Comments on: Borrowing from the Neighbors

By: When the Christians met the Pagans | Bjørn Stærk

When the Christians met the Pagans | Bjørn Stærk — Sat, 11 May 2013 11:24:01 +0000

[...] visual elements they were familiar with from Pagan art, which is why you could find images where Jesus looked like Apollo. And as more and more educated people became Christians, it didn’t take them long to find [...]

By: Marco

Marco — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 04:54:34 +0000

Making a man a felon is what the police today should have been everytime they call a black man a n*****, they should have been hauled off in cuffs and served some hard time in jail. They should be a felon if they insult someone during questioning if they call someones compliments “controversial” should be jailed and fired and permanently banned from working as a cop anywhere.

By: John

John — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 04:50:02 +0000

Make a man an offender for a word, that verse of scripture today is being followed by our nation and world, but in the wrong way. A man should not be banned and arrested, jailed for imaginary harassment and trespassing for a compliment of some unmarried lady’s bosom,cleavage and maybe rearend.

By: John

John — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 04:46:01 +0000

Nobody seems disappointed in the devil because alot of people including those who go to church are listening to him, if they don’t want to hang out on other days and not just once every sabbath day, or they don’t want to be saved.

By: Scott I

Scott I — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 05:45:44 +0000

I see the pagan inspired images as dangerous and not acceptable for Christians. For one, there need to be clearly established and enforced boundaries tween Christians and Pagans. If not, lines get blurred and soon, the lines get crossed. God made Israel stand out and be distinct from the nations as well.

Images often turn into icons of worship. The commandment forbidding graven images, those of gods, heaven, or worship, were to keep God’s people from becoming idolaters. I note that many alleged sinister organizations today are loaded with occult and pagan imagery. What sharing do righteousness and lawlessness have? Gout out of her, my people!

Christianity has clearly been apostate for the better part of 1800 years, as it looks to me. Isaac Newton has a great write up of Christianity’s earliest pagan adoptions and corruption. So even he noted this.

By: Vasileios

Vasileios — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 09:00:12 +0000

@ Eric:

The making of religious pictures is not idolatry per se, but the use of icons in worship, and particularly as objects of prayer and bowing down. It is significant that such use did emerge only after the forceful “christianization” of Roman society at the late 4th century. It is of intrest that the most ancient icon of crucified Christ is as late as 7th century.

By: Eric Giunta

Eric Giunta — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 05:45:08 +0000

Krzysztof :

No, it doesn’t, What’s apostate is your superstitious (even blasphemous) conviction that man’s creative and artistic impulse is of the devil, and that it is a sin to employ that in order to communicate religious truth.

Matthew:

Fundamentalists have this nasty habit of trying to find parity between themselves and the early Christians (who were Catholics, unless we’re talking about heretical sectarians who were the Protestants of their day: Judaizers, Gnostics, Montanists, Sabellianists, Arians, etc.) by pointing to the most superficial of similarities. Your quotation from Clement is pastoral counsel about what types of seals it is a appropriate for Christians to employ and which aren’t; it is far from a dogmatic assertion (let alone a comprehensive one) about the permissible use of images in Christian worship.

By: Krzysztof

Krzysztof — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:26:40 +0000

This article clearly shows nature of the apostate Christianity

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:25:49 +0000

The statue/ idol of Isis breast feeding horus is not similar to the Icon of Theotokos holding Jesus hand in her lap the only similarity is the angle of her arm. While many images were copied others were not. After all there is only a finite way to depict the human form in art. That being the case there is going to be similarities.

Clement of Alexandria A.D. 153–193–217 taught against the use of images with the exception of seals used for letters a clear contrast to the later practices and teachings of the church.

Chapter XI.—A Compendious View of the Christian Life.

And let our seals be either a dove, or a fish, or a ship scudding before the wind, or a
musical lyre, which Polycrates used, or a ship’s anchor, which Seleucus got engraved as a
device; and if there be one fishing, he will remember the apostle, and the children drawn
out of the water. For we are not to delineate the faces of idols, we who are prohibited to
cleave to them; nor a sword, nor a bow, following as we do, peace; nor drinking-cups, being temperate.