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"The point is that Jesus tells them to go to "the church." "

Many on this thread have shown in Scripture that the Church is the body of believers. You keep insisting it has to be a "discernable" body.

I don't understand how you can't discern people as believers.

You have yet to show any biblcal proof backing your view that Rome is the Church.

"His Church, which Scripture calls "the pillar and foundation of truth," cannot exist in many places with conflicting teachings"

You use this as an example. Scripture clearly shows you to be wrong. Jesus writing to the 7 Churches in Revelation show us 7 Churches in 7 locations with different teachings. Paul wrote to Corinth, another church in a different location, correcting them. Paul also talks of division

" Phil 4:2-3 2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. (NIV)

1 Cor 1:10 10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. (NIV) "

Even though Paul is asking for unity, we see by his writings that it wasn't always that way.

We know that division will be punished , Jesus tells us this in his letters to the churches, but to claim that the church can't exist in different locations with different teachings is just not true.

You want us to believe that only a specific body of men have the authority to interpret Scripture. (Magisterium)For this to be true you would have to prove that they have interpreted the Bible without fault from the beginning and have not changed. They wouldn't get the truth at different times. They would know from the start.

You can't do this. History shows the teachings have changed in Rome through the years. I know the RC claims the truth "evolves" to cover for the mistakes they have made.

This is absurd. If you have the authority and the power of the Spirit to do this it should have been right from the beginning.

At this time I would like to call Galileo to the stand!.

you claim the Catholic Church has the authority. When we ask you who gave them that authority, you reply, the Catholic church. You can give no other reason. All scripture you quote to back your arguments have to be translated with the idea RC is the authority,but you don't prove it

You make some good points. How can Paul correct churches when the Bible also tells us that "the church is the pillar and foundation of truth"?

Well, first of all, Paul wouldn't be attempting to correct these churches if he didn't think something that they were doing needed correcting, and if he didn't think that they would take his call for correction seriously. Why would they take his call for correction seriously if they belonged to a different church, with a different ecclesiastical hierarchy?

Paul was correcting an individual Church community that he judged to be in error. Sometimes Paul corrected those churches engaging in sinful activity, sometimes churches teaching false doctrines, and sometimes Paul was working through pastoral and doctrinal issues that had not yet been resolved. The most obvious example of the latter would be the disagreements regarding the applicability of the Jewish customs to the Gentiles.

History shows the teachings have changed in Rome through the years. I know the RC claims the truth "evolves" to cover for the mistakes they have made.

The necessity of circumcision for Gentiles is perhaps the earliest example of "the development of doctrine." Church doctrine, or Church teaching, simply develops over time.The Church draws conclusions based on revealed Scriptural and Traditional facts.

For example, 300 years of study and argument resulted in the promulgation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Once the Church invokes its authoritative teaching power Its teaching cannot be rescinded. Until such a time, however, it is permissible to speculate regarding open theological questions.

In other cases, bishops can simply teach erroneously. It happened in Scripture and it happens now. But the settled body of Church doctrine has never changed. It is only clarified and thus "added to."

Then there are other teachings of the Church that are pastoral and subject to change, such as "fish on Fridays."

An authoritative resource regarding Catholic dogma is Ludwig Ott's "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma."

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Regarding Galileo. His teachings were condemned by a group of bishops, I believe. A finding by a group of bishops is not an infallible judgement.

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Do a search on "the seat of Moses" or "the chair of Moses" in the Bible. Then compare that to "the chair of Peter."

All scripture you quote to back your arguments have to be translated with the idea RC is the authority,but you don't prove it Since your interpretations are baed on the assumption that Rome is not the authority, then this shows the limits of any appeal to Scripture. Somehow, some place a choice must be made between different interpretations.

For instance, the Arian controversy was essentially a dispute over Scripture and the matter was not settled even in the minds of orthodox Christians for two hundred years, after much discussion in many synods and councils. Even so in the year 600, the majority of Christians were not orthodox but Arian, Nestorian, or Monophysite.

In the end, God settled the matter in favor of Orthodoxy, because Arianism and Nestorianism do not flourish today, at least not publicly. Likewise in the dispute between Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox and whatever, God will eventually decide the matter.