevail? His surviving letters (given in sources such as the historians Eusebius and Socrates Scholasticus) show that he first attempted to mediate in the controversy by writing a joint letter to Arius and Arius's (then) chief adversary Bishop Alexander, basically knocking their heads together and telling them to stop this arcane theorising and get on with each other. When that failed, he called the Council of Nicaea and that Council, under his chairmanship, comprehensively anathematized Arius and his theology. He then wrote other letters, including to the church in Egypt, underlining his distaste for Arianism.

As for the rest of it: yes, Arianism resurfaces often in Christian history. It has been called 'the archetypal heresy' because it does so. It's basically the theory that Jesus Christ is subordinate to, rather than equal with, God the Father. Many Christians today probably hold this view, at least functionally. But they do so for very different reasons from Arius's. He was a Platonist and the Enlightenment thinkers were rational deists. Arianism, even at the time, was never a single coherent theology or set of teachings, though its enemies liked to pretend it was and tended to label everything they disliked as 'Arianism'. So the idea that there was some hermetic teaching under the name of Arianism that continued down the centuries is nonsense. The 'Arian' view of Christ is attractive because it's a simpler, and often more intellectually coherent and Scripturally-supportable way of making sense of the Trinity than the orthodox view, and it's a solution that many Christians have hit on throughout history. That doesn't mean they're all part of some vast conspiracy.