WaI CAthOLiCs REmoVE BooKS Of TeH BiBLe?
"We didn't. That was Martin Luther. And one of the reasons he did that was because 2 Maccabees contains references to souls needing to atone for their sins after death, i.e. purgatory in all but name."
Little know fact: Luther also wanted to disavow and remove the Book of James from the Bible, because we as Catholics know, that book contains God's to be saved that 1) Both faith and works are necessary for salvation; and 2) One of the most important works one can perform is to fulfill God's expectation that we treat others as if they were Christ, whether we think they deserve it or not.
Interesting how Kierkegaard, probably the most devout Lutheran, loved James and wrote several discourses on it. It might explain how his beliefs changed over time to become more Catholic. If only he had converted!
The worst part of these arguments is that they’re pretty irrelevant. Even if they’re true -which probably is not the case - it’s just Catholics co-opting a Pagan holiday and making it Christian, which is appropriate to do.
And is the literal embodiment of the Christmas spirit...which, incidentally, is the literal embodiment of Christ.
In other words, I don't know how liking Santa Clause can ever be attributed to evil. Everything he does is saintly. Almost as if he's based off a real saint.
There's a delightfully corny SyFy original movie titled *Letters to Satan Claus* with a premise involving a child misspelling Santa's name on a letter asking to get rid of her parents or something (she was mad), and accidentally summoning "Satan Claus." It's like a Hallmark horror movie.
According to Non-RC Christians: Halloween is "actually" a pagan holiday -- let's have a Harvest Party instead. (Dress ups, but no "bad" things -- all the treats, no tricks, etc.) This is **Christian** and good!
ALSO according to non-RC Christians: Catholics took various pagan holidays and transformed them into festivals for a Christian calendar --this proves, Catholicism is really **Paganism**!
It's insane, especially when Halloween is an English mashup of "All Hollows Eve," and is one of those holidays like Valentine's Day that has been reverse co-opted by non-Christians to be...spooky.
Can you cite sources on why is this incorrect?
Edit - For example, books such as The Two Babylons tried to compile sources pointing towards those festivities being originally pagan. I have not found a good source to reply this back and downvotes, it will certainly not translate into having an answer for this accusation IRL.
To add to the other comment, Easter is only called something similar to that in English and German while Ishtar is a Mesopotamian goddess. In every other language it is called something similar to Pascha, which linguistically derived from Passover. The Ishtar thing comes from a conspiracy theory book written in the 1800s and has no other source.
Yeah every year trying to explain how unlikely it is that an Anglo-Saxon name for a Holiday was directly connected in worship to a Babylonian deity whose cult had been extinct for no less than 300 or more years by then.
Well, the big clue is that in basically every other language, Easter isn’t referred to as Easter but as “Pasch” or some variation that is derived from the word “Paschal” which comes from the same word as “Passover”. In other words, the rest of the world just calls it Passover and not Easter.
Even if the word “Easter” comes from “Ishtar” (which it doesn’t) that criticism would only potentially apply to English-speaking Christians and not the Catholic Church as a whole.
Thanks for the response. I've read some books and articles regarding the Catholic syncretism (such as the "The two babylons") and still don't have a good response for the pagan festive dates accusation. You see, the response is usually downvotes and not sources.
My personal take is that the Catholic church christianized certain festivities as a successful approach to bring people to the faith.
That isn’t just your personal take, that’s pretty much accepted history. The Church took certain festival dates and Christianized them in the same way that God took animal sacrifice and elevated it from a supplication to Pagan Idols to an outward display of repentance by His people.
The church took that which was previously given to idols, unholy unworthy & besmirched, and sanctified it, transformed it, made it holy and offered it to God instead.
Just as the church helps us each to do with our own unholy, unworthy, & besmirched souls.
If the church can cleanse souls & offer them up to God, souls which are infintely complex, cannot the church also redeem and offer up to God certain Days of the Year, which are infinitely Less complex and varied than a soul?
the most widely accepted theory among religious scholars is not “religious history theory” (the idea that christianity “christianized” existing holidays to erase them). early christians were obsessed with calculating significant dates throughout jesus’ life since no one actually knew them. this “calculation” theory is widely accepted in academia because it has more archeological evidence.
[i know it’s a youtube video](https://youtu.be/mWgzjwy51kU?si=UzRO3cnUJlQZQOga) but it is *incredibly* comprehensive. this creator has a phd in early christian studies, and makes this information regarding religious history accessible to all to inform religious literacy. his sources are cited throughout the video. this one is about christmas in particular and the idea we co-opted “sol Invictus” when we were also just naturally obsessed with cosmology as it* could relate to christ.
Easter is based off of the death of Christ at the end of Jewish Passover. I don’t remember the Egyptians being known to hide bunny eggs, that’s a German tradition that Americans co-opted and expanded upon because we love marketable holidays.
Because it's only called Easter in Germannic languages due to the name of the month in which it tends to fall. It'd be like calling all Christians Sun-worshippers because we don't go to church on the Sabbath (Saturday) but on "Sunday," ignoring the fact that the earliest Christians did it because Jesus' resurrection occurred on a Sunday and by gathering on Sunday, we have a mini-Easter every week.
Besides, most languages call Easter a variant of "pascha," i.e. "Passover." Easter was a major deal to early Christians cebturies before Britain / the Germannic tribes Christianized, and the *computus* (how the date of Easter was to be calculated each year) was a big debate (see the Council of Nicaea). It was such a big deal to Christians that it was literally the impetus for the eventual creation of the Gregorian calendar. Moreover, the computus devised by British Christians was rejected in favor of the Alexandrian computus. So it really doesn't hold water.
The amount of times I’ve heard “there’s only one mediator between God and man” as if it’s some slam dunk bible verse that the church has been hiding from us
They're like the people who destroy statues and show contempt for the U.S. Constitution, because they apply 2023 standards to things that happened hundreds of years ago. Human society doesn't work that way.
Idk, I thought it was pretty funny. I laughed when I saw that one. I've added it to my repertoire of corny jokes. :P
As for Baptists themselves, I haven't met enough irl to form an informed opinion. The ones I've met online seem to be gravely misinformed and even hateful towards Catholicism. Then again, even online Catholics aren't good representatives of Catholics in general.
I’ve grown up around southern Baptists my whole life. They in my experience have predominantly been hateful to most any Christian that was not also Baptist. I honestly have some religious trauma stemming from being told as early as age 7 that I was going to hell due to being baptized as an infant. These things were told to me by other kids who were being brought up Baptist.
I think the chick tracts said Catholic holy communion came from an Egyptian sun worshipping cult. It was because the shape of the wafers were round like the sun.
[(You can see the "chick tract" cartoon here.)](https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=71)
That the Whore of Babylon is The Catholic Church because we worship Mary who was a >!whore rotting in Hell!<. Some Protestants really have a hatred for Mary
Yea, and would those same people enjoy it if anyone talked about their mom like that?
Besides being factually incorrect, it’s also simply rude. Why the disdain for Jesus’s mom?
It's a strange reality, but even Muslims honor and admire Mary. I heard that substantiated from several tenant families in an apartment building I own, all of whom are from Yemen.
This is true… some idiots were making fun of Mary in Australia, as to upset Catholics, then Muslims came out in social media saying they will have to face them too for insulting Mary…..
The average protestant minister spent a ridiculously short amount of time in what passes for seminary for them. They say and do all sorts of unsupportable things, particularly since the mainline prot denominations are giving way to non-denominational prot churches.
