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Originally Posted by Skinny Fatts
Fundamentalism isn't unique to Christianity, or religion. It is, in fact, a strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles. For example, a fundy atheist might make an argument that Constantine sanctioned Christianity.
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No, but anyone with any basic background in history above the grade school level, would know that that Constantine not only sanctioned Christianity, but mandated it.
Quote:
TakuanSoho
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).
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You are either missing the point, or you have no background on the history of Xian theology.
The tenants of modern Christianity are virtually all post Constantine.
Your contention that Christianity has any sort of consistent form beyond a patchwork of localized factions, or that it even resembled modern christanity prior to Nephi, is the ultimate in revisionist history.