I prefer "Have yew accepted Jaysusuh Chrahst intew yore lahfe as yew're personal Lord and Savior?"
Look -- I don't have such a big problem with those people. I have, like you, wondered why people act as if these missionaries are committing attempted murder by handing them a tract and asking the above question. The biggest problem with them is that once they get started it can be very difficult to get them to shut up.
But we all get tarred with the same brush.
My church, the Roman Catholic Church is anything but squishy in our beliefs, and our core beliefs have changed very little, as I'm sure you know. We have different problems. Some people don't like what we stand for. Some people condemn us all for the actions of a few. Some people don't like our traditional practices. Some flat out don't like some of the ethnic groups of which we are comprised.
We've always been targets, and we're targeted time and time again right here on this forum with always the same kind of insults, the same tired old libels and attacks that have been promulgated upon us for centuries. As a Jew you should certainly understand what that's like. The minute you've finished addressing a particular libel someone else comes along and introduces it again as if you never refuted it and here we go again. So maybe it's not protestant bashing on our part, maybe we get tired of going over the same ground. We could close all our threads, but I think we like the discussion but get sick of the attacks.
How can you say your doctrine has changed very little? The Catholic Church is one of the most liberal religious bodies on the face of the earth. I don't see how you continue to delude yourselves.
And I will point out yet again (completely in vain, I'm sure) that with millions of members around the world, there are plenty of igorant, bigoted Catholics whose wits don't skip like roasting chestnuts, yet American Catholics celebrate the intellectuality of their Church and poke fun at "ignorant inbred rednecks."
Why should I not be prejudiced against the ethnic groups taht make up the Catholic Church when they are all ethnically prejudiced against me?
I note that "anti-Catholic slander" always takes the form of some zealous, fundamentalistic argument, like the Pope is the anti-christ or the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon. Catholic anti-Protestantism, on the other hand, takes the form of smug, superior, hyper-intellectual snobbery. I'm sorry, but I'm more comfortable with fundamentalistic arguments. I'm sorry the Catholic Church is "too good" to engage in them.
I sincerely ask you to go to ths thread and read my autographical post #83 before you make any further comments to me, should you choose to do so.