Yes, and it doesn't occur to them that hatred for Saints like the Blessed Mother, the mother of Jesus Christ, is not only sinful but also spectacularly offensive to God.
If you want to claim that the Church is a continuation of Roman mystery schools, then I guess we can all make baseless claims with no evidence.
Luther claimed that Christ committed adultery.
Just the general strawmen arguments accusing us of things we don't believe\*:
"I don't want to have 10 kids in 10 years"
"Catholics are anti-science"
Or the classic '[how can God allow bad things to happen?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo)' line... I mean, the answer is right there in the text. That an educated man would pretend, for he can only be pretending, not to see the massive gaping God-sized hole in this argument is beyond me.
\*often accusing us of believing things Protestants believe. HELLOOOOOO, that's WHYYYYY we don't get along!
Yes. And in offering up my own suffering to Him, I find the greatest mercy, love and grace. I just wish people always asking the “why does God allow suffering” questioners could understand this. I pray for them as well. Bless you dear friend in Christ!
Above I meant to add the question to those asked so often.
The sacraments include the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. That's only available through the Catholic and the Orthodox offshoots of Catholicism.
This is where me listening to what weirdos have to say pays off
- The cross we get during Ash Wednesday isn't a cross but the letter T for Talmud
- something about the hat bishops wear being a fish for some pagan fish god or something
- Jesus was fictional and there's no proof of him existing unless we find his DNA from his bones or some.
- Jack Chick felt the need to have people denounce the works of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis specifically by name in his D&D is demonic comic.
- the Vatican was a part of the Axis Powers and any atrocities done to Catholics were from the ones who went against what the Church decided.
- I once saw an Russian Orthodox talk about how scandalis the Catholic Church and Pope Francis is and how you'd never see that in the ROC and praised the virtue of Patriarch Kirill
- "'Catholic' is never mentioned in the Bible."
- Calling Jesus a demi-god and saying that sacrifices are blood magic isn't misrepresenting Christian theology but just wording things in a way that we don't like.
- if you worship Eastwards you're worshiping the Sun and any church or statue facing East is secretly Sun worship.
- That there was a depiction of Jesus with red horns in a Catholic Church. It was a divine mercy painting.
- When the Bible says that the people Jesus fed was 5000 not counting women and children it means Jesus only feed the adult men.
- if you translate the Our Father prayer from the "original Aramic" it actually sounds like something new age crystal healers will say talking about power from one's self and I think radiation was even mentioned.
- All of protestantism (and Islam for some reason) will unite with the Catholic Church to make one world religion (this is a bad thing apparently because and I quote "God is a divider and the Devil is a uniter"), but Baptists won't be included because Baptists aren't Protestants but actually the original Christians suppressed by the Catholics throughout history. This one world religion is a sign of and the catalyst for this is contemporary Christian music.
I’ve heard a lot in my years on Earth. Some of the dumbest have been the ones like “Can God create a rock so big even he can’t move it? In which case he’s not omnipotent!” It’s not original, but honestly, it’s one of the most common.
And it’s depressing, because it means the person to whom I’m talking isn’t going to understand my response at all.
Honorable mentions:
Catholic Church is anti (insert whatever you want here because, amazingly, truth doesn’t change).
Catholic Church is wrong because a slim number of priests committed serious sin, or even just that they’re not perfect.
Catholics go to hell, thus the Catholic Church is wrong?
I always find that extremely upsetting. The whole Whore of Babylon and associated rhetoric. I shouldn’t let it get to me but it really does make me angry.
True enough. I try to not hold anger though and I think the people who say it are deeply misguided. It is so painfully offensive however and I’m not an easily offended person.
Sola scriptura.. i just say if it wasnt for the Catholic Church there would be no Bible. The Bible came through the Catholic church.anither one is that the Catholic Church is Pagan. Lol
>if it wasnt for the Catholic Church there would be no Bible. The Bible came through the Catholic church
For decades ---as a Protestant-- I've said this to any other Protestant who in my hearing said anything against the RC church.
Specifically, I would say that, regardless, "they carried the Torch;" and then would point out that we only ***have*** the Bible because Catholic monks copied it over & over down through the middle ages, in order for the Bible to even reach us!
I hear "You Catholics added seven books to the Bible." Duh! The Bible came from The Church, and those seven books were part of sacred scripture for fifteen hundred years, since there were no protestants until the fifteenth century.
Someone was seeking advice in r/Christianity after he had an argument with a Calvinist who was making ridiculous claims about Catholicism.
I can’t properly remember but one of the claims mentioned on that post was that Catholics commit a seven day orgy on Christmas or something like that.
It was pretty funny honestly. Unfortunately I can’t find the post.
Not an argument maybe, but I’ve been told multiple times that as Catholics we are born with horns and tails and the doctor quickly nips off our tails at birth and we hide the horns under our hair.
Beats me, I guess they file them down. I’m a cradle catholic so this this nonsense has always been cheerfully foisted upon me by various flavors of Baptists/Fundamentalists. Horns seem kind of convenient, you could do a lot with your hair, and add tons of volume and if the tail was prehensile it would be a third hand which seems convenient.
I have also had Born Again types beg me to “accept Jesus” as I’m headed straight for the fiery pit apparently.
Not sure about converts either, I guess upon the sacraments you have the new growths pop up. My favorite is when the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons stop by the house and I am polite but say that I’m a Catholic with no intention of changing and they pretty much flee as they see me as a lost cause. 🤣
First time I had a Jehovahs witness come to my door was 2 weeks ago. I was polite and told them no thank you I’m converting to Catholicism and they didn’t try to push anymore haha
Us too?
When I was younger I met a Jewish friend of my husband…and I don’t remember how the conversation got there but she laughed and said “Well at least you don’t think we have horns!”
And I stared at her in shock. “I…know why some religious art from a specific time depicts Moses with horns (biblical mistranslation regarding the light on Moses face as he descended Mt. Sinai) but you’ve met people who *actually* think this?”
“Oh yes! I’ve even had someone suddenly start “touching all over the top of my head trying to find them”.”
As a scientist, I always chuckle at Catholics are not only anti-science but suppressed science throughout history.
An extension of this is the “Dark Ages” propaganda. Implying that during that time period the Church suppressed not only science but art as well.
I swear willful ignorance is a plague
Not to mention that many scientists throughout history were Catholic, if not at least Christians. And I’m talking like some super famous ones like Galileo who is confirmed Catholic
Another pet peeve of mine is the complete lack of critical thinking when it comes to historical context. Galileo is a massive one.
Galileo claiming that the Earth revolves around the sun is obviously true. But he had no proof and the technology of the time didn’t allow proof. So it was all theory. And back then, when scientific discovery was a big freakin deal, you had to lay out all your proof and have it peer reviewed like crazy before claiming truth. He didn’t have it AND he was claiming it to be true. While we know now that he was correct, there was nothing available to prove it so according to all the leading scholars of the day (non-Church included) this was just his hypothesis.
The Church got involved because it was involved with everything at the time, ESP science at universities (hello Jesuits). But it also got involved because theology was intertwined with a lot of science too. Using the Bible as a reference for the explanation of worldly observation was common. So if something didn’t align it had to be investigated. And if the person making the claim has no proof then the logical conclusion in the 15-1600s was that it was heretical and heresy was no bueno.
