That entire statement is an assumption. Did you ask my thoughts? No. You made a statement concerning what I think and feel ("this bothers you"). What did I actually say?
Notice here that I couched my evaluation within the adverbial qualifier of [perhaps], which is to say that I leave open the possibility that I am not correct and you can correct me. An actual assumption would not be accompanied by an adverbial qualifier.
If you would like me to directly ask you about what you think and feel, then I will: What is your expected goal in this thread? You've stated that the Church, such as it is, is 'broken, an d I agree with you that it is, but what do you think we should do to make this "go away"?
^ that. And when it comes to the topic that I started on this post, what bothers me is that people don't hash it out and come to a conclusion so we can stop being more fractured and creating more denominations. I can say my own thoughts and feelings and I don't need statements of you telling me what I think or feel on various different topics.
So, in your own view, what does it mean for us to "hash it out"? May I assume that "hashing it out" isn't equivalent to "debate the issues"?
How does that read? When you use that to make a point, like it adds validity to it.
It does add validity to the point, because Epistemology is the study of
'how we justify' our claims to knowledge, of any sort. In fact, you're doing epistemology right now and I applaud your effort.
We are ALL students, or should be. And I mean that in relation to God. We don't need a college degree with someone teaching us the bible to tell us what the truth is when God IS truth.
There are different forms of 'truth claims'; and there are different theories as to what Truth is. We have to differentiate the denotations between them so we don't equivocate our terms, or the methods by which any one of us tries to justify our efforts to establish our truth claims and move beyond mere subjective appraisals coming out of our own personal perspectives. This isn't just me saying this--this a lot of Christian teachers, leaders and philosophers who also have the Holy Spirit just as you or I do.
Can it help point you in the right direction, sure but again... people lead others astray or we wouldn't have 45,000 different denominations.
Sure. I agree that an education isn't a guarantee for any clear discernment. But by education, I'm not simply referring to what so many secular institutions are spitting out. I'm referring mainly to Christian institutions and/or Christians who have become educated and still remain mainly conservative in their politics and traditional in their values.
With this in mind, an education isn't something that is necessarily deprecated by God Himself, or else He wouldn't have sent us folks like the Apostle Paul or Priscilla and Aquila, or Apollos, or various teachers or scribes over the past 2,000 years. He didn't leave us alone in the hands of St. Peter the fisherman by which to later hear the Gospel. We have Peter to listen to, and we also have been given many others to listen to since Peter's time as well, haven't we?
Re-read your own statements to me.
Which statements do you want me to revisit and re-read? I'm not seeing any that I've made which could be read as a put down.