Has anyone noticed that Catholics seem to win with the answers -?

Question

Whenever someone comes out with some Chick tract unbiblical untruth about the Catholic Church they seem to get a full, thoughtout and respectful answer.

All I hear from the fundie regulars is a load of things that they were thought by some uneducated pastor with poor biblical interpretation skills.

All we hear is "where in the bible" related to some topics and when you show them they say "that doesnt mean that" Most relates to actual commands that Jesus made to people.

Jesus used words like "unless you do a,b,c," and then these guys come back and say he was being symbolic.

Its my understanding that they created a different Gospel, different that the first century christians, dont you think so.

I just have found the catholic answers to be far more solid and just plain true.

I would think that if a person looking to explore Christianity compared Catholic and Protestant belieft it would be clear that the Catholic faith was around 200 years and protestant 400yrs

Answer 1

I think that the primary difference is that Catholicism actually has a set curriculum by which they teach based upon really theological studies.

Protestants on the other hand, maybe not all but a larger portion, do not have any theological background. They simply use bias emotional interpretations so that the bible says what they want it to say.

Answer 2

Well, Robert, the Catholics have an unfair advantage. They've been thinking about these questions about five times longer than the Protestants (2000 vs. 400 years). The Catholic founders like Peter and John were personal disciples of Jesus, and they learned ideas that were not written into the New Testament (see John 21:25). Catholics wrote the New Testament and selected the books that were included from among other good Catholic writings, like the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas. They had the writings from the Fathers of the Church in the second and third centuries, disciples of the disciples.

In addition, Protestants impose a major handicap on their thinking about Christianity by their "sola scriptura" rule,* which in practice means that everyone can believe the scripture to mean whatever he wants it to mean. This means that no biblical questions are ever completely decided, which means Protestants can never build new understandings on a settled foundation.

It's just not fair.

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 3

I would agree with you in all but two things, Catholicism has been around for much more than 200 years, actually 10 times that and counting and secondly the uneducated pastor mention. We tend to generalize and that isn't fair. Some of the pastors I know are very well trained and prepared, and actually some take the same seminary classes I take and they are fundamentalist Christians.
We do have many who don't see things eye to eye, and this is yes due to personal interpretation of the Bible, the same reason given by the Church until Vatican II, about limiting scripture reading to those who study it, because people do have their view point and do fill in the blanks in Biblical stories with their own opinion. Not a good practice but that has definately caused discourse and additional splitting that you mentioned earlier in your description about the newer religions formed.
Keep up the spread of truth, God keep you always.

Answer 4

I think it is important to distinguish Protestants from "fundamentalists." I fail to do this distinction myself sometimes.

A lot of protestants - particularly Lutherans and Anglicans - actually see things in a very similar way to us; they recognize that the interpretation of scripture through the traditional teachings of the ecumenical councils and theologians is valuable.

The "yer goin' to hell" folks tend to be barely-christian folks from a non-denominational congregation, or sometimes even people who never darken a church door at all.

With that said, I am certainly proud of my fellow Catholics for the generally high quality of their answers. bravo! I say.

As to this "brides bowing with flowers" business above, that must be a custom local to the respondent. I am a Catholic liturgical musician. I've never seen it once, and as a liturgical musician, if anyone would have seen it, it'd be me!

Answer 5

No I have not noticed that.

The most important thing which gets people messed up when reading the failure to read the Bible in context.

You get context by reading whole books at a time not reading it verse by verse.

Usually you can get the context by reading the whole chapter or perhaps the chapter before and after.

Most of my knowledge of what the RCC teaches is because I've read the Documents of Vatican II and the Catechism from cover to cover.

I have not seen a "Chick" tract in years.

I've also attended probably 50 Catholic weddings during my life time and I would guess about that many funerals.

Every time a Catholic bride would kneel down and leave some flowers at the foot of a statue of Mary. The statue and bowing down to it are both expressly forbidden in the Ten Commandments.

Catholic Church beliefs change whenever you get a new Pope. Bible believing Christians rely on the solid Word of God.

When I was boy, Catholics were not allowed to eat meat on Fridays. Today its ok, except during Lent.

When I was a boy, there was a place called "Limbo", when I was boy nothing, just in the past two years the new Pope decided "Limbo" is wrong or never existed.

There is nothing in the Bible to even suggest Limbo exists.

Many of the official doctrines of the RCC about Mary are less than 200 years old, dating from the time of Bernadette and later.

The people who created a different gospel is the church of rome which came into its own really in the 9th century.

The Protestant reformation was needed to get the corrupt church of rome back to the Bible.

I remember quoting an encylopedia article a few years back and miltant catholics told me the guy who wrote it didn't know squat about church history.

Yet the author of the article was an Ordained Priest, he held two earned doctorates, a Ph.D. in Church History and Th.D. as well. His job was President of the Unversity of Notre Dame yet militant online Catholics disagreed with his article as published in the online version of the Encyclopedia Britanica.

The gold standard by which a denomination should be judged is the Bible God's Word, not the words of men or church councils.

Pastor Art

Answer 6

In your zeal, you made a couple of typos. The Catholic Church has been around for 2000 years, while protestants have been around for about 400 years.

