I'm a master's student in theology. AMA.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why do people bother replying to Greatest I am?

Unfortunately, people have a need to feel superior to other. Comparing oneself to Greatest I am is an easy and fairly harmless method of doing so, but rather pointless.  It's rather like a mineral proving itself harder than talc.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Fall as creating a samsara-like condition is a really interesting idea; my only objection to it would be that most forms of Buddhism don't posit an original pre-samsaric state.

IIRC, both Hinduism and Jainism posit an evolutionary model of the cosmos, with some epochs more enlightened than others. Is there no similar concept in Buddhism? Or am I misunderstanding things.

There's a similar (but, again, cyclical) concept in Buddhism, yeah. The key point is that every more enlightened epoch emerges as a proto-dialectical resolution of the conditions of less enlightened ones.

Are you familiar with Giambattista Vico and his efforts to reconcile linear history and cyclical history?

If so, what's your opinion of Vico?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I may be more Universalist than Unitarian as a UU, but that doesn't mean that I reject the Unitarian branch entirely. More like I'm agnostic when it comes to the Unitarian/Trinitarian question. I don't see where it makes any practical difference in how we should conduct ourselves or in the validity of Jesus' ministry.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Box pews were quite the rage once upon a time, and they were quite literally owned.  You also find then in some old Charleston churches.  I'm surprised you never encountered them at all in Maryland.  That said, Methodist churches aren't usually old enough to date back to the box pew era unless they were a church of another denomination that either converted en mass or was sold to the Methodists.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

A few more questions:

1) From a Protestant point of view, Catholic/Orthodox apologists often have this annoying tendency to give the farm away when it comes to higher criticism of scripture, but turn into obstinate fundamentalists when it comes to the historical evidence for 'their' traditions.

It's puzzling, because from my (admittedly biased standpoint), it seems like there is much better evidence for say, an early date for John's Gospel, than for early use of icons or prayers to the Virgin. How do you as a Catholic reconcile this apparent discrepancy?

I don't see it as a discrepancy mostly because I believe that there's both good evidence for a high view of Scripture and good evidence for an early origin for many Catholic/Orthodox traditions, or at least early things that developed into those traditions. For example, there's at least one extant Marian prayer that's probably from the third century--not the Apostolic Age, but pre-Constantine, so I'd still consider it "early Church". But, yes, I totally agree that there isn't high enough a view of Scripture among some of these people.

How early is "early" for John's Gospel? The dates I tend to hear are within the last decade or two of the first century--after the other Gospels, but easily within a somewhat-longer-than-average lifespan assuming the Apostle John was in his late teens at the Crucifixion/Resurrection. The most annoying historical-critical argument about Gospel dating that I've heard was from my Intro to New Testament professor last year, who insisted on a post-Roman-Jewish War date for Mark because Jesus prophesies the destruction of the Temple in Mark. I pointed out that, entirely ignoring the fact that she, an ordained minister, was presupposing that Jesus wasn't supernatural, it's far from out of the ordinary for radical preachers to prophesy disaster, so it shouldn't be surprising even to a thoroughgoing naturalist that Jesus predicted something that did in fact happen. She refused to respond and acted affronted that I'd questioned her even though one of our readings for the class made the same point I had, and I left class that day with deeply mixed feelings about coming to BU for my theology degree.

Good grief. One only needs to look at what was found at Qumran to realize that there were Jewish sects back in Jesus' day that were predicting the destruction of the temple. To use that as an argument for dating Mark as post-First Jewish Revolt simply doesn't hold water.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Bonus, non-canonical: Protoevangelium of James: Mostly true events, but written by some insufferable hack who wanted to promote Mary even more than was deserved, presumably without her involvement because she never committed a sin.

Mostly true?  I fail to see how the Protoevangelium can be reconciled with the Gospels.  If the events that happened there had actually happened, there's no way that Joseph, Mary, or Jesus could have lived Jesus' early life in obscurity.