Posted on 05/03/2007 12:50:55 PM PDT by siunevada
It’s Goebbels’ tactic the protestants employ, just as the Soviets employed it to spread the athiest soviet doctrine.
Not suprising since athiesm was born in protestant countries (and came to power only by their funding it).
Maybe the real story is that protestants don’t really BUY religion so they have no real qualms over betraying it for politcal or financial gain.
Isn't it easier to make an attempt at least to stick with facts?
lol.
I assume you are familiar with the Lord's Prayer. Who forgives sins? Where is there anyone but the Lord and you involved?
Yes, that's us. Simpletons. And it helps to have some disease or addiction first, as well, according to the Wash Post. Also, if we were attending Catholic services previously, we weren't that "catechized" anyway, according to someone on this thread, and will soon return to our roots, per another one.
News for you: wrong on all counts. And the WaPo doesn't even have the guts to present the simpleton opinion itself but predictably hides behind a quote from a sociologist.
The big "C" Catholic, Noun - came along later.
Let's not rewrite history.
It is worthless as proof of anything. Wishful thinking maybe?
A steep decline in the number of Brazilian Catholics may be stabilizing after decades of losses, according to a survey released just days before Pope Benedict XVI's arrival in the world's largest Roman Catholic country.
MAY be stabilizing????????????? Can you do better than this?
But Silvia Fernandes, a sociologist with Rio de Janeiro's Federal Rural University, said it will be impossible to verify the foundation's numbers until the results of Brazil's 2010 census are available.
"We have had the same trend for the past 40 years," Fernandes said. "It's unlikely we would see such a sudden change."
Grasping at straws is not a very scholarly approach.
Berean Beacon Ministries proclaims the Good News of Salvation, The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The President and founder is Richard Bennett, a former Roman Catholic Priest.
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The book contains the moving testimonies of fifty Catholic priests who found their way, by the grace of God, out of the labyrinth of Roman Catholic theology and practice into the light of the gospel of Christ. It is now easily available at Light House Trails, for details just click on the book.
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Our popular book, The Truth Set Us Free: Twenty Former Nuns Tell Their Stories (Paperback) is now also on Amazon , for details just click on the book.
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Equally as meaningless as the links provided by NYer. Thrown in to balance the propaganda scale.
Yes, I can... the Roman Catholic Church publishes global membership data, from adding up all the diocesan censuses. I checked it out. The Anuual Yearbook is not available on-line, but you can read the summary data on www.catholic-hierarchy.org. The 2005 numbers are no lower than the 2000 numbers. So top-down and bottom-up tracking measures record the same occurrence: the slide has halted.
If you think what has happened in the past in Brazil is any form of worship that you OR I would approve of, you are simply badly mistaken. We’re not talking Presbyterianism sweeping Brazil, or TULIP, or reformed, or anything like that. Go check out what churches were taking root in Brazil for yourself, and look up their beliefs online; they’re about as “orthodox protestant” as voodoo. I know you think anything bad for Catholicism has to be good, but some of that stuff is downright demonic.
Now, for all I know, as the Catholic Church retrenches itself, you may just find that some of the bizarre, local denominations and cults are also maturing and reaching out to more mainstream Protestant, and these developments may be good from either perspective, but the decline in Catholicism in the 60s through 90s in Brazil was very harmful to culture, in general.
I note three things from that history of atheism:
1. Many of the people cited (Galileo, for instance) were not atheists at all, but devout Catholics whose religious views have been turned on their heads by Protestant mythology about them.
2. Most of them are heroes to Protestants, even if, like Galileo, for purely fictional reasons. So if you’re arguing that atheism and Protestants are somehow enemies, you picked a lousy link.
3. The site is a very counter-Christian, claiming for instance, the first amendment as a watershed for atheism, when, in fact, it was intended as protection for Christian diversity.
