While discussing school choices the other day at lunch and why my kid is going to a public school rather than a parochial school or the independent Catholic school my MIL prefers, a co-worker threw out the comment “The Roman Church is the mother of all harlots”. I made what I (now) think is a rude comment and went on. I have read about that argument on, of all places, Jack Chick’s web site and it pains me to find out that this otherwise fine fellow believes such balderdash.
I am, however, ignorant of the proper refutation of such an argument. I have done some searching but have not come up with anything. Can anyone point me to a good discussion of this topic, or offer a summary? I am going to offer an apology for being rude, but I would like to have some kind of argument on hand just to make me feel, um, more preprared, I guess. Thanks.
You guys are, like, totally unhelpful. Where’s tomndebb when you need him?
Actually, Homebrew, my reaction at the time was not too dissimilar from what you describe, and I would like to take it back. Religion is apparently one thing I just can’t discuss with this particular person, and we get along quite well otherwise.
I don’t expect to convice him, BobLibDem, and the result of this disagreement can only result in an agreement to disagree, and also to never discuss religion ever again, but I would like to know the proper refutation of his position, if only to make myself feel better. and if he wants to know, I’ll tell him.
The “Mother of all Harlots” comment comes from the inane interpretation of the Book of Revelation used by some ignorant, anti-Catholic Protestant groups. They think that Revelation is about the end of the world (it isn’t), and that in the End Times (cue bad horror music) the evil papacy will try to rule the world and will corrupt all other religions or something (it varies from sect to sect).
The truth is that the book of Revelation is about the Christian persecution under the Roman Empires, and that the Roman Emperor was the mother of all harlots (or, alternately, the city of Rome). The Emperors were coming into the idea that everyone should worship them as living gods at that period in history, and were forcing all cults to bow before them as divine incarnations. Christians refused and were roundly persecuted for it.
Frankly, I would just cut the person off and stop dealing with them. He’s a bigot, and bigots deserve none of your time and absolutely no friends.
There is nothing to refute. “the RCC is the mother of all harlots?” What does that statement even mean*?"
First of all, it’s extremely rude for a coworker to spout garbage like that at lunch and it’s probably an issue for HR.
But if you insist on engaging with drivel like this, then you first have to force the other person to clearly articulate what his position is. You cannot logically refute an undefined nonsense statement like “The Catholic Church is the mother of all harlots.” That is a statement with no declarative content. Ask him what he means by “mother” and by “harlots” and what it means to say that a religious instution can procreate them.
Most likely, his imbecilic statement is rooted in some understanding of the “Whore of Babylon” in Revelation as being symbolic of the Catholic Church. In fact, the “Whore” was the Roman empire but you are highly unlikely to get anywhere by telling him that.
Just remember that this is his assertion and that he has the burden of proof. The correct way to manage a debate like this is not to try to positively refute bald, unsupported assertions but to hammer him with questiion, pin him down and make him PROVE, that the RCC is the mother of all harlots with clear definitions of all terms.
Personally, I wouldn’t waste my time, though. You’d be teaching a pig to sing.
“Mother of all harlots” is, of course, a reference to the “Whore of Babylon” from the Book of Revelation, which as OP has found out already it is a fave Jack Chick reference in his fits of Anti-Catholic bigotry.
There is no real direct refutation since it’s just a biased interpretation of a biblical passage.
Apocalyptic literature being what it is, the MOAH could just as well be global capitalism, international communism, the IMF, AOL-Time-Warner, the liberals, the conservatives, or Britney Spears (OK maybe this one’s just the Little Sister of All Harlots)… or it could HAVE been the Roman Empire, and that particular prophecy be already fulfilled.
I think the best argument is that Christ said to Peter, “You are the rock and on this rock I will build my Church” or something to that effect. There is also the reference “What you bind in Earth will be bound in heaven, what you loosen on Earth will be loose in heaven.” From this one infers that Christ entrusts Peter with the church and all the authority associated with it. From Peter, the first pope, there is apostolic succession to this day. So the Catholic church is the church established by Jesus. If one takes the position that it is the mother of all harlots, one must then say that the church established by Christ is the mother of all harlots.
First of all, where the phrase comes from. Here’s Rev 17:1-6, from the KJV
It’s pretty clear from the text, including a part I haven’t quoted, that the harlot in that section refers to the city of Rome. The book of Revelation is generally thought, by most biblical scholars to refer to the persecution of Christians in the ancient Roman empire, so that section talks about Rome as the new Babylon…the new center of wickedness, which kills the followers of Jesus.
