I want to learn more about my religion.........~?

Question

I am a catholic but don't know much about the religion and its beliefs. Just going to church doesn't help though. I would also like to learn what the differences are between protestant and catholic. Also, if i chose to do so, how I would change religion. So this is two questions, (a) who should I go to to learn about these two religions and (b) how would I change religions?

Answer 1

I would consult with your pastor at your Catholic church, first. Then consult with some other pastors at different denominations or the equivalent spiritual counselor of another religion. Above all, use common sense, love others as you'd want to be treated/loved, and you are on the right path.

Answer 2

You are not alone. There are many Catholics who do not know their religion. It's quite a shame. I was raised Methodist and converted to Catholicism 9 years ago. Since then I have learned so much about the church, her teaching, God, the sacraments...there is so much and it's so awesome.

So, definitely get to know your faith. RCIA is available in all Catholc churches. Even for Catholics who just want to know more about their faith. You could attend their sessions. Right now in our Archdiocese they are doing the "Why Catholic" program. They meet once a week and are discussing the Catechism.

There are websites such as www.catholic.com that have an amazing amount of articles on the faith and the differences in the Protestant faith.

I would talk to a priest, he can direct you where to go to learn more.

As far as changing religions, I think you can formally withdraw from the Catholic faith by contacting the local Bishop for your area.

Answer 3

You can do well by reading books on church history that were not written by catholics. If you read something you just can not believe-check it out before you think its a lie. If you are in the USA you can try a Baptist and a Presbyterian church. There are two Presbyterian denominations PCUSA and PCA, one is a more conservative. There are three main Baptist denominations, the Southern, American, and Independent. There are more but these are probably the largest.
It will take far more than one visit to find out what they are about. Be prepared for shock.

Answer 4

@.) you can go to this catholic site to learn more, can ask any question. http://www.ewtn.com/
b.) NOt sure, but you could sign up at a different church.


Catholic Church is the direct descendant of St. Peter, the first pope. It has 7 sacraments. Protestants don't believe in the authority of the priests, bishops,and the Pope, they also don't use the saraments.

Answer 5

I'd recommend official websites from each church, and the library as places to start. Be wary of people who are not members of the specific churches who think they know what their beliefs are (unless they're actual religion or history scholars).

As far as changing religions goes - I think that depends on what religion you want to get into, I think most have some sort of entry ceremony like baptism.

Answer 6

This question seemed to divide up the Christians into two opposing groups with everyone pushing their group. I guess I could do the same but I won't. Whatever you decide know that you can know Jesus as a real person, a real friend, a real Saviour. Let your love, wisdom, and faith grow in God and read His Word, the Holy Bible, especially the New Testament. Love God and allow him in your heart. Then allow him to lead you through the arguments of both sides, and place you where he wants you to be. God Bless and Peace.

Answer 7

well i was a catholic and protestant christian anyway this is about catholicism


We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. For us and our salvation He came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day He rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures: He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son, He is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

For a complete description of what Catholics believe, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/inde...

Answer 8

go to ewtn.com and look around there. Also I suggest you read the Bible and you will see that Catholicism is IT.

Answer 9

visit www.lds.org and your answers will all be solved

Answer 10

Read your Bible and learn what GOD has to say. Have a relationship with Jesus, don't worry about religions. I am not saying do not find a good church to go to, but don't get caught up into religious "Practices", that is not what following God is about. It is about having a faithful, loving and sincere relationship with Christ.

Having said that ......... Keep in mind that I am neither. I was raised Baptist and converted Catholic. Learning their doctrine, I disagreed and am now simply a Christian attending a nondenominational church.

Bibles .......At the time the Christian Bible was being formed, a Greek translation of Jewish Scripture, the Septuagint, was in common use and Christians adopted it as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. However, around 100 A.D., Jewish rabbis revised their Scripture and established an official canon of Judaism which excluded some portions of the Greek Septuagint. The material excluded was a group of 15 late Jewish books, written during the period 170 B.C. to 70 A.D., that were not found in Hebrew versions of the Jewish Scripture. Christians did not follow the revisions of Judaism and continued to use the text of the Septuagint.

Protestant reformers in the 1500s decided to follow the official canon of Judaism for the Old Testament rather than the Septuagint, and the excluded material was placed in a separate section of the Bible called the Apocrypha. Protestant Bibles included the Apocrypha until the mid 1800s, but it was eventually dropped from most Protestant editions.

The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches continue to base their Old Testament on the Septuagint. The result is that these versions of the the Bible have more Old Testament books than Protestant versions. Catholic Old Testaments include 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), additions to Esther, and Susanna and Bel and the Dragon which are included in Daniel. Orthodox Old Testaments include these plus 1st and 2nd Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151 and 3rd Maccabees.

The Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox New Testaments are identical.


Praying to Mary and the Saints, and statues

The Catholic Church does pray to both Mary and the Saints (Exodus 20:4-6 "You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers' wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments." - Leviticus 26:1 "Do not make false gods for yourselves. You shall not erect an idol or a sacred pillar for yourselves, nor shall you set up a stone figure for worship in your land; for I, the Lord, am your God." - Do you think they should be doing this?)

Purgatory

"there is nothing in the Bible that ever speaks of a place or even aludes to a place called purgatory" or anywhere one can go to be purified of their sins. Rather, it speaks of a Person to whom we can go to be purified: Jesus Christ.

