N
Newbie2
Guest
As an experiment, I got on a “Christian” forum about a month ago, lurked for a while, then openly started posting as a Catholic.
Purposefully, I kept my comments generic and avoided responding to any posts directed at Catholicism, mostly asking questions of clarification i.e. when someone claimed that such-and-such was biblical, I’d ask where. Or I started a thread about Lutheran understanding of the “real Presense” in the eucharist.
Talk about painting on a target!
In nearly every thread someone would say, “blah, blah blah, not like those Catholics that…blah, blah, blah”. Or my questions would be met with something like “I’m not falling for your Catholic baiting, you Catholics are trained to bait others with stupid questions to try to trick people”.
I must missed that part of Catechism, “Baiting other people on internet forums”.
Anyway, this is not to condemn every Christian internet forum out there, but was a learning experinece in just how vehement some folks can be in their Anti-Catholocism…and I’m not one who knee-jerks when our Catholic beliefs are questioned or criticized.
But Holy Cow! Being told repeatedly that Catholics aren’t Christians, we don’t worship the same Jesus, etc. etc. was at times rather shocking but at the same time, I must admit, very demonstrative at how emotion frequently trumps intellect.
I can’t tell you how many times the moderators would pile on, quoting non-existing scripture generically “The bible says that…”, ignoring what scripture says “the bible doesn’t say anything about that” not to mention the almost-comical-if-I-didn’t-know-they-were-serious-about-it interpretations of scriptural verses.
I had asked a question about where the folks on the forum go when they run across a difficult piece of scripture; their Pastor?, a bible commentary? A favorite biblical theologian? The answers that I got were pretty much all the same, arrogantly stating that scripture was easy and that if one just studied it, they would understand it and that they would never need anyone to help interpret for them.
I then made the observation that while they felt that was true, good for them, that in some way they had to depend on a translator unless they had an understanding of greek and Hebrew and knew the languages well enough to understand the nuances. The answer was many times a slam on that “RCC ****” and avoidance of answering.
Sigh…I’m exhausted. Charitably, I can’t chalk it up to stupidity although that certainly is a factor, but my experience taught me somthing valuable of how some “Christians” veiw themselves and Catholics.
It’s disappointing, but I take comfort that one of my best friends is a Lutheran minister.
Purposefully, I kept my comments generic and avoided responding to any posts directed at Catholicism, mostly asking questions of clarification i.e. when someone claimed that such-and-such was biblical, I’d ask where. Or I started a thread about Lutheran understanding of the “real Presense” in the eucharist.
Talk about painting on a target!
In nearly every thread someone would say, “blah, blah blah, not like those Catholics that…blah, blah, blah”. Or my questions would be met with something like “I’m not falling for your Catholic baiting, you Catholics are trained to bait others with stupid questions to try to trick people”.
I must missed that part of Catechism, “Baiting other people on internet forums”.
Anyway, this is not to condemn every Christian internet forum out there, but was a learning experinece in just how vehement some folks can be in their Anti-Catholocism…and I’m not one who knee-jerks when our Catholic beliefs are questioned or criticized.
But Holy Cow! Being told repeatedly that Catholics aren’t Christians, we don’t worship the same Jesus, etc. etc. was at times rather shocking but at the same time, I must admit, very demonstrative at how emotion frequently trumps intellect.
I can’t tell you how many times the moderators would pile on, quoting non-existing scripture generically “The bible says that…”, ignoring what scripture says “the bible doesn’t say anything about that” not to mention the almost-comical-if-I-didn’t-know-they-were-serious-about-it interpretations of scriptural verses.
I had asked a question about where the folks on the forum go when they run across a difficult piece of scripture; their Pastor?, a bible commentary? A favorite biblical theologian? The answers that I got were pretty much all the same, arrogantly stating that scripture was easy and that if one just studied it, they would understand it and that they would never need anyone to help interpret for them.
I then made the observation that while they felt that was true, good for them, that in some way they had to depend on a translator unless they had an understanding of greek and Hebrew and knew the languages well enough to understand the nuances. The answer was many times a slam on that “RCC ****” and avoidance of answering.
Sigh…I’m exhausted. Charitably, I can’t chalk it up to stupidity although that certainly is a factor, but my experience taught me somthing valuable of how some “Christians” veiw themselves and Catholics.
It’s disappointing, but I take comfort that one of my best friends is a Lutheran minister.
I am guessing you don’t?
!
him!