What are the reasons I should (or shouldn't) become Catholic?

[aristotle]

That is an enormously ignorant statement.

Not every statement you disagree with is “enormously ignorant”. I may be misinformed, but we must conseed you may be also. My information comes primarly from popular historical texts, and also from H.G. Apostle’s history of the subject in his selections. Furthermore, I can find no historical document that refutes this claim.

Granted, Christians did not destroy Greek culture, but Romans certainly did. And Muslims, not Christians, preserved it. This I currently accept only based on evidence I have so far seen.

I will read the books you suggest, but it may also be useful to provide quotes from them as to how the Catholics, and not the Muslims, were responsible for preserving the works of the Greek Philosophers.

Well into the seventeenth century, but beginning in the biggest way with Petrarch in the fourteenth, the Renaissance recovered the Greek and Roman texts already copied in Roman Catholic scriptoria or held in Roman Catholic Church and monastery libraries.

In a currupted latin form, or in the original greek? Were these the oldest preserved? Were they gleaned also from the Muslims? Or was this just a coincidence, where a few documents were preserved as if by accident?

The RCC saved the West by saving, literally, Greece and Rome: She also invented it.

So Roman Catholic Church invented and saved the west? I am afraid on this there is nothing I could be shown to be convinced.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

three verses later…context,context,context!

26 Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins.

So yes were!

So much for once saved always saved.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

AGAIN context…
9 So do not be attracted by strange, new ideas. Your strength comes from God’s grace, not from rules about food, which don’t help those who follow them.

10 We have an altar from which the priests in the Tabernacle[d] have no right to eat. 11 Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp. 12 So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his own blood.

Must be speaking figuratively.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

I dunno, what do ya’ll think?
I certainly wouldn’t be rewriting sacred scripture…

Afraid you already have.

Btw who gave you the Bible? It has no table of contents: who put it together?

 

[Palladio]

Not every statement you disagree with is “enormously ignorant”. I may be misinformed, but we must conseed you may be also. My information comes primarly from popular historical texts, and also from H.G. Apostle’s history of the subject in his selections. Furthermore, I can find no historical document that refutes this claim.

Granted, Christians did not destroy Greek culture, but Romans certainly did. And Muslims, not Christians, preserved it. This I currently accept only based on evidence I have so far seen.

I will read the books you suggest, but it may also be useful to provide quotes from them as to how the Catholics, and not the Muslims, were responsible for preserving the works of the Greek Philosophers.

In a currupted latin form, or in the original greek? Were these the oldest preserved? Were they gleaned also from the Muslims? Or was this just a coincidence, where a few documents were preserved as if by accident?

So Roman Catholic Church invented and saved the west? I am afraid on this there is nothing I could be shown to be convinced.

No, the RCC saved and invented the West. Not the reverse. The latter comes from the former, but also from its producing the Bible.

You are both misinformed and enormously ignorant about the subject you’ve taken on so casually. I am neither (I actually study this stuff) and so I don’t have to concede anything.

Like a few others on this site, you seem fixated on sub-minor influences blown up in the ‘popular history’ you mention to flatter minorities.

You have a lot of reading ahead of you, and since you know neither Greek nor Latin, you may find the necessary books tough going.

At least you show the courage to try.

God bless.

 

[myfavoritmartin]

Afraid you already have.

Btw who gave you the Bible? It has no table of contents: who put it together?

Our creator and your church agrees.

 

[myfavoritmartin]

Must be speaking figuratively.

You think Christ shed blood on the cross was figurative???
I don’t see humor in that at all!

 

[SELASSIE]

Coptic (orthodox) Church of egypt(africa) Was founded by St. Mark Himself 1st.
Rome only followed Peters Doctrine. Rome Didn’t get a patriarch till @ circa 600 ad.( quite close to Islam’s inception.)

The Romans used writings of Coptic Desert Fathers
as their own Doctrine. (St. Athinasius, etc…)
Shaved Faced, unmarried PRIESTS, and Sunday Worship (Christ still kept the Sabbath Holy while healing on it) are ALL earmarks of the Pagan origins of Catholic Traditions.

 

[myfavoritmartin]

So much for once saved always saved.

Wow, you’ve no clue of the doctrine of OSAS, furthermore this shows us what being born again is or is not. Which one must be to have eternal life.

 

[myfavoritmartin]

If you can show someone who believed as you do, from 1 AD till present, I’d consider your argument. Otherwise, you deny the Lord who said “the gates of Hell will not prevail,” and “Lo, I am with you always (actually in the Greek “all of the days”).” Did Christ take a leave of absence?

Christ is with me always!
Paul believed as I do!

 

[Mannyfit75]

It is Christ and Christ alone whom gives everylasting life!

Yes, the Church is often refer to the Mystical Body of Christ as well. When Saul persecuted the Church, Jesus said to him, “I am Christ, whom you are persecuting.” You can’t separate the Church and Christ. I have noticed that the Protestants have the tendency to separate Christ and His Church. The Church is also symbolic the Bride of Christ as well. Just as Christ gave himself up for his Bride, the Church. We also know that when the Bride and Husband they become One flesh. There is this one flesh union.

Christ’s grace flows through his Church, and His Sacraments.

God’s plan for your eternal salvation is to place your everything in HIS hands and live out your life accordingly for HIS glory!

I have no disagreement with that. We Catholics affirm that eternal salvation can be gain through God’s grace. This flows out through the sacrament.

All of the answers for John 6 can be found in the words of Peter at the end…

67 Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;
69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

He also promised that he will remain with us always until the End of Age. He establish His Church. Where his Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament is there. The Real Presence of God.

Now does Peter talk about the bread? NO!

He addresses what the others left over, the divinity of Christ, Peter heard the message that one would be saved by BELIEVING in Christ as He had taught in this discourse.

