You can shoot names and events at me all day, bro. You are creating straw men by the dozen. The Bible is about Christ. Christ. Christ. Christ. I don’t care who said what. True Christianity was so supressed during the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire until Luther’s 95 Theses that the corrupt Papacy was hunting them down as heretics. Tyndale publishes the Bible in the common language and he’s burned alive with them. Yeah, just what Jesus said. Sure. Luther points out that Scripture trumps tradition and the Papacy puts a man hunt on him. The crusaders were abberant Catholics. Not to say there are not Orthodox Catholics who were averse. A Christian follows Christ ALONE. A Catholic often follows the Pope above all and allows him and his councils to determine new “interpretations” of scripture. Scripture is simple IF and only IF you take it as a whole and see the big picture.
Yes, I do know more than Bernard, because I submit to the Author not the Pope. I have the Holy Spirit, not just my limited intellect corrupted by a sin nature.
The more you confuse the Pope and Jesus, the less credible your base argument.
DH
[quote]The Red Monk wrote:
I do not believe Junior even began to approach my question, let alone answer it. Crusades and other ‘crimes’ don’t wash with anyone who bothers to read the word for themselves? You display a stunning ignorance of those who have come before you. Are you aware of even a few of the wise men who have done plenty of reading the Bible for themselves, who probably knew it much better than you, and still came to the conclusion that Crusading (to continue with this small example) was not only legitimate, but a path to Heaven?
Take Bernard of Clairvaux, for instance. His education was far better than the vast majority of his contemporaries, and even among other educated and reasonable men he had gained a reputation as being especially wise and thoughtful. As a very important clergymen, his very life was dedicated to interpretation of Scripture for the benefit of the Christian flock. Yet after careful consideration, he not only endorsed Crusading and the founding of Christian Military orders, he led the recruiting for the Second Crusade, easily the largest mobilzation of soldiers the Western World had seen for hundreds of years. These were not big, dumb, barbarians exhorting people to go strike down the infidel-- these were the most educated and level-headed men of their age.
Do you really believe that with your 9-5 job and worldly occupation, that you are wiser and understand the Bible better than they could? That they truly didn’t “bother to read it for themselves”? Hundreds of thousands of men and women looked in their hearts and searched their minds based on the sermons they heard, and the smaller percentage that were capable of reading Latin and Greek pored endlessly over Scripture-- they came to the conclusion that Crusading was not a crime, but a way to save one’s soul. And this is just one of many, many examples from our past that bear this comparison.
If you still can answer “yes” with a straight face, then I find I find it more than a little ironic that the labels of “blind” and “making oneself God” are coming from your direction.
And if the answer truly is ‘yes’-- then what of those men and who had it so ‘wrong’ over the course of our history? I’ll reiterate that Crusades are just one small example; I could go on for hours with others.
Are these millions of Christians, to say nothing of every other kind of believer and non-believer who ever lived, displeasing to God? Do they have no excuse? Does God only have room in His heart for today’s Christian? (Although I suspect even “today’s Christian” would have plenty of points to argue on-- take Lebanon’s Maronite Christians, for example. Many perfectly intelligent and reasonable men with Bible learning there view the Crusades as a sort of glorious period in their region’s history)
There must either be exceptions in God’s eyes among all these erronious people, or there must not be exceptions. Either way, the idea that the Bible’s teachings provide an easily recognizable moral code for all mankind to follow, a moral code that is mandatory if mankind does not want to endure an eternity of punishment-- seems incredibly suspect.
When I honestly humble myself to the scope of mankind’s history, and remove the assumption that I alone am standing on the pinnacle of human learning and understanding, and that wiser men than me have walked the earth before-- I find it very hard to believe that right and wrong in all their complexities have a recognizable answer every time in the Bible; an answer one must uphold or suffer Eternal punishment.[/quote]