Bible

**Midtowner** · 01-23-2006, 09:57 PM

Originally Posted by Luke

Why not? You obviously have assumptions about how God should work. So do I. My assumption is that God will pass His Word to us however he wants and He'll protect it (again, if He says it's God breathed). How it got to us doesn't seem to me the issue. That it got to us is.

Frame the issue any way you like, but if you think that you make a cursory study of early church and early Biblical history and can then conclude that something called the "New International Version" or whatever is "god breathed," then you are subscribing to mythology and magic. It's okay to believe in miracles, magic, etc. just as long as you're honest in stating that you do.

**Luke** · 01-23-2006, 10:40 PM

The Council of Nicea is commonly referred to when talking about how the Bible got to us today. This article sheds some light on the misconceptions and assumptions associated with that Council. This is a research article by an orthodox Christian organization called the Christian Research Institute.

http://www.equip.org/free/DN206.htm

Also, Midtowner, have you ever read "Mere Christianity"? I'll bet you'd get a kick out of it. You sound like a reasonable fellow. C.S. Lewis was, too. His book really opened my eyes to the actual reality of Christianity as opposed to this "just-take-it-on-faith" idea. Absolutely, it requires faith (just as ANY worldview does). But, C.S. Lewis sure does a good job making a powerful argument from a purely natural perspective.

**Midtowner** · 01-24-2006, 07:11 AM

Luke, I'm well aware of all of that. Are you aware of the punishments afforded to heretics by the Church over the next few years? Those who didn't adopt the majority view were murdered. That's not exactly how a loving God spreads the faith. You had what was essentially a religious 'cold war' followed by a slow strangling of the loser. Was there divine intervention? I honestly hope not.

The Unitarians of today bear a lot of resemblance to the Arian church, so they have been reborn in a sense.

And no, I make plans to read such things, but these pesky law books take precedent (no pun intended).