>> Berean Beacon Ministries proclaims the Good News of Salvation, The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The President and founder is Richard Bennett, a former Roman Catholic Priest.<<
Richard Bennett, apparently, is a Jack-Chick style quack. For instance, he claims 50 million have been killed for heresy by the Catholic Church. The total of all people killed by the Inquisition, which was founded to prevent secular kings from killing in the name of the Church, was 3,000.
10,000 men have left the Catholic priesthood. 99% of them left for more liberal denominations, or simply remained lay Catholics. Richard Bennett, aside for Jack Chick’s fictional priest friend from Spain (whose name escapes me), is the first one I’ve encountered who is running a conservative ministry.
If you can point to any others, I would be very interested. I actually once blegged for some on FR, and despite a thousand hits and dozens of responses, none panned out.
>> Except it was small “c” catholic. Adjective - universal. The big “C” Catholic, Noun - came along later. Let’s not rewrite history. <<
You’ve jumped right to your pat answer without considering the passage. Ignatius isn’t merely referring to the catholic church; he identifying the bishop as the identifier of the universal church; he is saying, “if you want to know which is the true, universal faith, look to the man appointed to be a bishop.”
This screams in the face of people who assert that “catholic” somehow meant other than “Catholic”; it’s an appeal to authority.
DOn’t miss the forest for the trees! Ignatius is writing that if you want to find the universal church, look to the bishop. Not to your-own-personal-interpretation-of-scripture. Even if he didn’t use the word “catholic” at all; his point is there is one true church, and it can be identified by finding its leader.
Now, you can argue Orthodox v. Catholic. Maybe even some notion of Anglican/Othodox/Oriental v. Catholic. But the protestant notion that “catholic” somehow meant some invisible church of all believers is uproarious; because here we know that “catholic” meant bishops.
Further, he says this in confidence that ANY bishop suffices. This means that the bishops themselves must be in unison, disallowing the possibility of AME bishops v Catholic bishops v some self-appointed bishop like Jakes. There is one bishop, and that bishop is identical to the universal church.
>> Catholic was a Latin word that had absolutely nothing to do with YOUR church...
Your church is not the church revealed to Paul the apostle...The word Catholic was not coined by any apostles or by God for that matter...When the word Catholic was coined, there were no popes, no priests in fancy robes, no worshipping of Mary, and on and on... <<
Well, they were too brutally persecuted to wear fancy robes in public, but yes, there were presbyters (presiders, or priests) who led communities in rituals nearly identical to modern masses (read the Didache, a 1st-century description of Christian rituals). There were episcopi (bishops) who were the leaders of all Christians in a given city (hence, Ignatius’ directions). And, there was the Bishop of Rome, who picked up the nickname, “Papa,” from which the Church of England invented the term, “papist,” who other bishops appealed to when they disagreed with each other.
But here’s the trap of Protestants: they claim, “Sola Scriptura!” not because Catholic doctrine comes from anywhere other than the bible, but because it enables them to disregard history as a confirmation of what the bible means.
And, no, there wasn’t worshiping of Mary (not in the sense you mean it), just as there isn’t worship of her today. But there was very definitely special reverence for her.
If you think what has happened in the past in Brazil is any form of worship that you OR I would approve of, you are simply badly mistaken. We’re not talking Presbyterianism sweeping Brazil, or TULIP, or reformed, or anything like that. Go check out what churches were taking root in Brazil for yourself, and look up their beliefs online; they’re about as “orthodox protestant” as voodoo. I know you think anything bad for Catholicism has to be good, but some of that stuff is downright demonic.
I'm under no allusions whatsoever concerning what passes for Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, in South America. Further, I don't have the horrid opinion of Catholicism you seem to think I do. Disagreement is not disrespect.
"Now, for all I know, as the Catholic Church retrenches itself, you may just find that some of the bizarre, local denominations and cults are also maturing and reaching out to more mainstream Protestant, and these developments may be good from either perspective,..."
The only change I would make to this statement is to include the Catholic Church, the real Catholic Church.
I believe we are in agreement.
Your argument is wasted on me.
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