Question For Protestants

[David Sklansky]

"What isn't logical, is for their to be no true church that is entirely correct, because otherwise God doesn't care whether His message is intrepreted correctly or not"


"Given the vast number of different religions in the world, and the fact Catholics only comprise 1/5 of the world's people, it would indeed seem that God doesn't care if his message is interpreted correctly."

Unless he hasn't even tried to send his message yet. Or if there is no God who cares about sending messages. See why I say Catholics walk a tightrope?

And you are missing the point that if God cared about his message being correctly preached and interpreted, he would have done a better job than he did at getting it written. The disagreements have come because the bible is so ambiguous, and clearly contradictory in places. If he had written in pure, clear English (or Aramaic for that matter), this problem wouldn't exist, at least not to the extent it does now.

[BluffTHIS!]

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And you are missing the point that if God cared about his message being correctly preached and interpreted, he would have done a better job than he did at getting it written. The disagreements have come because the bible is so ambiguous, and clearly contradictory in places. If he had written in pure, clear English (or Aramaic for that matter), this problem wouldn't exist, at least not to the extent it does now.

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And thus the reason and need for a true church to explain its apparent conflicts authoritatively, rather than the protestant notion of a priesthood of all believers in which each man is capable of self-interpretation.

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1. The same argument can be applied by the Jewish religion against ALL christianity."

But why is that a problem? BluffTHIS's point is in fact very valid. Even though it leads to this.

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Yes it is. But implied in his statement is the idea that unless the reformers agree, the original doctrine is more likely to be correct. Given that the Jewish religion predates and is the basis for Christianity, I was pointing out that his statement could lead to some silly conclusions (such as Jews being more correct than Catholics [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

[BB King's]

<font color="red"> The Church they revolted against is the SAME Catholic Church that once killed and persecuted people for saying the Earth was round, when the bible clearly showed it was flat. </font>

This is wrong ! The Catholic Church never killed and persecuted people for saying the Earth was round.

Someone should re-read the history of Galileo Galilei.

Well - it's a very common mistake.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/cosmo_bibl1.htm

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Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was the first major supporter of Copernicus' theory; he was imprisoned by the Inquisition in 1592 and later burned alive for heresy. Early in the 17th century, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) invented the telescope which revolutionized astronomy. He observed that the planet Venus went through phases, that there were spots on the sun and that Jupiter had moons. The church arrested Galileo twice; the Inquisition showed him the instruments of torture that would be used to force his recantation if he didn't offer it willingly. He abandoned his teachings under pressure and retired. It was not until the year 1835 that the teachings of Copernicus and Galileo were finally accepted by his Church. More than a century and a half were to pass before the Roman Catholic church issued an apology.

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They may have it wrong, I don't know. Do you have any sources?

[BB King's]

... <font color="red"> the Copernicus' theory </font> isn't about the eatrh been flat or round.

Ask Columbus (1492) or Magellan (1519-21) or ...

You are quite correct. It is about the the earth rotating the sun, and not being the center of the universe, among other things. From what I've read the round earth theory has been around since Aristotle, to varying degrees.

Thanks for the information, I haven't had a misconception corrected in a long time. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[BB King's]

<font color="red">Thanks for the information, I haven't had a misconception corrected in a long time. </font>

Neither have I. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Thanks for the link. Lot of good stuff.

[BluffTHIS!]

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Note that I am only referring to doctrine and worship and not about abuses, corruption and immoral practices of some Catholics including clerics, bishops and popes.

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OOO, in your posts above you have once again failed to address the limitations in my post like the the one above. Also, the church is competent only in the sphere of faith and morals, not science, and this has always been the doctrinal case regardless of what errorneous scientific opinions might have been held by church leaders including popes.