Good lessons for budding Catholic apologists

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You’ve all missed so many of my favorites!!

ME: See? It’s right here in the Old Testament
THEM: That doesn’t apply to us anymore - that was only for the Jews and God completely changed his mind about everything when He abolished the old Law and instituted the New Testament

ME: Well, Jesus commanded the exact same thing right here
**THEM: **That was before He died on the cross, therefore that doesn’t apply to us - it’s not within our dispensation

ME: Fortunately, both Peter and Paul say it here
THEM: Well that was prior to the close of the canon, and therefore that isn’t a normative condition for the New Testament church

ME: That’s funny, because Ignatius of Antioch said precisely the same thing here
THEM: That’s not in the Bible, so it doesn’t mean anything

And that’s about the way it goes…

God Bless,
RyanL
 
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RyanL:
You’ve all missed so many of my favorites!!

ME: See? It’s right here in the Old Testament
THEM: That doesn’t apply to us anymore - that was only for the Jews and God completely changed his mind about everything when He abolished the old Law and instituted the New Testament

ME: Well, Jesus commanded the exact same thing right here
**THEM: **That was before He died on the cross, therefore that doesn’t apply to us - it’s not within our dispensation

ME: Fortunately, both Peter and Paul say it here
THEM: Well that was prior to the close of the canon, and therefore that isn’t a normative condition for the New Testament church

ME: That’s funny, because Ignatius of Antioch said precisely the same thing here
THEM: That’s not in the Bible, so it doesn’t mean anything

And that’s about the way it goes…

God Bless,
RyanL
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LOL. Oh man, you nailed it. Now multiply that by ten people, and you’ve set up a year’s worth of debating.
 
Originally Posted by Alfie
Are you sure you had to spend hours on your computer just to respond to all the allegations? It was more like minutes wasn’t it?.
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scylla:
There is a big difference between this board and the other boards. Here I can respond quickly and give a factual answer without much question, since it there is a common knowledge on many subjects which don’t need support.
As an example I can quickly respond that Ignatius of Antioch called the Church Catholic about the year 100 without contest because this is true.
On a non-catholic board I have to give references, or else I am accused of lying and document every point in order to factually support every accusation. Catholics are called to give a reason for the faith and cannot just respond with emotion. Spend some time on a forum like Baptist boards and you will see.
This is the truth and you have to believe me since I am a Catholic and for us there is a penalty for lying, so I have absolutely no reason to misrepresent the truth.

God Bless
Scylla
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There’s no doubt in my mind that Scylla has spent hours upon hours defending and explaining the faith. As a Catholic on a non-Catholic board, you face a daily onslaught of lies, slander, mistruths, misunderstandings, sincere and genuine questions, off-handed wonderings, seemingly benign yet damaging false statements, true statements out-of-context…it’s almost non-stop on a lot of boards.

Non-Catholics seems almost obsessed with the Catholic Church–seriously.
I’ve spent countless hours chasing down a particular falsehood and trying to explain something in particular while fending off other things and answering genuine questions at the same time.
I know a guy (montanaman) who has probably spent 10 times the amount of time I have doing the same thing. All to have the person who threw out the misinformation in the first place to never directly respond or to say “I just don’t see it”.

I’ve said before that it has helped me to put myself in this position. As far as I can see, on religious boards NO ONE goes through anything like what Catholics go through. No one.
I recently mentioned on another board how jews, generally speaking, never have to defend or explain their faith whatsoever except for the odd explananation about certain religious practices etc. and that when faced with a situation such as the one a Catholic faces almost daily, they simply are at a loss. The same goes for nearly all Christian denominations. You’ll notice certain Protestants are really quite good at jabbing the sword or questioning Catholics on this or that, but turn the situation around and many are befuddled and don’t know where to turn. This is when you get the message board equivalent of “Yeah, but…what about…?”

I liken it to what others have said about conservative talk radio. Conservatives have had every single angle, problem and question thrown at them over the last twenty years or so. They have gone through a long process of being questioned, thinking things through, learning the answers to questions, understanding the playing field so to speak.
Liberals many times don’t question themselves or each other–they just state “facts” that “everybody knows” or say “Studies show…” etc etc. When you do directly question them about logic and problems in their beliefs, you oftentimes get emotion back instead of a cogent response. Sound familiar, Catholics?

That’s kind of what Catholics have gone through since the internet became so popular. Many Catholics who have gone onto the net and started talking religion were surprised to find themselves bombarded by anti-Catholicism and questions about Catholicism. I know I was. It’s a steep learning curve, but you either put up or get out. It kind of reminds me of the old “Radio Replies” guys and gals who would stand on soap boxes in public places and answer any and every question that anyone had about Catholicism. Stand up there for hours at a time and just take on all comers—always using good manners, which was mandatory in the work. You can just imagine what a tough job that was!!!

That was the reason for my original list up top. To only half-jokingly tell other Catholics who have decided to defend and explain their faith “Sometimes, this is what you’ll be facing. Hang in there.” 👍
 
And you missed garbage-can logic regarding the canon of Scripture:

How do you know that’s a garbage-can? (How do you know Ecclesiastes belongs in the Bible?)

Because it has garbage in it. (Because it’s inspired.)

How do you know that it is garbage? (How do you know it’s inspired?)

Because it is in the garbage-can. (Because it’s in the Bible.)
 
