Friday, August 10, 2012

Onward Christian Rationalization Hamster

*The St. Leykis Clause is in effect for this post*

Because of my unique background (secular, but very familiar with and informed about religion - specifically, Christianity), I can hypocritically sit on the sidelines and mock and ridicule what I see happening inside the church.  Specifically, I savor watching the realities of the modern day "real world," human nature, socialism, and a progressively-debased society run full-force into the old religious beliefs, tenets and principals of various established religions.  But for the best show, the one where I like breaking out my lawn chair and lighting up a cigar, is to watch when feminism and Christianity collide.  Not when secular feminists criticize the church and lobby for abortion rights, etc., but rather when Christian women adopt feminist ideals, doctrine and philosophy.  It results in a spectacular train wreck as they try to reconcile two (more or less) mutually exclusive ideologies and the ensuing explosion ensnares scores, if not hundreds, of innocent Christian male-bystanders.

Oh, I laugh, but a piece of me cries as I see the clueless men of the church flail about with no idea what's going.  Even incredibly intelligent ones who are very aware and observant of the political forces of feminism and are definitely alpha males, also suffer.  Not because they are somehow duped, but because their faith blinds them to the bird's-eye-view observations secularism affords me.  Dalrock, U of Man, Last Christian Standing, Elusive Wapiti, observations are correct, but through the lens of Christianity.  So if those of you from the Christian side of the Manosphere will permit me, allow me to make some of my secular observations (which I do NOT mean in a condescending way, just wanted to share).

First, though you may disagree, for the sake of argument assume the majority of religious people do not deep down inside believe in their religion for one second.  Most go to church, synagogue, mosque, whatever, not because they actually believe the doctrine, but because that's what they were told to do as kids.  It is a rare person (like say, Dennis Prager) who really believes in his religion, and even those who would presumably be the most ardent believers (the clergy) use religion more often than not as a means of employment first, ego satisfaction next, and then somewhere in 4th or 5th place is "god."

Second, also assume the premise that what prompts most people to join and stay in a religion are social or at least "ulterior" motives that have nothing to do with the religion.  The religion serves merely as a vehicle or an excuse to congregate and socialize.

Now, you make those two assumptions and religion takes on a whole different dynamic.  It is a medium or a catalyst to achieve other, non-religious based things.

What do I mean by "other non-religious based things?"

Well any kind of ulterior motive.

To meet a spouse, to have friends, to have belonging, to provide your mind an explanation (you deep down inside don't believe anyway) as to what happens after you die so you don't have to worry.

The religion is like Play Doh or clay.  It can ultimately be morphed into serving whatever purpose its "believers" desire.  But beyond that, religion also carries "authority" which provides the legitimacy that people need to confirm that what they're doing is virtuous, true, noble and correct.  And it is these two traits that makes religion the most perfect, most powerful, most disastrous weapon a rationalization hamster just plain can't resist.

Understand what a Rationalization Hamster is.  It is up for interpretation, but I think we can all agree that a rationalization hamster is a vehicle which allows a person to deny reality.  But it's more than that.  A person just can't "deny reality," they need a rationalization so that their weak minds will fall for it.  The rationalization or logic the hamster generates doesn't have to be sound, reality-based or have any level of intellectual honesty, but if you can reach out and attach some kind of approval or ordainment by an "independent third party," all the more power to the rationalization hamster.

Tell me how religion, specifically, Christianity, does not fit that bill perfectly.  It has all the traits and characteristics that could feed an army of rationalization hamsters.

Fateism -  The inane and cowardly "the lord will provide" or "the lord has a plan" is only uttered when the utterer has made one or many galactically stupid decisions.  You don't hear the electrical engineer who waited till he was married to have kids say, "well, the lord will provide."  You hear the single mom of 5 children from 3 fathers who's attending cosmetology school at the local degree mill on our dime say, "the lord will provide."  The appeal or the attraction of "fateism" is that you get to jettison any responsibility for your actions.

Slept around, knocked up a chick, got an STD, dropped out of college, collecting welfare?

Oh no, that's not your fault.  "The lord has a plan."

Consequently, when you run into these fateists they have no problem claiming responsibility for their good decisions.  Oh no, the lord had nothing to do with you getting your MD, that was all you.  But the one night fling you had that brought your unwanted child into this world, yep, that was JC all the way. 

