Why be good?

[abaris]

But not the fiction that science can explain everything.

Again, as I said in the other thread: God of the gaps - yawn, very big yawn.

And as for demons, you might actually want to educate yourself on mental illnesses, if education isn't a dirty word to be afraid of in your circles.

[Ravenshire]

Yep, spoken like anyone trying to win a doctrinal war.  Don't listen to them, listen to us.  We are the largest group, and we took upon ourselves the winning name.  So?

I've never yet met a cathy-lick who could be convinced that the teachings of the church can be boiled down to the consensus of the winners and that it has nothing to do with the reality of the teachings.

[abaris]

I've never yet met a cathy-lick who could be convinced that the teachings of the church can be boiled down to the consensus of the winners and that it has nothing to do with the reality of the teachings.

I use to call it the Constantinian butt kissing contest, since many of the believes of early church fathers have been thrown out of the window in order to better enter the Roman emperor's buttcrack. Such as being opposed to capital punishment and military service. Didn't sit well with authority, so let's scrap that.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not sure what YOU are arguing about.

Clearly.

No thanks ... I burned out on science fiction in college.

But not the fiction that science can explain everything.

Feel free to demonstrate this. Can you link to one single post where I made such an asinine assertion? When have I ever asserted, here or on any other forum (google "Thumpalumpacus" for the majority of my Internet history) and link to one single post where I avow that science can explain everything. Go on, do it.

You're talking to a writer and musician, dumbass. Science cannot explain æsthetics, as anyone with half-a-brain knows.

You really shouldn't be so presumptuous. You're an idiot whose prime fault is that you don't know how to shut up and listen, and this causes you to misgauge your audience, misunderstand what is being said to you (see the first exchange in this post for an example), and it retards your learning -- a fact which has been obvious to everyone here but you for quite some time now.

[pocaracas]

Hey Randy... I'm still waiting for you to read up on what "truth" is...

In the meantime, I'll nag you with one detail.. perhaps it's my history that's awry on this detail, but you'll know.
I'm hiding all the stuff I don't care about on this quote:



I saw a mentioning of a church of Rome... dated from the year 200... prior to the establishment (as far as I'm aware) of the actual Roman Catholic Church by Constantine with the Council of Nicaea.
It feels like the guy is talking about something that didn't exist yet.

I posted this in this forum previously...

The early Church - the Church founded by Christ as promised in Matthew 16:18 - was that which was originally known as “the Way” (cf. Acts 24:14). Later, those individuals who followed Christ began to be called “Christians” beginning at Antioch (cf. Acts 11:26). As early as 107 A.D., those same individuals referred to themselves collectively as the “Catholic Church”. In a letter to the Church of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch wrote:

 
You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery (priest) as you would the Apostles. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, A.D. 107, [8,1])
 
Notice that Ignatius does not take pains to introduce the term "Catholic Church"; instead he uses it in a manner suggesting that the name was already in use and familiar to his audience. This further suggests that the name, Catholic Church, had to have been coined much earlier in order to have achieved wide circulation by the time of this writing. In other words, the Christian assembly was calling itself the Catholic Church during the lifetime of the last Apostle, John, who died near the end of the first century. John, the beloved disciple, may have thought of himself as a member of the Catholic Church!
 
The Catholic Church began with Peter and the Apostles and continued without interruption or cessation through their disciples (Ignatius, Irenaeus, Polycarp, Clement, Justin Martyr, etc.) down to the present day. As a side note, it appears that the believers in Antioch may have coined both terms still in use today: “Christian” and “Catholic Church” – terms they used to describe the one body of believers in Christ.

Ah, I may have missed the emphasis I wanted to put on that question... It is with the roman part of the catholic church...
Let's assume there was a catholic church by the year 150, all the way to Constantinople... was there one in Rome?
Or, when they say Rome, they just meant somewhere in the roman empire?

Or am I to assume as true the legend that a guy named Peter actually went to Rome and successfully started a church?

Legend?

Ignatius of Antioch

"Not as Peter and Paul did, do I command you [Romans]. They were apostles, and I am a convict" (Letter to the Romans 4:3 [A.D. 110]).
 
Dionysius of Corinth

"You [Pope Soter] have also, by your very admonition, brought together the planting that was made by Peter and Paul at Rome and at Corinth; for both of them alike planted in our Corinth and taught us; and both alike, teaching similarly in Italy, suffered martyrdom at the same time" (Letter to Pope Soter [A.D. 170], in Eusebius, History of the Church 2:25:8).
 
Irenaeus

"Matthew also issued among the Hebrews a written Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church" (Against Heresies, 3, 1:1 [A.D. 189]).

"But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the succession of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops qf the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, that church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. With that church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition" (ibid. 3:3:2).

