RE: Subsequent truths
November 10, 2011 at 9:16 am
(This post was last modified: November 10, 2011 at 9:18 am by Voltair.)
The catholic church is one of the, if not the, oldest Christian denomination save the Gnostics, Marcionites, Ebonites, etc if I am not mistaken.
As far as the catholic church being the closest to the truth I am not sure I can completely agree there. Catholicism/Christianity had the advantage of piggybacking on the roman empire thanks to Constantine and others. It is also easy to make someone nervous when a clergy, for the most part, controls the religious texts while most others are illiterate.
I am not saying I think the catholic church is some evil tyrant but I do think it has gone through stages of being so throughout history. I am referring more to it's leadership and I don't think it was always done maliciously in fact probably quite often not so. The groups that split off from the Catholic church later did so for different reasons.
Many of them, if I am not mistaken, thought that there was no authority for a pope like figure to exist. There were also various other complaints about traditions being followed that didn't have any biblical precedent etc. The catholic church is not exclusively a Bible based Christian sect either but relies on other religious texts etc. People usually have a huge problem with that because there is a perception that the Bible represents the writings of God's inspired writers such as the apostles.
That of course ignores the fact that the catholic church or the beginnings of the catholic church anyway were responsible for compiling the same book they use but yeah...
As far as the Bible saying it is okay to beat your slaves etc people really do need to recognize that there is a difference between levitical law and the NT times. Now did Jesus intend for his followers to follow the old law after his death? That is disputed I think but even if he did it seems like certain things would be against Jesus character such as the beating of slaves. People are completely free to disagree with me here and I am not a Christian anymore so in some ways it doesn't really matter.
I don't know if that provides any insight and some of this is my own opinion as well so take it all with a grain of salt. By all means do your own research on it and don't take anything I say at face value as I could be wrong.
As far as the catholic church being the closest to the truth I am not sure I can completely agree there. Catholicism/Christianity had the advantage of piggybacking on the roman empire thanks to Constantine and others. It is also easy to make someone nervous when a clergy, for the most part, controls the religious texts while most others are illiterate.
I am not saying I think the catholic church is some evil tyrant but I do think it has gone through stages of being so throughout history. I am referring more to it's leadership and I don't think it was always done maliciously in fact probably quite often not so. The groups that split off from the Catholic church later did so for different reasons.
Many of them, if I am not mistaken, thought that there was no authority for a pope like figure to exist. There were also various other complaints about traditions being followed that didn't have any biblical precedent etc. The catholic church is not exclusively a Bible based Christian sect either but relies on other religious texts etc. People usually have a huge problem with that because there is a perception that the Bible represents the writings of God's inspired writers such as the apostles.
That of course ignores the fact that the catholic church or the beginnings of the catholic church anyway were responsible for compiling the same book they use but yeah...
As far as the Bible saying it is okay to beat your slaves etc people really do need to recognize that there is a difference between levitical law and the NT times. Now did Jesus intend for his followers to follow the old law after his death? That is disputed I think but even if he did it seems like certain things would be against Jesus character such as the beating of slaves. People are completely free to disagree with me here and I am not a Christian anymore so in some ways it doesn't really matter.
I don't know if that provides any insight and some of this is my own opinion as well so take it all with a grain of salt. By all means do your own research on it and don't take anything I say at face value as I could be wrong.
