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The Bible

This book contains: the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.

Its doctrine is holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be saved, and practice it to be holy.

It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, the soldier’s sword, and the Christian’s charter. Here heaven is open, and the gates of hell are disclosed.

Christ is the grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet.

Sorry for the time delay. I really tried to figure out how to present my thoughts on this article “How we Got The Bible” and the dialog that followed. I was told on another thread there was a great deal of bashing by Catholics of non-Catholics who posted articles presenting their beliefs and thoughts. I got the impression that Catholics frequently asked that comments and posts and articles be banned. Others said that it was the non-Catholics who bashed the Catholics and while I have noted quite a bit of hostility and animosity on the threads I had never checked it out.

I asked for an example of the bashing and the two of you,redleghunter,(the original poster)and xone responded with this thread as an example of the generally vitriolic nature of the back and forth. I read the thread and I was stymied on how to present my “findings”.

First,I would like to say that I think much of the problem is due to the style that one uses. If one is not inclined to place a lot of weight on little details but is a big picture person detailed accounts are kind of boring and turn offs.

Likewise a casual presentation by the big picture person can be interpreted as sloppy,careless and somewhat insulting.Others think sarcasm is an effective way of making their point and readers may think it is highly offensive. Some are tired of saying the same thing over and over again,knowing that certain people will refuse to believe the information they are giving.

I am going to continue this another day but for tonight I will just say that there were 278 comments on the article,approximately 65 were submitted by what I considered to be identifiable Catholics,of those 58 were written by four posters and created discussions that in some cases got a little heated. Then there was one person who I know isn't Catholic but was very "cutesy" who commented approximately 40 times all of them appeared to be dissing or disdainful of Catholics,I don't think too many people responded.

I didn't notice anyone calling for the moderator to intervene and I didn't notice him/her entering the thread. Please do not hold me to a precise number since I have had to do this over a period of time and lose my notes or recount something and am too tired to go back and do it again. Yes, I m not a detail man/woman.

I told you I would get back to you after I considered the posts and responses. My first response was to give you a kind of overview of the thread and some numbers that I thought were telling as well as some info about different responses to for people with different mind sets and world views.

I have spent some time following comments and responses and I don't want this to create more problems so I will just say that one of the vets was more like me and a little flippant. When I look at many of the accusations and assumptions that are flung around and add it to the omission of common knowledge I too feel like being a little sarcastic. I did not think anything he said was inflammatory or incorrect,I thought the style might have offended some persons.

The second vet had picked up on the fact that the writer/lecturer was using Martin Luther to corroborate his position;however, Luther was a poor choice because of some of his vituperative comments on the Jews that were widely publicized,these were make after he left the church and serve to make him a less than credible spokesperson for the veracity of any ones position. I thought he was a little wordy but not in error. His wordiness was often out done by several of the most angry nonCatholic posters.

The next Catholic to respond in a manner that precipitated some anger was gentle and completely correct in what she said the person who was angry was not correct and was kind of nasty.

The last poster to draw somewhat angry comments had two legitimate questions based on the tenor of the article. To cut to the chase,he wanted to know how a "church" which was "invisible" could speak for anything if it was unidentifiable. I thought it was a legitimate query and needed an answer but it took twists and turns that resulted in no answer.

I did think that many of the nonCatholics were quite unkind and argumentative and argued without substantive informatiion in many cases.

My final wrap up is that if I were a Person in the Trinity I would be grateful that I had thought to send one member down to establish a Church and keep track of things else nothing would be much different than when "in the fullness of time" He sent His Son"----I did not see as much bashing from the Catholics as I had been led to believe there was. I these times we do need to be "One Body of Christ on Earth", "a house divided against itself cannot stand".