Christian Discussion Thread IV

[Sun Wukong]

Did the Church turn it's infallibility off in the middle ages or something?

You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If the Church didn't know better then anyone else, then what's it for?

Infallibility occurs under a very strict and specific set of circumstances. It is not incessantly infallible.

And the Inquisition was not that bad. They rarely tortured people (and, by torture, I mean legitimate torture) and, no matter what, the Inquisitors and affiliates were forbidden (by the Church officials) from drawing any blood, only around 1% of those tried were executed, and, in comparison to the other judicial systems of trying people at the time, it was very clement and much, much more progressive. In fact, people would purposely blaspheme against God in secular courts so that they could get out of them and be placed into the Inquisition's courts because they were much more lenient.
The notion that they were evil and gruesome and torturous came much later when authors would "romanticize" the Inquisition in books and so on.

The Crusades started because of Muslims invading Constantinople. Emperor Alexius appealed to Pope Urban (I think the sixth or seventh or so) for help, and he granted the help. They got the bad reputation, mainly, from renegade Crusaders, such as many of the Crusaders in the Fourth Crusade.

There's a lot of wrong to deal with here, but for brevity's sake I'll just point out that the only people who invaded Constantinople in the Crusades, were Crusaders.

[Bari]

Infallibility occurs under a very strict and specific set of circumstances. It is not incessantly infallible.

And the Inquisition was not that bad. They rarely tortured people (and, by torture, I mean legitimate torture) and, no matter what, the Inquisitors and affiliates were forbidden (by the Church officials) from drawing any blood, only around 1% of those tried were executed, and, in comparison to the other judicial systems of trying people at the time, it was very clement and much, much more progressive. In fact, people would purposely blaspheme against God in secular courts so that they could get out of them and be placed into the Inquisition's courts because they were much more lenient.
The notion that they were evil and gruesome and torturous came much later when authors would "romanticize" the Inquisition in books and so on.

The Crusades started because of Muslims invading Constantinople. Emperor Alexius appealed to Pope Urban (I think the sixth or seventh or so) for help, and he granted the help. They got the bad reputation, mainly, from renegade Crusaders, such as many of the Crusaders in the Fourth Crusade.

There's a lot of wrong to deal with here, but for brevity's sake I'll just point out that the only people who invaded Constantinople in the Crusades, were Crusaders.

Actually, why don't you make an attempt to address the argument other than, "You're so wrong!"

Modern historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. The Inquisition was actually an attempt by the Catholic Church to stop unjust executions.

Heresy was a capital offense against the state. Rulers of the state, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw heretics as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath.

When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig. It was not to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. The lord needed some basic theological training, very few did. The sad result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent judge of the crime.

The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, an attempt to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges.

From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.

Most people tried for heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or had their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed.

If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.

Where did this myth come from? After 1530, the Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from the printing presses of Protestant countries at war with Spain accusing the Spanish Inquisition of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World.

The Real Inquisition by Thomas F. Madden (2004)
Inquisition by Edward Peters (1988)
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1997)
The Spanish Inquisition: Fact Versus Fiction by Marvin R. O'Connell (1996)

For the Crusades, where did you learn your "history"???? The Byzantine-Seljuk wars were going on; Emperor Alexius I was taking reconciliatory with the Pope. Why? Because he wanted support from the West against the invading Muslims who were invading Constantinople during the Byzantine-Seljuk wars. Alexius sent ambassadors to Pope Urban II during a synod, and Pope Urban II granted the help.

The First Crusade, 1096–99: Conquest of the Holy Land by David Nicolle (2003)
God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman (2006)
The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 by Jonathan Riley-Smith (1998)

[Soldati Senza Confini]

For the Crusades, where did you learn your "history"???? The Byzantine-Seljuk wars were going on; Emperor Alexius I was taking reconciliatory with the Pope. Why? Because he wanted support from the West against the invading Muslims who were invading Constantinople during the Byzantine-Seljuk wars. Alexius sent ambassadors to Pope Urban II during a synod, and Pope Urban II granted the help.

