Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

Oh, ok I get it now after reading all this....Protestants, according to Faith, must abide by the reformers interpretations and current Protestant ministers interpretations. We can read the bible for inspiration but can not trust our own interpretations as being valid.
We simply do not have the required knowledge or "study time" .This smacks of the very thing the Protestant founders where appalled by and sought to reform. To get the bible into the hands of the people and do away with the Papacy claiming sole rights to the true meaning of bible. I could be wrong since I am not a Protestant though.

So Faith, it seems that you are completely stuck on holding individuals (albeit individuals with authority) responsible and hold the current incarnation of the church responsible for statements made by its leaders in the past. So, let us begin to look into Genocides created by both religions and whether you have any right to hold the current Catholic Church responsible for the sins of its members and leaders and also the Protestant churches for the sins of their members and leaders:Rwanda: We are all aware of the genocide that took place in Rwanda, but what is less known is that the Christian (Both Protestant and Catholic) Missionaries are considered to be partly responsible for some of the killings that took place. Church&Genocide"According to my findings, church personnel and institutions were actively involved in the program of resistance to popular pressures for political reform that culminated in the 1994 genocide, and numerous priests, pastors, nuns, brothers, catechists, and Catholic and Protestant lay leaders supported, participated in, or helped to organize the killings".So, in other words these individuals, both Catholic and Protestant, were not only passive observers but rather forcefully blocked legislation that could have prevented the genocide that was experiences in 1994. One difference is that the Catholic church finally came around prior to the genocide and began to push for a move to democracy and demanded expanded human rights.Irish Holocaust:
Irish HolocaustDuring the Great Potato Famine in Ireland, a single crop failed and forced a country to its knees.....or did it?"However, many people do not know that, at the same time, Irish farms were producing plenty of other foods including corn, wheat, barley, and beef."So, where did this food go to? Well, the Protestant and occupying British took the food to feed its people and then used the starvation as a means to proselytize the Irish Catholics."The starving victims were offered food in return for renouncing their Catholic faith and converting. During the famine there were more than 125 missions in Ireland for the purpose of converting Catholics."This does not seem to be following Sola Scriptura and loving thy neighbor as Jesus commanded. And this is forcefully starving individual Catholics, not the church itself.A Bloody Thanksgiving:
The American ThanksgivingBefore you go and claim that there were Catholics in America at this time too, remember that groups seperated into different regions of the US. The Spaniards (Catholics) controlled much of the Southern area of the US, while the British colonists (Protestants) controlled much of the North.I will forgo mentioning any Catholic crimes because I am not attempting to say that they did not commit them...I do not wear blinders. Instead, let's focus on genocides that took place in the Northern, Protestant controlled areas:"Ever diligent to claim their own advantages as God’s will, the Pilgrims thanked their deity for having pursued the Indians to mass death. However, it was not divine intervention that wiped out most of the natives around the village of Patuxet but, most likely, smallpox-embedded blankets planted during an English visit or slave raid."So, the death visited upon the Wampanoag was a gift from God? Given to the Pilgrims in the form of small-pox covered blankets? How you cannot see that this is mass death visited upon someone who believes in a different God is beyond me."A Puritan colonist, quoted by Harvard University's Perry Miller, praised the plague that had wiped out the Indians for it was "the wonderful preparation of the Lord Jesus Christ, by his providence for his people's abode in the Western world."Again, they are thanking their god for destroying their enemies, which screams of religious motivation to me. Even though it was not God, but rather their own deviousness with smallpox laden blankets."At the point where the Mystic River meets the sea, the combined force of English and allied Indians bypassed the Pequot fort to attack and set ablaze a town full of women, children and old people."These are the Christian values that your forefathers lived with. They ruthlessly murdered women, children and old people to weaken the Pequot nation. And you keep saying that these attacks were not religiously motivated, but then we have..."Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire...horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy."This was stated by William Bradford, leader of the Colony at the time and as it was a theocracy that made its way across the Atlantic Ocean, these deaths fall at the feet of Protestantism.Of...and after all of this murder, welcome to Thanksgiving:
This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots,"I doubt you will trust this last link because it is written by a Catholic. However, this individual does not try to sugar coat the Catholic past and is simply mentioning the crimes of Protestants in the same vein that Protestants always mention Catholic crimes. "Bad" ProtestantsThis paper discusses the immoralities of Martin Luther. Here is what the founder of Protestantism asked for in regards to the Jewish people:
"Safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.
Set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn.
Their houses also be razed and destroyed.
Eject them forever from the country."This is not the person writing the paper that said this, but was taken from Martin Luther's "The Jews and their Lies".Martin Luther also promoted violence against other Christians, similar to those Catholics you are bringing up (and this is direct from your founder):
