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Rodney Stark's book "The Rise of Christianity" suggests a few ways in which Christian morality was superior to pagan morality:
- Prohibition of infanticide. Under Roman law, the father had the right to abandon the child to the elements at birth–resulting either in death, or the child being taken in by baby-farmers who would raise the child to be a slave. Girls disproportionately were the victims of this. And the mothers had no say. Christianity condemned this as murder.
- End to forced abortion. In ancient Rome, abortion was not a woman's "right to choose", it was a man's – a woman's husband or father had the legal right to compel her to have an abortion, and women often died in the process. By outlawing abortion, Christianity brought an end to forced abortion of women.
- Like many cultures, ancient Roman culture had strong sexual double standards – women were expected to be chaste, men were not subject to the same expectations. Christianity couldn't completely eliminate these double standards, but by insisting that men and women were subject to equal obligations of chastity, managed to make some dent in them. By contrast, the pagan religions were mostly silent on sexual morality
- Pagans would frequently abandon those sick with contagious diseases out of fear of catching it themselves. Christians would selflessly nurse the sick, even though by doing so they risked succumbing to the disease themselves. Many people survived contagious diseases due to nursing by Christians, and many pagans ended up converting as a result. Christian morality said there was an obligation to care for the sick, even at risk to one's own life – pagan morality largely didn't
An excellent comment, it's so far down in the thread it will not get a lot of attention, but I'm glad you wrote it. I'm not religious, but I find this stuff fascinating. Your comment actually reminded me of a very interesting book I read, Zealot that tries to pin down as much of the historicity of the real person of Jesus, as much as such a thing is possible. It contains a lot of similar insights like the one you wrote here.
> Should I stick with the practice?
Rule 5, no changes in time of desolation. :) https://www.amazon.com/Discernment-Spirits-Ignatian-Everyday-Living/dp/0824522915 I will pray for you and your family.
When women used to veil as a common practice, they veiled no matter how they felt about it on the inside. I do not veil but in my opinion you are fine to continue. It is not a signal "hi I am very holy and you should totally take me for a role model", it is just a signal "I am a woman and am at Mass." It might help to think of yourself as just part of the scenery (a camera pans across the congregation: old woman in black with rosary beads, little boy squirming in uncomfortable suit, young woman in a nice veil, statuary, flowers, candles.)
You ask excellent questions. Other excellent questions:
- Why do early Christian writings immediately after the NT not really look like Mormonism?
- If the church cannot apostatize now, why wasn't that true of the early Christian church? (Including the promise, "the gates of hell shall not prevail..., etc.)
You’re experiencing a form of desolation. God is saying, “You say you love me because it makes you feel good [consolation]. But let’s see if you really love Me.”
Amp up your prayer life. Try this book to understand what you’re going through
https://www.amazon.com/Discernment-Spirits-Ignatian-Everyday-Living/dp/0824522915
The Apostolic Fathers in English by Michael Holmes.
Great book. It is translated by a non-Catholic though (I think Protestant) so expect some textual criticism. However, that aside, his brief commentaries and clarifications are good and the translation is very fresh and new. Much easier to read than NewAdvent's free stuff.
It contains:
- 1 Clement
- 2 Clement
- The 7 Letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch
- St. Polycarp to the Philippians
- Martyrdom of St. Polycarp
- Didache
- Epistle of Barnabas
- Shepherd of Hermas
- Epistle to Diognetus
- The fragments of St. Papias
If you're going for translation alone go for this: https://www.amazon.com/Apostolic-Fathers-Greek-English-Translations/dp/080103468X/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=the+apostolic+fathers+greek+texts+and+english+translations&qid=1627946625&sprefix=the+apostolic+fathers+greek&sr=8-3
If you're interested in learning all that there is to be learned about it, get this: https://www.amazon.com/Didache-Earliest-Christian-Communities-C/dp/0809105373/ref=mp_s_a_1_45?dchild=1&keywords=the+didache&qid=1627946600&sr=8-45
I’m not sure it is necessarily the best, but I recently purchased this edition with facing translation. It is pretty comprehensive and one volume.
The Fathers of the Church is a good book, but to go straight to the primary sources, this book is great. It has most or all of the Apostolic Fathers, perhaps excluding Justin Martyr if you consider him one. It has 1 and 2 Clement, the Didache, Ignatius' letters, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and more.
