Saying that Catholics aren't Christians -- bigotry?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

You know the type. They say Catholics are Not Real Christians™ because they worship images / worship the Pope / worship Mary / wear funny hats / whatever. Mostly, Evangelicals.

[Goblinmonger]

1. I said not bigotry

Stupidity, ignorance, arrogance, logical fallacy--yes.

[fjc]

2. You must be joking.

[TechBear_Seattle]

14. Nope. This very issue came up in another thread in R/T

Pretty much hijacked the thread, too.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Let Jesus decide, not me.

[Andy823]

11. You are right.

No one group, or religious church can claim that others are "NOT" christians, just like no group or church can claim they are the "ONLY" christians! It's not for mortal man to judge others!

[Hello_Kitty]

4. Yeah, but they all forget their internecine quarrels when important stuff comes up.

Like going after the gays.

[Donnachaidh]

5. uhh, Christians wouldn't even EXIST if it wasn't for Catholicism

Because the Catholic Church was FIRST.

Evangelicals obviously don't do history very well, do they?

[SharonAnn]

8. Yes, we were Christians before being Christian was cool!

[Why Syzygy]

10. The church at Rome was not the First church.

Read the books of Acts and Revelation.

[Donnachaidh]

16. you read it -- are you trying to say that Evangelicals came into being from another church?

I'm not going to nitpick over who came first that far back.

All of these relatively modern christian churches sprang from the Catholic Church. Luther, Knox etc., all started their own sects because of strong differences with Roman Catholic rules.

[Why Syzygy]

19. No. I'm saying the Catholic church came into being from another church.

Therefore, it was not the "first".

[skepticscott]

34. Not quite accurate

It would be more accurate to say that a number of Christian sects with differing doctrines coexisted in the first few centuries CE, and that one emerged as dominant, with their doctrine becoming the "orthodox" one.

[TechBear_Seattle]

20. So only Evangelicals are Christians?

That position is what sparked this poll to begin with.

Christianity has existed for almost 2000 years. The Catholic Church did not exist as such until 870, at the earliest (when Rome masterminded the deposition of Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople and excommunicated him as a heretic; the Orthodox churches not only denied the excommunication was valid but got him reinstated as Patriarch ten years latter.) A latter date, 1054, is sometimes given as this is when the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, and Pope Leo IX excommunicated the other and all who followed them.

Evangelicalism derives directly out of the Protestant Reformation, almost universally considered to have started in 1517 with Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. To say that only Evangelicals are Christian is to deny nearly a millennium and a half of Christian history.

[Boojatta]

15. Was Judas a high-ranking member of the original Catholic Church?

[TechBear_Seattle]

18. Not by a long shot

Historically and theologically, western Christianity -- which includes the Catholic Church and all offshoots such as the Anglican Communion and Protestant Christianity -- is heretical. In direct contravention to the Creed adopted by the Ecumenical Councils, these groups hold that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, a doctrine latter proclaimed be doctrinally incorrect and thus heresy.

If you want to see the FIRST Christianity, you would have to look to the Eastern Orthodox and a number of other ancient groups such as the Oriental Orthodox, the Assyrian Church and some lines of Baptist and Unitarian theology. A study of closely related non-orthodox traditions (especiallyArianism) and even non-Christian (particularly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism">Manichaeism) and would be necessary, too.

[zipplewrath]

24. Splittin' Hairs

The Catholic church, like the Easter Orthodox, traces its roots back to the Apostle Peter. They even make the claim to have his body under the Vatican. You can quickly make a case that the modern Catholic Church has more roots with Paul than Peter, but I'm not sure how any of this makes any of the original groups any more "first" than the others. All of them trace back to Christ in some sense or another and the earliest of them would trace back to groups that would have considered themselves Jewish still. I'll grant you that a claim that Roman Catholics are some how the unitary "First Christians" isn't particularly defensible. Any of the early christian churches can show a lineage backwards to Christ. Truth is, even the protestants can show a lineage, it merely "goes through" some of the early catholic sects.

And it's hard to care much. None of the earliest christians would accept anything done or taught today as pure or true especially St. Peter. And that the Muslims, Christians, and Jews all claim to worship the same "father" just is incomprehensible.

[Critters2]

21. Actually, Orthodoxy has a better claim to being

the oldest form of Christianity than Catholicism does. It's pretty clear that the liturgy of St. James has changed very little since the earliest days of the faith, and some historians have concurred with the church's belief that that liturgy traces its roots to James the brother of Jesus leading worship in the Jerusalem church.

