Hi Flow -
Before a 'calm and rational discussion' can take place, one has to make an honest attempt to get to the truth of the matter.
And sometimes, exasperation just grows too much...
I think Dor, like others before him, has finally grown tired of the same old nonsense being pushed as 'history' and 'fact' when what is expressed is invariably the common and superficial understanding of the processes involved, and one that is populist and put forward by those with an agenda against any notion of 'authority', 'institution', etc.
In short, the 'questionable' doctrines have been shown to be taught from the very outset, the Creed, for example, can be traced to the first century ... there is more archeological evidence - according to non-Christian sources - to support the truth of the existence of a man called Jesus Christ than there is to support Buddha, or even Mohammed, and yet every other alternative is proposed - and embraced - rather than the most obvious and most reasonable.
On these pages Christ has been a Buddhist, a Daoist, a this, a that ... based on nothing but idle speculation and the testimony of proven frauds - and utterly ignoring a teaching so profoundly Jewish it staggers one to think how anyone can entertain such a notion.
Whenever someone shouts 'Constantine' or 'Nicea' and 'Catholic Church' we know that history is on the way out of the window. There was no 'Roman Catholic Church' in any real sense until the schism with the East had solidified some centuries later, and the Church as such possessed nothing like the power and authority which everyone seems to endow her, according to the popular myth she crushes all opposition with a rigour and effectiveness that the KGB in its heyday would have gasped at! According to history she was persecuted, hated and ridiculed...
And yet Councils long after Nicea refuted Roman emperors and rejected any attempt to enforce political opinion upon them?
Or that the last pope to be martyred was killed by the 'Holy Roman Emperor' for refusing to cease discussions on topics of theology which didn't coincide with what the emperor believed? (The Typos of Constans II)
I would advise 'Early Christian Doctrines' by JND Kelly (Continuum Books) for the serious scholar, but it's dry reading if you're looking for more evidence of perfidy.
Newman, in his journey from Anglicanism to Catholicism, noted that if the Fathers appeared today, only the Catholic Church would resemble the Church of their day.
One the other hand, the Arian Dispute very quickly sidelined Arius to an impotent bystander as politicians sought to further their own cause under the guise of 'truth' - thank God for the Council Fathers who withstood the temptations of wealth and power that was offered them!
Likewise, if Luther had listened to Ekk - a better Augustinian scholar than he was - and if his bowels had been in better working order - then he might not have unleashed the 'Reformation', certainly he lamented that in the hands of Calvin and Zwingli it went further than he ever intended - nor was he slow to unleash the army against the peasants who dared to treat his teaching as a clarion call to the cause of independence! Nor, might I add, did Luther ever preach against indulgences when his own house benefitted - only when the money was going out of Germany, to Rome, did the complaints arise.
Likewise, one grows bored of ill-informed opinion regarding the Office of the Inquisition - instituted to STOP secular authorities from the town mayor upwards burning so-called heretics at the drop of a hat. Did you know that for many, many years people asked to be tried by the office of the inquisition on the basis that they would received a fair and impartial hearing? (The Inquisition in Spain was subverted by a monarchy towards its own end, and then broadcast with much invention by a Protestant Netherlands in its fight for independence - this is what everyone assumes the totality of the Inquisition to be.)
And don't start me on the rubbish that's spouted about witch burnings ...
and before anyone jumps on me, will you bother to determine how many were burned by a Catholic court, and how many by one of the Reformed churches?
And if anyone wants a discussion of real theology - how about the emergence of witchcraft in the wake of the 'stripping of ther altars' by the reformers - the people need their symbols, and if you take them away, they will find them elsewhere.
The recent affair of the Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas just highlights how willing people are to embrace anything that knocks authority - do they become Judasian Christians? No. Da Vincian Christians? No. Do they become any sort of Christian? No - unless it's their own sort, a Christianity according to what they like and what they don't, a gospel according to fashion, fad and fancy. Do they listen to the voice of secular experts? No. Do they listen as fiction after fiction in the book is exposed. No.
To me it seems as if all they seek is that the Church is damaged ...
But of course, when a Catholic voices such stuff, no matter the historical evidence behind it, the cry goes up 'propaganda!'
Too much the Fox and his 'sour grapes', it seems to me.
I think Dor has reached that point when it seems that no-one's interested unless you affirm what they want to hear.
