Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

Actually, now that I am atheist I definitely fall under anathema from the Catholic Church. Plus, your group thinks I'm damned. However, I just don't care. Think what you will of my future after my death. I have zero problem being excommunicated.I joined this thread for three reasons:
1. To show that your point that Catholics are not Christians is ridiculous. The definition of the word Christian describes them as such and the fact that most of their beliefs are identical to Protestants also shows them as such.2. To show that the Catholic Church, under the Papacy, is not intending to begin another inquisition. They are fine as long as Protestants are under anathema, since according to them that sends you all to Hell for not being Catholic. The numbers of the Catholic Church are consistently diminishing with very few youth able to buy the story. Trust me, I taught youth group for nine years, I got to watch kids get confirmed to keep Ma and Pa happy and then never return. Also, it was the majority of students. You have also yet to show any support for your contention, so there is no reason to accept your premise at this time.3. That even though the Roman Catholic Church was evil, sadistic bastards in the past, the Protestants are not blameless. Both groups used what they thought was their God-given authority to subjugate, kill, enslave, and forcefully convert those who opposed them. Holding a grudge when you are just as guilty is pointless and instead of widening the fracture we should be working to bridge the gaps. So far, we only have this Earth as home and we must learn to work as a single tribe before we all end up murdering one another.I feel that I have made the points I intended, but please show me if you think otherwise. Rome versus Protestant should be over. Again, at least they have the right God, that is better than other religions in your eyes, right?

I know you couldn't care less that you are under anathemas, as usual my point is being ignored. The point is that the doctrine of salvation you described is a PROTESTANT doctrine, NOT Catholic doctrine. You guys don't even know what Catholicism teaches about salvation but the Protestant Reformers DID know and that's why Protestant doctrine got anathematized.But who cares right? The point never was that CATHOLICS are not Christians, some may be by the blessed blind fluke of ignoring most of what Rome teaches and submitting only to Christ. The gospel IS part of the Catholic teaching only so muddied over by superstitions and false beliefs and false formulas it's amazing it's recognizable at all. The point I'm making is that the INSTITUTION and what it teaches are not Christian. The papacy is the Antichrist according to the Protestant Reformers and those who share their understanding to this day see it the same way. You can't possibly knlow this let alone "show" it. All this is hidden, stealthy, covered up and you aren't in a position to see the successes they've already had in the direction of their ultimate aim to get into a position where they can show their true colors. Unfortunately they are NOT "fine" with that at all, this is just your own article of faith that they MUST be. It's what I always assumed until I started hearing otherwise. This is true in the WEST, I'm not sure it's true in the rest of the world. What I said above.ABE: The number of members doesn't affect the power-seeking subterfuges that go on at the highest levesl. Why would it? I guess it might drive them to a more vicious fury in their efforts if anything. I've actually shown quite a bit of indirect support that ought to cause honest people to want to know more instead of just taking this endlessly combative and dismissive attitude. I've SAID I have a lot more research to do but good grief, this blanket dismissal of anything I say shows such a closed mind I ought to know better than to even try to talk about it here. But it does get me to do some of the basic work so I guess that's why I bother. You have not shown this against the Protestants at all, there has been no evidence of that given on this thread, it's all been assertion, and most of it has to be lying propaganda. For one thing I'm NEVER talking about ordinary "Catholics" when I talk about the enormities of Rome though that seems to be the level of argument on the other side. There is nothing on the Protestant side that even comes close to Rome's hideous systematic OFFICIAL murders, not even a tiny bit close, that's all lying propaganda political correctness that just HAS to believe everybody's equally guilty, but by taking that stand you are literally letting them get away with murder. It would be pointless except that Protestants are not "equally guilty" by such an enormous gap the thought is crazy, and "holding a grudge" is a piece of lying propaganda intended to trivialize the actual dimensions of the truth. Spoken like a true son of Rome. What a pack of lies they've foisted on the world. Right, let's all make peace with the wolf dressed like a lamb, so that it can eat us all up in the name of learning to work together. That's what you are asking for. I'm still researching this stuff, I need to collect quotes that aren't online. Frankly, no, they don't have the right God, that's really what it's ultimately all about. Again perhaps many rank and file Catholics worship the true God, I hope, but Rome as an institution has the Pope in the place of ("vicar") the true God, they have Mary who is treated as a god although that is denied, they have the wafer that is treated as a god. Not interested in debating this, it's a major tenet of the Protestant Reformation and ought to be recognized as such.Just the fact that there is so much effort to obscure these points on this thread shows that this is a huge area of spiritual battle.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, there are degrees in bias. And there are definitely forms of assertion other than unsupported.

Seriously. I don't take kindly to someone suggesting that I can't comprehend reading.So do you believe there are only 12 major denominations or not?Let's see you backpedal and afterwards, I expect an apology.

Going to slow this topic down for a while. The tentative plan is to take it back out of summation mode later, maybe in 24 hours, maybe after a longer period.While in summation mode, all previous participants can post 1 message. Maybe these midtopic summations will be useful in improving the topic's quality (or something like that).If nothing else, call it an experiment.Adminnemooseus

.It's called historical revisionism for a REASON, look it up.