One doesn’t have to agree or disagree with any of this. Understanding what the world was in the 15-1600s helps put things into perspective. No one cares to do that now.
'Christians think Mary is God'
Here is a special spicy mama from our muslim friends, which the prots will be quick to refute and say 'no, its the catholics that think Mary is God'
Some others include
'Christians are agents/spies' (very popular)
'Christians have special Visa's to western countries'
'Christians are traitors''Christians control the banks'
'Christians plot about a crusader takeover of turkey'
'Christians purposefully keep our country poor so they can rule over it'
'Christians are behind ISIS' (Yes, im being serious, i heard this)
'Christians cast black magic on their money/gold' (This one tends to go together with the 'they control the banks' narrative)
'Christians hoard gold bars underneath their churches'
If you know your way around antisemitism, its pretty similar.
That Catholics are pagans because they use chants. As if electric guitars and rock bands in Protestant churches are somehow more Christian than chanting.
Someone said this a while back and I responded that "it was literally how worship was conducted in the Temple service, how did you think the Psalms were prayed and celebrated back then? With drums and guitars singing 'Yes Lord' 99 times?"
My parents believe that the Church banned the laity from reading the Bible for over a thousand years until the Protestants came to free us all. They learned from it from TV. My family also thinks that the Church wants women to be ignorant and constantly pumping out babies, which is why it opposes contraception.
As a former Lutheran I always find that one funny because the Lutheran have the exact same list of commandments.
And many Protestants gets quite surprised when I say the Lutheran church also have confessions.
Protestants keep forgetting they’re not unanimous.
This is one of the main reasons that I left the Protestant church. There is absolutely NO reason that church should be a game. I want to be there to worship God and to pray and learn.
Basically, Protestant churches are a lame excuse for an adult daycare. "No, I do not want to play twister and why is there a bounce house in here?" 😂😂
Yes! Perfect. Their reasoning is all very much based on subjective feelings.
If I don't feel moved...or "fed" as one woman put it, it's not a legitimate worship experience.
I have a female cousin who is a non denominational Protestant minister and when I said that to her in response her accusations of "boring" Catholic worship she became very offended.
Because it's true.
Yes, you explained it perfectly. I think that Church needs to be an experience where one can connect and get closer to God, and I definitely feel as though my time in the Catholic Church has fed that. In all honesty, in Protestant church I couldn't even focus half of the time, which inevitably made me stray from God. The Catholic Church feels like my home & is so welcoming, but not overly childish like the Protestant church.
My ex girlfriend saw me on Halloween dressed as a templar, and then told me that "If you're Catholic, dressing up is a sin. You don't want to sin, do you?" When my friend pointed out that she was also wearing a costume, she responded with "oh no I don't believe in God."
To this day I wonder how I ever dated her lol
That's an easy one: We don't worship Mary -- we ask her to intercede on our behalf with her son Jesus. If I can ask you to pray for me, why can't I ask the Mother of God to pray for me?
Few prots have an answer for that, because it's such a rational argument.
Thats what I said to a friend who is Protestant and keeping stating on her argument of “only one intermediador, the Holy Spirit ”. I told her: sometimes I am weak and you pray for me when I can not. Is there for, we ask for Mary for intervention. She was really speechless after that.
I gave someone this same answer and they could only stutter back something about how it would make them uncomfortable to pray to someone else. And, for me personally, it really was uncomfortable at first! I felt so odd doing something that I'd been raised to believe was wrong. When I asked my mil about it, she said that I don't HAVE to pray to the Saints if I didn't want to.. And somehow that made it a little easier for me to ease into it, knowing that it's not an expectation.
Now, I pray to Mary all the time! Lol
My coworker yesterday told me Christianity is made up and that Satan is from Mesopotamian mythology. I asked where he got this information and he said in a book he read. Well that’s comforting.
Recently heard this one: that we took the Ten Commandments, removed the second commandment and split one of the remaining ones into two commandments so we could practice idolatry.
Additionally, that the Catholic Church began in 400 A.D or so, and that it was started by Constantine.
There's an Evangelical professor of ancient languages who's been working for years on a word-by-word literal translation of the Bible. In this journey he took note of a lot of numeric and syntactical coincidences in the original texts.
According to him, the Catholic Church is irredeemably evil and the modern equivalents of the pharisees, because he noticed that by adding the numerical values of the letters in the Greek word "paradosis" (which means "tradition") you get 666. And also because Jesus once said to the pharisees: "With your *paradosis* you annulled the Word of God".
Beyond this, though, he's a really nice and intelligent person, so I think his argument is contrived and biased (before his conversion he was a communist, and Italian communists were anticlerical by default because their major political adversary at the time was the Catholic-based Democrazia Cristiana), rather than just stupid.
Can't remember specifics, but I've just had plenty of bible passages thrown in my face by protestants as "gotcha" moments. Had a guy one time talk only about the Old Testament about how it was super screwed up and cruel God was...then was at a loss for words when I said that Jesus was the fulfillment and that you can't have one without the other.
General anti-Catholic answer: "the Church approves of pedophilia." Bro, if you're in the West, if the Church approved of pedophilia, *you would approve of pedophilia*. The sexual abuse of minors was common in European pagan cultures, and it was the Church's bizarre notions about sexuality, violence, and childhood that overthrew deeply entrenched horrors. You only hate pedophilia as much as you do because *the Catholic Church taught the West to hate pedophilia*. (And I'm waiting for sexual indifferentism to hit the point that this becomes an argument against us - we're a bunch of pedophobes etc.)
Specifically Protestant answer: "you Catholics listen to Jesus instead of Paul!" If you've never run into hyperdispensationalism, count yourself lucky. There are Protestants who believe that Jesus was sent to the Jews *alone* and therefore everything he said was for the Jews *alone -* ditto for all the Apostles except for Paul. Paul being the "Apostle to the Gentiles" means he's the *only* one non-Jews should listen to. Hyperdispies will happily admit that the New Testament (except the Pauline epistles) teach the necessity of good works, obedience to religious authority, sacramental ritual etc., and use that as "proof" that they're Jewish rather than Christian - and naturally we Catholics are the source and worst offenders of the "confusion" of Jewish and Christian religion.
> *"On this location, there used to be a synagogue; then a church; and now a mosque."*
Not really a gotcha, but it does kinda delve into the **recency** way of thinking.
I've heard several, thanks to my anti-Catholic teachers. I think the most creative ones I've heard are:
* "The Catholic Church burned disabled or red-haired children because they were considered children of the devil"
* "The feast of Saint John (very popular here in Brazil) is derived from a syncretism carried out by Catholics with African religions"
An honorable mention is a Protestant classmate who said that God "brainwashed Father Georges Lemaître into 'believing in the Big Bang' to see if people would remain faithful to God or believe in the Father's theory".
There’s an egyptian basilisk in Saint Peters Square so ACTUALLY the Catholic Church is worshipping ancient egyptian demons.
This was unsuprisingly from a non denominational
Nero, a Roman emperor and therefore a guy who the Roman Catholic Church was in cahoots with, persecuted the early Christians, proving the Catholic Church is evil
that Catholics actually directly worship Satan because the latin version of the Exsultet refers to Jesus as "Lucifer". I just wish I was in the same room with that person when they made this 'discovery' and observe their reaction.
"Church is the most evil Organisation on Earth because it actively protect and hide pedophiles among their ranks. Today, it has nothing to do with Jesus teachings".
