Actually, it is my belief in someone else’s allegation of meanings of Scripture that attests to the alleged fact that the Catholic faith has the fullness.
I dont’ think so. However I will assent that it testifies that we each read and interpret, and that we are able to come up with contradictory positions.
The reason other faith communities are recognized as having truth IMHO is because to a greater or lesser extent, they have retained what I think are elements of the Catholic faith. The more Catholicism they reject, the less of what I personally believe to be truth according to what I have learned to accept, they retain.
May I note that my opinion is not really that humble? However, I am not giving you MNSHO here, but the teaching of the Church. It sounds authoritative because it is, but it is not mine. The elements of the Catholic faith have nothing to do with what I think. They were given to the Church by Christ, long before I was a gleam nin my father’s eye.
My personal beliefs of the truth are also irrelevant. They only apply in this context because I have chosen to espouse what was revealed to Christ by the Churhc. You are right. I have learned to accept them.
“Happily, most of Christendom doesn’t require a denigration of other faiths as part of its doctrine as you seem to think is required of you.”
Speaking my interpretation of the Truth through my particular limited lenses I have put on myself in love is not “denigration”. What is denigrating is to confirm others in what according to my understanding so far, as that might change, is, error.
I agree that it is not loving to confirm others in error. I cannot tell if you are speaking for yourself here, or trying to represent what I have said from your point of view.
My understanding may change (it certainly has over the years) but what God has revealed to the Church does not change.
It seems to me that SM mostly followed the rules of General Semantics and self referenced her observations as stemming from her own belief that she chose in conscious awareness and according to her best lights. Otoh, G, you make some personal belief statements as if they are Universal Truth apart from your advocating that they are so.
It is true that I made some personal belief statements along with the universal truth I was advocating. However, I did not them as such.
You may, and clearly do, have personal realsons for belieiving what you do. That is perfectly fine and necessary in a way, but that is what they are: personal reasons. They are accepted in the face of what to someone observing from, say the perspective of an extra-terrestial anthropologist who has no stake in the matter, are most likely incomplete and local data, heavily influenced by emotional association tied to the instinct to survive. Nothing wrong with that, it is something we all have to do.
I agree that my choices are influenced by the instinct to survive. However, they are also influenced by what God has revealed about Himself. It so happens they pertain to one another.
But as St. Paul says, we have to grow up. A mature individual might examin all pertinent data from a very impartial standpoint.
I don’t believe that this is possible. In my studies of science and philosphy, it is humanely impossible to be impartial. we are all products of our experiences, which shape our perceptions.
That especially in as important a matter as salvation, if one thinks there is such a thing. Most people will never do that, IMHO, being practically comfortable in their way, and therefore lacking desparate motivation.
I think it is more appropriate to examine things from the perspective of the Revelation of God in Christ, rather than relying upon our own emotions, rationality, and experiences.
