The Catholic Church

[guanophore]

Read Scripture.  Jesus founded the Church upon himself giving the Apostles the power to bind and loose which is illustrated well in the Acts of the Apostles.

Indeed!

Nowhere does Jesus ever imply that his Church would be one descriminating and condescending institution

I agree. I think, though, you are failing to separate the fallen individuals who are joined to the Church from the Holy Bride of Christ, who is pure.

which calls utter fabrications and actions to suit its wrongdoing leaders Oral Tradition

Please give an example of what you are talking about here. I do not understand.

Fabrications and wrongdoing of people cannot be part of Sacred Tradition. Sacred Tradition is part of the one Divine Deposit of Faith, and was closed with the death of the last Apostle. Nothing can be “added”.

Sacred Tradition is what produced the Scripture, and it is from Christ. That is why no wrongdoing and error can be found in it.

and makes it and it’s leaders equal in authority to the Word of God. The proof is right there if you are willing to accept it.

No, not the leaders, but the HS, operating through the Magesterium. This happens in spite of some of the leaders, who have been, indeed, corrupt.

I think you are “proving” a strawman.

Your logic is flawed. The one holy catholic and apostolic Church is not an institution. The Catholic church IS an institution. This is really a silly twist of words propagated centuries ago. Catholic is the proper name of a denomination. The word catholic (lower case c) however describes the Church Jesus Christ founded. It is universal.

No, the logic is not flawed, but rather, your understanding of what a “denomination” is. The denominations had to “denominate” from something. That something is the Catholic Church. All the churches that sprang from her are defined by which part of her teaching they rejected.

The Tiber is polluted in my opinion as was in Luther’s.

I agree that Luther put a great deal of pollution into the Tiber.

Oh really? I think that you need to figure out which door you checked your sense at.

How did you get so hostile toward the Catholic Church? You write like a person who has been deeply betrayed.

 

[guanophore]

No thank you. Through much prayer, I know that I am home.

That being the case, why are you here on CAF, spewing anti-Catholic hostility?

 

[guanophore]

I’d agree. The church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. It just happens to not be the Catholic institution, which is not what “church” meant in the Bible. Besides, when the custodian stops doing his job and starts performing all kinds of other “duties” you find a new one.

There are some problems with this analogy. The main one being that Jesus appointed this particular “custodian”. Therefore, if you sit in judgement upon the quality of work, and take it upon yourself to "get a new one’, then you are appointing yourself to be God.

Sigh. Perpetual Virginity and Sinlessness of Mary. Transubstantiation. Forcing people to be celibate if they want to serve in a certain capacity.

Sometimes I am amazed at how people come up with such vast misunderstandings of Catholic Teaching. None of the things you have listed here started after the Apostles, but before them. The Apostles were present when Jesus turned wine and bread into His blood and body.

I cannot understand your comment about celibacy at all. Celibacy is a gift, and must be freely embraced by a person. It is not possible to “force” anyone into it, anymore than it is possible to “force” marriage. It’s only relationship with service is that it helps a person to focus their attention on the Kingdom of God, rather than the needs of family.

If, among the ECFs, there was even a remote amount of disagreement over the smallest Catholic doctrine that is not explicitly found in the Scriptures, then that would prove beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it was not a part of the Deposit of Faith. If there was some mystical “Deposit of Faith,” then there never would have been a debate about the nature of Jesus (along with a hundred other things discussed and “voted” upon in various councils).

The debate was, just as it is today, not over the One Divine Deposit of Faith, but how different people understand (or fail to understand it).

I’m not assuming anything:

Thirdly, there is a difference between maintaining a simple faith, and maturing spiritually, and simply adding more complicated doctrines that everyone is required to believe. That’s not spiritually maturing, that’s “going beyond what is written.”

Indeed you are! You are assuming that everything that was to be believed was written. This is not the case. The Gospel was preached, and taught, and passed from one to another before any word was written. It was complete and entire when Jesus left it to the Aposltes, and it did not stop being complete when some of it was written.