However, there are some Protestant groups that believe the Book of Revelation is a prophetic book talking about the coming end of the world. Books like the Left Behind series, for example, have people who believe that as their prime audience.
Now, for a lot of those groups, the woman in the passage I just quoted is still Rome, but it’s the new Rome…the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic church is “drunk on the blood of the martyrs” because of all the Protestant reformers that were killed, and it’s the center of wickedness because it, according to them, teaches false doctrine.
How to rebut it? That’s a harder question. Of course, you can try telling her that the book of Revelation is about the persecution of Christians in ancient Rome, or alternately, you could try to convert her to Catholicism, but neither of those will probably do much good. It’s really difficult to change your belief system, and even harder to change the belief system of someone who doesn’t want to change theirs. The only way to do that really quickly with any assurance would be through a combination of torture, deprivation, and a careful regimen of mood and mind altering drugs, but all that’s probably illegal in your state.
I was raised Catholic, went to 12 years of Catholic school, I was married in the church and, although I stopped attending Mass when I was in college, after my son was born my wife and headed back, mostly because I thought I wanted my kids to go to the same kind of school I went to. Well, now I have decided that I want something different, and I’ve also come to realize that, perhaps, religion in general, certainly the Roman Catholic flavor, isn’t for me.
So I have this great doubt, but not a lot of knowledge, mostly because I don’t really care, also I’m just not that interested. And yet, when I hear things like “The Roman Church is the Mother of all Harlots” (I always imagine it capilalized like that), I feel this great need to defend a church I no longer believe. I suppose it’s because of the many people, family mostly, whom I feel are being insulted by the comments that I feel this way. And I don’t have the ammunition to fight back.
Diogenes, of course that’s the correct way to argue, but I was at lunch talking about schools, and the comment came out of nowhere and from a person I would not have suspected felt that way. I knew he attended a Christian Church with no denominational affiliation, but that view I always thought of as more extreme and obscure. But, I guess not. Plus, I am the World’s Worst Debater.
Captain Amazing, thanks a lot for your post! That’s quite enough for me, I think.
The problem with fighting Chick Tracts is that each panel contains one or two lies or distortions that need a paragraph or so to refute. To provide a counter argument, I really need to know which of the dozens of Chick’s lies to address.
The two easily debunked claims are:
The “death cookie” nonsense in which every single claim for an Egyptian origin of the Eucharist is a fiction invented by Chick. (You can read Frazer’s Golden Bough to see what (multiple) practices of the Egyptians Chick has distorted to invent his story.)
Chick’s claim that there were “secret” Christians from the time of Constantine until the Reformation and that the “secret” Christians managed a coup to wrest the translation of the KJV away from the Catholics to make it the only “real” bible. There is no evidence for any “secret” Christians surviving for 1200 years (even after the Reformers broke from the Catholic Churcn, no “secret” Christians came out of hiding to identify themselves or relate their history. That was pretty much a 20th century invention–and may have started with Chick, himself.) There are also Christian groups who separated from what became the Orthodox and Catholic churches before Nicaea, and their theology does not reflect Chick’s tortured view of the world.
I may be out for the day, so here are some earlier threads that discuss some of the issues. Catholics! Who decided all of this? Catholics not Christians? Catholics not Christian?
Not to say, though, that there weren’t reform or heretical movements before Luther that survived secretly until the Reformation, like the Waldensians, but they only date from the 13th century, not the early Christian church.
And actually, just for fun, I looked at Reinarius Saccho’s description of the Waldensians, from the 13th century, and he said that they claimed:
"That the Church of Rome is the Harlot in the Apocalypse, on account of its superfluous decoration which the Eastern Church does not regard. "
I should think the matter would be easy to settle. Just go find any harlot, and ask who her mother is. I bet she won’t say “The Roman Catholic Church.”
How about something like, “That’s one interpretation. Other people think this…” and use one or more of the explanations given in this thread. If he wants to discuss it ask him why he thinks the way he does, what supports his ideas. If he just repeats the statement then you can simply say that you disagree and let it drop. No real reason to get argumentative about it, and certainly no reason to get all judgemental (not that you did) and decide that he’s totally worthless, as you’ve been advised to do. He may learn something from your demeanor, if not your words, and you have learned something from him about how some other people see things. All to the good. Knowledge is always useful, but it will never get spread around by shutting (or shouting) other people down.
