One of the main differences between man and other creatures (animals to be precise) is that man was created in God’s likeness. Man is the only creature created with ability for ‘’free will’’ and to distinguish between good and evil. Therefore it follows that God honoured us so much as to give us free will and thus participate in the process of determining our eventual destiny. The fact that God is aware of our destiny does not in itself eliminate our own role in determining our destiny. I f I may paraphrase / ask, is it your belief that God knows you will end up in Heaven since in any case you are going to make all the right choices and be righteous when living under the sun, or is he aware that you are going to choose the easy road (don’t care) and hence end up in hell? Which of these two is your choice?
I know you will ready this comment, but my knowledge of this doesn’t pre-determine you will read or not. You will make own conscious decision to log-on into Wazua and read.
Everything has been put in black and white please read your Bible.

'keep them occupied while we plunder them' - anonymous

Quite true. So I think we could say the version that has come down to us is the one written by the victors (Romans). This is the certainly the case with the Christian Bible, there is nothing divine its compilation, unless we say that the Emperor and the Bishops who congregated at Nice were divinely guided (they were certainly politically guided)



There have been many such groups opposing 'political Christianity', even before the break up of the Catholic church. This is how we have, for instance, the Jerusalem Bible and, further out, the Essenes and Agnostics and later the Protestants, all who practiced a faith markedly different from mainstream Christianity. Many of them paid with their lives as you point out.

But the French have a saying, 'plus ca change...' The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Think of the original issue behind this thread, the sale of miracles. The early Catholic Church used to sell 'miracles' too. They were called 'indulgences.' You paid the priest some money, he spoke to God and got your sins wiped off the slate. It was a lucrative racket when it lasted, even the Popes were in on it.



The Romans were an intellectually and religiously promiscuous people. Like the present Americans, they borrowed ideas from everywhere and made them their own. The only thing that the original Romans had going was superior military organization and sheer daring. Even their Engineering know-how was initially borrowed from the Etruscans, whom they absorbed. They didn't even have their own Gods, they borrowed them from the Greeks, who were their subjects.

It was thus no harder to borrow the 'one God worship idea from a backwater Province called Judea and expand it into a world dominating religious empire. I think you are right that the Roman Empire never ended.

But my conclusion here is: I think the Romans gift to the present world was a good one. They created a unifying narrative and attitude (the Judeo Christian work ethic) on which most scientific, political, social and economic organization has been based for much of the world since then.

We owe our current development to the Romans.

I want to use @Wakanyugi style of writing. To approach the subject in a soft way. I don't want some people thinking I'm attacking them.

I searched today and found out that the trinity idea was borrowed idea.

A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge records that many historians believe that the Trinity "is a corruption borrowed from the heathen religions, and ingrafted on the Christian faith."

Edward Gibbons's History of Christianity notes: "If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians . . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief."

Historian Will Durant observed: "Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it... From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity."

Siegfried Morenz, in the book 'Egyptian Religion' notes: "The trinity was a major preoccupation of Egyptian theologians... These gods are combined and treated as a single being, addressed in the singular. In this way the spiritual force of Egyptian religion shows a direct link with Christian theology."

James Hastings wrote in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics: "In Indian religion,
e.g., we meet with the trinitarian group of Brahma, Siva, and Visnu; and in Egyptian religion with the trinitarian group of Osiris, Isis, and Horus... Nor is it only in historical religions that we find God viewed as a Trinity.
One recalls in particular the Neo-Platonic views of the Supreme or Ultimate Reality. which is triadically represented."

The French New Universal Dictionary reveals both Plato's Greek Philosophical Influence upon Christianity and that of ancient pagan religions:
"The Platonic Trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian Churches... Thus Greek philosophers conception of the divine trinity... can be found in all the ancient pagan religions."

L.L. Paine records that the Trinity idea stems from Pagan Roots: "... among the more highly civilized Chaldaeans, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians, triads of gods were a common and notable feature of their theogonies."

H.P. Blavatsky in Isis Unveiled (pages 45,46), reveals that the Trinity Dogma originated from Babylon: "We find it northeast of the Indus; and tracing it to Asia Minor and Europe, recognize it among every people who had anything like an established religion. It was taught in the oldest Chaldaean, Egyptian, and Mithraitic schools. The Chaldaean Sun-god, Mithra, was called 'Triple,' and the trinitarian idea of the Chaldaeans was a doctrine of the Akkadians, who themselves belonged to a race which was the first to conceive a metaphysical trinity. According to Rawlinson, the Chaldaeans are a tribe of the Akkadians, who lived in Babylonia from the earliest of times."

NB: By Steve Ritchie

It's impossible to think without assumptions, and assumptions do help in 'objectivity'. At least, one has to be aware of what assumptions he/she is making.

A 'new born child' isn't taught how to cry, and it could even have learnt 'Mozart' while in the womb. It's said that John the Baptist and Jesus greeted each other while in the womb. The ovum is an information system.

What's being 'born again' if not 'unlearning' early lessons? Most traditions teach this as something with 'God's' support. So which or what authority are you talking about?

I'm currently doing reverse engineering on myself. Despite my early lessons. So?