that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of Gods one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (John 3.16-21).That, in a nutshell, is the doctrine Christianity. One, all-powerful God, passing judgement upon those who do not accept the message of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is His Son and the Savior, and if you believe that he is, than you will be saved. This God is the only God and he will not tolerate those who will not serve Him and only Him. But for those who do, there is love and hope. Quite simple and easy to understand, if not easy to accept. The majority of the people in the Empire were, what Christian called, pagans. They believed in many different gods and the view of another god was something that was easily acceptable. But Christians had a different view on gods. They believed that there was only one God, and all other gods were false. This was something that was a new concept to the common people. In the pagan religion, tolerance was emphasized. Many of the gods were those found in the Greek religion, just with different names. But there were many other gods and cults that were introduced all the time. There were also some primitive ideas that suggested a monotheistic view, a god that was more powerful and reigned over the other gods. But this view consisted of a pyramidical concept, with this all-powerful god above the other god...
