Constantine I , Constantine the Great (272-337) “The First Christian Emperor” by virtue of a deathbed baptism. His Edict of Milan (313) provided supposed religious tolerance to everything Christian. However, the edict came through his desire to mold Christianity to be consistent with his plans for a growing Empire. "As long as the state had been indifferent or hostile, it had classed all Christians, heretical, schismatic, orthodox, together, as equally criminal before the law. Now (313) that it had chosen to become an interested factor, it at once found itself obliged to ”discriminate". It could not conceivably support two sects or two bishops at the same time in the same place." With the conversion of the princes, the tendency to meddle in the internal affairs of the church became more pronounced. Who was more interested than the emperor in knowing which party represented the "true" Christian tradition? The temptation was great to refer the dispute to the emperor. And Constantine wanted to mold a state religion.

The most fundamental beliefs of Christianity were in dispute and it was left for Constantine and his newly converted princes to solve those disputes. Already Constantine had tried unsuccessfully to appease the Donatist quarrel in the west when his attention was attracted to the division of the church in the east by the Arian controversy. It was concerned with the nature of God, with the nature of the Son, and more especially with the relation of the Son to the Father, and, later, with the nature and the relation of the Holy Ghost to the Father and to the Son. In the darkness of Apostasy and after three generations of absolute persecution, Christianity was defining itself anew. However to the emporer, religious divisions meant political divisions, political divisions would not be endured by any Emperor.

Constantine was the lone author of the Council of Nicea. Eusebius gives him full credit and did not even mention the Bishop who presided at the conference. Constantine, himself, takes full credit. Both before and after he spoke of it as the synod he had summoned. Dr, Funk (Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen , t. 1. III, ch. XII) has accumulated many texts and many arguments to show that Constantine acted in his own personal name and on his own initiative.

This unbaptised “Christian” formed it “under the inspiration of God” and out of his own political self interest.

The Bishops arrived at Nicea some time in May but did not begin until June because the most important person had not arrived yet: The Emperor, Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus

So, what's the fuss about the historical fiction found in the DaVinci Code?

In 1954 the Elephantine Papyri and the accompanying Brooklyn Aramaic Papyri were discovered to show us a Jewish community living far up the Nile. They wrote that they fled there for safety. Perhaps it was in reaction to the destruction of Jerusalem in Lehi's day.

Perhaps the most surprising discovery about these Jews settled so far from home was their program for building a temple in their new home. Not long ago, learned anti-LDS intellectuals were fond of pointing out that Nephi's idea of building a temple in the New World was quite sufficient to absolutely prove once and for all the fraudulence of the Book of Mormon. It was argued that no real Jew would ever dream of having a temple anywhere but in Jerusalem.

Of course this was not the scriptures speaking it was man.

How truly wonderful it is to visit LDS Temples in so many wonderful places. In the very near future when we move to Anchorage Alaska or Hilo Hawaii, there will be a temple within a couple hour drived from us.

The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday it would cut food rations for more than 6 million people in Sudan due to a 75% shortfall of funds. This is despite signs that malnutrition is again on the rise among people living in squalid camps.

WFP said it was halving food aid from the minimum daily requirement of 2,100 calories to 1,050 calories as of May. The previous minimum requirement is the recognized calorie intake required to sustain life while resting for a grown middle aged male.

The United States has been the largest donor at $188 million of a total 238 million donated, while Italy was the ONLY major European country to contribute. ($1.2 million).

Simple math confirms that the citizens of the world outside the borders of the United States have a collective disregard for the truly poor and suffering. As much as the critics from other countries accuse America as everything evil, it is they who should reap the whirlwind.

Well, Thom, what you describe is a form of Agnosticm.

Here I point out the inconsistency of your chief argument: that an infinite God creating an infinite atonement can only create a finite creation. - a form of Agnosticm. In previously attacking gnosis you now reveal your extreme.

We have been taught that it was expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; not a sacrifice of man or animal; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice from an infinite and eternal God of His Son. Why an infinite atonement for a finite creation? Absurd.

The human mind was created in God's image not only to conceive but also to believe; yet it is supposed here that a "Christian" must have certain boundary lines (a certain agnosis) within which it may both conceive and believe, and beyond them it cannot go. It can know only the limited, and the conditionally limited, the agnostic Christian says. That being true might we not enquire, how is the human mind—it being finite—is to have a conception or a belief about things infinite, as in a God? With only a finite creation what has God to do with Himself forever, playing mind games?

This agnosticism Christian pronounces The Book of Mormon to be the productions of finite men instead of an infinite God. What he/she prescribes as Christian has nothing to do with divine revelation....except an attack on its foundation stone.

Thus, if there is an infinite realm of spirits that as finite beings, we can know nothing whatever of their existence. Such a "believer" travels half way to not concieving of an eternal God at all in believing only His finite creation.

The LDS hold out the hope that the time will come when we shall know God and all things infinite; we mean in the sense of comprehending Him and His Creation. For the scriptures tell us that His Son was with Him from "the Beginning" and curiously His Son IS necessarily His Son. A moment of "Dah".

The agnostic Christian holds to the necessity of a law of logic that man cannot have a rational faith in the existence, power, and infiniteness of any being or force unless it is a being or force that he can fully comprehend?

No. God certainly can, by revelation, make known his existence, and can reveal to us the fact that He himself and his creation, are infinite.

"Worlds without number have I created. * * * * Behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power, and there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they to man. * * * * The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; * * * * and as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof, even so shall another come, and there is no end to my works, neither to my words."

This passage implies constant movement in this infinite universe. The movement in the universe, the organization and then the disintegration of worlds and world systems is in the direction of the development of, and for the increase of the power and glory of truly immortal Intelligences.

Take a look at http://www.youtube.com and check out the video titled "naughty old women". I think this is Lucy.