Free Republic

That statement is false. Hillary's Sherpa guide, Tinsang Norgay(?) was the fist to summit. Hillary always acknowledged this.

No, Hillary confirmed that he reached the summit first.

In his 1999 book "View from the Summit," Hillary finally broke his long public silence about whether it was he or Tenzing who was the first man to step atop Everest. "We drew closer together as Tenzing brought in the slack on the rope. I continued cutting a line of steps upwards." "Next moment, I had moved onto a flattish exposed area of snow with nothing by space in every direction," Hillary wrote. "Tenzing quickly joined me and we looked round in wonder. To our immense satisfaction we realized with had reached the top of the world." Before Tenzing's death in 1986, Hillary consistently refused to confirm he was first, saying he and the Sherpa had climbed as a team to the top. It was a measure of his personal modesty and of his commitment to his colleagues.

I loved this from the article:

"Since tombs normally contain either blood relations or spouses, Jacobovici and his team suggest it is possible Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a couple. "Judah," whom they indicate may have been their son, could have been the "lad" described in the Gospel of John as sleeping in Jesus' lap at the Last Supper."

Where exactly does John describe a kid sleeping in Jesus' lap at the Last Supper?.

Isn't this assumption unfair to the Spaniards? The 16th and 17th century Spanish were welcome guests in western Ireland and Scotland, since the English were in the process of trying to exterminate the Irish and Scots, for whatever reason. Irish chieftains sheltered the fleeing Spanish armada on their way back to Spain.

And just as the French and the Scots had a long history of friendly relations (Bonnie Prince Charlie's mom was French), I wouldn't be surprised if the Spanish and Irish had long-standing alliances of all sorts. Isn't that where we get names like Costello?

While there was trade between Spain and Ireland, the survivors of the Spanish Armada were greeted much less civilly than all that. Contemporary accounts describe how the Irish peasants clubbed to death the sailors who made it to shore:

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/spanish_armada.htm

And "Costello" dates back to Norman times.

That stated, Roman Catholicism is more similar to Islam than Protestantism and Orthodoxy (and other, smaller Christian groups).

Both have a history of being a political based religion (Popes throwing around their power in the Dark Ages; Islam is religion strongly tied in with political control).

Well, for one thing, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy didn't split until the Great Schism of 1054, after the Dark Ages (476 to 1000 AD)...

To be precise, the poor Chevalier was executed by the French state (not the Catholic Church) two hundred years after the Council of Trent.

Of course, Canon Law forbid the Church to shed blood herself. For God's sake don't try those God forsaken arguments on me, they're worthless. Nothing personal, mind you, I'm sure you're a fine person, and I say that sincerely, I'm just way past the point of being able to swallow that kind of drink.

I'll try not to bother you with facts in the future.

You do realize this is an Anglican bishop, not a Catholic one, right?

If memory serves me correctly, a hundred years later, in France, the Church brutally murdered Chevalier de la Barre (they pulled out his tongue for God's sake!), for either refusing to doff his hat to a procession of Capuchin monks or for uttering some blasphemy, depending on your historical source. Then came the Council of Trent, and your point becomes even stronger.

Correction that Trent came before the de la Barre incident is noted.

To be precise, the poor Chevalier was executed by the French state (not the Catholic Church) two hundred years after the Council of Trent.

In any case, please pass on my thanks to your daughter for her service.

Wrong. Marines just got all the credit. Half that battle belonged to the 1st Cavalry Div. Kinda pissed me off at the time, considering my daughter was taking part in that action.

Sorry. I'll defer to your firsthand knowledge. I was working off of news accounts that said the Marines were in the April operation, and that Marines and the 1st Cavalry Div. took part in the November operation.

Plus, Fallujah was done by Marines, not Rangers, right?

Yes, the April, 2004 operation in Fallujah was the Marines, not the Army.

How do I know this guy is a liar?

Well, he claims that he took part in the assault on Fallujah:

What was the assault on Fallujah like?

Fallujah is where we slaughtered people in mosques. We provoked the people there. Some people escaped from the mosques and saw us. We would dig holes and leave mass graves of children, women, and old men. We were ordered to let people die on the street. We were told that the Geneva Convention means nothing to us in combat.

