Religion A question to the Protestant Christians

[Mike Cash]

What I find strange with Catholics is how they can accept their rigid, heirarchical organisation, yet their church's founder, Christ, was completely hated and completely opposed in every way this very type of organised religion.

If you are speaking of organized religions contemporary to the lifetime of Christ completely hating and opposing him in every way...please name them.

My understanding of the matter is that Christ created very little stir and received very little notice during the course of his life. I seem to recall hearing that to date only two mentions of him have been found in the entirety of extant texts from the period: one from Roman sources and the other I believe was from Josephus. If you refer to the very early Christians and not to Christ himself, then your point is quite valid, of course.

But then again, I'm not surprised when you take into consideration basic human behaviour. I guess you could say that Catholics are like the Japanese right-wingers, involved in an old, obselete and redundant organistion, and the protestants/other Christian organisations as the liberal Japanese who are willing to look outside the square called "tradition".

Judging by your use of British orthographical conventions, I'm going to go out on a limb and and guess that you're not familiar with Southern Baptists.

I suppose, though, that you might be referring to some of those protestants who have looked outside the box to the point that they have made Christ incidental and God irrelevant, opting for a sort of pop-psychology feel-good brand of religion instead.

 

[Maciamo]

Maciamo, sorry but your question from the very beginning is flawed. The basis of your arguement is that there was some devine command to set up the current organised government of Catholosism, which, in fact, there wasn't.

Well, that is what the Catholic church claims. And how would we know the truth, when it is even possible that St Peter never went to Rome at all (or that Jesus never existed, for that matter).

And it wasn't until the common people eventually realised this that they finally also realised they had been duped all this time, hense the creation of other branches of Christianity (and if you find it hard to believe that so many people can be duped for so long just go back through all your posts about how ignorant Japanese people are).

How would ordinary people in the 16th century suddenly realise that they had been duped, when even the leaders of the Church at that time may not have known how it really all started ? I think it is more the act of human nature, as you said. Ordinary people, nobles and sovereign were all pleased not to have to pay money to the Church, be persecuted for no real reason, or have to listen to the last caprice of the pope. What I find very interesting is that the Catholic-Protestant division in Western Europe follows almost exactly the borders of the old Roman Empire (considering that England and Wales are also Catholic, but mostly Anglican Catholic, with some Roman Catholic).

What I find strange with Catholics is how they can accept their rigid, heirarchical organisation, yet their church's founder, Christ, was completely hated and completely opposed in every way this very type of organised religion. But then again, I'm not surprised when you take into consideration basic human behaviour. I guess you could say that Catholics are like the Japanese right-wingers, involved in an old, obselete and redundant organistion, and the protestants/other Christian organisations as the liberal Japanese who are willing to look outside the square called "tradition".

But the Catholic Church has been immensely more successful than any Japanese politicla party or organisation. a few hundred people in the Vatican now commands over 1 billion followers world-wide. That's more than the combined population of Europe and North America ! (and this despite losing millions of believers in Europe)

 

[Mycernius]

What I find very interesting is that the Catholic-Protestant division in Western Europe follows almost exactly the borders of the old Roman Empire (considering that England and Wales are also Catholic, but mostly Anglican Catholic, with some Roman Catholic).

You might upset a few Anglicans there. Anglican or Church of England is Protestant, not Catholic. Great Britain, as a whole, is Protestant. Ireland is Catholic. The C of E might retain some items in its services that are catholic in origin, But so do many other branches of Christianity. As far as the Pope, and the catholic church is concerned C of E is most definately protestant.

 

[Maciamo]

You might upset a few Anglicans there. Anglican or Church of England is Protestant, not Catholic. Great Britain, as a whole, is Protestant. Ireland is Catholic.