The First Crusade, 1096–99: Conquest of the Holy Land by David Nicolle (2003)
God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman (2006)
The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 by Jonathan Riley-Smith (1998)

I think he refers to the event in the Fourth Crusade, which happened during 1203 and 1204, in which Venetian Crusaders diverted to Constantinople and sacked as well as destroyed it. Although Pope Innocent III wasn't the one who ordered the attacks, the Crusaders who were in their way to Constantinople attacked anyways because his letter that explicitly stated to not attack their Christian neighbors was concealed from the bulk of the army on their way to Zara in 1202.

Your sources only speak of the First Crusade, but they don't speak of the Fourth.

[Mostrov]

Did the Church turn it's infallibility off in the middle ages or something?

You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If the Church didn't know better then anyone else, then what's it for?

What exactly do you think infallibility is? It's regarding doctrine, not the actions of the Church. It doesn't claim that if a Pope committed Murder that he is 'infallible'.

[Sun Wukong]

There's a lot of wrong to deal with here, but for brevity's sake I'll just point out that the only people who invaded Constantinople in the Crusades, were Crusaders.

Actually, why don't you make an attempt to address the argument other than, "You're so wrong!"

Modern historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. The Inquisition was actually an attempt by the Catholic Church to stop unjust executions.

Heresy was a capital offense against the state. Rulers of the state, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw heretics as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath.

When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig. It was not to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. The lord needed some basic theological training, very few did. The sad result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent judge of the crime.

The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, an attempt to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges.

From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.

Most people tried for heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or had their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed.

If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.

Where did this myth come from? After 1530, the Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from the printing presses of Protestant countries at war with Spain accusing the Spanish Inquisition of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World.

The Real Inquisition by Thomas F. Madden (2004)
Inquisition by Edward Peters (1988)
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1997)
The Spanish Inquisition: Fact Versus Fiction by Marvin R. O'Connell (1996)

For the Crusades, where did you learn your "history"???? The Byzantine-Seljuk wars were going on; Emperor Alexius I was taking reconciliatory with the Pope. Why? Because he wanted support from the West against the invading Muslims who were invading Constantinople during the Byzantine-Seljuk wars. Alexius sent ambassadors to Pope Urban II during a synod, and Pope Urban II granted the help.

The First Crusade, 1096–99: Conquest of the Holy Land by David Nicolle (2003)
God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman (2006)
The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 by Jonathan Riley-Smith (1998)

How about you come up with your own posts?

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=694389

[Soldati Senza Confini]

How about you come up with your own posts?

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=694389

I am not surprised, really.

[Sun Wukong]

Did the Church turn it's infallibility off in the middle ages or something?

You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If the Church didn't know better then anyone else, then what's it for?

What exactly do you think infallibility is? It's regarding doctrine, not the actions of the Church. It doesn't claim that if a Pope committed Murder that he is 'infallible'.

This is a long ways from where we started. I had mentioned that the Church had taught that "to kill a Saracen is not a sin."

Now I don't hold that against them, as was said it is a product of the age, and wholly to be expected. But you can't play it both ways. You can't argue that the Church knows better then society while at the same time arguing that he Church is no better than society. And the doctrine that the Church is always, more or less, right when it comes to its official teachings doesn't help matters either.

[Bari]

For the Crusades, where did you learn your "history"???? The Byzantine-Seljuk wars were going on; Emperor Alexius I was taking reconciliatory with the Pope. Why? Because he wanted support from the West against the invading Muslims who were invading Constantinople during the Byzantine-Seljuk wars. Alexius sent ambassadors to Pope Urban II during a synod, and Pope Urban II granted the help.

The First Crusade, 1096–99: Conquest of the Holy Land by David Nicolle (2003)
God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman (2006)
The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 by Jonathan Riley-Smith (1998)

I think he refers to the event in the Fourth Crusade, which happened during 1203 and 1204, in which Venetian Crusaders diverted to Constantinople and sacked as well as destroyed it. Although Pope Innocent III wasn't the one who ordered the attacks, the Crusaders who were in their way to Constantinople attacked anyways because his letter that explicitly stated to not attack their Christian neighbors was concealed from the bulk of the army on their way to Zara in 1202.