"the emperor, kings, and princes" should "attack this plague [the Romanists] of all the earth no longer with words but with the sword" and "wash our hands in their blood"."And then...he hated the peasantry as written in his book "Against the Murderous Peasants".
""Let all who are able, cut them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret."This is what the leader of the Protestant reformation was asking for. Do you not see how this is asking for the murder and destruction of everything that is not Protestant? Again, Pot....meet kettle!Ah...and you keep claiming that there is no central authority in the Protestant reformation, but we happen to have a link to a source about how Martin Luther, "claimed himself to be the ultimate authority for interpreting scripture". This definitely sounds like we simply have a new pope in town, not a new religion.Enough about Martin Luther, you can read more if you would like to. However, let us discuss the next in line, Good ol' John Calvin."He beheaded James Gruet because he dared to write against him".So, someone spoke heresy against him and it was determined that the punishment for this heresy should be death...sound like any other institution that you may be raging about?"He believed that heresy was a capital crime. The right of the government to put heretics to death. During Calvin's reign in Geneva, between 1542 and 1546, 58 persons were put to death for heresy."Sure, it is not done quite on the order of the Inquisition, but they were just getting set up. Give them some time to get into full swing and gain enough of a following."He created a police state in Geneva."Yes, cause every forgiving loving Christian knows that the only way to love another is to force your own viewpoint onto them within the structure of a police state.Onto another big name!!!! Huldrych Zwingli!!"He wrote that the massacre of the bishops was necessary for the establishment of the pure Gospel."and"To compel the Catholic cantons to accept the new doctrines, Zwingli urged civil war and succeeded in persuading Zurich to declare war and march against the Catholic territories."So, murder of the Bishops was a good thing and war against Catholics is the only way to defeat them. Not sure that the Protestants are riding that shining, white horse into battle that you continue to place them on, rather they (like the Catholics church) are riding into war on a bloodstained horse, covered in the blood of those they murdered.I will skip James I, Queen Elizabeth, and William of Orange, please read their crimes if you are actually interested in learning.Now, the last one is your claim that the IRA was the first strike in the Troubles in Ireland and that is a complete and utter fabrication of history! Rather, the Catholics in Northern Ireland were persecuted, exiled, had lands taken away, and laws were written to hold the Catholics down. Sure, this could not have happened in a combined Ireland, but by remaining seperate, the Protestants were able to discriminate against Catholics and attempt to decimate their culture in the North. This was the reasoning behind the start of the troubles. yes the Catholics took the first shots, but it was after over 200 years of oppression in the North."1649 - Cromwell in Ireland. Massacres of Wexford and Drogheda. Confiscation of estates of Irish Catholics, many are exiled to barren Connaught.""1695 - Penal Laws enacted against Catholics. Catholics disqualified from government, franchise, judiciary, armed forces and professions. Estates split up. May not carry arms, own expensive horse etc. Soon Catholics own only 7% of Irish land.""Between 1695 and 1728 a series of Acts of Parliament were passed by a Protestant gentry anxious to consolidate their powers and worried that Louis XIV of France might attempt an invasion of Ireland. Also known as a "popery code," these laws forbade Irish Catholics from practicing their faith or bringing their children up in their own religion, and the vast majority of wealthy Catholics were stripped of their wealth, their positions, their estates and their homes, leaving them as paupers."One item I have as a reminder of the Troubles from when I was a Catholic is a rosary that is designed to be worn as a ring. By doing this Catholics were still able to pray their rosary but not be seen holding it because they could have been persecuted or killed for doing so.So, to say that the Catholics started the Troubles is to erase over 200 years of Protestant law-making specifically designed to denegrate another group within the confines of the country. So...loving your neighbor, which you claimed the Protestants in the North did not need to do because it was war, should have happened and the Troubles could have been prevented. Instead, even before violence, the Protestants chose to subjugate their neighbor because, "Hey, other people did it in the past."I reiterate, "Just because one group did something in the past, does not make it okay for a new group to proceed with these actions in the present."One thing from this website is in regards to your claim that the destruction of the Native Americans was not religiously motivated. I will leave you with the words of manifest destiny, which is what the Protestants used to claim that the Americas were theirs:
"That it was America's divinely assigned mission to expand westward across the North American continent and to establish democratic and Protestant ideals. The states wanted the Indians removed from their borders."Sorry one last thing, I really liked how this gentlemen ended this page, so I will include his final statement about Protestantism and make a small comment on it:"In conclusion, the Protestants in America were guilty of the same kinds of deeds that these critics of Catholicism object to in the historical Catholic Church. Using the same arguments as these critics of Catholicism, these acts of these Protestants are sufficient to demonstrate that Protestantism is false."He holds this comment to merely the Protestants in America, yet I feel that he has done a marvelous job of laying out how not only in America, but throughout their history, the Protestants have attempted to simply match the Catholic church in historical crimes. Something that definitely goes against the words of Jesus, something that destroys their claim to Sola Scriptura, and something that means their faith is based on the same misguided set-up as the Catholic church whom they despise.