It is clear that Catholics have the Truth on their side, which give us a distinct advantage over fundamentalists and evangelicals.

Fight the good fight, and keep up the good work.

Answer 7

Once, I read an article that explained when each church began thier congregations. Many began in the 1900's to my surprise. Where did you read about Protestants being around so long? (If you mean the Jewish faith, I understand). Even Martin Luther was Catholic, first.

Answer 8

Pastor Art quotes.
"The Protestant reformation was needed to get the corrupt church of rome back to the Bible."



Pastor Art.....you need to not only seek knowledge about the Catholic faith, but also the history of Luther.

The Reformation destroyed the unity of faith and ecclesiastical organization of the Christian peoples of Europe, cut many millions off from the true Catholic Church, and robbed them of the greatest portion of the salutary means for the cultivation and maintenance of the supernatural life. Incalculable harm was thereby wrought from the religious standpoint. The false fundamental doctrine of justification by faith alone, taught by the Reformers, produced a lamentable shallowness in religious life. Zeal for good works disappeared, the asceticism which the Church had practised from her foundation was despised, charitable and ecclesiastical objects were no longer properly cultivated, supernatural interests fell into the background, and naturalistic aspirations aiming at the purely mundane, became widespread. The denial of the Divinely instituted authority of the Church, both as regards doctrine and ecclesiastical government, opened wide the door to every eccentricity, gave rise to the endless division into sects and the never-ending disputes characteristic of Protestantism, and could not but lead to the complete unbelief which necessarily arises from the Protestant principles. Of real freedom of belief among the Reformers of the sixteenth century there was not a trace; on the contrary, the greatest tyranny in matters of conscience was displayed by the representatives of the Reformation. The most baneful Caesaropapism was meanwhile fostered, since the Reformation recognized the secular authorities as supreme also in religious matters. Thus arose from the very beginning the various Protestant "national Churches", which are entirely discordant with the Christian universalism of the Catholic Church, and depend, alike for their faith and organization, on the will of the secular ruler. In this way the Reformation was a chief factor in the evolution of royal absolutism. In every land in which it found ingress, the Reformation was the cause of indescribable suffering among the people; it occasioned civil wars which lasted decades with all their horrors and devastations; the people were oppressed and enslaved; countless treasures of art and priceless manuscripts were destroyed; between members of the same land and race the seed of discord was sown. Germany in particular, the original home of the Reformation, was reduced to a state of piteous distress by the Thirty Years' War, and the German Empire was thereby dislodged from the leading position which it had for centuries occupied in Europe. Only gradually, and owing to forces which did not essentially spring from the Reformation, but were conditioned by other historical factors, did the social wounds heal, but the religious corrosion still continues despite the earnest religious sentiments which have at all times characterized many individual followers of the Reformation.







As for Luther, he is also known for his writings about the Jews, the nature and consequences of which are the subject of scholarly debate. His statements that Jews' homes should be destroyed, their synagogues burned, money confiscated, and liberty curtailed were revived and given widespread publicity by the Nazis in Germany in 1933–45.As a result of this and his revolutionary theological views, his legacy remains controversial. (wikipedia)

Luther insisted on the Real Presence of the body and blood of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine.
Martin Luther in his 1528 Confession Concerning Christ's Supper:

Why then should we not much more say in the Supper, "This is my body," even though bread and body are two distinct substances, and the word "this" indicates the bread? Here, too, out of two kinds of objects a union has taken place, which I shall call a "sacramental union," because Christ’s body and the bread are given to us as a sacrament. This is not a natural or personal union, as is the case with God and Christ. It is also perhaps a different union from that which the dove has with the Holy Spirit, and the flame with the angel, but it is also assuredly a sacramental union
(wikipedia)

In the 16th c., Luther, reacting to serious abuses and clerical corruption in the Latin Church, to his own heretical theological vision , removed those books from the canon that lent support to orthodox doctrine, relegating them to an appendix. Removed in this way were books that supported such things as prayers for the dead (Tobit 12:12; 2 Maccabees 12:39-45), Purgatory (Wisdom 3:1-7), intercession of dead saints (2 Maccabees 15:14), and intercession of angels as intermediaries (Tobit 12:12-15).
Luther wanted to remove the Epistle of James, Esther, Hebrews, Jude and Revelation. Calvin and Zwingli also both had problems with the Book of Revelation, the former calling it "unintelligible" and forbidding the pastors in Geneva to interpret it, the latter calling it "unbiblical". The first edition of the King James Version of the Bible included the "Apocryphal"Deuterocanonical) Books.

Pastor Art........try this website for information on Luther:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09438b.htm

Answer 9

Although I'm no longer a Catholic, I have to shake my head at some of the ideas Protestants have about the church. Some of the wild stuff they come up with proves that they've never set foot inside a Catholic church and have no idea what they're talking about.

Answer 10

The Catholic faith is rich in history and often deeper than any Protestant faith. But there are genuine Christians in both. Protestants tend to just quote the words on the page, but Catholics who tend to have a more broad faith with depth can answer with more profound meaning. There are exceptions to the rule.