Could you explain to me the differences of beliefs between Anglicans and Catholics. To the best of my knowledge, it is almost identical, even in the organisation, except that the head is different. Protestants do not believe in saints, do not follow most of the 7 Catholic sacraments, do not have a hierarchy (vicar, priest, bishop, archbishop, cardinal, pope), do not have cathedrals, and do not decorate their churches luxuriously, but humbly. Anglicans do all this, and therefore are not Protestant. They are commonly referred to as Protestant because they indeed "protested" against Rome. But the people didn't do it - Henry VIII did. And not because of a different interpretation of the Bible, but so that he could did so that he could divorce again.

The C of E might retain some items in its services that are catholic in origin, But so do many other branches of Christianity. As far as the Pope, and the catholic church is concerned C of E is most definately protestant.

You will see in the list of Christian denominations that there are many kinds of Catholics, and the Latin Church (= Roman Catholic) that follow the pope in Rome is only one of them. You will also notice in many serious and neutral sources that Anglicans are not counted among Protestant denominations (although often also not among Catholics, but this in my opinion is just political, not based on the similarities in beliefs and system). I don't see in what way the Byzantine Catholic Church, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church or the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church are closer to the Roman Catholic Church than the Church of England.


EDIT : Regarding the issue "the UK is Protestant and Ireland is Catholic", I believe that it is way too simple. Ireland is cleary Catholic, and few people are non-Christian. But in the UK, there is even more diversity than in India ! According to the government census for 2001, only 71.7% of British (and Northern Irish) people were Christians, with Atheists or "non-religious" being the 2nd largest group (14.6% + 7.7%), and the rest including Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists, Neo-pagans and others. In fact, India is more homogenous, with over 80% of Hindus, and otherwise most of the other religions found in the UK.

Of course, many of the 71.7% who consider themselves Christians are only Christian by tradition, and may not believe in god at all, as is explained on Wikipedia :

A 2004 YouGov poll found that 44 per cent of UK citizens believe in God, while 35 per cent do not [4]. The disparity between the census data and the YouGov data has been put down to a phenomenon described as "cultural Christianity", whereby many who do not believe in God still identify with the religion they were bought up as, or the religion of their parents.

So, if we substract the 22.3% of "non-religious and atheist" from the 35% who do not believe in god, we get about 12.7% of Christians who do not believe in god (they could not all be Christians, but other religions are only a small minority of the total population). The remaining 21% (100-44-35=21) are those who follow their religion by tradition, without true conviction. I would call them the Agnostics. According to my calculations based on the 2001 census, among the 71.7% of Christians in the UK, 12.7% of them are only Christian in name (but actually Atheist or don't care at all), 21% are Agnotic Christian (unconvinced) and 38% are "true Christians". This is contradicted by other stats below from Religioustolerance.org, that give only 14.4% of British people as true Christians (which is probably more correct considering the the Anglican church attendance rate in Britain ranges from 1.4% to 4%).

Among the Christians, we find Anglicans, Catholics, and various denominations of Protestants (Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecoastals...).

Data from 1992 shows that only 14.4% of the UK population belong to a Christian denomination. The vast majority of Christian church members are affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, or the Presbyterian Church:

Denomination Number of members (million)
Roman Catholic 2.044
Church of England 1.808
Presbyterian 1.242
Methodist 0.459
Independent 0.357
Eastern Orthodox 0.276
Baptist 0.231
Pentecostal 0.170
Other 0.131

So if we refer to these numbers, Roman Catholics are the most numerous among Christian groups in the UK, followed by Anglicans, the Protestant denominations and Orthodoxes. It is true however that all the Protestants (Anglican not included) together form the largest group of "true believers". But they are only 2.4 million nationwide, i.e. only 4% of the total population. In other words, there are almost as many Muslims in Britain as Protestants. That explains why I don't see Britain as a "Protestant country".

