Into the Wardrobe

Sounds like irrational justification to me Postodave. It looks as though the church was in consensus about the inquisition, selling church offices to the highest bidders, and using indulgences to manipulate people. So they've changed over time. They might change their ideas about the Immaculate Conception. The Vatican says the church has feet of clay - that's, at least, honest enough.

Church tradition is the periperal stuff. The church is not able to reliably generate doctrine - it is the traditions of man that the Bible warns against.

I didn't say anything about witch trials in Spain - I said the witch trials in Salem (as in Massachusetts); meaning, I'm not busting on the Catholic Church. I'm talking about the entire earthly church that thinks they're able to improve on what God's already said.
And, yes, when I was talkin about slavery, I was talking specifically about the Protestant church - so are we on the same page yet or do you still thing I'm anti-Catholic?

And, yes, the Inquisitions were deviations (they would still be if the laws allowed it). If you read anything about Jesus and then try to compare Him with that fiasco, obviously they're deviations, but so is the rest of extraBiblical church tradition.

What they did to Galileo (the church has apologized about that too) was a logical extention of church tradition. I could go on and on.

I'm gettiing sick of the church saying "We're sorry.We're sorry. But we got better so you should accept everything we say." Some true humility is in order. They need to accept that God is the only authority able to produce reliable doctrine and quit trying to one up Him. The church needs to stop leaning to their own understanding and return to God.

The pederastic priest fiasco is not over because the church only said they did something wrong because they got caught (literally) with their pants down. As soon as the storm dies down, it'll be right back to business as usual. The organized church apologizes when unGodly society forces them to own up - that is heinous. We should be the example for them to follow - not the other way around.

And it disturbs me to no end to see the church apologizing for they past (disaters) and then to hear individual laymen and clergy alike add, "But that was an anomaly." It proves to me that they really don't have it yet. They still want to keep making up the rules as they go along. Nothings solved; there is no remedy yet.

The Pope gave Galileo permission to publish his findings as hypothesis. Galileo disagreed, saying it was fact. He then disobeyed the Pope, thereby breaking trust. He also put the Pope's arguments in the mouth of a character called Simplicitus, thereby threatening the central social institution already under seige by the Reformation to the west and militant Islam to the east. The real wonder re. Galileo was that he got off so lightly.

As it turns out, the Pope was right. Heliocentricity is hypothesis, not fact. Motion is relative. To insist the Earth goes round the sun is profoundly wrong. It all depends on your point of view. Ask Einstein.

Galileo was wrong.

When will the scientific atheists apologise to the Church, I wonder?

BTW, it doesn't surprise me at all that individual Roman Catholics don't know about the RC church apologising about the Inquisition or their treatment of Galileo. I know about it because I read the Vatiican website. All you have to do is do a web search on " "feet of clay" Vatiican".

But if the RC church was really sincere about their apology (instead of just playing political games) individual Catholics would know about it. They would not let the issue die discreetly. They would do something out it. At least the Baptist church made it quite public about their apology about their support of slavery and I don't know any Baptist that didn't know about it.

I also read that the Vatican opened up the Inquisition documents. Of course, although anyone could look at them - they were tightly limited on time and recording instruments. The documents were not made public - I would have liked to be able to find out what actually did happen to my family in Germany during that time. But then, given the church's track record on such things, I wouldn't have trusted that the documents made public were all the documents or that they were even the factual documents.

I hate that I don't feel like I can even trust the church but I've worked with the church too long to allow myself that little luxury.

The Nicene creed is a direct restatement of scripture. Why should I have a problem with that? There's a lt of church tradition not contained in the Creeds.

O.o

Inquisition an attempt to stop persecution?!!?! Now that's warped! That's sorta like saying that the concentration camps were an attempt to moderate the persecution of the Jews - I could just see that story coming out, too.

Scripture doesn't replace faith - nor vice versa. Why do you have to havea basis?

That sounds about right. And I do value the writings of the early church much as I do the writings of C. S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Martin Luther, and on and on - the left a priceless literary legacy of commentary and history.

As to the Inquisition, we may have to agree to disagree - I don't think the world has been improved at all because of them. I also believe that they would still exist at their worst if it were not for secular laws which prohibit them.