“So using the Bible as the basis of Christian doctrine is heresy ?”
Imposing an unbiblical hermenteutic on the Bible - sola scriptura - is heresy.
“But those “heretical” Reformed Protestants don’t have known Mafia bosses and politicians who consistently vote in favor of abortion accepted as members of their Congregations.”
Clearly you’re unfamiliar with the history of Protestant Europe.
“And the Roman Church does. Hmmm.”
I feel sorry for you. I judge the falsity of Protestantism by the falsity of its doctrines. You judge Catholicism by those who reject it. Which is the more sound method?
“I can see why the Roman Church would want to distance itself from the Bible, and replace it with its own “extensions, enhancements and revisions”, like a Christianity version 2.0.”
I can see why Protestant anti-Catholics always have to resort to lying. They have to make things up out of thin air because their doctrines are false and they’re usually to stupid to even hold a logical debate about them. Hence, they lie. Lying is a necessity for them - just as John Henry Newman said it was.
“Idolatry isn’t heresy if we call it “honoring an image” with the honor “passing through” to the “prototype” of the image.”
If it isn’t idolatry, then it isn’t idolatry no matter what you call it.
“As long as there are enough Mafia dons in the membership, they will prevent all the statues from being desecrated, and all will be right with the world.”
So what Mafia members protect Protestant statues from being desecrated?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation_Wall
Many Protestant anti-Catholics are proof that government education helps make people stupid.
I quoted you 3 verses supporting not “adding or taking away from God’s Word”.
Can you quote any verses supporting “adding or taking away from God’s Word” ?
I’ve been pointing out the falsity of RC doctrines this whole thread and quoting Scripture to do it.
You’ve been simply retorting with “because the Church says so”.
As far as Church membership goes, the outward lives of Christians reflects upon Christianity itself, and thus the Bible exhorts Christians to live godly lives:
1 Peter 2
“11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
12 Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
And the Bible tells us to exercise Church discipline to keep sin from increasing (as “leaven”) inside the Church:
1 Corinthinans 5
“5 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”
After honestly reading that chapter, can one remain in a congregation which includes well-known infamous criminals or politicians which openly and publicly support abortion, if the elders of the congregation refuse to excommunicate said offenders ? Based on that chapter of the Bible, a true believer would have no choice but to depart from that congregation and find or start another, minus the leaven. And if in the whole denomination a congregant sees a pattern of this, year after year, one would have no choice but to depart that denomination and seek one that abided by 1 Corinthians 5 in a more serious and honest manner, regardless of how many generations of “brandname loyalty” one feels towards the denomination.