Atheists & Agnostics

but if you mean THEY to be the bishops gathered at the Council of Nicea in AD 325, they did not invent the "biblical manGod." When Emperor Constantine called the council, what he did was ask the -- yep, mostly old men -- bishops who attended to combine the beliefs that had become popular among the early Christians with those of the older pagan religions prevalent at the time. They went thru the old books and traditions and decided what would go in the Bible.

Constatine did it totally for political reasons, to try to quell the unrest in the Roman Empire and try to bring some peace to the place. And as a result the Church, dominated by old men, developed a huge amount of political power later.

Some of the stuff in the Bible goes back to traditions long before the Council of Nicea and the Bible: the flood, the creation, resurrection, even the halos seen over saints' heads. It's a fascinating story. People believed in gods -- male and female -- long before those old guys decided what to put in the Bible.