>Why is that better, out of curiosity? And how did the Council of >Carthage not mix and mingle religions together to form Christianity? At the >very least, they selectively took elements of Judaism and >combined it with some of the teachings of the Apostles while rejecting >others, such as the Gnostic tradition.
Some may not agree, but I don't consider Judaism to be a separate religion. After all, Christ himself was a Jew. As for the Gnostics, most of them were rejected for good reason (for instance many of them didn't appear until centuries after their supposed authors were dead). I'll grant you some of them were chosen or not chosen for more editorial reasons, but it's still the best we have. >Personally, I favor a direct relationship between an individual and >whatever "higher powers" they commune with, so I find the notion of a >Church to be, at best, unhelpful and, at worst, very destructive >spiritually. Churches have a mixed record as a social institution. Absolutely a personal relationship is the most important thing, but a church serves an important role as a place to gather with those of like faith. You may question the importance of that but I've feel it's very important. >Still, I find it hard to believe that any modern religion has sprung >up fully formed. Human institutions change through time, borrowing >ideas, changing ideas and discarding ideas. That isn't necessarily a >good thing or a bad thing, it just is. I suppose I can support the >idea that you want your religious institution to be "more pure" but >shouldn't that purity be based on what you feel God wants rather than >tossing aside ideas because they were also used by other institutions? Actually that's exactly it. We feel that what God wants is in the Bible and the paganism that's seeped into the church over the centuries is not it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology-Michael-Dinowitz/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:322993 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