Your sources only speak of the First Crusade, but they don't speak of the Fourth.

I talked about the Fourth Crusade. I explicitly said this was the cause of renegade Crusaders.

My sources do speak of the First Crusade because I spoke of the First Crusade, so I just got the sources that concerned my topic.

Did the Church turn it's infallibility off in the middle ages or something?

You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If the Church didn't know better then anyone else, then what's it for?

What exactly do you think infallibility is? It's regarding doctrine, not the actions of the Church. It doesn't claim that if a Pope committed Murder that he is 'infallible'.

Yes. Exactly. An action is not infallible. It can't be.

Actually, why don't you make an attempt to address the argument other than, "You're so wrong!"

Modern historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. The Inquisition was actually an attempt by the Catholic Church to stop unjust executions.

Heresy was a capital offense against the state. Rulers of the state, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw heretics as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath.

When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig. It was not to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. The lord needed some basic theological training, very few did. The sad result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent judge of the crime.

The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, an attempt to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges.

From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.

Most people tried for heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or had their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed.

If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.

Where did this myth come from? After 1530, the Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from the printing presses of Protestant countries at war with Spain accusing the Spanish Inquisition of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World.

The Real Inquisition by Thomas F. Madden (2004)
Inquisition by Edward Peters (1988)
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1997)
The Spanish Inquisition: Fact Versus Fiction by Marvin R. O'Connell (1996)

For the Crusades, where did you learn your "history"???? The Byzantine-Seljuk wars were going on; Emperor Alexius I was taking reconciliatory with the Pope. Why? Because he wanted support from the West against the invading Muslims who were invading Constantinople during the Byzantine-Seljuk wars. Alexius sent ambassadors to Pope Urban II during a synod, and Pope Urban II granted the help.

The First Crusade, 1096–99: Conquest of the Holy Land by David Nicolle (2003)
God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman (2006)
The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 by Jonathan Riley-Smith (1998)

How about you come up with your own posts?

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=694389

Yeah, it's literally verbatim right out of the books and the pamphlet. I'm not going to analyze anything for you on here when it's all done in a book. The sources are right there.

And, disregarding that fact, you have yet to prove anything contrary or that what I said was incorrect.

[Bari]

What exactly do you think infallibility is? It's regarding doctrine, not the actions of the Church. It doesn't claim that if a Pope committed Murder that he is 'infallible'.

This is a long ways from where we started. I had mentioned that the Church had taught that "to kill a Saracen is not a sin."

Now I don't hold that against them, as was said it is a product of the age, and wholly to be expected. But you can't play it both ways. You can't argue that the Church knows better then society while at the same time arguing that he Church is no better than society. And the doctrine that the Church is always, more or less, right when it comes to its official teachings doesn't help matters either.

And you're making a false argument because papal infallibility has nothing to do with that. The Church only knows best when it invokes infallibility.

[Sun Wukong]

I think he refers to the event in the Fourth Crusade, which happened during 1203 and 1204, in which Venetian Crusaders diverted to Constantinople and sacked as well as destroyed it. Although Pope Innocent III wasn't the one who ordered the attacks, the Crusaders who were in their way to Constantinople attacked anyways because his letter that explicitly stated to not attack their Christian neighbors was concealed from the bulk of the army on their way to Zara in 1202.

Your sources only speak of the First Crusade, but they don't speak of the Fourth.

I talked about the Fourth Crusade. I explicitly said this was the cause of renegade Crusaders.

My sources do speak of the First Crusade because I spoke of the First Crusade, so I just got the sources that concerned my topic.

What exactly do you think infallibility is? It's regarding doctrine, not the actions of the Church. It doesn't claim that if a Pope committed Murder that he is 'infallible'.

Yes. Exactly. An action is not infallible. It can't be.

How about you come up with your own posts?