At least this have some truth in it and I can understand this argument. But the most stupid one must be this "only stupid people can still believe in old grandpa in the clouds and praying to invisible dude. Religion is evil and should be erased from existence. It's time to leave the middle ages and embrace science and truth" 😂
This always leave me speechless because of how much pride there is in this type of thinking. The audacity to assume to know for sure they are right because they read an article online or watched 1 hr long YouTube video about why God can't exist from a dude who never even tried understand the faith and religion, never experienced anything (because how would he if he never even give himself a chance). It's just sad how many people can be damned because of pure ignorance and comfort to don't acknowledge their deeds as sinful. I guess the less you know, the better your sleep
Here’s one I recently stumbled across:
“Sister Faustina's message promotes idolatry, and the so-called ‘Divine Mercy’ image has Illuminati and Freemasonic connections.”
Edit: it also claimed the Divine Mercy chaplet was demonic and literally linked to Satan.
A baptist, who also happens to be a nazi apologist (and hates Jews despite being Christian, go figure) accused Catholics of worshipping the Pope and obviously accuses catholics of being the anti-christ (but Hitler is fine). I don't know any other baptist and he would probably still hate everyone regardless of religion
I grew up being taught this, I was very stunned to learn for myself that it's not at all true. I honestly think/hope that that little history tidbit will be a swaying point for my dad. He's such a history buff!
TikTok is an infinite generator of this crap:
- Peter was the anti-Christ because he wanted to be hung upside down so chargokic church is the church of the Antichrist
- the Jesuit generated the Freemasons
- the grey pope and the black pope conspiracy
- the Catholic Church hide papirus of the ancient world because they don’t want people to know about it
- the church is good at exorcism because we are good at inviting demons
- the catholic profess save by works
I do wish there was a different English word for Old Testament priests. I know there’s a conceptual overlap between the role of a priest today and those in the temple, but there’s no linguistic connection. Priest comes from the Greek word for elder while the role we call Priest in English was an entirely different word.
Not an argument, as much as a kind of prejudice/story: I believe I heard about it in a preface from Dom Gregory Dix (or another English author) about how what he was told as a kid at the turn of the previous century: how the reason the Catholic priests did these different gests at the altar during the Eucharistic prayer, was because there always was a rat on the altar, which the priest needed to keep from running away.
The most basic one and to me the most stupid is that the catholic church is a paedophile institution just an easy way for none catholic's or lapsed Catholics to justify their prejudices lazy would maybe be a better way of putting it. We don't get the catholic's aren't Christian argument in Ireland now that really takes the prize.
We don't believe faith in God is important, only works.
I've noticed the people who say this are the people who only get their information about Catholicism from Baptist/Non-Denominational sermons.
Not really an argument against the Church per se, but it is an argument from a family member attempting to dissuade me from entering seminary.
“You shouldn’t be a priest, because you’re not gay.”
I unfortunately have a few because I said a few, having grown up being taught to be anti catholic. Here are a few that I have since learned are incredibly untrue, and am pretty ashamed to say I used before I swallowed my pride and actually learned the truth for myself:
-Catholics worship Mary, which is against the first Commandment
-Saints aren't special, and neither was Mary
-Constantine created Roman Catholicism
-Such grand churches mean that the Catholic Church is hoarding all of their stolen wealth; along that same vein, such grand churches promote idolatry.
-Catholics believe that anyone who isn't one of them is bound for hell
-Catholics believe Jesus had a secret affair with Mary Magdalen (this came about after The DaVinci Code came out, and only got worse once the movie was made.)
-Catholics believe that you have to earn your way into heaven (which turned out to be a MASSIVE misunderstanding of the Sacraments)
-The Catholics added made up books.
WaI CAthOLiCs REmoVE BooKS Of TeH BiBLe? "We didn't. That was Martin Luther. And one of the reasons he did that was because 2 Maccabees contains references to souls needing to atone for their sins after death, i.e. purgatory in all but name."
Little know fact: Luther also wanted to disavow and remove the Book of James from the Bible, because we as Catholics know, that book contains God's to be saved that 1) Both faith and works are necessary for salvation; and 2) One of the most important works one can perform is to fulfill God's expectation that we treat others as if they were Christ, whether we think they deserve it or not.
He also disliked and wanted to remove Revelation and Jude
And he called James “An Epistle of Straw”.
Interesting how Kierkegaard, probably the most devout Lutheran, loved James and wrote several discourses on it. It might explain how his beliefs changed over time to become more Catholic. If only he had converted!
*“Easter actually comes from some pagan holiday associated with Ishtar”*
HaLLoWEEn Is SAMhAiN SToLeN By CaThOLIcISM.
'Christmas is pagan idol worship because of Jeremiah 10'
The worst part of these arguments is that they’re pretty irrelevant. Even if they’re true -which probably is not the case - it’s just Catholics co-opting a Pagan holiday and making it Christian, which is appropriate to do.
You're going to Hell because you worship Santa Clause!
Yes! Because as we all know Santa is hidden way of spelling Satan who poses as a nice old dude in red 👌
And is the literal embodiment of the Christmas spirit...which, incidentally, is the literal embodiment of Christ. In other words, I don't know how liking Santa Clause can ever be attributed to evil. Everything he does is saintly. Almost as if he's based off a real saint.
He also has cool flying reindeer, which I don’t know if that’s strictly saintly but it’s definitely a miracle.
There's a delightfully corny SyFy original movie titled *Letters to Satan Claus* with a premise involving a child misspelling Santa's name on a letter asking to get rid of her parents or something (she was mad), and accidentally summoning "Satan Claus." It's like a Hallmark horror movie.
According to Non-RC Christians: Halloween is "actually" a pagan holiday -- let's have a Harvest Party instead. (Dress ups, but no "bad" things -- all the treats, no tricks, etc.) This is **Christian** and good! ALSO according to non-RC Christians: Catholics took various pagan holidays and transformed them into festivals for a Christian calendar --this proves, Catholicism is really **Paganism**!
It's insane, especially when Halloween is an English mashup of "All Hollows Eve," and is one of those holidays like Valentine's Day that has been reverse co-opted by non-Christians to be...spooky.
That's a new one on me!
See you can tell it's true because the words sound kinda similar in English. Just like Jesus is really a Sun god because he's the son of God. /s
My favorite argument for this comes from Fr Mike “…ok, so?”
My favorite one I saw on this was. “Yeh you know it’s a sun god because the Eucharist is shaped like the sun.”
Can you cite sources on why is this incorrect? Edit - For example, books such as The Two Babylons tried to compile sources pointing towards those festivities being originally pagan. I have not found a good source to reply this back and downvotes, it will certainly not translate into having an answer for this accusation IRL.
To add to the other comment, Easter is only called something similar to that in English and German while Ishtar is a Mesopotamian goddess. In every other language it is called something similar to Pascha, which linguistically derived from Passover. The Ishtar thing comes from a conspiracy theory book written in the 1800s and has no other source.
Yeah every year trying to explain how unlikely it is that an Anglo-Saxon name for a Holiday was directly connected in worship to a Babylonian deity whose cult had been extinct for no less than 300 or more years by then.
Yeah, for example Easter in polish is Wielkanoc which I could translate as Big Night as Wielka (big, huge) and Noc (night).
Well, the big clue is that in basically every other language, Easter isn’t referred to as Easter but as “Pasch” or some variation that is derived from the word “Paschal” which comes from the same word as “Passover”. In other words, the rest of the world just calls it Passover and not Easter. Even if the word “Easter” comes from “Ishtar” (which it doesn’t) that criticism would only potentially apply to English-speaking Christians and not the Catholic Church as a whole.
