Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (23353)	4/23/2006 9:18:27 AM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 28931

Some early Christians sought out and welcomed their persecutions , some their martyrdom and deaths : answers.com Roman authorities tried hard to avoid Christians because they "goaded, chided, belittled and insulted the crowds until they demanded their death.";193; One man shouted to the Roman officials: "I want to die! I am a Christian," leading the officials to respond: "If they wanted to kill themselves, there was plenty of cliffs they could jump off." But the Christians, following Tertullian's dicta that "martyrdom is required by God," forced their own martyrdom so they could die in an ecstatic trance: "Although their tortures were gruesome, the martyrs did not suffer, enjoying their analgesic state." The conditions under which martyrdom was an acceptable fate or under which it was suicidally embraced occupied writers of the early Christian Church. Broadly speaking, martyrs were considered uniquely exemplary of the Christian faith, and few early saints were not also martyrs. However, suicide is murder, and is associated with treason to the faith - the very opposite of martyrdom - the way of Judas the traitor, not of Jesus the savior. This confusion of early Christians over the values of martyrdom led to some breakaways from the Church in Rome, most notably the Donatists. Their was one sect, the Circumcellions, AKA the "agonostici", Latin for "fighter who hangs out around villages ", and root of our English word "antagonist", that is of special regard in this matter. The Circumcellions had come to regard martyrdom as the true Christian virtue (as Church Father Tertullian said, a martyr’s death day was actually his birthday), and thus came to disregard chastity, sobriety, humbleness, charity, and most of the other good things we today associate with Christianity. Instead, they focused on bringing about their martyrdom-- by any means possible. Since Jesus had told Peter to put down his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Circumcellions piously avoided bladed weapons and instead opted for the use of blunt clubs, which they called "Israelites." Using their "Israelites", the Circumcellions would attack random travelers on the road, while shouting "Praise the Lord!" in Latin. The object of these random beatings was the death of the intrepid martyr, who hoped that clobbering someone over the head with an "Israelite" would provoke said person to send the happy Circumcellion straight to Heaven.