[ElProximo]

Originally Posted by Shasown

Get your facts right, the winners decide history in wars and religion, thats why so called heretical gospels were suppressed and the followers were in some cases annihilated.

But you just made that up.
Based on nothing.
You actually just wrote some baseless fantasy and said it like it was 'fact'.

There is every reason to believe gnosticism was a big problem in the early church and so too was 'legalism' (or we say 'Galatianism' too),
but,
No.
No, there is no story of gnostics getting defeated in some war with the orthodox christians,
and,
further more there is no reason to believe the 'winners' then erased the history of the other.

Here let me remind you again - THE REASON YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT SOME GNOSTICS AND OPPOSING GROUPS IS BECAUSE THE CHRISTIANS RECORDED THIS FOR US.
So in your fake story you made-up it asks us to believe they first suppressed their history but then all the early church fathers RECORDED AND PRESERVED THEIR ACCOUNTS, CRITICISMS AND DOCTRINES.
Stupid.

I mean if you are going to make up fake stories out of thin air then at least try and make them non-stupid like that one.

"Before 325 AD, the "heretical" nature of some beliefs was a matter of much debate within the churches. After 325 AD, some opinion was formulated as dogma through the canons promulgated by the councils.

But that is NOT what happens at Nicea.
In fact - the most 'telling' thing about Nicea is that Bishops begin the discussion like everyone ALREADY well understood all the basics and even most everything else.
The whole thing starts out in SO MUCH AGREEMENT that there is VERY LITTLE discussion about ANY of the Christian doctrines.

This is THE 'smoking gun' evidence that Christianity and its doctrines are ALREADY well established.
That they did not even feel the need to bring them up and carried on discussions as if already understood.

Each phrase in the Nicene Creed, which was hammered out at the Council of Nicaea, addresses some aspect that had been under passionate discussion and closes the books on the argument,

No, that is not true at all.
There was no passionate discussions about 'each line' and what is the most telling is that there WAS NOT any passionate debates about these things.

The only 'passionate debate' was over a couple of dudes who were NOT debating whether or not Christ was Divine but over just what exactly 'essence of God' should mean.

So out of 1800 bishops, you have 318 or thereabouts who actually attended Nicaea. Hardly every belief represented. And if you didnt follow the Church of Rome's line, you were a heretic.

Uhh... well they were not representatives of 'different beliefs' but were bishops and leaders of Christian churches,
and,
again.. what is MOST TELLING is that the ones who made it came from often far-flung and entirely separate regions where many may well have never even know of the others.
IF there were 'many different beliefs' then you sure bet we would have seen it exposed when they all got to meet and compare,
but,
No... instead it is very obvious they all understood Christian doctrines and in near perfect agreement (certainly on all the basics which were a 'given' in this meet-up).

The following were supressed christian sects which didnt all believe that Jesus was the Son of God,............
Gnosticism, Neo-Gnosticism, Agnosticism Marcionites, Tritheism, Modalism, Basidilians, Tertullianists, Origenists, Manicheans, Millenarians, Novatians, Montanism,

Even after 'pre-mocking' this you still went for that weak 'overwhelming list',
but,
What you do is (as I said already) give me a list of exceptions PROVING THE RULE.
and,
Here again you screw your own made-up story about 'suppression' because YOU KNOW ABOUT MOST OF THESE FROM THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS WHO ARE YOUR TEACHERS AND PRESERVED THIS KNOWLEDGE YOU JUST RECEIVED.

Orthodox Christians recorded and preserved knowledge of the critics. In fact early Church fathers did a superb job documenting these groups.
Woops!

Incidentally Arius was deemed heretic, welcomed back into the church and then after his death declared heretic again.

Yes, I am already aware you have been on Wiki for over an hour and finding ways to 'retell' this but in a way that makes it sound like its arguing against Christianity and for your fake story and 'as if' you were educating.
Good job!

To take the line you finished on maybe its me but I understand it to mean if you took a hundred christians regardless of whether they came from the same church or not and questioned them in depth on god, jesus etc you would get 100 different sets of answers.

What I would tell you is that a billion Christians crossing the planet and crossing just about every mainline denomination (certainly all the largest ones) go to their church that accepts Jesus as God incarnate as Nicene described it and as is the 'orthodox' view.

Again, you can go ahead and list the 200+ 'Christian' orgs with some other views but that is just making my point for me.

What about this is confusing to you anyways?
You thought Roman Catholics, Presbys, Lutherans, Anglicans all had 'different interpretations' and all had different opinions about whether Jesus was God or not?
Well wrong.
Get real.