This is something I found and was shown to me

[DollFace]

In these last days...

This video I found I it's not mine.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QedFv9Dt2Jc



Copy and paste this link into the web box and watched the video.


Edit: I just edited the title so it would not consist of capital letters only. We encourage capitalizing only in case it supports the understanding of a message or if there is a different conceivable reason for capitalizing.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

I watched the video and literally have no idea what on earth it is trying to say.

[DarkHououmon]

I took a look at the title and realized that the video is most likely made by some extremely religious person, and I see little reason why I should pay attention to what it says. This isn't to say I'm against religious people; I just raise a skeptical eyebrow when one tries to tell people the "ultimate truth". A line from an old song I like pretty much describes my feelings towards such people.

"If you try to sell me the truth, then I know you're a liar."

In other words, if a person who claims to know an "absolute truth" tries to tell me that what they believe is the only truth, tries to spread this supposed truth to others, and tells them they will die or suffer if they don't accept this truth and condemns whatever they believe in, then I disregard what they say.

Also, perhaps this should be moved to the After Midnight section.

[jansenov]

The video is trying to tell us that historical Christianity has little to do with Jesus' teachings, that Christianity is in fact invented by Paul, a Roman citizen. I'm not sure how the author of the video fits emperor Augustus in. Since Augustus died in 14 AD, while Jesus was a teenager, I guess the author accuses August of founding the Roman Empire, which formed Paul into the fraudster he became, Paul who introduced the concept of submitting to the power of the state into the Bible. Since this is counter to God's teaching, this would make Christianity essentially a Satanic cult (at least in the author's opinion, since he refers to Paul as the Antichrist).

This is the part of the video I get. What I don't get is this: if the forces of evil managed to snuff out the original Christianity, as envisioned by Jesus, at such an early date, what makes the author think that the end world is coming just now? The author tries to make a connection between the Roman Empire and the United States, and their respective money, because Roman currency was probably the original sign of the beast, as envisioned by the author of the Apocalypse, the last book of the Bible. But during this whole period between Rome and the USA there were several empires which utterly dominated the world at their time, and each had its own "signs of the beast", and yet the world didn't end. Also the USA's been around for 237 years, and has been a significant power for over a 100 years, so why is it exactly this time that the world will end?

Judging by the author's denouncing of mainstream Christianity, of the state, and his/her belief that the Antichrist has already walked this world, which means we have been undergoing the Apocalypse for quite some time, I would guess that the author of the video is a Jehovah's witness. If not that, then just your common-variety freelance Bible "researcher".

[StrutEggStealer]

Unfortunately, the video is quite plainly wrong, and while I would to see religious videos gaining some attention, this is the wrong kind. Christianity is derived from Jesus Christ, God the Son.
Paul, though not numbered among the original twelve of the Apostles, is considered an Apostle because of his truly inspirational Epistles and writings after his enlightenment - literally being struck blind by a brilliant light, and then being healed at Damascus. However, Peter was probably the most important because of his position at Rome - he literally is the leader of the Church on earth.
Paul did not have Peter crucified - Paul did not even hear of Christianity until after Jesus' death, presumed to be around 33 B.C. even though Jesus was around 33 when He died. Historical inaccuracy at its best, I suppose.
And frankly, St. Paul is one of the most influential writers out there for Christianity's cause. To call him a fake and a conspirator is plain idiotic. Why would he conspire with the very Empire he was bringing to its knees per preaching of the truth? This video is disturbing and horribly inaccurate.

[jansenov]

How did Paul bring the Roman Empire to its knees? In the late united Empire Christianity served as a unifying factor and made the Empire stronger in its last centuries, while the staunchly Christian Eastern Roman Empire outlived its half-Christian, half-pagan western counterpart by almost a thousand years. Other factors brought the Western Roman Empire down, not Christianity. Christianity was actually a breath of fresh air for the Empire, because it filled the vacuum left by the increasingly moribund traditional religions (the educated Roman citizens, exposed to Greek philosophical thought, increasingly doubted the relevance of their religion to the real world; it kind of parallels the situation Christianity finds itself in today, with Christians being heavily exposed to science) and also left by Hellenistic philosophy, which hit a dead end and could no longer produce new ideas.

[StrutEggStealer]

^ Then why exactly was he martyred by the Romans for "bringing in a breath of fresh air"? The pagans- mostly the merchants and so-called priests were losing business - same thing happened to Silas in Greece.
Rather than leave, Paul stayed and was martyred.
I suppose I should have worded that better. "Bring the Empire to its knees", I meant that the pagan idolater "ideals" were challenged - paganism was featured heavily in Rome, especially during that time period.

[jansenov]

During Paul's life Christianity was a marginal religion, and the Empire was still ascending territorially and economically. The old social order was still working, and people didn't see a pressing need to convert to some, at the time, mysterious and little known faith. There were few persecutions at this time.  It was the crises after Traian, the lack of plunder of new territories, the desertification of north Africa, the exhaustion of ores, timber and soil, and the associated famines and technological regression that made people look towards the afterlife, and hence the "breath of fresh air" for many. It was during the late Empire, paritcularly under Diocletian, that it became a numerically significant religion, and subject to more systematic persecutions, since Christians refused to participate in the imperial cult, the Empire's original element of unity. By Constantine's time, Christianity became the most organised religion with the most developed theology, and as it was a state friendly it was a fitting replacement for the imperial cult. Still, even when Christianity become the sole official religion, it was still the emperor, not any of the Christian patriarchs, that was the most powerful person in the country. It is the emperor who called the ecumenical councils where the vital matters of the Christian faith were discussed and voted on. And this continued on for another millenium in the Eastern Roman Empire, where the patriarch of Constantinople was in practice subordinate to the emperor. So, the Roman state managed to co-opt Christianity into serving its own stability.