Roman Catholicism , cult or not?

Some of the same historians (because they are secular) will say that Judaism was highly influenced by Zorastrianism (which we know is false). But what do you expect from the unsaved? We don't expect a correct theology. But we can gain an accurate historical account of the events of history. Were the Christians persecuted by Nero, the Roman government? Does it matter if we read the account by Josephus (Jewish), Durant, or Tactius (Roman)? They all record most of the same events. The facts are the same. History doesn't change. None of them had an axe to grind. They recorded the persecution of the Christians as it took place under the Roman government. Tacitus himself lived during the first century as did Josephus. Both would have been eyewitnesses to the events taking place at that time.
DHK

 

Er...which bit is the red herring?

[Did my best to correct DHK's code] </font>[/QUOTE]In discussing doctrine such as sola scriptura you referred to historical events. That has nothing to do with doctrine but rather to the RCC's sordid past which pales in compariston to the events (confined to America) that you brought up. </font>[/QUOTE]Oh, so you mean the KKK and slavery aren't too bad then? 'Pales in comparison' is not a phrase I would use to describe lynchings, for example. On a matter of scale, of course the Inquisition 'wins' hands down in the death stakes - but only because it was far better organised and supported (particularly by the secular authorities of the day) than the KKK; you can bet your bottom dollar that if the KKK had the same degree of influence and control over the sort of geographical area covered by the Inquisition, its death toll would have been far higher.

Of course the first thing you will do will complain about the bias of the author, and try to discredit him. I know that. DHK </font>[/QUOTE]No, the first thing I will do is point out that the Cathars were gnostic dualists and therefore heretics. That does not of course excuse the barbarities of the Albigensian 'Crusade' and the subsequent Inquisition - let's call a spade a spade here. Unfortunately your author seems to believe that the Cathars were somehow Christian and proto-evangelical, which is obviously nonsense unless you buy into Carroll's 'Trail of Balderdash' rubbish.

 

Matt Black,

(from more than one post)

I said...

And you said...

You err when you say this. You are wrong.

Because in that situation the professed faith alone in Christ alone never existed. It was phoney.

From a following post you posted again the Canons of Dort for me to comment on.

I had never seen those before but they appear to be a clear defense of the Calvinist veiw of theology. I've have seen defenses similar to those many times from other sources.

Is that what you are wondering about?

I said...

And you said...

Oh really? Then how come back when I was lost, and under conviction, I encountered calvinists and arminians and fundamentalists and pentecostals...and I heard essentially the same gospel from all of them. I never once had the thought...

"Gee, I'm so confused! How can I make sense of all of this? They are all telling me different gospels!!!"

It never crossed my mind in the least.

Your theory is shattered by the truth of reality.

Me...

You...

The Catholic Church proclaims that false gospel...

God bless,

Mike

 

[Double post]

 

And you said...

You err when you say this. You are wrong. </font>[/QUOTE]Then James is in error too - perhaps we should excise his epistle from the Bible as Luther tried to do initially (for the very reason that it didn't quite fit into his sola fide schema of salvation) until he came to his senses

Because in that situation the professed faith alone in Christ alone never existed. It was phoney. </font>[/QUOTE]But that is a tautologious statement and on all fours with the implications of the anathemata of Trent which you quote below ie: if a man claims to have faith alone he is (following James) the possessor of what you call a 'phoney faith' and therefore his claim to salvation is likewise bogus.

And you said...

Oh really? Then how come back when I was lost, and under conviction, I encountered calvinists and arminians and fundamentalists and pentecostals...and I heard essentially the same gospel from all of them. I never once had the thought...

"Gee, I'm so confused! How can I make sense of all of this? They are all telling me different gospels!!!"

It never crossed my mind in the least.

Your theory is shattered by the truth of reality.</font>[/QUOTE]Only your reality, your experience; individual anecdotal evidence, with all due respect to your testimony, like individual interpretation of Scripture, does not a sound doctrine make necessarily - beware the existential tail wagging the theological dog!

You...

The Catholic Church proclaims that false gospel...

</font>[/QUOTE]I see no salvation by works here as you claim; I do see a demand that faith works itself out through action, but then again, James saw that too and demanded it likewise. The Catholic Church, just for clarification, does not preach salvation by works as you state, it proclaims salvation by faith plus the works of that faith.

[Lashed up my code worse than DHK!]

 

You are defeated every time you must argue from Scripture the doctrine of sola scriptura so you hop on all these rabbit trails Matt. I trust all that read these posts can see this. The topic is not the KKK, nor slavery. It is "Roman Catholicism: "cult or not?" Thus your red herrings are quite needless. You avoid the topic to be discussed like the plague because you cannot defend the position that I take: "The Roman Catholic Church meets every mark of a cult and is not a Christian religion." Thus, instead of addressing the question at hand you jump on rabbit trails (a mark of a cult--like the J.W.'s do) and hop all over the place. You can't stay on topic. You can't defend your postition from Scripture. But, alas innuendo and false allegations will do.

