We need to stop worrying about who is “right.”

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Anrakyr said:
Don’t turn me into a totem.
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I do not hold the power to turn you into anything sir. You, on the other hand, have all the power to be what you will be, at least on the internet that is.

Peace!!!
 
adf417 said:
I do not hold the power to turn you into anything sir. You, on the other hand, have all the power to be what you will be, at least on the internet that is.

Peace!!!
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That sounds wise but that’s not how that works.
 
anon91549587 said:
No Mary
No eucharist
No authority
No chaste marriage
No marriage as a vehicle for holiness but a secular process.So essentially there is no difference before and after marriage in a spiritual sense.
No logic or reasoning
No mysticism and thus vulnerable to demonic sources of mysticism outside the church
Encourages bible literalism
Encourages anti intellectualism
Encourages secularism
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These may all the truths, but is the belief in these truths required to gain heaven?

So is the goal of the Church to have everyone believe in these truths, or is the goal of the Church to get people to heaven?

To think that only Catholics are going to heaven is pretty narrow. Might be wrong, but I don’t think that is what the Church teaches.

If our goal is to get people to heaven, is the best way to focus on who is right?
 
See instead of arguing what is or isnt truth, we should remember what is… Jesus.

He is either your truth or He isnt.
 
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All good points you have there, lets say i followed what my protestant friends taught and did away with chastity and had pre-marital sex, would i as a fornicator be allowed into heaven ?

Or lets say in my search of a mystical experience i went to a church at bethel california and accepted that Christ did miracles not as God but in right relationship to God. So yea i do see some possible dangers of ignoring orthodoxy and doctrine.
 
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@fhansen, @stpurl, and many others: Of course truth is essential. The question is how to approach differences and disagreements in such a way that leads others (and us) to salvation.

What doesn’t work very well, in my opinion, is to throw doctrine at people, essentially saying, “When you assent to this, you can be saved.”

An alternative approach is to see religious differences as opportunities to begin a dialogue. Start by focusing on what you agree upon, what you have in common, and work from there.

For example, if the other person doesn’t see abortion as a big deal, you could start with life. Do and the other agree on the goodness of life, God’s gift of life, our heavenly Father’s love and care for us, and Jesus’ love of children?

From there, you could discuss or demonstrate our gift of life to our children, our responsibility to protect and care for children, the joys of parenthood, the importance of children and families to society, and other positive aspects.

From there, you could begin to speak about the injustice of abortion.

This is a process that takes time. You are not going to persuade someone about this over coffee or in a YouTube video. It’s a faith dialogue and even a faith partnership. It calls for patience, perseverance, humility, and charity. Prayer would help too.
 
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Beryllos said:
The question is how to approach differences and disagreements in such a way that leads others (and us) to salvation.
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With all due respect Beryllos this was not the question in the OP-

But i certainly agree with your approach to discipleship. :+1:t3:

Peace!!!
 
I wouldn’t disagree on any of this. I think to put it another way we must come to love better-and right actions will follow. And I believe the Catholic Church, for its part, as well as others has become better at this from the top down beginning especially in the last century. I say this while also acknowledging that this position can be misunderstood and abused. I like the sentiments here of Pope Emeritus Benedict, himself a man of great love as I see him:
"A man of conscience is one who never acquires tolerance, well- being, success, public standing, and approval on the part of prevailing opinion, at the expense of truth."

Balanced perhaps, with this, sometimes attributed to Augustine:
"In essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.
 
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I do not believe the poster said that “only Catholics go to heaven”.

But for a Catholic to try to find some minimalist position with a fraction of the entirety of truth, just because those fractions contain ‘some truth’, and advocate for all Christians including Catholics themselves to embrace this diminished and incomplete ‘truth’ as ‘sufficient’, and to work with only these ‘diminished’ bits and ignore 180 degree doctrinal differences as ‘non essentials’ only proves that Catholics who fall for this do not sufficiently understand Christianity and its completion in the Truth of Catholicism at all.

They are being misled by that ‘angel’ Lucifer who is perfectly happy to allow people to waft along on a truncated idea that “God is love’ and therefore love means saying yes to all earthly things because ‘nice’ and ‘tolerant’, and that saying Truth, like Jesus is the Way (which somehow people will take as implying that Jews and Buddhists and agnostics can’t find a way to heaven that isn’t Jesus but is good enough because golly gee, they’re NICE people and wasn’t Jesus nice, therefore if we’re nice we’re just like Him and yay we’re in?)

People don’t WANT to hear that no, gay marriage is not all right. NO, fornication is not all right. NO, a ‘symbolic Eucharist’ is not what He gave us. Etc. Etc.
 
Beryllos, where exactly did I state that one ‘threw doctrine’ at people?

My objection to the ‘minimal’ way was in keeping it minimal. And that is a big difference, Unfortunately it seems to be the current situation that we ‘meet people where they are’ (which is fine, we need to ‘go to the peripheries’) but it seems over the last few decades once we go there and start talking, we stay there and just keep on waffling with “don’t we all love God as we are”. WE don’t change any hearts because we’re content to find ‘common cause’ and look all tolerant and ‘neo-Catholic’ and woke and we exalt every other nonCatholic person for all THEIR truth (those aforementioned diminished and distorted views) and apologize for our own ‘rigid’ beliefs.

All we have done is confuse the issue among most Christians today. Why would they want to come to OUR beliefs, when it seems over the past decades CATHOLICS have been rejecting Catholic beliefs and traditions and actions in favor of Protestant ones?

70% of Catholics today don’t believe in the Real Presence, for God’s sake —because they want to find ‘common ground’ with their Protestant brothers and sisters. Symbolic is good enough for THEM, it should be ‘good enough’ for today’s enlightened Catholic, right???

Wrong.
 
Are you referring to the OP or my response to Calisthenics?

The Op in this thread, if I understood his post correctly suggests that we should focus on saving people from the devil and bringing people to God. Not focus necessarily on which version of Christianity is “right”.

If you will actually read my post, I never suggested that Catholics change what they believe.

I only suggested that we focus on getting souls to heaven as was the premise of the OP in this thread. Knowing that not everyone is going to become Catholic, and that not everyone is interested in studying and learning every teaching of the Church, we certainly can work on getting people to heaven without actually having them become Catholic.

Many people are the religion that they are because they are born into it. They are following what their parents did, Catholics being no different in this respect than a Baptist or Methodist or whomever.

When dealing with people from different religions, to focus on dogma or traditions of the Catholic Church and why we are “right” and they are wrong might not be the best way to bring more people closer to, or know God.

If the time spent with people from other religions is focused on bringing others who don’t know God to know him, allowing them to make their decision on which church has the “right” answer, that might be a better use of time.

This was posted in the philosophy section correct.
 
Not sure it was philosophy at first; the problem as has been repeatedly pointed out is that there is such a tremendous difference both in who other Christians (and non Christians) conceive who Christ IS, and what His message is, that unless one knows the correct and complete message one is in danger of setting up a false Christ and giving false directions, leading away from Christ if you will.
 
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