Are Catholics Christian?

reply to post by VIKINGANT

no i dont think catholics are christian

well moreso the catholic doctrine is not christian it
started out good but then joined pagans and christianity together

the rituals and holidays like christmas and easter are all the fault of the catholics which has given chrisianity a bad name

reply to post by iesus_freak

...the rituals and holidays like christmas and easter are all the fault of the catholics...

Instead of making this nice little blanket statement, how about reading through the whole 11 pages of posts and pick something to respond to.
A lot of great info is offered and you should be able to find something interesting to comment on.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by VIKINGANT

 

...But the garden variety practicing Catholic most definately...

If we want to be Christian, ourselves, we need to be able to recognize our brothers, no matter what brand name is on the sign in front of their church

Please note here that the post you are referring to is not my opinion as such but more a summing up of my take on the thread thus far as requested by Passenger. But you are right in that we must accept anyone claiming to be and showing evidence of Christian practice as a bonafide Christian.

reply to post by iesus_freak


Like jmdewey60 said. It would be well worth your time to read through. I know I have learned a lot. I would be very much interested in your views after the re read.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
I was talking about the same post, that you made, about how the church freaked you out with the gruesome statues and mean Nuns.
What I was trying to say is that was apparently something your parents put you through. It seems to have had a negative impression on you.

Well No my parents didn't know half the abuses I and my sister were going through at the time. When they found out, they took us both out of that school. The bit with the church, I didn't associate with the catholic church. Like I said I was 8 years old and thought all churchs were like that. The distinction for denominations wasn't something I knew all that much about at that age.

I do not remember outing anyone as a Catholic.

I don't know what you mean here.

If you could not figure out that he was a Catholic, on your own, well, I do not see any really good reason for that.

I wasn't trying to figure out what he was I don't care either ok?

I am trying to "support" civil discourse and finding common ground with our fellow man.

Then direct your sugar coated reprisals to the one that instigated the whole thing and quit playing kitchen psychologist over what you think my parents did or the catholic church.

- Con

I have followed this thread, and viewed all comments. The general perception of the Catholic Church has been negative in the extreme, and St. Paul has taken quite a bashing. What does it teach?

That Jesus is God incarnate and should be worshipped, that His birth, death, and ressurrection should be celebrated, and that His teaching should be observed by all mankind. The hatred toward it is tangible, much like Christ before His accusers. Its saints are glorious, its sacraments holy, its good works numerous. Its humanity evidently displayed in its weaknesses. It honours the Mother of God as first among Christians and Queen of the angels and saints. It has attracted opponents of all persuasions and atheists to enter into the one true body of Christ. Its philosophy is unimpeachable, its miracles almost countless. It stands against the world in the greatest ever war and holocaust of mankind, abortion. It upholds the sanctity of the family, and stands firm against the perversity of homosexuality. It has been recognised for what it really is by many men and woman of very high intellect, Christ's church on Earth, and it will stand till the end of time.

reply to post by Conspiriology

Then direct your sugar coated reprisals to the one that instigated the whole thing and quit playing kitchen psychologist over what you think my parents did or the catholic church.

I thought my "sugar coated reprisal" would not seem so remarkable, in the midst of what seemed, to me, to be a little flaming war.
I am glad that your parents did not knowingly subject you to harsh treatment.
I guess I need to go back and figure out who instigated the whole thing.
I will have to make a list of people not to offer advice to and put you on it.

reply to post by Robhaidheuch

The hatred toward it is tangible, much like Christ before His accusers.

If you want to use this as a comparison, I would have to see the Catholic Church (just my opinion) as playing the role of the Sanhedrin and Jesus as representative of the persecution of Christians who did not follow the letter of the Church law, meaning the Canons, concerning religious belief and practice.
Before I get accused of Catholic bashing, I would like to state that it is not only the Catholic Church, but all Churches who had the power to enforce its dictates with the power to kill its opponents, are guilty of crimes.
The Protestants were probably worse, in their persecutions than the Catholic Church.
An example is the case of the doctor Michael Servetus, who did not subscribe to the trinity doctrine.
He was hated by the Catholics and Protestants, equally.
The Catholics put him in prison for a while but when the Protestants got ahold of him, they burnt him at the stake.
The Catholic Church has no monopoly on punishing their enemies.
The Catholic Church is an easy target for criticism because of its size and its long history.(also they are not so big on killing its detractors, right now)
I heard Alex Jones say something interesting today, that it is OK to rip on any Church today, except for one (you might know something about this) the Anglican Church.
The reason for this is that the head of the Church is the Queen and you do not mess with the Queen.
On public TV here they show on C-SPAN the Question Time, when members of Parliament can ask the Prime Minister questions and I watch it every Sunday night.
I get the impression that there is a degree of animosity between England and Scotland.
I think (I might be showing my ignorance) it could, partially have to do with the slowness of the Scots, in accepting the Anglican Church.
I don't know, but I feel a problem there and it could have something to do with the Crown and that church being tied together.


