I find no fault in Christians who disagree with the Catholic Church and worship Christ in other denominations. It is only the fighting, attacking, insulting, judging and condemning that is wrong. It is one thing to disagree with the Catholic Church, then another thing to start these fights on FR that ALWAYS FOLLOW these attacks on the doctrine of opposing denominations.
I don’t understand why people do this here. They know that nobody on the forum will change their minds from their existing beliefs. We are all set. So all this doctrinal bashing accomplishes is some kind of egotistical satisfaction by the thread maker bashing others and putting them down, and more of the same as their friends back them up.
It is un-Christian.
I'll bet you are really unhappy with Christ using scripture to excoriate the Pharisees.
It sounds like you are saying people are free to believe what they want, but they shouldn’t be allowed to talk about it, especially if it’s critical of the Catholic Church. I don’t know how many articles critical of Protestantism that I’ve read on FR since I’ve been posting frequently over the last year. Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to speak about those - in other words, start with your own house - if you truly want all criticism of other people’s religious groups to stop?
And it’s not true that “everyone knows” no one is going to change what they believe here. I believe most people here, judging from their postings, believe just the opposite - that some people might change what they believe, whether they’re posters or lurkers. I’ve even heard a few posters mentioned who did in the past change their beliefs. So that’s simply untrue, and that’s why people post about Catholicism - not because of egotism.
And the main reason why they, and I too at times, post on the Catholic Church is that its doctrines grieve us.I started out neutral on the Catholic Church, open to it, even after I read the Bible about ten years ago, but at this point it gets worse in my eyes all the time.
One thing grievous about it? I remember Father Corapi (who I know has since left the priesthood) speaking on prayer, and saying that people ask him to pray, and he said, “But I don’t have power. Mary has power. Jesus has power. The saints have power.” And the Catholic radio station in the Buffalo area, where I used to live, was doing a fundraiser once when the radio host said, “Maybe Mary is inspiring you to call. Or the Holy Spirit.” Their phone number is 877-888-6279, or as they put it, 877-888-MARY. And not long ago a Catholic radio on the station in the state where I live now was asked what chapter of the new book he’d written, which is something of an overview of all Catholicism, meant the most to him, and I wondered to myself if his answer would point to Mary, and sure enough, he said it was the chapter he wrote on Mary.
Those are just a few examples of something so troubling to Bible-believing Christians, giving the Lord’s place someone else. Putting aside the Old Testament for a moment, you can’t find a single instance of someone besides God being exalted in the New Testament, and it being approved of by God. In fact, when Herod gave a speech and the people started to say, “the words of a god and not of a man,” because he allowed the people to say that and didn’t instead correct them and give the glory to God, he was eaten by worms from the inside on the spot. And the whole Bible is consistent with that bright line. Only God is a God.