Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Why do YOU think that so many pioneers…

Because at no time in history has man, nature, and climate not been in perfect balance. As in seven distinct extinction events. As in multiple ice ages of thousands of years each.

One must admit, "The Church's" influence during the dark ages and through the inquisitions tends to darken the history of Christianity.

SO... what you are saying in a nutshell... is that iffin oxygen just kinda went away fo gud... nudding would change?

Or water...

Or da sun?

Rich, I often see this claim. That the actions of "The Holy Roman Catholic Church" are not representative of "True Christianity". Yet "The Church" was the totality of Christendom at the time. All Protestant, all Christian Churches, have evolved from the "Holy Roman Church".

I am saying that Oxygen will fade away, Earth will become as arid as Mars, the sun will go nova. It is part of the progression of the universe. But man shall go extinct millions of years before that occurs.

They had gone so far away from Christianity. It wasn't even recognizable anymore. It makes no difference that they were the prevailing doctrine of the time.

I.S.,
You are hoping. But your hoping doesn't establish any facts.

My meager understanding, there have been several instances of "intelligent" atheists who set out to disprove God, and eventually ended up believing in God. I am not aware of any Christians who set out to prove God, and ended up atheists...

I wish you people could hear yourselves.

Many pioneer panels from the early settlers locally

Believe, that's easy the devil belives.

Ignorant people in a time of little scientific knowledge.

The “Holy Roman Catholic Church” that rose to power in the 4th century was absolutely NOT “the totality of Christendom at the time.” It was, however, the most powerful structured and organized segment of the religion for well over a thousand years. But there have always been adherents to the earliest version of Christianity that was practiced by Jesus’ earliest followers in the 1st century after they saw their resurrected Savior. Their faith was clearly an event-based faith. And as Ringman pointed out above, it bore little resemblance to the “Holy Roman Catholic Church” that rose to power in the 4th century.

To the RCC during those dark times, it was all about power and control and money, and believing correctly. They demanded that parishioners believe as they were instructed to believe, as a means to dominate and control and extort them to the Nth degree. The church…and that’s a generous description of what it actually was…went to war with itself over these beliefs. But the driving force behind those beliefs was always about power and control and money.

Tens of thousands of people died as ‘Christian’ groups went to war with each other. People were arrested and strangled and burned over the issue of what is the right thing to believe. But again, those required beliefs were just a means to dominate and control and extort the people.

The core beliefs of Christianity are really quite simple. There will always be some haziness around the periphery, but there is extraordinary clarity around the core. When Peter said “you’re the Christ, the son of the living God”, Jesus said “you’re exactly right, and I’m gonna build a brand new movement around this one simple idea, my identity, who I claim to be”, that He would later punctuate with His resurrection. And that is a core belief.

Perhaps the only thing that all of Christendom has had in common all along…in terms of belief…is that core belief. And toward the end of His ministry Jesus gave us a new commandment, not a list, just one...“you are to love one another the way that I have loved you.” This was so core, so central, that He said this, “by this kind of unique love everyone will know that you are my followers, if you love one another.” He said this is how His followers would be recognized. Period. The RCC during the dark times mentioned above clearly didn’t exemplify that. And as has been pointed out by many in these kind of threads, a lotta people who profess to be Christians nowadays don’t exemplify that either.

But don’t let other people be the only Bible that you ever read. Following Jesus doesn’t mean following those who claim to be Christians. Read the New Testament manuscripts for yourself. They’ll provide you with the information to make the decision for yourself regarding these matters.

The core beliefs of Christianity are the lifeblood of Christianity. The rest is just detail. It’s periphery. Long before there was a chaptered and versed, mapped and wrapped Bible, there was a version of Christianity that got people’s attention. And not only because of how its followers behaved, but because there were many people who were drawn to the simple message that God loves people so much that He sent Jesus, His own Son, to pave the way to a relationship with them. This simple message was freeing to them because they felt a need for, and understood grace. And they felt a need for, and understood forgiveness. This is what the biblical witness records.

