All Christians & Catholics Love & believe in God & his Son Jesus...so why can't we love each other?

Question

First off, I'm Catholic.
Now we all know that the Bible was written by men, how many Catholic traditions were created by the Vatican- such as confession- and Christians believe that the Cross should be shown w/o Jesus, whereas Catholics depict the Cross w/ Jesus, and also how there are many, MANY different types of Christians, but my question is Why the division?

why do Christians think Catholics are damned or vice versa? I have a hard time believing that on judgment day God will say to Catholics "well I know you love and believe in me...but you show me on the Cross" or "well I know you love and believe in me...but you also pray to the Holy Mary" so all Catholics are going to Hell and all other Christians are not (or vice versa).
In addition, there are soooo many different types of Christians. As for me, as long as you believe that Jesus is the Son of God you're money (you know what i mean!). I'll marry a girl who believes this whether she call herself Christian or Catholic!

YES, I am well aware that Catholicism is a branch of Christianity.
NO, I am not saying that Christians hate Catholics.
My question is why do both groups argue against each other, when we should really be hugging each other...apparently many of you missed my repeated use of 'vice versa.'
I don't blindly agree with everything the Catholic Church says...but I have faith that the most important thing is that one believes that Jesus is the Son of God...now all i'm saying is that shouldn' t that be enough for us to love one another.

Answer 1

You are right. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and you accepted God's gift of forgiveness for your sins, then you're my brother in Christ. I don't care if you're Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical or Charismatic. From my personal experience though, many people who go to church do not have a relationship with Jesus. They might attend church, even believe in God, but they never repented, never accepted Jesus into their lives. Unfortunately with an old religion such as the Catholic faith, it is easier to get lost in meaningless traditions that evolved with time than in many other churches. I know many Catholics who are not Christians, but I do know some who are. So just like you, I don't care what you call yourself, I care whether you know God personally. There is only a couple of real issues I have with the Catholic church (not the Christians in it). They have to do with idolatry. Does the church really think that praying to statues of saints or Virgin Mary is not idolatry? You can only worship God. But it's a matter that we as Christian brothers should discuss rather than disown each others over.

Answer 2

The differences are not big differences to me. I'm a Christian who was raised Catholic, and even though I disagree with some of the catholic beliefs I would NEVER say Catholics are damned or that they are not Christians. I think the ones who do are the ones who spend to much time looking at what other people are doing, instead of looking in the mirror and making sure they are living like a Christian really should. Also, I have never known any Catholics who believed that other denominations of Christianity are not saved.

Answer 3

I have no problem with Catholics in general. There are some I dearly love. There are a couple I'm not particularly fond of, too.

I used to belong to a church (I'm Protestant, by the way) that had a lot of ex-Catholics in it, and I found that by far and away the most anti-Catholic Christians were the ex-Catholics. I think it has something to do with them feeling betrayed by the Church. They felt that Catholic teachings kept them away from the personal relationship with Christ that Protestantism afforded them. Whether those feelings were accurate or not, I will not venture to guess, but I think they fueled a very deep resentment.

There's a good deal more I could say about this, but I'll just say that I know many Catholics I expect to see in Heaven some day, and then I'll shut up.

Answer 4

Your intentions are good, but the fact remains that the Roman Catholic church is the original church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ in the year 33 and will stand firm on the Rock of Peter till the end of time, whereas the other Christian denominations are man-made and differ in their beliefs and thus do not have the authority of God as the Roman Catholic church has.

Wrote Ignatius of Antioch, illustrious Church Father of the first century: "Where the Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be; even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church." Our Lord said: "There shall be one fold and one shepherd", yet it is well known that the various Christian denominations cannot agree on what Christ actually taught. Since Christ roundly condemned interdenominationalism ("And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand." Mark 3:25), Catholics cannot believe that He would ever sanction it in His Church.

The Roman Catholic church does not hate the Protestant denominations but rather desires that they give up their conflicting, differing beliefs and come back home to Rome, to be under one shepherd, one belief, one faith given to them by Jesus Christ. There would be no division if there was no one protesting the authority given to the Vicar of Christ. There wouldn't be sooooooo many different types of Christians if Martin Luther ex-monk of the Catholic church had not first founded the Lutheran religion in the year 1517 followed by thousands others like him who were seeking to be different from the Catholic church.

Also the Roman Catholic church is the only ark of salvation.
St. Augustine (354-430), Bishop and Doctor of the Church:
"No man can find salvation except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. One can have honor, one can have sacraments, one can sing alleluia, one can answer amen, one can have faith in the Name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and preach it too, but never can one find salvation except in the Catholic Church."