But to answer some of your needless red herrings:
1. Slavery: Slavery was practiced in the south for a relatively short period of time until it was abolished. But who was it practiced by? Rich landowners, whether they were Catholic or Protestant. To paint a picture of the Catholics as the compassionate socialist activist upholding the rights of the black people is absurd. No white person did at that time. The Catholics discriminated against the blacks just as much as any Protestant, and you would be a fool not to admit as much. Slavery was against a race not a religion--the race of the black people--whether by Catholics or by Protestants. This is your irrelevant red herring which has no bearing on this subject.

2. The KKK. There were Protestants involved in the KKK, and perhaps even Baptists. That doesnt' make it right. But it is not characteristic of true believers all throughout the centuries as the persecution of believers all throughout the centuries by the Catholics have been. The KKK existed at one time in history, in one country in history, and then they ceased to exist. This is not the case with the RCC. Again you are off on a red herring trying to justify the Catholic Church. It is the same as the modern day Charismatic movement trying to justify themselves with the Montanists. It just doesn't work.

The Catholics led a Crusade against the Cathari.
The Catholics led a Crusade against the Waldenses.
The Catholics led a Crusade against the Albigenses, which they almost exterminated.
When the Reformation came their one goal in mind was to exterminate all who opposed them. The zealous "Bloody Mary" of Tudor was a willing pawn in their hand. Thousands if not millions were killed at the hand of the RCC.

Revelation 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
--More than any other organization, this describes the RCC.

So does that make the Crusade aganst even the Muslims right. Might makes right in your mind. Is that the Christian attitude? Is that what Jesus meant when he said "Turn the other cheek." To you he meant: Go and slaughter every living being that gets in your way. Be ruthless. It doesn't matter how many you kill, or rape on the way. Be as barbaric as you wish. Muslim, Albigenses, Cathari, Bible-believing Christian--they are all the same--they oppose the Catholic Church--so murder them all. That was the command that went forth. And there is such a command still in effect, just like there is in the Islamic religion. It makes the RCC no different than the Islamic terrorists.
DHK

 

You are defeated every time you must argue from Scripture the doctrine of sola scriptura so you hop on all these rabbit trails Matt. I trust all that read these posts can see this. The topic is not the KKK, nor slavery. It is "Roman Catholicism: "cult or not?" Thus your red herrings are quite needless. </font>[/QUOTE]You were the one who raised the question of religious killing, not me, so don't go round falsely accusing me of 'rabbit trails'; if you start a tangent, you must be prepared for others to respond to it.

Quote correct - because your position is indefensible.

Like I said, you were the one who started the Inquisition tangent and indeed you continue it in your last post.

Show me where I have made these 'false allegations'.

So the creation of the SBC in 1845 was about...what, exactly?

Again, you raised the 'red herring'; I was just and still am making the point that no denomination has clean hands when it comes to oppressing and murdering others and the point is therefore far from irrelevant; surely you can see its relevance?! Of course the Catholic Church has far more blood on its hands than other denominations, but then again, as I said, it was far better organised and, in the Middle Ages when much of the persecution occurred, it was the only denomination in Western Europe. Once the Protestants came along, they proved themselves to be just as adept at burning and otherwise murdering 'heretics'.

Yes.

Not a Crusade, bu they did persecute them. I accept incidentally that the Waldenses were proto-evangelicals, unlike the Cathar-Albigenses

Those are the same people as the Cathars (the name comes from the fact that the Cathars were based near the French town of Albi), so it's the same Crusade your reference to it doesn't add to the death toll.

As did the Protestants as soon as they came along: Calvin burning Servetus, Luther calling for the death of Jews and German peasants, Zwingli drowning Anabaptists in Zurich, Anabaptists in Munster killing all who opposed them, the French Wars of Religion, Anglicans executing Catholics like Edmund Campion, Baptists and Congregationalists executing Charles I, later Baptists joining the KKK and lynching blacks and burning Catholics out of their homes, Catholics, Presbyterians, and Anglicans killing each other in Ulster, Orthodoxen and Catholics killing each other in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1940s and 1990s...need I go on?

where have I said any of that?! I direct you to my previous post where I said:

I'm not excusing the crimes of the medieval and early modern Catholic Church - they were monstrous crimes. I'm merely pointing out that all Christian denominations have blood on their hands; the Catholics have more than the rest simply because, prior to the Reformation, they were the only Christian religion in Western Europe and in the early modern era they were still the largest denomination.

 

[double-post again ]

 

As did the Protestants as soon as they came along: Calvin burning Servetus, Luther calling for the death of Jews and German peasants, Zwingli drowning Anabaptists in Zurich, Anabaptists in Munster killing all who opposed them, the French Wars of Religion, Anglicans executing Catholics like Edmund Campion, Baptists and Congregationalists executing Charles I, later Baptists joining the KKK and lynching blacks and burning Catholics out of their homes, Catholics, Presbyterians, and Anglicans killing each other in Ulster, Orthodoxen and Catholics killing each other in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1940s and 1990s...need I go on? [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Any type of murder should not be tolerated or condoned. If so, they are not the true Christians, or they will be punished by any means for their behavior.

