Catholics are making it up.

There isn't enough information about any of those on your list to compare them to the western scientists as to method or achievement. There aren't even any dates given for many of them. Perhaps I could follow out the links but that's a lot to ask of a reader.

As I've always understood it, the biblical framework, which presents a law-giving God and a basically RATIONAL understanding of nature, history and reality, contrary to popular prejudice today, was both a motivator and the catalyst to the DEVELOPMENT of the empirical and experimental approach to scientific questions. Once the perspective and the method were established others could also do it and do it well. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Where are you getting this Evilspeak?I see no problem with Satan's appearance in Job and really can't figure out what your complaint is. Does seem that the snake venom has interestingly shown up dripping down your own lip though.God's in charge of everything, not Satan. And He DIDN'T allow Satan to destroy Job.Do you have any evidence of the priests "rewriting" anything? A stray manuscript with a different story in it? No, of course not. It is well known that the Jews were superstitiously careful with their scrolls, practiced an obsessively self-checking method of copying them so as to prevent errors, and the Dead Sea Scrolls are almost precisely identical to the Old Testament manuscripts in use by Christians, differences being minuscule. There are no contradictions, Jesus refers to all the books of the OT, it all hangs together. It takes an evil imagination to make up something else.About murder and theft and lying etc, I was referring to something Dr. A said. Perhaps you disagree with him.The sins of the fathers is one of those revelations of how reality works that it would be foolish to ignore, let alone subject to sophomoric personal opinion with venom dripping down your chin. Of course you don't want the answer to this. But maybe somebody else does. Or maybe not, but here it is: God is God, but the Fall corrupted the human spirit so that we lost touch with Him. The Bible was written to reintroduce Him to us and teach us His ways, and lead us to salvation from the horrific consequences of the Fall.All the peoples of the world had followed Satan, the architect of the Fall, and accepted demon gods for their tribal gods. That's what the Canaanites were worshipping, and they had all the mercy of Satan in their demands for the sacrifice of children, and all the holiness of prostitution in their fertility rituals, both hetero and homosexual. It was these sins against the Law of God (written on their hearts like everybody elses') that had accumulated to the point of calling down God's judgment on them. The sin wasn't yet "full" enough when the Israelites were living in Egypt, they had to wait until the right time tp become God's agents of judgment.As for China, what's the problem? God is God, He's in charge of everything everywhere including the wars of every people and their outcome. Nobody knew about Him because all peoples had lost the memory of Him because of their fallen nature. They were under the thrall of the usurper demon gods Satan had installed in every nation. Nobody needs to know Him for His Law to affect the entire world. Again, it's BECAUSE nobody knows Him that He gave us the Bible. Now we CAN know Him, but wonder of wonders, there are some who would rather not. Like you.But now China has been blessed by the true God so they can be saved too: One of my all-time favorite Christian writers is the Chinese teacher Watchman Nee, who died in prison for his faith under Mao.If you write another post to me may I suggest that you take measures to keep the corrosive acid venom off the keyboard. Just a friendly bit of advice.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You've bought some revisionist interpretation you want me to accept. I know who Satan is, there is no "evolution" of his character, there is only the usual progressive revelation which is the method of the Bible, so that we only see parts of the picture at first and then get a more complete view later on. It's YOU who are seeking to validate your own views, not me. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The SDAs are regarded as a cult by Protestants, and while there has been some confusion about what exactly the Sabbath was meant to be, the best understanding is that the Sabbath was one of the laws that Jesus fulfilled, scripture saying "He IS our Sabbath." Meaning He is our Rest, ("Abide -- or rest -- in Me" He said) which is what the word Sabbath means.And the practical upshot of this is that we do not honor a Sabbath day at all, we have a day of worship which is the first day of the week, or Sunday, because that's the day Jesus rose from the dead. Historically it has sometimes been confused with the Sabbath but that's a mistake.So we agree with the RCC about the Sabbath, which doesn't need their pagan authorization for it at all.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hardly. It's all quite in keeping with the Bible.

No. The Sabbath is a peculiar commandment, requiring an action though it sits among the moral commandments that require avoiding certain sins. It's different enough that some Christians set it apart from the other commandments. The early Church seems not to have had the problem since they assigned Sunday as the day of worship, but later on Sunday got confused with the Sabbath as a literal day of rest from work, which even got imposed on American society for the sake of workers. I don't think it's easy to understand the concept of Jesus Himself being our rest.The Trinity on the other hand is really pretty easy to grasp as a biblical concept when you see the scriptures it's based on. There are lots of them and they add up very nicely and clearly to the Trinity.

