This is ALWAYS a useless thread.
One can EASILY understand the Protestant Reformation. Such enmity here. I hope excommunicated and defrocked Father Martin Luther is happy with the fruits of his labor. He even has a denomination named after him.
Protestants can boast of 40,000 different denominations. One wonders WHAT separates them. Doctrine, dogma, traditions? What? And, in the end, what does it matter to you or to me? If they are content with their faith, so be it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_dogma
Catholics HAVE to believe Roman Catholic DOGMA. The other things, Apostolic tradition, for one, may NOT be dogma.
So I say, let them be. They can vent their hearts out. Maybe they need it. It doesn't bother me a bit if I am attacked because of my faith. Jesus said that would happen.
We only have to look at how so many Christians, those FIRST Catholics (Catholic means UNIVERSAL), were treated by the Roman Empire.
MOST people are Christian enough in their ideology to let people be. Also, when I hear this I wonder just HOW secure they are with their own faith if they have to denigrate others. I speak to ALL sides.
God will judge us all anyway so what we say here about others' faiths doesn't amount to a hill of beans. :o):o)
God bless you and yours, Salvation!
And then the Catholic religion became the Roman Empire...And the new Roman Catholic Empire still persecuted Christians...And universal doesn't mean Christian...
Martin Luther wanted to bring the Christian church back to its original doctrine as found in the Scriptures, doctrine that had become twisted over the previous 1000 years. He never wanted a schism, and he never wanted to start his own church. FWIW, the same was true of John Wesley 250 years later: in both cases, the men called on the church to return to its original doctrine, and the result was that those who returned were forced out by those who didn't. I greatly wish it were not so, but it is so.