It follows perfectly. The claim runs thus:

The New Testament came from the Catholic church, therefore, we should accept the Catholic church’s intepretation of the New Testament.

Actually, the Jews did not have an organized and universally accepted canon, which is clear from the book of Acts. The Church chose to use the Septuagint, which was the collection used by Jesus and the Apostles. But, it was not chosen because it “came from” the Jews so much as it came from the Apostolic authority.

It is also clear that Jesus did not interpret the scriptures the way the Jews of His day did. This is why he transferred the “seat of Moses” from the Pharisees to the Apostles.

The Old Testament came from the Jews, therefore, we should acce pt the Jews’ interpretation of the Old Testament.

This is a spurious arguement, as I have shown.

It’s the exact same argument, but you accept the former, and not the latter. Put quite simply, origin does not equal authority.

On the contrary, origin does equal authority. The bible was “originated” by the Church. It was the Church, in 382, that combined the Septuagint with the 27 books they authorized as canonical and created what Christians know as the Bible. It is ONLY the authority of the Church that this was done.

The problem is, Transubstantiation (just a for instance) is not an interpretation, but the exact opposite: eisegesis.

Actually,. it is neither. It is a Thomistic attempt to wrap ones finite mind around an immutible mystery. The word does nothing to what the Apostles believed and taught before it was coined, any more than the word “Trinity” or “hypostatic union” would.

The Catholic church is afflicted with the disease of explanation.

Just the Latin Rite.

 It's almost like a mental disorder.  Everything has to be explained.  Even what they call mysteries are not really mysteries, because they're explained in every detail.

Well, I have to agree with this in regard to Western Philosophy and how it has affected the study of theology. But I stick to my point that these concepts were taught by the Apostles, whether we accept them at mysteries, or try to explain them with philosophy and reason.

 

[guanophore]

And what do Jews say in regard to their authoritative original teaching in regard to the Messiah? That it’s not Jesus. Do you believe them? I think not.

Define “early church.”

Exactly! Which is why your theory of “origin” holds no merit. The Scripture has it’s origin in God, and is best interpreted by those whom God has empowered to do so. This is the Apostles, which is why we rely on the Church Christ founded.

“It’s a mystery.” Why couldn’t we just leave it at that? As I’ve said elsewhere, the Catholic church has a disease. I’ll call it, “explanationism.”

I don’t think of it as a “disease”, but more of faith seeking understanding. I will agree that the Latin Church has been beset with this need and desire to “explain” the mysteries. However, they are still mysteries. If you are not fond of the explainations, then don’t read them! Participate in the mystery.

Not really, since they hardly explain as many things as the Catholic church. The RCC is in a league of its own.

No, actually, they are not. They are in league with 22 non-Latin Rites who all embrace the One Faith. I must confess, however, that the non-Latins do not have such a steam for “explaining”. This is probably a result, as has been pointed out, that the Latin Rite is that which experienced friction with more heresies, most originiating in Europe, against which rebuttal had to be made.

Here’s a couple simple questions for you: Do the various creeds contain negative, or positive, statements? Are the canons from the Ecumenical councils mostly negative, or mostly positive? I think a study of church history will show you that the definitions are, with few exceptions, what the beliefs were not what they were not.

I think we will find that they are both, from the earliest days. Negative and Positive, both in response to heresies.

Well, this gets to the very basis of my disagreement with Catholicism. There’s no need to define it any further than what is explicitly stated in Scripture.

Well, if this were true, then there would not have been a need for further definitions prior to the canonization of the Scripture, which there were. Furthermore, it is essential to define things further because people understand differently what they read in the scripture. I have even read members here asserting that Baptism has nothing to do with water!

Because what happens is you end up explaing your explanations, then explaining your explanation to your explanation, ad infinitum. This is way too far from the simple faith held by the first Christians.

You are right, it is much easier just to state the truth, and people can either choose to believe it, or not. This is what the Apostles’s Creed accomplished.

 

[guanophore]

I see. Since I grew up Catholic (poorly catechesized), I suppose I would be on the same team were I to convert.

