I believe in the infallibility of the pope, the bible and that saints are important but I do not believe just because my priest tells me something is true it necessarilly is. Does that make me different from the norm or is it that that separates our religion from fake religions especially cults?
What’s the difference between a religion and a cult?
Do you really believe that the bible is infallible? Consider this passage from 1 Corinthians:
No offence, but unless you go to a church where women aren’t allowed to speak, it really seems that you and most other christians really don’t take the words of the bible all that seriously.
I don’t think its ever possible to follow word for word the decrees of an ancient text. I mean, the bible is a collection of widely disparate, dated documents, which is something that christians always miss. There is no possible way that something written 2,000 years ago could have complete relevance today.
That’s what always irks me when I hear some christian invoking the words of St Paul in order to dis homosexuals. If there are some parts of the bible you just tend to ignore, how can you get angry when the Episcopal church decides to ignore the parts that condemn gays?
I’m interested to read your response, jgfan. Also, what do you make of the pope’s recent assertion that condoms don’t stop AIDS?
What we’re considering here is the label, and must be thought of accordingly. What each person believes varies a bit, even in fundamentalist circles.
What is considered is what impression and message you are sending by saying you are catholic. (since you know what you do and do not believe in,)
Do you like the label of ‘Catholic’? ID’ing has its ups and downs.
Condoms and other forms of contraception are not 100% effective. The label of Catholic seems to have problems with it but not with the actual religious message. For example both people that are very old fashioned (I’ve come across this and it probably stems from the 15th-19th century predjudices within churches) and people who think supposedly ‘modernly’ (I don’t see what part of politically correctness being against someone because of their religion covers) seem to have problems with the church that are mostly based on lies. The bible may be infallible but there are many problems within interpretation, both in our understanding and in translation. For example the bible was written partially in Greek and when translated into Latin lost a lot in translation. When it was translated again into all the languages in the world (I think that’s available now) a lot was lost again. So the problem is not the bible but the translation of the bible.
I happen to have an interlinear Greek-English New Testament. It confirms that translation pretty much word for word.
Still think the bible is infallible?
Dammit–one of these days I’ll get the hang of logging in before I post!
That last post is mine, y’all. 
The bible is not infallible. The bible, as pointed out by Bertrand Russell, clearly says that the hare chews the cud [lev 11:6], which is obviously fallacious.
The argument that the content has been lost in translation is also full of holes. As pointed out In C. Dennis McKinsey’s book, the encyclopedia of biblical errancy, which i highly recommend to believers and non-believers alike, pp 23 "The original autographical manuscripts of the NT [new testament] no longer exist. They were written on perishable material and it is unlikey that they lasted for more than a few years, let alone 19 centuries. As pointed out by McKinsey, one also has to contend with books mentioned in the bible which are no longer extant, books excluded by vote, such as the Apocrypha, copyist errors, different versions, not to mention interpretations.
And as McKinsey poignantly points out even Greek and Hebrew scholars frequently disagree on interpretation.
To anyone who still believes the Bible to be infallible i make a few further challenges. Why in Matthew 5:22 does Jesus condemn people to hell for calling others fools when he does so himself in Matthew 23:17 and Luke 11:40? How can the resurrection of Jesus attain any real prominence for Christians when, according to the bible, so many people rose from the dead before Jesus including: The widow of Nain’s son, Jairus’s daughter, the dead son of a Shunnammite which Elisha raised, lazarus, and many others? Genesis 7:20 refers to a flood that rose 15 cubits but ancient Egyptian records fail to record this event, even though they go back to 3400 BCE and the flood supposedly occured around 2348 BCE.
Checked my Greek-English NT again, and in both instances Jesus uses the Greek word moronos, fool.
What’s the ISBN# on that baby? I’d love to get a copy. I have langenscheidt’s pocket dictionary of classical Greek but the Greek of the new testament is older and therefore different. In any event, it’s Greek to me. 
Easy, Christ is not a man. There are some things a creator (God) is allowed to do that a creation is not allowed to do. A creation cannot insult another part of a creation but a creator doing this is just like an artist claiming his painting is not perfect.
So morality is perfectly arbitrary and if God says slay all of the homosexuals and muslims we must obey?
ISBN 0-8010-2138-3, edited by Jay P. Green.
I did some more research on that verse that forbids women from speaking in church. According to the Interpreter’s Bible, many biblical scholars today believe that that passage is actually NOT the words of St Paul, but an addition inserted in the text by some later editor. Which, of course, completely destroys any assertion that the bible is a unified, infallible whole.
I took a course on Old Testament/early hebrew literature this past term, and one of the things I learned is that the whole bible is like this. Contemporary biblical scholars (even the most fervent christians) are pretty much in agreement that the bible is a collection of widely disparate documents containing several different theologies, and not a single, unified whole as the fundamentalists want to claim.
Ergo, keep on believing in the Judeo-Christian God if you want, but realize that the bible is pretty imperfect, far from infallible.
Rewriting texts was common. I learned that from reading the dead sea scolls. also the habit of writing something and attributing it to a much earlier important figure was not an uncommon device back then. Many things were written 100’s of years after the fact and later elaborated on. I saw a book in Barnes and Noble the other day that talked about the 5 signs that a religion is becoming dark, and one of these is positing itself as the one absolute truth. None of us have all of the truth or ever will and that’s that.
Thanks for the ISBN# Smithigan’s wake.
If we accept that God is an infinte being then no one religion is completely true and no one religion is completley false. Every religion is a finite window into a portion of the infinite. This makes which ever religion you feel strongest toward the right religion for you.
visit: theinfinite.ws for further discussion
No, that can’t be because so many religions require belief in their deity exclusively. The central creed of Islam is, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet,” while Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one gets to heaven but by me.” They can’t both be right; you can’t have both “x” and “not x” be true at the same time.
Your response is correct if you think in absolutes. Unfortunately absolutes are finite. The concept is not that Christianity is 100% correct or incorrect. The concept is that is Christianity is a finite view into an infinite truth, the result is that from the viewpoint of a Christian, it appears that their religion is 100% true but by very definition of an infinite truth no one religion can be 100% true. This does not prevent a Muslim or Christian from being 100% commited to their beliefs, nor is it intended to suggest that they should hold their current beliefs any less close to their hearts.
You can reject the part of the religion that talks about everyone else going to hell, and just believe the peace and love stuff. It’s probably easier to do this with Christianity than with Islam; we don’t really know what Jesus’ views on religious exclusivism were, but if he was as loving and humble as the Bible makes him out to be, he was probably an inclusivist as well to some degree (meaning he probably didn’t really say a lot of what the writer of John ascribes to him). Mohammed on the other hand had a lot of people killed who didn’t agree with him; guess that doesn’t fit so well with an inclusive religion.
I agree that some world religions would never endorse an inclusive religion. In fact I would not expect my Catholic Wife or Children to accept the concept of inclusive religion, I would prefer that they stay within the comfort of their beliefs,
but I also believe that anyone who has met a Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu, etc etc has trouble believing that this person is condemned because they were not born into the “right” religion. For this reason we look for explanations of how all religions can be true, or at least partially true.
This approach reduces the personal experience of being a devout believer but increases the opportunity to experience many differing views.
I think the issue of specificity important too. any religion that avoided specific absolutes (like thou shalt not kill) would stand a higher chance of being obeyed and perhaps believed. Morality breaks down at absolutes.
Better to look for common ground and build on that.