Seriously? You mean the Catholic church does not demand you attend mass every week, or demand that you believe the pope is infallible, or that you must believe that Mary is the Mother of God, or a thousand other things that have nothing to do with Jesus.
LOL
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Seriously? You don't worship God on Sunday? Attendance at Mass on Sundays is one of the precepts of the Catholic Church. The Precepts of the Catholic Church are a description of the absolute minimum actions required of Catholics regarding the Church.
The Church uses these precepts to remind us that Christian life requires a commitment to prayer and active participation in the liturgy and sacraments. If we fall below this bare-minimum level, we can't rightly consider ourselves to be in full communion with the Catholic Church.
Each of these precepts of the Catholic Church is a requirement. Together with the Ten Commandments, they represent the minimum level of moral living. Intentional violation of the precepts or the Commandments is a grave matter, meaning a mortal sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church clarifies the reason for Sunday worship, as follows:
PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION TWO
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
"YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND"
ARTICLE 3
THE THIRD COMMANDMENT
The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.91
It's pretty sad for anyone to suggest that worshipping God is a demand.
demand that you believe the pope is infallible,
What is your understanding of infallibility?
or that you must believe that Mary is the Mother of God
Here you are joking, right? Jesus is God; Mary is His mother; that makes Mary the Mother of God.
a thousand other things that have nothing to do with Jesus.
So far you have failed to provide a clear example of a demand made by the Catholic Church. Can you come up with some of those other "thousands of things" to cite as an example?
We think the things you listed do have a great deal to do with IHS and His promises.
You mean the Catholic church does not
Rightly or wrongly we expect to encounter IHS in the MASS, and as we think of the Apostles as IHS's agents with authority we think it a good thing to "Continue in the Apostle's teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers." or
Again, to us, we see that just as it can take decades for married people to understand what matrimony is and what is the nature of their commitment, so also it takes the church centuries to understand what Apostolic and Petrine Authority are. But certainly we see the authority as being Christ's authority, albeit delegated.
And we think that the reliability of papal definitions is a gift, not a burden -- the gift of God's continuing guidance and care.or
This is the most remarkable to me. It seems that what Mothers do is gestate, give birth to, and nurture children who get SOME of their characteristics from the Mother and some are exogenous to her. When a blonde woman gives birth to a brown-haired buy we don't say that she is mother only to those parts of him which come from her. When Mary gave birth to IHS, we don't say she is mother only to His Human Nature. In any event calling her the Theotokos is certainly honoring her, but not as much as it is honoring the appalling condescension and mercy of the God who "Did not abhor the Virgin's womb."
When a guy comes home from a Ball game with a home run ball he caught, sure we honor him, but not as much as we honor the guy who hit the home run.
So for us these things all have a great deal to do with Jesus.
Again, this is not so much to persuade as to try to clarify what it is we're arguing about.