Roman Catholic and The Bible.

[Jill]

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[popeman]

Dear Tom,

I see that you have posted a couple of times since I was "banned". It appears the same'ol' same'ol and I will help you respond soon. In the meantime, a friend in San Diego contacted me after he heard about me on the Catholic Answers forum site, so I gave him your email. He has been on this site in the past as Catholic Steve and has some advice for you. You might go back and pull up some of his old posts. Take care and Semper Fi. Popeman

[steve]

Popeman,

"Catholic Steve", in San Diego, is Tom's brother. I'm sure they have each other's email addresses. It's kind of funny. Until you mentioned him in this last post, I was thinking you might even be Catholic Steve posting under another username. Your spirit and his are similar.

Also, why do you address all your posts to Tom? Do you not wish for others to be reading them? It is possible for you to send him private messages, if you are not interested in talking to the rest of us.

[popeman]

Dear Steve,

Of course I wish to speak to the forum but sometimes what the forum does not perceive to be a bit nasty and anti-Catholic dialogue, I do, and I am sure that Tom also probably feels the same, at times.

At least two forum members caught the gist of Catholic maligning by that one guy. Fair and balanced it appears not. I was surprised that Darin did not ban this guy, as well. It is like watching the Democrats bemoan Bush, but when it comes to cleaning their own house nothing ever happens. I do hope, in the future, should another Protestant come across less than charitable that Darin will ban them, too. It actually took another forum member to see the wrong, not Darin which was disappointing.

Mike and Karen comments are refreshing and make the Catholic Christians feel they are welcome and participating in a forum. Others have been less-than-welcoming and to illustrate this please look at Darin’s comments.

Catholic Christians have been asked constantly [paraphrase] “show me the Scripture to support that or this, etc…” Tom makes some challenging point about Scripture and this is what he gets for bringing up Scripture related to Catholic Christianity from Darin …. “We don't have any intention in providing biblical support for false teachings. If that's what you're looking for, this is the wrong forum -- we're seeking truth.”. Well, isn’t that just peachy?! We ask for discussion. We ask for Scripture. We ask everyone to be civil and open (not anti-Catholic, anti-LDS…etc) so we can talk, but what happens?

Darin, the forum gate-keeper, makes his personal call about “no intention”, “biblical support”, “truth”…well, heck, how do you get to that point without discussing the scripture in question? So Tom and I certainly can assume that if Darin is not going to "discuss" then the other Protestant's will follow suit. Comments like that run rift throughout many threads that discourage Catholic Christians from discussing the topic at hand and/or we (I) get grief for getting a little more in-their-face. So when Catholic Christians capitulate out of frustration then the typical Protestant remark [paraphrase] is “See you can’t support that with Scripture”… “Hey, don’t get so mean spirited, Popeman, oh I mean, Popey, Popeman”.

I thought the forum title "Roman Catholicism" was meant to invite discussion not just a bashing fest for Protestants. If it is meant just to slam people then take it off the forum list. That being said, sometimes just talking to Tom creates a bond of commonality where I know he will not bash me …basically, I get a breather (him, too). I think that is fair also. If you look at the site questions/answers you will often see Protestant person-to-person questions and answers even though it is on the forum and not delivered directly to the forum members.

As for Tom, he does not always get/check his email like he will answer the forum, ie, therefore my posts to Tom. It appears that Catholic Steve burned out a ways back so he told me to leave the site but that was up to me. I am sure then that Tom knows very well what he is into and can make his own call. PAX popeman

[steve]

