The truth is always the truth and can never be "up for grabs." Where there are humans, there are errors.
"The “we” can mean your interpretation, the Moonies, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Creflo Dollar, or Joel Osteen, or those mainline Protestant churches that have found scriptural support for the ordination of gay and lesbian pastors?"
Again, I observe back to you that when you build your own straw man by selecting silly people, and then portray them as the mainstream of non-catholic Christians, you lose all credibility. It is a combination of straw man and ad hominem. as such, it is not a logical or cogent argument. It is a slimy approach that lessens any influence you ever might have had.
"All: Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, Benedict, the writings of theologians, scholars, saints have all been rejected including the writings of the early Church fathers ?"
No. Some of what they wrote has been rejected by the catholic denomination and also by other Christian groups.
"Why stop there? Why not reject the books in the Bible as assembled by the Synod of Rome in AD 382?"
I suggest you review the history of the cannon. Your posted understanding is flawed.
Get a “reverend” behind our name (like Al Sharpton);
convert a dilapidated piece of property into a local foursquare church, give it a name (First Calvary); have a billboard with a catchy scriptural quotation, enlist a high school guitar band, advertise “Sunday Services-All Inclusive;” bait the fish that swim in shallow waters, and voila, I have a congregation. Each Sunday deliver a rousing homily, and with some charisma who knows I too can become a Joel Osteen or Billy Graham. Fortunes to be made!
"This in a word is the rot caused by Protestantism."
This in a word is your collection of slogans, logical fallacies and slanders. I expect better from you Steelfish. Will you rise to use your intellect and post a real argument based on facts, logic and evidence???
>I expect better from you Steelfish.<
I cannot understand why after all of Steelfish’s nonsense you can still “expect better” from him. You must be an extremely optimistic person.
Apparently, you keep digging yourself deeper by citing references to your absurdity by claiming that I am making a “strawman’s argument” when it is the logical consequence of distinguishing “your” beliefs against many mainline Protestant denominations that ordain married gay and lesbian pastors by suggesting “we” do not regard them as Christian.
I would think you are intelligent enough to know what the term “strawman’s argument” means and that this is not enough to deflect from the inherent absurdity of your references to “we” suggesting your know what distinguishes authentic Christian beliefs than those that aren’t? Go tell that to the Joel Osteens, Rev. Sharptons, Moonies, Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Billy Grahams of this world who have made family fortunes with their heresies.
So the truth is not up for grabs but humans make errors? Seriously, where do you get this stuff from?
So the early Church fathers who for two hundred years sorted through various written fragments and assembled the canonical texts in the Synod of Rome in AD 382 possibly got their inclusions and arrangements wrong because they were “humans” and “humans make errors”?
So Peter and his successors who were commanded by Christ to “Go forth and teach..” may also have got it wrong because they were “humans”? And whatever they taught is shaky as quicksand because they were “humans” and references to “building” a “Church” on a “rock” and the “gates of hell shall never prevail against thee” are all nonsense despite a vast constellation of history, tradition, the writings and actions of the early Church fathers, the saints, and martyrs all attesting to the fact that it is the ONE Catholic Church that Christ established?
Sincerely, and with no ill-feeling, I don’t think we can can any further regard your posts as serious. Logical inferences, conclusions from the comments you make are are dubbed as “strawman’s argument” as if this were some magical wand to wave away the sheer absurdities that arise from what you write.