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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
The roots of Christianity and Judaism  are in ancient Semitic religions.  These were polytheistic, the belief and worship of many gods.  They progressed at some point to henotheism, the belief in many gods but the worship of only one, often a tribal god. For the ancient Jews, this was Yahweh. Over time, the worship of this one god evolved into a belief in only one God. This is where Judaism was at the time of Christ.  Atheist PP, I think you agree with all this.

According to mainstream views, Jesus and all his followers were monotheistic.  Jesus was simply God come down to earth, not a separate God.

But you seem to see Jesus (or perhaps his followers) as somehow re-establishing the polytheistic roots of ancient Judaism, with Jesus as a separate god to be adored alongside the now established Jewish God.  And somehow, they established a third more elusive god to be worshipped as well, the Holy Spirit.

Your thesis appears to be that the Council of Nicea pronounced Christianity a firmly monotheistic religion with a triune God because it is easier to control people with a monotheistic religion than with a polytheistic religion.  I must say, you completely lose me here--where is the evidence that monotheistic religions are inherently more given to controlling the masses (I think this is your contention) than polytheistic religions?

And BTW, I don't think any of the Christian PPs here feel they are "controlled by an ancient text."  [/quote]

This is a pretty good recap of Smug Non-Christian's (SNC) historical and theological mistakes. It probably makes a good end to this thread.

As PP said, SNC's arguments make little sense because
- Christianity didn't re-establish polytheism, to the contrary, Christianity was monotheistic from the very start, and Jesus was God come down to earth.
- Therefore, Nicaea had no role in reestablishing monotheism. Nicaea had other important legacies, but given that SNC can't be bothered to read the few paras above, it doesn't seem worth listing them.
- The argument that it's easier to "control" people with a monotheistic god vs. many gods is indeed baffling and unsupported by any evidence.[/quote]

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