Oh come on ZC! Heretics who denied the Real Presence predate the evangelicals by centuries!
For this I publicly apologize and ask for forgiveness from Vladimir998, Pyro, the moderators, and anyone else who was hurt by my angry post.
Thank you for listening to me.
Hopefully you will read my apology before reading this post.
Please allow me, however ineffectively, to try to explain to you my utter frustration with so many Catholics (and Orthodox) on Free Republic.
It is true that the heresies of Protestantism were many times anticipated in the past. However, in those days the institutional church didn't have the problem with the supernatural that it does now.
In our day almost everything has either flown out the window or been treated as negotiable. The only things the Church hangs on to, and hangs on to most stubbornly, are precisely those things which Fundamentalists hold dear. I'm afraid that tells me a great deal.
Pyro, anyone who can believe in transubstantiation can believe in a talking snake. One is no more incredible than the other. Both are equally violations of natural law. Yet most Catholics, even those who call themselves "total inerrantists," reject the talking snake. Why? Because snakes don't talk? You think it took modern science to find this out? I have news for you . . . the most backward, swamp-dwelling, illiterate "peckerwood" knows that snakes can't talk! It's called the supernatural and its called that for a reason. And that is what religion, at bottom, is--not morality, not ethics (since even atheists have these things, as they can never stop reminding us))--but the supernatural realities that underlie the morality and the ethics. Ethics without the supernatural isn't Theistic religion at all--it's secular humanism! And I'm afraid contemporary Catholicism is barely distinguishable from it, except for the things about it rejected by Fundamentalists, which apparently have therefore become a major part of the Catholic identity.
As I said, Pyro, anyone who believes in the "real presence" can believe in the talking snake. Anyone who believes J*sus magically multiplied loaves and fishes can believe in the talking donkey. Anyone who believes J*sus was confronted by "Satan" in the desert can believe that Jacob wrestled with an angel. And anyone who believes the genealogies of the gospels can surely believe the genealogies of Genesis. That so many people with both in their bible choose to accept one and laugh at the other does not speak well for your church. And please don't remind me that "the church is made up of sinners." FCOL, so are fundamentalist churches--but they don't surrender to secular humanism for forty years. Face it. Roman Catholicism, at least in the United States, is the religion of a very particular culture--urban, immigrant, liberal, Democrat, and very hostile to the rural majority on the ground that the latter are "hateful bigots."
But I am well aware that Catholicism, however intellectual it is, has its own "bumpkins." That is what makes this whole thing so frustrating to me. Ever hear of voodoo? Ever hear of the Mayan cargo system? Ever hear of Juan Diego? Ever seen The Treasure of the Sierra Madre where the Indian peasants compel the protagonists to stay with them because if they don't "all the saints in heaven will be angry?" Oh yes, Catholicism--and even Orthodoxy--as its bumpkins. And liberal intellectual Catholics are just fine with illiterate simple-minded bumkins--so long as they believe silly primitive Catholic stuff and not the silly, primitive stuff in "the old testament." How many times has the USCCB condemned "Biblical fundamentalism?" Compare that with the number of times they've condemned voodoo, or cargo, or Philippine peasants who crucify themselves during "holy week." One gets the distinct feeling that all the "bumpkins" of the world are welcome to the intellectuals' "universal church" except for one kind. And don't you dare fault me for drawing this obvious conclusion.
I think of that scene in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and compare it with the times I begged my priests to convert my mother and how I was brushed off (because she belonged to the rural Southern American fundamentalist Protestant culture) and my blood boils.
In my home I have a copy of Foxfire VII which deals with the various religious groups of the Southern mountains. Guess which one interviewed in the book doesn't believe in Adam and Eve?
I invite you to do a little web searching and find "Ex-Gay Watch," a pro-homosexual organization that proudly says that the Catholic Church has always warned of the dangers of "Biblical inerrancy." Yes--biblical inerrancy--not sola scriptura, and not biblical literalism.
I'm sorry. Right now I can't write any more.