Depends on your religion honestly. I'm Catholic. It's a religion based on traditions made by the early Christian church AND scripture (New Testament was compiled by the early church). The Bible to us is more like a reading supplement to give us general guidelines and principles. That's why it's so strange to see other religions based so strictly on the Bible, since that wasn't its original purpose.
Yes, ditto. I find it really bizarre how a protestant will berate me for putting store by the words of St Augustine, and yet they'll flock to see Billy Graham and buy all his books and totally base their approach to religion on what he says, even though what he says is so obviously just one interpretation of many.
And I also find it odd how my fundamentalist protestant friend sneers at my reverence for the saints' writings, when really, they're little different from the Bible - just weren't lucky enough to be written before the Nicene Council and so didn't make 'canon'.
Seems weird to me that two millenia of the finest minds of history putting serious and sincere prayer, thought and meditation into several lives' works, and the gradual evolution of a popular and fully accessible religion that permeated the lives of every human being, can be dismissed so easily and cavalierly... based on some myth that because it was all in Latin, nobody understood it... as if anyone wouldn't pick up a bit of a language that they spent virtually every day listening to from the day they were born to their very hour of death.
You get 'logical extensions', don't you? I mean that's what Catholicism is full of - it's a case of, well, the canon was closed at that point, but they so hadn't covered everything because y'know, times change and whatever. So... St Paul was basically taking what he understood of Jesus' life and work, and processing it in his head and taking it to the next logical step... and Christians continued to do that for centuries, making the Bible always relevant and accessible. I can't comprehend what's supposed to be gained by abolishing all of that and trying to shoe-horn today's issues and practices back into a template made for the 1st century Roman Empire, as though all the scientific and social-scientific discoveries and advances had never happened.
It kinda seems like they're throwing the baby out with the bath water, and doing just what they say the popes did in the Middle Ages, which they take great pride in disassociating themselves from - trying to re-close people's eyes that have been opened.
Speaking of which, have you read Eamon Duffy's
The Stripping of the Altars? Very eye opening.