Nicene Christianity Puns

The creed is composed of a series of is statements. None of them support the intention that Christians have about their model of god: monotheism.

For example, it cannot be is of identities because that would result in a logical contradiction. I don't think it would be fair to say "God is beyond logic" here because these are very simple, atomic statements.

If A=b, A=c, but c!=b, then you have a contradiction.

If they are is of predication then you have a problem where you have 3 gods.

Which one is it? Catholic philosopher Joshua Sijuwade is open about his belief that it is three gods. Famous heretic and Christian of the decade William Lane Craig admits that the nicene creed makes no sense. You cant have 1 god without accepting that contradictions are possible (which is absurd). We can mathematically break the trinity down into either a contradiction, or 3 gods, neither of which are the intention. Therefore, Christianity itself is a falsehood.

Also does the son precede from the father eternally? If, we have a member of this God head that does not share the same essence (that is, not preceding) and thus isn't God.

Any Christian who tries to rebuke these claims can only do so through an immense word game where they never provide clear definitions to make a conversation even possible in the first place.

https://youtu.be/q3gwR9-dIuc

Islam's origins lie in the mutations and evolutions of some of these Jewish Christianities (IMO).

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The creed is composed of a series of is statements. None of them support the intention that Christians have about their model of god: monotheism.

For example, it cannot be is of identities because that would result in a logical contradiction. I don't think it would be fair to say "God is beyond logic" here because these are very simple, atomic statements.

If A=b, A=c, but c!=b, then you have a contradiction.

If they are is of predication then you have a problem where you have 3 gods.

Which one is it? Catholic philosopher Joshua Sijuwade is open about his belief that it is three gods. Famous heretic and Christian of the decade William Lane Craig admits that the nicene creed makes no sense. You cant have 1 god without accepting that contradictions are possible (which is absurd). We can mathematically break the trinity down into either a contradiction, or 3 gods, neither of which are the intention. Therefore, Christianity itself is a falsehood.

Also does the son precede from the father eternally? If, we have a member of this God head that does not share the same essence (that is, not preceding) and thus isn't God.

Any Christian who tries to rebuke these claims can only do so through an immense word game where they never provide clear definitions to make a conversation even possible in the first place.

#Related Comments (2):

I am having a hard time trying to understand the concept of the Trinity and whether Christianity is actually a monotheistic or polytheistic religion. I know Christianity is today considered a monotheistic religion by most of the people; but some things make me think that Christianity actually believes in two gods, if not more? I´d really appreciate if you answered the questions below or just even write your opinions and views on the matter.

".. God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

consubstantial with the Father .."

- I see that the Nicene Creed often refers to the son of God as a God. Doesn´t that mean that there are actually two gods that christians believe in? Is Christianity really a monotheistic or polytheistic religion?

- Why is it so important that Jesus was "begotten" and not made? How was he born then? What does "consubstantial with the Father" mean? Did God "give birth" to himself? Or maybe Jesus is actually a totally different god from the actual God? So are there two gods?

So I've been thinking...

And it's become more and more obvious just how much Christ hated this world*. Even in just the synoptic gospels you can find verses where Christ incontrovertibly expresses his hatred of the rulers of this world, but this becomes even more obvious in Gnostic gospels like the Gospel of Thomas.

The Nicene churches not only didn't understand the most important teachings of Christ, but they actually inverted some of them. Instead of Christ coming to rescue us from an unfair and oppressive world, they inverted it into Christ actually defending the world. I maintain that you cannot understand Christ's teachings and not see anything wrong with this world at the most fundamental level. They inverted Christ into the exact thing he came to destroy, and a glance at history exposes their hypocrisy and corruption. Today's Christian churches would be the exact opposite of what he wanted: corrupt institutions that defend systemic oppression.

Christ said that before his rule would be the rule of the anti-Christ, the inversion of Christ. Could this actually be referring to the Nicene church?

I know anecdotally that just about every child born into a Catholic family is baptized before their first birthday, and that just several decades ago there was an even stronger emphasis on baptism as soon after birth as possible. It would be weird enough nowadays to elect a bishop who hadn't been a priest before, much less one who wasn't even baptised. I vaguely remember reading this has been the case since early on in the Church's history. Was it less of a fixed custom in Ambrose's era (the 340s to 390s AD), and if so, why?

(My source is Wikipedia, and I haven't read its sources yet. Would those sources be based on old hagiography that might be inclined to exaggerate how unchatechized Ambrose was, in order to emphasise his humility? Or would the fact that he was well-known and well-documented in his time prevent exaggerations like that?)