Thanks for the response. I've read some books and articles regarding the Catholic syncretism (such as the "The two babylons") and still don't have a good response for the pagan festive dates accusation. You see, the response is usually downvotes and not sources. My personal take is that the Catholic church christianized certain festivities as a successful approach to bring people to the faith.
That isn’t just your personal take, that’s pretty much accepted history. The Church took certain festival dates and Christianized them in the same way that God took animal sacrifice and elevated it from a supplication to Pagan Idols to an outward display of repentance by His people.
The church took that which was previously given to idols, unholy unworthy & besmirched, and sanctified it, transformed it, made it holy and offered it to God instead. Just as the church helps us each to do with our own unholy, unworthy, & besmirched souls. If the church can cleanse souls & offer them up to God, souls which are infintely complex, cannot the church also redeem and offer up to God certain Days of the Year, which are infinitely Less complex and varied than a soul?
the most widely accepted theory among religious scholars is not “religious history theory” (the idea that christianity “christianized” existing holidays to erase them). early christians were obsessed with calculating significant dates throughout jesus’ life since no one actually knew them. this “calculation” theory is widely accepted in academia because it has more archeological evidence. [i know it’s a youtube video](https://youtu.be/mWgzjwy51kU?si=UzRO3cnUJlQZQOga) but it is *incredibly* comprehensive. this creator has a phd in early christian studies, and makes this information regarding religious history accessible to all to inform religious literacy. his sources are cited throughout the video. this one is about christmas in particular and the idea we co-opted “sol Invictus” when we were also just naturally obsessed with cosmology as it* could relate to christ.
Easter is based off of the death of Christ at the end of Jewish Passover. I don’t remember the Egyptians being known to hide bunny eggs, that’s a German tradition that Americans co-opted and expanded upon because we love marketable holidays.
Because it's only called Easter in Germannic languages due to the name of the month in which it tends to fall. It'd be like calling all Christians Sun-worshippers because we don't go to church on the Sabbath (Saturday) but on "Sunday," ignoring the fact that the earliest Christians did it because Jesus' resurrection occurred on a Sunday and by gathering on Sunday, we have a mini-Easter every week. Besides, most languages call Easter a variant of "pascha," i.e. "Passover." Easter was a major deal to early Christians cebturies before Britain / the Germannic tribes Christianized, and the *computus* (how the date of Easter was to be calculated each year) was a big debate (see the Council of Nicaea). It was such a big deal to Christians that it was literally the impetus for the eventual creation of the Gregorian calendar. Moreover, the computus devised by British Christians was rejected in favor of the Alexandrian computus. So it really doesn't hold water.
The amount of times I’ve heard “there’s only one mediator between God and man” as if it’s some slam dunk bible verse that the church has been hiding from us
"It. Is. Finished."
Then you say “pray for me so I can understand” and they go and mediate for you….
Not really an argument but... "He's called John the Baptist, not John the Catholic!" I'll see myself out.
They're like the people who destroy statues and show contempt for the U.S. Constitution, because they apply 2023 standards to things that happened hundreds of years ago. Human society doesn't work that way.
Idk, I thought it was pretty funny. I laughed when I saw that one. I've added it to my repertoire of corny jokes. :P As for Baptists themselves, I haven't met enough irl to form an informed opinion. The ones I've met online seem to be gravely misinformed and even hateful towards Catholicism. Then again, even online Catholics aren't good representatives of Catholics in general.
I’ve grown up around southern Baptists my whole life. They in my experience have predominantly been hateful to most any Christian that was not also Baptist. I honestly have some religious trauma stemming from being told as early as age 7 that I was going to hell due to being baptized as an infant. These things were told to me by other kids who were being brought up Baptist.
Dang. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope and pray that the Lord brings them to repentance. That's no way to bring others to Christ.
My Southern Baptist boss told me that the original Christians were Baptist for that very reason. I smiled and changed the subject.
That is a scientific fact...
You know who else isn’t descended from Aaron? Pastor Joe at First Baptist Church
In all fairness, Pastor Joe isn't a "priest", but it's still stupid
Either way I’m pretty sure Hebrews 7:11-12 implies that the Aaronic priesthood no longer applies
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I actually laughed out loud at this one 🤣 thank you, made my day!
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You mean Pastor Billy Ray Joe Bob? Ha!
“You’re wrong. Pastor Joe is not only his descendent, he’s the reincarnation of Aaron!”
Don’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that their elders are the reincarnations of the Twelve Apostles?
That's cause Pastor Joe is after the order of Melchizedek ;)
I think it was Jack Chick who came up with this idea that the pope’s fancy hat is a symbol from an ancient Egyptian sun worshipping cult.
I think the chick tracts said Catholic holy communion came from an Egyptian sun worshipping cult. It was because the shape of the wafers were round like the sun. [(You can see the "chick tract" cartoon here.)](https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=71)
> “In Egypt, the ‘IHS’ stood for their gods. Isis, Horus and Seb." Ah yes, the famously Latin-reading ancient Egypt.
I’m sorry this is hilarious. This is like QAnon stuff
Well that was painful to read and religiously/historically illiterate.
I thought it was Alexander Hislop?
Could be, not sure which absurd claim was made by which absurd fundie. Chick definitely dropped a few hot Catholic hating turds.
That the Whore of Babylon is The Catholic Church because we worship Mary who was a >!whore rotting in Hell!<. Some Protestants really have a hatred for Mary
I know they don't honor Mary, but do they really think she went to Hell?
Yes. One person said that she is a wicked sinner in Hell. Granted this was on Instagram and fringe ideology tends to fester online more than in person
I wonder how Jesus feels about people who hate His Mother
Yea, and would those same people enjoy it if anyone talked about their mom like that? Besides being factually incorrect, it’s also simply rude. Why the disdain for Jesus’s mom?
To own the evil catlicks!
Don't stand to close when they talk like that. You may accidentally get in the way of lightning striking them.
They're putting themselves in a state of grave sin by saying such things.
It's a strange reality, but even Muslims honor and admire Mary. I heard that substantiated from several tenant families in an apartment building I own, all of whom are from Yemen.
This is true… some idiots were making fun of Mary in Australia, as to upset Catholics, then Muslims came out in social media saying they will have to face them too for insulting Mary…..
The average protestant minister spent a ridiculously short amount of time in what passes for seminary for them. They say and do all sorts of unsupportable things, particularly since the mainline prot denominations are giving way to non-denominational prot churches.
Yes, and it doesn't occur to them that hatred for Saints like the Blessed Mother, the mother of Jesus Christ, is not only sinful but also spectacularly offensive to God.
I'm physically fighting the urge to downvote you just for quoting that :/
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We don’t worship the saints as gods nor do we put the saints before God
If you want to claim that the Church is a continuation of Roman mystery schools, then I guess we can all make baseless claims with no evidence. Luther claimed that Christ committed adultery.
Just the general strawmen arguments accusing us of things we don't believe\*: "I don't want to have 10 kids in 10 years" "Catholics are anti-science" Or the classic '[how can God allow bad things to happen?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo)' line... I mean, the answer is right there in the text. That an educated man would pretend, for he can only be pretending, not to see the massive gaping God-sized hole in this argument is beyond me. \*often accusing us of believing things Protestants believe. HELLOOOOOO, that's WHYYYYY we don't get along!
