Conquer Club

john9blue wrote:^ Man, people are really obsessed with the past. I mean only when it suits their personal beliefs... but still.

BigBallinStalin wrote:

john9blue wrote:^ Man, people are really obsessed with the past. I mean only when it suits their personal beliefs... but still.

yeah like history is dumb to study because it's dumb

PLAYER57832 wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

john9blue wrote:^ Man, people are really obsessed with the past. I mean only when it suits their personal beliefs... but still.

yeah like history is dumb to study because it's dumb

Well, see, the problem with education is that it might actually force one to re-evaluate what one things, and perhaps (gasp) even change one's mind.

PLAYER57832 wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

john9blue wrote:^ Man, people are really obsessed with the past. I mean only when it suits their personal beliefs... but still.

yeah like history is dumb to study because it's dumb

Well, see, the problem with education is that it might actually force one to re-evaluate what one things, and perhaps (gasp) even change one's mind.

Tiggy D Amour wrote:I'm English and an atheist. I have never been in any Nazi organisation...like the Pope was(Nazi Youth).

john9blue wrote:

PLAYER57832 wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

john9blue wrote:^ Man, people are really obsessed with the past. I mean only when it suits their personal beliefs... but still.

yeah like history is dumb to study because it's dumb

Well, see, the problem with education is that it might actually force one to re-evaluate what one things, and perhaps (gasp) even change one's mind.

Player, I've been more tolerant of you than most people in this forum. I know you like demonizing your opponents though (when did I ever call history dumb?). If you're going to lump me into the "stupid heartless conservative" category, please let me know so that I can discard any respect I may have had for you. There is a HUGE difference between knowledge of historical facts, and the ability to realize what is CURRENTLY happening and find solutions. You are chock full of facts, but you spend too much time trying to weasel your way out of any actual reasoning by blinding us with walls of text, and now you're descending even further into the flat-out "insult your opponent" method which has already been adopted by most other liberals on the forum.

Sometimes I regret revealing my age because then my opponents would have no choice but to confront my logic instead of insinuating that I'm uneducated as a cop-out.

JR, please justify your use of Godwin's Law on the Catholic Church... without regurgitating the words of your favorite talking head or your usual hateful rhetoric. I await your response.

Tiggy D Amour wrote:I'm English and an atheist. I have never been in any Nazi organisation...like the Pope was(Nazi Youth).

ViperOverLord wrote:

Tiggy D Amour wrote:I'm English and an atheist. I have never been in any Nazi organisation...like the Pope was(Nazi Youth).

Yea its not like the Nazi youth weren't taken from their homes in many cases and forced to serve. But it doesn't matter what the truth is. You'll probably believe what you want to believe.

Johnny Rockets wrote:And if you can point out any other organization in the past, or in the now that was/is responsible for more crimes against humanity, I'd love to hear it. It's not hateful rhetoric, John. It's pretty much the fucking factual truth.

Johnny Rockets wrote:And if you can point out any other organization in the past, or in the now that was/is responsible for more crimes against humanity, I'd love to hear it. It's not hateful rhetoric, John. It's pretty much the fucking factual truth.

jonesthecurl wrote:If the Catholic church was dreadfully wrong in the past, that means the baton handed down from pope to pope, and leading back to Jesus himself, has been fumbled, and handed to the wrong guys at some point. Which means the current church has its authority on false pretences.

tempest-n-a-tcup wrote:I haven't heard of anyone being racked in a Catholic dungeon in the past three hundred years or so, have you?

john9blue wrote:

tempest-n-a-tcup wrote:I haven't heard of anyone being racked in a Catholic dungeon in the past three hundred years or so, have you?

Who cares, one mistake against human rights and the Church is rotten forever!!!11!1

I just find it extremely hard to believe that the Church has not done a remarkable amount of good throughout its history, enough to outweigh the bad.

john9blue wrote:

tempest-n-a-tcup wrote:I haven't heard of anyone being racked in a Catholic dungeon in the past three hundred years or so, have you?

Who cares, one mistake against human rights and the Church is rotten forever!!!11!1

tempest-n-a-tcup wrote:

jonesthecurl wrote:If the Catholic church was dreadfully wrong in the past, that means the baton handed down from pope to pope, and leading back to Jesus himself, has been fumbled, and handed to the wrong guys at some point. Which means the current church has its authority on false pretences.

Pennance and Redemption are a fundamental part of Roman Catholicism. While there have been good and bad priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes they were all people subject to Christ's redemption if they chose to partake of it. I see nothing false about Christ's love and ability to redeem us when we stray. He can probably redeem an entire church if he sees fit; I haven't heard of anyone being racked in a Catholic dungeon in the past three hundred years or so, have you?

Part and parcel of Roman Catholicism's claim to authority is its conception of Apostolic Succession. As defined above, the doctrine asserts that the Gospel is preserved in the Church by means of a lineal succession of bishops who have handed down the truth from the beginning and who possess the teaching authority of the Apostles themselves. Noting the fact that even heretics claim the support of Scripture for their novelties, it further maintains that without this succession of bishops, one cannot tell where the true apostolic doctrines are being taught.

jonesthecurl wrote:I am talking of the "apostolic succession" in which the true authority of the christian faith is passed down the ages. If just one of the popes was an error, the whole idea falls down.

tempest-n-a-tcup wrote:

jonesthecurl wrote:I am talking of the "apostolic succession" in which the true authority of the christian faith is passed down the ages. If just one of the popes was an error, the whole idea falls down.

From what you've said, I'm not sure that you're really that familiar with apostolic succession. It's not what all Christian churches are founded upon; as far as I know it's a big deal to the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Churches, and Episcopalians. Likewise, as far as I know, the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians don't care a bit about it.

In reality it's just a line of people who've held an office (bishop, priest, etc.) and that office's lineage back to Christ. Take the Presidency of the USA as an example, nobody cares that one President was a schmuck and the next was great, the succession of Presidents remains intact and the power of the office is handed from one to the next as granted by the people. Do you seriously think that Christ didn't know that he was handing the right to forgive sins to fallible people who would themselves need forgiveness at some point? That being said, yeah some jerks have held the office of priest, bishop, and even pope, so what? Christ can still forgive sins through them and their perfectly non jerkish descendents as he promised.

What you're describing sounds more like the Masons or some other organization in which secrets are supposedly passed from one leader down to the next. That's certainly not implied in any descripition of apostolic succession I've ever heard. As I understand it, the Roman Catholic Church's authority is based upon the clergy's right to forgive sins; a right they trace back to Christ through apostolic succession.

The role of apostolic succession in preserving true doctrine is illustrated in the Bible. To make sure that the apostles’ teachings would be passed down after the deaths of the apostles, Paul told Timothy, "[W]hat you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). In this passage he refers to the first three generations of apostolic succession—his own generation, Timothy’s generation, and the generation Timothy will teach.

The Church Fathers, who were links in that chain of succession, regularly appealed to apostolic succession as a test for whether Catholics or heretics had correct doctrine. This was necessary because heretics simply put their own interpretations, even bizarre ones, on Scripture. Clearly, something other than Scripture had to be used as an ultimate test of doctrine in these cases.

Thus the early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes, "[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? . . . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . . Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it" (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).

For the early Fathers, "the identity of the oral tradition with the original revelation is guaranteed by the unbroken succession of bishops in the great sees going back lineally to the apostles. . . . [A]n additional safeguard is supplied by the Holy Spirit, for the message committed was to the Church, and the Church is the home of the Spirit. Indeed, the Church’s bishops are . . . Spirit-endowed men who have been vouchsafed ‘an infallible charism of truth’" (ibid.).