Peter is speaking about Jesus. Jesus also spoke that he is the bread. So in a way, he is. why? Because Jesus did say, he is the Bread of Life.

This event opened because the crowd wanted PROOF, a SIGN, and so they asked for food.
Jesus made the transition to the manna because of the demand of the crowd for food to prove what he said.
This dialogue is on faith without signs , it is on being saved by faith.

Jesus did he declare that He is the Bread of Life. He also told them that they must eat His flesh and drink his blood. For his flesh is real food indeed, and that his blood is real drink indeed. The crowd did not believe that they should eat his flesh because in the Mosaic Law, eating another man’s flesh was grave offense. They left Jesus because they did not believe is the Bread of Life.

Jesus Christ is the fullness of truth and in that fullness only can we truly be set free.

Sacrements give people a false sense of hope, it is in true faith that we are saved!

I have to disagree strongly with you. Sacraments are given to us by God. Jesus Christ himself. If you claim it is a false sense of hope they you don’t truly believe that His flesh is real food, and that his blood is real drink. In some way, you don’t believe Jesus Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.

Instead you believe in the traditions of Men from the Protestant Reformation.

 

[estesbob]

Christ is with me always!
Paul believed as I do!

How come none of Paul’s contemporaries believe as you do? Perhaps it’s because they didn’t pick and choose which lines of Paul’s letters they wanted to accept and rejected those that didn’t fit their preconceived notions. It is also very likely that they have the common sense to read the rest of Scripture which has a whole does not support what you believe at all.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Christ is with me always!
Paul believed as I do!

Do you believe that Jesus’ presence in the Bread and Wine in the after the Consecration because St. Paul. In 1 Cor 11:1-33 he refers the bread and wine as the Body and Blood of the Lord. That is the same belief Catholics believe in.

27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. 1 Cor 11:27.

 

[aristotle]

You have a lot of reading ahead of you, and since you know neither Greek nor Latin, you may find the necessary books tough going.

Actually, I do know the greek. I find learning latin, at this time, a waste.

And, frankly, I have more important things to do than read into this history. I am not bothered by the casual knowledge.

And, clearly, neither are you, as you provided no quotation, and only insult.

I think I will not read the books you suggest. It seems as though you can provide me no good reason to, no argument to really defend your assertions about history. My time is too valuable to be wasted in blind allies.

Maybe other Catholics will have more of use to say.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Christ is with me always!
Paul believed as I do!

So Joseph Smith, Christ came down and handed you a personal copy?

Or did you get your copy through all those generations who believed in the Real Presence, bishops (I assume you’re of the invisible Church flavor), etc.

Funny, I find several people who actually knew St. Paul, and believed like he did, and they don’t agree with you (St. Clement, St. Ignatius).

 

[Isa_Almisry]

You think Christ shed blood on the cross was figurative???
I don’t see humor in that at all!

Nor do I.

Nor did St. Ignatius, who knew the Apostles and was ordained by the Apostles to succeed them in heading the Church in Antioch in 69, where “the disciples were first called Christians” wrote in 104:

They [the gnostics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer,because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again.

ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.vii.vii.html

The gnostics believed Christ didn’t REALLY take flesh, it just appeared so, and that He REALLY didn’t die on the Cross (the rest of St. Ignatius’ letters, and other show that, including the Gnostics own writings, btw including the Gospel of Judas).

So EITHER admit the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist

OR deny that the Word took flesh and dwelt among us, and join the Gnostics in saying Jesus only SEEMED to bleed on the Cross.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Our creator and your church agrees.

Yes “for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us.”

Jesus we know, and Paul we know, but who are you?

Btw how can you understand what you are reading, unless someone guides you?

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Wow, you’ve no clue of the doctrine of OSAS, furthermore this shows us what being born again is or is not. Which one must be to have eternal life.

More than enough to know it contradicts scripture.

So enlighten me. Are you ready to give a defense to me who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you? (I Peter 3:15).

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Actually, I do know the greek. I find learning latin, at this time, a waste.

And, frankly, I have more important things to do than read into this history. I am not bothered by the casual knowledge.

And, clearly, neither are you, as you provided no quotation, and only insult.

I think I will not read the books you suggest. It seems as though you can provide me no good reason to, no argument to really defend your assertions about history. My time is too valuable to be wasted in blind allies.

Maybe other Catholics will have more of use to say.

I’m not Latin (I belong to the Orthodox), nor Western (I’m Arab). I studied history at the University of Chicago, including a lot of European, from Ancient Greece to the modern day (my concentration was in Early Islam). So I don’t qualify under your last line, but…

The general statement that the Latin Church created the West and saved it is, in general, acurate. Rome may have invented (actually borrowed) its alphabet,which all Western Eurpeans use, but it was the missionaries of the Church who adapted it to the languages to translate the scriptures. Rome had its classics, but it was the Latin Church which preserved them and carried them on. It is symbolic on many levels that the office of supreme pontiff is the oldest continous office in the Western Europe (it was founded by Romulus, its first holder. The emperor Gratian resigned it and appointed the pope of Rome to it). The Huns (proto-Hungarians), Germanic tribes and Celts all didn’t know each other, couldn’t care less, and brought down the Roman Empire in the West (it continued in the East until 1453). It was the Church who acculturated them into a common culture, the basis of Europe, while converting them and grafted them into a Roman heritage.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

You think Christ shed blood on the cross was figurative???
I don’t see humor in that at all!

Btw, your signature. Don’t look down. (Matthew 14.30, the only time St. Peter is a Rock in the Gospels. He got better in Acts).

(Btw I’m not on a swim team. Swam in the Jordan and then down the Nile to Alexandria, the See of the Origianl Pope).