I should clarify that Darin is not "the forum gatekeeper." He is one of those who has been authorized to ban people if necessary. Before he banned you, he consulted me, and I approved of the ban because I had read enough of your posts to believe that you were not really participating in dialogue, which is one of the few things that we require here. As far as I know, you are the only Catholic to have been banned from the forum, and you should be glad it was only for a week. There have been other Catholics (like Tom and Catholic Steve) who have never been banned, though the latter deserved to be, and might have eventually been banned if he had not voluntarily stamped our dust off his feet and gone elsewhere. We are very slow to ban, even when it is warranted. Instead we warn and warn and warn. We only ban those who apparently don't read the warnings, or who wish to defy them. You seemed to be one of the latter, so we were just following policy. It was nothing personal. Tom has never been threatened, to my knowledge, with being banned, and I would be surprised if his conduct would ever require it. He has had hundreds of conversations with me on the air about these things, and I give him much more time on his calls than most callers require. There is no anti-Catholic attitude that I can detect here, except maybe in one participant or two. Nothing very offensive, though, that I have seen (although that "popey" thing was definitely borderline. But that member has apologized. I am not aware that you have done so).

[popeman]

OK, I apologize. But for what? An attitude adjustment? A USMC attitude adjustment is PT...Physical Training ... extra pushups, sit-ups running to make the offender realize they were off base with their comments, but did anyone ask me what that was? No, everyone flew off the handle screaming the sky is falling the sky is falling. It is a reflection of the lack of dialogue. Would it have been better if someone told this guy that it looks like he should back off from the donut tray and hit the gym a little more?

Where is the apology to Tom from Darin for his complete lack of discussion effort, rather than simply stating “We don't have any intention in providing biblical support for false teachings. If that's what you're looking for, this is the wrong forum -- we're seeking truth.”

First, who is the “we”… the official Narrow Path forum, Protestants in general or just those participating forum authors. The “we” sounds very antagonistic … you against us attitude. I thought “we” are all Christians just with a different history in how we worship Jesus/God.

Second, no “intention to provide biblical support”?! Is Darin basically telling all Catholics on this site and simply readers that “we” do not want to hear any Catholic Scriptural nonsense because only “we” Protestants make sense?!

Third, “false” teachings? Can a Catholic Christian make the same assumption about Protestant teachings, that they are “false” teaching by virtue of their Scriptural interpretation and lack of historical support/fidelity?

Forth, is who’s “truth”? By virtue of Darin’s comment it appears that this truth has only one Protestant interpretation and it is not even close to a Catholic Christian interpretation.

I do not want an apology but I think Tom deserves one. Tom has taken it on both cheeks and keeps turning the other cheek while Protestant after Protestant smacks him. They continually ask for proof, for Scripture, for any historical point that does not start from anything further back than the 1500’s. Tom provides but the basic gist is what Darin dared to write and to paraphrase what Catholics hear is this “We do not care how you Catholic interpret Scripture or what history has to say because it is our way or the highway”.

At least I am up front about my frustration at many of the Protestant authors on this site and I am also very open to praise those like Mike and Karen who can see Catholic Christians have a point to make. We do not like being called names and we sure do not like being told that our discussion opinion is a false teaching that has no scriptural merit so go to another site.

So I apologize for telling that guy he should get some physical training to change his attitude, so is Darin going to apologize to Tom for being so offensive in his one-sided comment that Tom’s comments are non-Scriptural and false teaching? Tom, don’t wait up for this one.

Now is someone going to get all shook up that I was stern enough to act in a slightly polemic fashion when compared to the very aggressive polemics as Paul/Barnbus created in Acts 15 telling those Christians at Antioch they were wrong? They did so because they were defending Scripture and so am I here with the other Catholic Christians.

Dialogue? I was involved in dialogue with Karen about Isaiah 7:14 and how it related to a hybridized Protestant Bible where many Protestants on this site used such a Bible as “the word of God” when all of a sudden the crazy guy comes out from the shadows and starts calling me names, etc. Yes, I like dialogue. I do not like name calling and a tone of self-righteousness that is quite evident in Darin’s post to Tom.

