Predictable, unfruitful rhetoric and typically polemical. I wonder if you truly think such posts ever inspire non-Catholics to join your faith. From where I’m standing, it has the opposite effect in a huge way, make no mistake. You can try to split hairs here and say what you will, but each Protestant believes they are bound by the Bible and the Word of God. Anglicans, for example, believe in Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. The last leg of the stool, reason, means the individual is left to interpret scripture to a certain point and there is the ability for the individual to have his own opinions to a high degree. That, in your eyes, means a person is being “his own pope.” I find it humorous that you repeatedly call me something over and over, “a sense of humor.” If not finding you funny means I lack a sense of humor…guilty as charged. I find your posts combative and angry, never jovial in the least.
Anyone who disagrees with you is “illogical” or cast off as a nut. So be it, Della. I could care less. My replies have been plenty “salient,” you’re just not accustomed to disagreement and it rings your chimes louder than Big Ben.
Stating you “don’t need to defend yourself” is a laugh because that’s all you have done is attack and attack and then bite and snarl when someone disagrees and you are the one that keeps the argument going pretty well yourself. So let’s not pretend to be guiltless and a victim. I’m done talking to you. I don’t think you have any theological insight to give and I have yet to find any relevence.
I encourage you (and I know I’m wasting “breath” here) to go back and calmly read the posts that have gone back and forth between us and see where I am coming from. I have read your posts before and usually choose not to reply. Post 18 was the first time you jumped on me. Post 23 I tried to defuse it with joking around with ya to which you went on a tirade on 27. Then Post 30 you went off the hook. Read the first line.
Let’s just agree not to speak to one another. I will end saying that I encourage you to ponder how well these posts speak of a Catholic apologist. If you were the first person with whom I spoke in here, I honestly wouldn’t give Catholicism a second look if I didn’t know how many riches theologically the Church holds.
This thread had a high degree of Luther-bashing and generalizations I thought were unfair. I stick to my original position.
No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Most people follow their spiritual leaders. Most don’t set up their own churches. Those who do are setting themselves up as their own personal popes. The average person in a Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, etc. pew certainly doesn’t do that. If they did, I would have stated that they do in plain English. And I’m sorry you have a limited sense of humor. You’re the one who said to call you Fitz… whatever the rest of it was. You are the one who is insisting on being contentious over nothing.
Any individual who sets himself up as his own personal pope is not “every” person who is Protestant. If you will insist on being illogical just because you don’t like reading the truth, that’s up to you to resolve.
There are unsettled theological issues. The Church has not defined every possible theological construct that anyone might come up with. Of course there’s ongoing discussions and debates about unsettled issues. Where did you get the idea that that makes Catholic theologians into “cafeteria Catholics”? You are the one who insists on inflating my words so as to twist what I’ve actually written to try to make me look like the “bad guy”. Anyone who can read can see what you’re doing. I don’t need to defend myself against such tactics. If you want people to see how weak your arguments are by doing that, that’s up to you. I won’t go on with this silly discussion when it’s plain you aren’t interested in the issues but only in making ad hominem attacks when you haven’t got a salient reply.
Nowhere and at no time did I claim that “all Protestants” claim to be their own pope. If you’re going to accuse me of such things please have the courtesy to provide the proof. I said that Luther made himself his own pope when he broke with the church and went his own way, as did the other Reformers. And I never claimed that no one can have theological differences within the Church. There was plenty of debate on vital issues for centuries that were finally resolved. There are ongoing theological debates to this day that are perfectly fine. If you would stop exaggerating and assuming things not in dispute we’d get a lot farther with our discussion here.