I am glad to hear this. It means that, once you resolve your issues, there will be no divisions. The Church in America had about 40 years of post Vatican 2 poor catechesis. Many of us are recovering from it still.

 

[Cinette]

For ckempston -******

I thought about the Menu over the week-end and decided that I should re-do it because it was too global. We need a more itemized Menu because then we can identify what it is that Protestants and certain Catholics (Cafetaria) reject the Menu idea illustrates clearly the problem I think. I also think that the Menu can be improved though:

La Carte

Entrée
Faith
The Foundation of the Church & appointment of Peter
Jesus’ promises
Oral Tradition
The Deposit of Faith
Apostolic Succession – the Papacy
Magisterium

Main Course
Written Tradition - Scripture
The Canon - Council of Trent
The Liturgy of the Mass
The Sacraments
The Eucharist
Works in response to Ten Commandments as contained in Matt 25:31-46
Identification of Sin

Dessert
The Kingdom of God

Aperitif
Salvation

It would be nice to receive your ideas on this subject.

Really ckempston I do believe that your focus should be on the things that matter most and the rest would fall in place.

Cheers
Cinette
:yup: :tiphat:

 

[John1]

The bad feelings about Protestants stem from the lies that protestants spread about the Church. Not sure if you know of Jack Chick and other such publications. There’s heaps of them. Anti-Catholic websites abound as well.

So I said to God, in humility, I believe that what His Church teaches is true even though I do not understand it myself.

You say that you are humble before Christ and Scripture. What you must remember is that Jesus did not go around with a secratary in tow saying write this. What did He do? He founded a Church to whom He gave the promise of leading into all truth.

So long as you make yourself the magisterium (and you do that when you decide what doctrine is to be believed or not) then you truly do not believe in the Church and so, do not truly believe either in Christ’s promise that He will guide her into all truth which means she will not teach error.

That is why I always say, one needs humility.

Put it another way. Say you are a learner pilot and you took off on a flight by yourself. You know a fair bit having read the manual and gone on a few lessons but you are still way far away from being an expert. Suddenly you hit turbulent weather and you are about to crash. You radio for help and the guy at the other end starts giving you instructions which to your poorly trained mind seems to contradict what you have learned so far. You just don’t get why he would be giving you instructions that seem contrary to the books you’ve read. Now you know that the guy at the other end is the best pilot in the world. He has received a lot of awards and has helped stir many like you into safety.

Do you follow all his instructions or not?

Hi Benedictus2,

Thanks for the encouragement and the your testimony about the “predestination” teaching. The pilot story was interesting, I’ll have to give that some thought. I’ve never heard about “Jack Chick” until I started reading some of the threads on this forum. It sounds like he’s just another one of those hate mongers, but I haven’t looked up anything about him. I don’t know anything about the other guy you mentioned either. I’ve run into a lot of these type people in my life so far, and it doesn’t look like there’s any shortage of them. At first they seem eager to help you, because of their concern about your well being and your relation to Christ and they want you to know the “truth”. After that at some point they trash all the “others” that they don’t agree with. Usually they try to say that their way smarter than your “average bear” and they are more than happy to lead into their understanding. Then they start getting alittle offended when you question some of the things that they are preaching. After that they tell you how stupid you are for not understanding what they are saying which is followed immediately with a tirade of insults. I remember a Jehovah Witness actually taking off his shoes and wiping the bottoms off, making sure that I saw him, before he left in his car.

I’ve read a lot of books about different beliefs like “The Gnosis of Ancient Wisdom” by William Kingsland,“Out on a Limb” by Shirley Maclaine", “Edgar Cayce’s Story of Jesus” by Jeffery Furst, and “Dianetics” by L. Ron Hubbard. The one thing that these all have in common is that they start out conveying the idea that you have to be a really “deep” person to understand what they are saying, it’s not for the ordinary slow witted dope, who will obviously never be capable of understanding. I guess that you’re not supposed to be offended by their original proposition unless your one of those who don’t buy into what they’re saying, then it doesn’t matter if it offended you or not.

