That’s why its churches are so much prettier than the Protestants’. 
Absolutely.
All modern religions have some pagan or paganlike elements to them. Christmas comes from a pagan festival. I’m not sure Chanukah actually comes from a pagan festival, but it features a ritual (lighting candles, one more each night) that wouldn’t be too surprising to find in a pagan solstice celebration. Shavuot is an agricultural festival, and pagans certainly have those. If you scorn everything in a religion that is anything like paganism, you don’t have much left.
Some religious reformers try to purge pagan elements. Many Christians won’t celebrate Christmas.
I don’t think you really understand what Paganism means in this context. I am not speaking of cultural accretions. I am talking about the veneration of one culture over another under the aegis of a religion that is supposed to be universal irrespective of cultural background. The Catholic Church was clearly the playground of the Euro Aristocracy, and its bureaucratic organization has a direct lineage to the bureaucracy of the Roman Imperial government. As such the Protestant Reformation was essential to the Christian mission. If the Catholic Church stops claiming to be the one true Christian church, then I’ll accept it into the fold, but Christ as far as I can tell seemed to be fighting against the necessity of priestly intercession to God, so the church seems antithetical to that.
An anecdote from Southern Iowa, around 1978. My sister & brother-in-law were moving into a small southern Iowa town. BIL was just named president of local bank, so was a bit of a local VIP. The head of the Chamber of Commerce was showing them around and said something like “You’ll like it here, there’s no blacks and very few Catholics”. My sis & BIL are both Catholic :eek:
According to you. I’d argue that Christianity “shanghai’d” the Empire as much as the other way around. And the Catholics have just as much right to call themselves the One True Faith as whatever religion you follow does.
Claiming that Christianity is universal IS the "veneration of one culture over another ". Claiming that “we’re right and everyone else is wrong” is hardly something that makes Catholicism stand out among other versions of Christianity.
First, Christ isn’t fighting against anything, being long dead. And second, if you exclude all the Christian sects that claim to be the one true Christian faith, you’ll have to exclude a lot more than just Catholics.
But you know nothing about Christianity so your opinion is not valid. I find your stereotypes of religion to be tedious and tiresome and don’t really value your opinion on any subject.
Yeah, you don’t understand the very basis of Christianity so there isn’t much to discuss.
You sort of are touching on what I was getting at here, about the ‘One True Faith’ aspect of Christianity and it’s cultural paganism, but I somehow doubt that you really understand what you’re touching on.
My, what a complete nonargument.
That’s what you get when you spend countless hours arguing about something you know so little about. I see no reason to address it with you because you are uninterested in learning about the subject.
You are a lost cause, an extremist not worth the time.
In other words, I don’t take your goofy beliefs seriously, and you only want to talk to people who do.
maybe those terms are used within certain circles of friends, but I’m sure they’re never used in polite company… it would be socially unacceptable. Regardless, I would never want my nieces or nephew to be subjected to those types of racist expressions.
In what social circles would it be acceptable to mock Catholics and not Muslims?
Wow. This response of yours was impressively repellent in tone; you should be proud. I wonder if you’ll value my opinion on the subject?
For the record, I’d say it’s pretty clear that the Roman Empire did not “shanghai” the Christian religion, nor the other way around - though the other way around was closer to being accurate. In reality Constantine elevated Christianity from lion fodder to state religion for personal reasons, and it’s clear that Christianity got more out of the deal. A certain amount of “corruption” is almost certainly better than annihilation, at least from the point of view of the thing getting annihilated.
Of course, all variants of modern Christainity owe a lot to early Roman christendom - if you’re based on a modern bible, then you can thank them for picking which scriptures you’re using. So I think it’s fair to say that nobody is uncorrupted.
And as far as I can tell, Christ was happy to personally intercede, or have his apostles intercede for people in their relationship to God. It isn’t at all clear to me that he was against priests. Corrupt and egotistical priests sure, but priests and intercessors in general? I’m just not seeing it. But don’t worry, as long as you and other members of the protestent and subsequent “corruptions” stop claiming to have some kind of knowledge that the Catholics are interpreting things incorrectly, I’ll accept you as being as Christian as the Catholics are.*
(* Since I know you care about my opinon on the matter oh so much. 
)
Would you like to explain how he’s wrong?
His argument is the Freshman 101, I just discovered Atheism argument every time.
All religions are stupid, yours is just as stupid and violent as everyone else’s, there is no reason to respect yours and not others because they are all equally stupid.
What response is there really to that?
It’s funny that people still defend Der Trihs. It’s not that he’s an atheist. It’s that he’s a broken record. I literally feel like I am wasting my time trying to get a nuanced argument from him. If with all of his passion, he actually studied the object he spends so much time hating, and learned some nuanced rebuttals, that would be something, but it’s not. It’s like, “Give me attention, argue with me, even though we’ve had this same exact argument a million times, and my position hasn’t evolved one iota. All of my facts will still be cherry picked quotes from the atheist Christianity is evil websites.”
Why should I debate with someone when I know exactly what they are going to say? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the whole point? I mean I could monologue it in my head.
For the record, I am not supporting him, with my prior post. I am opposing you. (Or, more specifically, the position you appear to be presenting.)
begbert2 You miss the entire point. Christianity specifically preaches that death is better than corruption. That’s why Christ was crucified rather than fight back against the Pharisees, because to wage war against them physically would be corrupting. So he died. Your Utilitarian metric of survival ultimately describes what did happen, but that’s what Pilate would do, not what Christ would do.
As far as the rest of it goes, I don’t adhere to any Protestant faith, but the idea that Catholicism should be beyond reproach is ridiculous. I don’t buy into the Catholic dogma about the Priestly intercession. Trying to berate me with some sort of cultural relativism isn’t really useful in any way. What does it matter to you anyway, it’s all BS for all you care. You can’t comprehend why people actually believe what they believe, and you think it’s all trivial, so what’s the point?
Christ was preaching a notion of actual truth, and Pilate asked, “What is truth?”, so the Catholic Church is as much Utilitarian Pilate as it is Christ. It’s a necessary construct, but understanding it for what it is, for the compromise with values that it is, is important, and can be done in this day and age when it couldn’t be years ago.
Well, you could say why he’s wrong. I’m not the expert on Christianity that Der Trihs is ;), but I don’t see his error. I see the Atheist 101 element, but it does sound like you’re saying Catholics aren’t Christian or are less Christian than Protestants. So how are you right? I’d like to see the support for that assertion.
I just don’t see what the problem was with that question.