Authority! (Authority?) And A Healthy Polemicism

As we all know, polemics are only healthy when they're hilarious.

Since the combox in the latest installment of "Maria: To Ave Or Not To Ave" has become relatively flooded and therefore burdensome to sift through, I've taken the editorial liberty of reposting the most recent aspect of the exchange:

Auret:"and the extremely unchristlike burning of dissenters is one of the primary reasons that i don't believe the Catholic church represents the teachings of christ nore holds any of the authority that it attempts to lay claim to..."

And my instigatory response:

M. Swaim:Using a phrase like "burning of dissenters" implies that always, the policy of Catholics has been to throw those who disagree on flaming pyres. Yes, a small and wicked handful of Catholics have done evil things to people they disgreed with in the past. I'll not even attempt to deny it. White people have also been bad to the blacks, and I'll own whatever part I share in that as well, although white guilt and Catholic guilt don't usually stem from the same root causes. Good Catholics are embarrassed about bad Catholics all the time, but most of them have read enough history to realize that the overwhelming majority of those who Did Bad Stuff To Heretics were completely out of line with ecclesial authority when they did so. Protestants of nearly every stripe have the same kind of baggage. This is why non-Calvinists avoided visiting 16th century Geneva.

The real reason to be against Catholics would have to whether or not what they believe is true. The fact that Catholics have done bad stuff doesn't prove Catholicism wrong, it proves Catholicism right about original sin and concupiscence. It would be similarly fallacious to disagree with Islamic fundamentalism because of suicide bombers. The real reason to disagree with Islamic fundamentalism is that it doesn't square with the truth. Ad hominem is a logical fallacy; ad substantium is not.

All this takes me back to the idea that the endless fragmentation of Christian sects (he said sex!) is the true quest for Organized Religion. What's more organized than a Christianity that has never sinned? I don't believe in organized religion; that's why I finally succumbed to leaving my free will behind and becoming a mindless automaton of the Roman Pontiff.