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Kansasdad: You live in a good state! I was born and raised there. But now I live in Nebraska. I grew up a Protestant, Baptist to be exact. Five years ago I decided to really start studying Theology and this led me to the Catholic Church. The contraception issue is a very important one. As you pointed out so wisely, contraception is a great tool for the devil. Look at divorce rates since the 1960's. Have they gone up or down? They have gone up dramatically to where now over 50% of marriages will end in divorce. When did the "Pill" come out? The 1960's, and this was the begining of the birth control pill and the free love movement. This has had a tremendoulsy negative effect on society and the family. This is exactly why the Vatican has been the only Christian religion to stand up and say contraception is wrong. I would encourage all of you who think contraceptions is o.k. to really look into this matter. You will be surprised. Also there is a great audio tape on the market called "Contraception, Why Not?" by Dr. Janet Smith. This is the best resource I have ever heard detailing why contraception is wrong. You might be able to find this tape at a Christian Book store, but would be more successful at a Catholic Bookstore. If not there than ask a good Catholic priest where you can find this resource. God Bless you all.

I often times hear my friends say, "I'm saved." What does this mean and how can I be saved?

Horizoneast: I think we have come to the end of our argument. I have laid out my reasoning, backed by scripture why the Catholic Church is the fullness of the truth. You have given your best reasoning why the Catholic Church isn't the fullness of the truth. I might also add you haven't answered what Church you believe to be the fullness of the truth? I also never manipulated scripture as you have stated. I used a King James Version (Protestant Bible) to make my points. Anyone reading this thread who has a King James Bible can look up these passages I posted, which were written word by word from the Bible. I will mention to all the readers again that I grew up Protestant, Baptist to be exact. There are many good Protestants that are doing great things. I also believe that many Protestants will go to heaven, but not all. Just like many Catholics will go to heaven, but not all. But Protestants are not getting the fullness of the truth. As Bishop Fulton Sheen once wrote, if everyone knew what the Roman Catholic Church stood for, there wouldn't be 10 people against it. That's the real problem here. There are many lies and misconceptions about the Catholic Church that have been passed down since the Reformation. A Pastor who knows nothing about the Catholic faith will tell his congratation that all Catholics are going to hell, or all Catholics worship Mary, or that all Catholics are guilty of idolitry. All of these are not true and can be easily dispelled. Another problem is that many Catholics don't know the Bible. The basis of the Catholic Church and many of its teaching can be proven in scripture.

horizoneast you keep going back to onlyone scripture verse in 2 Timothy to base this notion of Sola Scriptora on? I will bring up John 21:25 again which states "And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suspose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." How do you explain this passage in the Bible. If you contend that all we need to know is in the Bible then we must all believe this. This is a problem with Sola Scriptora, one verse in the Bible will say something different from another. You can't pick and choose a verse that agrees with your belief and then discount all the others.

yod: I assume that you are Jewish? I will be the first to admit that I know very little about the Jewish faith. Except I do know that Jews don't believe in the New Covenant or Testament. They don't believe Jesus was God and that he was on Earth. Aren't Jews still waiting for the first coming of God? How does one logically dicounts the New Testament? I will also make a comment, you say that I am indoctrinated by the Catholic Church. I often get this comment from others when talking apologetics. One must resort to name calling and saying that I am brainwashed when they can't defend their faith. I spent 26 years as a Baptist learning scripture. This was great formation, but it wasn't the fullness of the truth. There is more to Christianity than scripture, and there is tons of evidence to prove this. Bastion: I will put this as simply as I can. The only Christian Church that traces its roots back to the apostles is the Catholic Church. This goes back to 30 a.d. to be specific. History reveals that Christ established ONE Church. "Thou art Peter. and upon this rock I will build my church." (Not Churches, and this is a real problem that Protestants have. As mentioned earlier there are 38,000 Prostestant denominations around the world.) Mathew 16:18 "He promised to be with That church (His Church) until the end of time. "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Mathew 28:20) "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Mathew 16:18). Consequently, that church must be in the world today. But, the only church in existance today that can trace its begining and origin back to Christ is the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore it must be the Church of Christ. But Lutherans, Calvinists, and others say, just as the Donatists did before them, that the Catholic Church preserved the truth of the Christ's doctrine down to a certain period but after that time the true doctrine was corrupted. This supposition, however, refutes itself, for, granting that the Catholic Church was the Church first founded by Christ, as history proves it to have been, then it never could of failed in its mission. Because remember what Mathew 16:18 stated "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades (hell) shall not prevail against it." Thus either the Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ or Christianity falls. And lastly if the Catholic Church was essentially corrupted in one of the earlier centuries, how could it be so vitally alive today? And may I add 1.2 Billion strong and growing. Catholicism is the largest religious denomination in the world.

I forgot to make one other point for all who believe in Solar Scriptora....where in the Bible is the word Trinity mentioned? It isn't mentioned in the Bible, so if you believe in the Tinity, which I think most Christians do, than you learned this from Tradition. Something to think about. Peace be with you!

Trust & Obey: I will address a couple of things that you have brought up. You first stated the argument that you don't believe that contraception is o.k. because it isn't in the Bible. Can you point out to me where it talks about the Trinity in the Bible? The Trinity isn't mentioned once in the Bible, but I bet you believe in the Trintiy, as any Christian would. So this notion of everything is in the Bible (Solar Scriptora), has no basis. Abortifacient means that a fertilized egg attached to a womens inner wall is sluffed off. You can read any insert from any pharmaceutical company that produces the "pill" and this is mentioned as a side effect. It doens't happen all the time, but can happen. Vasectomy is simply sterilizing a man. The Vatican teaches that birth control is taking God out of the picture. You aren't being fully open to life. You stated that God can will anything which is true. You could kill a person and God could raise that person from the dead, but how likely is that to happen. Just like how likely is a women to get pregnant if her husband is sterilized? And finally I will mention this again, every Christian Church was against birth control until 1930. Then slowly each denomination charged there doctrine and now they all allow this except one. The Catholic Church, and this never will change.