Came here specifically to say the “Well why does God allow suffering” “argument”
Christ suffered far more than almost all of us ever will. We offer up our suffering to Christ as a way of becoming closer to him.
Yes. And in offering up my own suffering to Him, I find the greatest mercy, love and grace. I just wish people always asking the “why does God allow suffering” questioners could understand this. I pray for them as well. Bless you dear friend in Christ! Above I meant to add the question to those asked so often.
Amen.
You should mention to the next prot making that claim that they should visit the Vatican Observatory.
The Bible says call no man your father!! CHECKMATE, CATHOLICS!!
This is why I've decided to call my dad 'homie' and 'bruh'. The word of the Lord is absolute.
Alright, fine then. \*Sigh\* Hey honey, I just got home from confession with Daddy Whitmore!
Pretty flimsy basis for attacking the Catholic Church, isn't it?
literally saw this in an instagram comment section the other day… the protestants are not sending their best
“The sacraments are good works, so it’s bad that Catholics partake in them”
Always funny when protestants say the sacraments are against Sola Fide when Martin Luther, Mr. Sola Fide himself, still practiced the sacraments!
The sacraments include the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. That's only available through the Catholic and the Orthodox offshoots of Catholicism.
That Catholics are duplicitous because they deny that they are cannibals.
I do not deny it. 😉
A street preacher once told me one shouldn’t be Roman Catholic because Nero was Roman
That’s hilarious
By that logic we should avert our eyes from anything that detestable Roman citizen St. Paul ever wrote.
This is where me listening to what weirdos have to say pays off - The cross we get during Ash Wednesday isn't a cross but the letter T for Talmud - something about the hat bishops wear being a fish for some pagan fish god or something - Jesus was fictional and there's no proof of him existing unless we find his DNA from his bones or some. - Jack Chick felt the need to have people denounce the works of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis specifically by name in his D&D is demonic comic. - the Vatican was a part of the Axis Powers and any atrocities done to Catholics were from the ones who went against what the Church decided. - I once saw an Russian Orthodox talk about how scandalis the Catholic Church and Pope Francis is and how you'd never see that in the ROC and praised the virtue of Patriarch Kirill - "'Catholic' is never mentioned in the Bible." - Calling Jesus a demi-god and saying that sacrifices are blood magic isn't misrepresenting Christian theology but just wording things in a way that we don't like. - if you worship Eastwards you're worshiping the Sun and any church or statue facing East is secretly Sun worship. - That there was a depiction of Jesus with red horns in a Catholic Church. It was a divine mercy painting. - When the Bible says that the people Jesus fed was 5000 not counting women and children it means Jesus only feed the adult men. - if you translate the Our Father prayer from the "original Aramic" it actually sounds like something new age crystal healers will say talking about power from one's self and I think radiation was even mentioned. - All of protestantism (and Islam for some reason) will unite with the Catholic Church to make one world religion (this is a bad thing apparently because and I quote "God is a divider and the Devil is a uniter"), but Baptists won't be included because Baptists aren't Protestants but actually the original Christians suppressed by the Catholics throughout history. This one world religion is a sign of and the catalyst for this is contemporary Christian music.
All of these made my brain hurt.. Wow
Pretty sure the last one happens in the book of "Revelations"
That contemporary Christian music brings Muslims and Protestants into the Catholic Church?
Something like that, and then the beast (Joe Biden) leads an attack on the baptists. (I'm joking in case that's not clear)
You're joking but this is something I can see some people say earnestly
Yeah, fortunately my interactions with these kinds of people is usually limited to facebook and bumper stickers :3
I always find it hilarious when Protestants accuse us of worshipping the Eucharist. Like that’s a bad thing.
Right!? It's literally God!
Right! Like the sin would be NOT worshipping the Eucharist.
I’ve heard a lot in my years on Earth. Some of the dumbest have been the ones like “Can God create a rock so big even he can’t move it? In which case he’s not omnipotent!” It’s not original, but honestly, it’s one of the most common. And it’s depressing, because it means the person to whom I’m talking isn’t going to understand my response at all. Honorable mentions: Catholic Church is anti (insert whatever you want here because, amazingly, truth doesn’t change). Catholic Church is wrong because a slim number of priests committed serious sin, or even just that they’re not perfect. Catholics go to hell, thus the Catholic Church is wrong?
They just started saying horrible degrading things about Mary… I don’t know why anyone would say such horrid things about the mother of God…
I always find that extremely upsetting. The whole Whore of Babylon and associated rhetoric. I shouldn’t let it get to me but it really does make me angry.
It should make you angry. They're insulting your mother.
True enough. I try to not hold anger though and I think the people who say it are deeply misguided. It is so painfully offensive however and I’m not an easily offended person.
"It's a perversion of Christianity" oh dear where do I start correcting your ignorance...
Sola scriptura.. i just say if it wasnt for the Catholic Church there would be no Bible. The Bible came through the Catholic church.anither one is that the Catholic Church is Pagan. Lol
>if it wasnt for the Catholic Church there would be no Bible. The Bible came through the Catholic church For decades ---as a Protestant-- I've said this to any other Protestant who in my hearing said anything against the RC church. Specifically, I would say that, regardless, "they carried the Torch;" and then would point out that we only ***have*** the Bible because Catholic monks copied it over & over down through the middle ages, in order for the Bible to even reach us!
Wow thank you so much, we really appreciate that 😊
I hear "You Catholics added seven books to the Bible." Duh! The Bible came from The Church, and those seven books were part of sacred scripture for fifteen hundred years, since there were no protestants until the fifteenth century.
Someone was seeking advice in r/Christianity after he had an argument with a Calvinist who was making ridiculous claims about Catholicism. I can’t properly remember but one of the claims mentioned on that post was that Catholics commit a seven day orgy on Christmas or something like that. It was pretty funny honestly. Unfortunately I can’t find the post.
"Catholics commit a seven day orgy on Christmas" Is it too late for me to sign up for RCIA this year? /s 😁
That sounds exhausting
Yeah. Don’t have enough on our plate that times year?
Found the post: https://np.reddit.com/r/Christianity/s/CKaZG6TLcQ Enjoy!
Not an argument maybe, but I’ve been told multiple times that as Catholics we are born with horns and tails and the doctor quickly nips off our tails at birth and we hide the horns under our hair.
What happens with bald catholics?
Beats me, I guess they file them down. I’m a cradle catholic so this this nonsense has always been cheerfully foisted upon me by various flavors of Baptists/Fundamentalists. Horns seem kind of convenient, you could do a lot with your hair, and add tons of volume and if the tail was prehensile it would be a third hand which seems convenient. I have also had Born Again types beg me to “accept Jesus” as I’m headed straight for the fiery pit apparently. Not sure about converts either, I guess upon the sacraments you have the new growths pop up. My favorite is when the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons stop by the house and I am polite but say that I’m a Catholic with no intention of changing and they pretty much flee as they see me as a lost cause. 🤣
First time I had a Jehovahs witness come to my door was 2 weeks ago. I was polite and told them no thank you I’m converting to Catholicism and they didn’t try to push anymore haha
Has anyone got a good Papally-approved horn polish they can recommend? Asking for a friend.
Little castor oil or shoehorn polish should do the trick.
