Discussing Catholic Beliefs w/ non-Catholics

[kalt]

Hello. I’m new here. How is it discussing Catholic beliefs here with people who aren’t Catholic. I’ve usually found it frustrating. People often believe they know what Catholic beliefs are, but they’re often mistaken.

Mary is the one issue that seems impossible to explain. The Catholic says, “I venerate Mary”, and the response is usually something like, “Do you agree that it’s a sin to worship Mary. If you do, then why do you do it?” Frustrating.

I’m wondering if this is the place for me. Do you end up having a lot of discussions that look like the one above–with the Catholic belief stated, only to have the Catholic belief fact ignored?

 

[BrianH]

Hello. I’m new here. How is it discussing Catholic beliefs here with people who aren’t Catholic. I’ve usually found it frustrating. People often believe they know what Catholic beliefs are, but they’re often mistaken.

Mary is the one issue that seems impossible to explain. The Catholic says, “I venerate Mary”, and the response is usually something like, “Do you agree that it’s a sin to worship Mary. If you do, then why do you do it?” Frustrating.

I’m wondering if this is the place for me. Do you end up having a lot of discussions that look like the one above–with the Catholic belief stated, only to have the Catholic belief fact ignored?

Stick around and find out

 

[paarsurrey]

Stick around and find out

Hi

A good piece of advice.

Thanks

 

[Syele]

Hello. I’m new here. How is it discussing Catholic beliefs here with people who aren’t Catholic. I’ve usually found it frustrating. People often believe they know what Catholic beliefs are, but they’re often mistaken.

Mary is the one issue that seems impossible to explain. The Catholic says, “I venerate Mary”, and the response is usually something like, “Do you agree that it’s a sin to worship Mary. If you do, then why do you do it?” Frustrating.

I’m wondering if this is the place for me. Do you end up having a lot of discussions that look like the one above–with the Catholic belief stated, only to have the Catholic belief fact ignored?

kalt some of the conversations do go in circles like that, many others do not. there are anti-Catholics that wander in and anti-Protestants that wander in too. most of the incredibly stubborn people go away after a couple weeks.

Stick around and join in a few conversations and you will get a feel for how it is here. the more resonable people who stay the better I’d say

 

[ralphinal]

Once you’ve been here a while, you will get the feel for how it works. You can generally pick out a bad thread, and you learn the bad posters. Now, there are some that I talk to anyway, because they can give good insight even when they are being difficult.

I’ve had some of my worst coversations with other Catholics. I always side with the Church and not all of us do. Most of the worst anti-catholic posters either leave or get banned in short order, as they tend to get fed up with being stood up to or they get too nasty for the site. Many anti-Protestants end up the same way.

 

[water]

Hello. I’m new here. How is it discussing Catholic beliefs here with people who aren’t Catholic. I’ve usually found it frustrating. People often believe they know what Catholic beliefs are, but they’re often mistaken.

Mary is the one issue that seems impossible to explain. The Catholic says, “I venerate Mary”, and the response is usually something like, “Do you agree that it’s a sin to worship Mary. If you do, then why do you do it?” Frustrating.

I’m wondering if this is the place for me. Do you end up having a lot of discussions that look like the one above–with the Catholic belief stated, only to have the Catholic belief fact ignored?

Part of the frustration is because we argue; thus, we want to win an argument.

 

[EmergencyOps]

Howdy, kalt. This is a great place for you.

I understand it can be frustrating when discussing your faith with non-Catholics. I am one of those non-Catholics, and I had a few misconceptions myself. I read up on what the Church believed from Catholic sources. My suggestion is to get a Catechism if you don’t already have one. It is a great reference manual for the Catholic faith. Also, there are books out there by converts-to-Catholicism. Scott Hahn is a great author, and I am sure many Catholics and converts alike have suggested his readings.

Welcome to the forum. I hope you have a good time, and that you are able to weed the good out of the bad. You will find a lot of helpful people on here who may have gone through the same experiences of you.

-Mark

 

[kalt]

Howdy, kalt. This is a great place for you.

I understand it can be frustrating when discussing your faith with non-Catholics. I am one of those non-Catholics, and I had a few misconceptions myself. I read up on what the Church believed from Catholic sources. My suggestion is to get a Catechism if you don’t already have one. It is a great reference manual for the Catholic faith. Also, there are books out there by converts-to-Catholicism. Scott Hahn is a great author, and I am sure many Catholics and converts alike have suggested his readings.

Welcome to the forum. I hope you have a good time, and that you are able to weed the good out of the bad. You will find a lot of helpful people on here who may have gone through the same experiences of you.

-Mark

Hi. Thank-you for the warm welcome.