You may be right about me leaning on my own understanding too much, I don’t know. In one of the threads, it may have been this one, someone mentioned the term “cafeteria Catholic” meaning a person who picks and chooses what teachings of the Church they accept and which one’s they don’t. Maybe there’s more wisdom in that term than insult. I’ve been a member of the RCC for several years. There’s a lot on my plate and I can’t swallow it all right now. I may never swallow all of it, but I am very respectful to my brothers and sisters in Christ and even if I don’t agree on some points, that doesn’t lessen my sincere love for them. As far as the hate mongers, they will probably always be around. I believe that some of them think that they are the “Defenders of the Faith” and that they are doing something that God would approve of, even though Jesus and the Apostles taught the exact opposite behavior to the disciples.

My belief is that all Christians make up the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ is the Church. I certainly don’t mean that to be offensive to anyone. I think that we all came to believe in Jesus through the teachings of the Apostles, and because of that I believe that Jesus prayed for all of us to be one with Him.

I’ve got to go now, but I appreciate your correspondence.

Oh, you better believe that I would take the instructions of an expert pilot if I was in the exact scenario you gave in your story!

 

[grampben]

That being the case, why are you here on CAF, spewing anti-Catholic hostility?

So you can only be a CAF member if you are thinking of converting to catholicism?

 

[sambos671]

So you can only be a CAF member if you are thinking of converting to catholicism?

I think he saying that if you’re totally content in your beleifs and are not seeking futher knowledge about Catholicism then possibly are you are doing is diologing Anti-catholicism rather than real debate.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Cinette,

What a delightful Menu!

But, you know… any menu that I have seen, always came with a price. This one looks like “The Blood of the Lamb” paid for it all!

Now, somehow… we have to put in the idea that we are accepting this Free Gift of our Redemption. And, I ran into a problem with how to line that up in a ‘Menu’ format…

For ckempston -******

La Carte

Entrée
Faith
The Foundation of the Church & appointment of Peter
Jesus’ promises
Oral Tradition
The Deposit of Faith
Apostolic Succession – the Papacy
Magisterium

Main Course
Written Tradition - Scripture
The Canon - Council of Trent
The Liturgy of the Mass
The Sacraments
The Eucharist
Works in response to Ten Commandments as contained in Matt 25:31-46
Identification of Sin

Dessert
The Kingdom of God

Aperitif
Salvation

 

[Peter_J]

So you can only be a CAF member if you are thinking of converting to catholicism?

No, but if you’re not thinking about converting to Catholicism, then that means that your purpose here is spew anti-Catholic hostility.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, ckempston,

I asked a pretty simple question. Can you, or can you not, choose whether to observe something like Lent, or another holy day or season? Or is that a requirement?

Let me try my hand at this. Yes, I think the question is simple and will try to give a simple response.

The best teaching is teaching by example - something Christ did in a most perfect manner, and something the Pharisees could only imitate through hyprocacy.

Ater Christ’s Baptism by John the Baptist, Christ left the area and fasted to prepare for His Public Ministry. The issue here is that Christ obviously considered fasting to be imortant. The Synoptics each record this event:

(1) Matt 4: 1-11
(2) Mark 1: 12-13
(3) Luke 4: 1-13

Let’s look at a dialogue between Jesus and the Disciples of John the Baptist, that was undoubtedly heard by others. All three Synoptics present essentially the same picture - and, this should be a good indication that this was considered important.

(1) Matt 9: 14-15
(2) Mark 2: 19-20
(3) Luke 5: 33-35

Basically, what is being said is that there is a need to fast, but Jesus’ Disciples are not to fast like John’s Disciples because Jesus is the Bridegroon and He is present. When the Bridegroom is gone, there will be time for this needed penance.

Christ instructed the Apostles to preach (Matt 28:19) and their preaching was how the Apostles taught those who listened. Christ did not revoke this command - and, through the Teaching Authority of the Catholic Church passed down directly from the Apostles - the responsibility to fast, as identified by Christ, is maintained during Lent.

Of course anyone is ‘free’ to choose to disregard the statements of Christ, as recorded in the NT. But, isn’t there a desire to be in closer union with Christ - not to see how distant we can be from His Love?