We were ordered to fire on peaceful protesters in Fallujah. Somebody threw a rock at us, and an officer said that he thought it was a grenade. Then we were ordered to fire. When it's daylight in Iraq, it's daylight! Nobody really thought it was a grenade.

The first battle for Fallujah got underway in the beginning of April, 2004, only to be cut short by a ceasefire around April 11, 2004.

Yet on April 12, 2004, he was in Arizona protesting Coffee Plantation.

Well, we know that many of the sons of Apostolic succession have failed to follow God's guidance, so how can you know for sure that all of the writers of scripture followed it in full? Did the writers of scripture have a special grace not given to future Bishops?

The Catholic Church has never claimed that individual bishops are inerrant.

But I understand your dilemma: because you reject the idea that the Holy Spirit has ever guided the Church that compiled and finalized the New Testament, you have no logical reason to believe that the New Testament is inerrant.

If the NT was "written" by imperfect men for specific purposes, then was it subject to error, given that men, armed with free will to reject God's guidance, make mistakes?

The authors of the New Testament wrote with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and did not reject God's guidance. As such, it is inerrant. But neither did they write systematically, including all traditions and authoritative interpretations of the Word.

How can you know what everyone expected it to be for 1,500 years? The Church does not accept dissent. Some writings by some Fathers have gotten through on some issues. But, I hardly believe that dissent in general was well recorded within the Church. Taken to a comical extreme, this would be like Fidel Castro claiming that all of his people are happy because no one complains. From what I have learned of the RCC, it is not a place of the free exchange of ideas. The hierarchy believes that God reveals the truth to its majority, and that's it. I think it is too broad a brush stroke to say that no one within the Church believed in Protestant ideas until they all cropped up at once in the 1500s.

I know what people expected the New Testament to be for 1500 years because of the testimony of the Church Fathers, the Councils of the Church and historical records. Dissent in some areas has historically been tolerated in the Church, but when somebody threatens the integrity of the Word and teaches another gospel, the Church has stepped in to preserve the souls of Christendom.

If you are going to base your argument on the Church stifling dissent, please post examples of sola scriptura theology being suppressed by the early Church.

Very well said.

It puzzles me that if God had wanted His Bible to clearly agree with the Tradition practiced, that He would have arranged for the two to more easily work together, without all the stressing and straining.

We are not Muslims. We do not believe that God dictated the books of the New Testament word for word to amanuenses. The books which the Church later collated into the New Testament were divinely inspired, but written by imperfect men for specific purposes, as IQ has pointed out.

Rather than ask why the New Testament is not a systematic theology book, a better question is why, for 1500 years, nobody expected it to be.

If memory serves me correctly, while tradition speaks of Mary being a perpetual virgin, I don't believe many of these documents came into being until several hundred of years after Christ and Mary.

Your memory is mostly right. The earliest surviving text documenting the tradition of Mary's perpetual virginity seems to be the apocryphal Protoevangelum of James, ca 120 AD. Origen's Commentary on Matthew, ca 248 AD, is another surviving early text speaking of Mary's perpetual virginity. Many more texts survive from the fourth and fifth centuries, written by people like St. Augustine.

You are the only one to interpret as you accuse me.

I did not accuse you of anything.

The verse says "Do not go beyond what is written.". It is a principle, and supports Sola Scriptura over oral teachings. Principles survive into the future.

Apparently you interpret Paul's statement as forseeing books that would not be written for decades.

Further, you have not addressed the probablility that "Do not go beyond what is written" is a colloquial aphorism. Here is the New International Version: "Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written."

Please note that the words "to go" are not present in the original Greek. The variety of translations of this difficult passage will make you head spin!

In addition, to interpret 1 Corinthians 4:6 as you do would contradict Paul himself! In 2 Thessalonians 2:15 he said "Stand fast and hold firm to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.

Did Paul make a mistake?

If Holy Tradition had to be written down to be "valid," it is odd that John wrote in 3 John 13 "I have much to write to you, but I do not wish to write with pen and ink. Instead, I hope to see you soon when we can talk face to face."

The impossibility of reducing all of Holy Tradition to writing was also recognized by John in John 21:25: "There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written."

Finally, the fact that you and I disagree about the meaning of this one passage in the Bible shows that the 16th century novelty of sola scriptura provides no real guidance.