An Amorphous, Intangible Doctrine - Clear rules are bad for rationalization hamsters.  They're too black and white.  And while you may think the bible is clear on a lot of things, those very clear things account for about 5% of the total pages in the bible.  The remaining 95% is stories, parables, poems and a bunch of other amorphous, touchy feely stuff that can be interpreted however anybody wants it to be.  This gives the rationalization hamster another gift "from the heavens." (yuk yuk yuk).

A rule book where the rules can be changed and interpreted however the rationalization hamster wants.

It's like Calvin-ball dating Christian girls.  YOu never know where you stand, what you're supposed to do, what they want, and what the goal is.  If you try something, it's ruled illegal.  But if some other guy tries the same thing, that's all good because in Romans Chapter 89 verse 312 subsection A the lord said,

"Kiss not the upstanding young Christian man in your church.  Nay.  Make out with the criminal, bad boy with 2 illegitimate kids who wanteth to get downeth your pants, so that you may help the poor, impoverished man by showing him God.  For it is he who needeth you, sayeth the lord."

A Christian man just cannot win playing Calvinball against a Christian woman.

Moral Superiority  -Another aspect of religion that makes rationalization hamsters salivate is the moral superiority religion provides.  This aspect of religion yields many benefits.  First, it provides that "third independent party" needed to "ordain" or "approve" all the actions of the rationalization hamster.  And as long as the rationalization hamster bases her decisions in the scripture, no matter how horribly misinterpreted and construed for her own benefit, she is doing the right thing.  Additionally, because it is a religion, it is an "authoritative" third party, not some journalist or professor.  It is GOD who is ordaining your decisions.  How can you go wrong with the ONE TRUE GOD on your side?

Second, because of this divine authority, all other arguments are moot.  Logic doesn't apply.  Statistics or facts don't apply.  The other person's feelings don't apply.  This is GOD, need she remind you.  This leads to, third, inferiority.

This a Christian male is not going to run into as much as it will be secular males.  Date a Christian rationalization hamster and you are immediately demoted to "heathen" status, obviously inferior to the rationalization hamster.  And even then, on second thought, I take that back.  Christian men no doubt do suffer from this inferiority trait, namely by what I guess could be considered "christian shaming language."  How many of you have heard "Well I guess you're just not a good Christian."  Or "I guess Jesus isn't in your heart!"  In short, if a rationalization hamster embeds itself enough in religion, any men (secular or christian) who dare criticize, argue or disagree with you can be written off as inferior.

Jesus, Rockstar Alpha - You ever date that girl that wouldn't shut up about her ex that rocked her world, treated her like crap, but how she pined for him anyway.  Yeah, well JC puts that Alpha Bad Boy to shame.  JC is the ULTIMATE alpha.  Take the multiple male suitors in Harlequin romance novels, the World's Most Interesting Man, George Clooney, those Vampire/Wolf guys from all those vampire books/movies, put them in a blender, take pure extract of Alpha maleness out of them, and then refine it further in secret government labs and you still would have Mortimer Snerd compared to JC.

JC is "perfect."  He is always there.  Always forgiving.  All powerful.  All loving.  And guess what, a figment of her imagination just like all the vampire movies and Harlequine romance novels.

You are real.  You are mortal.  You are human.  You stand no chance against a dream or a figment of imagination.  If there is any turbulence in your relationship, you will immediately be compared to JC just like other girls will compare you to the rockstar alpha in their past.  And good luck winning that battle pal.

Additionally, JC brings in yet another tool the rationalization hamster can "lord" over you (yuk yuk yuk).  "He" is more important than you.  What always irked me about weddings is about 85% of the time it's the same damn sermon:

"Through Jesus you two will succeed."

or

"YOu are getting married to serve Jesus."

or

"Your wedding and your family will help glorify Jesus."

I call a secular "BS" and have said crassly to the few christian girls I've dated "I'm not having a threesome with Jesus," but for the Christian male this really puts you in a bad position.  You can NEVER be #1.  It's like marrying a single mom - you are default-ranked #2.   You marry a christian single mother, you are default-ranked #3.  Regardless, it provides another chess piece the Christian rationalization hamster can invoke to manipulate the relationship.

Get Out of Jail Free - Akin to "fateism," I wanted to separate this because it's an aspect of Christianity I very much dislike - ALL IS FORGIVEN.  This means you could have been, or could be the most evil, maniacal, disgusting person, and it's alright, it's all OK, all is forgiven.

