How can we be sure that all religions are wrong?

Do you think that this would have been a good thing for you? If so why don't you think you should have been able to read it for yourself?

For most of the history of the church the common people could not read and even if they could read books was far far too costly for them to own.

That had only started to change in the last few hundreds years.

The printing press seemed to be the first enlightenment, then came the Internet, now we are on a rocket of enlightenment.

The modern canon was established by Origen in the third century, and promoted by Pamphilus of Caesarea, who was the patron of Eusebius, the so-called father of church history. The council of Nicaea determined the established scriptural canon, and it was essentially the canon of Origen, stripped, however, of its Arian influences. The Catholic Church as we would recognize it did not then exist, and the Christians of the middle east, for whose benefit the council had been called, largely became Orthodox Christian, with some very small minority exceptions. To just say "the Church" as though it were a monolithic institution in the 4th century is either naïve or disingenuous.

Translations of the bible into French, and portions of it into English were available as early as the 7th century. The so-called Wycliffe bible dates to the late 14th century. That is considerably older than a few centuries ago. Because of the parfaits or perfecti, called Cathars by the Roman church (then based on Avignon) in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the Lollards in England (and to a much less influential extent, in Holland) in the mid-14th century--the church authorities became alarmed at the spread of what they called heretical doctrines. The attempt to keep the bible out of the hands of the laity dates only to that era. It is not correct to allege that the church had always endeavored to keep the bible out of the hands of the people.

History is far more complex, and far less cut and dried than Bill always seem to think it is.

Thanks for sharing, You gave me something to research.

Come on before the printing press no one needed to try to keep books out of the hands of the common people as they was all costly hand produce works of arts.

Even after the printings begin to turn out books of all kinds with special note of the bible books was still very very costly for hundreds of years.

I needed to laugh with the statement that any book was available in the 7 century in any modern meaning of the term available.

I can see your point on what you said but you lost me when you said...



I don't recall him saying any book was available in the 7 century

So? You laugh from the depths of your ignorance. Wycliffe's bible was not only produced by hand, but was banned, and there were orders to round up and burn every copy the church could fine. Yet well over six hundred years later more than 150 copies survive. You constantly display an appalling ignorance of a subject about which you nevertheless make confident pronouncements.

OMG, Frank! I knew you were an old geezzer; but I never thought it would come to this.

Why do you find a need to make a joke about someone in their nineties?

Nineties?? I thought he was way past that!!

Yes...I noticed that you are doing less and less thinking every day that passes.

Your fault, Frank.
You're not giving me much to think about.

No Frank is not in his nineties. I was just curious as to what kind of response I might get from him.

I was wondering if any Jewish person might want to explain why this Jewish person should cover himself with a trash bag while on an airplane.

Here's something to think about, Neo: Try not to blame your faults on what others do.

I was thinking about challenging you to a "walk" around Manhattan. But I just took it to be one of those things...and let it sit.

Gonna go watch the Masters now. Will check in from time to time...but may not have time to respond. Always interested in what you guys have to say, though.

Let me repeat myself: There are two kinds of "religion" those that I consider to be institutionalized superstition based on belief in the supernatural and those that aim to reunite the individual with the ground of his being (re-ligio or reconnection). In that sense not all religions of the second sort are wrong, but the first sort (based on the superstition of the supernatural) are all wrong.

Self-delusion is a wonderful thing. Your second kind of religion are just as wrong, and just as grounded in superstition as the first.