Thomas
Before a 'calm and rational discussion' can take place, one has to make an honest attempt to get to the truth of the matter.
And sometimes, exasperation just grows too much...
I think Dor, like others before him, has finally grown tired of the same old nonsense being pushed as 'history' and 'fact' when what is expressed is invariably the common and superficial understanding of the processes involved, and one that is populist and put forward by those with an agenda against any notion of 'authority', 'institution', etc.
In short, the 'questionable' doctrines have been shown to be taught from the very outset, the Creed, for example, can be traced to the first century ... there is more archeological evidence - according to non-Christian sources - to support the truth of the existence of a man called Jesus Christ than there is to support Buddha, or even Mohammed, and yet every other alternative is proposed - and embraced - rather than the most obvious and most reasonable.
On these pages Christ has been a Buddhist, a Daoist, a this, a that ... based on nothing but idle speculation and the testimony of proven frauds - and utterly ignoring a teaching so profoundly Jewish it staggers one to think how anyone can entertain such a notion.
Whenever someone shouts 'Constantine' or 'Nicea' and 'Catholic Church' we know that history is on the way out of the window. There was no 'Roman Catholic Church' in any real sense until the schism with the East had solidified some centuries later, and the Church as such possessed nothing like the power and authority which everyone seems to endow her, according to the popular myth she crushes all opposition with a rigour and effectiveness that the KGB in its heyday would have gasped at! According to history she was persecuted, hated and ridiculed...
And yet Councils long after Nicea refuted Roman emperors and rejected any attempt to enforce political opinion upon them?
Or that the last pope to be martyred was killed by the 'Holy Roman Emperor' for refusing to cease discussions on topics of theology which didn't coincide with what the emperor believed? (The Typos of Constans II)
I would advise 'Early Christian Doctrines' by JND Kelly (Continuum Books) for the serious scholar, but it's dry reading if you're looking for more evidence of perfidy.
Newman, in his journey from Anglicanism to Catholicism, noted that if the Fathers appeared today, only the Catholic Church would resemble the Church of their day.
One the other hand, the Arian Dispute very quickly sidelined Arius to an impotent bystander as politicians sought to further their own cause under the guise of 'truth' - thank God for the Council Fathers who withstood the temptations of wealth and power that was offered them!
Likewise, if Luther had listened to Ekk - a better Augustinian scholar than he was - and if his bowels had been in better working order - then he might not have unleashed the 'Reformation', certainly he lamented that in the hands of Calvin and Zwingli it went further than he ever intended - nor was he slow to unleash the army against the peasants who dared to treat his teaching as a clarion call to the cause of independence! Nor, might I add, did Luther ever preach against indulgences when his own house benefitted - only when the money was going out of Germany, to Rome, did the complaints arise.
Likewise, one grows bored of ill-informed opinion regarding the Office of the Inquisition - instituted to STOP secular authorities from the town mayor upwards burning so-called heretics at the drop of a hat. Did you know that for many, many years people asked to be tried by the office of the inquisition on the basis that they would received a fair and impartial hearing? (The Inquisition in Spain was subverted by a monarchy towards its own end, and then broadcast with much invention by a Protestant Netherlands in its fight for independence - this is what everyone assumes the totality of the Inquisition to be.)
And don't start me on the rubbish that's spouted about witch burnings ...
and before anyone jumps on me, will you bother to determine how many were burned by a Catholic court, and how many by one of the Reformed churches?
And if anyone wants a discussion of real theology - how about the emergence of witchcraft in the wake of the 'stripping of ther altars' by the reformers - the people need their symbols, and if you take them away, they will find them elsewhere.
The recent affair of the Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas just highlights how willing people are to embrace anything that knocks authority - do they become Judasian Christians? No. Da Vincian Christians? No. Do they become any sort of Christian? No - unless it's their own sort, a Christianity according to what they like and what they don't, a gospel according to fashion, fad and fancy. Do they listen to the voice of secular experts? No. Do they listen as fiction after fiction in the book is exposed. No.
To me it seems as if all they seek is that the Church is damaged ...
But of course, when a Catholic voices such stuff, no matter the historical evidence behind it, the cry goes up 'propaganda!'
Too much the Fox and his 'sour grapes', it seems to me.
I think Dor has reached that point when it seems that no-one's interested unless you affirm what they want to hear.
Thomas
