Protestant Forums?

[jwashu]

As a former Presbyterian I was looking for somewhere to debate the Truths I was finding in Catholicism. Since knew Matt Slick had debated Dave Armstrong a couple of times I figured CARM might be a fun place.

There are some good people there, some logical people and some rabid anti-Catholics. The main Moderator’s husband is a fall away Catholic so she believes that she understandings the “truths” about our faith better than we do… just don’t try to win an NFP arguemnt with her However while her personal feelings are very anti-Catholic, I have found her to be fair except for our initial run ins. I was listed as Reformed (which had been for 20 years) but started pointing out that I considered some Catholic positions to be more correct Bibilically and got written up for “decieving young posters” lol!

Anyway, there are a good group of us promoting the Faith and doing the standard job to point on the flaws in their arguemnts. All the Catholics, and I know we have at least 1 Priest or soon to be Preist, are good at backing each other up as well.

Needless to say… I never found an arguemnt that could pursuade me that my journey home wasn’t the correct one

Joe

 

[jmtosh]

www.thelife.com

its a non denom Christian site with a live chat. There are 2 chat rooms, the truth (no activity) and the life, which always has people on the other day there was like 20+. Ive gotten into some good arguments over there, everyone is usually friendly (mostly evangelicals) there are a few Catholics around their also.
the good thing is that there is no registration required so you just pick a name and go in. The only bad experience I had was when I argued that the rapture was not real and just made up in the 19th century. lol (boy did I take alot of heat from those evangelicals)

Hi all:wave:

I am impressed with the fact that there a some Catholics that seem to have a warm, friendly approach to Protestants. If you will I 'll tell you why I’m on this site: I enjoy reading the threads and talking about issues of faith. Now I know that folks on both side of the debate can get pretty worked up, sometimes exasperated. I am guilty of that, yet I do try to restrain myself. Yet I keep coming back for the interesting human contact. In a bid to
broaden my bases I typed in “Protestant forums”. (I also visit other forum sites related to News and current events, culture, etc)
When I saw a link to this thread I thought Bingo I’m back! Believe it or not (and I am not Catholic) I don’t like the sound of 123 Christian or the term “non denom”. I don’t want to bash Catholics, neither do I just want to refute them. I am interested in the person and what they have to say and try to respond accordingly.
What I don’t believe in (and I often get the impression Catholics have this view of protestsnts) is an auditorium packed with a Charismatic unruly mob listening to a slick televangelist type guy.
I attend a local Church that truly is non-denom in that number 1 we don’t advertise this and 2 we have fellowship with anybody who profess faith in Christ and have ministers from Methodist, Baptist and other Protestant backgrounds.
My experience of non - denom emblazoned churches is that they are pretty much auditorium / stadium type hyper stuff. Which to be frank I simply do not approve of.
Well, I think I will try the thread you recommend. By the way - I go to an evangelical church which does not believe in the Rapture and also say i starte in the 1830s!
You must have a lot of Rapture believing, auditorium packed Catholic baiters in the U.S.!

 

[Rob_Brown]

Hey all, I hope you are all having an awesome day!

I am having trouble with some of the links posted, they take me to websites that are different then the ones described. I was really hoping to help you all out in the debates.

I have not yet tried the CARM site yet, perhaps I could have some fun over there.

God Bless

 

[fdesales]

:extrahappy: Thanks for the link!!!
I just signed up, I can’t wait to refute the person who said Catholicism is a cult.

Anyway, I love debates…

I am an active member of 123Christiansforums.net, (francisdesales there, by the way), and Catholic discussion is not tolerated. It is against the ToS. If someone attacks something Catholic, you are generally allowed to make one rebuttal, but then they stop the conversation.

The exception is their “Debate” forum, where you can talk about anything one on one…

Most of the non-Catholics there are reasonable, and the worse thing for their concepts of Catholicism is for someone to blow in there and start preaching about how they are all going to hell because they are not Catholic. Most are ambivalent, although there are some rabid anti-catholics (whom I correct often enough).

PM me when you get there, we need a few reasonable Catholics willing to spread our view of the faith…

Regards,

fdesales

 

[fdesales]

Does anyone know any protestant sites that have active live chatrooms? I find live chat more effective than trying to revive a thread that was posted days, weeks, or months ago. In regards to 123christian.com, they have a live chatroom, not nearly as active as their forums though. 123christian so Anti-Catholic, practically every thread bashes RCC. There are a handful of Catholics that defend the faith there, believe it or not there are some dissenters who claim to be Catholic, but renounce the Churches teachings.

Untrue. I am francisdesales there, I post several times a day, and a great majority of the posts do not bash the Catholic Church. When they do, I am sure to be there, and the Moderators shut it down. Perhaps you are talking about a period about 6-12 months ago. Things have improved there, now that they basically do not allow Catholic particulars anymore.

