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Originally posted by BobraFCD
Don't kill the messenger here--I was just giving information on why many people feel Catholicism isn't Christian. I provided a list of things (direct from the Catholic Encyclopedia) that were implemented long after the Bible was written....
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No one has any need to kill the messenger, here. I don't mean to offend, but your own posts are doing quite an adequate job on their own.
It is clear that the sources you have been reading are not at all objective, but were written with a clear anti-Catholic bias. For that matter, there appears to be a bias against that is not Fundamentalist, whether Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and historical Prostentantism -- since some of the "issues" you mention -- take infant baptism, for example -- are practiced by the vast majority of Christians, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant alike.
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I'd be happy to give you a list of non-Biblical RomanCatholic doctrine instituted by man:...
Tradition granted equal authority with the Bible (1545 AD)
As I mentioned, no church is perfect, but the Bible instructs us not to add or take away from the Word....
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Actually, not to get bogged down in details, but John instructed the churches not add or take away from what he wrote in Revelation. He certainly wasn't talking about "the Bible" since the Bible wasn't in existence yet when he wrote.
And since you have studied so much, I'm sure that you know that the Church did not decide which books should be included in the New Testament for a few centuries -- indeed, there was no understanding of "the Bible" as such for a few centuries. So how did the Church transmit the teachings of the apostles? By teaching them, handing them down from one generation to another, until the final decision could be made as to what writings comported with those teachings and should be considered Scripture. That's what the Roman Catholic Church (and the Anglicans and the Orthodox and others) mean by "Tradition" -- not "the way we've always done it," but the teaching of the apostles that has been handed down from generation to generation, some in written form (Scripture) and some in oral form.
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You didn't read my complete post. A question was raised why some people believe that Catholicism isn't Christian. I have greatly studied religion and how denominations have evolved. I offered an explanation why some people feel that way.
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No, you said "Catholicism is not Biblical, and here's why." Quite a difference between that and "some people think...."
And for the record, I've been a Presbyterian all of my life.