Lent is a time for preparing ourselves for the Glory of Christ Rising from the Dead - and to get there, we must travel with Him through a preparation time - leading to His Passion and ending with His Rising. For Christians wanting to have that, “…closer walk with Thee…” Lent is a special time that has been developed by the Catholic Church to accomplish this objective.

I hope this addressed your concerns.

God bless

 

[Cinette]

Hi Benedictus2,

Thanks for the encouragement and the your testimony about the “predestination” teaching. The pilot story was interesting, I’ll have to give that some thought. I’ve never heard about “Jack Chick” until I started reading some of the threads on this forum. It sounds like he’s just another one of those hate mongers, but I haven’t looked up anything about him. I don’t know anything about the other guy you mentioned either. I’ve run into a lot of these type people in my life so far, and it doesn’t look like there’s any shortage of them. At first they seem eager to help you, because of their concern about your well being and your relation to Christ and they want you to know the “truth”. After that at some point they trash all the “others” that they don’t agree with. Usually they try to say that their way smarter than your “average bear” and they are more than happy to lead into their understanding. Then they start getting alittle offended when you question some of the things that they are preaching. After that they tell you how stupid you are for not understanding what they are saying which is followed immediately with a tirade of insults. I remember a Jehovah Witness actually taking off his shoes and wiping the bottoms off, making sure that I saw him, before he left in his car.

I’ve read a lot of books about different beliefs like “The Gnosis of Ancient Wisdom” by William Kingsland,“Out on a Limb” by Shirley Maclaine", “Edgar Cayce’s Story of Jesus” by Jeffery Furst, and “Dianetics” by L. Ron Hubbard. The one thing that these all have in common is that they start out conveying the idea that you have to be a really “deep” person to understand what they are saying, it’s not for the ordinary slow witted dope, who will obviously never be capable of understanding. I guess that you’re not supposed to be offended by their original proposition unless your one of those who don’t buy into what they’re saying, then it doesn’t matter if it offended you or not.

You may be right about me leaning on my own understanding too much, I don’t know. In one of the threads, it may have been this one, someone mentioned the term “cafeteria Catholic” meaning a person who picks and chooses what teachings of the Church they accept and which one’s they don’t. Maybe there’s more wisdom in that term than insult. I’ve been a member of the RCC for several years. There’s a lot on my plate and I can’t swallow it all right now. I may never swallow all of it, but I am very respectful to my brothers and sisters in Christ and even if I don’t agree on some points, that doesn’t lessen my sincere love for them. As far as the hate mongers, they will probably always be around. I believe that some of them think that they are the “Defenders of the Faith” and that they are doing something that God would approve of, even though Jesus and the Apostles taught the exact opposite behavior to the disciples.

My belief is that all Christians make up the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ is the Church. I certainly don’t mean that to be offensive to anyone. I think that we all came to believe in Jesus through the teachings of the Apostles, and because of that I believe that Jesus prayed for all of us to be one with Him.

I’ve got to go now, but I appreciate your correspondence.

Oh, you better believe that I would take the instructions of an expert pilot if I was in the exact scenario you gave in your story!

Hi John1!

I enjoyed reading your post as it provokes thought.

I would be interested to know why you call yourself a “Christian Roman Catholic” in your profile? It implies that there are Catholics who are not Christian. Yes, I guess that you may be right. There are “Christians” who are not Christian!

Then you have the “Roman” for which we have seen the explanation on this thread. Without knowing this I have always called myself Catholic - couldn’t figure out why I should put Roman before it.

Blessings
Cinette

 

[John1]

Hi John1!

I enjoyed reading your post as it provokes thought.

I would be interested to know why you call yourself a “Christian Roman Catholic” in your profile? It implies that there are Catholics who are not Christian. Yes, I guess that you may be right. There are “Christians” who are not Christian!

Then you have the “Roman” for which we have seen the explanation on this thread. Without knowing this I have always called myself Catholic - couldn’t figure out why I should put Roman before it.

