Have any of you besides Rama actually bothered to look into any of this at all? Good grief, you have some funny ideas.
First of all, Christians != Catholics. Catholics are a sizeable subgroup of Christiandom, but they are by no means equivalent. Well, unless you ask a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic, since that church claims to be the only means to reconciliation with God (and, no, this has not been reformed in any way by any council or whatever).
Cause if you are not jew, and you want to get IN, they are BITCHES about it. so they try at their best to not let you in by using different methods. this is a fact, ladies and gentlemen.
Being that Muslims teach that Allah's day of judgment can't come until all Jews are killed, anti-Semitism is on the rapid rise, and that there's a lot expected of a practicing Jew, I'm not surprised that they're not eager to proselytize. It could be a death sentence in some areas, and they only want those who're absolutely serious about it.
The Catholics do the same thing; they use these methods to drive people away. They call it Catholicism.
Actually, there's no problem in becoming a Catholic. The only problem is that you are supposed to go through baptism into the church as an infant. You just have to overcome this either by fervent adherance to doctrine, participation in the various rituals (Mass, Eucharist, Rosary, etc.) and holy days of the church (can those of you who are Catholic remember all of them, out of curiousity?), copious contributions to the church, and weather Purgatory after an undisclosed amount of time.
Cause that's the day Jesus died and we can't eat meat.
Jesus dying on "Good" Friday is a popular misconception. If you actually pay attention to what the gospel accounts say, He died on a Thursday afternoon. This is also supported by ancient Hebrew Messianic prophecies, who actually nailed the year and day. That is easily proven, and given that the very pious Jews of the day apparently did not dispute the day of Christ's death, there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the date.
Early Christians where nothing like the Catholics of today. Ask a Catholic when the chruch was formed, and they'll say when Jesus appointed Peter pope. But really, that never happen. It's a misinterpretation of Jesus's true meaning in there, but that's another debate for another day. I'd say the Catholic church we know today wasn't founded till after Constantine converted and held the First Council of Nicaea.
Whammy! You got it. The actual reading of the verse is interesting. When Jesus referred to him as Peter, he used the Greek
petros, which means "small rock" or "pebble". But when He said, "on this rock I will build my church," He used the word
petra, which means "large rock". He was referring to Himself. Elsewhere in scripture, God is referred to as the rock, so this makes much more sense. Besides, Peter wasn't even the most influential apostle...Paul was the one who most shaped the early Christian faith. Which makes the fact that Pauline doctrine is largely minimized in the Catholic belief system in favor of tradition all the more ironic. And the whole keys to the kingdom thing was not a literal conferral of succession, but an endowment to all those who believed.
If Jesus was alive today he wouldn't be overturning the money changers tables in Solmon's temple, he'd be pulling down the statues of saints in the Vatican.
What part of "thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" was misunderstood, here? Dispensational theology aside, if the Catholic church believes itself to be the replacement of ancient Israel (a mistake, but that's their belief), then shouldn't the commandment especially apply to them?
BTW, it was Herod's temple, actually. But anyway.
What I like about Bush is that he's very catholic....
Were I a cow, I would have squirted milk out of my nose with that one
It's so nice of Rama to step up predict for us what Jesus would do.
Well, from my reading, He wasn't a fan of idols. And the Bible teaches against venerating men, angels, and anyone else who isn't God. So I don't imagine he's far off base here.
Bush isn't Catholic at all, he is a Neo Conservative Christian, which is about as different from Catholicism as any religion gets. They believe in hell, the end of the world, the rapture, God's wrath, etc.
Catholics don't believe in any of that garbage..
You probably intended to say "evangelical", as one can be a neocon without being a Christian, as it's a political ideology, not a religion. Although some treat their politics as a religion...but anyway.
But in any case, you're wrong, because Catholics do believe in hell, the end of the world, judgment, and the whole kit-and-caboodle. They just add a lot more stuff to the salvation part than what's actually in the Bible (whatever translation, and whether you use the Deuterocanonicals or not), and that's where my gripe is.
