Is this some sort of remnant of evangelical puritan protestant ideology?
I don’t understaun this.
If you ask me, it’d make as much sense as Orthodox and Christians… or Shia and Muslim…
Catholic my nuts
Catholics aren’t Christians by many definitions, it is a different religion.
I might quibble about the Catholic Church being the “original” church since Catholicism only came about after Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman state in 380. You could argue that Catholicism started a bit earlier under Constantine I at the First Ccouncil of Nicaea in 325, which is when the Roman state started to consolidate the various early Christian beliefs under an official “catholic” orthodoxy. The word “catholic” literally means “including a wide variety of things”. The point being that there was already a wide variety of Christian sects prior to the Council of Nicaea.
The Protestant argument against Catholicism boils down to the belief that the Catholic Church is a corrupted Christianity, not that it is non-Christian. And there is some truth to that. The pre-Nicaean churches were free-wheeling spiritualists with a wide variety of beliefs, but that all changed when the Roman state decided to create an orthodox, singular religion under its control. Protestants argue that this adaptation of religious belief to the needs of maintaining state power is the original corruption of the Catholic Church.
Now, two key facts influenced the early history of Roman Catholicism:
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The Roman state recognized the descendants of Caesar, the Emperors, as the Pontifex Maximus, or head priest, of the Roman state. They also required that everyone adhere to the cult of the Emperor. This was purely ritualistic and was meant as a bulwark to the power of the state.
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The vast majority of the Empire’s citizens were pagan.
Because of #1, the Roman Emperor became the head of the newly formed Catholic Church, which was a unification of Church and State. This is called Caesaropapism, and is also why the Catholic Church retains a hierarchical structure to this day and its seat is still located in the heart of the Western Roman Empire. The Pope is the spiritual successor of the Western Roman Emperor.
Because of #2, Catholicism is highly ritualistic, like paganism, and early Catholicism adopted the worship of saints, which are basically small gods. Saint worship was the bridge between paganism and Christianity.
During the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, Luther and others made the point that the union of state power with Christianity was a corruption of “original” pre-Catholic Christianity, which was more spiritually-oriented and valued personal conviction over state orthodoxy. Interestingly, the split between Protestantism and Catholicism in Europe also more or less follows the geographic outline of the Western Roman Empire, with southern Europe largely retaining Catholicism and northern Europe largely adopting Protestantism. This implies a political dimension to the schism, not just a religious one. England is the odd man out here because their response to the schism was to create the Church of England, which is basically Catholicism without the Pope, substituting the English monarch as the head of the Church and toning down the saint worship.
The great irony of any Protestant movement that craves Christo-fascist state power is that they are advocating to become the very evil they swore to destroy back in the 1500s.
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Care to share these definitions?
Roman Catholic is the original Church, so you tell me
Fucking bingo dude. The original church was Catholic*. The Christian church came later.
This sounds like a semantic backflip.
Catholics themselves see themselves as Christian and since they are the largest Christian denomination, saying they aren’t is just No True Scotsman.
Ask a catholic what religion they are and they answer Catholic, while protestants say Christian.
Maybe in your part of the world, not in mine. Christians normally just say Christian unless they’re trying to recruit you (they are less than half the population).
Anyway that’s like saying if you ask me what my meal is and I say “steak” that means it’s somehow not meat because I was specific about the kind of meat.
Try it sometime
Mystery solved, see OP’s edit.
That is totally new to me.
Can you give me one or two of those many definitions for my understanding?
Many protestant churched consider themselves churches of Christ, Catholicism is the church of Paul, and isn’t strictly monotheistic, trinitarianism and unitarianism aside. They pray to beings other than God as a matter of course. Anglicanism and Orthodox are the same religion as Catholicism. Most of the protestant churches are not. Then you have stuff like Mormons and Jehovahs Witnesses which are a different thing again, if you call those Christian, then Islam is Christian (Jesus is an important prophet in Islam) but no one would say that.
Catholicism is the church of Paul, and isn’t strictly monotheistic, trinitarianism and unitarianism aside.
That is just plain wrong, no two ways about it.
To me it sounds like you listened to some protestant that doesn’t care much for the catholic church and just repeat his rant without questioning it much.
And don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t care less about christian infighting. I was just curious about the reasoning how the catholic church, which is one of the oldest and most “original” christian churches, could be considered not christian at all.
After your post I don’t believe there is much basis to this claim at all.FFS read a book. I am Catholic, btw.
So by your own claim you are part of the polytheistic church of Paul?