N.B.: It is interesting to note that Northern Ireland is much more religious than Great Britain. Northern Irish are 40.3% Catholics, 30.3% Protestants, 15.3% Anglicans (Church of Ireland), and only 14.1% Atheists/non-religious. In contrast, Scotland has the highest numbers of Atheist/non-religious (33%), the highest number of Anglicans (42.4%), but also the lowest number of Protestants (6.8%) and Catholics (15.9%) nationwide. So Scotland is just the reverse of Northern Ireland, religion-wise.

 

[No-name]

I went to that list, Macaimo and I was floored. I did not know that there were so many different denominations...and I always thought that there were three basic divisions: Catholic, protestant and orthodox. Anglican is definitely not catholic, but they do share a great deal of traditions and teachings.

 

[Mike Cash]

Sabro, you might find http://tinyurl.com/7ohw3 to be interesting. I haven't read that particular book, but I have listened to an extensive lecture series (http://tinyurl.com/7fe2d) by the author on the same topic. Very interesting stuff, even for an Atheist.

 

[No-name]

It looks very interesting. I read some of the reviews on the Amazon site- maybe when I get a little time I will read it. (I'm a few books behind, including my brother's novel, Atomik Aztex, and Jim Wallis' God's Politics.

 

[Mike Cash]

If your day is such that you have blocks of it you could fill up with audio books, let me know and I'll snail mail you the lecture series.

 

[Tsuyoiko]

Could you explain to me the differences of beliefs between Anglicans and Catholics.

The way I see it, if you recognise the pope as the head of the church you are Catholic. If not, you are protestant, regardless of whether you use Catholic-style organisation, dogma and rituals. Since Anglicans don't recognise the pope, they are not Catholics.

 

[Maciamo]

The way I see it, if you recognise the pope as the head of the church you are Catholic. If not, you are protestant, regardless of whether you use Catholic-style organisation, dogma and rituals. Since Anglicans don't recognise the pope, they are not Catholics.

So, do you consider the Mormons, Jeovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, etc. as Protestants too ? What about Coptic Christians, Armenian Christians, Orthodox Christians, etc. ? The Mormons are usually not even considered as Christians by Protestant themselves, although they are officially called "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints".

Did you know that for Conservative Protestants, like the Baptists and Evangelicals, Catholics are not even Christians but "lost souls", like people of any other religion ?

Classifying Christians groups is no simple task. All the above are Christians, but most are not Protestant. Protestants normally include Calvinists (=Presbyterian or Reformed), Lutherans, Methodists, Anabaptists (Mennonites, Amish), Baptists, and those that among them that can also be referred as Evengelical, Puritan or Fundamentalist, depending on how conservative they are.

Quakers and Unitarian Universalists are sometimes put with the Protestants for historical reasons, but most of them do not even consider themselves Christians nowadays.

Anglicans, Orthodoxes, Mormons, Jeovah's Witnesses, etc. are not Protestants.

Here is a good comparison of everything that divides Catholics and conservative Protestants. You will notice that about everything in the column "Catholic" also applies to Anglicans, which is why they cannot be called Protestant.

 

[Bucko]

Interesting comment. But, I am not too sure if the analogy fits Catholicism. It does in some respects such as pomp and ceremoney.

Yeah, I know it's not a good analogy, but I also know that Maciamo gets quite fired up over anything that's Japanese and stupid so I thought I'd take aim at his sofest spot

 

[Bucko]

Well, that is what the Catholic church claims. And how would we know the truth, when it is even possible that St Peter never went to Rome at all (or that Jesus never existed, for that matter).

LOL, why wouldn't they claim that? It's their whole organisation that's at stake.

How would ordinary people in the 16th century suddenly realise that they had been duped, when even the leaders of the Church at that time may not have known how it really all started ?

Because the Bible was only permitted to be written in Latin only so the uneducated commoner types couldn't read it, relying only on their church "leaders" (who could then go on and brainwash them in any way they liked). Any attempts at translating it were dealt with by the death penalty.

But the Catholic Church has been immensely more successful than any Japanese politicla party or organisation. a few hundred people in the Vatican now commands over 1 billion followers world-wide. That's more than the combined population of Europe and North America ! (and this despite losing millions of believers in Europe)

It was just a simple analogy that I thought you could identify with well.

