Not to mention you would think if Jesus taught it was not necessary to follow OT Law, his brother James and Peter would have known and not argued with Paul over it.

Catholics aren't the only ones practicing infant baptism. It is the way it is done in the Greek Orthodox Church also.

http://www.kimisis.org/Orthodoxy/Baptism.html

I saw part of a Greek baptism on the travel channel and the ancient Greek ceremony they are still practicing today was quite charming.

Superstition is very charming.

And the Greek Orthodox Church is Catholic.

Every 'church' is catholic.

But the Greek Orthodox Church is not Roman Catholic, it's not in communion with Rome. It's Eastern Orthodox.

So many Bible quotes being thrown around, are you really meant to take them literally? Does confessing sins mean you should, well confess sins?

How can you take that bit as literal but whenever I find a passage of the Bible I think is worthy of discussion, Christians just come back with 'it's not to be taken literally'?

Can someone clearly point out which bits are to be taken as they are written and which bits are not? It would really help with learning the good book.

Correct.

Protestant churches are not catholic.

Some are. Wiki says Lutherans and Anglicans (~protestant) and some methodist claim to be catholic. But let's leave it at that.

One more point ...

The East–West Schism in 1054, sometimes known as the Great Schism, formally divided medieval Christianity into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively. Relations between East and West had long been embittered by political and ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes. Prominent among these were the issues of "filioque", whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the eucharist, the Pope's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of Constantinople in relation to the Pentarchy.

Let's leave it at that.

I already know that. Thanks though.

I concluded that you had direct knowledge.

(as much as one can have direct knowledge of events in 1054)

Lol at the bread thing.

That you have to go to church to be a good christian.

That is how they collect the rake.

Your request will never be possible. While it's quite clear from my study of Judaism and Early Christianity that the followers believed their books to be literal and this allegorical/metaphorical/non-literal interpretation is a modern convention with no basis in religious history.

They had to figure out a way to continue to move the goal posts (well, now they don't even bother to set the goal posts down) the more it became apparent that most ancient superstitions could be explained and we gained a much better understanding of natural phenomenon, the age of the Earth, the development of species, etc.

2000 years from now, people will look back on the major religions of today with the same quaint academic curiosity that we look at say Greek mythology today.

Then your study was deficient.

Indeed, parts of the Bible are written according to the conventions of well know hyperbolic styles widely used in their cultural context.

What you do you think about Revelations being a contemporary political commentary told in metaphorical fashion and is actually not relevant to Christianity?

Revelation is, among other things, a contemporary political commentary told in metaphorical fashion. It was, and still is, very relevant to the Christianity.

Possibly, but I've seen too many references to the literal, inerrant word of God. Early Church teachings generally taught a literal interpretation. I'd like to know what stories you think are literal and which are allegorical. If you look at history, the moving of the goal posts is a relatively modern convention. Certain denominations allowing for Evolutionary components, the true age of the Earth, among others, were not mainstream and would have been considered heretical by the early church and through most of Christian history. There are still millions who refuse to accept modern science and appeal to the literal, inerrant Bible.

If it was a political commentary of the time, then it's not relevant to the end times or Christian theology and only relevant to its physical history.

Non sequitur, unfortunately.

Revelation was a contemporary political commentary AND relevant to the end times, i.e. the passing of the Old Covenant "cosmos" as that culture referred to it, which were then occurring according to multiple verses in the Bible.

Not sure I understand this part, so I'll rephrase what I meant. It can't be both a contemporary political commentary/satire/metaphor and describe the literal events that will occur when our life here on Earth as we know it ends and brings forth the Raptue/Armageddon/Apocalypse/whatever you want to call it.

The main events of Revelation are not about life on Earth ending. They're about the Old Covenant age coming to an end, which happened as prophesied in the first century AD, described using the conventions of a hyperbolic literary genre familiar to that place and time.

Wow, nobody's mentioned Mary's perpetual virginity and the immaculate conception. Or priestly celibacy. Or papal infallability. (Although VPIP did mention the magisterium, so maybe that falls within that.) Or Christmas (or other traditional Christian holidays). (Perfectly obvious one, by the way, though nobody ever thinks about it.)

(Also would be fun to do a thread of stuff that IS in the Bible that nobody ever follows or believes anymore. But I digress.)

That said, a word of defense for believers. This thread strikes me as hinging on whether you view the enterprise of theology as legitimate. In other words, does everything have to be written down in scripture to constitute a valid religious doctrines, or are people allowed to study texts and theorize and hypothesize to fill in gaps. Certainly that tradition has been going on for centuries (and there is, of course, a countertradition of Foursquare protestantism which has somewhat more recent vintage).

In other words, something like the issue of suicide damning you (mentioned above) is exactly the sort of thing where, if you believe theology is a legitimate enterprise, it can be reasoned as conclusion of several premises that ARE contained in scripture. As a nonbeliever, I don't see why that's particularly illegitimate. God gave humans an instruction manual; it's vague and general in some parts, so humans have to reason out the specific conclusions as best they can from the text.

I think the main one with practical relevance is the idea that sex before marriage is sinful. This doesn't appear in the Bible. I think a new denomination that emphasizes this fact would be hugely popular and beneficial.

Well I hate to be a nit, but that passage doesn't specify between a 9 month pregnant woman and a 1 day pregnant woman. It doesn't say that an embryo has a soul.