Actually i like analogies, but yours lacked perspicuity, yet Rome is more analogous to Communism than Prots.
You keep trying to define me. Now I’m Episcopalian? That’s where debates tend to descend, with attempts to read the opponent’s mind and emotions: “you are ____________” or “you think ___________”.
I did not say that you were Episcopalian , but wondered which universe your lived in I Perhaps one in which your like institutionalized Prot cousins (Episcopalians, etc.) represent Protestant faith.
I’ve been defending n these pages the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church against these often ignorant, angry and hateful attacks. I’d rather see the Religious Forum eliminated altogether.
Defending the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church, two elitist churches opposed to each other, from what you see as ignorant, angry and hateful attacks? But you see no ignorant, angry and hateful attacks against evangelical faith from them, esp. the RCs. I can provide you a collection. But why not simply oppose uneducated rants and encourage civil and informed debate? I find RCs too often opposing this, erroneously attacking substantiated documentation from their own sources if it seems to impugn Rome, and attacking my motives as deceptive etc., but who are exposed as fallacious. I can show you.
Moreover, eliminating the Religious forum, which sees great if not the greatest amounts of posts (and perhaps pot shots), would reduce FRs ranking.
In the meantime, my suggestion to JohnRob would be to disallow cut and paste in posts on this forum, and force these bombarding Bible quoters to type it all by hand. Infallibility. Wiki: “Infallibility, from Latin origin (’in’, not + ‘fallere’, to deceive), is a term with a variety of meanings related to knowing truth with certainty.”
Did you type that by hand or cut and paste it? Besides, i do not think you can t stop cut and paste with the keyboard, and that would stop RC posting of links in lieu of an argument.
You like to question papal infallibility, but what I see on this forum is persons who, citing volumes of text from the Bible, claim infallibility for their personal interpretations of those texts (without calling it ‘infallibility’ of course.) The hunter gets captured by the game.
You fail to see the difference btwn an statement based upon substantiation which it is argued warrants the asserted conclusion, thus the claim to veracity being dependent on the strength of the evidence, versus claiming assured infallibility whenever one has or will speak universally on faith and morals, even if any arguments behind them are not guaranteed to be infallible. That according to their decree, only their decree can be correct in any conflict. That is the game.
Finally, I remember hearing Paul Crouch saying on his TV channel “We don’t need no theology!”
And if you think the Prots you attack here overall affirm the likes of Paul Crouch and his wife and hair, rather than being critical of them, then it testifies to a superficial knowledge of the frequent debates btwn RCs and Prots.
I mention this apropos analogies, and side stories, which I read in Catholic literature...
And you presume this is not biased, and that RCs do not engage in misrepresentation?
while the Protestants bombard me with nothing but their Bible quotes,
Then you are most unfamiliar with my posts for one. And i do not know whether others have, but while i have frequented the RF for years, I do not recall seeing any exchange by you until this one. A cursory search shows you mostly engaged in political debates, including defending Putin from what you see are ignorant attacks.
and even tell me that the Bible is the only book anyone needs. No, but thanks.
And RCs often present Luther as a maverick in rejecting apocryphal books, and worse, and SS as historically meaning only the Bible can be used in understanding God's will and ways, and sola fide as meaning a Christian is saved no matter how he lives, without works. Etc.
And while i am sure some statements are unclear or the ramifications not thought thru, the Bible being the only book anyone needs is in a restricted sense, not fixing cars, and includes the material sense (which provides for a canon, and preachers, etc.) and not just the formal, in which one could read Acts 10 and be saved for instance (though he still needs eyes, etc.
I don’t expect you to defend Paul Crouch or his wife, or Jim Bakker or his dead ex-wife, like I don’t expect you to defend Jim Jones or David Koresh. (But I’d expect you to defend the millionaire Graham Prot Papal Dynasty.) But they are yours, just like the Jehovah’s Witnesses in front of my train station are yours, and your arguments are with all of them and the 35,000 Prot sects, and not with the Catholic or Mormon Church. I know, they cease to be yours like Harold Camping AFTER his predictions. Graham Sr ceased to be yours for a spell after extolling freedom of religion in the Soviet Union. But that’s long passed, too.
And you can deny it all you want but “We don’t need no theology!” is from my subjective observation representative and typical. But what do I know?
Side note: I have no reason to “defend” Putin. Last night I attempted to defend the forum against primitive fanaticism expressed through ignorant declarative statements and demands that you agree with them or else ship back to Russia. (eg “Putin is a thug!!!” Yawn.) But as someone on those threads observed, Free Republic has deteriorated. Quite disheartening.
That excerpt from Wikipedia again:
“When a person is called ‘infallible’, this can mean any of the following:
Some (or all) statements or teachings made by this person can be relied on to be certainly true.
This person always makes good and moral choices, and his actions may never be considered immoral or evil.
This person is always right, and never wrong or incorrect.”
You insist on relating infallibility strictly to papal infallibility. I insist on broadening the application, just as the above definition suggests. (I anticipate that you or someone will predictably dismiss Wiki as unreliable.) No one here claims to be infallible, just as no one out in the world claims to be stupid. But it is sometimes for others to judge or describe what our behaviour indicates. Is Putin a thug? Is Miley Cyrus stupid? I don’t know!
You tell me that “Rome is more analogous to Communism than Prots”. So is every American corporation if we compare the power structures. But I was talking about the behaviour patterns of true believers and not about the organizational structures. Eric Hoffer anyone?
And those long Biblical cut&paste excerpts that come so quickly in replies (something, I know, you don’t practice), making me think that the posters have the Bible memorized like the Muslims students memorize the Koran (by the way, did Obama have to memorize it while in school in Indonesia? Or was it a Catholic school?), and when they’re not Arabic speakers, memorize it without understanding a word.
Well, no, those (Biblical) excerpts are always only remotely relevant or irrelevant at all, could well be replaced by some other excerpts, and it is their length that to my mind is intended to serve as an overwhelming argument, like a 1000 ton bomb.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jesus never said anything about His followers having to read the New Testament. Oh, wait...
Last Sunday at a street fair, an unusually tall Chinese woman standing in front of a stand of some Biblical society, manned by several Chinese, or anyway East Asian people, or to speak politically correctly Asian-Americans, because she spoke like a native, this woman handed me a copy of the New Testament and proceeded to explain things about it using her own copy in which I noticed many handwritten notes. She asked me if I read the Bible, I nodded, because what was I to say, lie, or shamelessly admit, and told me this was a new translation from Greek and had, as she showed me, numerous explanatory footnotes. She spoke to me for at least five minutes, emphasizing these footnotes. Long story short, at one point she showed me a fragment which included the word “into”. Something into Jesus. She said that most or all other translation have the word as “in”, but in Greek it really means “into” and that makes a world of difference. Indeed, as she explained it, it did.
What’s my point? (Yeah, what’s my point? I have to remember.) My point is that these arguments over meaning not just phrases but single words, will last until doomsday, and that is something to accept and go on, instead of condemning fellow Christians to eternal damnation which has become a blood sport around here. As the man observed, the level of discourse on Free Republic has deteriorated. We’re slumming.