I don't know about Assasin's Creed. I'd have to think on a list of books, but one that covers a lot of this is "Zealot"
Edit: It's by Reza Aslan https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X
Here is excellent book to learn about the movements of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Excellent guide!!!!! How to discern what is from God and what is not.
The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living https://www.amazon.com/dp/0824522915/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_htOUFbDVMEV9B
From his about page at Amazon:
> Rodney Stark is one of the leading authorities on the sociology of religion. He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota, where he began his career as a newspaper reporter. Following a tour of duty in the US Army, Stark received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he held appointments as a research sociologist at the Survey Research Center and at the Center for the Study of Law and Society. For many years, the Pulitzer Prize nominee was professor of sociology and professor of comparative religion at the University of Washington. In 2004 he became Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University.
His book entitled The Rise of Christianity approaches the subject from a sociological perspective. Even the book's top critical review sings his praises.
Personally, I haven't read a word from him. Now that I know a little more about him I'll check out, at least, the aforementioned book.
He doesn't seem to be an apologist but I may discover that he is after reading his book.
I think most people with a high school education can handle reading straight from St. Thomas. I highly recommend Peter Kreeft's abridged and well-annotated version Summa of the Summa. He has a gift for making the more difficult ideas of Aquinas easier to understand.
A podcast geared towards Aquinas without being too technical is Pints with Aquinas by Matt Fradd.
>Firstly it is all about what they teach as a whole as opposed to individually.
That's actually what the book I linked is about. In the end, it is not possible to settle this dispute in abstract. For anyone who wants to get to the bottom of this, I recommend both the book I linked, which offers counterpoint, and the following:
The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Text and English Translation
What they teach as a whole does not lead me toward Catholicism, and I urge people not to accept this argument off another person's reading, but to read the texts themselves. To be clear, it is a lot of reading. For that reason, I actually doubt a lot of people when they claim to have read the church fathers. Bluffing about what the church fathers have said or what they teach is often not called out because people simply don't have access or time to fact check the claims.
> That's pretty much it yes. I can't say for sure that it didn't happen but I don't feel like there is a way to reliably convince myself that it did happen either. There are too many assumptions; it happened too long ago.
Someone on another thread shared this book with me: https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Homicide-Detective-Investigates/dp/1434704696/. Do you find the arguments here compelling?
Knowing it's you (your avatar stands out in comments but I didn't see your name when I opened the original post), I thought you had a copy of Faith of the Early Fathers by Jurgens? It has an index by subject/teaching, that's all I'm poking through (I'd get you more for external confession but I just put it back away and it's SUCH a long walk...)
Re: the concept of "100% assurance," I suppose what's your alternative to achieve 100% assurance?
- I dash off a personal prayer to God, well God hears all prayers and answers all prayers, but rejects those He finds wanting. How do I know if mine was wanting? I can't be 100% sure.
- I achieve perfect contrition, well, ok, but on whose assessment? My own is biased. I can't be 100% sure.
- God engaged in some personal revelation directly with me that I was forgiven. Ok, that's an alternative with a 100% certainty since God does not lie, but...the certainty that it was God making the revelation to you is <100%, making the overall premise <100%.
All that said, it's clearly not what you're talking about, but I would direct you to the indulgence in articulo mortis, whereby the Church grants full pardon and plenary indulgence to those in the moment of death if a priest cannot be found in time, so long as that person made some effort at being prayerful during their lifetime. That's a sufficiently loose criterion that I think you or I could assess for ourselves if we have said a few prayers at some point, and feel 100% certain that we meet that criterion as we are about to die.
When you have a collection of sources concerning events, you compare consistencies with inconsistencies. While errors do exist in our compiled volume called the Bible, the consistencies overwhelm them. We have a really good idea of the details of the events. The Bible should be treated no differently than any other investigation.
You mean a secondary source of authority in religion?
It would basically be the writings of the Church Fathers.
As far as the legal aspects contained in the Talmud and Sharia go, these would be more equivalent to Canon Law. The 2 primary sources of Canon Law are the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church, and the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches. These 2 books would constitute Canon Law in their strict sense. However, canon law in it's broad sense is much more wide and would constitute a ton of documents: General Instruction of the Roman Missal (ritual instructions for the Eucharistic celebration), General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (ritual instructions for the daily prayers), Monastics rules, decrees by bishops for their individual dioceses, decrees by archbishops for their archdiocese, decress by national councils of bishops for their whole nation... the broad sense of canon law has literally thousands of sources.
