I completely agree with you. The Church has much to apologize for ... the Crusades, corruption, sexual misdeeds ... it is almost as if it is led by humans! And I don't argue the point you make about the Bible literally being a closed book. Hard to imagine there have not been prophets (and I am not including Joel Osteen as one!) in the past 2000 years or so.
I am a practicing Catholic who generally believes my faith can be summed up by trying to love your neighbor and live by the Sermon on the Mount. (Lord knows I can do better on both of those tenets.) I don't overlook the errors of the clerics of my faith (and when those errors do substantial harm to an individual or group of people, law enforcement should step in to resolve matters) but neither is my faith destroyed because of them.
My faith isn’t destroyed either. But I will not subscribe to a community who openly admits to drawing a wrong conclusion and unwilling to go in other areas because it’s “uncomfortable”.
Why? Why stop the pursuit?
If faith is so powerful, then there should be no fear in exploration. You can’t selectively choose what errors of the past are or aren’t acceptable.
(The old adage about not discussing politics and religion when I was a kid fascinated me.)
Why? Why these 2 subjects?
Well, it’s clear as day. It’s these 2 areas where people will lie, cheat, fabricate, persuade, dig in all in a sake of holding up an argument. And for what?
Fear. Fear that there is more to learn, more to uncover, more prophets, fear that they might be wrong.
COVID has been the greatest mind binding event in the last 100 years. We have been on an incredible, iterative exploration in science. Yet, when a global virus hit us ONCE AGAIN like they do every year and upon a slight mathematical uptick to HEALTHY, and people under 60 years old once we discovered the impacts, we let politics dictate our decision making to a perverse level that made zero sense. Country by country, state by state.
WHAT THE FVCK?
How can you take ANYONE seriously subscribing to any of that?
The Age of Enlightenment, the greatest achievement be damned too many times for selfish convenience.
It’s not that religion and politics shouldn’t be discussed. It’s that people are unwilling to be forthright. And it’s fvckin sad because it’s usually pride killing society because of it.