I would not base my eternity on this.
People call it the roman church because it was formed by the roman emperor and because it is housed on the 7 hills in rome
Why would you expect only 2 denominations? You own church split into eastern and western? Have you studied the NT, there were always different false teachers roaming around with different false teachings.
I would not expect Satan to just spread a few lies around. I would expect him to get may. so he can keep people from the truth
I heard someone say something the other day that struck me, A half truth is no truth at all. I thought about that. If you have 5 people who all have different views of a particular thing. yet there is only one truth. You have 4 false truths, and 1 truth, even if the 4 have certain things that are the same as the one..
Now I would not expect all the churches to be the same. I am quite sure the church in Jerusalem was different than the one in Started by Paul in Galatia. Yet the one message of truth, the gospel of our salvation. was the same..
Any different, no matter how slight, Paul said was a false Gospel and should be anathema
[People call it the roman church because it was formed by the roman emperor and because it is housed on the 7 hills in rome]
Would you care to give me an historical reference that backs this up? The Catholic Church existed from the very beginning. There was but ONE Church for the first 1000 years of Christianity. Yes, there were heretical groups (Arians, Gnostics, etc.) but they didn't form a separate Church. They were defeated by Church Councils. In fact, the first 500 years of the Church's existence was filled with heretical groups, arguing that Christ was God and not man, man and not God, and so forth. We call these the Christological heresies because they were based on trying to define Who Christ really was. The Roman emporer, Constantine, eventually issued the Edict of Milan, which effectively ceased the persecution of Christians in around 313 A.D. He did NOT, however, found a new religion.
The term "Roman Catholic" was used mainly by English-speaking Protestants. It was part of their attempt to portray the Pope as the leader of just a faction of Christianity, as if he was the same as the monarch of England, who was the head of the Anglican community. It was not based on truth, however.
As with many terms that start out as an insult but later are embraced and adopted by the group they were aimed at, Catholics in the West over time have used the term to show their union with the Holy Father, and to distinguish the Latin rite from the other rites within the Church (Maronites, Coptics, etc.). "Roman" is not, however, part of the official title of the Church.
I almost agree with you with regard to the 5 people. However, having 5 people having 5 different opinions of what is true doesn't guarantee that one of them is correct. They can all be wrong. It does, however, mean that only one, at most, can be correct.
The different rites within the Church celebrate and worship in different manners, but have the same beliefs, not contradictory beliefs. And all are under the authority of the Pope.
My challenge to you, then, is IF you beleive that the original Church, the Catholic Church, has somehow strayed from the original message given her by Christ, how could another group (out of the thousands of Protestant groups) suddenly find the correct answer? Do you claim that Christ came back and straightened things out? Or, like the Mormons, who found these mysterious stones and an angel came down with a special stone to interpret them? How, exactly, was this different information arrived at?