[edit on 11-7-2008 by jmdewey60]

Originally posted by jmdewey60


I am glad that your parents did not knowingly subject you to harsh treatment.
I guess I need to go back and figure out who instigated the whole thing.
I will have to make a list of people not to offer advice to and put you on it.

I thought my "sugar coated reprisal" would not seem so remarkable, in the midst of what seemed, to me, to be a little flaming war.

jmdewey60 Get OFF my damn neck about it OK! The guy posted an ad-hom, I answered and put him on ignore after his first and only post to me and you want to call it a flame war? I haven't seen you say a damn thing to the guy who said the crap that started it but I DID see YOU defend him offering excuses for it which were absolutley ludicrous.

My post explained my sentiments but you won't shut up about it.

I will have to make a list of people not to offer advice to and put you on it.

Yes please do. If that was really what you're doing but I don't see it that way anymore. I see you as a passive aggressive little instigator trying to piss me off about something that isn't any of your business.

I don't know how else to say it.

Now Drop it already

jeeeez

- Con

[edit on 11-7-2008 by Conspiriology]

reply to post by jmdewey60


"I get the impression that there is a degree of animosity between England and Scotland.
I think (I might be showing my ignorance) it could, partially have to do with the slowness of the Scots, in accepting the Anglican Church."

There is a degree of animosity between England and Scotland. Scotland was conquered by the subterfuge of England which introduced the Protestant Reformation into Scotland as a means to divide and conquer the people. They murdered Mary Queen of Scots, as a Catholic monarch was an impediment to their plan to create a political Union with Protestant England; this eventually took take place in 1707. Traitors in high places within Scottish society accepted English bribes to betray our nationhood. The names of the reprobates and the sums paid to them is a matter of historical record.

England has also plundered the history of Europe's oldest nation state, telling the world that King Arthur was an ancient English king and that the legendary Robin Hood was an Englishman. The legendary tales of Robin Hood were, in fact, based on the life of Sir William Wallace (Braveheart).

The tales of Arthur are actually based on the Christian struggle for survival against the druidic pagans who practised human blood sacrafice to their demonic deities. King Rydderych Hael was one of two men used to create the composite for King Arthur. Out of pity, he spared the life of Mydrinn the Druid (Merlin) who had been found wandering the Caledon Wood, having lost his mind after the defeat of the pagans at the Battle Of Arderydd. Having spared his life, King Rydderych kept him captive at his castle on Dunbarton Rock, which sits on the northern shore of the River Clyde. Saint Patrick was born on Dunbarton Rock, at which time it was the capital of ancient Celtic Britain, and a colonial outpost of the Roman Empire. This early contact with Rome resulted in the Christian gospel arriving very quickly in these parts.

reply to post by Robhaidheuch


I guess my point is that if you lived in Scotland, it could be possible to reverse the roles between the protestants and catholics, in your point of view.
All that sort of hatred focused on Rome because of perceived misdeeds could be applied to the Church of England, if you were on the losing side, or the oppressed people, them add in a bunch of destruction of culture that the Catholics would not have done.

...telling the world that King Arthur was an ancient English king...

That would be an oxymoron because Arthur fought the "English".

[edit on 11-7-2008 by jmdewey60]

I'll repeat here -- Pharaohs where god on earth then came the Caesars as god on earth then came the Popes as god on earth. At least 500 of 2,000 years active in mass torture, mass murder, mass exterminations. Yet, millions today consider them a "Spiritual source"? The Jesuits claim the Vatican create Islam. Likely the Jesuits create the Mormons and others, no to mention communism, naziism, pirates, and the British Empire, etc... What was the question? Are they Christians? No, their telemarketers, their scam, con, boondoggle, ripoff artists.

reply to post by ReelView


I believe Jesus mentioned, that a kingdom divided upon itself cannot stand.

reply to post by ReelView

Likely the Jesuits create the Mormons and others...