"The blessed apostles [Peter and Paul], having founded and built up the church [of Rome], they handed over the office of the episcopate to Linus. Paul makes mention of this Linus in the epistle to Timothy [2 Tim. 4:21]. To him succeeded Anencletus, and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was chosen for the episcopate. He had seen the blessed apostles and was acquainted with them. It might be said that he still heard the echoes of the preaching of the apostles and had their traditions before his eyes. And not only he, for there were many still remaining who had been instructed by the apostles. In the time of Clement, no small dissension having arisen among the brethren in Corinth, the Church in Rome sent a very strong letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace and renewing their faith. . . To this Clement, Evaristus succeeded. . . and now, in the twelfth place after the apostles, the lot of the episcopate [of Rome] has fallen to Eleutherus. In this order, and by the teaching of the apostles handed down in the Church, the preaching of the truth has come down to us" (ibid. 3:3:3 [inter AD. 180-190]).

Tertullian

“How happy is that church . . . where Peter endured a passion like that of the Lord, where Paul was crowned in a death like John’s [referring to John the Baptist, both he and Paul being beheaded]” (The Demurrer Against the Heretics [A.D. 200]).

“This is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the church of the Smyrnaeans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John; like the church of the Romans, where Clement was ordained by Peter” (ibid.).

Cyprian

"With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the Chair of Peter and to the principal church [at Rome], in which sacerdotal unity has its source" (Epistle to Cornelius [Bishop of Rome] 59:14 [A.D. 252]).
Optatus

"In the city of Rome the episcopal chair was given first to Peter, the chair in which Peter sat, the same who was head - that is why he is also called Cephas - of all the apostles, the one chair in which unity is maintained by all. Neither do the apostles proceed individually on their own, and anyone who would [presume to] set up another chair in opposition to that single chair would, by that very fact, be a schismatic and a sinner. . . .Recall, then, the origins of your chair, those of you who wish to claim for yourselves the title of holy Church" (The Schism of the Donatists 2:2 [circa A.D. 367]).
Augustine

"If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them [the bishops of Rome] from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, 'Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer it.' Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement . . . In this order of succession a Donatist bishop is not to be found" (Epistle to Generosus 53:1:2 [A.D. 400]).

So we agree that people thought there had been such a Peter, over a hundred years before any of that was written...
How come there's no other record of him at Rome... say... by some roman contemporary record-keeper?

Also, please avoid writing in red or green, as they are the colors that admins and mods use, respectively, in their official capacities, and may be misinterpreted.

I don't see this in the Forum Rules, and I like red because it stands out. Is this really going to be a big deal?

That's because it's not a rule. It's a request for you to keep within this forum's netiquette.

[abaris]

So we agree that people thought there had been such a Peter, over a hundred years before any of that was written...
How come there's no other record of him at Rome... say... by some roman contemporary record-keeper?

If you leave the realm of unicorns and fairies and try your luck with the real world back then, there's something fishy (pun intended) about the Peter story right from the beginning. He's described as a fisherman in the bible. And given the time and the region, fisherman back then meant rowing some smallish boat and just catching enough to scrape by.

And now this man is supposed to have inspired the whole of the old world? I would be highly surprised if someone like that could even read, let alone speak in Latin or Greek. And how on earth did someone like that become a Roman citizen, since this is also coverd in the account of his demise. You didn't automatically become a Roman citizen just by dwelling in some far away province. It was an honor to be named one, handed out for 25 years of military service, just to give one example.

And now, if someone barges in claiming the holy spirit being behind all of this, I'm barfing all over my keyboard.

[Randy Carson]

Yep, spoken like anyone trying to win a doctrinal war.  Don't listen to them, listen to us.  We are the largest group, and we took upon ourselves the winning name.  So?

I've never yet met a cathy-lick who could be convinced that the teachings of the church can be boiled down to the consensus of the winners and that it has nothing to do with the reality of the teachings.

So? So, that's not completely true.

In fact, at one point in church history, Jenny, the Arian heresy threatened to overwhelm the Church, and the number of Arian bishops outnumbered the orthodox bishops. Eventually, however, Arianism was defeated not because it wasn't the largest group but because its doctrine was simply wrong.

Now, if your "largest group" argument was true, then Arianism would have won and taken the name "Catholic Church".

And similarly, at MANY points in history, the four Eastern patriarchs were all in heresy of one flavor or another; time and again, it was the lone Bishop of Rome who led them back to the true faith.

Might has not always made right. Truth, however, has.

[Randy Carson]

But not the fiction that science can explain everything.

Again, as I said in the other thread: God of the gaps - yawn, very big yawn.

And as for demons, you might actually want to educate yourself on mental illnesses, if education isn't a dirty word to be afraid of in your circles.

I think I'm going to respond to your frequent "God-of-the-gaps" objection in a new thread.

[abaris]

In fact, at one point in church history, Jenny, the Arian heresy threatened to overwhelm the Church, and the number of Arian bishops outnumbered the orthodox bishops. Eventually, however, Arianism was defeated not because it wasn't the largest group but because its doctrine was simply wrong.

Make that because it threatened the power of the church of Rome and we could have an agreement on something. At least you accept Arianism to have been important enough to have had an influence, which is more than can be said about some of your fellow christians on this board.

[Jenny A]

I think I'm going to respond to your frequent "God-of-the-gaps" objection in a new thread.  

Why not just respond here.  Why is it that anything we can't explains means there is a god? Before answering please consider that gods have previously been used to explain phenomenon that we now understand.