Right and the highest degree of bias and the most unsupported assertions here have been yours, jars and Theodoric's with some runners-up.ABE: Anglagard just got himself into the top tier, so that makes four.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't like Gandhi, does that make us even?

Both Catholics and Protestants...as individuals...have exhibited measures of both...the best of us model the right Spirit...you know it when you see it. Even then, we embrace false spirits at times.As institutions, however, the Roman Catholics got sidetracked early in their history, asn the Protestants started out their denominations "on fire" and with much of the right Spirit guiding them. John Wesley comes to mind.Later, as institutions, the denominations of Protestantism also got sidetracked. Is there any righteous among us? Institutionally, no. Individually, yes. Only the Judge knows for sure.

The argument seems to be between those who argue that and those who argue that

Roman Catholicism lost almost no Nations due to the Reformation and the great divide was far more about money and power than religious beliefs. England became a Protestant Nation but eventually a rather secular Protestant Nation and the cause had almost nothing to do with dogma and everything to do with getting an Heir and a Spare.France brought us the Enlightenment yet remained a Roman Catholic Nation although a relatively secular Roman Catholic Nation.Down through the centuries Protestantism has been slightly more effective at genocide than Roman Catholicism however both spread the faith by force.

This topic needs to be permanently shut down. I still feel strongly that it should never have been promoted. We all knew that it would be like it was. To think it would have resulted in substantive debate is ludicrous and delusional.Faith and kofh2u have done nothing in this post except spout bizarro world, craziness.Faith is obviously a Christian Dominionist.
Here.
Dominionism is a intellectually and morally bankrupt ideology with absolutely no basis in reality.All one has to do is read the posts presented by Faith and kofh2u to understand that they are not to be taken seriously. At times I feel we are being Poe'd, but the sad thing is that we are not.The important take away for all of us is this would be the result of allowing the radical christian right to have more power in government and our schools. Christian right home schooling will result in more unhinged people like Faith. If they want to leave it in their homes that is fine, but they damn well better keep it out of the public schools.

"Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries"

I agree with those who say that this thread was predictable although I never know that at the beginning. I always start out with some optimism, thinking surely there's someone here with enough honesty to recognize a point made by their opponents, but no, just the usual nonsense showing not the slightest understanding of anything I wrote or even a genuine attempt to see a different point of view.Phat continues to think this is about individuals no matter how often I've emphasized that it is not, and that there is some kind of equivalence between Catholic and Protestant "institutions."Jar continues in the lie that Protestants have done worse than Catholics at "genocide" which isn't either "geno" or "cide" although he seems at least to have modified the claim down to "slightly worse." In fact maybe I should be grateful for that much. I wasn't able to get the evidence together on this point so I guess I can't blame him that he doesn't know that Rome lost all the northern nations of Europe in the Protestant Reformation -- although I'll certainly agree that their concern was political rather than religious.Nwr seems to have contented himself with a mindless insult.Theodoric makes no sense at all that I can see with his rant about the religious right. For one thing there are a lot of Catholics on the religious right these days, so it's odd to single me out as a Protestant on this particular thread.I really don't get Theodoric's rage against this thread. I suppose he must be Catholic, or was, and I certainly expected some bad feelings on that account, but so was Tempe a Catholic, who is the one who proposed this thread. There's something going on here that isn't just about debate, and I'm curious to know what. His fury is at the level of censorship, he wants to shut me up, shut down this thread because of whatever about it bothers him.Another odd thing he said is that he's certain I'm a Dominionist, but I'm not a Dominionist, am quite opposed to Dominionism because I don't think it's Biblical. However, the way he said it suggests he'd really really like to censor Dominionists, really really shut down this thread for good if that's what I am.Linking me with kofh2u is maybe the craziest thing he said since that poster is so far out in some made-up stuff of his own I couldn't follow anything he said and didn't even try. I could easily believe that this person is a genuine troll who is here only to be a disruptive influence. But Theodoric's rant DOES remind me a lot of a mindless Orc just flailing out wildly and furiously for no good reason whatever.Just about everything I wrote on this thread, not by plan but what kept coming up as necessary, was an attempt to lay out the basics of Protestant thinking since the Reformation, thinking shared by ALL Bible believers, thinking that built this civilization although apparently revisionism has so corrupted history this simple fact is no longer known and Theodoric can even call it "radical." I wanted to stick to the gospel basics because that's where the conflict with Catholicism started and remains centered, around the "Solas" of the Reformation -- Scripture alone as ultimate authority (no papal additions, no "Magisterium"), salvation by faith alone in Christ alone through grace alone, all a free gift of God. It was hard to keep this in focus but overall I think it worked as a base of operations.I've been continuing to read on the subject of papal and Jesuit plots but it's hard to find short or pithy enough quotes for a debate on a message board it's so much a matter of extensive and complicated history. Nevertheless maybe I'll have some more to post on this subject if this thread resumes.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : To add some further thoughtsEdited by Faith, : typoEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm not interested in posting a mid-thread summary if discussion is going to resume. Are there any plans to reopen this thread?