Forums → WEPR → [NECRO] Catholics aren't Christians, and other myths (apologetics thread)

Being a Christian is, at it's foundation, a matter of belief about the status of Jesus Christ. Many people believe that Christ existed and was a good guy, but that belief is not sufficient to make those people Christians. Rather, what Christians believe about Christ that makes them a Christian is that Jesus was the son of God (Messiah, God incarnate, etc.). If you have this belief, I contend, then you are a Christian.

Catholics believe that Christ is the son of God. During mass, every catholic recites the Nicene creed. It is a statement of what they believe. Here is the part about Jesus:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

They sound like Christians to me.

In the start, there were two major christians ways of beliving, the orthodox church and the catholic curch. the catholic belived jesus is God and had super powers, and the orthodox belive that jesus was a human, a prophet rather than a god who come down to earth.

Later, when martin lother balmed the Pope and the all system of cardinals and ranks beign corrupted, then there was a seperetion, seperating christianity from the pope and hte petriach {the orthodox church headmaseter}.

All of these noinses about catholic drinking kids blood, spoiling the wells and bringing ills to the livestoock are just a piece of rubbish, made by crazy cultist in USA, so tehy wont have to have any feeling for the pope and the christian church. because they want to be the pope. they want to be the leader of a church. how many of them are exist in USA? houndred if not thousends who belive they talk with god and stuff. all of them feel speicel, and want to be more speicel by decreecing the rank of the pope Compared to themselve.

That what i belive about these Charges. And just to make it clear fro all teh people who dont know me, im a jewish atheist, so i consider myself natural in that case, not Biased to any side.

Yes it is quite ridiculous to claim Catholics aren't Christians. In truth it's one of the oldest forms of Christianity. Saying otherwise plays into the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Does anyone know where that myth came from? I vote it came from a mentally insane person who thought he was a relative to Nostradamus. Seriously, it's ridiculous.

This seems a bit backwards to me, being that Catholicism came first. Whatever. When was this myth created actually? I'm interested.

My guess would that it came from the great schism in the 11th century. This is when the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches split. Each believing the other to be the true path.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Schism

Jack Chick is a big problem with tracts like this

Also I have seen people on the internet carrying on an argument that Catholics aren't christian.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

The most common reason I've heard for people calling Catholocism not a Christian religion is for idol worship (saints/Mary) and because they have the pope.

The most common reason I've heard for people calling Catholocism not a Christian religion is for idol worship (saints/Mary) and because they have the pope.

But Catholics aren't Christian's. Christian means 'follower of Christ' which they don't do all hat well. Marlboro differences between the church that the bible teaches and he Catholic Church.
He pope: the position of the pope is never once mentioned in he New Testament. In that verse where they claim to have proof for it, the word rock that's used to describe Peter means a small rock like a pebble, the word rock that Jesus said he would build his church on is like a foundation, a big rock, not a pebble. And hen they take that, say that he's setting up the position of he pope, and let their minds run free with ideas as to what he does.
Things like the holy smoke: I'm not sure where they pretend to get their authority for that but it's probably in the Old Testament, under the law if Moses which is no longer binding, of it were still binding the. Here would be contradictions like no pig eating before verses it saying that it is not what goes into a man that defiles him, and what God has made, that you will not call unclean.
There are many differences as to what a church should be and what the Catholic Church is

@ImTheMostManlyMan

Catholicism is the oldest form of christianity. How can you worship god without worshipping the Christ? That doesn't make sense. It's just that at some point, some found it funkier to worship explicitely Jesus, but also because they disagreed with some doctrines of the Catholics and had to start their own fanclub; that doesn't make them more christian than the others. Catholics are just much more ritualistic than protestants, that's all.

Though it's funny how that distinction seems to be an American thing. I don't know for the rest of the world, but around here in central Europe, Catholicism and Protestantism are the two main branches of christianity, and if you said here that catholics aren't christians, you'd be laughed at by pretty much everyone.

Catholicism is the oldest form of christianity.

no because the earliest form of Christianity followed Jesus' and the apostle's teachings

Christianity is Christianity, and nothing less than that. The church is the church, no matter what sector or denomination you are in. Isn't that the point of this thread?

However, modern Christianity stems mostly off of the New Testament and the fact that Jesus was the Messiah and was resurrected.

Anyways, Catholicism does have some pretty skewed teachings, I think. Take, for example, their tradition of transubstantiation is believed to transform the wine and the bread into the literal blood and flesh of Jesus. This occurs at every mass. So, at every mass (which could even take place every day - think, that's a lot of Jesus' flesh) they perform transubstantiation. Jesus was raised into heaven after his resurrection, so wouldn't his body be in heaven, technically? I'm not sure how that all works.

Also, Catholics pray to Mary, or through Mary. They believe that Mary was without sin, since she gave birth to Jesus, who was without sin. Wouldn't she be in part the Messiah, though? She couldn't be a normal person and have not sinned. It's human nature. Else, if she was truly perfect, wouldn't her heritage would have also been perfect, without sin? The Bible doesn't really support the fact of Mary being sinless, nor give any evidence of it. (Either way, praying to Mary or the saints would contradict the commandment to not pray to anything other than God. Reference.)

Then there's also the part where they taxed the people so that they could get into heaven, or get their dead ancestors into heaven... I'm not so sure if they follow that through now, though.

Transubstantiation is based off of the last supper, objective to the first miracle Jesus performed. I'm not sure if I really understand what you said.

Plus, praying to the saints is sort of objective to God's nature - he is omniscient, and praying to the saints to get it heard better means that you probably think that God won't hear, and distances humanity from God. As well as being omniscient, he is omnipresent, so that doesn't really seem to fit.