HELL

[Thumpalumpacus]

Nor mine of you, CL. But given your thoughtfulness, I feel it's only right that you should have the hard questions put to you plainly.

How do you decide which parts of the Bible guide you, and which part you can safely disregard? And why is your valuation of those parts be they literal, allegorical, and failed, truer than that of a Protestant, for instance? Aside from raw faith, of course.

That sounds perfectly fine to me, my friend!

To answer your question, I follow the doctrines of the Church. Unless we are theologians or scholars, or just trying to get a deeper understanding, us Catholics don't normally concern ourselves with biblical interpretations because we feel we have the Church to guide us on matters of faith and morals. One thing is for sure, we definitely need to believe in the Gospels. We need to believe in Jesus as a real person, we need to believe in His miracles, in His death and resurrection, and the core message of His teachings. I think the rest of the NT, over the years, has slowly been separated into what was simply tradition of the time (no women talking in Church) to what is actually Church doctrine (the divinity of Jesus). I don't think this is stuff people "decided" over night, but rather, it evolved with years of studying theology and gaining a deeper understanding. The OT, as you all know, we are free to either interpret literally or not, so long as we adhere to Church doctrine. 

I don't know much about the protestant way of doing things except that it's more independent I think, and any of my brothers in Christ can chime in here if I'm wrong. I think each person reads the bible and interprets it for his or her own self... which is why there are so many protestant denominations. They all interpret things a little differently.

I should think that with your head you're better off deciding for yourself things like right and wrong. The Church has screwed up enough that they don't deserve your trust. /.02