Now I am agnostic and I'm a pretty gruff and callous guy, but the number one thing that hurts me, haunts me and I even have nightmares to this day are the handful of people I did wrong to.  If you are a real human being with a real soul, you will realize not only were you wrong, but there's NOTHING you can do to undo the harm and hurt you caused other people.  Even if they forgive you, you can't forgive yourself because of the pain you caused them.  It doesn't go away.  It isn't washed away, it still happened.  In short, what I'm trying to say is I don't understand how people can do something wrong and horrible and because some book or guy in robes says,

"Don't worry, Jesus forgives you."

how they can then just skip along your happy way without the slightest cringe of guilt or shame.  And not only that, how they can delude themselves into thinking it never happened.

The perfect example is the "born again Christian" or worse, the "born again virgin."

Are you kidding me?  What, your past doesn't matter?  Not to mention all the consequences of your mistakes and who you hurt along the way (innocent illegitimate children, impoverished people, tortured souls, victims of your crimes, etc. etc.)

But again, this is a rationalization hamster on religious steroids.  Anything is possible, including your ability to pretty much blank out your past, forgive yourself and then believe your a much better person than you really are.

Again, I don't envy my Christian brothers.

Now, you take in all these traits, all these variables and aspects of religion and tell me how in the eyes of a rationalization hamster it is nothing more than an irresistible tool box or a steroid buffet to use, abuse and unleash for its own selfish purposes.  Also tell me how a Christian male is supposed to find a genuine Christian woman in a church full of poser rationalization hamsters.  Also tell me how a Christian male, who is genuinely interested in finding a good church, finds one, and not some watered down, acoustic guitar playing hippie church where your pets can be baptized (St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, if you're interested) and Jesus is hidden somewhere in the basement all to pull in more people purely for marketing purposes?

This isn't to say all women are using and abusing Christianity for their own ulterior motives.  This isn't to say all members of our churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are nothing but posers and crusaders looking for a date or some business contacts. And I'm certainly not asking anybody to abandon their faith.  All I'm asking is the men (and women) of The Manosphere take another red pill.

We already took one when it came to the dating/social dynamics of courting women.  We should also be taking one for employee/employer dynamics.  But in order to understand what is happening in our places of worship all religious men and women (regardless of religion) should be taking a third red pill to prevent what is nothing more than a political ideology from corrupting, infiltrating and destroying our religious institutions.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

The modern church takes too many of Paul's ideas and runs with them off to cyptopagan fantasy land. Jesus and his reform of Judaism matter the most, but the Greek ideas that were mixed in later can twist entire concepts backwards and around.

Example: forgiveness is originally about spiritual debt, not "transgression", and the debt you rack up eventually enslaves you by interest. That's how things really were in the iron age. Debt just buys you a little more fun freedom before slavery and death. Just like sin. And college. ;)

For debt forgiveness, it means you have to become a slave to righteousness instead of sin. It is NOT a get out of jail card. The whole idea has been perverted.

0.1% of Christians truly "get it". And, they are almost entirely male and Orthodox.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Speaking of male and Orthodox, this is a man among men, and I hope he will forgive me opening a door to his thoughts:

"True religion, like true worship, is always more than we bargained for. The living God will no more stay ensconced in His distant heaven than the living Christ is willing to remain in His tomb. We may believe our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. We may trust in Him for our salvation. But we live as though our safety consists precisely in making sure He stays away.

Inwardly we plead with Christ more anxiously than the Gerasenes that He leave our town, so we don’t lose any more of our precious pigs."

Willy J said...

Hey Captain,

My question doesn't relate to your post but it is an economics question...There was a certain demand line (I think) that was purely theoretically and thus far has never occurred in real life.

I think it was an "inelastic demand curve" in which the demand line was completely vertical meaning demand remained the same regardless of supply or price.

Am I thinking of the correct line? Am I remembering the explanation correctly?

Thank you sir.

Captain Capitalism said...

Hi Willy,

Yes, you are correct. There are items that people will pay whatever the price.

Cigarettes, gas, kidneys, organs, etc.

The demand curve is vertical (or almost) in those cases.

van Rooinek said...

Jesus, Rockstar Alpha.... is "perfect." He is always there. Always forgiving. All powerful. All loving. And guess what, a figment of her imagination just like all the vampire movies....

