I got my facts through personal experience. I was a praticing Catholic for 12 years and a practicing JW for 12 years too. About the JWs being mostly Catholic - this was based on the ones I knew personally. Which I can say is several hundreds.
*** I would suspect your facts are more personal opinion than anything. Knowing hundreds of JWs that use to be Catholic hardly qualifies the statement "most JWs are ex-Catholics
As far as the new light doctrine - this is a Catholic teaching also. The Catholic church ;believes that the Pope is infallible and the WT believes the governing body is infallible. they both base this on the "new light" theory that a mistake or false teaching is not a mistake or false teaching but rather a readjustment due to new light.
*** Your totally wrong here, and a lot of my Catholic friends misunderstand this point also also. Don't get infallibility mixed up with impecability. The GB thinks its infallible all the time. The Pope, and Catholics, believe in a very limited infallability for the Pope, which is rarely invoked (the last time being around 1962, and prior to that in the mid 1800s, and prior to that in the 1500s). Most Popes are impeccable. Mother Theresa was impeccable. Pope John Paul II never invoked his authority to disseminate what would be considered infallible doctrine (Ex chathedra). He did and spoke many things that would be considered impeccable, and I suspect, for the most part, was a very impeccable person. Unless he distributes a document in ex cathedra, what he speaks can be either agreed or disagreed with, plain and simple, without punishment.
They are also similar in that they both feel they are the only true church, are descended from the apostles, match the closest to the early church, only their members will recieve salvation, only they can interpret the bible, among other things.
*** All churches feel they are the only true church. Why would you, or me, attend our churches if we did not feel that what the pastor was preaching was not the truth, and would eventually lead us to everlasting life.
This thread was not started to show that the Catholics are evil in some way just to show that this church is similiar to the WT. It is a comparison only.
*** Agree. But it seems to have turned into a Catholic bashing thread now and I felt it necessary to "stick up" for my Catholic friends.
As far as thier traditions changing through out time -go to the library and take out a book on Martin Luther, he lists in his Thesis (I think there were 95?) hat he nailed to the church many of the changes that were made and also are not biblical. He, who was a Catholic Monk clearly says there were many changes adopted by the church through out time.
*** Very familiar with Martin Luther. His reformation movement is a interesting history subject to read. He disageed, rightly or wrongly, and decided to changed. His main disagreement, as I recall, was with the Pope, and with the peripheral changes the church was going through in the early 1500s. Keep in mind that the Church has changed is "facade" throughout time, as all churches do. The most recent change being eliminating Latin masses and going all english. Some like it, some don't. The eucharistic practice of changing bread and wine to the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ during a mass has not changed in 2000 years, and will never change.
just because the church has baptized in the name of the father, son and holy spirit since it's origin does not mean it has any more authority over God's people than any other church that does the same thing. To say everyone was Catholic is not true. None of the Apostles called themselves a Catholic - that title is not even in the bible. And if someone says I am a seperated Catholic - I take personal offense to that.
*** I tned to agree with you here. The actual word was not "officially" used until around 125AD, and not to recognize a group or religion. It was actually use to refer to all Christians of the time, and all Christian thereafter, around 225AD. I do believe that all Christians today have some roots in the Catholic church. The First written, bounded bible, the Vulgate (all in latin) was put together by Cahtolic monks around 400AD. Martin Luther branched off with his own bible (deleting 6 or 7 books I think) around 1520. And here we are today.
I agree there was one "universal" church but church in the early times meant the people, not an organizational structure. So to say the church was universal just meant they were through out the earth or universe the people were united in their faith in Christ. Through out time the term began to be used to mean one organization that is the Catholic one and the church rose as a heirarchy over everyone. This was not the origional purpose of being called "universal" in the beginning. This heirarchy was built to control the masses and it is self apointed. Just like the WT governing body is self appointed.
*** The heirarchy of the Catholic church is not designed to "control the masses" like the GB. Not the case. My Catholic friends do not hinge on every word coming out of the Vatican like JWs do with direction coming out of Brooklyn. Like any other church though, they listen to what is said with open minds, and, this is important, question what they may, or may not, disagree with, without fear of getting punished.