That just is not catholicism.
Which is so easy to prove because the catholics love to write down their many rules.So I honestly would just answer right back at you:
FFS read a book.
And btw, while I have been an atheist for many years now, I was raised strictly catholic in a highly religious area by my catholic family that included a catholic nun and the headmaster of a catholic school and I intensively studied christianity before I made my break with this religion.
You can’t bullshit me.
Oh look. An atheist that thinks he’s clever but doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. How original.
Catholics see themselves as the root form of Christianity that other versions forked from. Whilst it’s not technically true, as there are many versions of Christianity that pre-date Catholicism, in most countries where the term “Catholics and Christians” is used, it’s accurate enough
Growing up in a “non-denominational”, independent fundamental Baptist house I was always taught that Catholics weren’t Christians because they worship idols. Now that I’ve left the faith I would easily classify them as being Christian.
While I think many people actually do classify them as Christians they do have some significant differences in their beliefs and practices than most Protestant denominations; and being themselves the largest Christian denomination by far it can be useful in some analysis to treat them as a distinct entity (the answer to “percentage of global population that subscribe to a particular religion” is much more interesting when broken into “Christian Catholic: %” and “Christian Other: %”).
What does “non-denominational” mean? Isn’t Baptist the denomination?
In this context it was meant as a joke. Several Baptist institutions incorrectly label themselves as being “non-denominational” even though they are completely ideologically aligned with the independent Baptist movement.
All the non-denominational churches are just a denominational church in denial. Pentecostals use it a lot too, but it’s pretty obvious once you know
If anything Catholicism is much more traditionally Christian, as it’s the stablish status quo outside of the anglosphere.
That’s seen as a negative. “Holy tradition” is seen as an extreme departure, although most Protestants wouldn’t even know the term because opening the catechism is nearly as bad as the satanic bible (especially among evangelicals).
Oh shit! Independent Fundamental Baptist! I had to deal with living with that shit, too. At the end of the day, if the king james bible was good enough for Peter and Paul, it’s good enough for me. Also, rock music is the devil.
I went to Bob Jones. There was a kid there got in trouble playing the guitar cause what he was strumming had “that sound.” No lyrics, just him strumming it wrong was sinful. Ain’t no way that kinda teaching gonna fuck someone up for life.
I went to a small private Christian high school too. Our Junior year we did a “college tour” to check out Christian Colleges. We visited Bob Jones, and I was blown away. That place is fucking wild. I’m glad I settled on Penn State in the long run.
They have the next outgroup to eliminate lined up in case they run out of minorities to discriminate against.
Catholics are one of America’s og boogeyman. They used to fear the idea of a catholic president who could be influenced by the pope. I’m not sure when that went away.
There was (manufactured?) outrage when Tony Blair converted after his premiership. I don’t think the topic of the current UK prime minister’s religion even came up when he was appointed. I guess that’s progress.
I don’t think the topic of the current UK prime minister’s religion even came up when he was appointed.
oh it came up, along with worse.
there’s are reasons why Rishi Sunak is an unfit bastard to be PM, but it’s the same reasons as Boris Johnson and Theresa May.
I guess I didn’t notice in the coverage I watched. Was it the daily mail or just the dreges of the internet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPYdzIt7p7s
and it got worse after he became PM, then the storm blew over.
didn’t help that there was a Hindu celebration that of course he participated in soon after he became PM. I’m not saying it was bad that he did it, I’m saying that it made his standing worse.
Random racists is just background noise these days. I was comparing media coverage and comments from panelists on things like question time. It was certainly an area of comment for Blair and less so for Sunak from my recollection.
Catholics are Christians, but Christians are not necessarily Catholic. For example, Orthodox Christians are not Catholic. Being Catholic requires, at the bare minimum, agreement with the Holy See and implicitly the dogma he endorses. Even this “minor” difference can be used to find non-Catholic Christians.
Precisely, Catholic ⊊ Christian.
The reason why this is the case has to do with the history of Christianity, specifically the various schisms throughout the ages as the Christian faith evolved. That’s an incredibly complicated topic which I’m not qualified to discuss.
Catholics are Christians, but Christians are not necessarily Catholic. For example, Orthodox Christians are not Catholic. Being Catholic requires, at the bare minimum, agreement with the Holy See and implicitly the dogma he endorses. Even this “minor” difference can be used to find non-Catholic Christians.