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=694389

Yeah, it's literally verbatim right out of the books and the pamphlet. I'm not going to analyze anything for you on here when it's all done in a book. The sources are right there.

And, disregarding that fact, you have yet to prove anything contrary or that what I said was incorrect.

Well, again, to start with: The Muslims did not invade Constantinople prior to the Crusades. You're conflating a city with an Empire.

[Sun Wukong]

This is a long ways from where we started. I had mentioned that the Church had taught that "to kill a Saracen is not a sin."

Now I don't hold that against them, as was said it is a product of the age, and wholly to be expected. But you can't play it both ways. You can't argue that the Church knows better then society while at the same time arguing that he Church is no better than society. And the doctrine that the Church is always, more or less, right when it comes to its official teachings doesn't help matters either.

And you're making a false argument because papal infallibility has nothing to do with that. The Church only knows best when it invokes infallibility.

You're really going out of your way to drag this away from the area of intended discussion. Why?

[Bari]

I talked about the Fourth Crusade. I explicitly said this was the cause of renegade Crusaders.

My sources do speak of the First Crusade because I spoke of the First Crusade, so I just got the sources that concerned my topic.


Yes. Exactly. An action is not infallible. It can't be.


Yeah, it's literally verbatim right out of the books and the pamphlet. I'm not going to analyze anything for you on here when it's all done in a book. The sources are right there.

And, disregarding that fact, you have yet to prove anything contrary or that what I said was incorrect.

Well, again, to start with: The Muslims did not invade Constantinople prior to the Crusades. You're conflating a city with an Empire.

Okay, yeah, that could be so. I don't know about that particular part. They were, however, invading the Empire. They were aggressing on the Empire.

However, the Crusaders did not invade Constantinople either. Its ruler explicitly requested the help.

And you're making a false argument because papal infallibility has nothing to do with that. The Church only knows best when it invokes infallibility.

You're really going out of your way to drag this away from the area of intended discussion. Why?

You are the one who said it, not me. You can admit you were mistaken about it or that you misspoke or what have you, but that statement was unequivocally false.

[Sun Wukong]

Well, again, to start with: The Muslims did not invade Constantinople prior to the Crusades. You're conflating a city with an Empire.

Okay, yeah, that could be so. I don't know about that particular part. They were, however, invading the Empire. They were aggressing on the Empire.

However, the Crusaders did not invade Constantinople either. Its ruler explicitly requested the help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade

Yes they did.

And the Byzantines were asking for a few trained mercenaries to help them sure-up their borders in an ongoing fight against the Turks. They were not asking for a horde of knights and peasants to come rampaging through their territory on their way to lands outside of their Empire as part of a Papal land-grab. They were actually quite annoyed with that.

You're really going out of your way to drag this away from the area of intended discussion. Why?

You are the one who said it, not me. You can admit you were mistaken about it or that you misspoke or what have you, but that statement was unequivocally false.

Not really. The modern Church might argue that that statement was not made under the pretense of infallibility, but the contemporary Church absolutely would have maintained that their teaching was unarguable.

[Menassa]

The Jews' expulsion had been the pet project of the Spanish Inquisition, headed by Father Tomas de Torquemada. Torquemada believed that as long as the Jews remained in Spain, they would influence the tens of thousands of recent Jewish converts to Christianity to continue practicing Judaism. Ferdinand and Isabella rejected Torquemada's demand that the Jews be expelled until January 1492, when the Spanish Army defeated Muslim forces in Granada, thereby restoring the whole of Spain to Christian rule. With their most important project, the country's unification, accomplished, the king and queen concluded that the Jews were expendable. On March 30, they issued the expulsion decree, the order to take effect in precisely four months. The short time span was a great boon to the rest of Spain, as the Jews were forced to liquidate their homes and businesses at absurdly low prices. Throughout those frantic months, Dominican priests actively encouraged Jews to convert to Christianity and thereby gain salvation both in this world and the next.

I see. I looked in the jewish virtual library.

