15 years of chrysostom
- Thread starter chrysostom
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Likewise, the body of Christ.
Longevity isn’t holiness. Plenty of corrupt institutions have endured for centuries.
It’s still standing in spite of the issues it has.
That’s not a testament to man’s ingenuity.
It’s a testament to God, not to Rome. His truth endures even when men build their kingdoms on it.
Where is their temple? Do they have a billion membership?
Man is corrupt. In spite of this, it has lasted 2000 years and has a billion membership.
And a nearly uncountable number of other things.
Judaism does not require the existence of their temple for the religion to exist. This isn't the first time they've been without it. There was a time where they had forgotten that the scriptures themselves existed! Nor is the number of believers relevant.
Is this really what you have your religion built upon?
| Religion | Approximate Start Date | Length of Existence (as of AD 2025) | Approximate Number of Current Believers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hinduism | c. 2500–1500 BC | 3,500–4,500 years | ~1.2 billion |
| Judaism | c. 2000–1400 BC | 3,400–4,000 years | ~15 million |
| Zoroastrianism | c. 1200 BC | ~3,200 years | ~100,000 |
| Shinto | c. 700 BC | ~2,700 years | ~100 million (mostly in Japan) |
| Jainism | c. 800–500 BC | ~2,500–2,800 years | ~5 million |
| Taoism | c. 600 BC | ~2,600 years | ~12 million (often blended with other faiths) |
| Confucianism | c. 500 BC | ~2,500 years | ~6 million (cultural influence far wider) |
| Buddhism | c. 500 BC | ~2,500 years | ~520 million |
By your standard, you should convert to Hinduism!
Still missing the point.
Again, that's not a testament to the greatness of man's religion. It's a testament to what happens when you even attempt to have as your foundation things that come from God.
Consider that concrete itself is not very strong. It's very brittle and chips and cracks easily. But if you add in some rebar, now the concrete structure you're building will last a lot longer.
The RCC is the concrete, hard, but brittle, and breaks easily. God's word is the rebar, though, in this case, not placed very well. Even so, the structure will last for a long time, simply due to the presence of the rebar, not because the concrete itself was very durable.
You are proving my point again.
Yes, man is corrupt. That is exactly why no office should ever be trusted on the basis of its title alone. If the Pope is a man, and man is corrupt, then the only way to trust the Pope is if his office is actually protected by God from error, AS CATHOLICISM CLAIMS.
That protection has clearly failed over and over again or never existed at all. Your appeal to human corruption admits that the institution is not divinely preserved in direct opposition to your own church's explicit teaching....
"We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when,
(1) in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,
(2) in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,
(3) he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church,
he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.
Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable."
— First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 4 (1870)
As for longevity and size, those are not marks of truth. Islam has endured for fourteen hundred years. Hinduism is older still and has even more believers than Catholicism.
Further, Christianity itself is much older than Catholicism. The idea that Catholicism is Christianity, or that no Christians existed outside of Catholicism until the Reformation, is simply false. It is false historically, false theologically, and false logically.
There were Christians long before the Roman Catholic Church existed in any recognizable form. In the first and second centuries, there were no popes, no cardinals, no Marian dogmas, no confessionals, no rosaries, no Latin Masses, and no centralized Roman hierarchy. The apostles did not teach these things, nor did their immediate disciples. The early church was diverse in location, leadership, and structure. It was local, relational, and rooted in Scripture, not in Rome.
Even Catholic historians acknowledge that the papal system developed gradually over time. The title "pope" was not exclusive to the Bishop of Rome until centuries later. The doctrine of papal infallibility was not proclaimed until 1870. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was declared in 1854. The Assumption of Mary was not dogmatized until 1950. These are not examples of preserving apostolic teaching. These are examples of inventing it.
At the same time, there were always Christians who rejected Rome's claims and held to the essential truths of the gospel. Whether you look at the early church fathers who never mentioned a pope, or groups such as the Montanists, Novatians, Donatists, Waldensians, or even the eastern churches that denied Roman supremacy, the pattern is clear. Christianity is not and never was identical with Roman Catholicism.
True Christians have existed since Jesus walked this Earth. Not because they belonged to Rome, but because they belonged to Christ. To say otherwise is just so much religious propaganda.
annabenedetti
like marbles on glass
Roman Concrete
Roman concrete, also called opus caementicium, was used in construction in ancient Rome. Like its modern equivalent, Roman concrete was based on a hydraulic-setting cement added to an aggregate.
Many buildings and structures still standing today, such as bridges, reservoirs and aqueducts, were built with this material, which attests to both its versatility and its durability. . . .
Research in 2023 found that lime clasts, previously considered a sign of poor aggregation technique, react with water seeping into any cracks. This produces reactive calcium, which allows new calcium carbonate crystals to form and reseal the cracks. These lime clasts have a brittle structure that was most likely created in a "hot-mixing" technique with quicklime rather than traditional slaked lime, causing cracks to preferentially move through the lime clasts, thus potentially playing a critical role in the self-healing mechanism. . . .
The strength and longevity of Roman 'marine' concrete is understood to benefit from a reaction of seawater with a mixture of volcanic ash and quicklime to create a rare crystal called tobermorite, which may resist fracturing. As seawater percolated within the tiny cracks in the Roman concrete, it reacted with phillipsite naturally found in the volcanic rock and created aluminous tobermorite crystals. The result is a candidate for "the most durable building material in human history".
Numbers are relevant in that it indicates how reasonable the beliefs are.
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That is a FALLACY... You seem to think that Hinduism is more justified.
Large numbers of people can be WRONG, as is the case of the RCC.
Argumentum ad populum
Completely missed the point.