xyz, I hope you find this “a most interesting read”.

“there were a lot more than four men involved in bringing about the independence of the USA, and the vast majority of them were Christians. I'll humor you. Just name one, not a minor league one, that was a devoted Christian.”

As I said, ever hear of a guy called Washington? I think he was pretty “involved” and “major league”and he was definitely a Christian. In fact just about all of, for example, the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the members of the early Congress, were Christians. You think that because non-Christian Deism was a fashionable fad among a certain clique of upper-class Anglo-Americans in late 18th century America, that practically EVERYONE in 18th century America must have been a non-Christian deist. That’s like saying that practically everyone in 20th century Europe was a communist. Oh wait, you might actually believe that too.

“Why is there no mention of Christianity in the Constitution.” Already answered.

“ How come our money does not say in the Holy Trinity we trust"??“ To avoid excluding Unitarians, Jews etc. And this slogan was only put on our money in the 1950s. I guess you think the USA was still being “founded” then.

“You still haven’t been able to come up with even one “episode” where the Catholic Church or a "Catholic theocratic state" supposedly ”persecuted” scientists. They never did that? Or burned them at the stake? It is all Protestant propaganda?“ Correct. But in fairness to protestants, I must concede that the majority of educated protestants today do not believe these silly calumnies.

“Galileo was NOT “persecuted” nor was he accused of blasphemy. It was just those @#$%'s in the Kingdom you mean?” I don’t know what this “Kingdom” is that you’re talking about, but nobody, neither the Catholic Church nor anybody else, persecuted Galileo or accused him of blasphemy.

“ My view about religion is that divine wisdom may be revealed to it's prophets, and then we get more glimpses. But it shouldn't be set on how some interpreted things centuries ago.” This is exactly the Catholic Church's view too.

“ I do not believe priests to be divine beings.” And you think the Catholic Church does?? Where are you getting this stuff?? There is only one God. I hope we agree on that.

“But they are versed in their practice, so I can see how [you]respect them.” That doesn’t follow. The Nazi gas-chamber operators were versed in their practice, but I certainly don’t respect them.

“I am trying to be very patient here,” (Gee I’d hate to see what you say when you lose your cool) “but you are showing great arrogance in questioning someone's decision not to belong to organized religion.”

I didn't question your decision at all. All I said was that the reason you gave for your decision is not logical. “Which is funny, but it is such a big deal on the other hand to you when a Chile ruler is overthown.” I find it far beyond funny, in fact deeply disturbing, that you have not the slightest qualm about mass murder being committed by your own government in your name in your own lifetime, but then you get all indignant about vastly exaggerated or even imaginary abuses committed by others centuries ago.

“Would it make you more satisfied if I was a Jew, Buddist or Muslim? Or are these not the right religions.”

Of course I believe my religion is the right one otherwise I wouldn’t keep practising it. I respect your choice of religion. The question is, are YOU satisfied with it? If so you should be able to give me a logical reason for believing it. (I am right in assuming by “desiest” you mean “deist”? You also referred twice to my “ardious” posts. Did you mean “arduous” or “odious”?)

“It was left to the Church to interpret the writings of the Bible” – naturally, as the Church proiduced the Bible in the first place.

“many people were quite illiterate. And Bibles were very hard to come by.” Due to the fact the printing press had not yet been invented. And this was the Church’s fault somehow? Perhaps some brilliant “scientist” invented the printing press centuries before Gutenberg, but “the Church” burnt him at the stake and destroyed his invention and all record and memory of it??

“Do you also believe people were not asked to give money to the Church to repent their sins as well?” I repeat where ARE you getting these bizarre allegations? Some of them are worthy of Jack Chick himself. For the record, NO, no-one was ever asked to give money to the Catholic Church to repent their sins (or as I think you mean, to have their sins forgiven). In fact this would be a very serious breach of Church law.

“During Catholic England, the state was against people reading the Bible” Your link concerns Henry VIII, an enemy of the Catholic Church, banning a certain unauthorised (by him) version of the Bible. The Catholic Church has always made the Bible freely available to whoever wished to read it, and has fervently encouraged them to do so. Naturally the Church which produced the Bible didn’t want people making unauthorised translations and promoting their own unauthorised private interpretations. The wisdom of this was shown by the subsequent disaster of the 40,000+ competing protestant sects, each one claiming that it alone has the true interpretations, based only on it’s founder’s own authority.

“the scandalous splitting of Christ’s one Church into 40,000+ conflicting denominations, and centuries of violent conflict and inhumanity. As opposed to the Spanish inquisitions and such.”