If a Hindu joins a mosque while still holding Hindu beliefs, is he a Muslim?Corner cases (and maybe you're one) are fascinating to consider, but they seem largely beside the point in general discussions. Maybe you and Faith could discuss whether you're a Protestant in some other thread.--Percy

Is the person recognized as a Muslim by the mosque. Are the beliefs different than those recognized as valid by the mosque?I don't think this is a "corner case" but rather central to the topic.

Well, no, that's not what she's saying. She's saying that ALL Protestants must interpret Matthew 16:15.20 in a particular way, based only on commentaries (and even her argument there is questionable, as we shall see).see Message 411 which I quote in full here. The relevant text is Matthew 16:15-20 The "rock" is a pun on "Peter", so in fact it seems that Faith's interpretation is wrong. The Amplified Bible renders verse 16 as: Even the commentary she quotes in Message 413 agrees, although she chose not to quote this section: Part that she did quote - with my bolding, instead of Faith's - says: It still acknowledges Peter as the foundation, even if his role is preaching the "heavenly-taught" faith, as of course it must if "Peter" is the "rock".

I have no opinion how wrong Faith may or may not be about Peter and the rock, but there are still foundational principles of Protestantism that define what a Protestant is. The definition of Protestant is not, "Anyone who interprets the Bible for himself."Faith wants to discuss the differences between Catholocism and Protestantism, tracing them all the way back to the early church, but it's turning into a discussion of who's a true Protestant. I've been urging Faith to ignore such distractions, no matter how determined.--Percy

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I have no opinion how wrong Faith may or may not be about Peter and the rock, but there are still foundational principles of Protestantism that define what a Protestant is. The definition of Protestant is not, "Anyone who interprets the Bible for himself."

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I guess that you're missing the point. It's not that Faith is necessarily wrong, it that she says that ALL Protestants MUST interpret that short passage as she does.Now I have to say that freedom to interpret the Bible is rather more important to Protestantism than agreeing with the interpretation of these verses that Faith happens to like. Do you disagree ?

It's more a question of my interest level. I was pretty interested in the original thread proposal, but not so much in this digression. I'd prefer not to have to sit through what strikes me as the boring stuff about true Protestantism before getting to the interesting stuff, like how the early church fathers went wrong and so forth.--Percy

If you aren't interested enough in an argument to understand what's being discussed then I don't think that you should try to explain it.But surely the fact that even Faith agrees that rejection of non-Biblical traditions and opening up interpretation of the Bible was one of the core drives behind the Reformation is of interest.Abuses like the selling of Indulgences were another important one.