The Roman Catholics should have conquered palestine, renamed it Israel, and gave it to the Jews instead of forcing them out of spain.

I... what?

The Jews' expulsion had been the pet project of the Spanish Inquisition, headed by Father Tomas de Torquemada. Torquemada believed that as long as the Jews remained in Spain, they would influence the tens of thousands of recent Jewish converts to Christianity to continue practicing Judaism. Ferdinand and Isabella rejected Torquemada's demand that the Jews be expelled until January 1492, when the Spanish Army defeated Muslim forces in Granada, thereby restoring the whole of Spain to Christian rule. With their most important project, the country's unification, accomplished, the king and queen concluded that the Jews were expendable. On March 30, they issued the expulsion decree, the order to take effect in precisely four months. The short time span was a great boon to the rest of Spain, as the Jews were forced to liquidate their homes and businesses at absurdly low prices. Throughout those frantic months, Dominican priests actively encouraged Jews to convert to Christianity and thereby gain salvation both in this world and the next.

I see. I looked in the jewish virtual library.

The Roman Catholics should have conquered palestine, renamed it Israel, and gave it to the Jews instead of forcing them out of spain.

What is this... I don't even...

[Tmutarakhan]

I wouldn't go with completely illegal but to the point where at least abortions would only be legal for what they were intended for: as a therapeutic procedure to save a woman's life or to prevent severe, irreparable damage to her due to the pregnancy; which said instances are rather uncommon, but they happen; and our duty as Christians is to honor and protect human life. In those cases is a rather hard choice to make because you are dealing with two lives of two beings morally, but I feel that for medical purposes it should be a legal option.

Of course. I thought it is obvious that abortion should always remain an option in cases of medical necessity, so I didn't need to say it explicitly. I completely agree with your post.

Unfortunately this is not "obvious": the Catholic Church has taken the opposite position.

[The Flood]

He's right in what he said. Perhaps he should have said why, but then again statements such as this hardly warrant argumentation.
The reason your argument is utterly wrong is because you're judging an institution for things it did in the Middle Ages. If you're going to do that you have to judge everything and everyone from that time period. Are we also gonna say England is terrible and evil? France? Germany? Every other country? No, to do so would be foolish, because people then had an entirely different paradigm of thought, and applying modern ideals to people 1000 years ago is incredible naive.

Did the Church turn it's infallibility off in the middle ages or something?
You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If the Church didn't know better then anyone else, then what's it for?

It did know better, all the right teachings were there. However it occasionally fell victim to corruption from the outside, due to political pressures or etc. But even in the middle ages, there were many priests who followed the true teachings of the Church.

The most radical actions of the Church were clearly influenced by external political forces, such as the Crusades, or the Spanish Inquisition.

[The Flood]

Not with a crime as grave as murder.

When you kill someone in self-defence, the Church considers that murder. It is a very grave sin. But in many places, the state does not consider it murder, and it is legal.
The Church's definition of murder and the legal definition of murder are different in most countries. Yet there is no movement to bring the legal definition perfectly in line with the Church's definition.

The Church makes no claim that a person must not defend themselves or others in the face of death. It comes down to the duel consequence principal, it's the same as why the Church deems it permissible to abort a baby if the mother will die otherwise. The intent in this case is not to kill the aggressor, but to defend oneself or others from death, where the consequence may unfortunately be the death of the aggressor.

The Church also permits the death penalty in the one case that a dangerous person cannot be contained and prevented from harming more people, which is another similar principle.

[The Flood]

Of course. I thought it is obvious that abortion should always remain an option in cases of medical necessity, so I didn't need to say it explicitly. I completely agree with your post.

Unfortunately this is not "obvious": the Catholic Church has taken the opposite position.

No... it hasn't. Medical necessity is the only time the Catholic Church permits abortion.

Though sometimes strongly Catholic countries may ignore the official Church stance; I believe Ireland has at times forbade abortion even when the mother will die otherwise.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Unfortunately this is not "obvious": the Catholic Church has taken the opposite position.

No... it hasn't. Medical necessity is the only time the Catholic Church permits abortion.

