4 ms·

< Church is an institution. This is incorrect. Its original meaning is "assembly", "meeting" and refers to a group of people more than a building/denomination/

• magduf 7y ago
  Wrong. The original meaning of a word is irrelevant. The definition of a word in the English language is whatever people currently use it for.
  • high_5 7y ago
    That's how people start talking past each other just to prove their own worldview. And that's not communication.
    • magduf 7y ago
      That's literally how the English language works. It's defined by popular usage. So one person using a word "wrongly" is indeed "wrong", but if most people use a word "wrongly", then it becomes correct.
• pluma 7y ago
  That's orthogonal to the conversation. The conversation was clearly about organised religion, i.e. specifically the Catholic Church (in Poland or Germany but also in general as a larger entity). It doesn't get much more organised than the Catholic Church. It was also clear that "church" in this context is used in the sense of "a formal religious organisation", especially because churches as formal organisations are legal entities in these countries. What the term _originally meant_ is interesting but utterly irrelevant given that the meaning clearly doesn't match the intended meaning and the intended meaning is widely enough understood (and matches the Polish and German equivalent terminology). That said, linking to a website operated by a conservative Evangelical ministry that preaches Young Earth Creationism and considers Catholic "non-Christians" ... in a conversation that's primarily about the Catholic church ... is "funny" to say the least.