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Singinbeauty
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I guess so… I wonder how often it happens.
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mgrfin
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mgrfin
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You mean to say that the Catholic Church has NUMBERS and QUALITY?That’s true. Today, the Catholic Church holds a membership of 1.06 billion people around the world, and this is in spite of all manner of persecution and propaganda from Islam, Communism, Evangelical Protestantism, etc.
The only thing larger than the Catholic Church is the population of Asia.
Wow! Jesus knew what he was doing.
peace
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mgrfin
Guest
I thought you’d like it. You just sound like the ‘cupcake’ kind of person.It
If you thought the term ‘cupcake’ would somehow offend me, it didn’t. I find the term endearing… So thanx!
peace
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Singinbeauty
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I don’t know how to take this statement so I am going to take it as a compliment… LOL
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mgrfin
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It very definitely was a compliment.I don’t know how to take this statement so I am going to take it as a compliment… LOL
No prankster here.
peace
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Singinbeauty
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Well thank you… I tend to jump to conclusions and am trying to stop it! So I decided to go positive with this… glad to see I was on target!
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NotWorthy
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Cupcakes? Someone brought cupcakes?!?
BTW, singinbeauty, God bless your husband for his service!!! Oh, and God bless you, too!!! Too often the talks can continue to go downhill, resorting in someone’s mom being thrown into the fray. Thanks for not letting this happen.
BTW, singinbeauty, God bless your husband for his service!!! Oh, and God bless you, too!!! Too often the talks can continue to go downhill, resorting in someone’s mom being thrown into the fray. Thanks for not letting this happen.
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Palladio
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No, you aren’t following the argument: nothing calling itself protestant could ever be convincing as a choice to an outsider because it is too various, contradicting, self-contradicting: in a word, mercurial. If science presented itself in such a way, or literary criticism, you would never choose to enter into either because each is too slippery to grasp in the first place. Protestantism is publically self-dismantling, in brief, and ever more so the more it divides into sects, which it does by its very nature.
The lottery was concocted–as Edwin himself concedes, against the magisterial reformers intentions–by Protestants. It’s their game, but no rational person could ever want to play it because the odds–obviously not reflecting the will of God, any more than of the NT–are stacked against new players.
That alone is a sufficient reason to reject it.
Which leaves the RCC.
You may think that that is a matter of faith or accident, but it is easy to see why that is not so: subjects for other threads.
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Singinbeauty
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WHOA! LOL… No, no husband here…
Now, not to say I am not wishing to have someone fill that role but God has yet to grant me that request…
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jmcrae
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I find it interesting that non-Christians do, in fact, tend to gravitate to the Catholic Church rather than others when they are thinking of converting. They themselves seem to discern a difference between Protestant churches and the Catholic Church. I’ve never asked, because I don’t want to plant the idea of becoming Protestant in them, but it seems as though the Catholic Church has a greater and more unified presence - in plain language, it’s just easier to find.
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Singinbeauty
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I think it depends on what path God wants you on. I find many beautiful things within the catholic church but I don’t feel God’s pull for me to join. Why, I don’t know. I think that He is grooming me to fight for unity between us and so here I am…
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Palladio
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Two ideas: nothing binds them to protestantism, the principle of which is division; God plants in our hearts the desire for truth: not for an endless profusion of contradictory claims and counterclaims.
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jmcrae
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I used to think that God was calling me to unify the Church ecumenically, too - until I started wondering why God wasn’t calling me to unify my church with the Lutherans, the Anglicans, the Presbyterians, or any other Protestant groups - just with the Catholics?I think it depends on what path God wants you on. I find many beautiful things within the catholic church but I don’t feel God’s pull for me to join. Why, I don’t know. I think that He is grooming me to fight for unity between us and so here I am…
That’s when I had to admit to myself, in the privacy of my own heart, that I had an unaccountable attraction to the Catholic Church that did not exist with any other religion.
(It still took another ten years or so to actually become Catholic, though.)
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DanteAlighieri
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The premise is still flawed, though. It operates on the assumption that a non-believer would naturally see Protestantism as a divergence from Catholicism, when it is overwhelmingly clear that many people – believers and non-believers (including Catholics) – perceive Catholicism and the myriad Protestant denominations as multiple paths to the same goal. To come to the conclusion you have described would require a non-believer to have or to acquire a complete and unbiased understanding of the history of Christianity AND the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. Given that so many Catholics don’t know these things, it strikes me as unlikely that a non-believer would.
I will concede the logic of the “lottery effect” from the Catholic perspective, though.
EDIT:
In response to your thread about non-believers tending to gravitate toward the RCC – what exactly gives you that impression?
Peace,
Dante
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Kitty_Chan
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Pallidio
to answer you a bit back, what are you not following? Im noticing the same reasoning I used and have seen used by atheists against God. The so many churches is similar to the so many gods.
the lickety split is simply me calling you on the carpet for taking credit for something no one can do.
