Catholics can just never seem to wrap their minds around not trusting man or some human organization, can they? They claim to not do that and yet constantly accuse us of that revealing that they think that way. They presume everyone does like they do.
We DON'T.
Born again believers have reiterated time and again that they are trusting Christ for their salvation. Not a priest, or a committee, or their works, baptism, sacraments, communion, Mary, whatever or whoever, essentially, anyone or anything BUT Christ.
I think I'll stay with His word and His Eucharist and His sacraments and just see what happens.
Quite a chance you're taking just to " see what happens".
God in Scripture tells us we can know for sure.
We know that Jesus can do all of that and more just by being who he is to and for us and through out our life. We understand His all sufficiency because we've been tested and tried to learn how to simply trust....to rest and abide in Him.
I think some catholics use all these other things to steady themselves sort of...just in case it doesn't go as they hoped for....they can either point the finger at someone else for misleading them if things go bad...or hold onto something when they are uncertain....and in some cases because the leadership teaches them to do so.
Yes, it is not just taking a chance, it is downright dangerous, and MOST foolhardy to take a "wait and see what happens" attitude. That is not good enough for me. That was the unanswered question I had, that the catholic priest could not answer. I wanted to know, if I was supposedly in the "one true church" why was I sure I was going to Hell? He tried to hem haw and dance around the subject, and gave me non answers. I was a faithful catholic. I demanded an answer. I did NOT get one. It seemed like I was interrupting a football game. I left more angry and disgusted than I was before. Several years later, I found the answer to my question, through simple faith. The key word being "simple" We are not discussing brain surgery here. It is a lot simpler than that. The moral of the story is, I figured out if I had unanswered questions, I knew who I was NOT going to see. Now, you might ask, why do people continue to worship Him in vain, and teach for doctrine the commandments of men? I still haven't figured that one out, but I would suspect it could be hazardous to one's soul health. It seems so much simpler to me, to put my faith in God, rather than some behemoth, mysterious, cloudy, nebulous organization, that weighs its people down with enormous heavy burdens, and doesn't doesn't lift a finger to help them bare it. I finally took my anger directly to God, and found out that His yoke really is easy, and His burden is light. If someone wants to remain in a gigantic organization, that's on them. All I can say is, have a nice eternity. See you at the pearly gates, maybe.