(December 23, 2016 at 3:07 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Each Christian denomination is not a different religion; but variations within the Christian faith. I fail to see how minor disagreements over things like believer versus infant baptism undermine nearly universal acceptance of major doctrines. It's not a serious objection.
It has been serious enough to lead to bloodletting. The range of beliefs is pretty wide, and some denominations believe the rest are good enough while others are certain that if you're not doing it their way you are hellbound. If it's only a case of finding common ground on a number of core beliefs, then it should be even easier to overcome the differences between denominations and even between religions. Have the world's religious people become more united after centuries of reading and praying and guidance-seeking and miracle-claiming, or are they as scattered as ever?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