Now, Karen. Am I correct that you find no great difference in 7:14 being a “young woman” or a “virgin”? That is important. Peace, popeman

[Jill]

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[popeman]

Ok, that being said. Where do you get the Scriptural sense that she is a virgin, when the Jewish OT states that she is simply a "young woman". Earlier I illustrataed very different Hebrew words for virgin and young woman. Jewish scholars are adamant that Mary was not a virgin that gave birth. Semper Fi, popeman

[darinhouston]

Tom makes some challenging point about Scripture and this is what he gets for bringing up Scripture related to Catholic Christianity from Darin …. “We don't have any intention in providing biblical support for false teachings. If that's what you're looking for, this is the wrong forum -- we're seeking truth.”. Well, isn’t that just peachy?! We ask for discussion. We ask for Scripture. We ask everyone to be civil and open (not anti-Catholic, anti-LDS…etc) so we can talk, but what happens?

If you're going to keep pointing to my post as exemplary of the anti-catholic bias, let's be honest about the dialogue to which your refer. Here is exactly what Tom said and how I responded...

That's my point. Are we here to discuss teaching and how it is supported by Scripture. Or are we here to point fingers? When you attack the Church you attack the members! For it's short history, Protestants have killed many in the name of Christianity! We don't want to go there

Here, tom suggests that he thought we were here to merely discuss how teaching (any teaching, presumably) may be supported by Scripture. He did not, as you say popeman, ask me for scriptural support for a position of mine and meet refusal on my part.

Excuse me? We're not pointing fingers, but we do intend to persuade one another when we thing they are wrong. We don't have any intention in providing biblical support for false teachings. If that's what you're looking for, this is the wrong forum -- we're seeking truth.

What I did do was to try and correct what I understood was a mischaracterization of our forum. This is not a forum for people to academically seek to support any old doctrine (false or not) that someone wants to "discuss." What we want to do is take a question or a doctrinal position to the test of scripture to see if it is false or true. What we do not want to do is just try and fabricate a scriptural supporting position for a doctrine that is not true. In this case, I didn't not even suggest that any particular doctrinal position he may hold was untrue, but was only speaking to the purpose of the forum in response to his question.

Popeman, in the same exchange, you might even notice that I also said the following:

Certainly not every RC doctrine is wrong, and we could all learn something I suspect by really getting to the heart of some of the doctrines where we have relied only on our own protestant traditions.

I do think you could contribute and learn a lot from this forum, and I do hope you stick around and deal with the substances and also continue to call in to the radio show. When your calls are not merely repetitive (what your fellow rc brother calls circular) I very much enjoy your calls.

[darinhouston]

Second, no “intention to provide biblical support”?! Is Darin basically telling all Catholics on this site and simply readers that “we” do not want to hear any Catholic Scriptural nonsense because only “we” Protestants make sense?!

Third, “false” teachings? Can a Catholic Christian make the same assumption about Protestant teachings, that they are “false” teaching by virtue of their Scriptural interpretation and lack of historical support/fidelity?

Forth, is who’s “truth”? By virtue of Darin’s comment it appears that this truth has only one Protestant interpretation and it is not even close to a Catholic Christian interpretation.

Popeman, I think you have a chip on your shoulder and are seeing controversy where you can find it. We do not say what you suggest. We merely say we will take any proposition and confirm or reject it according to scripture. Where a Catholic position is biblical and ours is not, we would be glad to submit our traditions to scipture. What we (I can only speak for myself in this "we," but this is a forum of fairly like minded folks in this regard) have no intention of trying to provide life support to any particular doctrine with selective scriptural support just to show that it can be done. It's just not that kind of forum -- I don't know how to make this more plain. I do not mean to imply in any way that all Catholic doctrines or even dogmas are de facto false. Those we have been discussing, yes, and I'm pleased to be shown by scripture that I am wrong, but there are no doubt doctrines Catholics believe that I either misunderstand (please correct me) or agree with (show me).

Do expect to face resistance, but truth should be able to withstand scrutiny.

This is the spirit we (again, I) seek.