Posted on 10/11/2001 9:39:48 AM PDT by malakhi
I'll tell you if it ever happens.
Just two ships passing in the night my friend, I'm sure we will disagree sometime in the future.:-)
No, it's just truthful. And given that my company was affected by it, I think I have as much right to an opinion on the matter as the flapping gums on liberal newsrags.
Truth may hurt. It doesn't hurt because it's intended to. It hurts because some would rather not face cold reality - they're more comfortable under the warm covers of belief. That's what got us there in the first place. Find me anyone out there that doesn't say we were Lulled into a false sense of security. They may say it more fragrently. But people don't need to be lulled back to sleep. They need to act - learn from mistakes. One doesn't learn from mistakes by ignoring them. Nor is an attrocity when someone affected in it offers an honest opinion.
I'll have to mark this up as another tangiential subject change I suppose. Creativity in dodging is definitely an artform with ya'll.
The truth is, regardless of whether your company was affected by the terrorists, that you are an asshole for implying that my belief system is responsible tor reprehensible monstrous terrorists.
The truth hurts, but it's only to make you face the cold reality of how awful what you said is. No matter how crazy we think each other's thoughts are, a civilized people don't accuse other of being barbarians.
Good day.
SD
The truth hurts, but it's only to make you face the cold reality of how awful what you said is. No matter how crazy we think each other's thoughts are, a civilized people don't accuse other of being barbarians.
Whoa HOLD IT! HOLD IT! Before you get holier than thou beating your chest and trying to recoupe yourself here. I never made any such charge!! That is strictly your invention. Post #179 makes no such accusation. What it does say is people died for misplaced dumb trust. It also says that you want people to believe you're beliefs through the same type of misplaced dumb trust. A comment that was drawn specifically from your arguments:
Just for discussion purposes. You are displeased with us for "picking and choosing" which parts of Augustine, or any Church Father are authoritative. Yet I get the distinct impression that if we were to declare Augustine infallible you would not be happy with that either.
The RCC conveniently finds credible only those things from the process of picking and choosing that support whatever they can twist them to mean. And on those points calls the accused authors authoritative, denouncing whatever they don't agree on. When we ask for authority on which to back up their works as authentic or their words in any fashion.. "trust us". Not on your life.
I think you deserve the Grand prize for overinflated diversions. I'm shutting up before I say anything we'll both regret.
I don't think of it as "misplaced dumb trust," obviously. The entire thing just rubbed me the wrong way, but if you intended no foul, I will withdraw my objection. There was a nut running around FR a while ago who liked to claim that growing up Catholic made Hitler what he was, and that Catholics are more susceptible to being led by raving maniacs. That may have made me hyper sensitive.
Just for discussion purposes. You are displeased with us for "picking and choosing" which parts of Augustine, or any Church Father are authoritative. Yet I get the distinct impression that if we were to declare Augustine infallible you would not be happy with that either.
The RCC conveniently finds credible only those things from the process of picking and choosing that support whatever they can twist them to mean. And on those points calls the accused authors authoritative, denouncing whatever they don't agree on. When we ask for authority on which to back up their works as authentic or their words in any fashion.. "trust us". Not on your life.
Maybe we aren't "twisting" things, but actually believe what we say?
As no one person is gifted with total knowledge about everything, it is up to somebody to lift truths out of documents which may be flawed with error. The question, as always, is who do we trust to find these truths? I will trust the institution God left us to teach us. You will trust the Spirit and the Book.
You don't trust the Catholic Church because her interpretation of Scripture doesn't jibe with your own. I trust her because it does.
The ironic thing is that as much as we fight whether Scripture or the Church should be authoritative it is another sort of paradox.
To wit, the Catholic will not believe anything that contradicts his understanding of Scripture. In this sense, Scripture stands as an authority which can not be denied. The Church can not operate without Scripture.
The non-Catholic Christian will by necessity absorb ideas from fellow Christians and other sources known as "the Church" or "Body of Christ." This is especially true in the formation of a new Christian mind: a neophyte can not but adopt the mindset of the Christians who bring him to Christ. Scripture can not operate without the Church.
SD
Why? Because evidence is presented and it doesn't fit your worldview? Catholicism can't be shown to have existed in name till the mid 5th century. We're all aware of your claims; but, we're also quite well aware at this point that there is nothing propping up your claims other than a huge "trust us". I'd give you a dollar to buy some credibility; but, new forgeries cost more than that.
