[CSM] Christians ready to refute 'Da Vinci Code' movie

i hear ya. and i understand that viewpoint.

 

unitarians are relatively new on the scene. not a lot of influence at Nicea! most unitarians today would not tell you they are Christian. the early Unitarians are VERY VERY different from what we would call unitarians today. first century unitarians were called so because they didn't believe in the trinity...they believed in the absolute one-ness of God. there are lots of ways that gets explained. even the most adamant of historical unitarians would profess that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God...separate and apart from human beings, even if not fully divine in the God-head.

there is a huge infatuation with gnostics and their influence in the early church. people point to the Gospel of Thomas to make that point. i don't get it. i read Thomas..i've read it time and time again. it is nothing more than a collection of sayings and doesn't really try to explain his life..where he went...who he talked to, etc. just Jesus said: "asdfjslfj"; Jesus said: "lskjafsldja" and on and on. i don't understand how the concept emanates that he was not real. i don't totally understand how the concept of Jesus not being real is ascribed to Gnostics. Gnostic means "special knowledge" or something like that. the Gospel of Thomas starts out with Jesus saying something like, "whoever understands what i mean by these sayings will not die." These gnostic ideas were huge in Greek and Roman religions of the day...so it's easy to see how they might have influence on early Christianity. But it doesn't change the story...the Gospel of Thomas refers to being born again and it has tons of crossover from the gospels that were made canonical. It just doesn't attempt to describe his life or give any account of him other than the things he said.

by the way...here's a line directly from the gnostic Gospel of Thomas:

v. 28 -- Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty.

 

These two questions should be pursued. The human soul is far too valuable to leave these questions unanswered. I wouldn't give up one of my eyes for a million dollars, yet they are the window into my eternal soul.

To leave the question of what happens after you die to human reasoning is to ignore human logic.

Don't rely on a church or denomination to tell you the message. Read the gospels and epistles for yourself (it will speak to you if you have ears to hear). The message can stand on its own.

I feel too many people miss God's message because they reject the messengers. That's why I believe the Bible is so very important. Simple enough for a child to believe and hard for an adult to accept.