Jesus himself tells us that those who refuse to trust in him to cleanse them from their sins are condemned. The Lord Jesus Christ said:

John 3:17,18 "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

There are only two choices here: "Whoever believes in the Son has life eternal. Whoever does not believe in the son, Jesus Christ, is condemned already". (See also John 3:36; Revelations 20:15; Luke 16:19-31) "Anyone that accepts Jesus Christ is completely saved:"

Romans 8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

Saying that there is no condemnation for those in Jesus Christ, certainly eliminates the flames of purgatory or any other "waiting place" for souls. Another passage which clearly excludes the idea of purgatory is:

Hebrews 10:17 "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more."


Who is the Church founded upon?

The Apostle Peter himself explained in the Bible on whom the church was founded. He said that Jesus was the cornerstone:

Acts 4:11-12 "This Jesus is the stone rejected by you the builders which has become the cornerstone. There is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are to be saved."

"To have a Biblical basis for the papacy, the Roman Catholic church neglects the numerous passages such as the one above which clearly teach that Jesus Christ is the head and foundation of the church, and quotes a short part of a passage from the Gospel of Matthew." They neglect to realize that even if the church was founded on Peter, there is nothing in this passage to infer that his status was passed on to the popes. We quote that passage here, with a few verses which precede it, which will add to our understanding.

Matthew 16:13-18 "When Jesus came unto the coasts of Caesarea Phillippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou are John the Baptist: some, Elias, and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, Christ calls Peter "Rock" (masculine gender) then says, "on the rock" (feminine gender) I will build my church. What is the rock on which the church is built? The usual Catholic interpretation is Peter, but the difference in gender makes this questionable. Then, just four verses ahead, Jesus reproves Peter with such severity that He calls him satan. In the context itself then, it is equally possible that the "rock" upon which the church is founded is found in the statement that Peter made, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God".

If we will let the passages in other parts of the Bible that refer to the same subject help us decide who it is that the church is founded upon, we find that it is Jesus Christ.


Confession

You will remember that when the disciples asked Jesus Christ to teach them to pray, He started His explaination,

Matthew 6:6 "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

And Christ also said:

Matthew 6:9 "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...."

Jesus was teaching them and through them teaching us, that our prayers should be directed to God the Father and that they should be in "secret"! Farther along in this prayer to our Father, Jesus continued:

Matthew 6:12 "And forgive us our debts (sins), as we forgive our debtors."

Our Lord Jesus Himself in this most famous of all prayers taught us to pray to God the Father in secret, and to ask forgiveness of Him. "We are to "secretly" confess our sins directly to God the Father because that is the way Jesus taught His disciples to pray.

This is the normal way in which Christians confessed their sins in the first centuries of the Church. "Confession to the priest became official Catholic doctrine in 1225 A.D." Priests had started hearing confessions some time before this, but they prayed to God for the person rather than claiming to remit the sins themselves, as they do now.

In order to uphold the practice of confession being made to them, some priests refer to the passage in John:

John 20:21-23 "As the Father has sent me, so I send you. Then he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound."

"The first thing we must notice is that these words were not spoken only to the apostles or to any other special class, but to all Christ's followers who were together at that time." Remitting sins is therefore not a privilege of the clergy, but extended to all believers


Salvation

Roman Catholicism teaches that salvation is available only through the Catholic church:

"The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: 'For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained.'" Pg. 215, #816
Here, the 1994 catechism reaffirms the existing teaching of Vatican II, that salvation can be obtained "only" through the Roman Catholic church. The catechism leaves no doubt that the Catholic church is necessary for salvation:

"...all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation..." Pg. 224, #846
Past popes have taught this doctrine, as have previous catechisms and church fathers. Here is but one example…

On May 7, 2001, Pope John Paul II told 2,000 youth gathered at the Greek-Melkite Cathedral of Damascus that "you cannot be a Christian if you reject the Church founded on Jesus Christ."
Catholic friend, you personally may not believe this, but your pope does. And it is an official doctrine of your religion.

If you check God's Word on this subject, you will not find a single verse requiring one to go through a church to be saved. In fact, the opposite is taught:

Romans 10:13 "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

To be saved, Catholic doctrine requires the continual performance of good works.

"Even though incorporated into the Church, one who does not however persevere in charity is not saved." Pg. 222, #837
These works include baptism (pg. 320, #1257), various sacraments (pg. 292, #1129) plus many additional works.

Once again the teachings of Catholicism oppose God's Word, which states that salvation "cannot" be earned, but is a free and undeserved gift of God:

Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."


Catholicism teaches that "it" has the power and authority to forgive people's sins. Here are a few quotes from the Catechism. (Please note that whenever the Catechism mentions the "Church," it is referring to the "Roman Catholic church"):

"There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive." Pg. 256, #982
"By Christ's will, the Church possesses the power to forgive the sins of the baptized..." Pg. 257, #986

"The Church, who through the bishop and his priests forgives sins in the name of Jesus Christ..." Pg. 363-364, #1448

Does the Catholic church have power to forgive sins? Let's see what the Scriptures say:

Mark 2:7 "Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?"

Ephesians 4:32 "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

According to Scripture, God wants His children to come straight to Him for forgiveness of sins, not to a church:

Hebrews 4:16 "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

There are to many more to list.