>If we do, where can I buy one?
I would start with the earliest Church Fathers. The Apostolic Fathers in English by Holmes is a great contemporary translation, though he is a critical academic and challenges dates, authorships, etc.
The Church Fathers do not really contain legal material.
Yeah I’ve read all of those as part of the <em>Apostolic Father’s</em> collection by Michael W. Holmes.
They’re pretty interesting reads. Some of them I definitely agree with more than others. The Shepherd in particular is a really interesting read to say the least. It’s like the canonical book of Revelation but, in my opinion, on some more important topics.
I’ve also read a lot of the gnostic literature. The website earlychristianwritings.com has a vast collection of non-canonical early Christian works, spanning form the Apostolic fathers to brief fragments of gnostic texts. If your interested in non-canonical works I highly recommend it!
Som historiker kan jag tipsa om en ett litet annat perspektiv på Bibeln och kristendomens/lite av judendomens historia.
Först tittar du på det här klippet: https://youtu.be/f_0UkKHy1U4 (För oss med lite erfarenhet inom akademin är det vad jänkarna brukar kalla "hilarious")
Sen läser du hans riktigt intressanta bok om Jesus och hur han + myten uppstod. Väldigt läsvärd och relativt populärhistoria(dvs inte torrt akademisk)!
"ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth: Aslan, Reza: 9782523470201: Amazon.com: Books" https://www.amazon.com/ZEALOT-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/140006922X
Läs den innan du läser Bibeln så kommer du förstå saker ur en helt annan kontext.
Hälsningar historikern.
This is the NA equivalent for the Apostolic Fathers: https://www.amazon.com/Apostolic-Fathers-Greek-English-Translations/dp/080103468X/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1653852680&refinements=p_27%3AMichael+W.+Holmes&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Michael+W.+Holmes
>Is there a source for that, cause that explains alot and makes sense that it happened
Yes. Bella Dodd was a lawyer for the Communist party in Chicago. She later converted to Catholicism, and said that she herself helped place over 1000 Marxists into Catholic Seminaries. Many of those were homosexuals and some of those rose to Bishops. They went on to persecuted faithful masculine priests and fostered gay priests.
Not sure if you know it, but about 90% of the abusers were homosexuals, not pedophiles. They were men preying on young men, which is pederasty, not pedophilia.
Here's one article about Bella Dodd :
https://issuu.com/latinmasssociety/docs/final_moa_summer_2021/s/12266868
There are several books about it. Russian leaders were pretty open about their plans to infiltrate US institutions, including the Catholic Church :
https://www.amazon.com/Aa-1025-Memoirs-Communists-infiltration-Church/dp/0895554496
Get The Apostolic Fathers in English by Michael Holmes.
Great, modern translations.
Great intro notes that go over who, what, when, where, and why.
It is little more on the side of textual criticism, though. But I don't mind. For example it tries to deny the authorship of the Epistle of Barnabas to St. Barnabas, St. Pauls fellow missionary -- but many Church Fathers acclaimed him the author. I don't fear textual criticism, but just know it's written by a textual critic and not a devout Catholic.
I can't really speak to how well it's been received by professionals, but I absolutely loved the book "Zealot" by Reza Aslan as a look into who the "real" Jesus would have been.
This detective helped me a lot as I'm very straight facts too:
Rodney Stark has a great book looking at the sociological factors that helped Christianity spread. https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Christianity-Marginal-Religious-Centuries/dp/0060677015/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3B30Y3X6AT3MW&keywords=rise+of+christianity&qid=1646716346&sprefix=rise+of+christian%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-1
Interestingly, after I posted I looked up when they changed the system. Looks like Augustus changed it to a flat system prior to Jesus. So the tax farming system I described would have been in recent memory, but not in effect.
But as you pointed out, the other reason was working for the Great Satan, which never endears you to your fellow occupied people. Reza Aslan has a good book that talks a lot about the Jewish resistance to Roman rule and the crowds that Jesus and his followers likely moved in.
You know, I have a good book for you to read. Zealot is definitely something you should take a look at. Your religion is a sham that Paul made up.
You'll love the book Cold Case Christianity . It explains how the Gospels are very different, not copies of anything, and how they are eyewitness accounts of the same events. There's enough details to make them different and enough interlocking details that they fill in each other's missing holes that most people wouldn't have noticed.
To answer your question, we should treat the entire Bible
>as if it was absolute and written by God himself