Which poster are you referring to?
The one who said that the first Popes had nothing to do with Christianity, of course.
I’m not even a practicing Catholic anymore and I find those remarks offensive.
Offensive, but not terribly unusual, unfortunately. No small number of Protestants believe that Catholics are not actually Christians (as they define it), because of the veneration of Mary and the saints, the prominence of the Sacraments in Catholic worship, and, of course, the Pope and the Catholic Church hierarchy.
I guess I read a little less into the statement. The two are not synonymous-while a Catholic is a Christian, not all Christians are Catholics.
He literally said:
I’m not sure how one can read that and not take away that he doubts that Catholics are actually Christians. But, YMMV.
Catholics are a subset of Christians.
I believe that is what I just said.
I guess one could also argue Jesus had nothing to do with early Christianity or any Christianity for that matter since Christianity wasn’t around until after he was. Sounds like my brother, a Southern Baptist. He claims they are the only true Christians and that Catholics can’t be because they “worship” the Virgin Mary.
The trinity sounds a lot like polytheism.
Peter is regarded as the first Pope, but even Catholics recognize this as a retroactive designation. The early church was rather decentralized. Even if Peter founded the Roman church or later became the first bishop of Rome, it would be well after his death before the bishop of Rome was elevated to the status of leader of the Church.
I’m also pretty sure the person you’re talking to doesn’t consider Peter the first pope. You don’t have to believe Catholics aren’t Christians to believe that. And we know Peter definitely wasn’t a warlord.
Moderating:
Your statements are allowed within reason, as you are saying what your own beliefs are. This moderator’s note is not to tell you to stop having your discussion.
However, religion is a very sensitive area, and I will require that you make your arguments in a respectful way. Making blanket statements about what others should do, how they should see things or believe is not respectful. If your statements continue to be made in a provocative way, you will not be permitted to continue your part in the discussion.
Also, do not direct others to “separate Catholics from Christians and ask your questions again.” That is out of bounds. Their views are not the same as yours.
Before the crucifixion, Peter saw himself as a loyal soldier. When Jesus accepted his fate without resistance, Peter did some serious soul searching as he realized and accepted that Jesus was a pacifist. At least that’s the way I see it.
I certainly believe that Catholics are a type of Christian, but the Orthodox have as long a history as the Catholics, and they don’t accept the primacy of the Pope, either. Although i believe that the Orthodox and the Catholics are currently in communion with each other.
Of course, you are right that Protestants are Johnny-come-lately to the Christian fold.
As always, there’s a little more nuance than that. The Orthodox do actually recognize the primacy of the Pope, but not the supremacy of the Pope. In the Orthodox view, there are a number of Patriarchs, each of whom has supreme authority over their own jurisdiction, and the Pope is one of those Patriarchs. Further, he’s the “First Among Equals” of the Patriarchs, which is a status of primacy, but which doesn’t carry any greater direct authority with it. This also means that there are multiple Orthodox churches, as many as there are patriarchs, who disagree with each other on many points (in particular, relations are quite strained between the Patriarch of Moscow and most of the others).
And there’s also more nuance to “being in communion with each other”. From the Catholic point of view, anyone who shares certain key beliefs about the Eucharist (most notably, transubstantiation) is in communion with the Catholic Church, and so far as I know, all of the Orthodox churches believe in transubstantiation. However, other churches might have their own criteria for communion, and some but not all of the Orthodox churches consider Catholics to be in full communion with them.
To make things even more complicated, some Eastern groups do recognize the supremacy of the Pope: These are called the Eastern Catholic churches. They’re not just in communion with Catholics; they are Catholics (though of a slightly different sort than Roman Catholics). But culturally, they descend from the Orthodox tradition, and their practices and services superficially resemble those of the Orthodox.
To the OP’s questions, i’ll start with I’m a Christian, in the Methodist Church. I’m not a theological expert. Others have answered your 6 questions. I’ll mention two of them and I’ll bring up another argument I often hear within Christianity:
My answer to #5 is that God gives us “free will” on Earth. He doesn’t guarantee outcomes, and as we’re imperfect creatures, bad things happen. He set up the sandbox, and he’s letting us play in the sandbox. On #6, it’s just part of human nature. We’re imperfect, and we sin. We can’t “not sin”. As part of our walk with God, we’re supposed to do good works. The old saying is that Faith without Works is dead (book of James, I think). But the good works isn’t enough by itself, because we’re still sinful creatures.
There is an argument within Christianity against Free Will by Calvinists. Calvinism is growing in the Southern Baptist Convention’s seminaries, and you will see more and more preachers saying that this stuff is pre-determined. I call Calvinists the “Jesus came to save just some of us” wing of Christianity. Calvinism vs Arminianism has been debated for hundreds of years. John Wesley, who began the Methodist Church, was a free-will guy, and that’s where I land. But we’re seeing a surge in Calvinism in recent decades in some of our larger churches.
I guess I’ve digressed some, but the concept of free will was mentioned by the OP, and I thought I’d mention that many Christians don’t buy into free will…
RE: #3
Eve following God’s dictates.
Read carefully. Eve was created after God issues the command not to eat the fruit of a particular tree, variously described. It’s little wonder she garbles the information when she tries to repeat it to the serpent. She probably got it from Adam, whose name signals that he wasn’t so bright.
Cain’s wife
A rather elegant solution to the question of where Cain’s wife came from was that she was part of a separate creation, and it just happens not to be documented. There was a list of reasons for recording only the creation of Adom & Chava, among them being that they were the first, and the people created during the first week of creation; that it was their agency that brought knowledge of good & evil into he world; and that they are the only people with descendants to this day.
Or Muslims. While the creation story in the Quran is a little different, it has the same cast of characters and issues.
Most Christians and Jews are not literalists as implied in the OP. I suppose the same is true of Muslims but I do not really know.
Re the first OP question, “where did Cain’s wife come from,” is this just an attempt to get any fundamentalists here to admit the obvious (incest)? They generally do, although I see from RivkahChaya’s post there are alternatives. From Wikipedia:
Or rather, everyone is descended from them. If their children all married separately-created humans, then those other humans also have descendants (the same descendants as Adam and Eve’s children).
I didn’t mean this literally, I just meant it as a hypothetical. If the answer is yes, it raises another question.
Say there was a non-Christian. They followed all Christian rules, (no murder, no theft, they loved, etc. Also, I know they couldn’t follow rules that say you have to accept Christ and things like that.) they live through their life doing everything like the ideal Christian. They just don’t believe in the Christian God.
Would Hitler confessing on his deathbed be more likely to go to Heaven than a “perfect” non Christian?