And, like the vampires, Jesus-the-Boyfriend rose from the grave. That parallel is just too obvious to go unremarked.

Sadly Cap, as one of the true believers, I am forced to admit that your critique is right on target.

Research years ago (don't recall source) showed that only a small percentage of "evangelical believers" actually believed; the great majority didn't believe a word of it, and attended church for the social/community aspect (it's about the only "community" we've got left in America), or to make business connections, or darker things... THIS IS WHY pastors preach the same basic altar call and the same simple call to salvation over and over.. they know the room is likely full of the unsaved!

More recent research by Barna showed that only HALF of Christian pastors in the USA had a "biblical worldview"....
http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/133-only-half-of-protestant-pastors-have-a-biblical-worldview

The rest probably took the job because it looked easy and left open a lot of time for golf....

Too bad, because a biblical worldview apparently really does fix a lot of the problems it claims to fix.
http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/131-a-biblical-worldview-has-a-radical-effect-on-a-persons-life

Alas... Chesterton was right:

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried."

van Rooinek said...

Also tell me how a Christian male is supposed to find a genuine Christian woman in a church full of poser rationalization hamsters.

It was very hard, let me tell you.

church where your pets can be baptized (St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, if you're interested

If the pet is baptized, I don't need to pay these guys --

http://www.aftertherapturepetcare.com/
http://www.postrapturepetcare.com/
http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/

Hearteningly, the last one has been shut down due to lack of clients. But, apparently, some folks really did fall for this!

James Wolfe said...

I have heard other Christian bloggers refer to the modern church goers as Churchians. They have nothing to do with Christ or the Bible. It's all about belonging and socializing. Which is why I belong to no church. I see no compelling reason to go to a church and listen to the opinions of a preacher or the official approved dogma of The Church, Inc.

I can totally understand why the Protestants separated from the Catholic Church but even they have most of it wrong. I guess you can say my biggest gripe with ALL churches is they don't even get the Sabbath day correct. What day did Jesus and the disciples observe the Sabbath? It ain't Sunday. I'm sorry but if you can't even get the one day God told us to observe and keep holly, forever, then why should I listen to anything you have to say. It's all hogwash.

Anonymous said...

I am a practicing, orthodox Roman Catholic and a long time reader of your work, Captain. I fully agree with the your assessment about people and religion. I will also echo the first commenter's statements.

The Christianity with which Americans are mostly familiar is the evangelical/Baptist/New-Age Protestant variety made popular in the 1800s. Wishy-washy on doctrine and practice, it is the paragon of social conformity and is definitively American in character.

On the other hand, Apostolic Christianity (in which I include Catholicism, Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, etc) has consistently preserved the doctrine and practice of early Christianity against alteration, persevering through very tough times. I point toward the martyrs of the early Church as evidence that Apostolic Christians are not there for merely social purposes, but moral and metaphysical ones.

The extent to which modern Christians do not live up to this conception of living the Christian life is precisely the extent to which they will eventually become nihilsts. He who is willing to believe anything to fit in, in fact believes nothing. If you are not willing to sacrifice anything you will be given nothing.

Unknown said...

Wow. My Captain. I'm almost speechless (but not quite...)
This is why I'm a Christian without a church, and content to remain so. About ten years ago I stopped looking for the church where I belong; I don't think it exists, and belonging seems to be the number one priority among the vast majority of church-goers.

And I have met these male Christian hamsters in the Manosphere. Oh have I met them! Apparently it's perfectly OK to have an irrational and contradictory ideology while criticizing others for their irrational and contradictory ideologies, *as long as "God" is at the center of your irrational and contradictory ideology*.

Thank you for organizing and beautifully articulating the amorphous, muddled, half-formed thoughts, which have been colliding with each other on the periphery of my mind for years. I'm kind of stunned by how intensely RELIEVED I feel after reading this post. I think the sun just came out from behind a cloud I didn't know was there.

Captain Capitalism said...

Suz,

I quote Troy McClure,

"It's the part I was born to play baby!"

Just forward this post to everybody you know that might like it.

Cpt.

Anonymous said...

One of the hardest things for an independent Christian to accept, is that sometimes you just don't need a church. But...

THE CHURCH NEEDS YOU.

(this is true for so many things in life)

Chris said...

Hey Cappy,

Thanks for the shout out. Personally, when a woman tells me "the LORD told me that" I cringe.

