The One, True Way.

[2ndRateMind]

So, I'm wondering if you all think your own religion, denomination, sect or cult has a monopoly on truth, and if you do, how you justify that opinion?

Or, if you think there are as many routes to enlightenment as there are people on Earth, how you distinguish between true and false religion?

Is a saving faith a matter of finding a singular, narrow path, or is it just a matter of consumer congeniality?

Best wishes, 2RM.

[RightReason]

[Replying to 2timothy316]

I will never understand how people will sit there and say the Bible is not the sole authority and yet use the Bible as their sole authority.

I’m not using the Bible as my sole authority, but you are. Please show me where in Scripture Scripture tells us it should be our sole authority?
Not only can you not show that the Bible alone is our authority, I was also pointing out that in fact the Bible actually says it is NOT our sole authority. If you want to insist you only do that which the Bible commands us to do --- then I was pointing out you should take heed of this command . . . “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.�-Luke 10:16 a passage where of course Jesus was speaking to His Church!

Is the following true? "You are near, O Jehovah, And all your commandments are truth."

Of course, “You are near, O LORD, And all Your commandments are truth.� is true.

Where are these commandments written?

The true "rule of faith"—as expressed in the Bible itself—is Scripture plus apostolic tradition, as manifested in the living teaching authority of the Catholic Church, to which were entrusted the oral teachings of Jesus and the apostles, along with the authority to interpret Scripture correctly.

In the Second Vatican Council’s document on divine revelation, Dei Verbum (Latin: "The Word of God"), the relationship between Tradition and Scripture is explained: "Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit. To the successors of the apostles, sacred Tradition hands on in its full purity God’s word, which was entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit.
https://www.catholic.com/tract/scripture-and-tradition

[marco]

As much as we may not like this priest or that priest, this choir director or that choir director, or as much as we find this moral teaching or that moral teaching difficult to live, we know we wouldn’t simply be leaving those things, we would be leaving Christ’s Church and well . . . many of us would find that foolish.

One may lack integrity, I grant you. As a boy I learned by heart all the right responses ( and I still know them!) and I don't object to my teaching. In fact the logical system in which I was raised gave me the wherewithal to praise and censure. I would indeed be a very foolish person if I deserted a centuries old system because of some personal quibble. I didn't.

I would tell the Bishop to consider if the part of his egg he is finding distasteful isn’t actually because it has been contaminated by something else on his plate – just a thought because typically if an egg is good – the whole egg is good.

This is an excellent rejoinder. In fact the parson was the one with the bad egg and he was trying to be polite, refraining from making a complaint to his boss. But your point is well made: just as we can glorify a work of art by endowing it with an imagined brushwork of genius, so we can destroy a great work by our own pusillanimous view of it. Is the Bible made bad by execrable exegesis? In my case, I think not. There are many verses in the Bible that extol what is evil. In my innocent boyhood where benedictions were manna I had never read the darker parts of the Old Testament. God was good, his the care, tending each everywhere, God was beauty - praise him. I recited the Divine Praises with the piety of Simeon Stylites, never questioning the absurdity of that saint. Herod slaughtered innocents - not Yahweh.

Now I know that a Chesterton can extract sense and goodness from a wilderness of evil. I don't want to. Nor do I wish to skip the problem verses, as I once did. If this is the one, true way, then it denies everything that my intellect holds sacred. A jihadist can make the leap from piety to atrocity and back. I can't.

[2timothy316]

Here is some more truth as far as the Bible is concerned in this account. Abraham was Jehovah's friend. He was faithful and loyal to God to the end of his life. Abraham followed the instructions of God.

Actually, Abraham and Jehovah were not friends. It was just reported that way many years after the claimed story was to have taken place.

I will provide as much evidence for my claim as you did yours. Weeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

"The vision that Isaiah the son of Aʹmoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uz·ziʹah, Joʹtham, Aʹhaz, and Hez·e·kiʹah, kings of Judah:" Isaiah 1:1

“But you, O Israel, are my servant, You, O Jacob, whom I have chosen, The offspring of Abraham my friend." Isaiah 41:8

So what if it was reported it that way after many years. That doesn't make it untrue. According to Isaiah's visions, he was quoting Jehovah in Isaiah 41:8. I'm starting to see that people's reasons for something being untrue are very very weak.

What the above poster is saying is if they never did hear his parents ever call each other a friend until he was 10. That means they were not friends up until that time?

What kind of 'friend' would ask another 'friend' to murder their child?

Quoting Bible verses does not make the unreasonable reasonable. This command was not the command of a friend.

I assume you have many friends. Could you imagine asking any of them to kill their child? It's a nonsensical claim you are putting forth as if it makes sense.

Perhaps if only I had the mind of a child?

The thread is not about what our feelings about what is reasonable. It's about what is true. According to what Isaiah was told, 'Abraham was God's friend'. We can say to ourselves whatever we want and imagine whatever we want. It's not our personal feelings or views that make something the 'one true way'.

[2timothy316]

[Replying to 2timothy316]

I will never understand how people will sit there and say the Bible is not the sole authority and yet use the Bible as their sole authority.

I’m not using the Bible as my sole authority, but you are.

Really? So you're not quoting scripture? Then what or who are you quoting when you "put something in quotes" to prove your point?

[2timothy316]

Please show me where in Scripture Scripture tells us it should be our sole authority?

“All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.� 2Ti 3:16, 17.