Or blowing up statues of the Buddha..? 
Contrary to what blithering idiots like Yassir Arafat have to say, Jesus (or Issa, if you're a Moslem) was not the first Palestinian terrorist.
Hell is a state of mind existing only on Earth, and through Jesus's universal forgiveness of humanity means with forgiveness and pennance (either on earth or in Purgatory) we all go to heaven no matter what.
Catholics do not believe that the end of the world is any thing to worry about. Will the world end? Yeah, any scientist will tell you that. Do Catholics worry about the end of the world everyday? No. Neo-Cons do, and that is fucking scary.
And as a Catholic, I never heard much of God's wrath on you, unless you do something really bad.
Tom's right here, to a degree. Catholic doctrine states that everyone can go to heaven, eventually, after spending an untold amount of time in purgatory...unless you're a reformed/apostolic/evangelical/any other non-Roman Catholic Christian, who are eternally condemned to hell. If you don't believe it, read the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, where over 100 anathemas (essentially, God-damnations) are pronounced against protestantism. And no, they weren't overturned by Vatican II, as is commonly claimed...in fact, it reaffirmed it. As did John Paul not many years ago.
Did you guys know that several Catholic celebrities such as John Paul II, Teresa, and John Cardinal O'Conner did not know how long they would remain in purgatory and be denied access to heaven? Of all people, you'd think they'd know or have a fast track there. So if they are uncertain under their system, how can anyone else be, despite the Bible claiming in numerous places that you can know?
Again, neocons are not necessarily Christian. And, again, I believe he's referring to evangelicals. And there's no reason to be frightened of it...either you believe it and have made preparations for it, or you don't believe it and figure it's bunk. So that's that.
Well don't misunderstand me. I actually don't like most organized religions, not even the one I was raised as. I think most religions have strayed very far from the original ideas they where founded on and have be corrupted by greed, powet, and other assorted fleshly endeavors. There is a prostant church called "James River Assembly" that runs commericals on local TV here that makes me even more sick to my stomach then Catholic dogma does.
I actually believe that most Revelation was written about Nero's regin and was more a commetary on what was happening then, then what is going to happen.
There's a lot of kooks out there, but you can not assume they represent fundamentalist, Biblical Christianity just because they have a loud voice or whatever. You can only go by comparing their stated beliefs with the Bible. 9 times out of 10, they're kooks. 1 time out of 10, they've misunderstood something along the way. But you say "protestant" church as if it's one big, organized church of its own. Most evangelical church assemblies have their own autonomy on interpretation and doctrine, even if they belong to a certain denomination. And just because they have the name of a denom on their marquee doesn't mean they're anything like who they identify with (see Westboro Baptist Church for a shining example).
But saying Revelation was Christian code for describing revenge for Nero's reign makes absolutely no sense. For one thing, it was written years following Nero's time as emperor. Second, it wasn't the worst persecution of Christians of its time, anyway. Third, much of what was talked about doesn't fit in any way. In my experience, it's just a means of downplaying the sometimes frightening imagery of the book, the relegation of it as a Christian fairy tale used to scare people into conversion.
This is part of why, even with as much flap there has been in the past about it, medical records of women who have had abortions will never be opened. Too many abortion protesters have had abortions themselves.
I have a 25 year old cousin who had an abortion as a teen, and it has haunted her ever since. There's an emptiness in her life that she's filled to the brim with guilt over it, and she may never forgive herself for it. Ever since, she's been very anti-abortion, because of the effect it had on her and many like her. You have to be a cold-hearted bastard to not feel any bit of sorrow for these tiny beings taken out of their place, mutilated, and either incinerated or sold as research materials. You can tell yourself it's just tissues being thrown out and not a real person, but the fact remains that we all came from a similar state, and under normal circumstances, that fetus would have been born just as we were.
My cousin was not a church goer and still isn't. But she often asks if God could ever forgive her, since she apparently can't herself. The truth is, God already has, and she just has to come to terms with Him and herself. Just because a person doesn't love him or herself doesn't mean He can't or won't.