The Spanish inquisition caused very little inhumanity, NO violent conflict and certainly no conflicting denominations – in fact it must be given most of the credit for preventing in Spain such disaster which bedevilled most of Europe. The inquisitions were set up to PREVENT the persecution of accused heretics, and to SAVE their lives, and in this they largely succeeded. And of course the last inquisition finished 200 years ago, but the evil effects of the “Reformation” are still being played out today.

“it is bigoted to say the Catholic Church could not benifit the intellectual devolopment of the people. It is also ignorant to say [the Church’s] members were incapable of curroption and anti-intellectualism.” Who said that? Not I. Of course the Catholic Church’s members are all sinners and are capable of corruption and anti-intellectualism. But the Church itself, founded by God, is consequently incapable of corruption or of being opposed to the truth.

“This is probably why the ideas of Luther took on so fast.” I suggest you read the works of Luther and his contemporary opponents. It is Luther who strikes one as “anti-intellectual”. Lutheranism and other protestant sects took off fast because kings and princes sponsored them as a way of increasing their power. The rulers confiscated all the Catholic Church’s property and divided it between the protestant church leaders and themselves.

“In 535 AD there was a massive volcanic eruption that poisioned the air, and killed off many of the rulers and best and brightest in Europe. Setting off a wave of anarchy anti-intellectualism, and backwardness. Where it took Europe a millenium to progress again. Hench the Dark Ages.” A pop-science theory promoted by a journalist (not a scientist) to sell his book and the associated TV show. No serious historian uses the term “the Dark Ages”. Look up the review of Keys’ book in a serious archeology journal by a real expert on early-medieval history Ken Dark (no pun intended, and yes Prof Dark is a protestant), “Jumbling Old Events With Modern Myths”. Possibly there was a volcanic eruption then which affected world climate for a couple of years, as has happened several other times more recently. But Keys’ idea that this was the certain cause of every major human event of the next 1000 years is utterly ludicrous.

“There were quite a few scientists that disagreed with the Catholic view on things, and were burned at the stake.“ Really? NAME ONE.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), September 21, 2004

Answers

“The Roman Empire had nothing to do with establishing the Catholic Church or with creating the organization of the Church. Its structure and organization were created by St Peter and the other apostles, who were all Jews, not Romans. They had nothing to do with spreading this religion across Europe. This occured when Constantine converted. From then on Catholism became a state religion. Hench the Roman Catholic Church. Which was structed after the Roman government.”

Catholicism was entrenched across southern and western Europe 200 years before Constantine was born. Catholicism did not become a state religion of the Roman Empire until 50 years after Constantine’s death. I have already explained the name “Roman Catholic Church” - it refers to the Roman rite – practised by those whose leaders happen to live in Rome. It has nothing to do with the Roman Empire. The structure of the Church was invented by the Apostles and is very different from the structure of the Roman government. The Church spread across central, eastern and northern Europe long after the Roman empire had ceased to exist.

“It has nothing to do with the Roman Empire? Is it a lost wondering tribe, like Hebrewism?”

Yes it is a pilgrim Church. By historical accident its leader (St Peter’s successor) is based in Rome. At first he was based in Jerusalem, then Antioch. For a while he was based in Avignon. All this time it has been the one, holy, catholic, apostolic church. The name “Roman Catholic Church” was never used during the time of the Roman empire. It was invented by Protestants in the 16th century to describe those who remained loyal to the Pope (with the implication that they were not loyal citizens of the rising states which sponsored their own new religion). It is quite absurd to suggest that having the word “Roman” in its name, put there by 16th century protestants, is evidence of some connection to the ancient Roman empire. Btw Catholics usually refer to it as simply “the Catholic Church” or simply “the Church”. (There are other parts of the Catholic Church which use rites other than the Roman, but I think you’ve got enough to digest for now.)

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), September 21, 2004.

Hee hee.. Steve,

I love your sense of humour.

-- Anthony Yong (anthony.yong@gtech.com), September 21, 2004.

And I admire Steve's patience.

-- JJ (nospam@nospam.com), September 22, 2004.

Thanks guys. Forgot to mention re xyz’s idea that the structure of the Catholic Church was set up by Constantine and modeled after the structure of the Roman Empire’s government:

Long before Constantine, the Church spread to places like Edessa, Armenia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, India and Central Asia, with exactly the same structure as set up by the Apostles. These peoples had never been governed by the Romans and would have had no idea what the structure of the Roman Empire’s government was. (Unfortunately most of these branches of the Church later disappeared, or were reduced to a tiny remnant, due to wars waged by the Muslims and the Mongols.)

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), September 22, 2004.

Seems to me tha Xyz is definitely an idiot when it comes down to History. Note that all of his postings stem from his twisted revisionist version of history.

-- Garret Ford (Parallax281457689@Yahoo.com), September 23, 2004.