[JerseygirlCT]

31. I think (just think) that perhaps the point was that

those who seem to claim exclusive use of the term Christian (meaning, those who don't include Catholics in that group), wouldn't be here without the RCC, historically speaking. Protestantism is an offshoot of the western church.

Now, there could be breakaway groups from the eastern church like that, but none I've ever heard of.

[PassingFair]

6. C. Who cares?

I am the only TRUE SCOTSMAN.

[Demit]

7. Catholics do not 'worship' any of those things. They worship God. Not bigotry, it's ignorance.

Except, I believe, Evangelicals and born-agains consider a person 'Christian' only if they say they 'accept Christ as their personal Savior.' Catholics don't say that. Catholics don't see why that is necessary. This Catholic isn't even sure what the hell it means that makes it different from believing Christ died for our sins, and therefore IS our Savior.

[elocs]

9. I have heard Catholics refer to themselves as "Catholic Christians"

and simply as a Catholic.

[redqueen]

12. More like idiocy.

But yeah, I guess bigotry fits too.

[kristopher]

13. Dictionaries

Definitions of bigotry on the Web:

* the intolerance and prejudice of a bigot
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

* A bigot is a person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own, and bigotry is the corresponding state of mind. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigotry

* bigot - one who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; one who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion ...
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bigot

* The rigid intolerance of ideas or persons seen as different.
www.publiceye.org/glossary/glossary_big.html

* intolerance toward those of different creeds or religious affiliations
gw820lodge.tripod.com/education/MDictionary.htm

* bigot - A person obstinately and unreasonably wedded to a particular religious creed, opinion, or practice; a person blindly attached to an opinion ...
www.iyfradio.com/reference.htm

[hlthe2b]

17. and RW fundies worship the "GOD ALMIGHTY $$$$"

that should be the retort.... :eyes:


(not that this lapsed observer has any great admiration for the Catholic Hierarchy and the Vatican, but still...)

[damntexdem]

22. Saying that anyone who self-identifies as Xian is not Xian is bigotry.

[Boojatta]

25. What if someone self-identifies as being simultaneously Christian and atheist?

[Boojatta]

26. I suspect that "anyone who self-identifies as Xian" is an exaggeration.

For example, if a man who self-identifies as Christian beats to death a horse that he owns and people react to the beating of the horse by saying that he isn't Christian, then those people are bigots?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

35. That I disagree with.

I think that to be a Christian you have to hold at least some Christian beliefs - belief in the divinity of Christ, for example. It's not just a matter of self-identification.

[Taverner]

23. Along the lines of "God Hates Fags"

Among the Fundies, this is the greatest insult - to not be a "real" Christian

[JerseygirlCT]

27. I'm not sure it's bigotry. It's absolutely ignorance.

I guess it depends on how strongly the person clings to that ignorance when corrected.

[Meshuga]

30. I agree

It depends on how the person is denying it. But the case that started this thread was a problem with terminology since the person seemed to be having a terminology problem rather than trying to disqualify Catholics.

[moobu2]

28. They’re more like Paulinians, Paulastinians or Paulstians

Something like that.

[Dorian Gray]

29. Not bigotry....

STUPIDITY.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. Not bigotry: More like pig ignorance

They literally don't know that Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are the oldest forms of Christianity and had already been around for over 1800 years before the first fundamentalists.

[Igel]

33. I've seen it both ways.

Catholics who wanted to distinguish themselves from Protestants and non-Protestant non-denominational churches, and mostly non-Protestant non-denomination folk who wanted to distance themselves from Catholics.

By "distance" I don't mean "be biased against"; it's sometimes a useful distinction to make. Now, you can argue that "Protestant" covers it, but it doesn't (take my church--it taught not to eat pork, to keep a Saturday sabbath, and we kept passover as the commemoration of Jesus' death ... our theological "ancestors" protested, oddly, against some sort of Baptists, rumor had it).

You may not like the definition, but that's language change for you. Different communities get to define words for themselves, and it's only confusing when the usage crosses community boundaries. Lots of "bigotry" discussions are like this--"I know it's bigotry, I know it when I hear it," even if the person being "bigoted" is quite unfamiliar with your personal experiences and the usage that you think is universal. Most of the time when communities get mixed local usage dies away.

I've also heard Christian vs. Catholic used not to make a locally useful distinction, but to emphasize the contrast: This isn't necessarily bigotry, but it is denying that Catholics are Christian. Describing all such assertions as bigotry leads to the conclusion that nearly everybody who draws a distinction and believes that his/her beliefs/religion/values/ethics/tribal allegiances are better than others is bigoted. If you believe that, let's hear it for female "circumcision" and suttee.