Amos

I don't know Fred Phelps but if the inspired message of the Church is not the same as the messenger I don't see how the message can change when the messenger is wrong.

Perchance

Hello, Amos.

This sounds as though it's treading on the heels of the "True Christian" defense. "He may be a bad person, but the message is still fine! No True Christian would do that, but the message is fine!" Can you tell me a way to distinguish between message and messenger, or why I would want to if someone is also doing things that blatantly contradict his stated message?

-Perchance.

Amos

Not necessarily the message from the messenger. The truth is the inspired message of the church and the message presented by the messenger is not always in line with the truth. This thruth is for the believer to discover on his own. Remember here that I maintain that Churches are for sinners and at least the Catholic church is also led by sinners -- or "infallible statements" would not be necessary or possible.

Proxima Centauri

The United States is historically democratic. The Roman Catholic Church is historically heirarchical. The two mix like oil and water. Roman Catholics cannot choose their leaders. They are taught that their leaders have been chosen by God for them.
The Roman Catholic sheep are taught unquestioning obedience is a virtue. I know. I was in a convent school.

rdalin

What happens when two believers discover the truth on their own, and it's different for each one?

Amos

That is when religion ends and from there we each go our own way. It will become our gospel to live out at different places and maybe at different times but the core message will be the same because the ultimate truth is universal.

Notice that there are no churches in the New Jerusalem which is the time when we will see a new heaven and a new earth. Rather, we will see the old heaven and the old earth now from a different light.

Amos

Yes but a democracy with a bill of rights equals a tyranny in which the tyrant is the popular opinion of the people.

The church is inspired and the pope is bound by canon law and they are put in place to protect the church from rapid fluctuations in leadership (eg. radical popes). If they don't mix very well it shows how far the democracy has been led astray by the popular opinion of the people.

rdalin

I'm afraid that I haven't the slightest idea what this means.

I will say, though, that your assertion that 'the ultimate truth is universal' is one of the worst cases of question-begging that I've come across lately. When two theists of different sects try their best to kill each other, as happens quite frequently these days and throughout human history; when both of them are convinced that they and they alone know universal truth and their enemy is merely a tool of ultimate evil, it's a little hard to believe your claim.

Perchance

Hello, Amos. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Getting ready to teach two new classes took a little more time than I thought

Here, though, it sounds as though you're saying the message and the messenger are different, and the message remains true even if the messenger screws up.

My question was about how you are supposed to tell the difference. If someone kept insisting to me that he loved me, and yet sending people around to tell me he hated me, I'm going to be skeptical of his assertions at the very least.

But I don't believe there's such a thing as an infallible statement. Even things we think to be true about the world might change tomorrow, or might not. We're probably not going to live long enough to know.

-Perchance.

Amos

What troubles me here is that if you don't know what that means that you should be allowed to vote. Would this not make your impared vision the cause of war in the same way as believers are?