Quote:
Originally Posted by bluedog
And the only logical reason that Constantine could have chosen Christianity over the many and various other idol worshiping displays of religion that he had been exposed to from birth, would be the fact that he knew the real God of Creation when He was presented with the knowledge of such. Why would he have chosen some false religion like exampled in the Hindu faith, when he had been exposed to such false ideology from birth? BD
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Constantine's mother was a Christian: "St Helena", and had a great amount of influence over him. His "conversion" was probably earnest, but it also related to his desire to move the capital out of Rome. Roman Paganism was based in Rome, and this gave the leaders there a certain amount of power. Constantine was the outsider and opponent of these leaders, so it shouldn't be surprising that he would want to undermine their position.
The rest of your post is pretty good. The idea that Constantine "created" Christianity belongs in fiction like "the devinci code" and "holy blood, holy grail". Constantine's support helped the church greatly, but by the time constantine supported it, it was already strong enough to stand on its own and was already well on its way towards standardization (which is what Nicene was really all about).