You CAN debate Catholic subjects, but Catholic threads (like, “Catholic priesthood is false”) is not allowed. All the Catholics I know there (only 2 or 3) are solid. There used to be 1 or 2 who were “liberal”, but they haven’t posted in a long time…

PM me, I would like to hear from you over there - I am practically alone…

Regards

fdesales

(francisdesales at Christianforums.net)

 

[Rob_Brown]

Ok so I joined up at christianforums.com (as RCC DUDE) and CARM (as CatholicDude) and wow I must say I have not seen such uncharitable anti-catholicism in my life as I have a CARM!! Boy we sure have a lot of work to do over there, and it seems that many of the catholics that are there are not putting in a whole lot of effort to defend the faith!

If any of you are also posting there let me know and maybe we can work together to set the record straight with the Evangelicals there (boy are they nasty on CARM)

 

[fdesales]

Ok so I joined up at christianforums.com (as RCC DUDE) and CARM (as CatholicDude) and wow I must say I have not seen such uncharitable anti-catholicism in my life as I have a CARM!! Boy we sure have a lot of work to do over there, and it seems that many of the catholics that are there are not putting in a whole lot of effort to defend the faith!

If any of you are also posting there let me know and maybe we can work together to set the record straight with the Evangelicals there (boy are they nasty on CARM)

Yea, I was a member of CARM for awhile about 18 months ago. It was so bad, I just gave up, these people are terrible. Not that they could argue their way out of a paper bag, but that their responses were so idiotic and meanspirited.

Oh, and by the way, it seems they changed “Christianforums” from “123Christianforums.net” to just “Christianforums.net”. I hadn’t realized that, since it is one of my favorites…

Hope to see you there. PM me.

Regards

 

[x0stephanie]

Hi all:wave:

I am impressed with the fact that there a some Catholics that seem to have a warm, friendly approach to Protestants. If you will I 'll tell you why I’m on this site: I enjoy reading the threads and talking about issues of faith. Now I know that folks on both side of the debate can get pretty worked up, sometimes exasperated. I am guilty of that, yet I do try to restrain myself. Yet I keep coming back for the interesting human contact. In a bid to
broaden my bases I typed in “Protestant forums”. (I also visit other forum sites related to News and current events, culture, etc)
When I saw a link to this thread I thought Bingo I’m back! Believe it or not (and I am not Catholic) I don’t like the sound of 123 Christian or the term “non denom”. I don’t want to bash Catholics, neither do I just want to refute them. I am interested in the person and what they have to say and try to respond accordingly.
What I don’t believe in (and I often get the impression Catholics have this view of protestsnts) is an auditorium packed with a Charismatic unruly mob listening to a slick televangelist type guy.
I attend a local Church that truly is non-denom in that number 1 we don’t advertise this and 2 we have fellowship with anybody who profess faith in Christ and have ministers from Methodist, Baptist and other Protestant backgrounds.
My experience of non - denom emblazoned churches is that they are pretty much auditorium / stadium type hyper stuff. Which to be frank I simply do not approve of.
Well, I think I will try the thread you recommend. By the way - I go to an evangelical church which does not believe in the Rapture and also say i starte in the 1830s!
You must have a lot of Rapture believing, auditorium packed Catholic baiters in the U.S.!

What does Rapture believing mean??

 

[Rob_Brown]

Wow I must say that so far my experience with carm.org has been interesting. I recieved a warning from the Mod on the first post I made! All I did was simply point out how many posts made by evangelicals towards Catholics were very uncharitable! This is most definitely going to be a challenge to post there when it seems that the website (supposed to be for all Christians) is anti-Catholic.

 

[Rob_Brown]

An update!

It turns out that if you go to the Carm website in the forums it is perfectly allowable for anyone to attack the Catholic Church but if a Catholic happens to say anything to correct protestants in error, or to defend the CC against Evangelical attacks you are in the wrong.

I was told by a Mod. Mod21 to be exact that it is not against the rules of the forum to attack the catholic church but it is against the rules to attack evangelicals and others (even if it is not an attack on that person).

 

[mmmcounts]

Are there any protestant forums that I can have scholarly debates on?

Yes. I recommend looking up Theologica. This is one thread that was started by a Roman Catholic.
theologica.ning.com/forum/topics/how-do-you-know-which-texts
This forum places a heavy emphasis on respect for one another and interacting with other Christians in a manner that befits the Gospel. I think it does at least as good a job as CAF in that regard- probably better. You can be the judge of that, though.