I'm terrified of saying that. I am quite aware that I can and do get things wrong, and I cringe when I think about those I have hurt along the way.

Modern churchians do not understand repentance includes a few painful things. Like confession, going to the person you have harmed, reconciliation....

And trust me, as a believer, I am shunned by most of the (divorced) women in the local kirks. It appears that I am unclean, and they are not. So most of the Christain men my age are now MGTOW.

MTK said...

I echo what Anonymous said Apostolic churches (same def they use)is the only intellectually and spiritually satisfying way to be a Christian. Otherwise history and logic collide into an intoxicating cocktail of wishful thinking and emotion that dilutes the soul.

That being said I do admire all of those that resist the correctness of current day and cling to whatever faith they have as long as they don't make it up as they go or think God wants them to have X because they are special.
Those that are not against us are with us.

Ryan Fuller said...

"More recent research by Barna showed that only HALF of Christian pastors in the USA had a 'biblical worldview'"

Part of their definition of a "Biblical worldview" is salvation by grace alone. James chapter 2 is entirely devoted to debunking this, explaining that both faith and works are important, even explicitly stating, "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only."

My view of modern Christianity is that it's soft on doctrine and mostly just consists of feelgood nonsense, heavily abridged doctrine, and completely boneheaded theology (baptizing pets... WTF?). People avoid personal responsibility any way they can, and a religion that doesn't take them to task for their failings just makes it all that much worse.

When I hear someone in the midst of self-inflicted tragedy saying that everything happens for a reason, I can't help but think that the reason is because they are stupid and make poor decisions. People saying they're going to let Jesus take the wheel never seem to consider whether or not they're supposed to learn how to drive.

One of the reasons that Mormonism appeals to me is the mentality of doing as much as you possibly can yourself and then having faith that God will handle the rest after all you've done all you can. An early church leader once commented that if you ask God to move a mountain, don't be surprised if He gives you a shovel. The saying that you should work like it's all up to you and pray like it's all up to God reflects a similar mindset.

Dan said...

And yet another home run ball launched out of the park by Cappy.

Great post....worthy of inscription in stone I might say.

And sadly....the people who could use these words of wisdom the most are the people who would read it and say out loud and actually believe it...." I don't act that way".

Anonymous said...

Can you please write more articles about Christianity? This is great

Stryker said...

Cap, I agree with a lot of what you said. The church has fallen on hard times,though there are still some of us old school true believers out there, scattered among various churches. You just have to look hard to find us. As to the older 'Apostolic' churches holding the line against modernism, some have done a good job on certain fronts, but the western Catholics in particular have a huge dose of what could be termed 'bad mother complex.' Think of a mother heaping guilt and shame on a child, with a scolding and chiding tone. This leads to people living their whole lives with a guilty conscience, or worse yet, people who rebel and end up hating God and the church. The Catholics and modern evangelicals/baptists/Charismatics often share this wonderful trait. That's why you can color me old school Lutheran.

heresolong said...

The only problem I can see with you analysis is the initial assumption that the people in the church don't actually believe. If that assumption ends up being false your argument collapses. I grew up in a brethren church and left because I stopped believing, not because I had any issues with the church. My experience was that the people there really were true believers. If I were to ever change my mind and return to the church it would definitely be to the brethren church.

Anonymous said...

It is true that the modern Episcopalian church is ridiculous. The Catholic and the Orthodox churches change little or not at all, and are doing OK.

Don't believe in God, eh? Americans have blasphemed against God, tolerated criminal libels against innocent people, and every other obscenity. You know what is coming: straight out of the Old Testament. His agent of vengeance is Barack Obama, and He is in the process of wiping you off the face of the Earth.

Don't believe if you don't want to.

Oh BTW "criminal bad boys" typically have 4 children, not 2, and the really bad ones have 6 or more. Why not? They don't have to support them.

Anonymous said...

I'm supposed to serve Jesus?

Shit, I don't even know how to cook him...

Rachel & Robert said...

It should be noted that your first two propositions (that no one attending church believes in it, and that they are there for other reasons) mean that by definition, the rest of your post is not actually about Christianity, any more than critiques of the current American economy are about "capitalism" (as you've pointed out)

Your complaint about forgiveness is noted, and is the reason that Christianity was so well received at its inception. The pagans understood their guilt, and it was crushing them into despair. Contrition is supposed to be a condition of absolution.