Blessings
Cinette

Hi Cinette,

I like reading your posts also. You got the point of my profile, which by the way I had just recently changed and I’ll explain why I did in a moment, but first let me say that in no way was I saying that all catholics aren’t Christians. I just wanted to get that out there before someone else starts reading this post and jumps to the wrong conclusion. I think that there are real Christians in the Catholic Church and in the Protestant Churches, but I also believe that there are “professing Christians” in both the Catholic and Protestant Churches too. I can’t tell what’s in another persons heart, as only god can do that, but I can determine whether or not they’re behaving like Christians when I start seeing that their motives are only to spew hate and division by innuendos or insulting remarks. Unfortunately I often do the wrong thing and start trading insults which is clearly against Christian teachings.
When you take the stand that I have, believing that there is one Body of Christ made up of real Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, you get a lot of fire from both sides, but that’s okay.

The reason that I changed my profile, this is going to sound silly, is because someone on another thread had taken issue with my use of the term Christian as opposed to Catholic, at least that is what I think their original problem was. They said that I was bearing false witness against them when I mention that, so maybe I didn’t understand where they we’re coming from. It doesn’t really matter because they were all about making insulting remarks from the beginning and then when I pointed that out to them they said that they were just trying to help me. Yeah right! Anyway, I should not have let myself be drawn into that trap of trading insults because it was wrong and was a bad example for others. I asked that person to forgive me and I asked God to forgive me. I’ll try harder not to behave that way next time I’m in that situation and I pray that God gives me the strength and humility to do so. I’m a memeber of the RCC and have been for several years. I come from a Protestant background. In my way of thinking, joining the Catholic Church didn’t have anything to do with “converting”, I mean I’m already a Christian. Jesus is my Lord and Savior and I love Him deeply. I came to believe in Jesus Christ through the Holy Scriptures and the Apostles letters. Jesus said that people would believe in Him through the Apostles, which was exactly what happened in my case. I didn’t realize that the term Roman added to Catholic was originally meant as an insult until I read it on this thread. My original profile
said “catholic”, I think, then after the “Great Debate” I changed it to “Christian Roman Catholic” to make a point, then I found out that the term “Roman” was offensive to some people. I could’nt help but find some humor in this, so I joked that I finally became a “Roman Catholic” and now I find out that I’m still wrong. I also reflected on the thing about Christians insulting each other and I guess that the term “Roman” being used as an insult is one more example of just how long it’s been going on. God help us!

I think I will go change my profile now.

 

[grampben]

No, but if you’re not thinking about converting to Catholicism, then that means that your purpose here is spew anti-Catholic hostility.

I’m not thinking of converting to catholicism, yet I am not spewing anti-catholic hostility.

 

[Cinette]

Hi Cinette,

I like reading your posts also. You got the point of my profile, which by the way I had just recently changed and I’ll explain why I did in a moment, but first let me say that in no way was I saying that all catholics aren’t Christians. I just wanted to get that out there before someone else starts reading this post and jumps to the wrong conclusion. I think that there are real Christians in the Catholic Church and in the Protestant Churches, but I also believe that there are “professing Christians” in both the Catholic and Protestant Churches too. I can’t tell what’s in another persons heart, as only god can do that, but I can determine whether or not they’re behaving like Christians when I start seeing that their motives are only to spew hate and division by innuendos or insulting remarks. Unfortunately I often do the wrong thing and start trading insults which is clearly against Christian teachings.
When you take the stand that I have, believing that there is one Body of Christ made up of real Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, you get a lot of fire from both sides, but that’s okay.