 

This sounds like Criminal Organization:

http://www.geocities.com/propheticangel2001/oath.htm

Are the IRA beatified as martyrs?

 

No, and neither are the (Protestant) UDA and UVF.

Quite right too. Scumbags the lot of them.

 

There are many so-called Protestant Christians who are no more than Europeans who were born among the Christian countries. They should not be condoned. But any murderous behavors like Inquisition, Genocide, Holocaust, Crusade, should not be condoned either.
Not only IRA, all the time there have been strong arguments that there was Roman Catholic behind the masacres and genocides like Nazis Holocaust, Mussolini, Franco Generalissimo and his civil war in Spain, Rwanda, Croatian genocide, Crusade, Bartholomew Masacare ( August 24, 1572), Spanish expedition to South America to cleanse the Indians there, etc. These should not be defended or advocated but must be condemned

 

Here is a perfect example of the failed attempts at equivocation that can only be achieved by glossing over the facts as Matt has done.

#1. The RCC claims that IT's commands to EXTERMINATE those who differ are "infallible"!!. There has been NO retraction of those standing orders!!

#2. ALL the examples of intolerance given above on the non-RC side are repudiated by Protestants, Lutherans, Baptists -- officially and publically!

This point is "Faithfully" Glossed over by all posters wishing to equivocate between the mountain and the mole hill.

#3. The RCC ITSELF claims to have dominated Europe to a GREATER extent than did the pagan Roman empire AND claims that the exterminations were being done in her "Golden Age" of dominance!

No such claim has ever been made by non-Catholics! They never had that much influence nor did they impact that area for as long as the RCC!

So if you can't admit that it was an ERROR and if you MUST admit that YOUR group was far more dominant element EVEN than the entire Roman Empmire -- HOW in the world will the RCC be able to hide behind the skirts of the minority Catholic dissenters - we know of as Protestants??

And yet this is attempted time after time after time!!

 

Sorry about that - I took the quote from your post where you were responding to the quote - and I mixed up your authorship with that of the quote -

My bad!

 

Bob, you may be interested in reading THIS. It does not amount to a full and unequivocal apology, regrettably, and refers to actions committed on behalf of the Church rather tha by the Church itself (compare with the apology for the Holocaust which was much more explicit). You may also be both amused and enraged by this Catholic apologetic (as opposed to apology which it definately ain't) which amounts to "Inquisition? Wot Inquisition? Sorry, guv, dunno wot yore talkin abaht."

I agree with you that the Catholic Church "could do better" (as they used to say on my old school reports) on this issue.

 

Some atrocities might have been done on behalf the church, but Inquisition and Indulgence business were done directly by RCC.

 

It's really kind of funny, and sad, when I see this. We We wonder why Christians are persecuted.

I was raised a Catholic and when I was married 30 years ago became a Baptist.

As a Catholic I was taught that we were the only right faith.

I see and have sen throught the years particularly among Baptists that they are the only right faith. They don't even like other Protestants. Heaven is going to be a lonely place.

Disagee yes, but what I see here is bordering on hate. What happened to "Love your neighbor as youself" it didn't say Baptist neighbor or Catholic neighbor. It is not surprising that non Christians are so hard to change. Some of us say they were not elect anyway. What a judgemental group we Christians have become.

What happened? We are not God. We do not know a persons thoughts, heart, feelings. Maybe Baptists do.

The more I study Religion, reformed, covenant, dispensational, Catholic,Protestant the more I lose confidence in organized religion. I love Jesus, but his biggest enemy on earth was organized religion.

I joined this board for fellowship all I have found is judgement and letterism.

We all better wake up

 

I can see how you are very much confused.
As a Catholic you were taught that the Catholic faith or church was the only right faith. Did that preclude you from making friends with other people of other faiths. Did you hate all the Protestants in your area?

As a Baptist you were taught that they had the right faith. And for a good reason. Do not they have as much reason to believe that they are just as right as the Catholic Church, and even more so, because their beliefs are founded on the Word of God, whereas the RCC is founded more on tradition than the Word of God.
Do we not have a right to believe ours is the correct faith just as the Catholics believe theirs is the correct faith. That, by the way, is soul liberty, a Baptist distinctive. It is a right that we give to the Catholics but the Catholics don't give to us, no, not even in this day and age.

And yet you turn almost in hate, and say that Baptists don't have love Catholics and Protestants. That is slanderous and a false allegation. We hate false doctrine--very true. But that does not mean we hate the person that holds to that doctrine. As a Catholic you had non-Catholic friends.
As a Baptist we still associate and love others that are not Baptist. What makes you think we don't. Why are you intent on slandering the Baptists?
DHK

 

Except, DHK, you have stated that you believe that Catholic Christians are not Christian at all and are destined for Hell. That at the very least borders on hate....whereas Catholics, whilst admittedly ambivalent in practice pre-Vatican II, are now more than willing to admit that those outside the Catholic Church can be saved (Lumen Gentium14, 15)