On This Day in History: May 20
The Council of Nicaea
Many consider the Bible to be the word of God. History indicates it’s the word of man. Several men. A group project. A bunch of dudes who got together in the early days of Christianity to decide what unifying beliefs they were gonna sell to the masses at mass.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 20, 325--
So many rulers across the ages end up having the affectation “the Great” added after their names. Constantine I was also “Constantine the Great.” The reigning Western Roman Emperor, he convened the Council of Nicaea on May 20, 325, to chat about God, man, and whether a certain man was also God.
Christianity had been around for a few centuries, and despite all the persecution it still managed to spread like a virus. The religion gained such a following that at a certain point it became politically expedient to say, “Fine. We’ll stop allegedly feeding you to lions.” That was Constantine’s doing in 313 with the Edict of Milan, giving Christianity legal status within the empire.
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A dozen years later shit got more serious. Constantine called together a few hundred bishops in pointy white hats to figure this Christianity stuff out, and they came up with the Nicene Creed. It’s heavy shit. Behold:
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light . . .” plus a bunch of other stuff about Holy Spirits and virgins and going zombie on the third day plus coming back another day to judge people.
So, yeah. Big day. I mean, the council lasted a few months. But May 20 was when it began.
Constantine, for his part, wasn’t even Christian. At least, not yet. Twelve years and two days later he died, but he knew death was imminent and asked to be baptised just beforehand. It’s believed he put it off to the very end because he had a metric shit-ton of sins he wanted to be absolved of.
A little more than half a century after the First Council of Nicaea, in 380, Christianity would be named the official state religion of the Roman Empire under Emperor Theodosius I.
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There's obvious tells that the Bible is the work of man, not a God.
Just look at the Ten Commandments.
Where are the obvious commandments that would be there if they were written by a loving, caring God?
Like:
"Thou shalt not enslave other people."
"Thou shalt not rape."
"Thou shalt not kill children of your enemies."
Why all the symbolism? It's so open to interpretation that it's simple to justify anything you want. If these books were from a deity, you'd think it would want to be crystal clear. Please don't start with the "discernment" crap, which is just self-serving post hoc rationalization.
God couldn't foresee that Humanity would go off the rails and prevent it to prevent all the suffering? Why not? That's no loving, caring God. That's an abuser.
Those would be society-shaking Commandments, but they aren't there. There are plenty more in both the Old and New Testaments. Funny how most of the Commandments just encourage the "justice" the tribal leaders were already using, isn't it?
Yeah, these guys were a bunch of misogynistic cretins. *gack*