And the last part is not my desire to join the catholic church, especially since it has such a low value on my faith. Which I do reject that view, because I know better although it is depressing because it speaks of us never having unity. And that is a shame.
jm
perhaps that fountain is close, but from the balcony its miles away.
Singing
actually I was pretty depressed about this, then saw your posts. A burden is a interesting thing, I wish I could dump it, you give me hope, thanks. Afterwards I wondered if I was uneccesarily harsh, but no one has seemed to understand it anyway. It is how Im feeling about the catholic church and didnt before. Im trying to remember this is a slice of it, and not paint with a wide brush. But that could be part of the problem. Everyone talks and no one hears.
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Palladio
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I now see what you mean, and I would still offer a correction, which I thought I could easily assume and agnostics and atheists would know: nobody doubts that Protestantism is a break from Catholicism: history, which shows us that, only underscores, if it does not prove, my point. Whatever else the RCC offered and offers, that break–which produced a roll of the die, perhaps dice (Edwin would know the number) within decades–already began to generate the differing and contradictory claims and counterclaims which no rational person could possibly entertain as being a choice of true religion, a term hotly contested in the sixteenth century.
Again, while there are many, many astronomy departments, all are united in rejecting astrology (say) and in sharing and refining methods and in pursuing the same objective results. It thrives on conflict and disagreement, but that is creative and astronomers don’t fly off to deny astronomy and recreate everything, however radically new or true their theories. Astronomy absorbs change, even progress: it does not go spinning into dozens of distinct and disagreeing sects. If it did, it would, rightly, loose credibility as a way of knowing and believing.
I did not make the claim you put into your edit, though I agree with it: nothing at all from an intellectual point of view prevents evangelicals, for example, from coming, and many prominent ones are, into the RCC. Lots of reasons for this: no committment to church as such (rites and rituals wide open), so much of the RCC is based on the NT, and their version of Bible Christianity leads to Rome often enough: they were the only identifiable religious group to stand with the RCC on partial-birth abortion (read Robert George in First Things).
God bless.
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cyberjacques
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This is an important thread. There are plenty of nonbelievers who use precisely this argument to denounce Christianity altogether. And who can really blame them? Most of them have only experienced Christianity by having some nutjob tell them they’re going to hell because they haven’t joined their little congregation of 60 people downtown that’s the only true Christian church. Before I converted to Catholicism that’s exactly how I saw it. And I thank God every day for patiently but firmly dragging me toward Him.
It has been my experience that this is not true. Protestants from one sect are just as likely to view Protestants from another sect as damned as they are Catholics. The entire reason there are so many sects is because of the whole Do It Yourself religion concept that permeates Protestantism. But even as much as they believe in this, they are still led to believe that theirs is the only way, and all others are damned. This is because they understand, from a logical position, that there MUST be one truth, but they have trouble saying it without invalidating their individual interpretation. It eventually breaks down into: everyone is free to interpret the Bible for themselves (except Catholics), but my interpretation is better than yours, so you’re going to hell.
This is one of the largest flaws in Protestantism. Some sects believe that they are incapable of judging others, which completely breaks down any legitimacy that one sect may have over another. If one cannot judge, than who is to say what is right or wrong? Yet at the same time, they have plenty to say about who is most wrong (the RCC) and who is most right (their own pet sect). They are forced into double-think in order to prevent being judged but still be able to judge others. Which is why so many Protestants subscribe to the idea of irrevocable salvation. Once they’re saved, it doesn’t matter what they do or how they screw up, they’re still okay.
I would argue that the vast majority of Protestants believe precisely this, which is why they so quickly get hostile when challenged. They are perpetually terrified of being proven wrong, because they have come to believe that there is no right way other than theirs, and if their way is proven false that leaves them with a grand total of zero alternatives for salvation. And, like all false religions, it does not provide them with the depth of faith to not be afraid. Deep down they know that their foundation is shaky. They feel it quiver with every blow. Catholics who are educated in their faith don’t have this problem.
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RobHom
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That is correct.
But the problem is that nowadays, people like the “bereans” and others like the people who espouse to the false doctrines shown on the “contenderministries” website…there is a battle royal already in motion. To people like that…they are the only ones who are right, everyone else is wrong and on the fast train to hades. There is more infighting between protestants than you might realize… Have you ever seen the blood letting and aftermath of a “friendly softball game” between Methodists and Baptists??
It just doesn’t make the news…
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NotWorthy
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I grew up with 2 other Catholics in my class of 110. Most others were various Baptists, Pentecost, and various others. My best friend and I would get into numerous discussions about our faith. He and all his Baptist friends, in a united front, would tell me why I’m wrong as a Catholic.
Then when his friends would leave, he’d tell me what’s wrong with the First Baptist, the Central Baptist, etc. . None of them stacked up to his Missionary Baptist. It was quite comical.
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