I agree, but too often the differences that led to the creation and expansion of Protestant Christianity had far less to do with theology than power, money and politics. For example if you read the 95 Thesis there is very little in them that opposes the power or supremacy of the Pope or suggests that there is any need to break away from Roman Catholicism. In fact the points he raised in the 95 Thesis were incorporated and adopted by the Councils of Trent. By then though as so often happens, the politics on the ground were such that any early accommodation between the parties was unlikely.The utter asinine brainlessness of labeling things as Protestant or Roman Catholic continued for hundreds of years with the nominally Protestant Nations like those controlled by the English rejecting even the adoption of the Gregorian calendar because it was Roman Catholic.Consider the issue that has come up so often in threads here at EvC, salvation. By Grace or through works.Both sides say salvation is through the Grace of God but some sides say "and you are charged to do works as well".Honestly, neither side truly has a clue whether or not there is an afterlife, whether there will be a final judgement, whether or not any individual will be saved or not. Both sides (all sides as a matter of fact) can be supported by the Bible. Commentary can be found to support both sides. But the fact remains that NO ONE knows.A discussion of the topic requires an admission on the part of all participants that neither side is the right side and instead to just look at the history, actions and events. I fear that is unlikely.Edited by jar, : drop the final d in and to make it say "requires an admission"

Well maybe this will be of interest. A translation of Luther's 95 Theses.Indulgences seem to be a major point.

Clear but crazy. That's absolute nonsense. Have you bothered to read Luther? Protestants didn't "want" to do anything that I'm aware of. The Catholic priests such as Luther who had objections to some Catholic doctrines were seeking various reforms. He had no idea of leaving the church. It was only as he found himself up against devious lying opponents and continued to study the Bible that he started to see how evil the whole institution was and began denouncing the papacy as the work of the devil and the whole institution as not the true Church at all. I don't know where you are getting this idea. The earliest Church Fathers were not Roman Catholic and the Reformers had access to their writings. The Roman Church didn't get started for a few centuries after the apostolic era and it took time to develop its pecuiliar doctrines. Meanwhile the earlier materials were still available. They also by this time had access to reliable Greek texts of the Bible coming out of the fallen Byzantine empire which contradicted the Catholic Vulgate Bible in some crucial places, as Erasmus had clearly shown. They also knew about the various Christian groups such as the Waldensians and the Albigensians which the Roman Church had persecuted down the centuries and recognized that those groups were not heretics as Rome had claimed but true Bible believers. Even within the Roman Church, however, there were some honest men. The Church is riddled with contradictory teachings, it's not some monolithic institution that the Reformers couldn't avoid. The idea that Constantine had anything to do with that is absurd. He was barely out of paganism himself, in fact he never really left it, and he was certainly no judge of Biblical writings. The determination of the Biblical canon was made by all the various churches and their leaders down the centuries, MOST of which would not have identified themselves as having anything whatever to do with the Bishop of Rome. All the various councils did was note the canonical books that were currently recognized and Nicaea was just one of the councils that did that. The canon wasn't fully established for some time after Constantine as I recall. Well I mentioned above one way that happened: that when the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks, Greek Christian refugees brought their Greek manuscripts to the West, and Erasmus used them to make his text which is what subsequent Bibles were based on.The Catholic Bible was not PERFECTLY corrupt for crying out loud. Their problem was more that they IGNORED the Bible in favor of papal authority or the Magisterium and so on, which contradicted it, or they misinterpreted it. Nevertheless the influx of better Greek texts from Byzantium improved it a great deal and they formed the basis for Luther's translation into German and for the King James Bible, which I consider to be the best available today. Which teachings? You mean the Solas of the Reformation? Only the Bible as authority, salvation by faith alone, all that? These principles were hammered out by the Reformers through their study of the Bible above all but also their knowledge of Church History and the early fathers and everything they had available to them. Some of the early writers had already developed such ideas. Augustine has ideas that support the Reformation but also ideas that support Catholicism so you have to think things through. The Reformers all came to similar conclusions from their studies. That's an impossible request, a bizarre request to ask of a mere poster on a message forum. And you don't know anything about these things yourself. Have you read any of the Reformers on Original Sin? Augustine had ideas about it that the Reformers came to reject. Huh? Some old woman's silly comment determines what you believe about all this? No wonder you're not making any sense. I see your problem. You DON'T know anything about any of this, you got your half-baked nonsense from Russell who also didn't know anything. Wow, what a paragon of scholarship you are! You take these bits of silly ignorant debunkery as the basis of your knowledge. This is insane. I've defined what Protestantism is, which is histlorical fact that you'll find verified in hundreds of sources, and the definition is such that those who believe its teachings are Protestants and those who don't aren't. It's simple logic but people here who don't know anything about any of this give themselves the right to tell us who is a Protestant and who isn't.It's like you belong to a club that has rules and traditions of its own and somebody insists he's a member of that club who denies all your rules and traditions. That would not be all right with you but you don't mind imposiing the same thing on Protestants. What utter foolishness. Please think about my answers above.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I referred to commentaries in that context to demonstrate that there is a CONSENSUS OF OPINION among Protestants that opposes Jar's very Roman Catholic readings. He's welcome to call himself a Catholic on that basis, he is not welcome to call himself a Protestant when he prefers Catholic readings. Well, there's a nice little hit-and-run slap. No, I suppose people who accept modern "scholarship" wouldn't because you all deny the traditional understanding about the authorship and the dating of the Bible which I accept. Modern biblical "scholarship" is a farce that seems to be accepted just because it's called scholarship although it's nothing but a bunch of subjective vaporings by a bunch of unbelievers who ordain their miserable musings to be scholarship just because they say so.