I don't know why I'm even bothering to participate in this post as it's not something that I would ever care about. Maybe it's because, yet again, I'm seeing the ignorance of Maciamo, hidden under a blanket of arrogance, and I just want to help the poor bugger?

 

[Maciamo]

LOL, why wouldn't they claim that? It's their whole organisation that's at stake.

But of course ! And so is it for those who claim the opposite.Coming back to what you said :

Maciamo, sorry but your question from the very beginning is flawed. The basis of your arguement is that there was some devine command to set up the current organised government of Catholosism, which, in fact, there wasn't.

and combined with :

I don't know why I'm even bothering to participate in this post as it's not something that I would ever care about. Maybe it's because, yet again, I'm seeing the ignorance of Maciamo, hidden under a blanket of arrogance, and I just want to help the poor bugger?

Do you even understand that I am a convinced Atheist, not a Catholic, and that I personally do not believe that there was a "divine command" to set up the Catholic Church, as I do not believe either in god, nor in Jesus. So before calling me "ignorant and arrogant", try to read between the lines and understand the sarcasm in my original post.

There are people who are Christian "by tradition" (without wondering much about the truths - esp. Catholics), others that are Christians because of the social support th church community provides (mostly in the USA), and others yet who are truly convinced that the Bible is innerant (i.e. absolutely true in every respect) and that their faith is the only faith valid (Born-again Christians). I can understand the two first, but not those convinced that they hold the one and only truth. As these are usually (conservative) Protestants, I wanted to ask them in this thread what made them so sure that they held the absolute truth, as during over 1500 years, translation available or not, there had only been one truth in Western Europe, the Catholic one. For example, if they think that the Bible is innerant and the only source of "truth", it means that they believe in creationism, don't believe in evolution, believe in a perfect but personal god, with human feelings and defects (a heavy contradiction in itself, and which in any case requires a physical brain, and thus to be "only" a mortal life being), etc., which is pure nonsense in the 21st century.

 

[No-name]

Am I sure I hold 100% of the Truth? I have been wrong before...

 

[Doc]

Am I sure I hold 100% of the Truth? I have been wrong before...

Nice rebuttal my friend, nice rebuttal!

Doc :wave:

 

[Maciamo]

Am I sure I hold 100% of the Truth? I have been wrong before...

Your are visibly not a typical Born-again Christian. According to a BBC poll, over 70% of Americans would die for their religions, and the hardliner Born-agains only make up of fraction of them. And why would you die for something you are not convinced at 100% ? I am convinced about my beliefs, but I would certainly not die for them... :relief: This leads me to believe that if you are not ready to die for your faith, you are probably not convined 100%, and probably not a Born-again Christian either.

 

[No-name]

Hmmm- I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, that he is the only way, that His word is the Bible and that it is God insprired and inerrant. I belive that God created the Heavens and the Earth and that man fell through the sin of Adam- is sinful in nature and is in need of a redeemer. Born Again enough? I'm willing to bet my life on it.

100% certainty? Don't have it, don't need it. I live with uncertainty moment by moment and the thrill of the risks- like drinking tap water! Oh what a rush.

Would I die for it? Probably. I might actually die for less, like a really good pastrami sandwhich, or a really nice Harley.

 

[Bucko]

Do you even understand that I am a convinced Atheist, not a Catholic, and that I personally do not believe that there was a "divine command" to set up the Catholic Church, as I do not believe either in god, nor in Jesus. So before calling me "ignorant and arrogant", try to read between the lines and understand the sarcasm in my original post.

Yeah I knew you were an athiest from your previous posts, so I didn't write that assuming you were Catholic. I wrote it because you seemed to think that Catholocism was the "pure" type of Christianity (pure in the sense of it being exactly what the founders wanted it to be) and that other branches of Christianity to be tainted by change (and therefore not what the original founders wanted). In other words, I didn't think you understood that the different branches of Christianity are not "changes" from Catholocism, but rather, different interpretations of the original message, thus making any Christian belief as valid as any other (Catholic just happening to be the first of these).

