Equal rights for Atheists?

hawkeye, You're expecting too much from the "average" reader of the bible; even theologians had difficulty with the interpretation of the bible, and they spent years trying to arrive at the "best" one out of many, and they're still struggling. The "word of god" can drive a sane person crazy.

I am the one arguing that the Bible is of limited use, thus the church can not be condemned for not providing them to the masses at the earliest opportunity...

I don't "hate the Church" . . . i don't even recognize that there is a monolith such as "the Church." I do despise organized religion, but it is not so important to me that i discuss anywhere with anyone other than online. Your attempt to make out that i hate anyone or anything is a pathetic and puerile attempt to make me appear emotional, and therefore not rational. But it won't work.

I did not at any time allege that common people, reading scripture or having it read to them necessarily understood what was read, or having understood the superficial words, understood the abstruse questions of theology which arise from exegesis. (If you don't know what exegesis means, as i suspect you don't, look it up.) I merely pointed out that religious authority prior to the Protestant Reformation did not want scripture available for the common people to read, or to have read to them.

This is the entire sum of my remarks to which you have so ludicrously objected (from my post #3497054):



You've constantly wandered from that theme, and have again and again attempted to arguet against positions which i have never taken, to attempt to allege that i have made claims which i never made. This is just another example. At no time have i alleged that the ability to read scripture would lead the common people into religious error, or that it would lead them to some deep understanding of the implications of scripture. All you've done in this entire series of exchanges is to attempt (and you've done it very badly) to make out that i have taken indefensible positions, when in fact, i have not at all taken the positions which you have ascribed to me.

You have tried to claim that i was alleging that literacy were common. I did not make any such allegation, i simply objected to your stupidity in saying: ". . . all known stories were passed verbally." (C.f., your post #3497064) Then you tried to claim that i had said the "lack of bibles for the masses" represented some evil intention of the Church leaders--and i made no such claim. (C.f., your post #3497282.) Then you attempted to claim that is was my arugment " . . . that books the size of the bible could have been reproduced for the masses" . . . and i made no such claim. (C.f., your post #3497478) Then you attempted to claim (by inference) that my argument was that "the church" could have produced bibles as well as taught the majority of the population how to read them.; not only did i make no such argument, that is the opposite of the argument i was making, to the effect that "the church" did not want the majority of the population to read scripture. (C.f., your post #3498442)

The sole remark which i offered was that established religion did not want the common people to know how scripture actually reads. I did not make any of the claims which you subsequently attributed to me, and it is glaringly obvious that all you have by way of objection to what i actually did say has been a series of straw man fallacies--attributing to me statements i did not make, because you were prepared to argue against those statements, but not to argue against what i actually had said. And i provided abundant material to support what i had said. You very obviously don't read, or having read, don't understand the evidence i have offered. One very pointed bit of evidence i offered you have ignored altogether, or at least have failed to respond to:



(C.f., my post #3497318)

That is a succinct statement of the attitude of ecclesiastic authority. This point, and no other, is what i referred to. Your ravings about the expense of books, the rarity of literacy, any imaginary programs of the church to make people literate and disseminate bibles are nothing more than the product of your fevered imagination. I made no such claims, and they are irrelevant to the one claim which i did make, which i supported with evidence, and against which you have not displayed the least ability to argue.

I don't hate any church, and have no desire to destroy any such institution. You goofy f*ckers can dance and sing from here to infinity for all that i care--it's certainly no skin off my nose.

By the way, Bubba, failures at coherent English expression such as this:



. . . just make you look like some frothing at the mouth fanatic. What the hell is " . . . all of your conclusions are determine to what road will kill the church the fastest" supposed to mean?

I am reminded of the legendary web expression: "All of your base are belong to us."

Good work, Rapist Boy, all of it exactly to the standard which we have all come to expect of you.

In 1199, Pope Innocent III writes:

". . .to be reproved are those who translate into French the Gospels, the letters of Paul, the psalter, etc. They are moved by a certain love of Scripture in order to explain them clandestinely and to preach them to one another. The mysteries of the faith are not to be explained rashly to anyone. Usually in fact, they cannot be understood by everyone but only by those who are qualified to understand them with informed intelligence. The depth of the divine Scriptures is such that not only the illiterate and uninitiated have difficulty understanding them, but also the educated and the gifted."

The Council of Toulouse (in France), 1229, among it's 45 articles (mostly concerned with the "Cathar heresy"), writes:

"Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books."

The Council of Tarragona (in Spain), 1234, writes:

"No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days after promulgation of this decree, so that they may be burned lest, be he a cleric or a layman, he be suspected until he is cleared of all suspicion."

The Synod of Oxford (England), 1408, writes:

"It is dangerous, as St. Jerome declares, to translate the text of Holy Scriptures out of one idiom into another, since it is not easy in translations to preserve exactly the same meaning in all things. We therefore command and ordain that henceforth no one translate the text of Holy Scripture into English or any other language as a book, booklet, or tract, of this kind lately made in the time of the said John Wyclif or since, or that hereafter may be made, either in part or wholly, either publicly or privately, under pain of excommunication, until such translation shall have been approved and allowed by the Provincial Council. He who shall act otherwise let him be punished as an abettor of heresy and error."

In substantiation of the remarks made above, from The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), in the article on Scripture, after noting that there were no official policy on the reading of scripture in the vernacular in the first thousand years of "the church":

"The next five hundred years show only local regulations concerning the use of the Bible in the vernacular. On 2 January, 1080, Gregory VII wrote to the Duke of Bohemia that he could not allow the publication of the Scriptures in the language of the country. The letter was written chiefly to refuse the petition of the Bohemians for permission to conduct Divine service in the Slavic language. The pontiff feared that the reading of the Bible in the vernacular would lead to irreverence and wrong interpretation of the inspired text (St. Gregory VII, "Epist.", vii, xi). The second document belongs to the time of the Waldensian and Albigensian heresies. The Bishop of Metz had written to Innocent III that there existed in his diocese a perfect frenzy for the Bible in the vernacular. In 1199 the pope replied that in general the desire to read the Scriptures was praiseworthy, but that the practice was dangerous for the simple and unlearned ("Epist., II, cxli; Hurter, "Gesch. des. Papstes Innocent III", Hamburg, 1842, IV, 501 sqq.). After the death of Innocent III, the Synod of Toulouse directed in 1229 its fourteenth canon against the misuse of Sacred Scripture on the part of the Cathari: "prohibemus, ne libros Veteris et Novi Testamenti laicis permittatur habere" (Hefele, "Concilgesch", Freiburg, 1863, V, 875). In 1233 the Synod of Tarragona issued a similar prohibition in its second canon, but both these laws are intended only for the countries subject to the jurisdiction of the respective synods (Hefele, ibid., 918). The Third Synod of Oxford, in 1408, owing to the disorders of the Lollards, who in addition to their crimes of violence and anarchy had introduced virulent interpolations into the vernacular sacred text, issued a law in virtue of which only the versions approved by the local ordinary or the provincial council were allowed to be read by the laity (Hefele, op. cit., VI, 817).