[quote=mdk]The general perception of debatheists is such that 'Look at all these different denominations, all claiming to be the only way, how silly that is!' Naturally I came armed with a response, and once again it's bibbibbibblish. 

In other words (man, you people and your INSTANT demand of summary, weak! Read it! It's right there!) In other words, the different denominations make us stronger, not weaker. If the Catholic Church represents the eye and says to me (a mostly-baptist) "SEE! You have no pope! You're a fool!" then he's missing the point; the Church is men who follow the pope, and men who don't, and men who believe women can preach, and women who believe they shouldn't, and gay men, and homophobes, and more. The church is everyone who believes, no matter the nuance of that belief. It is not the rigid black-and-white mold so often imposed by those who don't really understand, but try to define. We're a body. We have hands and feet and eyes and toes and gall bladders and vomit reflexes.[/quote]

I find it interesting that you cut out the preceding and following portions of [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A12-31&version=NIV]that section of Corinthians[/url] that make clear what was being spoken of and chose instead to give the snarky summary for context. :lol

Anyway, that's an interesting view, and it's actually not one that I'd heard before. It seems to be pretty closely related to the pre-Enlightenment theological idea that all sorts of differing interpretations have relatively equal value. I'd have to say that as far as religious views on other denominations and such go, this is a pretty cool one that I can't find much fault with. It's definitely better than the "my version is right and yours isn't" thing, and massive strides better than the "my version is the absolute truth and everyone else is a heathen" position some extreme folks take.

The thing about it I [i]do[/i] have a problem with is that I'm one of those post-Enlightenment types who feels that if you're seeking or claiming to have the answer to something (such as the "how did we get here and what is the purpose of life?" question that religion tries to answer), it should be as close to absolute and objective truth as you can get it (which admittedly isn't ever going to be very close when trying to answer this particular question). Saying that every theory is valid and part of the answer, despite the extreme contradictions, just doesn't sit right with me. That's kind of like saying that evolution and young Earth creationism are both equally valid answers to why life on the planet is the way it is now and are in fact each smaller parts of the full and true answer, despite the glaring contradictions that make that illogical. Once you have a contradiction, that means one is going to be closer to the truth than the other, one is inferior and one is superior, so why bother giving equal credence to the inferior one when you could just toss it aside and stick to the superior one? My way of thinking about these kinds of things, particularly wanting concrete and evidence-based answers, is why I could never get into the religion thing in the first place, so no surprise that this point of view about denominations doesn't work for me. Seems like a neat idea for those more religiously inclined, and it's far better than those absolutist "my version is right and everyone else's versions suck" types for sure.

Oh, by the way, I don't find the huge number of varying denominations to be silly in and of itself, despite how it might've sounded in what you quoted. In the context of reliability, which was indeed the context given, it is a major factor that contributes to my conclusion that religion is unreliable if you're seeking a full and cohesive answer to why the world is the way it is. In that way the number of denominations makes religion weaker, but that's just in one particular context. The number of denominations is something I see as a proof that religious people aren't just mindless sheep, as a lot of edgy kids like to say, because each different denomination is proof that at least one person thought about things enough to come to a different conclusion than someone else reading the same thing. It would be easy to mock this in a number of different ways, but I look at it as proof that people actually are thinking about their beliefs and altering them when they find something that doesn't seem to make sense. It can be silly with some splits over tiny differences, but whatever, still shows someone applied critical thought to their religion, and that's a good thing in my book.