A few more…

THEM: I don’t accept that translation - either quote from the KJV or don’t quote at all
**ME: **Is the Greek suitable?
THEM: No. KJV only.​

THEM: It’s right here in Revelations…you just take the number of elders, divide that by the seven churches, add two for both ends of the sword…blah, blah, blah…conspiracy, Israel, Osama bin Laden…blah, blah, blah…and therefore the Pope is the anti-Christ!​

ME: I’m sorry, but that’s exactly what the Bible says. Take it up with the author.
THEM: Well…all your priests molest boys
**ME: **One, that’s completely inaccurate. Two, your pastors have faults as well - is that really a fair way to judge the teaching?
THEM: You worship Mary
ME: slaps head​

ME: …so you see, Scripture seems to take a pretty high view of baptism…
THEM: Look, the Bible is clear about the things that are important. Let’s not major on the minors.
ME: Isn’t that just another way of saying there are parts of Scripture that just don’t matter?
THEM: Well…all that’s important is that you love Jesus
ME: I agree that’s very important, but isn’t that *also *another way of saying that there are parts of Scripture that just don’t matter?
THEM: Indulgences, Inquisition, PURGATORY!!!

And that’s an average day on the non-Catholic boards…

God Bless,
RyanL
 
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Alfie:
Are you sure you had to spend hours on your computer just to respond to all the allegations? It was more like minutes wasn’t it?One thing that is for sure is that none of the moderators on this forum have to spend time answering allegations. They have their pit bulls to do it. It is very odd that 99% of the time I post anything on this forum I generally get a lengthly response to my post in less than 5 minutes. When I first came on this forum it was less than 30 seconds until I would receive a lengthly answer to my post. I must say you guys have everything down pat and fit to a tee. You have everything set up to target the Protestants. Like you said you constantly receive the same old boring questions from Protestants … so don’t sweat it. When you figure out which ones are going to be the greatest threat to you, you blitzkrieg them. I no longer have to worry about that. Like CM says I don’t know what I am talking about. The problem is even if I am inadequate to answer your questions some how, some way, the Holy Spirit will find a way to touch someones conscious inspite of my ineptness and he will show him the truth.
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What did I tell you about talkin’ smack on the public forums about the Mods?
Don’t bother to whine and try to play the martyr bit if you get suspended for it and try to claim that there was some other reason other than you violated the rules that you agreed to when you joined this forum. Shame on you Alfie! Really…

You KNOW that is wrong and you also know better than to assert that any one one here is a moderators pet pitt bull. (I’m a Doberman Pinscher thank you very much! :rotfl: :rotfl: )
Listen lady, this is a Catholic internet forum and if you are silly enough not to have the faintest clue what you’re talking about and then whine and cry that you get kicked to the curb when someone publicly proves you wrong when you had the nerve to make the silly assertions publicly to begin with then you really do need to think about ripping a hole in the cloud cover of that fantasy world that you live in and get in touch with real Christianity. The kind that asks questions in charity. The kind that gets real facts about a topic (especially about another religion!) before attempting to “evangelize” them with offensive and erroneous rhetoric.

Geeze! You will make saints of the lot of us because you try us and then we go out and actually pray for you! I did myself just this morning at Mass. (Yeah Mass, that thing you ain’t got courage enough to even go check out a couple of time!)
Miserere nobis!
 
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NPS:
They even have a message board! Why not get into some discussions? Tons of knowledgable Catholics on board and even some non-Catholics hanging around. Except you get in a thread or two and it’s as if you are in a different world…

These are just some simple things you can learn from the last week or so here defending Catholicism. I’m sure others have tips as well.
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And then there’s is Alfie who is great practice for all the budding apologists since you’re going to have to answer a lot of stuff that has absolutely no basis in reality, but you’ll have great answers for her if you know what you believe and why you believe it.
She makes a good practice opponent…
Pax vobiscum,
 
Bump. This is a good, funny piece from the past. And I’m also trying to flush out an old cyberfriend. 😉
 
I absolutely love this thread. 😛

Thanks so much for bringing it back up again. 👍
 
Thanks for the good laugh this morning…loved the thread.
It’s sooooo true…
 
You know I felt miserable most of the day (although it didn’t have anything to do with debating anti-Catholics) & this really made my day.

Thank you for the laughs…:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

And the TRUTH! :amen:

[SIGN]I am going to RCIA this evening (after our 3 week Christmas break)so I can continue learning those ‘traditions of men’[/SIGN]
 
CardinalSong, I love your line at the very bottom by your name.

I, myself, am a member of the Tiber Swim Team of '01. LOL

Ain’t it great?
 
Yes indeed it is:extrahappy:

But it is also the most difficult struggle I’ve had in my entire life (whoever said swimming across a river was easy?)

:blessyou:

I’m off to RCIA now…
 
I started roaming this forum about the time this thread was put out there, it is great to see it and funny to know that things haven’t much changed, except that I am now a Catholic!

So don’t lose heart, there are those of us who spent many hours watching those debates and found out how weak our “Evangelical” positions really were, you guys do make a difference to us “watchers” (ok lurkers, but that sounds so unsavory. 😉 ) 👍

Keep on keeping on! 😃

:blessyou:
 
Oh, Jeannette L, that’s wonderful and very encouraging. Thank you for letting us know.
 
sarcasm alert 🤷

Hey guys remember this:
  1. All Protestants HATE HATE HATE Catholics
  2. Every Protestant has the entire Bible memorized.
  3. No Protestant believes in anything Catholics do.
  4. There are no “schismatic protestants.” For example, no Protestant believes that their actions effect their salvation. Not one.
  5. It is best to not ask questions. Instead, tell people why their faith is wrong. In fact, make sure you let them know that if they don’t change their minds overnight, there will be HELL to pay.
  6. Protestants are way worse than atheists.
  7. Every Protestant memorizes ways they can insult Catholics. They fall asleep listening to James White.
  8. There is no such thing as a charitable Protestant.
Thanks for listening friends. I hope this helps you become a better apologist.👍
 
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