I am not an expert on Jesuits, but I have a friend who is.
Some of his little pearls of wisdom drop to my feet, so I will throw in my two cents worth.
The quote, above, in Robhaidheuch's post, is a good one, but you have to understand how to use this principle.
Divide your enemies and stop division on your own side.
So, to figure out if the Jesuits are behind something, you have to look to see who would profit from it.
The Jesuits are agents of the Church and can do things to influence results of things already in motion.
Anything that is so long standing and successful, and in competition with the Church, you can safely guess was not instigated by Jesuits.
Mostly what they do is to neutralize things before they can have too much affect.


[edit on 12-7-2008 by jmdewey60]

Originally posted by jmdewey60

That would be an oxymoron because Arthur fought the "English".

[edit on 11-7-2008 by jmdewey60]

King Arthur was a Brit who defeated the saxons a germanic tribe. How can it be oxymoronic? He fought the "old english" but saying this is oxymoronic is like saying Abe lincoln wasn't President because he fought the southern states. Perhaps not the best analogy but best I could come up with off the cuff. Techinically, for ANYONE to be a Christian, one has to be "like Christ" or Christ like = Christ + like = ian or Christ ian

Until people start mistaking us for Jesus NONE of us are but we are to strive to be like he was. Religion has very little to do with that.

In fact, religion isn't even necessary and may be a hindrence. When one such group all claiming to be Christians winning the spoils of war, naturally they also win the rights to the way it is written in our history books.


As usual, God was on

there side

- Con




[edit on 12-7-2008 by Conspiriology]

reply to post by Conspiriology

When one such group all claiming to be Christians winning the spoils of war, naturally they also win the rights to the way it is written in our history books.

This is not a King Arthur thread, so I decline to discus this further (right now), but you do understand one point.
What comes next is what you do with that power.
How you deal with it could be an indication of how much Christianity you can claim for yourself while at the same time running down people who are not as guilty as yourself.
Here is something interesting I found while looking into this topic, A quote from a Oppenheimer, The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story.

Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons, in fact neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands…

The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of our ancestors came to this corner of Europe as hunter-gatherers, between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, after the melting of the ice caps but before the land broke away from the mainland and divided into islands. Our subsequent separation from Europe has preserved a genetic time capsule of southwestern Europe during the ice age, which we share most closely with the former ice-age refuge in the Basque country. The first settlers were unlikely to have spoken a Celtic language but possibly a tongue related to the unique Basque language.

Another wave of immigration arrived during the Neolithic period, when farming developed about 6,500 years ago. But the English still derive most of their current gene pool from the same early Basque source as the Irish, Welsh and Scots. These figures are at odds with the modern perceptions of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon ethnicity based on more recent invasions. There were many later invasions, as well as less violent immigrations, and each left a genetic signal, but no individual event contributed much more than 5 per cent to our modern genetic mix…

based on the overall genetic perspective of the British, it seems that Celts, Belgians, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings and Normans were all immigrant minorities compared with the Basque pioneers, who first ventured into the empty, chilly lands so recently vacated by the great ice sheets.

So, if you figure that language and ethnic identity is part of culture, you can see what the results of conquest are.
Dispite not being whiped out, racialy, but being ruled by a minority, the population is forced to accept the identity of their masters.




[edit on 13-7-2008 by jmdewey60]

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by Conspiriology

 

When one such group all claiming to be Christians winning the spoils of war, naturally they also win the rights to the way it is written in our history books.

This is not a King Arthur thread, so I decline to discus this further (right now), but you do understand one point.
What comes next is what you do with that power.
How you deal with it could be an indication of how much Christianity you can claim for yourself while at the same time running down people who are not as guilty as yourself.

Don't you mean how THEY deal with it could be an indication of how much Christianity THEY could claim for themselves? or are you speaking to me?

This is not a King Arthur thread, so I decline to discus this further (right now),

This would have been a good answer for Robhaidheuch to say to you then wouldn't it. As for the correction, a simple thank you would have sufficed.


- Con

[edit on 13-7-2008 by Conspiriology]

reply to post by Conspiriology

Don't you mean how THEY deal with it could be an indication of how much Christianity THEY could claim for themselves? or are you speaking to me?

I thought I was talking to you but I am not speaking to you as if I am judging anything about you.
I am saying that we need to judge what the Church of England did to the Catholics and compare it to what we could have expected, if it would have been the Catholic Church winning over the Protestants.
I think the English exhibited a degree of ruthlessness that the Catholic Church would have had no interest in.

