The authority of the Catholic church is not universally accepted.
What is your point, even the law of gravity is not universally accepted.
The ongoing issues on these threads are that, in the absence of an accepted teaching authority, each person's truth is what they choose it to be. The sincerity to which beliefs are held is not in question because personal perception can be the only reality to many who lack faith.
Each personal reality, regardless of how distorted it may appear to others, is none the less a reality. Psychologist Dr. Jerome Bruner developed a model of perception in which people go through the a process to form opinions in which the more they think they know about a subject, the less receptive they are to new ideas or different perspectives:
1. When one open to learning encounters an unfamiliar subject or idea they are open to different informational cues and want to learn more about the target.
2. In the second stage, as they collect more information about the target they begin to associate or categorize the target within what they already believe to be true or false, real or unreal.
3. It is at this stage the those who believe they already hold the truth the cues become less and less relevant and in their place we try to conform the object to a preconception and confirm the categorization of the target. At this stage we also actively ignore and even distort cues that violate our own initial perceptions. Our perception becomes more selective and we finally paint a consistent picture of the target conforming it to our perceived reality.
The unfortunate result is a population that believes that within their own reality they see the truths no one else can and is completely closed to dialog. This paradigm is negated by Christ's call to Christian unity and facilitated by Communion with the body of the Church and a reliance on the Magisterium over self as the foundation of faith.
Peace be with you.
the authority was given to the Catholic church by Christ. If it is not universally accepted then Christ is not universally accepted....and He, unfortunately, is not.
The comment to which I reply:
”The authority of the Catholic church is not universally accepted".
Step 1
First, you have to understand the ancient meaning of the word, “authority”
It is a contraction of the words, “author”, and “ittybitty”. It evolved into the use we accept today because most Caesars were short and what they wrote was law.
So we see the first portion of that comment means,
“The short author”
Step 2
That’s followed by “of the Catholic”. Of course, Catholic means “universal” so this portions means, ”of the universal” which due to being associated with a particular individual or type of individual (the short author) clearly means that we have to consider the word “author” as being a male gender noun.
”The short author of the universal . . . "
Step 3
Since “author” is not a specific author, it is informal and therefore means any carpenter, stone mason, craftsman, metal worker, or writer. Therefore, since a “universal” is a type of coupling, and since this is a male gender noun preceding a female gender noun, (according to the rule, "male and female made he them"), and associated with a size related noun, we know this is a metal worker because metal was carefully measured, giving us
"The short metal worker who cast the universal joint"
Step 4
Since "church" has to be informal to match "author", and author in this case is a male noun, "church" obviously is female which demands we use the less common but totally acceptable definition for the word "church" that means, “to perform a church service of thanksgiving (for a woman after childbirth)". Now the true meaning of the comment is becoming clear thanks to the application of the Self Alone interpretation method,
The short metal worker who cast the universal joint thankfully took his wife and newborn child to church . . .
Step 5
The Self Alone method tells us “universally” in this context means, “this universe and all similar universes”, due to the fact that the preceding use of "Catholic" in the same sentence, but modified by refering to a general class of individuals. Everyone knows that when such duplication of a noun occurs in a single sentence, each succeeding repetition refers to something smaller than the preceding use of the same word.
Therefore "Catholic" in the first instance being limited to a single type of joint or coupling, the second use of the word must mean something still more narrowly defined and more specific.
Rather than being the entire universe, then, and in keeping with the preceding usage and "male and female made he them", we know for sure that in the second instance "universal" applies to a small area, without a doubt an area which at the time would have been only the immediate area around the individual "author", or what we would today call a neighborhood.
Step 6
The beauty of the Self Alone method of interpretation is obvious now that we can, beyond the shadow of a doubt, properly interpret the comment to which I refer. We now know the real meaning of the comment as the author obviously intended it to be understood rather than the superficial meanings so many people are probably misled into believing.
Step 7, what the comment to which I reply really means:
“The short metal worker who cast the universal joint is thankful he could take his wife and newborn child to coming out party at the local church, but only invited people from his own neighborhood.”
Isn't it nice that someone shared with us the fact that a foundry worker with the means to throw a party is thankful that both wife and child are fine?