Thank you.

Answer 5

Most Catholics and other Christians get along just fine.

Catholics do not believe that non-Catholic Christians are damned. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements.

Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church.

All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him.

With love in Christ.

Answer 6

Catholicism is Christianity, its just a another branch like the Protestant movement. I really don't understand why people always say, Why do Catholics and Christians this or that, they are the same. Christianity is the religion Catholic is the sect, like Lutheran or Southern Baptist. As for the division, put two people together and they will argue, its just petty humanity and our in ability to let the small stuff slide.

Answer 7

The Word was God! The apostolic churches teach that the Lord God Jesus Christ is the only God of heaven and earth just like Revelation says. The Lord God Jesus Christ is to be worshipped. Do not worship a multiplicity of Gods.

Answer 8

It has been my experience that whenever true Christians of any persuasion come together to pray in the name of Jesus, there is love.

The things that were done in the past by men, both within and without the church, for personal, national, political, economic, and theological reasons, whether right or wrong, are the things that continue to separate us.

And that sin-driven confusion and separation is used by Satan to dilute and nullify the good work of the church, in the world today.

To great extent, it's just like the civil war in Iraq.

Everybody getting worked up, fighting and killing each other over things that someday. won't even matter.

It's the devil's work, and we Christians ... all of us ... have allowed ourselves to be distracted by it for all too long.

Answer 9

I understand what you are saying. There are many who call themselves Christians. There is only one way to be a true Christian.One more thing a true Christian does not mean he is perfect.A true Christian should not be thinking he is better than another person. For one thing how do we know what God has planned for that other person.

Answer 10

Please read this whole thing. It's not one'a those annoying long ones, I promise.

The underlying problem, strangely, is capitalism, which in the end, will prove to have been a feeble attempt by evil/fear to DIVIDE and conquer the enemy, love/faith. 50 years from now, if we are still here and have somehow avoided or survived major geological, astronomical, geo-political and/or geo-economic catastrophes, children will read of the rise and fall of the American Empire. In the history of mankind, any and all attempts by either one person or group of people to control the rest has ended catastrophically.

We live in a society created by generations before us, yet, as we know, each generation is smarter than the last. It should not surprise you that our system does not work. It was a quick fix by people who wanted to remain in power and control women. Currently, most of you believe we are separate from eachother, and seperate from God. Quantum physics is proving that we are all individual parts of one thing. This one thing, this sum of all things, is what God truly is. God is not an angry, vengeful, bearded white guy.
This doesn't mean Jesus isn't the Son of Man, for he is. But remember that Jesus said, "I and the Father are one, and ye are my brethren." He didnt follow that up by saying, "Oh yah, for hell's sake don't take that literally." Christ's message is love thy neighbor, not profit off thy neighbor. And remember the "camel through the eye of a needle" parable. You are rich, it's a matter of fact as well as perspective. Compare yourself to BillGates and your "just getting by"- compare yourself to half of Ethiopia- combined- you're beyond rich, you're a spoiled pig. (no offense, lol) We are not living Christ's message.
We were all blinded, by our own purpose in the beginning, and you simply have not yet revealed your true self, in order to fully experience life. Historical dogma has kept the blindfold tied securely. Remove the veil of separatism, and you are no longer separate from eachother or God.
The belief that we are seperate is the basis for all of our geo-social problems. Remembering that you are one with the source, one part of the whole of both sides, and choosing love as the part you wish to play, is the only answer to any problems.
As we also know that nothing can exist without it's opposite, we have fear opposing faith, as the two sides of the whole. It is not a battle between good and evil, but a perfect cycle of attraction of opposites, life as the source of death, as does death also spawn life.
What does that mean to you and me? This entire planet will in the end fall categorically to one side or the other, as relatively compared to other living planets. Our species needs to figure out what we're going to do when our planet dies, which it will do. possibly in your own lifetime due to catastrophe or unnatural acceleration, or, in your offspring's at least, in due natural course.

There is no race "purer" than the other, just as there is no tree, butterfly, or snowflake "purer" than the other. Only as one species, undivided by fear into "race", can we have any chance at all at finding a new home. If we stay on our present course of seperatism, we won't even need a home, as we will surely kill eachother and our planet. Until then, we can worry about making a home for us all, out of the ruins of our own lifetime.

I answered a question earlier much the same. It asked about the problem with welfare. There is no answer to the "problem with welfare" because welfare is a symptom of the larger, until now un-identified problem, capitalism, which is now also the national religion.

Please think about that. When the mind has been blinded with false, insufficient or obsolete data, you must think and decide with your heart and your soul.