Honestly, I'm not sure. I can't put my finger on it. I feel like I'm looking for something that I haven't found in the Church. That's why I'm doing so much reading and studying on my own. I'm trying to learn more about my religion and learn more about other religions to see if I can find what...
Agreed. In all the years that I've been with the Church, I have never personally encountered anyone who has had any problem with members of the clergy. I've met a number of priests in my life and none of them seemed to be sketchy or anything to me. It only seems like there are a lot of corrupt...
Even early Church fathers admit that there are numerous problems in keeping the scriptures consistent. Scribes would sometimes feel the need to change wordings or make additions or deletions to the text. Sometimes they made mistakes as well. One prominent early Christian theologian and scholar...
It entirely depends on if they told people they were just taking the classes to learn more about the LDS church or if they blatantly lied to the congregation and pretended that they were really interested in joining the church.
In the article it says that they had to "take vows of chastity and...
Just because the Trinity was the most popular belief does not mean that it is the correct one.
I have not yet read either. I have a very long reading list that I'm trying to work though. However, I expect that by reading texts from early Christian fathers, my points will only be reaffirmed. In...
Exactly the point I was trying to make. The Bible is a compilation of different writings from different authors that have been copied and recopied (either accurately or very inaccurately) until we have the New Testament we have today. Along the way, changes were made due to theological opinions...
The Catholic Church is just as much of a man-made institution as any Protestant religion is. In any case, religion is not a matter of choosing between Catholicism or Protestantism within Christianity. There's a whole lot more other religions out there besides Christianity and they have just as...
That is an entirely false statement.
I enjoy going to Mass and we have a great priest at the church I go to who gives excellent and somewhat inspiring sermons. However, I'm thinking about leaving the Church. I don't know if I can learn more from it. I started by going to a service in each...
It's the idea of the Trinity that gets me. Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one God. It's not something that was written out explicitly in the Bible. The Trinity is an idea that early Christians struggled with and eventually came out as the winner over the centuries. In the first few centuries of...
This is true, all the stories in the Bible were written way after the fact during a time period where the followers of Jesus were trying to figure themselves out. Some people believed that Jesus was human, but blessed by God. Others thought he was entirely divine. Some people suggested that...
Nope, not sarcastic. I was legitimately wondering where it came from because I knew it wasn't the Bible, but I didn't remember who put it together.
As far as the creed itself goes, some of it is from the Bible, but other parts are Church doctrine that sort of evolved over the centuries. If all...
I find Paul to be a very interesting character. From what I understand, though he never met Jesus, he took what he knew about Jesus' teachings and created his own ideas. A lot of other people did the same thing in the early centuries. It just so happens that a lot of Paul's ideas stuck.
I...
So, the Old Testament in the Christian Bible is not the same as the Jewish Bible? How big would you say the differences are and could you give me an example?
Random general question about these forums. How does one go about making a signature. I see that many people have signatures, but there doesn't seem to be a button for it on the User CP.