The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

Not all angels always fit the theme, like Islam’s Harut and Marut, or the angels inspired by Zoroastrian figures.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Oct 2nd 2021 at 1:00:34 AM

Speaking of Heaven, why is that? That God likes to introduce Himself by saying "I Am that I Am" or "I Am." (Which may or may not have been the inspiration for Goldberry answering Frodo's question about Tom Bombadil with "He is.")

It signifies that God isn't a deity of any specific domains or elements.

God isn't a god of the sky, the sea, the underworld, the sun, etc.

God just is.

Edited by M84 on Oct 8th 2021 at 11:56:38 PM

Also, it shifted the focus from being a God of elements or nature but one of people. So he is the God of Adam, the God of Isaac, the God of Moses and the God of Isaiah.

You don’t need other qualifiers to describe God when He is the only one, after all.

I'm actually a little curious, since God apparently wasn't always the only one or even the head of His pantheon, does this mean the meaning of his name changed over time?

Isn't it more like a retcon where there was always just one god?

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Little bit of both. The Pentateuch/Tanakh probably reached its current state early in Persian/Post-Exile period but is make up of earlier sources, some of which where written with monolatrous (there are multiple gods but only one is worshipped) and henotheistic (there is one supreme god to worship but there may or may not also be other, lesser deities that exist) points of view.

What I think is a retcon is the idea that the deities of other religions are evil spirits or demons.

There's apparently a theory that the Roman Empire never really fell, but just continued as the Catholic church. What do you guys think of that idea?

Eeeeeeeeehhhhh. That's a really weird take where you'd need to stretch an awful lot of definitions to the absolute breaking point just so you can be "technically correct", which in my opinion is not the best kind of correct, unless utilised to win a funny bet.

What's really fucked up is that I'm not sure if the people who would try to claim that are doing that to criticize the Catholic Church or to compliment it.

Way too many people romanticize the Roman Empire.

Edited by M84 on Oct 20th 2021 at 7:30:44 PM

I'm pretty sure it's the former. It has that "religion is a tool to control the masses" energy to it.

Many things the Romans did was Fair for Its Day, and I think labeling the Roman Empire as "The Evil Empire" is just as wrong as thinking of it as "Good Old Days". The state had existed for a really long time period, whether as a republic or an empire, and had gone through many changes throughout its lifetime. Applying our modern morality to it is just not right.

Back to topic, the Catholic Church was founded by the Roman Empire, so it is definitely a remnant of the Roman Empire. But that doesn't equate the two things. On another note, Italians (depending on who you ask, I guess; I'm not Italian myself) think the Roman Empire as the predecessor of modern Italy. With that train of thought, it didn't fall, it just became fractured for 1400 years. But that's still a stretch.

I think Constantinople would have a bit to say about the Catholic Church being considered the Roman Empire.

Poor ERE, constantly forgotten about. All that blinding and infighting for nothing.

That’s wrong I’m afraid.

The Catholic Church, as in the Primitive Church, existed way before the rise of Emperor Constantine and continued to operate as a clandestine religion during the Principate phase of the Roman Empire and the initial part of the Dominate period.

What Constantine facilitated -and in which the Emperor did got involved- was in arranging and overseeing the ecumenical councils of the Church to get everyone on board on certain dogmas of faith such as the trinity, how priests and bishops would organize or the establishment of sacraments.

After these councils we have the main branch of Christianity, which is Chalcedonian Christianity -in itself derived from Nicene Christianity- that would eventually be split in what we call today the Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches proper down the line. The other branches that were divorced from this main branch are for instance Arianism -that is non-trinitarian- and Nestorianism -which disputes the fully divine and fully human nature of Jesus- .

If we want to be that pedantic, there were numerous independent Christian sects before Constantine. Once the Catholic church as we know it became the official religion of the Empire, they hunted down all the other sects, of which only a few exist today.

Every few centuries, someone reinvents Arianism.

Probably by some Catholic who is finally fed up with trying to explain it.

Mostly because it's just easier to understand.

For the record, St. Augustine of Hipona already wrote centuries ago that the Trinity is something too complex to truly understand and is best to accept it as it is.

"IT JUST WORKS!"

Yeah... if you come up with something and then go "ah, but it's not something anyone can actually understand, you just gotta accept it" Then that just sounds to me like you're pulling complete nonsense out of your ass.

It's either accepting it or getting socked in the face by Saint Nick.