Posted on 12/11/2009 5:57:16 PM PST by Jim Robinson
It's true that citing all the Vatican statements in the world isn't going to sway anyone who's not a Catholic. That being said, from the Catholic Church's POV, the Vatican's proclaims do indeed speak for (and are meant for) ALL of Christendom, and the only reason they don't have that power is that non-Catholics refuse to recognize the Vatican's authority.
It should be noted as a matter of historical record that for the first 1000 years of Christianity's existence, statements issued by the Vatican were accepted worldwide by all the Christians as the definitive statement for Christianity on all matters of their faith -- the buck stopped there, so to speak. It wasn't until 1054 A.D. that the Christian communion worldwide was broken and two factions (now known as Catholic & Orthodox) refused to recognize each other's pronouncements as applying to them.
Prior to 1054 A.D., ALL Christians worldwide (Roman or otherwise) accepted the Pope's authority over such matters, whether their particular type of church was itself "Roman" or not. You also could not convene a worldwide Christian council without approval of the Vatican first (and if the Pope himself didn't attend in person, he would send delegates from Rome to be involved in the sessions and report back to him)
Just a little tidbit about how Christendom worldwide originally functioned. I'm not sure how relevant it is to protestants, since I believe their basic premise is the teachings of Christ became corrupted until protestants "restored" them in the 1600s.
>> It proves nothing, especially that their interpretation and opinion is correct. All it does is give Catholics the freedom to believe in evolution. <<
Correct, the Catholic Church has not issued a statement confirming whether or not all the current theories about evolution are factually correct. The Catholic Church (at least in modern times) tends to avoid making rulings on matters of science that are outside its scope. All the Catholic Church has said is that one can believe in the theory of evolution and still be a good Christian, and that the basic theory of evolution itself is not incompatible with the tenants of Christianity. I think (but can't be certain) that most non-Catholics worldwide would agree with the church's statement on that.
Also, for the reason, I'm not familiar with metmom's posting history but I don't see anything she posted on this thread that strikes me as having contempt or bigotry against Catholics. And I've met some real nasty anti-Catholic freepers, that's I tend to avoid crevo threads.
Absence of proof doesn't hold up in a court of law.
This country's justice system it built on innocent until proved guilty.
Prove it.
I've been accused of something. Show it. Back up your allegations.
Well said. Not to mention that the entire bible that is so literally adhered to by non-Catholics was one of those statements.
So sue me......
This coming from a member of the evolutionist jihad, responsible for destroying centuries of scientific advancement and billions of lives (see my Post 1411)?!
If, as they say, they 'believe' the words of Jesus and the New Testament writers,
then they have to decide what the following verses mean:
Acts 17:26-27
26. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
Romans 5:12-21
12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--
13. for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
14. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
16. Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
19. For just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
20. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
21. so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If there were no one man, that means SIN did NOT enter the World thru him.
If Adam was NOT the one man, that means SPIRITUAL DEATH did not come thru him.
If SIN did NOT enter the World thru the one man, that means Jesus does not save from SIN.
Are we to believe that the one man is symbolic? Does that mean Jesus is symbolic as well?
The Theory of Evolution states that there WAS no one man, but a wide population that managed to inherit that last mutated gene that makes MEN different from APES.
Acts 17:24-26 24. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. Was LUKE wrong about this?1 Corinthians 11:8-9 9. neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 1 Timothy 2:13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.Was Paul WRONG about these???If so, is GOD so puny that He allows this 'inaccuracy' in His Word?? |
Genesis 2:18
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
Show me the doctrinal statemtents by ANYONE that says that the entire Bible must be held to and read *so literally*. Show me that people don't recognize song, poetry, parable, etc when they encounter it but demand that it be read literally the entire thing.
There seem to be a lot of fundamentalist protestants on FR who have a very narrow world view. They live in regions that are 90% protestant, and probably haven’t encountered many non-protestants in their everyday lives. When they encounter non-protestants on the Internet they don’t see them as real Christians, but probably weird cults.
