Growing the Geologic Column

I would argue that it was the other way around, that Protestantism was a product of the Renaissance. The rediscovery of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers, the beginnings of humanism and a growing sense of national heritage and pride. IMO, these were the major driving forces behind the Reformation. I agree, without the printing press the immediate results would have been much less widespread. However, I suspect that the Protestant Revolution would have spread eventually, just not as explosively and as violently as it did. Many people were very dissatisfied with the abuses of the Catholic Church, which was totally oppressive to the commoners, but they accepted it because they were taught that God had ordained kings and paupers and you were simply subject to your role as a member of your caste. Humanism and the Renaissance woke people from this deception and allowed people to demand fair and decent treatment; to recognize that a pauper was as human as a king. Good point. In fact, fundamentalists seem to lament that churches are able to think independently and even seem to think that there should be a final authority over the church even as to determine what version of the Bible should be the authorized version. That is exactly what the Protestants fought against - a universal governing body over the church.What I think is ironic is that what the reformers demanded is that individuals should be able to read the Scriptures for themselves and use it to determine their theology, not to be told by an institution what that theology should be. Now the fundamentalists want to impose that theology on all, to the point that you can no longer be a "true" Christian unless you subscribe to it. It has gotten to the point that the theology is more important than the experience that theology is supposed to reflect. It is little different than the Pharisees of Jesus' time or the Catholic Church of Luther's time.HBD Edited by herebedragons, : edited to remove reference to Faith

I said no such thing ever. I said no such thing ever. Believing the KJV is the best translation and that a shared text would be less confusing for the Church doesn't mean I think it should be IMPOSED and I never said any such thing. I said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about a "universal governing body." I guess when a person abandons Genesis they must also abandon the ability to read.

It is certainly the impression I got from our discussions on the Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries thread. However, I didn't mean it as a comment directed against you and I certainly didn't want to raise your ire enough for you to have to come here to a place you hate so much to defend yourself. Plus I have no desire to get into a discussion of any kind with you so I will withdraw your name from the post in question.HBD

Thanks for withdrawing my name. But you're wrong about what "fundamentalists" think too. You couldn't possibly back up your statement that Protestants are trying to establish a "universal governing body" over the Church. But you are also wrong that that is what the Reformation was about. It was about the false doctrine of Catholicism that doesn't save but leads to Hell, faith plus works in a word, and the Antichrist papacy.abe: The universal authority the Protestant Reformation DID establish was the Bible, God's own word, over the human traditions of the Catholic Church, the "Magisterium," which often contradicts God's word. /abeI think what you got wrong in what I was saying about the Bible was my opinion that we need a new Bible translation committee made up only of Church men and the best translators and scholars we can assemble {ABE: but only all God-fearing Bible believers like the original KJV translators, no liberals, no compromisers. You are welcome to your own corrupted version since you seem to prefer it. /ABE}, to finally do what the Revision Committee of 1881 was supposed to do but didn't: a CAREFUL minimal revision of the KJV to bring it up to date and correct the few errors it contains. The 1881 committee did damage to the Bible, and all the other translations we've had since have only made the problems worse, besides being done by commercial interests instead of by the Church itself. All the modern Bibles are based on the corrupt Greek manuscripts the 1881 committee introduced as well as their thousands of unwarranted changes for the most part in ugly klutzy English, changes they made against their own guidelines.I said nothing to suggest anything about a governing body or anything about universal authority. HOWEVER, it would be STUPID to suggest that Christians don't need guidance in reading the Bible. That is why God appointed preachers, pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets and so on, to aid us in that effort.aBE: What dwise said is just weird. A concept of freedom in the world did come out of the Protestant Reformation, became the basis of the American Constitution, and it started with freedom of conscience or freedom of religion, but the idea that we are no longer ruled by authority is way off, that somehow we are now to read the Bible completely on our own, for instance, or make up our own religion, which is what it sounds like, is far from the spirit of the Reformation. We are to live by God's word rather than our own imagination or human tradition, that's our final authority. There is no coercion, though, Protestants won't torture and murder you if you don't believe as we do.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : to add abe and change a couple wordsEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

oopsEdited by NoNukes, : old stuff needing no response