(October 4, 2022 at 2:51 pm)Jehanne Wrote: My other thread gave me an idea:
Pope John XXVIII dies without a successor -- Catholic Church now claims that Jesus never instituted the Office of the Papacy.
So does that mean that papacy was an interpolation done by Caesars to introduce Pontifex Maximus?
Not to mention that if one believes that historical Jesus was just some apocalyptic preacher, as you do, then he didn't plan to have some (long-lasting) organization like Church since the end is nigh.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