So one day I found myself arguing with a fairly typical 'ratheist', and the conversation turned to the Council of Nicaea. He was trying to convince me that Nicaea was "where the Bible was rebooted, in a manner of speaking" and that "Until then, Jesus was just a prophet."

But this thread is not about that conversation. This thread is about the link he provided as 'proof'.

For starters: >That summer [of 325 A.D.], 318 bishops from across the empire were invited to the Turkish town of Nicea, where Constantine had a vacation house, in an attempt to find common ground on what historians now refer to as the Arian Controversy.

First, all 1800 bishops of the church were invited. Only 318 of them actually attended. This was an time, after all, when travel from one corner of the empire to the other took months. (According to Stanford's map of travel in ancient Rome, the fastest trip from Corduba to Nicaea would have taken over two months).

Second, "Turkish"? Really? Nicaea is located in modern-day Turkey, sure, but before that it was a Byzantine metropolis, a Roman provincial capital, and a Greek colony. The Turks were still roaming the Central Asian steppes when the council was held, and wouldn't put their name on Asia Minor for another thousand years at least.

Third, "vacation home"? The author refers to the 'Senatus Palace', Constantine's imperial residence and center of government for the province of Bithynia et Pontus, as a "vacation home"? I wouldn't be nearly as appalled if the author hadn't doubled down, calling it a "lake house" a few paragraphs later.

But, to be honest, all of this is merely place-setting and appetizers for the real badhistory main dish:

>Christian doctrine at the time was muddled and inconsistent, especially when it came to the central question of Jesus' relationship to God. Jesus was as eternally divine as the Father, said one camp led by the Archbishop Alexander of Alexandria. Another group, named the Arians after their leader Arius the preacher, saw Jesus as a remarkable leader, but inferior to the Father and lacking in absolute divinity.

>...

>In a savvy move that would put today's shrewd politicians to shame, the compromise proffered by Constantine was vague, but blandly pleasing: Jesus and God were of the same "substance," he suggested, without delving too much into the nature of that relationship. A majority of t

There are those who say that many of the Church Fathers took the pre-existing philosophical ideas of Neoplatonism, appropriated them, and reworked Christianity into what we currently see in the philosophy of Christianity. Is any of that true? How similar are the ideas of Nicene Christianity (post 325 CE) and the ideas of Neoplatonism?

I love this time period, and I've noticed some seemingly conflicting information on this subject.

I've seen a couple of off-hand references that seem to indicate that the Roman Emperor appointed bishops. But that doesn't explain how bishops were chosen outside of the Roman Empire. And there were examples of multiple "anti-bishops", usually from heretical sects, who claimed authority in the same city at the same time. I even know of at least one bishop being chosen by popular acclaim from among the local citizens (St. Ambrose).

If anyone can clarify this for me, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

I can understand a kind of instinctive reason for why the word Catholic is replaced in the Creed, but I cannot understand it substantially, or the reason why "Christian" of all things was chosen to replace it. Catholic is not a dirty word, even though there is an instinctive association of the word with the Roman Catholic Church. The word "church" isn't replaced, and so I'm not sure why Catholic is singled out to be the fall-guy.

My stronger objection is to the word "Christian." Yes, it's true, that the Church is Christian in a tautological sense, but the definition of the words are completely different. Catholic is taken to mean Universal, whereas Christian just refers the Creed back to itself, and does not substantiate the meaning of Catholic in any transferrable way.

There appears to be a consensus in r/christianity that the only denominations that should be considered true Christians are those that believe in the Nicene creed. However, this seems like an odd position to hold to me because the Nicene Creed was written in 325 AD (Nicene Creed - Wikipedia), so none of the men who signed the creed had even personally met Christ because they lived nearly three hundred years after the crucifixion took place. Furthermore, the Nicene creed is not part of the Bible and although many Christians would state that it was derived from Biblical teachings there are other non-trinitarian Christians that could argue against their interpretation of the Bible. Thus, the Nicene Creed is no more than a non-scriptural, man-made creed and cannot be used to qualify which denominations are "truly Christian".

Given that the nature of the Holy Spirit isn't defined in the original Nicene Creed, and that there was controversy over whether the Holy Spirit was even a person among some early Christians, what did the fathers of Nicea and the Arians believe the Holy Spirit to be? Did they believe he was a person who was God? Or did they believe he was simply a force from God?

I'm not religious, but like to study religion/theology.

Do you consider LDS a Christian sect? In the U.K. people do, but there aren't many here. But it seems like in the U.S., where there are, many don't consider them Christian.

So what do you think?

It seems that its official declaration originated on the The Third Council of Toledo. What are the sources for that? And why did the Franks and Charlemagne later adopt it? And how did it spread to the actual Roman church?

Thanks in advance.