There’s also CARM. That one gets a bit more heated. You won’t have any trouble finding anti-Catholic people there. There’s also a chat thing that can be fun. Talk to Matt Slick (his real name) or Diane. They’re on there almost all the time. There’s also a radio program. Once you get to know what’s going on there, you should call in and see if you can get Rev. Slick to change his mind on anything. I believe he did some kind of debate with one of the CA Live people kind of recently. Maybe you can look that up.

theologica.ning.com/
carm.org/

 

[mmmcounts]

Wow I must say that so far my experience with carm.org has been interesting. I recieved a warning from the Mod on the first post I made! All I did was simply point out how many posts made by evangelicals towards Catholics were very uncharitable! This is most definitely going to be a challenge to post there when it seems that the website (supposed to be for all Christians) is anti-Catholic.

Surprise surprise. That’s how it goes. Same thing happens just about everywhere. Here, for example, there’s specific rules against contempt for Catholicism but none against contempt for Protestantism. There’s rules against attempting to proselytize a Catholic away from Catholicism, but Catholics are encouraged to get Protestants to join the CC. You just have to know what you’re getting into and play within the rules. There aren’t too many places that function as neutral sites, and while CAF isn’t a bad place at all, it certainly isn’t neutral. From what I’ve seen, Theologica is the closest thing to it.

 

[fdesales]

Surprise surprise. That’s how it goes. Same thing happens just about everywhere. Here, for example, there’s specific rules against contempt for Catholicism but none against contempt for Protestantism. There’s rules against attempting to proselytize a Catholic away from Catholicism, but Catholics are encouraged to get Protestants to join the CC. You just have to know what you’re getting into and play within the rules. There aren’t too many places that function as neutral sites, and while CAF isn’t a bad place at all, it certainly isn’t neutral. From what I’ve seen, Theologica is the closest thing to it.

Being one of the very few Catholics on christianforums.net (posted nearly 4000 times, so been there a lot), I would say that the Moderators are very fair, even to me! I am pleased with it.

Another forum that I used to be very active on is “freerepublic.com”. (I was “jokus” there, I posted like 5000 times there…) They have a religious forum and there are a lot of Catholics there. Actually, that is where I learned a lot about Orthodoxy from my Eastern Brothers. Lots of Reformed Protestants there. The Moderators were amazingly consistent, there, as well.

I am convinced that when they realize that you respect them for our similarities, rather than condemn them for where they lack unity, you will win many points with our separated brothers and moderators there. Really. I was quite happy to be defended by other non-Catholic Christians, but that level of mutual respect takes some work, but it is the work of evangelization that wins more souls to the fullness of Christ’s revelation.

Regards

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Ok so I joined up at christianforums.com (as RCC DUDE) and CARM (as CatholicDude) and wow I must say I have not seen such uncharitable anti-catholicism in my life as I have a CARM!!

:tsktsk: Catholic Dude has checked out of CARM! To much nastiness, and enough is enough. :banghead: I won’t be back there.

 

[tealblue]

I spend alot of time at carm. I’ve been called a liar I don’t know how many times. I just wonder if I stay there long enough I will turn to be just like them.

 

[Holly3278]

Ok, I went to www.123christian.com and it was a Christian Business Directory site. I saw absolutely no links to a message board or a chat room. What’s going on?

 

[TerryOB]

Are there any protestant forums that I can have scholarly debates on?

I don’t know about “scholarly debates”, but the only forum I have found that is polite and respectful to Catholics is here: true2ourselves.com/forum/

I think you’d like it. Over there I am “CatholicCrusader”

Ok, I went to www.123christian.com and it was a Christian Business Directory site. I saw absolutely no links to a message board or a chat room. What’s going on?

It is a forum, but you didn’t miss anything. They don’t allow Catholics to discuss Catholicism. Catholicism is a forbidden subject at that site. They are real jerks.

 

[fdesales]

Ok, I went to www.123christian.com and it was a Christian Business Directory site. I saw absolutely no links to a message board or a chat room. What’s going on?

The correct url is “www.christianforums.net”.

Regards,

Fdesales

 

[fdesales]

I spend alot of time at carm. I’ve been called a liar I don’t know how many times. I just wonder if I stay there long enough I will turn to be just like them.

Yes, you will. Leave that place ASAP. It is spiritually disabling.

Regards

 

[SunnaB16]

:tsktsk: Catholic Dude has checked out of CARM! To much nastiness, and enough is enough. :banghead: I won’t be back there.

Poked my nose in there a few minutes ago, but didn`t get far.

Matthew Slick is so venomously anti-Catholic that, in a short article about the MANHATTAN DECLARATION, he says:
“…However, it is with sadness that CARM cannot sign the declaration for one significant reason: it includes Roman Catholics as Christians.”. etc etc etc.

Going by Slicks "What I Believe", his qualifications, and his photograph, hes a raging capital C Calvinist. Doesnt look as if hed be the life of the party: a typical Predestinarian (Is there such a word?) type.
Short fuse and high blood pressure would be fatal in there.

Has everyone signed the MANHATTAN DECLARATION?.