It would probably shock them to learn that fundamentalist Protestants are actually the smallest of the three major types of Christians in the world, after Catholics and Orthodox (both of which predate protestantism by 1500+ years)
Part of the reason they ignore Orthodox Christians is that the orthodox are only 3.5% of Christians in the U.S., though worldwide there are least 300 million orthodox, and Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest Christian communion in the world.
It would probably shock you to learn that Protestants vastly outnumber the Orthodox globally, Pentecostals alone might already outnumber the Orthodox.
America started Protestant, is still mostly Protestant and the very foreign Orthodox never caught on among the vibrant, diverse, religious American people, the actual percentage of Orthodox in the United States is only .06% , almost non existent and they don’t seem to be going anywhere in new places in the world like Africa and Latin America.
Orthodox seems closer to 225 million than 300 million world wide, with Protestants being much larger and growing rapidly in diverse corners of the world from Africa to Latin America, and Orthodox is largely limited to old closed societies, as examples. Eastern Orthodoxy is the largest single religious faith in Belarus (85%), Bulgaria (83%), Macedonia (65%), Cyprus (80%), Georgia (89%), Greece (98%), Moldova (98%), Montenegro (74%), Romania (87%), Serbia (84%), Russia (80%), and Ukraine (80%). The number of Eastern Orthodox adherents represents about 36% of the population in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Albania the adherents number around 25% out of a 40% Christian population, the other being Roman Catholic. As the dominant religion in northern Kazakhstan, it represents 40% of Kazakhstan, and 4% of Lithuania, 9% of Latvia.
I don’t know the religious makeup of FR but I don’t agree with your attempts to portray a lot of them as some kind of backwards Protestants that live in isolated enclaves of religious ignorance where the knuckle dragging Methodists and Episcopalians and Southern Baptists, and Presbyterians all share a “very narrow world view”.
Thanks.
Sorry; an UNINFORMED one; maybe...
If you think I’m going to fall for that, think again.
I am sorry but I don’t see how meeting someone personally involved is emotional “crap” as you call it. I met parents and a young man who was an eyewitness and was shot that day. I didn’t use emotional “crap” as evidence. I believed an eyewitness account over what the media said.
Like I said you can believe what you like. I didn’t preach to you about knowing someone personally. I just said I knew someone personally. You seem really bent out of shape over this using phrases like “emotional crap” and “freaking preach”. Maybe you talk like that normally I don’t know.
What evidence do you have that gives you the inside scoop to why these kids committed these murders? Were you an eyewitness? At least I have some circumstantial evidence to back up my belief, a tshirt and writings in journals.
BTW, my “emotional crap” EYE WITNESS source said that most of the killings seemed random but one did ask Rachel Scott if she still believed in her God and she said you know I do and then he said then go and be with Him.
My EYE WITNESS also rebuffed the accounts about black and athletes being targeted from what he saw. Maybe he didn’t target Rachel Scott because she was a Christian but her belief in God certainly came up before he killed her.
Exactly. No one can support the greatest scourge to science and humanity of the 20th Century (see my Post 1411) and be a "Good" Christian.
People think you can't be a Christian and be logical and reasonable - what they fail to realize is that the very definitions of logic and reason change from their conventional meanings when viewed through the worldview of one who has accepted Christ as his/her Savior - if only evolutionists realized that logic, filtered through the lens of Faith, "separates the wheat from the chaff" and puts together a consistent worldview, while casting off the "truths" Satan wants us to believe!
Atheist "logic" is far inferior to Creationist logic - just look at the results of the former compared to the Glory of the latter!
I will remember to pray for you too.
There was a thread awhile back where they tabulated the results. Of course we can't be certainly since the numbers were only tallied from those who opted to participate in the survey, but the results were pretty close to what the USA as a whole is. The largest denomination on FR is Catholic, though all the other denominations combined outnumber them. Fundamentalist protestants make up a small percentage of freepers, and do not represent this forum as a whole.
