So, the Catholic Church recognized the weakness of its position because of lack of Scriptural support, the very Scripture it claims to have written, so instead of adjusting it’s teachings to line up with Scripture, it adjusts Scripture to line up with its teachings, and declares oral tradition to be more reliable than written documents.
You can hardly get any account of anything passed word of mouth accurately for any length of time and you expect us to believe that the Roman Catholic Church managed to do so through a series of corrupt churches in its darkest period of Church history for hundreds of years?
I find a lot of Roman Catholic Church justification for its teachings very much wanting, since it appears that its mostly made up, and based on *because we said so*.
*We’re the true church because we say that God told us we are* doesn’t cut it with people who can read and think for themselves.
This thread gets better every day!
What a testament to the extended influence of Satan the ‘Catholic’ church is.
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“corrupt churches “ should be “corrupt popes”
EXCELLENT POINTS.
THX.
There is also a blindness to the pure gospel of salvation by grace through faith. If anyone depends upon their own good works or merit to either gain eternal life or keep it, they are not living by faith in Christ and do not really know God nor what it means to be redeemed. All else is distraction and sidetracking - anything else that keeps a person from accepting the gift of eternal life.
As a Catholic I listened to what we called "the last Gospel" often----"In the beginning was the Word------------" and a little later---- "and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us".
So to me,the "Word" was Jesus;what He said,what He did,who He said it to,who was listening to Him and who was standing around,or not standing around.
Later on,when I was about ten or eleven some of my neighborhood friends and I were talking about church,they were all nonCatholic and were talking about the Bible,gospels,scriptures and their lessons and Bible studies and it was during these discussions that I finally realized that my friends thought that the Word literally meant the Bible.
I found that very interesting but limiting and think it might be the cause of many of our apparent difficulties in communicating our differences.
That is a terrifying claim to authority on the part of sinful men.
I bet a number of Judaizers responded:
*We’re the true church because we say that God told us we are* doesn’t cut it with people who can read and think for themselves.
... you expect us to believe that the Roman Catholic Church managed to do so through a series of corrupt churches [or popes] in its darkest period of Church history for hundreds of years?
You expect us to believe that the Holy Spirit went on vacation for 1,400 years, give or take, and then finally found a way to mount a successful rupture in the Church?
It seems to me our story is no more improbable than yours.
And I would be careful about "in its darkest period of Church history". One of the reasons it's dark is that people aren't taught about it. Another is that it's complicated. The political chaos was astonishing.
Take a look at this (which I put together for my chapter to put the life of Dominic and of a man called John of Vercelli in some historical context):
[I just left "our Holy Father Dominic" in there to tweak you. I don't think Dominic was God and I'm pretty sure both he and God know that.]
This is just about the chaos in one small part of the world. Look at historical maps of the British Isles, for an even deeper appreciation of the chaos -- or of the region now called France.
When one imagines that every couple of generations for a very long time some new group was going to come raping and pillaging over the next hill, I think it's pretty darn amazing that Christians did as well as they did.
The timeline goes thus: Jesus taught; the Apostles learned; the Apostles taught; the Apostles evangelized; many books were written; the Church decided which versions of which books were to be considered Scripture; Scripture was canonized; Scripture was set down in Greek; Scripture was set down in Latin; Church Slavonic was created and Scripture was set down in Church Slavonic. You can hardly get any account of anything passed word of mouth accurately for any length of time and you expect us to believe that the Roman Catholic Church managed to do so through a series of corrupt churches in its darkest period of Church history for hundreds of years?
You may wish to learn for yourself about Jewish oral tradition and its accuracy and longevity.
I find a lot of Roman Catholic Church justification for its teachings very much wanting, since it appears that its mostly made up, and based on *because we said so*.
It's not about you, which is why many poorly catechized Catholics leave the Faith.
*We’re the true church because we say that God told us we are* doesn’t cut it with people who can read and think for themselves.
Say 'hi' to that god that you have made for yourself.