Science + Creation

[The Grand Nudger]

The catholic church has a habit on staying on some track, that you keep insisting exists but fail to demonstrate? I smell bullshit. Is ToEbNS consistent with prior patterns, because your church (to their credit) recently decided that they were okay with that. Just as one recent and high profile example. In actuality the church has a long history of changing it's mind, of deviating from established patterns and traditions. There is no track, you are at the whims of an elderly man in a dress.

(Hey, for bonus points, riddle me this- if we aren't referencing "the right track" then who gives a shit what imaginary track any church is on? What is the track even for what service does it provide, how is it useful or relevant in any way? Is it possible for a catholic to reference a track without the implication that said track is the right track whilst simultaneously avoiding heretical beliefs?)

I love that your evidence for the establishment of the papacy is a citation from the catholic encyclopedia edited to wikipedia. Real thorough work there. Unfortunately I'm not asking you about the history of myths regarding the papacy, but it's actual establishment in history. Thats an impressive list of saints early on though isn't it. It's almost as if the previously pagan folks toiling under roman catholic oppression needed something like their old demigods to cling to. While I do appreciate the amusement that such an exercise provides me with, I can't help but wonder why you feel that this in some way validates your belief. Catholics have pointed to a long list of characters (some in all likelihood mythical) and applied the primacy of the papacy to them from some point in the future extending into the past because they believe that an unbroken succession of characters who can be tied back to their imaginary christ is important to them. We do know for fact that this was not how the church operated, and we do know when the papacy was officially declared (and even though it is often assumed that this was merely the vindication of pre-existing tradition we have quite a few rumblings as to an upper limit for how far back any given "Pope" was likely to have been a "
Pope" in his own lifetime as opposed to the title being granted long after he was dead ala the continuity narrative I mentioned above. The primacy of Rome was a political manouver, and before the primacy of Rome itself was established (which then led to the primacy of the bishop of Rome) and recognized the office of the pope (or more aptly, the many popes) was unrecognizable from what you call a pope today. Once upon a time, The bishop of Rome was just another bishop in a vast see of bishops. In other words, Peter, whatever he was, was not a pope, except by the insistence -after the fact- of those sects of the catholic church which finally and ultimately established their dominance over the others, and that took some time.

Here you go, since you don't mind wiki (I like wiki too)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope#Early_...0.93325.29

(take notice of the much more exhaustive and varied sources, that's important, and if you're going to wiki...that's how it done.)

Speaking of Popes and Saints, let me just say that the papacy has gone decidely downhill since it's origins in myth. The earliest popes were powerful wizards, and all that the See can manage to field now is the Popenfuhrer?