This would have been a good answer for Robhaidheuch to say to you then wouldn't it. As for the correction, a simple thank you would have sufficed.

There is a difference between referring to King Arthur in relation to topic, but nit- picking over details of that illustration may be off-topic.
Thats was what I meant.
Anyway, Saxon were these people in the Story, but the English are Anglo-Saxon, so I was making a generalization.
I do not think you want to divorce the Saxons from the English, do you?
As for the Story, I can claim to have not just read the normal popular versions, but a slightly difficult version, the old Le Morte d'Arthur.
So I am not ignorant and in need of correction.(take a look at my avatar)
You can disagree with my generalization and I will not argue with you about it.


[edit on 13-7-2008 by jmdewey60]

Originally posted by jmdewey60

There is a difference between referring to King Arthur in relation to topic, but nit- picking over details of that illustration may be off-topic.
Thats was what I meant.
Anyway, Saxon were these people in the Story, but the English are Anglo-Saxon, so I was making a generalization.
I do not think you want to divorce the Saxons from the English, do you?
As for the Story, I can claim to have not just read the normal popular versions, but a slightly difficult version, the old Le Morte d'Arthur.
So I am not ignorant and in need of correction.(take a look at my avatar)
You can disagree with my generalization and I will not argue with you about it.

Yeah I thought the external you posted was very interesting too. I used to enjoy reading the King Arthur stuff a lot .

- Con

reply to post by Robhaidheuch

England has also plundered the history of Europe's oldest nation state, telling the world that King Arthur was an ancient English king and that the legendary Robin Hood was an Englishman. The legendary tales of Robin Hood were, in fact, based on the life of Sir William Wallace (Braveheart).

The story of Robin Hood predates the life of William Wallace by almost a 100yrs,so that rules that theory out.

The myth is that King Arthur was English,not the fact.Big difference.

Most British medieval myths and legends have elements from England,Wales,
Normandy,Scandanavia,Germany,Italy,Britanny and Ireland.Why? Because Britain is made up of all these ppl (and more) and bards and troubadors would travel around these places intergrating the stories,myths etc.The same thing can be found all over the world.

The tales of Arthur are actually based on the Christian struggle for survival against the druidic pagans who practised human blood sacrafice to their demonic deities.

What?
Seriously,do some research.By the time Christianity reached England the Druid faith had already been wiped out for several centuries by the Romans.The religion that existed was a mixture of Roman,Celtic and Nordic.
The struggle of Arthur came form the fact that when the Romans left,we were undefended and a sitting target for ppls such as the Anglo-Saxons.

Christianity was welcomed by many Celtic ppls in many different countries.
This is why the faith,Celtic Christianity,existed.




On to the topic of this thread....

I would say the Catholics are not Christian not because of their Pagan roots,as many faiths have roots in another,but because they go against the teachings of the Bible.


They used to forbid priests to marry.(several apostles were married.)

1 Timothy.4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

Mary never had other children after the Lord Jesus. A perpetual virgin.

Matthew 13:55 Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
13:56 And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?

Some members worship Mary and various Saints,which goes against not only various verses that say we are to worship only God,but it also goes against the very 1st commandment.It is idolatry to venerate images. We are not even supposed to make them.


Mary is the mother of God.

Mary is the mother of the earthly Jesus, not God.God has no mother.He has lived from everlasting which means He had no beginning.

Isaiah 43:10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

If Mary gave birth to God,she'd be God to.


The church is founded on Peter.

1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

Psalms 18:2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower....31 For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?

Confessing sins to a priest.Petitioning saints and Mary.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

I John 2:1, ...And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

It is the confession to God not the priest that gives absolution.
No on but God has the power to forgive our sins.







[edit on 13-7-2008 by jakyll]

reply to post by jakyll


Excellent Post!

This is the reason I gave in my first post. It IS possible to be a Christian who attends a Catholic Church but not likely considering the doctrine they teach is not biblical. I think once one DOES become a Christian and starts studying for themselves, they will leave that Church and attend one that follows Scripture. Catholics are one of the most ignorant (not dumb) when it comes to Biblical accounts. I think the nail in that religions coffin was the day they acknowledged Darwininan Evolution.

Just Plane STUPID.

I don't have anything against them personally but I hope someday they get rid of all that pomp, ritualistic bunk and get into the word and start leading people to Christ rather then leading them to "purgatory"

- Con