Are Catholics (We) Inconsistent?

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I am having a debate with a protestant online and he said, "You take that literally [Matthew 16:18 "You are Peter and on this rock..."], yet you discard the fact that the bible says Jesus had brothers and write it off as cousins or something else.

You say that the bible cannot be looked upon as accurate because so many people have had a hand in transcribing it, writing it, etc....yet you take nothing on the fact of the number of popes who have come and gone and made church doctrine...yet you wouldn't even think that those men could have changed church doctrine to suit their own purposes. What about the pope who told all those poor souls during the crusades that if they joined to fight the infedels that no matter what they did they would get into heaven, even if they managed to survive the fight and make it home."

I never even hinted that the bible could not be looked at as accurate, he's putting words in my mouth which makes this more difficult, he doesn't understand Catholicism at all...

-- Mikey (ledzeppelinrules111@hotmail.com), April 19, 2004

Answers

yet you discard the fact that the bible says Jesus had brothers and write it off as cousins or something else.

I don't think that taking fact that it was common practice for Jews of the time to use the term 'brother' for relatives as distant as cousins is not taking the Bible for what it is saying. If I say we are all brothers in Christ, it doesn't mean we are blood relations, but it doesn't mean you should ignore what I am saying either.



-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), April 19, 2004.


you might point out that catholics:

1) believe that Peter was the rock because looking at the greek and aramaic it MAKES SENSE. plus, the sentence is formatted such that there can be no other meaning.

2) Recognize the use of the word brother to apply to cousin, distant relative, or friend, not because of an error, but because there is only one word for all of those things in that language. translational latitude.

3) Do not believe that the bible can be fallable in any way shape or form. the only people who believe the bible is fallable are some sickly groups of protestants.

4) No pope has ever introduced any doctrine which is not still in effect to this day. we believe the pope can speak infallably on dogma first because it is promised in the bible, and second because there has never been a pope who could speak false doctrines (though several tried unsuccessfully-- imagine mysteriously dying in your sleep at a healthy young age the night before you were to give an address on dogma...). The pope could choose to absolve the crusaders sins if he wished, since that power was his and his alone to determine.

5) The promise of guarunteed salvation was never made to any crusader. Your friend needs to check their sources and get off the anti catholic hype. crusaders were called to join a mission to end christian persecution and exile from the land of israel. or maybe protestants would rather we give over every christian shrine and holy land to the islamic tribes?

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), April 20, 2004.


On the brothers of the Lord. It always irks me a little when they say that they are taking it literally and we are not. The literal, primary and first sense of the word brother is sharing the same two parents. THEY DON'T BELIEVE THIS. They alos believe that this word is being used in a secondary sense. They think it means 'half- brother'. We are both using a secondary sense of the word brother, they have just chosen that it must mean half-brother instead of any of the other possible secondary meanings. And it seems the only reason for doing so is to disagree with the Catholic Church.

Point out to him that if he wants to take the word brother literally he must believe one of two things. 1) that the 'brothers' of the Lord are divine. Or 2) Jesus is the natural child of Joseph.

Sorry for the curt response, I'm at work.

Dano

-- Dan Garon (boethius61@yahoo.com), April 20, 2004.


This is a classic example of the Protestant approach to scriptural exegesis - find one passage which, taken alone and out of context, appears to say what you want to believe, and then build a doctrinal belief on that one passage, ignoring any other scriptures which conflict. They read Matthew 13:55 - "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?", and wanting to believe that the Catholic Church is wrong about the perpetual virginity of Mary they say, "aha! This passage says Jesus had BROTHERS! Therefore Mary must have had other children!". However, a brief look at the original language of the scripture quickly reveals how flawed that conclusion is. The word for "brothers" used in the Greek text of Matt 13:55 is "adelphoi". Protestant detractors insist that "brothers" means "BROTHERS", not half-brothers or cousins or extended family or close kinsmen. Well, let's take a quick look at a few other passages where the same word - adelphoi - is used ...

Matthew 22:25 - "Now there were seven brothers [adelphoi]; and the first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother". OK - in this passage, "adelphoi" does in fact refer to siblings, so this IS one legitimate use of the word.

Matthew 23:8 - "But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers [adelphoi]". If the Protestant view is correct ("brothers" necessarily means "siblings"), then all of Christ's disciples apparently had the same parents. Is this likely?

Acts 1:15 - "At this time Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers [adelphoi] (a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together)". Are we to understand that 120 people all had the same parents??

1 Corinthians 15:6 - "After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers [adelphoi] at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep". Were these 500+ siblings all the offspring of Mary and Joseph? Or were some other unfortunate parents responsible for this reproductive miracle?

Many other passages clearly indicate the various uses of "adelphoi" - "fratres" in the Latin Vulgate - "brothers" or "brethren" in english. You can't have it both ways. If "adelphoi" must mean "siblings" then please explain the above passages. If it doesn't necessarily mean "siblings" then why all the fuss over Matt 13:55??

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), April 20, 2004.


Mikey - no need to re-invent the wheel. The approach used by anti- Catholic forum spammers is very predictable, but we need to be aware of how to avoid pitfalls and traps and how to try to make something constructive come from the discussions.

I have a Catholic discussion forum for the Catholic youth can discuss issues on the faith in a relatively guarded environment (requires validated email and login so I can restrict users if necessary). I allowed the anti-Catholic spammers to go through their game-plan, but with the help of some of the folks in this forum (thanks!), we really showed the contradicitions and shallowness of their belief system as well as the splendor and depth of the Catholic faith. I also am summarizing the results with somewhat of a "best-practices" list of how to address Protestant Fundamentalists.

The forum can be found at www.CatholicYouthWeb.com.

Threads you show review are: - Responding to Evangelicals or Protestant Fundamentalists [PFs] - Why don't Protestant Fundamentalists take the Bible literally? (this will have some very good information for you on the topic you raised; it is actually the Catholics who take the bible much more literally that the PFs!) - Protestant Fundamentalism Exposed (work in progress - comments and ideas welcomed by all good Catholics here!) - Questions for Jay (still ongoing thread where the PF spammer - in as much Christian charity as I could - is shown to be intellectually dishonest, inconsistent and guilty of everything of which he accuses the Catholics). This thread is found in the Anti-Catholic Spam section - look for the link at the bottom of the list of threads on the main page of the forum.

-- Hollis (hollis@nospam.com), April 20, 2004.



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