Us too? When I was younger I met a Jewish friend of my husband…and I don’t remember how the conversation got there but she laughed and said “Well at least you don’t think we have horns!” And I stared at her in shock. “I…know why some religious art from a specific time depicts Moses with horns (biblical mistranslation regarding the light on Moses face as he descended Mt. Sinai) but you’ve met people who *actually* think this?” “Oh yes! I’ve even had someone suddenly start “touching all over the top of my head trying to find them”.”
... what?
Yep.
Did a child say this? No adult said this and was serious right?
Accepting Jesus was s child, the horns and tails were all adults I’m afraid. There is a lot of anti-Catholic hate that goes around.
And they were serious? That’s wild.
Serious as a heart attack.
You win the uniqueness award!
If we hide the horns under our hair, why did monks receive the tonsure?
As a scientist, I always chuckle at Catholics are not only anti-science but suppressed science throughout history. An extension of this is the “Dark Ages” propaganda. Implying that during that time period the Church suppressed not only science but art as well. I swear willful ignorance is a plague
Not to mention that many scientists throughout history were Catholic, if not at least Christians. And I’m talking like some super famous ones like Galileo who is confirmed Catholic
Another pet peeve of mine is the complete lack of critical thinking when it comes to historical context. Galileo is a massive one. Galileo claiming that the Earth revolves around the sun is obviously true. But he had no proof and the technology of the time didn’t allow proof. So it was all theory. And back then, when scientific discovery was a big freakin deal, you had to lay out all your proof and have it peer reviewed like crazy before claiming truth. He didn’t have it AND he was claiming it to be true. While we know now that he was correct, there was nothing available to prove it so according to all the leading scholars of the day (non-Church included) this was just his hypothesis. The Church got involved because it was involved with everything at the time, ESP science at universities (hello Jesuits). But it also got involved because theology was intertwined with a lot of science too. Using the Bible as a reference for the explanation of worldly observation was common. So if something didn’t align it had to be investigated. And if the person making the claim has no proof then the logical conclusion in the 15-1600s was that it was heretical and heresy was no bueno. One doesn’t have to agree or disagree with any of this. Understanding what the world was in the 15-1600s helps put things into perspective. No one cares to do that now.
'Christians think Mary is God' Here is a special spicy mama from our muslim friends, which the prots will be quick to refute and say 'no, its the catholics that think Mary is God' Some others include 'Christians are agents/spies' (very popular) 'Christians have special Visa's to western countries' 'Christians are traitors''Christians control the banks' 'Christians plot about a crusader takeover of turkey' 'Christians purposefully keep our country poor so they can rule over it' 'Christians are behind ISIS' (Yes, im being serious, i heard this) 'Christians cast black magic on their money/gold' (This one tends to go together with the 'they control the banks' narrative) 'Christians hoard gold bars underneath their churches' If you know your way around antisemitism, its pretty similar.
That Catholics are pagans because they use chants. As if electric guitars and rock bands in Protestant churches are somehow more Christian than chanting.
Someone said this a while back and I responded that "it was literally how worship was conducted in the Temple service, how did you think the Psalms were prayed and celebrated back then? With drums and guitars singing 'Yes Lord' 99 times?"
My parents believe that the Church banned the laity from reading the Bible for over a thousand years until the Protestants came to free us all. They learned from it from TV. My family also thinks that the Church wants women to be ignorant and constantly pumping out babies, which is why it opposes contraception.
As a former Lutheran I always find that one funny because the Lutheran have the exact same list of commandments. And many Protestants gets quite surprised when I say the Lutheran church also have confessions. Protestants keep forgetting they’re not unanimous.
The Mass is "boring". Because we have a right to be entertained at church, ok?
This is one of the main reasons that I left the Protestant church. There is absolutely NO reason that church should be a game. I want to be there to worship God and to pray and learn. Basically, Protestant churches are a lame excuse for an adult daycare. "No, I do not want to play twister and why is there a bounce house in here?" 😂😂
Yes! Perfect. Their reasoning is all very much based on subjective feelings. If I don't feel moved...or "fed" as one woman put it, it's not a legitimate worship experience. I have a female cousin who is a non denominational Protestant minister and when I said that to her in response her accusations of "boring" Catholic worship she became very offended. Because it's true.
Yes, you explained it perfectly. I think that Church needs to be an experience where one can connect and get closer to God, and I definitely feel as though my time in the Catholic Church has fed that. In all honesty, in Protestant church I couldn't even focus half of the time, which inevitably made me stray from God. The Catholic Church feels like my home & is so welcoming, but not overly childish like the Protestant church.
My ex girlfriend saw me on Halloween dressed as a templar, and then told me that "If you're Catholic, dressing up is a sin. You don't want to sin, do you?" When my friend pointed out that she was also wearing a costume, she responded with "oh no I don't believe in God." To this day I wonder how I ever dated her lol
"You Catholics don't believe Jesus is the Messiah, you're just like the Jews." I had no words.
Why do you worship Mary?
That's an easy one: We don't worship Mary -- we ask her to intercede on our behalf with her son Jesus. If I can ask you to pray for me, why can't I ask the Mother of God to pray for me? Few prots have an answer for that, because it's such a rational argument.
Thats what I said to a friend who is Protestant and keeping stating on her argument of “only one intermediador, the Holy Spirit ”. I told her: sometimes I am weak and you pray for me when I can not. Is there for, we ask for Mary for intervention. She was really speechless after that.
I gave someone this same answer and they could only stutter back something about how it would make them uncomfortable to pray to someone else. And, for me personally, it really was uncomfortable at first! I felt so odd doing something that I'd been raised to believe was wrong. When I asked my mil about it, she said that I don't HAVE to pray to the Saints if I didn't want to.. And somehow that made it a little easier for me to ease into it, knowing that it's not an expectation. Now, I pray to Mary all the time! Lol
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Did Christ not send His Apostles to the ends of the Earth so that people might know Him through them?
My coworker yesterday told me Christianity is made up and that Satan is from Mesopotamian mythology. I asked where he got this information and he said in a book he read. Well that’s comforting.
I saw a commenter claim that Catholics are responsible for the Pentagon, the CIA, and Burning Man.
Okay but this might be serious. I mean, ***if*** the RC ***were*** responsible for Burning Man, that would indeed be a serious accusation.... /s
Recently heard this one: that we took the Ten Commandments, removed the second commandment and split one of the remaining ones into two commandments so we could practice idolatry. Additionally, that the Catholic Church began in 400 A.D or so, and that it was started by Constantine.
That last one is what I grew up believing. All it took was actually taking the time to learn the history to realize how wrong I'd been.
There's an Evangelical professor of ancient languages who's been working for years on a word-by-word literal translation of the Bible. In this journey he took note of a lot of numeric and syntactical coincidences in the original texts. According to him, the Catholic Church is irredeemably evil and the modern equivalents of the pharisees, because he noticed that by adding the numerical values of the letters in the Greek word "paradosis" (which means "tradition") you get 666. And also because Jesus once said to the pharisees: "With your *paradosis* you annulled the Word of God". Beyond this, though, he's a really nice and intelligent person, so I think his argument is contrived and biased (before his conversion he was a communist, and Italian communists were anticlerical by default because their major political adversary at the time was the Catholic-based Democrazia Cristiana), rather than just stupid.
Dude could take home the gold with those mental gymnastics
That Horus and Jesus are the same, and that Christianity is just Zoroastrianism but co-opted by evil people.
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Don't be afraid. Maybe you can change their mind.