There are people who are Christian "by tradition" (without wondering much about the truths - esp. Catholics), others that are Christians because of the social support th church community provides (mostly in the USA), and others yet who are truly convinced that the Bible is innerant (i.e. absolutely true in every respect) and that their faith is the only faith valid (Born-again Christians). I can understand the two first, but not those convinced that they hold the one and only truth.

To be honest, I find it hard to understand any of the three you've just written about! The people who are Christian by tradition are kidding themselves. I think "what does tradition have to do with universal truth?" when I hear these people. The second lot are just using religion as a means to self survival. The third lot are the craziest of them all (for many of the same reasons that you gave). I especially cringe when I hear the third lot going on about their "faith". IMO, faith is a worthless concept used by lazy, scared people who are too weak to ever consider challenging their beliefs. If I was God I would be completely disappointed with anyone who put their full faith in me. The code of the real "truth seeker" should be that they are willing to drop anything they currently believe in so further seek the truth, thus not ever having complete "faith".

 

[Maciamo]

Would I die for it? Probably. I might actually die for less, like a really good pastrami sandwhich, or a really nice Harley.

Don't confuse "die for it" (i.e. defending it) and "die because of it". I doubt that you fight to death defending the vitues of pastrami. (or is your name Joey Tribbiani ?)

 

[Maciamo]

Yeah I knew you were an athiest from your previous posts, so I didn't write that assuming you were Catholic. I wrote it because you seemed to think that Catholocism was the "pure" type of Christianity (pure in the sense of it being exactly what the founders wanted it to be) and that other branches of Christianity to be tainted by change (and therefore not what the original founders wanted).

I was just teasing Protestants here. In fact, I see Protestatism as more "pure" as you say, because it only has the Bible, without the traditions, saints and organisation added over the centuries. I don't know if Jesus has really existed (as a human being), and if he did, I don't know if his intentions were to create a religion more like Catholicism or Protestantism or Orthodoxism or else, and if he even expected it to become so big. It could very well have died out soon after he died. It is as well possible that he was just the invention of a few opportunists who spread the story to satisfy their own ambitions to create a religion. If that is so, I think their intentions were closer to what the Catholic church has become. But I doubt that they would have expected it to become so big in the first two centuries. So we can't know for sure what the intention of the founder(s) were, but we know that the Catholic way is the oldest, and the popes have succeeded each others since the very first century of Christianity.

The people who are Christian by tradition are kidding themselves. I think "what does tradition have to do with universal truth?" when I hear these people.

I know many Catholics here who do not care much about the "universal truth" in religion. For them, religion is more like a set of traditions, a way of living, with sacraments serving as family gatherings and nothing more. They believe in evolution, they never think an instant that god created the world like it is describe in the bible, etc. For them, the Bible is just metaphorical, and should not be taken literally, and therefore does not contain any "truths", but just images serving as guidelines, not absolute rules. I think that many modern Catholics are like that, which is why it is possible for them to separate religion and science, faith/tradition and reason. In other words, such Catholicism is more like Neo-pagans believing in ancient gods. They don't "really" believe in them. It's just a way of expressing themselves, like fashion or hobbies, and a way to socialise, or even a cultural statement.

The second lot are just using religion as a means to self survival. The third lot are the craziest of them all (for many of the same reasons that you gave). I especially cringe when I hear the third lot going on about their "faith". IMO, faith is a worthless concept used by lazy, scared people who are too weak to ever consider challenging their beliefs. If I was God I would be completely disappointed with anyone who put their full faith in me. The code of the real "truth seeker" should be that they are willing to drop anything they currently believe in so further seek the truth, thus not ever having complete "faith".

We agree then.