Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
That's mechanically because you live post-Reformation. It's an accident that you think that. If your exact same person instead was born in AD 1 you would think corporate sacrifice to deity of some variety is a permanent requirement and you'd think political ideology should reflect this permanent requirement as well.I think Catholicism certainly had its place and served its purpose. Few join religions to do anything but good works. I think the day of communal worship and a priestly class are over.
Catholicism (which is just the Christian Church, mentioned in the Bible, without dispute up to at the earliest AD 325 or so) due to its magnificent popularity, at times got caught in that political ideological snare.
The idea that deity of some variety must be offered sacrifices perpetually, for the benefit of man, in general and in particular, is ancient and very popular. This is part of why Catholicism at times swept through societies, leaving once vibrant and busy pagan temples desolate within decades. The people recognized that this is the categorically superior way to accomplish this universal and ancient (it's probably in our DNA in some way, but we have to leave it to PhD social scientists to uniformly agree what the deal is with religion and DNA, in order to have an informed opinion) value.
Deity must be appeased. Now if it turns out, that the reason the idea was invented and or persists even to this day, is solely because of Abraham, and his tradition, then that only supports Catholicism, since Catholicism is the oldest tradition that is not Judaism which traces its one tradition to Abraham, like Judaism traces its multiple traditions to Abraham as well.
And if you just think that there is no deity, so therefore it is false to say that deity must be appeased, that still does not demonstrate, prove, or show and signify, that it is ethically superior to not participate in that rite. It could be that in our DNA is a lock, and only Catholicism is the key to unlock it. Just because Jesus and the Apostles were first, that just establishes them as our religious heroes, if we're all just deluded atheists anyway. The ritual is still required by our DNA to be our best (which is what I mean by ethical), and the ritual does reflect a basic, genetic belief in deity, and that same genetic belief in our own flawed natures. So perhaps, this is all it is, and this is why the idea is common, that deity must be appeased.
It could be that there's no deity, and that our DNA only accidentally, or because of survival of the fittest, is designed such that very many of us resonate with the notion that deity is nonfiction, and that deity must be appeased. That could just be an accident of evolution, I know this because I've heard evolutionists say it. If that's the case, it's not like we're ever going to change our spots, not within like 100 generations minimum anyway, something like that.
So we have to acknowledge our genetic selves, play the hand we're dealt. If it's lemons, then make lemonade. Catholicism's lemonade, if, what you think, is true.
Understand that.
If Catholicism's true, then Catholicism's true. But if instead what you think is true, then it's entirely reasonable and possible that our genetic selves are just lemons, and then, Catholicism is the lemonade. Catholicism is here only meant to signify the Christian Church from the Apostolic era until about AD 325, almost three hundred years. This is virtually undisputed among Christians today to be a period of true unity in the Church age.
See above. Deity must be appeased. It's true or it's false, it's a proposition, it can have the property of truth or falsity. If it's false, because deity is fictional, then it's still possible that it's true genetically. Meaning that our DNA has evolved with a God-shaped hole in its resultant soul, spirit, or human mind, and no matter how clever we are at identifying and characterizing the hole, the ethically best thing to do is to fill it in, so that nobody gets hurt.We are each responsibly for our own spirituality and the endless rituals of Catholicism is in reality the antithesis of a living religion.
It's a pretty deep hole.
That's Catholicism. I'm not saying it's the only example, but certainly without dispute, this is Catholicism from the Apostolic era on up to AD 325.That said there will always be a need to have organised religion so that a critical mass of humans can be utilised to move humanity towards a moral, virtuous life of service to God and thus humanity.
(To explain the difference between those who believe Biblical Catholicism ended in AD 325 and myself, I just think Catholicism persists to AD 2022, not that it ended in AD 325.)
You are not taken seriously here on TOL. So how does it feel? To be irrationally and unjustly not taken seriously?I think the Catholic church has racked up too many sins to be taken seriously anymore.