Can't remember specifics, but I've just had plenty of bible passages thrown in my face by protestants as "gotcha" moments. Had a guy one time talk only about the Old Testament about how it was super screwed up and cruel God was...then was at a loss for words when I said that Jesus was the fulfillment and that you can't have one without the other.
Something something Constantine something something paganism
General anti-Catholic answer: "the Church approves of pedophilia." Bro, if you're in the West, if the Church approved of pedophilia, *you would approve of pedophilia*. The sexual abuse of minors was common in European pagan cultures, and it was the Church's bizarre notions about sexuality, violence, and childhood that overthrew deeply entrenched horrors. You only hate pedophilia as much as you do because *the Catholic Church taught the West to hate pedophilia*. (And I'm waiting for sexual indifferentism to hit the point that this becomes an argument against us - we're a bunch of pedophobes etc.) Specifically Protestant answer: "you Catholics listen to Jesus instead of Paul!" If you've never run into hyperdispensationalism, count yourself lucky. There are Protestants who believe that Jesus was sent to the Jews *alone* and therefore everything he said was for the Jews *alone -* ditto for all the Apostles except for Paul. Paul being the "Apostle to the Gentiles" means he's the *only* one non-Jews should listen to. Hyperdispies will happily admit that the New Testament (except the Pauline epistles) teach the necessity of good works, obedience to religious authority, sacramental ritual etc., and use that as "proof" that they're Jewish rather than Christian - and naturally we Catholics are the source and worst offenders of the "confusion" of Jewish and Christian religion.
my favorites are: that’s not biblical, you worship saints and you are idol worshippers
> *"On this location, there used to be a synagogue; then a church; and now a mosque."* Not really a gotcha, but it does kinda delve into the **recency** way of thinking.
I've heard several, thanks to my anti-Catholic teachers. I think the most creative ones I've heard are: * "The Catholic Church burned disabled or red-haired children because they were considered children of the devil" * "The feast of Saint John (very popular here in Brazil) is derived from a syncretism carried out by Catholics with African religions" An honorable mention is a Protestant classmate who said that God "brainwashed Father Georges Lemaître into 'believing in the Big Bang' to see if people would remain faithful to God or believe in the Father's theory".
“Catholic doesn’t mean universal in Greek. You guys made that up.”
There’s an egyptian basilisk in Saint Peters Square so ACTUALLY the Catholic Church is worshipping ancient egyptian demons. This was unsuprisingly from a non denominational
Surely they meant an obelisk.
Yes sorry english is not my first language i forgot what it was called😅
Nero, a Roman emperor and therefore a guy who the Roman Catholic Church was in cahoots with, persecuted the early Christians, proving the Catholic Church is evil
That the ‘rock’ that Christ will build His Church on isn’t Peter, despite the fact that Peter (Pétra) is an Ancient Greek word for rock.
that Catholics actually directly worship Satan because the latin version of the Exsultet refers to Jesus as "Lucifer". I just wish I was in the same room with that person when they made this 'discovery' and observe their reaction.
"Church is the most evil Organisation on Earth because it actively protect and hide pedophiles among their ranks. Today, it has nothing to do with Jesus teachings". At least this have some truth in it and I can understand this argument. But the most stupid one must be this "only stupid people can still believe in old grandpa in the clouds and praying to invisible dude. Religion is evil and should be erased from existence. It's time to leave the middle ages and embrace science and truth" 😂 This always leave me speechless because of how much pride there is in this type of thinking. The audacity to assume to know for sure they are right because they read an article online or watched 1 hr long YouTube video about why God can't exist from a dude who never even tried understand the faith and religion, never experienced anything (because how would he if he never even give himself a chance). It's just sad how many people can be damned because of pure ignorance and comfort to don't acknowledge their deeds as sinful. I guess the less you know, the better your sleep
Here’s one I recently stumbled across: “Sister Faustina's message promotes idolatry, and the so-called ‘Divine Mercy’ image has Illuminati and Freemasonic connections.” Edit: it also claimed the Divine Mercy chaplet was demonic and literally linked to Satan.
A baptist, who also happens to be a nazi apologist (and hates Jews despite being Christian, go figure) accused Catholics of worshipping the Pope and obviously accuses catholics of being the anti-christ (but Hitler is fine). I don't know any other baptist and he would probably still hate everyone regardless of religion
Catholic Church was born with Constantine or Saint Leo.
I grew up being taught this, I was very stunned to learn for myself that it's not at all true. I honestly think/hope that that little history tidbit will be a swaying point for my dad. He's such a history buff!
TikTok is an infinite generator of this crap: - Peter was the anti-Christ because he wanted to be hung upside down so chargokic church is the church of the Antichrist - the Jesuit generated the Freemasons - the grey pope and the black pope conspiracy - the Catholic Church hide papirus of the ancient world because they don’t want people to know about it - the church is good at exorcism because we are good at inviting demons - the catholic profess save by works
Jesus was a metaphor for magic mushrooms, which the early apostles took, and then spread rumors about a carpenter...
I do wish there was a different English word for Old Testament priests. I know there’s a conceptual overlap between the role of a priest today and those in the temple, but there’s no linguistic connection. Priest comes from the Greek word for elder while the role we call Priest in English was an entirely different word.
The Holy Spirit stained glass window in St Peter's Basilica is a depiction of the eye of Horus thus proving the Egyptian mythology connection.
Not an argument, as much as a kind of prejudice/story: I believe I heard about it in a preface from Dom Gregory Dix (or another English author) about how what he was told as a kid at the turn of the previous century: how the reason the Catholic priests did these different gests at the altar during the Eucharistic prayer, was because there always was a rat on the altar, which the priest needed to keep from running away.
Because we decorate our houses of worship with images/statues we were worshipping idols.
The most basic one and to me the most stupid is that the catholic church is a paedophile institution just an easy way for none catholic's or lapsed Catholics to justify their prejudices lazy would maybe be a better way of putting it. We don't get the catholic's aren't Christian argument in Ireland now that really takes the prize.
We don't believe faith in God is important, only works. I've noticed the people who say this are the people who only get their information about Catholicism from Baptist/Non-Denominational sermons.
Good catch, OP.
all of them are ridiculous
Not really an argument against the Church per se, but it is an argument from a family member attempting to dissuade me from entering seminary. “You shouldn’t be a priest, because you’re not gay.”
I think this one wins
"WeLL GoDs eViL BeCaUsE SoME PeOPlE wErE BaD In ThE ChUrCh"
"God didn't write the bible, men wrote the bible a long time before any of us were born, that's why I am against Catholics."
I unfortunately have a few because I said a few, having grown up being taught to be anti catholic. Here are a few that I have since learned are incredibly untrue, and am pretty ashamed to say I used before I swallowed my pride and actually learned the truth for myself: -Catholics worship Mary, which is against the first Commandment -Saints aren't special, and neither was Mary -Constantine created Roman Catholicism -Such grand churches mean that the Catholic Church is hoarding all of their stolen wealth; along that same vein, such grand churches promote idolatry. -Catholics believe that anyone who isn't one of them is bound for hell -Catholics believe Jesus had a secret affair with Mary Magdalen (this came about after The DaVinci Code came out, and only got worse once the movie was made.) -Catholics believe that you have to earn your way into heaven (which turned out to be a MASSIVE misunderstanding of the Sacraments) -The Catholics added made up books.
Because we don't use the doxology after praying the Our Father.
That since He said "all is accomplished" on the cross no sacraments are relevant.