Bull crap. Find me a Jewish group shouting about the war on Hanukkah. Or prove that all Christians in America believe there’s a war on Christmas.
I thought this thread was about Catholics. Shoot.
Then you should have used the word Catholics rather than ‘Believers’.
Sure. But one of the key elements of the Catholic tradition is the idea of the unique teaching authority of the Church. If you believe in that, then it seems to me that you’d be hard-pressed to pick and choose which elements you accept.
And (at least in the United States), you have ample access to churches and communities that encourage the private interpretation of scripture. And, given the wide variety of churches, you can find communities that not only permit private interpretation, but are made up on congregants whose private interpretations align with yours.
Edit: I say this as someone who grew up (and remains) in the Protestant tradition. It’s always something I’ve found puzzling on any number of political or theological issues.
You’re very welcome.
Have you met many Catholics? They do this all the time. My 12th-grade religion teacher, Sister Lillian, didn’t believe in Hell, or so she said in class. And she was a nun.
The way “the authority of the church” works is that priests etc. have special access to divine power and authority. They do not, even the Pope, have infallibility, except on the rare occasions that the Pope speaks ex cathedra. They can withhold the sacraments and assert power and influence, but you’re not compelled to believe them.
This is one thing I think Protestants in particular fail to understand. Lutherans etc. place a lot of emphasis on faith and thus belief. Catholics are more inclined to focus on the practice and worry less about the niceties of doctrine.
According to a survey, 69% of Catholics don’t believe in transubstantiation (the core teaching that Jesus is actually present in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist). So Catholics are, in fact, quite easily pressed.
I guess if you think Catholics are particularly stupid or ignorant of their own history. But I think most Catholics are aware of the many times in its history that the Church has changed its doctrine on a particular issue, and are smart enough to figure that, if the medieval popes were wrong when they burned protestants at the stake, modern popes might also be wrong when they say homosexuality is a sin.
That is interesting.
Although, assuming I found the right survey, it may be worth noting that most of the Catholics who report not believing in transubstantiation think they’re aligned with the Church teaching.
If I did the math correctly, over 70% of the Catholics surveyed think they agree with the Church’s teaching on the subject (many of them are just wrong about what it is) – perhaps not surprisingly, assuming I’m reading it correctly, the less often you attend mass the less likely you are to know the Church’s teaching and the more likely you are to view it as a symbol.
I was raised Catholic, though I also was pretty much an atheist since grade school. But I went to a public junior and senior high school and was exposed to and friends with people from all faiths. I even attended some Church services with friends. All the Protestant rituals I attended just seemed so boring. I liked the ritual of Mass! If you don’t believe, that’s about the only thing that’s interesting about religion to me. I can remember attending a Methodist Sunday service with friends, and it was mostly sermon. That’s the part I always tuned out during Mass! Oh, and I liked singing in Latin.
I have no inkling – especially this late in my life – that I’ll ever return to religion. But if I did I can’t imagine joining a Protestant congregation no matter how liberal it was. It would seem like faking it.
I’m not sure that’s precisely the way I’d phrase it, but I definitely find the high degree of structure in the Mass… comforting, I guess? Like, that’s the way a religious service ought to be. Not necessarily that specific structure, of course: Different religions would obviously have different structures. But the style in many Protestant churches where it’s just whatever the pastor feels like doing that day just feels wrong to me.
Now, that’s just me, and obviously Protestants like the way they do it. But it’s not so odd that any given individual, of any sexual orientation, might feel that way.
Yeah, I wasn’t exactly sure how to phrase it either. I didn’t want to be insulting, but the Protestant’s ceremonies I’ve been to have seemed lacking somehow. They just didn’t do it for me.
Well, since i cant argue that, no offense taken.
What’s the title of this thread?
To some Christians Hell is a place where you replay and see your sins until you truly repent.
Next door to where I lived once there was a black Singing Baptist church. They seemed to have the Holy Spirit.
You got me there. A billion years ago I lived in a flat in an old Victorian in San Francisco. The Japanese newspaper was printed in the building next door. They didn’t print on Sundays, so it was used by a Black congregation for their services. I enjoyed listening to them. I still would not have enjoyed the sermons.
Yeah - when I was a kid, I always thought that as goofy as the RC rules were, I kinda respected that they HAD rules. Basically said, “If you don’t like our rules, find another game.” But as a kid, I found it quite confusing, “Wait - now I CAN have a hamburger on Friday? And what about those poor hamburger eaters doing time in purgatory?”
I guess I shouldn’t ask such questions anymore, but even in my 60s it continues to confuse me that people can think and act so differently than I do. To me, the idea of eternal salvation etc is too damned important to just align with whatever church is convenient or has the best music. Like Homer said (paraphrased), “What if every Sunday we go to the wrong church and God keeps getting madder and madder!” 
And if I were a member of a group which has pretty consistently through history been discriminated against - such as, say, gay people - I would do whatever I could to avoid associating with groups that have consistently discriminated more than other quite similar groups.
Protestant churches vary considerably in this respect. Evangelical churches are pretty much as you describe. Episcopal churches, OTOH, have a very specific liturgy, with confession, creed, readings from the Old and New Testaments and the Gospels, intercessory prayers, the Peace, and the Eucharist. The Gospel readings are on a one-year cycle, IIRC, and the Old and New Testament readings are on a 3-year cycle: the priest doesn’t get to pick that week’s Scripture readings, you know what the readings will be for a given Sunday years ahead of time. \
It’s been eons since I’ve darkened the door of a Roman Catholic church, but I gather the differences aren’t that great. Which makes sense: the split between the RC’s and the Church of England was about Henry VIII wanting to marry Anne Boleyn, and the split between the Church of England and the Episcopal Church was about the latter not wanting to be part of the Church of England after the American Revolution. Nothing like Luther’s 95 theses anywhere in there.
Lutherans (ELCA, at least; Missouri Synod etc. are a whole 'nother thing) have a liturgy that’s similar to the Episcopal liturgy. Not quite as structured, but pretty close. Presbyterians have a distinct order of service, but I wouldn’t call it a liturgy. Other than that, I couldn’t really tell you: those are the only three denominations that I’ve been familiar with for an extended period of time.
Man, how’d that get into the Iliad? Or was it the Odyssey?
(Yeah, I know, you meant Homer Simpson. Couldn’t resist though. 
)
“It’s Catholic Lite: same religion, half the guilt.” ---- Robin Williams
I don’t think “…find another game,” has ever been part of it. The Catholic Church would much rather you disagree, but still attend, rather than you join another church. Granted, they’re a lot less… intense about it than they used to be, but the Church would always rather have more members instead of fewer. Hell, even people who have been excommunicated are still expected to attend Mass.
If salvation is dependent on belonging to the right denomination, then most Christians are going to hell anyway, so you might as well at least enjoy the ride!
For me, when I used to attend a church, it was less a matter of getting salvation right so much as being part of a community that at least somewhat shared a common view of their faith, and enjoyed the same manner of worship. (Nothing against churches, just took an extended absence from that sort of thing in order to settle what I believed on various axes, independent of what any church was trying to tell me.)
I believe in a God that is far more loving than we’re capable of being, so I very much don’t believe that God’s going to send people into an eternity of damnation for arbitrary reasons, assuming (as I don’t) that God would even dole out infinite punishment for finite sins in the first place. So getting the denomination right isn’t exactly a matter of salvation and damnation, AFAIAC.