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Victor, I’m uncertain how to answer that. I think my rock bottom belief is that ALL Christianity is founded on Tradition and Scripture, not just Catholicism. I think that this goes into the — am I correct here? Manichaeism? I think that’s correct — the fear of the physical, the view that material things are inherently evil and spiritual things good. You and I touched on this on another question, I believe.
I think that the “scripture alone” believers have fallen into the same type of error. Since man is sinful, if he wrote the Bible, than, it would likely contain contradictions, mistakes, errors. If God wrote, it, it doesn’t.
Again, this is an either/or that should be a both/and. God used fallible man to record the Infallible word. Just like God used mortal Mary to bring Immortal Word to us. I’m not confused by contradictions, and feel that the hypothetical (or real?) atheist debating validity of scripture based on his assumption that true scripture should contain no possibility for errors of transmission or translation of idiom is actually proving the case of the believer, but that’s the difficulty you face if you try to prove a negative.
Plenty of others have pointed out other errors, from the silly to the sublime — hare chewing it’s cud (I forget where that is referenced, likely in the dietary instructions) which it doesn’t, Paul’s conversion and who heard what (that’s a good one — a contradiction in the same book!).
It’s like this — I have plenty of arguments against Catholicism. I can debate you all day about Mary and prayer to saints and the eucharist, etc., but it doesn’t change the fact that I keep running into help and direction from Catholic sources that seem to be written just for me. That’s why I keep hanging around these sites — In the same way, if I want to find a reason not to believe the word of God, I can find it. But it doesn’t change the fact that I am in need of what I read there, and that it impacts my life greatly. I don’t have to believe that Jonah actually got swallowed by a great fish, or had a run in with a plant that gave mixed signals to get the point of the tale.
Sorry if this is a bit disordered or poorly expressed, but I’m at work again, being a state employee let loose on the computer!