The reason that I changed my profile, this is going to sound silly, is because someone on another thread had taken issue with my use of the term Christian as opposed to Catholic, at least that is what I think their original problem was. They said that I was bearing false witness against them when I mention that, so maybe I didn’t understand where they we’re coming from. It doesn’t really matter because they were all about making insulting remarks from the beginning and then when I pointed that out to them they said that they were just trying to help me. Yeah right! Anyway, I should not have let myself be drawn into that trap of trading insults because it was wrong and was a bad example for others. I asked that person to forgive me and I asked God to forgive me. I’ll try harder not to behave that way next time I’m in that situation and I pray that God gives me the strength and humility to do so. I’m a memeber of the RCC and have been for several years. I come from a Protestant background. In my way of thinking, joining the Catholic Church didn’t have anything to do with “converting”, I mean I’m already a Christian. Jesus is my Lord and Savior and I love Him deeply. I came to believe in Jesus Christ through the Holy Scriptures and the Apostles letters. Jesus said that people would believe in Him through the Apostles, which was exactly what happened in my case. I didn’t realize that the term Roman added to Catholic was originally meant as an insult until I read it on this thread. My original profile
said “catholic”, I think, then after the “Great Debate” I changed it to “Christian Roman Catholic” to make a point, then I found out that the term “Roman” was offensive to some people. I could’nt help but find some humor in this, so I joked that I finally became a “Roman Catholic” and now I find out that I’m still wrong. I also reflected on the thing about Christians insulting each other and I guess that the term “Roman” being used as an insult is one more example of just how long it’s been going on. God help us!

I think I will go change my profile now.

I guess the best is to say Catholic because everyone knows it implies Christian.

Talking about insults. Never in my life have I ever had an argument with a Protestant about religion until I came on these forums. Its fun. I like to put my cards on the table and for everyone else to do so as well. We come here anonomously and that makes us bold. Its fun.

I respect Protestants as I have said in my other posting. However, I do make a distinction between them and fundamentalists. Nobody likes a fundamentalist. You cannot reason with them at all so when they get insulting one is tempted to do likewise. I was tempted to tell some she should change her “nom de plume” to pitbull but instead I said that she behaved like one and that was bad enough! I won’t do that again.

It is just that when you see people making an effort to explain things painstakingly and convincingly and the other person relentlessly carries on persisting in lies and false statements then it is like a red flag. I have an excuse - it is my celtic French blood so I am allowed to be fiery!! LOL!

ckempston thinks the Catholic Church has a disease, that of explanationism! I guess here on CAF many of the posters have that disease in the face of the argumentative, stubborn and often rude opponents.

I agree that we should be amiable and loving and reach out.

Cinette

 

[tqualey]

Hi, John1,

Keeping everyone happy on any issue is an impossibility. Learn more about your new Catholic Faith (Roman Rite ) and focus on why you changed in order to get closer to Christ.

You have the trading insults part correct - no real place for it on the list - or, in life itself. The challenge is to present the message of Christ without the personal barbs that some of us feel almost obliged to ‘sprinkle’ into our posts.

Have a great day - be sure to keep all of us on the list in your prayers (beginning with those who annoy you ) and don’t lose heart.

God bless

 

[Peter_J]

I’m not thinking of converting to catholicism, yet I am not spewing anti-catholic hostility.

According to conventional CAF wisdom, that’s just not possible.

Any and all Protestants posters who aren’t thinking of converting to Catholicism must necessarily have evil motivations, especially anti-Catholic bigotry.

Saying “I’m not thinking of converting to catholicism” is itself an act of hostility-spewing.

Conventional CAF wisdom also tells us that, since you’re a non-Catholic, your religion is not defined by what you believe but rather by what you reject.

 

[ralphinal]

According to conventional CAF wisdom, that’s just not possible.

Any and all Protestants posters who aren’t thinking of converting to Catholicism must necessarily have evil motivations, especially anti-Catholic bigotry.

Saying “I’m not thinking of converting to catholicism” is itself an act of hostility-spewing.

Conventional CAF wisdom also tells us that, since you’re a non-Catholic, your religion is not defined by what you believe but rather by what you reject.

Peter is correct in that there is a perception among some of us that any non-Catholic who is not considering converting is a Hater. That is not true. Plus, there are some on here who tend to take a more agressive stance when confronted by other posters.

Non-Catholics are as welcome on here as anyone else, as long as they follow the rules.

 

[grampben]

Non-Catholics are as welcome on here as anyone else, as long as they follow the rules.

I always thought you catholics were to legalistic
Ha