Whatever your motive, and whatever the analogy you were trying to draw, it was a very unfortunate decision on your part to make this comparison.
Answer from allend;
If you had been paying attention to our posts or knew anything about Catholicism, you would know the neither the Pope nor the bishops nor the entire Church has the authority to change doctrine, add to doctrine, or subtract from doctrine.
Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word doctrine, since your doctrine is what you have already extrapolated from the scripture and it obvious, you are not going to change your own doctrine once you make it.
I should have said, since Peter gave you the authority to determine what doctrine you would take from the scripture, and when we criticize you for not basing your doctrine on solid scripture, instead of you trying to defend it by arguing that it has a scriptural foundation, why don't you just say, we don't have to explain it to you, we have the authority to do anything we want as long as we can justify it in our own minds that it's scriptural.
I would at least think you were being intellectually honest with us.
Which is falacy because, you are trusting an institution to interpret those very texts that they use to establish their own authority. If those texts are not in line with scripture, as we know they are not, then Taking their word for it is the height of Gullibility if not stupidity. It's akin to taking the word, face value, of a forgery artist that his 20 dollar bill is real. Or more appropos, like taking the word of Joseph Smith..
You will trust the Spirit and the Book.
Bingo. I do trust both because they don't lead me astray. And the Lord has already proven his word in me. I wonder why he hasn't proven your claims in me? I wonder why I feel oppressed and get headaches everytime I read from the apocryphals for research on a subject. I wonder why there are so many inconsistancies. I wonder why God didn't provide proof for books that are inconsistent with the 66 books of the Bible. Hmmm.
I can trust my soul to that which proves itself worthy on a daily basis - the word of God and God himself. Where is the Catholic Church in that - nonexistant. Can't trust it, can't trust it's judgement, motives, etc. Establish the trust level and you still have huge problems with anti-scriptural trash that neither agrees with Christian scripture nor with Jewish scripture. Pretty sorry batting average. And I can't remember when a Jew had to forge anything to prove his religion. God always took good care of his people - even when they didn't deserve it.
What would be more appropriate, Angelo - an example that doesn't hit home? Would pearl Harbor be more appropriate? How about TWA 800? Getting newer, might make people think - perhaps we should go back further? The Inquisitions? Is that too touchy? Jews that became Catholic and trusted the Church were accused wrongly, condemned, tortured and put to death because they were different and kept to beliefs that the Catholic Church should have understood was part of Christianity's heritage. Maybe we shouldn't mention that because it *is* a Catholic attrocity. Perhaps we should look at, what, William Wallace and the Irish and Scotts under British rule. Longshanks was great at gaining trust, and talking truce. The movie didn't do him Justice. Where do we go with it Angelo. I'm still a bit numb having just dealt with a family death. Perhaps my judgement is impared - or maybe my eyes are just open a little wider.
Being practical sometimes ticks people off. Defending the faith ticks people off. Opening eyes ticks people off. What is it about intelligent approaches that so ticks people off that they have to find anything they can to read wrong in what you say in order to lessen the impact of truth? The truth is an awful lot of people go to Hell every day. They all trust anything but God and his word. And in the midst of our conversations the 'universal church' tells us to trust it because we can't trust the Word of God. To me this is sicker than anything that has been said in any of these threads - whether by implication or as said outright. "Trust no man." This was said for a reason in scripture.
How do we know Peter was in Rome when everything of intelligence says he wasn't. "Trust us." How do we know that Peter was Bishop of Rome? "Trust us" (Catholic interpretation). How do we know that the 'church fathers' are reliable? "Trust us". How do we know the books were written by Christians? "Trust us." How do we know that Mariology is right. "Trust us." On and on. There isn't anything said that doesn't require trusting fully the intent and ability of a bunch of men who must be trusted even on the basis of their claims to any position that might allow them to start saying "Trust us." Ultimately, they say it and we're supposed to just swallow the whole thing hook line and sinker - not while I still have the spirit of God in me and at least two iq points to rub together.
Catholic claims are not required belief for me to be saved or live my life in obedience to God. Therefore they must be proven. The quiet admittance in all the "trust us" language is that they can't prove it. So it's a bill of goods.
Forgiven. And understood. Wanted to say that before I get too much further along. I don't want a blow up between me and anyone here standing between us. And I don't want a misunderstanding hanging over your head anymore than I want one hanging over mine or anyone else's.
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