I must agree with Assisi it is getting way to late and I am going to bed. I love to talk about Theology, and I have respect for all the people who read what I have written and also to the ones who have responded. I do not judge any person, especially based on their denomination. We are all trying to get to the same place so lets not only try to get ourselves there, but help as many people as we can in the process. Good night and God Bless to all. See you on the boards tomorrow.

horizoneast: I would love to answer all your questions about the Catholic Church, but for now we are on Sola Scriptora. The problem with being boxed into this notion of Sola Scriptora is that it doesn't exist. And there is no place in the Bible that teaches Sola Scriptora. I would love to answer all you questions about the Catholic Church. You are trying to compare the Catholic Church to the Morman Church. This is like comparing apples to oranges. When does the Catholic Church trace its root back to. Let's see here how about to the time of Jesus. Peter, who walked with Jesus is recognized as the first Pope. When did the Morman Church start? How about around 1830 by Joseph Smith. So we have the Catholic Church with 2,000 years of tradition going back to the time of Jesus and then we have the Morman Church going back 170 years. Yod: The two Verses I stated were from the New Testament and I will give you one more. Look Up: 2 Thessalonians 3:6 "But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us." All of these scriptures were taken from the New Testament.

There are a few things that you have mentioned that we could debate. I could list 13 other places in the Bible that speak of scripture plus tradition. Also if you look at the history of Christianity when was this idea of Sola Scriptora first proposed and by who? How about Martin Luther in 1530. I believe the Augsburg Confession is the first formal Lutheran statement of faith. I'm not sure if this was his first time he publically brought up this idea of Sola Scriptora, but I'm sure it was sometime around then. The previous 1,500 years leading up to this the Church taught of scripture plus tradition. What do we go with 1,500 years of Church history or a fallen away Catholic priest who decided he would interpret the Bible the way he saw fit. It's all history.

horizoneast are you holding on to this notion of Sola Scriptora? And what about all the versus in the Bible that talk of Scripture plus Tradition? Look up John 21:25 "And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suspose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen." Or you could look up 2 Thessalonians 2:15 "Therefore, bretheran, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle." So if you really study scripture you will see that it is scripture plus tradition if you want the fullness of the truth. I also like 2 Timothy 3: 16&17, especially verse 17 that points out that the scripture will equip you for every good work.

Assisi are you from Stuebenville? You have done your homework very well. The reason I started this thread was to see what kind of answers I would get from my beginning question of how many Christian denominations are there in the world, and point out the mass confusion this has caused. I was born and raised Baptist. And then 5 years ago I really started looking into theology to find out what really is the full truth of the Church. I would ask a Methodist and get one answer, then I would ask a Pentecostal and get another answer, then I would ask an Agelican and get another. One church would teach that abortion was o.k., one would teach that same sex marriages were o.k., and then the next would teach that divorce was o.k., and all of them taught that contraception was o.k. There isn't any logical way a person could believe that God would leave us with 38,000 different Churches all teaching basically the same thing, but also teaching many other things. The bottom line is that everyone should be asking where is the authority.

I would certainly advise our seeker to avoid any group of people, which claiming to be Christian, embraces a particular doctrinal system taught by an individual leader, group of leaders, or organization, whose teachings, practices, and liturgy are commiserate with cultism and whose system of laws denies either explicitly or implicitly one or more of the central doctrines of the Christian faith as taught in Holy Scripture. And I would warn our friend to be very wary of any ecclesiastical system, which claims to be the

Assisi: You might be on to something here, can you be more clear with your answer? I will state the question in more direct terms. What Church is at the root of Christianity? Is there one?

You are very correct Bastion.

Gerioke: so with each translation of the Bible we can change history? This must be another example of things getting messed up. Bastion: Ealier you posted that we should look to the originals for direction???? Good idea. Who are the originals???

Bastion I think you may be on to something here......all these different denominations, each with a different pastor interupreting the Bible how does a Christian know who to believe. Next question: How many Christian Bibles are there on the market?

So we can all agree here that there are several thousand denominations around the world that claim to be of Christian origin. So now lets say I am a non-believer and I am looking to find out what this Christianity thing is all about. Which one of these 38,000 so called Christian churches do I turn to for the truth?

I was just wondering if anyone had a specific number of the different types of Christian denominations around the world?

The person who started this thread did a great job of describing why the Catholic Church opposes contraception. I would like to add a few things to the discussion. Every Christian denomination was universally against contraception until 1930. In 1930 the Anglican church broke from this teaching and allowed contraception for serious reasons within marriage. In 1931 Pope Pius XI wrote an Encyclical titled Kostie Konubia (not sure if I spelled that right) This translates into "On Christian Marriage." He reiterated why the Church oposses contraception. There was no debate within the Catholic Church until 1963 about the time of Vatican II. Now every Christian church is o.k with contraception at anytime, and the Catholic Church is the only Christian church that still opposes contraception and always will. Something else not mentioned was the fact that the Cathlolic Church does allow for Natural Family Planning. This is an option to regulate the number of children through a natural method. It also is very effective and is nothing like the rhythm method.