I did say Western artists meekon!

I did say Western artists meekon!

The Cult of the Black Madonna is a western European cult, not an African one.

i think you can safely say christianity has lasted this long due to its ability to blend ideas and imagery from other older religions into its make-up. there was an interesting programme on BBC a couple of days ago looking for Satan.

You can also say that if after 2000 years we are still talking about JCD there is probably a reason, beyond Catholicism and other points of view or sects. Imdo.

Yes quiet simply the Roman Empire, the byzantine version by then, or those who ran it, realised they were loosing their grip on their empire, so latched onto the one thing that could help them keep control, religion.

Picking one of the newer ones (an obscure jewish cult that seemed to be becoming very popular, called christianity), so no one could argue how it should or should not be run.

They then systematically destroyed any other version of the faith that contradicted their point of view (see previous posts on the arian church, the coptic church and a number of others that Rome was central in silencing).

Then managed to convince a number of other major groups that the reason they won battles was because they had a god on their side (and not about a thousand years of a professional and trained army forged and honed on expansionist wars during that time).

Having consolidated and eliminated any opposition went on to run western europe for almost two thousand years more.

It is not without irony that the Popes palace sits on the same ground that Nero's palace sat, and where he had the christians burnt and crucified for his own entertainment after he blamed them for his own slum clearance policy when he burnt large areas of Rome to build his new palaces.

And from that position rammed the "teachings" of the guy down everyones throat for the last two thousand years.

In the absence of anything else what do you expect.

IMDO of course.

....but you should also have added the cult of Mitra, whatever is called in English...

Are we talking Mithras? as in Jesus as a Reincarnation of Mithra?

all Pagan's holy days transformed into Catholic ones, etc. etc.

With you there. One of the major arguments against Jeebus being born on xmas is because it's in the middle of the rites to saturn (the saturnalia) which was a very important holiday to the romans, so they would not have set a census on that day.

Probably it's a feature of monotheistic religions.

See I personally blame Akhenaten for inventing monotheism, then teaching it to the jews. (Possibly the subject of a PhD at some point don't ask me to try and argue the full extent of that one yet).

JCD has an history of 2000 years, the Roman Catholic Church is much younger and changed throughout the years. If I remember well priests could marry until late Middle Age, when hereditary issues came to light. Well, this is another story.

Most modern christian churches have their roots in catholasism.

Not that they didn't used JCD for their own interests, they did and they do.

Can't disagree mate, with you on that one completely.

Whats the quote 90% of the wars are fought over 10% of the differences.

All of this discussion is moot until the participants realize that Christianity is a regurgitation of previously written - ancient - texts. Same stories, different names. It's all mythological. There is no historical evidence of Jesus. Period. Now, what mankind makes out of mythology is interesting, but only from an anthropological standpoint, certainly not from a historical point of view.

Dudes, you should dudely take into account the Gospel of Thomas which dates back to the first century, more or less. Sorry, I can't read Aramaic so I have to take what they say for good.

Also, if Hominid dude is correct how can we call those good hearted people who instead of going down the trail of the so called Christianity just stick to the two commandments of JCD? The golden rule, which is and older concept, and the idea that there is just one God? Which is a similar concept to the one of the blinds touching the elephant?

Old Christians, real Christians, whathaveyou?