Please help me refute this relativistic claim

[CutlerB]

St Francis,number 1 about the accuracy of the bible, I get the sense that the parents of the op have a hard time fantoming that an all powerful all knowing entity (God) would inspire a flawed doccument (the bible) indeed why not ensure the bible correctly written if it bears so important a thing as the word of God? Why the detours? Why the riddles?
It is indeed a typical atheistic argument…and not an agnostic one.

Again, Mum and Dad are not atheists. They believe in God, though they may be confused on many points. Dad himself said he’s not the right person to ask about such matters.

 

[JRKH]

Again, Mum and Dad are not atheists. They believe in God, though they may be confused on many points. Dad himself said he’s not the right person to ask about such matters.

I guess it best to take him at his word…

Peace
James

 

[jschutzm]

I just got into a discussion with my mum and dad about the Church and faith. They are both Protestant and fairly anti-Catholic. Here are their main assertions:

So let’s try to take them down 1 by one… here’s my stab at it.

We don’t know whether the Bible accurately represents what Jesus really taught. (Dad even said “John might have been drunk, when he wrote his Gospel.”

How do we know that historians are accurate? So for that matter…most of history is subject.
In fact… if you look at Science… one of the things it has going for it is that there is a sorta ‘peer review process’ - where by other Scientists are supposed to cross check each others work.

If we look back at the history of Christanity… we see that there existed this sorta thing as well. We actually find that the Christian community also protected itself from misinterpretations, misconceptions, etc. And we know that the bible isn’t a case of ‘the telephone game’ because when we compare the oldest surviving relics of the bible… they show VERY little deviatation or difference from the modern times.
And we know that the community back then was an oral community which taught things verbally. There were plenty of people who observed and knew what went on around the time of Christ and we don’t see a SINGLE group claiming that the Christians distorted things.

Both the Jews and the Romans would have had plenty of reason to contradict the Christians in what they were claiming… yet both groups are SILENT on the matter and don’t try to argue that the central events to Christianity never happened.
Josephius, a Jewish historian, actually upholds the accounts of Jesus’s life.
Roman’s talked a lot about torturing and killing Christians… but never claiming that things didn’t happen like was told in the bible.

Bible 1 – rest of the world ZERO!

We don’t know whether the Christian faith is true.

There are arguments to this fact… I don’t know that there is enough space here to do those arguments justice. I wouldn’t say there is PROOF, so much as their are compelling arguments towards that conclusion that one could simply ignore if they wanted.

The Catholic Church is just as fallible as any other human. (Inquisition)

Yes, the Catholic church has made mistakes There have been Popes with mistresses, who went to war, and had people assassinated. HOWEVER - the Catholic FAITH has not changed, is not fallible and hasn’t made mistakes. The fact that NONE of the power hungry Popes EVER changed a single doctrine or dogma is actually POWERFUL truth that the Holy Spirit is protecting the faith.
ALL other faiths have changed core doctrines over time. Even the Jewish faith has changed after the Temple was destroyed in 70AD. But the Catholic church alone has not altered her doctrines in the last 2,000 years and is the only faith that believes it CAN NOT change them. All other Christian faiths have and do change their core beliefs for various reasons because they are man-made.

The Church abused indulgences and sold them to people in the Middle Ages. They charged for confession, etc.

Never charged for confession, but indulgences were sold… a practice that was NEVER condoned by the Catholic church, but was done by various corrupt individuals during those times. The Catholic church, realizing this, made sweeping changes during the counter-reformation.

The Church is so wealthy just because of that. The Vatican is a major player in global stocks.

Source and proof is needed of this. The Vatican operates on a deficite like most nations and publishes its annual budget for the world to see. What nation publishes its budget for everyone to see? - No one, but the Vatican. It may have buildings and property…but those are museums, open to the public… NOT for the Catholic church’s private wealth. If all of its art was sold off, it would fall into private hands and never been seen again. It is therefore part of EVERY Christian’s heritage which the Catholic church holds for all to see.
Most of what it has was donated. The Catholic church also believes in giving its best to God… not second best. Most of its income comes from museums and tourism, it uses this to pay BILLIONS to charity, medical care, relief aid, etc. To this day… the Catholic church is the largest non-governmental provider of Health Care, Relief Aid and Education in the world.

 

[jschutzm]

Nobody has the right to claim authority and truth for themselves.

What does that even mean? ‘claim it for yourself’ ??
One CAN tell the truth and defend it against lies and distortions.
The Catholic church proclaims the truth of God… and its track record remaining faithful to that and not altering the message is better then any other. And it is the only one that can rightful trace its origin to the Apostles and therefore to Christ.

IF God is truth and rational and if we are rational at all… then we can know the truth. It would make sense therefore that someone would know the truth. Would God disseminate truth or lies? If he disseminates truth… then someone knows it. RIGHT? The question is WHICH person or institution knows the truth?

The bible gives us the hallmark of the 1 true Church and in the bible Christ give his promise to Peter that the gates of Hell would not prevail against his church. – So the TRUE church would be linked to Peter.
IF the Church that Christ started EVER taught lies…then the gates of hell would have prevailed.
IF Christ’s church ever disappeared or fell into apostacy…then the gates of Hell would have prevailed.

Christ also gave Peter the keys to heaven, the power to bind and loose. Lies can not exist in Heaven… so if Peter can bind and loose IN Heaven…then he can not teach lies and must be guided to the TRUTH.

What church besides the Catholic church can lay any creditable claim to the promises given to Peter from Christ? JW? Mormon? Presybeterian? Methodist? Baptist?

The bible says the Church will be Universal - which church is Universal? The bible says that if 2 Christians disagree that they take their disagreement to the Church… not the bible. Which church would you take your disagreement to? JW? Mormon? Methodist? Lutheran? Which one has the authority and link to Peter to settle matters of Truth? Which churches have the promise of the Holy Spirit that the gates of hell will not triumph over them?

We don’t need to defend our faith to anybody. We don’t even have to be able to defend points of faith, it’s just up to us and we will see whether we were right before God.

“Need” is a tricky word. Maybe they don’t need to…but they SHOULD be able to, if they want to.