I know that, but if you ask me, it’s like saying Sunni and Muslim, one kinda emphasizes, if not “otherizes” (orientalize or occidentalize) the other… usually in a not good way…
One kinda emphasizes, if not “otherizes” the other… usually in a not good way…
Yeah. People have been killed over being Catholic in a non-Catholic Christian society and people have also been killed over being a non-Catholic Christian in a Catholic society.
But that doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t differentiate at all between the dogmas of Catholics and the wider practice of Christianity.
(orientalize or occidentalize)
I mean there are lots of non-Catholic Churches with European origins, for example Lutheranism and Anglicanism. So I think it’s a bit more complicated than “otherizing” with respect to that specific dichotomy.
Platypuses and mammals.
Platypuses are mammals, but they’re weird enough that you can’t usefully generalise from them to anything else, to the point that lumping them in together could be actively misleading.
Same deal.
Wait do you randomly drop “and platypuses” when you’re talking about mammals??
Kind Sir, please never drop a platypus. I thank you kindly.
(Insert smirk for my dumb joke)
Please never drop a platypus
for that could make it flat-ypus
Platypuses are mammals, but they’re weird enough that you can’t usefully generalise from them to anything else, to the point that lumping them in together could be actively misleading
I would argue that they’re “lumpable” with other monotremes :)
Platypuses are mammals, but they’re weird enough
We probably wouldn’t consider them nearly as weird if they were more numerous than any other mammal species and lived all over the world. So their comparison to catholicism is weird.
Cocaine and crack are different, technically, but they come from the same shit.
That distinction comes from racism though, which is probably not too different than Catholics and Christians.
The distinction between cocaine and crack does not have anything to do with racism. It has to do with the way the drug is processed and consumed.
The criminal distinction is absolutely about racism as crack users are historically urban minorities while cocaine users are primarily wealthy white people so crack gets 10x harsher penalties when compared to cocaine. If we compare this to other drugs, would you consider weed edibles different from flower? They’re processed differently and consumed differently much in the same way.
Would you feel better if he said “it’s like squares and rectangles, but they’re still both shapes”. Hopefully that’s not racist, too.
Yes, in the context of the 1980s and 1990s when discussing the criminality of cocaine and crack cocaine use, there is a racial component. But it was you who took that leap here in this thread, not the person who made the comparison of two products derived by the same source (hence his point in the first place).
I still argue that it’s not a racial thing. You can find cheap cocaine in urban areas. And you can find expensive rocks in rich neighborhoods.
I don’t make any distinction between edibles and weed. I’ve known rich people who smoke tons of weed and poor people who love to make weed brownies.
I know rich people who have used meth and poor people who used ecstasy.
Where are mushrooms in your book? I know rich artists who swear by it and fast food employees who never go to work without tripping—and I don’t blame them.
The specific drug isn’t about race. The quality could be about income status, but there are plenty of poor white people using shitty drugs cut with law knows what.
Hundreds of years of infighting
Thousands really.
Protestantism hasn’t event existed for a thousand years. Heck, even the Great Schism between Eastern Orthodox and Romans Catholicism churches happened less than a thousand years ago (though that should become no longer true within our lifetimes).
Infighting, as in, within itself.
Sure, but this thread isn’t about infighting among Christians broadly, it’s specifically about the use of “Christian” and “Catholic” in a context where they seemingly mean different things.
To be honest I find most of this thread incredibly frustrating, because so many people are explaining Christian schisms to OP, as though they don’t already know about that. But that’s not what they asked.
I was responding to the thread not the OPs question. May be frustrating for you but that was the context for me.
It’s like progressives and liberals 1000 years from now
If any of this recognizably lasts 1000 years I’ll have a better opinion of it, ancient egypt is still smirking at us
some sort of remnant of evangelical puritan protestant ideology?
Yes. It’s weird.
It’s because Protestantism is the dominant form of Christianity in cultures where this language convention exists, and it is a deliberate tactic to other Catholics by labeling them non-Christian. Especially in previous times, Catholics were subject to large amounts of discrimination and antagonism by Protestants, and we’re still dealing with the remnants of this ideology today. I think the only reason it has subsided is the rise of secularism and other more foreign religions that are seen as a greater threat by Christians, forcing them into an uneasy alliance with their former enemies. But remember that tons of Christians used to murder each other over which sect they belonged to.
Interestingly, in Central America, the opposite convention exists, where you are either “Cristiano”, meaning Catholic, or “Evangelico”, meaning Protestant (usually Pentecostal). This is because the dominant group is reversed in that society.