Note: With the scriptures a man is fully competent and completely equipped for every good work. It doesn't say partially or almost competent and equipped. It is without a doubt the sole authority to me. I see it as God's word and it has protected me from many lies shined on many truths. If am not to hold the scriptures as sole authority that leaves men.

The Bible even warns me of following the traditions of men. "And their fear of me is based on commands of men that they have been taught." Isaiah 29:13.

"You let go of the commandment of God and cling to the tradition of men.� Mark 7:8

So follow the traditions of men as my only other option? No thanks!

[RightReason]

[Replying to post 58 by Clownboat]

followers paying for their religious buildings cannot assure us that something is true or not.

Do you agree? If not, please explain.

Of course, I never said it did. This was your original quote:

Don't you find it ironic that the church, the organization that most members give 10% of their income to is purporting to be the ultimate authority?

Implying since the Church receives money, she cannot be the ultimate authority???? I don’t understand your original remarks.

to pretend that we know his birth date is folly.

Sure, I’ll agree with that – making it all the more unnecessary to care what date is chosen to celebrate His birth.

The date for Christmas was chosen for the sake of the pagans as I have shown. December 25th is a pagan holiday, not the birth of some Jesus.

My daughter was born on February 14th – Valentine’s Day. Just because prior to her b-day people have celebrated February 14th by giving presents to one another doesn’t mean when we celebrate her b-day on Feb 14th we fail to make it about her and not a Hallmark Holiday. The two are not mutually exclusive. And speaking of Valentine’s Day – that is another example of what could be celebrated as a feast day for St. Valentine and recognizing his message of love or it could be simply celebrated as a pagan tradition void of religious context.

False, in order to believe in any of the gods, only faith is required.

Not true and a great number of intelligent philosophers and great thinkers would disagree with you. There are reasonable arguments to believe in a higher being. Are you really not familiar with them?

Pot... meet kettle.
- Exodus 21:20-21
“And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property.

- 1 Peter 2:18
Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. . . . .

Not sure what posting these Bible verses prove. Clearly, you must not understand the meaning and significance of these passages. It is unreasonable to draw conclusions from isolated text without taking context, culture, history, audience, etc into account.

[RightReason]

[Replying to post 64 by 2timothy316]

The verse from John’s Gospel tells us only that the Bible was composed so we can be helped to believe Jesus is the Messiah. It does not say the Bible is all we need for salvation, much less that the Bible is all we need for theology; nor does it say the Bible is even necessary to believe in Christ. After all, the earliest Christians had no New Testament to which they could appeal; they learned from oral, rather than written, instruction. Until relatively recent times, the Bible was inaccessible to most people, either because they could not read or because the printing press had not been invented. All these people learned from oral instruction, passed down, generation to generation, by the Church.

Protestants typically read 2 Timothy 3:16-17 out of context. When read in the context of the surrounding passages, one discovers that Paul’s reference to Scripture is only part of his exhortation that Timothy take as his guide Tradition and Scripture. The two verses immediately before it state: "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:14–15).

Paul tells Timothy to continue in what he has learned for two reasons: first, because he knows from whom he has learned it—Paul himself—and second, because he has been educated in the scriptures. The first of these is a direct appeal to apostolic tradition, the oral teaching which the apostle Paul had given Timothy. So Protestants must take 2 Timothy 3:16-17 out of context to arrive at the theory of sola scriptura. But when the passage is read in context, it becomes clear that it is teaching the importance of apostolic tradition!

The Bible denies that it is sufficient as the complete rule of faith. Paul says that much Christian teaching is to be found in the tradition which is handed down by word of mouth (2 Tim. 2:2). He instructs us to "stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15).

This oral teaching was accepted by Christians, just as they accepted the written teaching that came to them later. Jesus told his disciples: "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me" (Luke 10:16). The Church, in the persons of the apostles, was given the authority to teach by Christ; the Church would be his representative. He commissioned them, saying, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19).
https://www.catholic.com/tract/scripture-and-tradition

[2timothy316]

[Replying to post 64 by 2timothy316]

The verse from John’s Gospel tells us only that the Bible was composed so we can be helped to believe Jesus is the Messiah. It does not say the Bible is all we need for salvation, much less that the Bible is all we need for theology; nor does it say the Bible is even necessary to believe in Christ.

Where did I say any of this? I said it was our sole authority in being completely competent as man of God.

[2timothy316]

Protestants typically read 2 Timothy 3:16-17 out of context. When read in the context of the surrounding passages, one discovers that Paul’s reference to Scripture is only part of his exhortation that Timothy take as his guide Tradition and Scripture. The two verses immediately before it state: "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:14–15).

There are two parts in that scripture I pointed them out earlier. "continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it". Now Paul said 'knowing from whom you learned it'. Was Paul speaking of himself? no. The Bible says of apostles words, "For prophecy was at no time brought by man’s will, but men spoke from God as they were moved by holy spirit." 2 Peter 1:21. Even Paul said at 1 Thessalonians 2:13 "Indeed, that is why we also thank God unceasingly, because when you received God’s word, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but, just as it truthfully is, as the word of God, which is also at work in you believers."

Are you aware who the Beroeans were and how they tested to see if what Paul said was from God or not? "Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thes·sa·lo·niʹca, for they accepted the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." - Acts 17:11

[Clownboat]

'Abraham was God's friend'

I doubt these words, and here is why. Please address them if you can like you were unable to do the first time.
"What kind of friend would ask another friend to murder one of their children?"