Though sometimes strongly Catholic countries may ignore the official Church stance; I believe Ireland has at times forbade abortion even when the mother will die otherwise.

The Latin American dioceses are also pretty heavy on that. But it also depends on the order too, doesn't it?

[Blood Wine]

I have a question:

Suppose everyone in the world beliefs in god,more specifically one form of Christianity,then what?
Will the world change in any aspect? will it be any better?

[TomKirk]

Unfortunately this is not "obvious": the Catholic Church has taken the opposite position.

No... it hasn't. Medical necessity is the only time the Catholic Church permits abortion.

Though sometimes strongly Catholic countries may ignore the official Church stance; I believe Ireland has at times forbade abortion even when the mother will die otherwise.

Ireland and Latin America have done this because the Church hierarchy has demanded it. I do not see where you get an "official" Church stance that differs from what the officials of the Church say.

[Constantinopolis]

I have a question:

Suppose everyone in the world beliefs in god,more specifically one form of Christianity,then what?
Will the world change in any aspect? will it be any better?

That depends on whether they actually practice what they believe, or just go to church on Sunday but otherwise don't take their faith very seriously.

If everyone in the world were a truly practicing Christian - actually, never mind everyone in the world; if just the people who currently call themselves Christians were truly practicing Christians - that would be enough to end world poverty, and greatly reduce the number of wars and other conflicts. This is because truly practicing Christians are people who spend most of their time trying to help their brothers and sisters in need.

But I do not believe that it will ever be possible to get a majority of the world (let alone everyone) to be truly practicing Christians.

[Lalaki]

I have a question:

Suppose everyone in the world beliefs in god,more specifically one form of Christianity,then what?
Will the world change in any aspect? will it be any better?

That depends on whether they actually practice what they believe, or just go to church on Sunday but otherwise don't take their faith very seriously.

If everyone in the world were a truly practicing Christian - actually, never mind everyone in the world; if just the people who currently call themselves Christians were truly practicing Christians - that would be enough to end world poverty, and greatly reduce the number of wars and other conflicts. This is because truly practicing Christians are people who spend most of their time trying to help their brothers and sisters in need.

But I do not believe that it will ever be possible to get a majority of the world (let alone everyone) to be truly practicing Christians.

I fully agree.

[Sun Wukong]

Did the Church turn it's infallibility off in the middle ages or something?
You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If the Church didn't know better then anyone else, then what's it for?

It did know better, all the right teachings were there. However it occasionally fell victim to corruption from the outside, due to political pressures or etc. But even in the middle ages, there were many priests who followed the true teachings of the Church.

The most radical actions of the Church were clearly influenced by external political forces, such as the Crusades, or the Spanish Inquisition.

I'd ask you to back up this bullshit, but I'm quite sure that no about of argument could ever change your position. You will not be held accountable. Ever.

[Blood Wine]

I have a question:

Suppose everyone in the world beliefs in god,more specifically one form of Christianity,then what?
Will the world change in any aspect? will it be any better?

That depends on whether they actually practice what they believe, or just go to church on Sunday but otherwise don't take their faith very seriously.

If everyone in the world were a truly practicing Christian - actually, never mind everyone in the world; if just the people who currently call themselves Christians were truly practicing Christians - that would be enough to end world poverty, and greatly reduce the number of wars and other conflicts. This is because truly practicing Christians are people who spend most of their time trying to help their brothers and sisters in need.

But I do not believe that it will ever be possible to get a majority of the world (let alone everyone) to be truly practicing Christians.

Really? do you have any statistics to back this up? I've never seen any actual statistics on Christianity charity - I dare say charity would rather take a hit,while local churches would recieve more and put back into the community due to the small/close knit communities,bigger churches would slush the money into closed books to do god knows what with it

I'm not sure about less wars though;the same faith does deter invasions (I mean,not a lot of people want to kill someone of their own faith),but when everyone beliefs the same it falls to the background as a unimportant factor in day to day life (like taking the train to your job,it's routine and background radiation rather then a deciding factor)