It’s the same today as it was then.

Antlers,

Who were these splinter enclaves of true Christianity?

Where were they located?

How did they avoid being exterminated by the Holy Roman Church?

Was their knowledge of scripture solely through oral traditions? Or had they managed to smuggle actual texts away from the priests who jealously guarded their scriptures and such knowledge?

If it's that complicated that you have to read a bunch of stuff and figure it out, it's messed up. That doesn't mean it isn't the truth. It just means that whoever invented the "truth" that requires all of that figuring out is not a benevolent, loving being.

Because they knew you can't shake up a bag of watch parts long enough to one day have it contain a working watch......same with living cells.....and where did the cells come from?

The Great Schism of 1054, splitting Eastern Orthodox and Rome, fueled war and violence for 800 years. Nobody turned the other cheek. The two sects, between them , united for the first millennium and split for the next millennium, literally ruled the world...calling the shots for kings, queens, and emperors.
Do not presume to tell me the most powerful entity(s) in the world were not true Christians, anyone who said otherwise was tortured, put to death or burned, until Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to doors of Wurtenburg churches, in 1517. Prior to that, no dissent was left unpunished.
Of course the great minds publicly and vocally embraced Christianity...it was a life or death choice. Scientists and researchers of today find it very hard to paddle against the political winds that rule medicine and science. I think we have ample evidence of that during the great covid scare.

The Holy Roman Empire was located in Western and Central Europe. But there were certainly followers of Jesus in other parts of the world as well (Africa, Asia, the Middle East, for examples). And then, as now, not everyone who followed Jesus was a part of ‘organized religion.’ To assert that everyone who held Christian beliefs back then was under the guise of the “Holy Roman Catholic Church” is simply not tenable.

Now in the Middle Ages, the RCC certainly dominated almost every aspect of European life. Going to church then wasn’t voluntary (neither was tithing), people were forced to go to church (and forced to tithe), it was mandatory. The church condoned feudalism...a kind of institutionalized slavery...where the subjugated peasantry did all of the hard labor. For this 90% of the population life was pretty miserable. Most kids died before adulthood, punishments for the poor were very harsh, people worked the land hoping only to survive another season...or day. Life for the vast majority was a dreary existence. Entire communities dedicated generations of their resources to build huge awe inspiring cathedrals with stained glass, statues, pulpits, and guilted altarpieces...and Europe’s faithful masses paid the price for all of it. You can still see much of it to this day. Once a week these illiterate peasants would walk into these churches and be told what to believe. If they questioned any of it, or believed the wrong thing, they could be excommunicated (damned to hell). They could even be executed.

And yes, the RCC intentionally collected all of the Christian texts that they could get their hands on, bound em’ together, and chained em’ to the alter, and made possession of a Bible punishable by death. And the RCC would determine what was and wasn’t taught, and how the Bible would be interpreted. No independent thought was allowed, and theological division was ‘heresy’ that was punishable by death. Believing the wrong thing was a crime. What you believed trumped how you behaved.

Those things happened. And even though the RCC back then tried to keep the shackles on all of Christianity, they weren’t able to do it; not only within the confines of Western and Central Europe, but especially in other parts of the world where Christians were also. There were many tens of millions of Christians in the world in the Middle Ages. And not all of em’ were in Western and Central Europe either.

"The Ground Is Level at the Foot of the Cross,"

Cheyenne,

If you are looking for a loving God, you have to look somewhere else. God demonstrated his love toward mankind by sending his Son as a gift, free gift for salvation to those who would accept him by faith.

For those who do not He is the opposite of benevolent loving and kind. Consider Noah's flood. God became annoyed. He drown them all; 25 billion people. The folks inside of Sodom and Gomorrah annoyed him. There were five cities that He burned with fire and brimstone. He will do the same thing to those who reject God's gift of his son.