With deference for your dislike of vampire shows, this quote for "Angel", on how to make up for sins like murder and betrayal, illustrate the point nicely:

"There's no real simple answer to that. I won't lie to you, and tell you it'll be easy, cause it won't be. Just because you decided to change, doesn't mean the world's ready for you to. The truth is, no matter how much you suffer, no matter how many good deeds you do to try and make up for the past, you may never balance out the cosmic scale. The only thing I can promise you, is that you'll probably be haunted, and maybe for the rest of your life."

Christian forgiveness takes away the despair, and is why its greatest early missionary Paul could be a man who had once killed more Christians than any before him.

Free Northerner said...

You're right, the church has fallen a lot.

For your first, you're correct to a degree. As a Christian myself, most Christians do not have an absolute certainty in Christianity. Deep down, there are always doubts. Christianity is hard, and without tangible evidence, it is easy to doubt your faith.

But most Christians also trust God and have faith even in their doubts. It's a tension between faith and doubt.

What you describe as Fateism, is also known as hyper-calvinism. Calvinism is (among other things) the belief in predestination, that God pre-destined the way the world will be; hyper-calvinism is the belief that you don't have to do anything because God pre-destined what will happen.

The sad part is, hyper-calvinism is often used in the way you described by people who would theologically reject regular calvinism.

As for being married to Jesus, I think it's a good thing. As a Christian, a person's highest priority should be God. A married couple devoted to God first, will be less tempted to divorce or ruin their marriages.

In androsphere terms, she'll stay with you when you act beta, because alpha Jesus commands her to.

But, you're right. What you've described is far too common in the church.

PC Geek said...

As has been said already here, your observations are spot on, with one very important (also already mentioned by others) caveat - 99% of the problems that you are observing are not with *historic* Christianity but with the Churchianity that has developed over the past 200 years in America. A huge % of the doctrinal variation has, yet again, come very recently, historically speaking, and much of it is tied to America’s (and to a lesser extent England’s) political and social history.

If you think about it (and I am not saying you haven’t), no matter the topic (from religion to science to economics) people will believe wildly diverging things about it, often as a function of rationalizing their own desires. Religion can be a great rationalization hamster, as you pointed out, but so can a great deal of other things. Many Nobel-prize winning economists actually think Keynesian economics is a good idea and your economic ideas and analysis (however much I agree with you on them myself) are totally delusional. We both believe that they are wrong, but nonetheless we see the power of rationalization over human thinking. Or what about global warming – many scientists believe it, and will viciously deride or even downright persecute any who dare not believe it. Likewise much of American Christianity, or should I say “Churchianity” has been twisted to serve the desires of the current politically ascendant groups – especially feminists. Any subject or idea can be like “Play-doh” as you say. This is just human nature and is no more intrinsic to religion than a whole host of other topics. Anything can be subordinated to a narrative.

Religion excepted, your writings are nearly always fantastic…I hope to see more posts about minimalism, you giving advice to blue-pill taking beta males.

BTW OT: How did you ever stumble across Rumpleminze in the first place anyway? I am sure several readers would want to hear the beginning of your Rumpleminze love affair. :-)

@Free Northerner: “No tangible evidence” This is quite OT so I won’t go very far – I just to say that while it is true that any Christian is going to struggle with doubt from time to time – since it can be difficult to follow…there are many good reasons for us Christians to believe as we do. The evidence is as tanglible as that for any other historical event with the Bible having far stronger historical attestation than many other historical documents viewed as reliable (like the writings of Tacitus, Pliny, or Arrian’s writings on Alexander the Great). Heck, even if looking at the link bar for this blog on the right, one of more well known bloggers there (Vox) has dealt with this type of stuff numerous times.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous 2:01 PM

"On the other hand, Apostolic Christianity (in which I include Catholicism, Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, etc) has consistently preserved the doctrine and practice of early Christianity against alteration, persevering through very tough times."

Not even they managed to stay true to Apostolic Christianity. Mariolatry, Sacraments and Popes none of which existed when the 12 apostles and Paul was still alive.

And protestantism Good during the reformation and a few hundred years after also has gone off the tangent into Goddess worship, feminism and new age.

Just bloody human tendency to screw things up is what is demonstrated in both cases.


Anonymous said...

@Ryan fuller

Links for you:

http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jamesvspaul.html

http://www.tektonics.org/af/baptismneed.html