Gullible Christians

[numbr77]

Originally Posted by Flynn

There really are some people who should question what and why they do it, I know I do, it's so cathartic.

You'd have to think the word cathartic comes from the word Catholism.


As each of those words is a derivitive of the other so Christianity has many off shoots.

The Catholic church was born through the belief in Jesus Christ, Christianity was born.

The Church of England was born because a King wanted to divorce his wife, his Anglican Church evolved ( now there's a strange concept when discussing religion, evolution, but I digress ) and that evolution enabled others to self interpret Christianity which enabled them to spawn their own Christian religious beliefs.

Baptists, Protetants, Methodists, Presbyterians and even those Good Ole Boys from Texas who worship Jesus by praying with rattle snakes what they have in common is their individual beliefs would not be in existence had it not been for the Catholic Church.

The common denominator between all the Christian religions is they are not very Christian in their attitude to Christians who have different system of worship to themselves.

Individually, whether Christians are Catholics, schooled at home variety or belong to any of the local Christian Churches, there is just as much chance that they will have as many child abusers, wife beaters, cheats, liars and adulterers as any other religious group has.

Not every Catholic should be held responsible for the sins of their Church, it happens in every Church and it even happens in those lovely little homes with a white picket fence out front.

Catharsis (Ancient Greek: Κάθαρσις) is a Greek word meaning "purification", "cleansing" or "clarification."

[Flynn]

Thanks for doing my homework for me once again No.77, it was an off the cuff late night remark on my behalf, your explanation doesn't actually discount my theory.

It always was and still is an interesting topic Hortysir.

It was never just about an imprint of Jesus on a Hamburger Joints greasy splash back tray.

Then there is Syb who declares that all she is doing is........

quote
Rebutting a Church that says it is the only way to salvation and giving reasons why it is not, but everybody is entitled to their own opinion.


Which pretty much what I do and am condemned for it.

PS

It's a shame T. didn't post again I would have liked to tell him what I thought of his participation in a Christian debate that Pat has posted in.

[Patrish]

Vatican II changed the tone for the council of Trent in regards to 'invincible ignorance' and ppl outside the Church were not culpable... and that all Christians may have the possibility to be saved.

However; if anyone cares to read history - the heretics were excommunicated and had no hope outside the one Church.

Furthermore, St John the Apostle...didn't associate with heretics whatsoever.

CHURCH FATHERS: Church History, Book IV (Eusebius)

3. But Polycarp also was not only instructed by the apostles, and acquainted with many that had seen Christ, but was also appointed by apostles in Asia bishop of the church of Smyrna.

4. We too saw him in our early youth; for he lived a long time, and died, when a very old man, a glorious and most illustrious martyr's death, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, which the Church also hands down, and which alone are true.

5. To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those who, down to the present time, have succeeded Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and certain witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion and the rest of the heretics. He also was in Rome in the time of Anicetus and caused many to turn away from the above-mentioned heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received from the apostles this one and only system of truth which has been transmitted by the Church.



6. And there are those that heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe in Ephesus and seeing Cerinthus within, ran out of the bath-house without bathing, crying, 'Let us flee, lest even the bath fall, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.'



Adding, St John called heretics anti christs.

Now the Church cannot share this view today because they want all to be saved...and whatsoever 'Peter' [& successors] bind or loose is also bound and loosed in Heaven, giving hope to all who believe Jesus is God and with a baptism in the Trinity have the possibility of being saved.

[Patrish]

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pope Stephen (VI) VII

Pope Stephen (VI) VII

(896-7)

Date of birth unknown; died about August, 897. Stephen was a Roman, and the son of John, a priest. He had been consecrated Bishop of Anagni, possibly against his will, by Formosus, and became pope about May, 896. Whether induced by evil passion or perhaps, more probably, compelled by the Emperor Lambert and his mother Ageltruda, he caused the body of Formosus to be exhumed, and in January, 897, to be placed before an unwilling synod of the Roman clergy. A deacon was appointed to answer for the deceased pontiff, who was condemned for performing the functions of a bishop when he had been deposed and for passing from the See of Porto to that of Rome. The corpse was then stripped of its sacred vestments, deprived of two fingers of its right hand, clad in the garb of a layman, and ultimately thrown into the Tiber. Fortunately it was not granted to Stephen to have time to do much else besides this atrocious deed. Before he was put to death by strangulation, he forced several of those who had been ordained by Formosus to resign their offices and he granted a few privileges to churches.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pope Formosus

And...?
What does this have to do with anything?
Alot of weird things occurred in the history - that's not the same as the doctrines of the Lord remaining the same.

Sure Formosus was already deposed but acted as Bishop - erringly....and willfully.

Sure Stephen was strange and did some off the cuff things.

But the doctrines remain the same.

We can talk forever on some unsavory Popes...
Like this one...probably most famous

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pope Alexander VI
That he obtained the papacy through simony was the general belief (Pastor, loc. cit.) and is not improbable (Raynaldus, Ann. eccl. ad an. 1492, n. 26), though it would be difficult to prove it juridically, at any rate, as the law then stood the election was valid. There is no irresistible evidence that Borgia paid anyone a ducat for his vote; Infessura's tale of mule-loads of silver has long since been discredited.
~~
On the twelfth the Pope took to his bed. On the eighteenth his life was despaired of; he made his confession, received the last sacraments, and expired towards evening. The rapid decomposition and swollen appearance of his corpse gave rise to the familiar suspicion of poison. Later the tale ran that he had drunk by mistake a poisoned cup of wine which he had prepared for his host. Nothing is more certain than that the poison which killed him was the deadly microbe of the Roman campagna [Pastor, op. cit., III, 469-472; Creighton, Hist. of the Papacy (London 1887), IV, 44]. His remains lie in the Spanish national church of Santa Maria di Monserrato.


Adding, he never taught doctrine in all his years...and possibly one of the more corrupt.