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I may be wrong about the reality but I'm the world's foremost expert on what it looks like from here. And what it looks like from here is a bunch of angry, hostile, and judgmental people dead set on not understanding (note: I did not say "agreeing with", I said "understanding")what we teach, eager to misrepresent what we teach, speedy to condemn us for not believing as they do.
Last night it occurred to me that if one's religion includes the assurance that one is right as a sign that one is saved, then one can expect a kind of brittleness and inflexibility in conversation. Entertaining the possibility that there might be something worthwhile in catholic Christianity would mean entertaining the possibility that one was not saved, which, according to some theologies would be sign that one was not saved.

No wonder conversation is difficult!

For what it's worth, I am not a chr*stian of any kind and do not consider myself "saved" (in fact, I reject "salvational" religion as fraudulent).

I was a member of your church for six years and was finally asked to leave or my "un-Catholic" beliefs: ie, my belief that the Bible in inerrant. How dare you imply that I have never given your church a chance? I submitted to your church and bent myself out of shape to do it, but the fact that I still believed in the total inerrancy of the "church's" Bible made me suspect.

Meanwhile the church is full of "good Catholics" who are liberal politicians, homosexuals, Marxists, etc., but I suppose the fact that they are evolutionists and higher critics makes them "good Catholics."

I advise you to refrain from criticizing someone when you have never stood in his shoes.

Go back to your blasphemous mythologizing.

I was a member of your church for six years and was finally asked to leave or my "un-Catholic" beliefs

Since you keep making this claim, you ought to be upfront about who "asked you to leave" and under what circumstances, instead of repeating vague hearsay.

If it was a bishop, then let's hear his name.

If it wasn't a bishop, then the person had no authority to do any such "asking".

How dare you imply that I have never given your church a chance?

Wha'?

Your yelling at me and telling me I "dare" imply stuff and that I'm criticizing you surely is not going to make me think you're any less angry, okay?

If you were to read what I wrote you'd see I was talking about my impression. I have an impression that there are a lot of angry Protestants, who come out of the gate disagreeing before they trouble to find out wht they are disagreeing with. I could be wrong, but I have the impression. I not only didn't say you, I wasn't even thinking of you when I formed that impression.

You say you're not a Christian, so I think I can conclude you're not a Protestant. But you're saying that I am criticizing you. Life is full of sorrows.

Also it doesn't sound to me like you submitted. You can say you did but I hear you saying that you held onto some belief about how to approach Scripture which is not a Catholic belief. That's not submission, as far as I can tell. You're saying something like,"I'll agree with you about YOUR stuff, if' you'll agree with me about mine," and the Church said, "No, we don't agree with your approach to Scripture," so you said, "Oh, no deal, I'm outta here." -- or something like that. If that's anywhere near the truth, it's sure not submission, it's bargaining, or what am I missing?

I don't think I have an argument with you. I'm not sure what the big deal is here. I certainly was not thinking about you when I made my comment about "blessed assurance". I didn't know where yhou stood or didn't stand on that.