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Our views are so different that it will be hard to find a place to make contact.

I agree.

The Fathers at Chalcedon and Ephesus did right much testing.

That's not the point. We are to do our own testing. Saying God, I took "x's" word for it won't fly. We are all accountable for our own spiritual walk and He gave us the tool for it. There could be 100,000 people agree on a thing, if it's not Scriptural we don't agree with them because of the number who agree. Majority doesn't rule like in this early realm - the ways of the Kingdom of God are way different - for we are told - through the narrow gate only a few enter. Very sobering, IMO.

I personally, do not think Jesus's teachings don't make sense. I think once my mind is renewed, they make lots of sense.

Exactly. That is what I said. We need a renewed mind and can't use our own understanding. For a new Christian or one not fill with the Holy Spirit - reading 'if one slaps you turn the other check. Or if he takes your cloak, give him another". No way, Jose, that's not going to happen!! And that's a very minor example. Renewing the mind and being Spirit filled is commanded.

You know I became a catholic when I was 46

I spent 2/3 my life as a Catholic.

I do not think we can easily be accused of conforming to a worldly understanding

I don't think that's the main issue at all. It's the RCC teachings and then claim to be God's Church when their teachings are clearly against His Word. The RCC may have their spin on it - but 'it's spin' and not Truth.

strained courtesy one reserves for the head-hunter who somehow ended up at the dinner table.

They must like you, they invited you. ;)

But the main difference is that you have a starker notion of the Fall.

That's where the problem began. Sin, sickness, poverty, plaques, killings, etc., etc - all curses, evil entered in. Before that, well, it was paradise. And that's the reason Jesus came - because of the Fall, man lost dominion over the earth and sin separated from The Father. He came to reclaim what man lost. Our problems didn't start with Barry but deception did put him in our House. Deception is rampant.

It is logic and its principles which will lead you to say you can't think

That's to the extreme - saying you can't think. If you say Mary is the Mother of God and we know God was from the beginning - you use logic and reasoning - if A + B =. It's not like that in the Kingdom of God. We are to believe what He says - in spite of what seems reasonable to us. We use logic for earthly things, if my mother gave birth to me, then she gave birth to the best person alive today. :) That works.

Could Jesus have come down from heaven as a man of 30 years ready to do His ministry and then die for us and rise again. Yes! He can do anything but HE never goes against the way HE designed things. He created woman to give birth - and that's the way HE would come - by His own design. He follows His Own Word, His own Ways - even when He was more than capable of doing it another way. And that's a lesson for us - His Ways are not just for us but HIM, also. His Word will live forever and He will never go against it. Some think - since I'm a good person and have done good works, I know God will let me into heaven. NOPE! He has ONE Way - through Jesus by grace through faith and not works.

When I accept that Jesus is God and man and am then told that I think with a carnal mind, I have to laugh.

Did you leave something out? Like Mary is the Mother of God? Isn't that what the 'carnal' is about? God always was - you can't give birth to something that always was. Even that's logic. She gave birth to the man Jesus "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men".

To me, to say that she gave birth to the man Jesus and not to God, is to say that the man in Jesus can be separated from God. He is not one being then, but two. So I balk at it.

As far as everyone testing for himself. I don't find that in the Bible. I DO find that some are apostles, some teaches, and so forth. Some, not all.

And not everyone has the time or the gifts to do his own testing. Surely you don't think a 3 year old should do his own testing. What about someone who doesn't have the gift for Bible study and theology?

And if the Bible and the gifts you say are provided, there is still the problem of the divisions among Sola Scriptura adherents. Some say the Bible has all Truth. Others profess Sola Scripture but do not say that. They can't both be right, can they?

I didn't say I didn't believe in the Fall. I alluded to (but did not say outright) that you seemed to think that reason is so corrupted that it cannot be relied on. I think there are problems, but not with reason itself. Rather we don't use it, we don't listen to it, we don't always WANT to know the truth. So our reason errs sometimes, but more often we just don't or won't use it.