So in your belief system, you're vilified for asking hard questions because blind faith per se is declared to be a virtue. And it's declared that you're perpetually in a perilous state of disfavor that can be fixed only by means of an intercession that in turn can only come from blind faith.
Peter Gomes talks about this extensively in his book. Protestants look to the Bible rather than to the church as having actual authority, but in practice it is the interpretation of the clergy that creates what is believed as actual doctrine.
Evolution, apparently.
Would be
From sin of course. Mind you it does say that the sexy one of the Throuple was sacrificed so we don't need to do any further sacrifices. This sacrifice idea is something that many Christians do not understand as they are unaware of the context. Jesus was talking about the Jewish "sin sacrifice" ritual, in which when you had transgressed one of the laws you made a sacrifice to god to clean your slate, that is the type of sacrifice he was talking about. Now the idea that he ended ritual sacrifice is of course at odds with what is prophesied the messiah will do, Ezekiel said the messiah would restore the sacrificial system. Again another prophecy that Jesus did not fulfil. One would almost think he wasn't the Messiah and was just a very, very n.....
Man, then you'll really hate it when a priest or missionary spoils for you what happens to Jesus at the end of the gospels
My lot were originally primitive methodists so even after the joining with the other methodist sects they retained a deep suspicion of anyone thinking they were a "priest" - they held that we all have the same access to god and need no one to intercede or mediate for god. I was bamboozled the first time I went to a CofE service - all the dressing up, all the pomp and the graven images and statues were astonishing to me.
And the twist in end - the gnostics were right!
I mean, sure. It's like the difference between a group believing that Red Riding Hood was literally eaten by a wolf, and those who think that the wolf was just a metaphor for a bad guy and he only *ahem* ate her in the other sense of the word, but both think LRRH was real
And at least the followers of Cathol believe in transubstantiation, meaning that the wafer actually physically transforms into the body of Jesus when you eat it. Yeah, well, try being a vegan and getting B12 from that.
Well, I mean, sure... in the same way as the newfangled Star Wars sequels don't bother Anakin Skywalker. It's hard for a fictive character to get bothered, unless someone writes a canonical story to that effect.
"The Bible is the Word of God!"
In The Book of Mormon musical, which takes place in Uganda, one character says to another: "Salt Lake City isn't a real place; it's just a metaphor." Which, of course, gets gales of uproarious laughter when played here in Salt Lake City.
I would add though that the Psalms are NOT the word of God, but just some prayers TO God, written by humans. They don't even have God's seal of approval or anything. Even canonically for both Judaism and Xianity, they were just collected by other humans who thought they were the good stuff.
Or non-canonical, really.
Ooooh! Make new threads about faith, hope, and charity next!!!