Yes, oral teachings preceded the NT. Luke concludes that in order to be SURE of correct teaching, he is going to write this message down. This also supports Sola Scriptura. Luke does not say that he would tell them these things so they may be sure, he said he would write them down. Sure, others wrote false teachings, but God took care of that when He assembled the Bible.

As stated above, it is clear from the Bible that John and Paul did not think that Holy Tradition had to be written down to be valid. Further, I think it is odd that you attribute the compilation of the Bible to God. It seems as though you are saying that the Holy Spirit was with the universal Church through the 5th Century, when it finalized the Canon, and then departed.

Did the Church fathers pick the books that went in the New Testament by luck? Or was God with them on the compilation of the Bible, but not when they made authoritative pronouncements about things like the sacrament of Confession, which was recognized hundreds of years before the canon was closed?

Whether Paul knew it or not at the time, we both call what he wrote "scripture" today. Again, Paul states a principle. I do not understand how your distinction counters the evidence I am giving.

Paul did write books which are considered to be scripture today. But your personal interpretation of 1 Corinthians 4:6 requires us to believe that Paul meant that the only aspects of Holy Tradition that were meant to be followed were those which would be written down. As shown above, this is contradicted by John and Paul himself! Further, if this point was so important to Paul, why didn't he write more? Should we only do what Paul told us to do? After all, if Paul really meant that we are only bound by what is written down, one would think that he would have written more than a few letters.

I have acknowledged that NT teachings were passed down orally at the beginning, due to necessity. I presume that they were handed down without error, at least until they became scripture. After that, I look with extreme skepticism on anything that did not become scripture, or does not match the scripture.

I think that this is an entirely reasonable point. What about written teachings that predate the closing of the canon, but are not in the New Testament? Like the writings of the ante- and post- Nicene fathers?

Excellent post.

Let's examine the support you cited to support the Reformation invention of sola scriptura:

1 Cor. 4:6 : Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written."

First, 1 Corinthians was probably written around 57 AD. As a result, it predates almost every other book in the New Testament, and certainly all of the gospels. To take Paul's comment out of context and literally, as you do, nothing written after First Corinthians is to be trusted. After all, the books written after First Corinthians--that is, the whole New Testament, give or take some epistles--"go beyond what [was] written" in First Corinthians.

Further, the admonition not to go beyond what is written is a literal translation of what was apparently a common saying of the time, roughly equivalent to "don't get too big for your britches." Read some commentaries on it.

Luke 1:1-4 : 1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Paul first examines oral tradition, and then false writings. He concludes that to be SURE, he must write these things down.

You are conflating two passages, one from Paul, and a much later one from Luke. The introductory passage from Luke presupposes the existence of other narratives. The plethora of noncanonical gospels shows us that merely writing something down was not enough. As Luke says, the true traditions "were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word." So, the introduction of Luke shows us how Holy Tradition preceded the New Testament and inspired its writing, and neatly illuminates the logic behind apostolic succession.

2 Tim. 3:16-17 : 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Notice that it says EVERY GOOD WORK. It does not say that man is prepared for MOST good works. Neither does it say that man is PARTIALLY prepared for every good work.

Paul had to have written Second Timothy before his death in 67. This means that 2 Tim. far predates the gospels and the Book of Revelation, among other parts of the New Testament. So we know that Paul, when talking about "Scripture" being God-inspired he was not talking about the New Testament as we know it.

The lines preceding your quote are:

But you, remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it, and that from infancy you have known (the) sacred scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 2 Tim. 3:14-15.

If Paul was writing to adults, what sacred scripture would they have known "from infancy?" Not the Pauline epistles, which were not written until the 50's. Not the Gospels, which were not written until the 60's (at the earliest). He must have been talking about the Old Testament. Finally, 2 Tim. 14 makes reference to what the recipients of the letter "have learned and believed," because they know from whom" they learned it. No reference to scripture here. Instead, it is a reference to Holy Tradition and, perhaps, apostolic succession.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no instance in the OT that teaches to love your enemies.

You are right. The closest is Leviticus 19:17-18:

You shall not bear hatred for your brother in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow man, do not incur sin because of him. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

Jesus extended this precept beyond countrymen to enemies.