LT and then Restrangled:
LT:
In your opinion, how do you identify the anti-christ?
I don't know for sure. Some things suggest it is a singluar agent or person ... and some suggest it is a generalized anti-Christ development throughout society at large. I just simply do not know for sure ... but my guess with the rise of secular humanism, coupled with the rise of radical Islam, there is not much room left for Christ.
Luther managed to strain out 95 points of contention that he felt needed reforming, but that is set against a backdrop of hundreds of points of agreement. The mainstream denominations have at least 95% agreement, and on the most important topics, to my mind.
Good point.
The usual arguments concern abuse of power and nitpicking details of the sacrement of the Eucharist and baptism. Of all of these the Eucharist is probably the most contentious. Would you like to tackle transubstantiation (which to most people is merely a very long string of letters)?
What part of transubstantiation is confusing to you? Perhaps I need a new thread to tackle this one - no?
Restrangled:
I will admit I have read very little here but question any organized religion.
Me too. I did not expect 105 responses. And I am going in and tackling ones that have core issues and concerns. Yours is one of them.
With The RC church there has been the torture and murder of anyone questioning it's authority, along with denying the science that have proved them wrong for centuries.
There are two issues here:
1. Torture and murder. Perhaps specifics would help. The RC church does not approve or engage in torture or murder. The Inquisition was a situation that went out of control. It was not ever approved by the Church, but it was still wrong. This does not remove the mantle of authority from the Church, nor the rightness of her teachings. It means that bad people did bad things. They were absolutely wrong. An excellent source for thing kind of dirt on the Church is the New Advent Catholic encyclopedia. The RCC is quite open about its errors. And where justified, they also give more accurate accounts that mitigate or exaplain away what have been blown into larger than life legends. The RCC still has the Office of Inquistion, by the way.
2. Denying science: Some of the accounts and claims surrounding Galeleo are myth of the kind that I inferred above. However, the Church burned itself on this topic, and has since learned to behave and accept science as it is revealed. Today, for example, Catholics can and do accept the science of evolution. I do, and I do not feel threatened by it. That is how far the RCC has come. Whereas many Protestant churches, especially the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, fight evolution tooth and nail.
There is the question of Hell Fire which now has been denied by a pope.
Hell: I have not reexplored this with the Church so I am talking somewhat blind. I grew up in the RCC believing in hell. I stopped believing in hell as a JW. Upon reconciling with the RCC, I still do not believe in hell. Those I have talked to in the Church say that nowadays, hell is simply eternal separation from God. That sounds as good as any idea to me. The Bible is not really clear, because it uses such loaded language in deep symbolism.
There is also the problem of their pedophila within the ranks.
Pedophiles: There are pedophiles in all churches, cities, counties, states, nations, provinces, territories cultures, societies on this planet. They have always existed, and will continue to exist. The problem with the RCC is that a small number of her Priests are pedophiles. The RCC Bishops were dead wrong in simply shuffling them around from parish to parish. However, a few lawsuits later, and the RCC in the USA got its act together and put a stop to it under a zero tolerance policy. The Church has never stopped or threatened or abused any Catholic for reporting the problem to the authorities. Since the zero tolerance policy was enacted, one bishop I know of still did not get it, and shuffled a pedophile priest around. That was exposed and stopped. Catholic participateed openly in condemning the pedophiles and in demanding the RCC do something. This is the correct way that a healthy church cmmunity should deal with this kind of problem.
There is the question why they supported and hid Nazi criminals.
Nazis: The RCC no Roman Catholic as a church never supported Nazi criminals. You may want to bring out specific situations and lets deal with those directly. As for the Pope, he was surrounded by both Nazis that were stations in Italy, as well as the Italian Fascist. Hitler himself wanted to terminate the Papacy, but used better tactics to try and work something out with the Pope. This resulted in the Concordat. This requires more discussion if you like. I believe that Catholics who fought in Hitlers military were wrong for doing so. However, what migigates their decision is that many, if not most, did not know about many of the war crimes. But, I believe that the Pope should have told Catholics to not fight for Hitler and then urged Catholic to leave Germany. Perhaps had that happened, we could be talking about the Jewish-Catholic Holocaust.
So as hard as we are on the WBTS, this group seems much worse. I am no Watchtower apologist, but I cannot tolerate lies and deciet from other religions either.
Watchtower: Much of the Catholic sins are deep in the past, and subsequent generations of Catholics have turned things around. The Watchtower did an excellent job of brainwashing JWs to believe that a religion has to be perfect, except when they themselves make mistakes. The people of God, whether Jewish or Christian, Protestant or Catholic, are sinners. If we judged a faith by the bad deeds of her members, then we need to start with the House of Israel. King Saul, its first king was evil. Even the prized King David was a murderer and adulterer. And the story continues. St. Peter, the first Pope of Rome, himself denied Jesus Christ who was in the process of being falsely condemned and executed, dying for our sins. Find a bad deed anywhere, and I will show you a sinner, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or plain-jane atheist.
The Dichotomy: While no one can deny the wrongs committed by the RCC (only perhaps mitigate some of them or give a more accurate presentation) the RCC has also produced many saints ... people like Mother Teresa in our own lifetime. I grew up in the RCC where I was exposed more to this kind of Christian than to the bad guys. I reconciled with the RCC, not because I justify her bad, but because I find more good, more freedom, more responsibility to correct the bad. The problem with the Watchtower is not that they had done bad ... rather ... there is no proper vahicle to correct the problems.
Jim Whitney
