Yikes, Surplus! You write a lot of long, and well written post here on the board. I'll try to answer briefly, and as I can.
>>Interesting perspectives. Tell me, did "Christians" predate the "birth of Catholicism" or did Catholicism predate your definition of "Christians"? If Christians did not initiate and lead the crusades, who were the people that did? If Christians did not participate in the Inquisition what were the people that did?
The first people to call themselves Christians were the Ephesians, a Greek people in the city of Epesus, where Paul had taught before the crucifixtion. The Spanish Iquisition happend much later, led by what was from our perspective, the early Catholic church. The crusades, if I am not mistaken, were led by the knights Templar and some others. Like many mentioned in this thread, and as you pointed out, they THOUGHT that they were acting Biblically. I was only pointing out that according to scripture, they weren't. What text? That's very contoversial, as you might imagine. The New King James, with the old-english words removed (thee, thou, shalt....) is the maiin text in the modern churches I have seen in my travels. Some use the NIV, a more "modern" sounding translation. Douay? Don't know. According to Christ's New Testament teaching, along with Acts and the Epistles, the entire old and new sections are scripture. We are not compelled to do everything the way it was done in the old testament. It isn't always a good idea. In the old times, wives and children could be stoned. The judgement of a "good steward" becomes a necessity.
Your comments on history are good ones. Most people gather information from a number of sources, and propose timelines and theorize about some conclusions. I think Notre Dame would agree that king Constantine had a "miraculous vision" . Whether or not they would refer to the assimilation of other beliefs as being expedient to the birth of Roman Catholicsm is another question. My information comes secondhand from many Catholics I know, some have run the entire 16 year gamut, old school style, with the knuckles to prove it. We have had many hours of spirited discussion.
Praying to statues? I saw news footage of that happening over in Cherry Hill, NJ not many years ago. A statue of the virgin Mary had drawn a crowd who prayed to the statue for several weeks. I have never seen a book labled "bible" where Christ or his disciples instructed followers to pray to Mary, or any "graven image" of Mary. In fact, that practice was specifically prohibited. That's one example of not following Christ's teachings.
What are they? According to the Bible, if a group adds to or takes away from, the scriptures (Mormons, Catholics, for example) they are not following the word (Bible) and are engaging in "cult" activity. That's an area too large for me to cover, especially in an aviation forum. You strike me as a very intelligent guy, so I'll let you pursue that.
The separation of church and state is an interesting point. It has no constitutional basis, but the establishment clause has been interpreted by the supreme court to extend the concept into constitutional thinking. There is no, and never was, an intention of the founders to prevent public officials or private individuals in a public forum from making statements of faith, diplaying religious emblems, singing, praying, etc. The constitution never advocated a religiously sterile environment. In fact, the writings of the founders are quite clear that they believed that democracy only works in a context of free, individual, belief. The constitution says freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. In order to guarantee freedom FROM religion, religious activity would have to be banned. Establishment of an official religion would REQUIRE not only practice of belief, but proof of practice, so those who stretch this clause are on very shaky constitutional ground. Nothing has ever hapened in the US that even remotely brings the establishment clause into play. We can blame its current prominence on a very liberal court, and Madelaine Murry O'Hare.
Sure, anyone can extoll their own interpretation of the Bible. In order for them to do that, though, they have to ignore or badly misinterpret large portions of it, much like the second grader who loudly announces that 2 plus 2 equals 5.
>>I understand that the things you reference are not the teachings of Christ. Unfortunately, those who carry out those acts nevertheless believe they are adhering to what the Bible teaches them as the word of God. Not much different from Islamics believing they are adhering to the word of Allah as written in the Quran.
The difference is that the Muslims have the passage about killing the infidel to back up their heinous acts, and those "nutters" as Austpilot mentioned don't have a scriptural leg to stand on.
>>Yes indeed and we must defend them. We must also be very careful to ensure that in our effort to defend or freedoms, we do not relinquish them in the name of security.
Who was it that said that a nation that sacrifices its freedom for security is worthy of neither? Was it Jefferson? It's that darn CRS again. We must be careful.
Thanks for the workout. I particularly like you posts on the whole RJ mess. You take a lot of time and make a great effort to make your points clear. Who knows where it will end? We'll see.