>> I don’t agree with your attempts to portray a lot of them as some kind of backwards Protestants that live in isolated enclaves of religious ignorance where the knuckle dragging Methodists and Episcopalians and Southern Baptists, and Presbyterians all share a “very narrow world view”. <<
I said nothing of the sort. I specifically said that the YEC types are probably types who live in isolated communities where the only types of Christians they see in their everyday lives are fellow "bible literalists" and they rarely, if ever, encounter Catholic or Orthodox Christianity. And I demonstrated that by showing you there are many portions of the bible belt that are well over 80% protestant, but less than 5% Catholic and probably less than .05% Orthodox.
I certainly didn't say ALL Protestant freepers as a whole are unfamiliar with other types of Christianity. Most protestants in the U.S., if I had to guess, encounter Catholics on a regular basis and have a good understanding of other denominations. But there is a very SMALL faction within protestantism of "only fundamental protestants who follow a literal interpretation of the King James version of the bible are Chrisitans" mindset (for example, this guy) , and my guess is they think that way because that's the only "Christians" they interact with.
I live in a region of the country that is over 60% Catholic (though far less lopsided than the 80%+ protestant regions of the nation), and even though there are plenty of protestants in town I was never really deeply familiar with protestant teachings until college. I was really shocked to learn many protestants think Jesus had brothers and sisters. I had always assumed the vast majority of Christians taught Jesus was an only child.
How else do you explain comments on FR like Catholics never use the bible during mass and Catholics are the only Christians on the planet who have Mary devotionals? Anyone with the very basic understanding of the major denominations within Christianity knows that's false. It would be like me claiming all Protestants pray to Martin Luther. Sheer ignorance that shows you know nothing about other kinds of Christians.
I'm sure they could learn about other kinds of Christians if they wanted to interact with the 4% of the population that is in another denomination, but they choose not to.
Posting what you said verbatim is "hate"? For someone who worships science, your logic skills seem rather remedial.
“Your grammer says it all”...NL to TQC
I don’t care who you are,that is frickin hilarious!!!
Zionist Conspirator, thank you for taking the time to read his post and sharing it with us!!
I hope NL can at least laugh at himself for this one..(I am laughing with you NL)
Greetings, esteemed elder FReeper.
You seem to have been fortuitously exposed to Science at both ends of the physical size spectrum. How intriguing that must be!
Speaking of intriguing, I decided just on a hunch, to take a look at the "bacterial flagellum motor" from your post (to which I'm responding).
I found this relatively short, considering the complexity of the subject matter, description of both the structure and variations within bacterial flagella, and a plausible conjecture as to how it may have arisen.
The flagellum certainly is complex, even irreducibly complex in this canonical form, but can it evolve? Well, there is still a lot unknown about eubacterial flagella, but we can get some ideas, and a plausible pathway from the literature.Interestingly, the author suggests quite seriously, that the bacterial flagellum motor may be an entirely accidental construct. From his descriptions, I get the impression that bacteria, in their teeming billions, are like sets of tinker-toys, getting assembled time after time with missing and extra parts that make them really, really odd.
And yet, an oddity such as a steering oar could be a useful contraption for a minuscule fluid-dwelling organism.
Apparently authored by Ian Musgrave, the article continues to hypothesize that bacterial flagella came about as a variation of normal secretory structures. I get the picture of Han, Luke, and Princess Leia stuck in the waste-disposal system, trying to assemble a device to assist them.
Evidently, some archaic proto-bacteria got its instructions mixed up and turned its trash into treasure in becoming marginally more motile.
It's also interesting that varieties of bacteria have developed different mechanisms for doing essentially the same thing. One wonders why, if the bacterial flagellum motor is so irreducibly complex, do countless different species use different tools, assembly procedures, and materials to do the same thing?
Here's a link to the short but interesting article. Evolution of the Bacterial Flagella
You don’t have to tell someone there is no higher purpose to their life. Evolution tells them they are nothing more than animals. They can deduce the rest. Situational ethics has also contributed to the problem.
Most people will come away from this teaching and go on to lead a good moral life. Some will take it to the extreme. That is what the other poster meant. Evil people will USE the teaching of evolution as a reason to justify their action. No evolution did not cause them to do it. I hope that is clearer.
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