I don't regard us all of "equal authority," and the idea is ridiculous. Again, this is why we have pastors and teachers, because we AREN'T all of equal authority.Lots of people claim to be "led of the Spirit" who nevertheless make ridiculous mistakes in Bible interpretation.It takes a lot more knowledge than the average Christian has to be an expert in the sense I meant the word. Knowledge of history for instance so the Bible is interpreted within its original contexts, knowledge of how this and that passage has been interpreted by others down the centuries and so on. Oh yes we read the Bible by the Holy Spirit if we have been saved and HAVE the Holy Spirit, and we need to for our own personal edification, but that's different from all the knowledge that is needed to write commentaries.

But not the way that seems to be getting misunderstood here, as if this constitutes some kind of authority. Personal interpretations can be WRONG, I would certainly never make this some kind of foundational principle. We are to read the Bible for ourselves to be taught by it, but even having the Holy Spirit we also have to have the common sense to know that we're fallible and need to hear from pastors and teachers on the Bible. Again I think you have that first "principle" skewed in some way, so the idea of "additional principles" that are "equally foundational" has me quite dubious. The Bible was freed for the use of ordinary Christians and it was a great boon to all of us, but the principle I've been identifying with Protestantism above all is salvation through God's grace alone by our faith alone in Christ's atoning sacrifice alone. JAR RIDICULES THIS. HOW CAN ANYONE CALL HIMSELF A PROTESTANT WHO RIDICULES THIS FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLE? I'm afraid I have no idea what you are talking about. Nobody has said that personal readings of the Bible carry some kind of AUTHORITY which is what you SEEM to be saying. We have the FREEDOM to read the Bible, we aren't given authority to interpret it by that freedom. OK here you actually say it and no no no no no no no, "personal interpretation of the Bible' is NOT a core principle of Protestantism, as if it were just this Rorschach test anyone could interpret for himself. Wow, what a strange idea. I KNEW there had to be some hidden assumptions going on here. Absolutely NOT. "ANY SET OF BELIEFS MUST BE PROTESTANT????" This is absurd to the absolute max. No there are specific historical teachings that come down to us from the Reformers that are definitive of Protestantism. They hammered them out from the Bible. They are there to PERSUADE us not to dictate to us but they ARE the foundational principles that we regard as definitive of our faith. And I mean particularly THE SOLAS that I've described over and over and over and over. But also the list that got discussed that Bishop Ryle gave is definitive of the faith, those "weightier matters" that Dr. A brought up on the other thread. We DO all agree on those things.No no no no no no no you cannot believe a Catholic interpretation of the Bible and call yourself a Protestant. That's absurd. Well you DON'T understand the argument and this version IS specious.I've got to say I never thought this could be such a difficult topic. Little did I know.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.