Well, look at it this way: It has always been understood that Jesus fulfilled the Law of God for us because we couldn't. That certainly has to mean the moral commandments, no other gods before Him, honoring father and mother, the shalt nots of lying, murdering, stealing, adultery and coveting. No problem seeing how He fulfilled all that for us, and happy I am that He did.But if you regard the Sabbath as a day of the week, how could He have fulfilled THAT in our place? If you treat it as different from the other commandments as something we are to obey literally while we recognize our spiritual weakness in obeying the others (mere lust in the mind is sin against the adultery shalt-not, hatred in the mind for a person is sin against the murder shalt-not) it just seems odd and out of joint. You have to come to see how He is our rest, and what it means to "abide in" Him, and then and only then does it make sense that He fulfilled that commandment too.Does that clarify? Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'll just repeat what kbertsche said now that I have a better idea of what you are saying. The Catholic Church didn't exist in the early years of the Church so whatever is claimed about their changing the day that far back is false.As KB pointed out the Bible itself says the Church met on Sundays: Another reference to their assembling on Sunday is:

It has always been understood that those are references to the day of the week the Church met for worship, and there are no references whatever to their meeting on Saturday.

Golly gee, Tangle, don't you know the Pope is the rightful ruler of this world, according to RCC official doctrine? He's "God on earth," don't you know? Therefore he has every right to pronounce on absolutely anything and everything pertaining to human life.

You are obviously ignorant of the whole range of doctrines of the RCC, which they take quite seriously even if they give the poor deluded rank and file some more palatable stuff to keep them docile. They will call their own doctrines blasphemous if necessary at any given time, then weasel around to defending them later.However, it's all apparent anyway if you know what it all really means. For instance, "vicar of Christ" literally means "substitute for Christ" which is as good as calling him the Antichrist by biblical standards. Which of course he is. It's also the usurpation of the role of the Holy Spirit, who is Christ's presence on earth.

It claims exactly what I said, it's officially on the books. Just because I don't have the time or I'm not good at locating the source of my information* doesn't mean I'm wrong about it. You could consider I'm right because I have no reason to make it up but of course you won't. Even what you admit they say pretty much says the same thing, and it ought to be recognized to be anything but Christian even to have a "representative of God on earth" or a "boss" of Christ's people who is not Christ himself.*It may be in John Dowling's History of Romanism which is among a dozen books on Romanism I have stacked on my kitchen table so I'll check later. Or actually I think Dowling may be online.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I agree but of course I agree from the point of view of a Protestant and you think we're as crazy as the RCC, which is frustrating though understandable. It was the Protestant Reformers, though, who finally saw through them, their completely nonChristian doctrines and practices, which were taken mostly from the Roman Empire's pagan religions and mixed with a few Christian concepts. Others had reacted against all this but they'd been oppressed and murdered by the RCC. The great crime according to the RCC was reading the Bible in those days, because it so clearly showed how their religion had nothing to do with Christinity. Their world political ambitions were shown already in their lording it over kings and emperors in the Middle Ages, which is far from Christ's kingdom which is "not of this world." They haven't lost that ambition, though the Reformation set them back pretty severely.In more recent times it hasn't always been Protestants who have exposed the Vatican's real nature, though you will find that Protestant websites often present studies that originate with others. There have been Catholics as well who have exposed much of it. Malachi Martin is one.But here's a nonChristian expose you might be interested in. Or not. He's Jewish and he's written many books exposing the RCC's role in world politics. Vatican manipulation of the Vietnam WarThe Roman Church is a much bigger influence in the world than most of us suspect.ABE: I think I probably answered the wrong post here. I had the one --Message 267 --in mind where you mention papal interference in the US: What business does the Pope have telling us anything? Well, RCC doctrine does claim the Pope is the rightful ruler of the world. I'm still looking for the most relevant quote on that. I think it must have come from Gregory VII, or Hildebrand, who seems to have been the Pope who most extended the political power of the Popes.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I read up a bit on the miracle of the gulls. There's a monument to that supposed miracle somewhere -- reading too fast, missed it but probably Salt Lake City?I do believe God does occasionally give miracles, but since I think Mormon doctrine is false I can't believe He favored the Mormons with a miracle. He might have I suppose, out of sheer mercy nevertheless, but no, I take that back: I don't think He would do that because it would give credence to the false doctrine, and too many are confused by all the weird false versions of Christianity these days. For the same reason He isn't giving the RCC any miracles either, it's all bogus or demonic.The web discussions try to debunk the miracle idea. But I think there's a simple explanation. Oddly enough there are seagulls out here in the desert west, even around Las Vegas and Reno, and apparently lots of them around the Salt Lake, according to the websites I looked at. So the appearance of gulls wouldn't have been miraculous in itself. Perhaps they were more numerous that year.Also there is a phenomenon out here known as the periodic visit of the "Mormon crickets" even here in Nevada. From what I just read they are actually katydids. Anyway they show up in huge numbers from time to time years apart. Best guess is they came in huge numbers in 1848 and the native gulls had at them. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.