Finally Constantine, having conquered Licinius and become sole emperor, concerned himself with the re-establishment of religious peace as well as of civil order. He addressed letters to St. Alexander and to Arius depreciating these heated controversies regarding questions of no practical importance, and advising the adversaries to agree without delay.Constantine thought the actual nature of God was "of no practical importance", He just wanted the church to agree, truth was irrelevant to him.
The Council was opened by Constantine with the greatest solemnity. The emperor waited until all the bishops had taken their seats before making his entry. He was clad in gold and covered with precious stones in the fashion of an Oriental sovereign. A chair of gold had been made ready for him, and when he had taken his place the bishops seated themselves. After he had been addressed in a hurried allocution, the emperor made an address in Latin, expressing his will that religious peace should be re-established.So, you have a pagan sun worshiper opening a religious conference for the Catholic Church, being lauded, then setting the Tone for the meeting by telling everyone that he wanted them to just agree and stop arguing over the nature of God.
The emperor began by making the bishops understand that they had a greater and better business in hand than personal quarrels and interminable recriminations.Yeah, he offered to make them the State church of Rome if they would just agree on the nature of God and be done with actually caring if they were correct. I have more on my page Here But I will include my Synopsis
Now let's put all this in the context of the day. Constantine had just finally put down the other military leaders of a fractured empire. In spite of Christianity being illegal, it had grown in popularity (or maybe even because it was illegal) Constantine sends letters to these bishops (who are under a death sentence just for being Christians) and invites them to a conference, moreover, he puts "Public transportation" at their disposal to get to the conference with. (Public transportation means military horses and Chariots, there was no bus) Now on top of all this he tells them that one of the topics of the conference will be making the Catholic church the sate church of Rome. Carrot and Stick are now clearly (I hope) visible to all who read this. The bishops meet and Constantine tells them to come to a consensus on the nature of God (the Arian Controversy) and when they do, he makes them the state church. However, there are a few conditions, he wants a definition of God that everyone can accept, and thus we have the Greek religions influence in to the Nicene Creed. Mormons believe that this is the single biggest step into apostasy that can be documented as happening at an exact point in time.What has all this to do with the question of Mormons believing in the same Jesus as Orthodox Christians? We believe in the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus the apostles came to know and love, the son of God the creator, the savior, the Jesus the early church believed in. The orthodox Christianity believes in the abominable doctrine that God and Christ are one in substance, in the trinity, the doctrine created by a pagan who co-opted the church and didn't even join until his deathbed. You can go with Constantine as the standard, I will go with the Bible. IF I have to chose between a Jesus as defined by the Bible and one defined by Constantine, i choose the Bible, and Orthodox Christians can chose Constantine, and they can say I don't believe in their Jesus and I will be fine with that. I have a problem if they want to say I don't believe in the Jesus of the Bible and the catch is they think they do, even when their definition didn't come until 325 and because of Constantine.
Yes, we are clear. You are clearly willing to put forth a conveniently revisionist history of orthodox Christian doctrine, couple it with a gross misrepresentation of the means by which the doctrine of the Trinity is derived, and then pass off "my version" of Jesus as being the product of a sun-worshipping emperor while yours is "defined by the Bible" (and not by some false prophet who sings things in his hat and can make a good story out of an incomplete portion of heiroglyphics).
You have certainly perfected the art of playing the victim here. Your argument above MIGHT have helped you if you were arguing against somebody who put their trust in creeds and councils over and above Scripture, but I do not place such trust in them.
For one blustering on about everybody misrepresenting their beliefs, you sure do a fantastic job of just that very thing.
Nope. I'm clear that the connection between the data you present and the conclusions you draw is, at the kindest, tenuous. And I'm clear that the data are incomplete and that their incompleteness suggests they were selcted with a pre-determined conclusion in mind.
But if we can get away from the "I'm right and you're wrong -- and abominable to boot," stuff, I'd be interested in what monotheism means to Mormons. I think it's a demanding concept and always good to think about.