Along with the proto-churches that developed in the early history of Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church has mastered the art of making stuff up and then making it stick. Much of church doctrine and teaching is based on myths that the early church leaders manufactured in order to solidify their control. Since much of these "traditions", if not all of them, are human creations, why should we take any of them seriously? Why should we take the RC Church seriously? We wouldn't take anyone seriously who said this stuff today, would we? Oops, I forgot about the fundamentalists, who are making up for lost time as far as making stuff up goes.
Stuff the early church probably made up:
- Virgin Birth
- Perpetual Virginity of Mary
- Peter as the first main leader of the Church (everyone knows it was either Magdalene or James!)
- The Apostolic Succession (only men need apply, despite Paul's attestations of female leadership)
- The brothers and sisters of Yeshua were anything but siblings (cousins, half-siblings from another marriage, etc.)
- Oh poor is us in our martyrdom (ignoring the multitudes killed by the Church throughout the past 1900 years. The victims of empire became the Empire!)
- The Church was always a unity, under frequent attack by spin off heresies. Not!
- There are only 4 gospels and they were written by the authors, who were apostles. Not!
As you may guess, I consider all of these to be historically inaccurate, if not impossible. The Master Myth of the New Testament is a story created with the intent of making the early church seem inevitable and special.
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