Religious thought

[kbs2244]

I had forgotten about Zoroastrianism.

I guess you would have to call it mono-theistic though.
(Maybe more so than “mainstream” Christianity with the wide spread adoption of the Trinity Doctrine.)

I agree with you on the need in general for "bad guys."

What I am thinking about is like in the classic Greek and Roman religions where there were disagreements between individual gods but no organized good guys vs. bad guys,

[Digit]

Christianity with the wide spread adoption of the Trinity Doctrine.)

The forced adoption of which resulted in another blood letting.

Roy.

[kbs2244]

A continuing blood letting.

The theological base for the Islam against Christianity debate is the “One God” idea.
Hence the common phrase “There is no God but Allah, and Allah is his name.”

After the adoption of the Trinity by the orthodox Christians the Islam missionaries had an easy time of it going out to the various Middle East tribes that had a generations old belief in a single god and pointing out that was not the official Christian doctrine anymore.
They invited them into “that old time religion” that believed in one God.
A predecessor to the idea of “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left me.”

The Dome of the Rock is full of beautiful quotations in mosaics..
They are all anti Trinity.

[Digit]

various Middle East tribes that had a generations old belief in a single god

Correct me if I wrong, but were there not 365 objects of worship in the Kabah, of which the Black Stone is the only one to survive Islam's purge?

Roy.

[kbs2244]

I think you are going to far back.
The Arab Conquest was in the late 600’s.
It overtook both the Persian an the Roman empires desert tribes.

The Roman area was in north Africa and generally was an area of “primitive” Christianity. These tribes had earlier converted, to a point, to Christianity along with the rest of the Roman Empire.
The adoption of Trinitarianism at The Council of Nicaea in 325 was downplayed to these nomadic tribes by the local bishops who saw no need to upset them.

BTW:
I am relying heavily on what I recall from Henri Pirenne’s book “Mohammed and Charlemagne” for these ideas.

[Digit]

The adoption of Trinitarianism at The Council of Nicaea in 325 was downplayed to these nomadic tribes by the local bishops who saw no need to upset them.

Upsetting other Christians didn't seem to bother them though, early European Christianity neither taught the trinity nor divinity for Jesus. Took fire and sword to do that!

Roy.

[kbs2244]

You will get no argument from me about those facts.

But here we are talking hundreds of years later.
It was accepted by the establishment by then.
But it just wasn’t talked about much in North Africa.

Remember that Alexandria and Libya were where the anti-Trinity Bishops at Nicaea where from.

[Digit]

Nicaea was where politics took control of religion, it was downhill from there I'm afraid.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

As Thomas Jefferson ( one of those blasted "revolutionaries" ) said:

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

Religion and politics have always propped each other up to benefit their respective classes.

[kbs2244]

Ah…..
But some day it will end.
Revelation 18:2&3 and then 18: 9&10

Of course, if you read on, as is so often the case, it then gets worse before it gets better.

[Minimalist]

Jefferson also had this to say about "revelations."

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read the Apocalypse, and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.... what has no meaning admits no explanation.
-- Thomas Jefferson

[Digit]

No, seriously Min, what did he really think?

Roy.

[Minimalist]

I actually don't agree with him. Revelations probably started out as a Jewish apocalyptic text which was later stolen by xtians and re-worked. It is actually a fairly decent propaganda piece against the Roman Empire not that anyone reading it would have given a rat's ass.

Of course, it has nothing to do with future events.