Anyway, unfortunately, you didn’t finish your dialogue, so my putting in more comments is almost inappropriate, but, I was getting the impression that maybe Razib himself doesn’t know enough about Protestantism, as Protestantism is incredibly diverse, including some branches of Protestantism which are in fact hierarchical in much the same way that the Catholic and Orthodox are, although usually a little bit less so; the Episcopalians are the best example, but the traditionalist Lutherans are also fairly hierarchical, and I’ve noticed that even some Baptists and Methodists are starting to use the title "Bishop" for some of their leaders and are moving back to a "pre-protestant" form of organization.

Which to me only emphasizes that you’ve both got a point, but I mostly come in on your side Aziz because I acknowledge that ALL analogy is suspect and of limited utility, BUT, your analogy is, I think, stronger than either of you recognizes. And analyzing the analogy, including where it works and where it does not work, is a good education in understanding these two quite different faiths anyway.

FWIW, I’d be happy to talk about this on your podcast. I’d also be interested in educating Muslims on what the real differences are between Christians in general, as we need to get away from the whole "Protestant vs. Catholic" thing because the discussion is much more interesting than that. There are Protestants who can’t stand each other, for example, and can barely recognize each other. You can’t get much different than an Episcopalian Bishop and a Pentacostalist Minister, yet both consider themselves Protestant.

Also of interest to me is the intersection of Christianity and Islam in the formative years of Islam itself, and how the Orthodox Christian community influenced how Islam itself developed. I’ve also got a half-baked theory on how the Koran appears to, in part, be attempting to take sides between Trinitarian Christians and the heretical Christian groups of that era who no longer exist but were anti-Trinitarian.

There’s plenty to chat about, I would think. :-)

I’ve not been advailable today, for discussion.

But you’re right.

It’s about analogies and "not personal experience".

For just a minute there, I thought it might have been about religion(s).

Your analogy in general is pretty good, although I wish I could get the podcast to play in order to fully hear the discussion, but one thing I’d like to stress is that your analogy would be even stronger if you delete the word "pope" and insert the word "bishop" or even "archbishop" or "patriarch." Although the Protestant/Catholic divide, let’s face it, more or less started over some big arguments some people had with the Pope in the Vatican, it’s much too easy to get hung up on that particular title and person.

If you put the Orthodox in with the Catholics–and really, the Orthodox are virtually identical to the Catholics in organizational structure–a lot of this becomes even clearer. The Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox even have men running around with the title "pope" themselves, this guy and this guy. "Pope" started purely as a title of affection, morphed into something a little more formal, and then (the Orthodox would argue) become a bit "too" formal in the Vatican, with that particular Pope asserting that he had final ultimate authority if no one else in the church hierarchy could agree and a final call had to be made. Because otherwise, a Pope is just a chief bishop, and spiritually and authority-wise has no more authority than any other bishop; a Bishop is very much like how Shia view an Imam (or Ayatollah I guess); a Bishop is chosen by God through the Church to be the final teaching authority in any given area, and is a direct (spiritual) descendant of one of the original 12 apostles mentioned in the Bible. Or so, at least, all Catholic, all Orthodox, and some other of the most ancient sects (such as the Assyrian Church of the East) assert. The only thing that separates the Catholics from all those others is that they assert that the Pope, as the spiritual descendant of the Apostle Peter, has the same ultimate authority as Peter did as the leader of the original 12 apostles so if Peter says so, everyone has to fall in line. The other ancient sects of Christianity that still function uninterrupted by any reformation see the Pope in Rome as having originally been a perfectly legitimate Bishop but having taken on too much authority, being entitled to no more than a special place of honor and not any special authority above the other senior Bishops.

I’d otherwise say most of what you’ve written is spot on, and if you include this information your analogy is even stronger–although, as you fully acknowledge, there is no 1:1 parity, it’s an analogy an NO analogy is perfect.

I’ve often been tempted to observe on this blog that in North America, especially amongst various stripes of fundamentalist (Southern Baptist, Pentacostal, and the various non-aligned or loosely aligned fundamentalists) are organized very much like Sunni Muslims, and Catholics and Orthodox are very much organized like Shia Muslims. I usually don’t do so because any time I compare Christianity with Islam somebody gets pissed, and any time I observe anything at all about Christian Fundamentalists–no matter how often I point out that I have many family and friends who are fundamentalists and I don’t disrespect them, I just don’t agree at all with their theological approach–someone gets mad at me.

But it’s true: like the Sunnis, the Protestants, especially of the fundamentalist variety, follow a very liberal theology which stresses the individual interpretation of scripture, the individual relationship with God, and the idea that you will follow whichever religious leaders your own conscience dictates and whoever you find most persuasive; for Catholic and Orthodox, that’s the exact wrong way to go about it, the Church is the authority and you either agree with or disagree with that authority but you recognize the authority first and foremost and you don’t leave just because you’ve got issues with the current authority figures or problems with some of the teachings.

Now I just wish I could hear the bloody podcast. But I will say I’ll be happy to appear on your podcast any time you like, Aziz. ;-)

I did listen to the entirety of both (three)  podcasts,

actually, the very first podcasts to which I’ve  ever listened.

So, the answer to my question is ?   __________ .

Then, again, I could be wrong.

Analogies are after all, ermh, analogies.

I’m just trying to sort out some sort of truth twix a balance of  belief within Shia and Sunni and a comparison with  atheists , Catholics and Prods.

So what exactly is the point here ?

An atheist, razib, (a possibly self-proclaimed genius in the genetics  sphere) and  apparently former Islam guy is arguing about Catholics about which he has zero personal in vivo experience and yourself with  more non in vivo personal experience, are trying to decide exactly what ?