I have a copy of the CCC, and you’re right, it’s so important to have when you’re discussing the Catholic faith. It’s also available online, so those who don’t want to buy one (it’s less than $10) can look up any topic. It would be so much easier if everyone would check the CCC before declaring what Catholic beliefs are. It would save time, and we could discuss what the beliefs are instead of only correcting misconceptions.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could actually get to comparing different beliefs on one topic rather than arguing about what each Christian church actually believes?

It would be great if the Catholics on the board came to the discussion with facts on other denominations, too. It’s so hard to do that w/ Protestant faiths, though. Lutherans have a catechism, I believe, but do any other denominations have anything like a catechism that I can read? Some of their church websites have what they call faith statements, but they don’t get into the nitty gritty of living their faith the way the catechisms do.

Are their good websites that give detailed information about different Protestant beliefs?

 

[jmcrae]

Hello. I’m new here. How is it discussing Catholic beliefs here with people who aren’t Catholic. I’ve usually found it frustrating. People often believe they know what Catholic beliefs are, but they’re often mistaken.

Mary is the one issue that seems impossible to explain. The Catholic says, “I venerate Mary”, and the response is usually something like, “Do you agree that it’s a sin to worship Mary. If you do, then why do you do it?” Frustrating.

I’m wondering if this is the place for me. Do you end up having a lot of discussions that look like the one above–with the Catholic belief stated, only to have the Catholic belief fact ignored?

Here, not so much. Other forums, definitely. The more Fundamentalist Protestant a forum is, the less likely they are to listen to any kind of explanations. They just aren’t interested.

I had this situation a while back on a Protestant forum, and someone made this accusation, so (just to see what would happen) I said, “Yes, I do. What do you want to make of it?”

The response was basically, “Hey, wait a second - that’s not your line!! Aren’t you supposed to say that you venerate her instead of worshipping her?” So, apparently they’ve got a script that they’re following, and it totally messes them up if you go off-script.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Hi Kalt, you need to learn to ask more questions of them. Most likely you will find someone who was catholic but were not well taught. Or you will learn that they read a polemic book that was not very well researched. Basically, ask them why do you think we believe that? What do you think the word venerate means?
What does the bible mean by bowing down face to ground?

biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=bow+face+ground

 

[paarsurrey]

Hi

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslims. The five pillars of belief in Islam/Quran/Muhammad are:

Belief in ONENESS of GodAllahYHWH.
Belief in the Angels.
Belief in all the Revealed Books of all the revealed religions of the world.
Belief in all the ProphetsMessengers, ChosenOnes of GodAllahYHWH anywhere in the world.
Belief in the hereafter.

So separate belief in Mary and her veneration is not needed; it is within the fourth belief mentioned above.

I think that was the belief of Jesus also.

Thanks

 

[EmergencyOps]

Are their good websites that give detailed information about different Protestant beliefs?

Here are some websites and some information that my youth/college minister e-mailed me:

“The following webpage is a outline of what Catholics officially teach (remember that not all Catholics are even aware of the official church teaching – same as Baptists!): 4truth.net/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=hiKXLbPNLrF&b=784565&ct=983759. Check out www.4truth.net for other belief comparisons. Another place that you might do well to spend some time is this website: sbc.net/bfm/default.asp. This is the main page that has links to each of the key tenets of what Baptists believe. In particular, you can read the section on “Baptism and the Lords Supper” to see how Baptist deal with Jesus’ words. This is very brief and you would do well to read through the article at the bottom of the page which goes into much more detail about each of the “articles of belief.””

 

[reteeks21]

kalt some of the conversations do go in circles like that, many others do not. there are anti-Catholics that wander in and anti-Protestants that wander in too. most of the incredibly stubborn people go away after a couple weeks.

How come that is? Why do we seem to go in circles so often? It seems that some threads go on forever, but it never goes anywhere. Instead of a decent and friendly resolution we end up making the problem worse. Excellent points!

 

[Syele]

Syele;3367392:

kalt some of the conversations do go in circles like that, many others do not. there are anti-Catholics that wander in and anti-Protestants that wander in too. most of the incredibly stubborn people go away after a couple weeks.

How come that is? Why do we seem to go in circles so often? It seems that some threads go on forever, but it never goes anywhere. Instead of a decent and friendly resolution we end up making the problem worse. Excellent points!

I think it depends. Sometime I notice that the people reading my posts don’t actually get what I’m saying. They get what they think I’m saying, which is a different idea altogether. That type is the hardest for me. I keep trying to reword it but they think they understand already so they don’t look at it differently.

The other reason is the one why many forums ban religion as a ok topic… People know in advance what they believe. So they all post what they believe. It not a conversation, it’s just both parties repeating their beliefs over and over. Those kind are pointless but happen anyhow.

It be interesting to brainstorm ways to avoid those to situations. But I dunno if it possible… its human nature.