What are the main differences between Catholic and Protestant religions ?

[Mrsgrumble]

I Know transfiguration and our lady there doesn't seem many differences. Holy Communion is one, blessing yourself.

I would like to read a bit more about it.

LRD and back to God I'm sorry I missed your extra posts while tapping on my phone to reply to LRD. LRD the Catholic churches in the East (in union with Rome) do have married priests. Celibacy is a discipline of the Western rite. I have to go as I will get nothing done, will look toward to reading this later.

I know they do, looking. In fact, in the West, ex-C of E vicars who've converted and are married to be priests, too.

I do take your point people often misunderstand how Catholics relate to the Bible. IME a lot of people don't really get how the Bible is used in different traditions altogether - I keep getting people who are surprised that anyone Christian might not believe the entire Bible literally, too. It's strange.

I know people were using Scripture before a canon was decided. Sorry, perhaps I should've been clearer. My point there was that there isn't simply one canon. There are loads, and people rehashed the debate multiple times. So I am not sure it is far to talk about 'the Bible' (= the RC version) and to act as if everything else is somehow not 'the Bible'. Reading your new post, though, I see that probably isn't what you intended!

As you saw from my post, I said explicitly that the Church didn't suddenly appear in England in the eleventh century, so we agree it'd be disingenous to say so! But I've completely lost the St Augustine point ... run it past me again?

i thought the difference was that roman catholics believed your relationship to god was through the church heirachy, and protestants thought you had an individual realtionship with god.

See this is what I mean! Thanks SarcyMare for that question. Read replies later. : )

What about the Coptic Church? Is it not just about as old as Catholicism? How does it fit into the picture?

It must seem ridiculous to non-Christians that so much energy is spent in trying to differentiate between different branches of what should be one church family. Judean People's Front anyone? Sorry, I couldn't resist the Life of Brian reference.

I stand corrected. Protestants may believe in forgiveness. But RC have themselves forgiven by confession to priests, etc. My older siblings still remember this but i never did this as a child.

The strict protestant group in my country is mainly from Calvin rather than Lutheran origin.

I think Copts are Orthodox? Bit hazy on it.

It is deeply Life of Brian. But, eh, who cares.

I live in Scotland where our Protestant churches seem to form schisms and splinters at the drop of a hat. I'm maybe overly sensitive about it

Ah, see, we prefer inwardly seething and offering each other tea and cake while quietly muttering about the vicar's unfortunate predilection for sung evensong.

(I'm kidding. I love sung evensong.)

I thought that protestants do believe in forgiveness and if you accept Jesus as your saviour you will go to heaven? (Something along those lines, sorry if it's not totally accurate).
This was a conversation I had with my Christian (protestant) friend that a paedophile murderer would go to heaven but I would not...

Gosh, your friend sounds delightful.

Not very representative of all Protestants everywhere, thankfully.

I know! But actually she's really lovely I just don't think she knew enough to be able to explain it to me. She just took it literally that if you are saved you will go to heaven regardless of what you have done, but a good person who is not saved will not go to heaven...I can't really believe that though!

Sorry, the thread wasn't about this really.

Makes you wonder whether you'd want to go to that kind of heaven.

it's not unusual for religionists who have strong views on heaven and hell (which are all based on imagination, since there are no first-hand reports) to have constructed some set of rules on who qualifies for what.

There are even people who assert that unbaptised babies cannot go to heaven, and there are others who posthumously have a notional baptism carried out on long-dead ancestors so that they will. Both ideas are of course preposterous.

Love the idea of first-hand reports of hell. Were you expecting some?

certainly not. I am simply observing that whatever tales you may hear are just made up, however old and however often repeated.

Yes, dear.

When I was 13, my friends and I used to get into heated debates about which of us was categorically correct about which of our crushes was the hottest.

Then we grew up, and realized that while your feelings are entirely real and genuine, you are never going to be able to convince someone else to feel the same way if they don't feel it already. It doesn't work like that.

If you'll forgive a crude comparison, trying to convince someone into or out of religious faith sounds pretty much the same to me.

So does this fabulous line of Popes, handing down the unadulterated teachings of God since Peter, include the Borgias and all the other dodgy evil popes?

Yes, though I think it gets fuzzy with some of the antipopes?

Popes are allowed to be human like everyone else - some people think the pope has always been understood to be totally infallible, but that's not the case. Even today, the pope is only theologically infallible when he speaks ex cathedra (ie., officially), and I believe they debated doing away with this doctrine recently? Though not sure and someone else will probably tell me that's wrong!

Yes it does!

Hi all! (Waves to all on thread) Back and ready to be throughly annoying!

(Currently watching The Apprentice reruns with DDs)

Sorry that was to Tinkly good answer LRD.

Jesus showed us what to expect by picking Peter who denied him three times. Don't expect anyone except a flawed human being - sometimes deeply flawed and unrepentant that's why we need Jesus and depend on his grace. As they say the church is a hospital for sinners not a club of saints.

I would say that the vast majority of what Christians believe who believe in the Trinity will be very similar they all love and worship Jesus and they can all pray together and call down the Holy Spirit together. By contributing to the Life of Brian scenario I am just enjoying a bit of parlay to show the differences in what we believe. All Christians believe in the power of forgiveness and that God will forgive anything of which we are truly repentent. We are forgiven but God's justice will still prevail. The power of forgiveness is something we rarely see modeled in a secular society.

Absolutely. I've been asked before if I think my branch of Christianity is right and others wrong. My personal take on it is that if it was absolutely critical that we all had the same stance on something like predestination then it would be absolutely spelled out in the bible so that there was no room for interpretation. So I don't think that any particular branch is "right" or "wrong", just slightly different paths that lead to the same place.