Personally, I view Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as three branches of one religion since they are clearly very similar. But that is the view of an outsider.
Don’t forget Catholicism spent centuries converting with a sword and their missionairies destroyed all remnants of native cultures history once they were converted. That’s an awful lot of discrimination from Catholics.
Of course. This was written from the perspective of the English-speaking world, so I primarily focused on Protestant discrimination against Catholics, because that was the norm for several centuries. But as I alluded to in the last section, in predominantly Catholic areas, the situation was about the inverse and similar campaigns were waged against Protestants.
I view Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as three branches of one religion since they are clearly very similar. But that is the view of an outsider.
nah, they’re grouped together under the umbrella of “Abrahamic religions”, and at least muslims regard the other two as “people of the book”.
obv your mileage may vary from person to person, I’m not saying the terrorist idiots don’t call people infidel left right and center don’t exist, but people who are a bit better than that generally see christians and jews as peers.
Don’t forget the Baha’i, the Babs, and the Druze. Don’t know if they’re considered people of the book or not. Same with the Samaritan Israelites
I’ll just copy paste Wikipedia since it’s actually pretty good here:
In the Quran [the people of the book] are identified as the Jews, the Christians, the Sabians, and—according to some interpretations—the Zoroastrians. Starting from the 8th century, some Muslims also recognized other religious groups such as the Samaritans, and even Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains
We don’t actually know who the Sabians were, though there are a few theories.
I think only Christians, Jews, and Sabians are al-Khitab if I recall correctly from my course on Islam two decades ago.
If you are curious look up the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther and his 99 Theses.
I’m paraphrasing and my thoughts on what I experienced this but it came down more to the idea that Catholics worship the pope and the saints more than god and jesus. If you were the leader of a nation that called themselves Catholic you could find the Pope telling you what to do when it came to war and if you declared war on another Catholic country the Pope could tell you to stop or to declare peace. To not do so was in danger of having all other Catholic nations declare war.
Not to mention the many saints you are required to pray to, Purgatory and praying for the dead, all of the rituals, services in Latin, worship of the virgin mother, the schism that split the church between two Popes who excommunicated each other, etc.
Protestantism did away with all of that. No single leader, the ability to create different sects that didn’t make you an apostate of the church, etc. Now don’t get me wrong even the same sect don’t always believe the exact same things and it can get pretty nit-picky, but Protestantisn can change with the times more easily than Catholicism can.
The goal was to make less of a ritual cult like Catholicism had become, and more of a focus on the meaning of the the actions of jesus, being able to actually get to heaven without all of the pomp and circumstance that really meant nothing, and all that crap.
The worry is the President would be more loyal to the other Catholics than the rest of the nation and would be bound by cult rules than the will of the people.
Ironically enough right now it’s the Catholic President trying to stop rights from being taken away while there are both Protestants and Catholics in the Supreme Court and other facets of the government that are working so hard to do the opposite.
And yet what a actually happened is that Catholics ended up generally more liberal and Protestants ended up becoming evangelicals and causing a lot of the problems currently faced in, for example, the US.
Edit’ Catholicism continues to try to bleed any kind of support by protecting pedophiles in case you feel like I am being too lenient toward Catholicism.
Possibly generally more liberal but my personal anecdote as a raised Catholic- now non Christian , is that Catholics are only marginally less crazy than evangelicals. All Catholics I know are super conservative.
Edit: I know Biden identifies as Catholic and I’m not claiming my personal experience is comprehensive. Biden is the only Pro-Choice Catholic I’ve ever known of. Most people I know don’t even consider Biden a true Catholic because of his stances.
Pelosi is also a pro choice Catholic.
Ended up? Shit, Protestants started out way more strict. You’d have to worry about being beaten to death if you had any images of Mary or Jesus during the Great Iconoclasm. Most of the Protestants sects back then did not think Catholicism was strict enough.
that has more to do with evangelicals and events some catholics got conned by corporate interests in the early 30s in response to what FDR was doing with the new deal and the sweeping socialist thinking going around in churches at that time. read up on James W. Fifield Jr and NAM ( National Association of Manufacturers) you will see the destruction of US churches and the rise of the mega church and the 700 club.
Evangelicals are an almost entirely US phenomenon. In the rest of the world, Protestant countries like Germany and the UK are more liberal than Catholic countries like Ireland and Italy. For example, Italy “legalised” abortion in 1978 but the vast majority of gynaecologists refuse to perform them on religious grounds. Ireland didn’t legalise until… 2019!
Lol at UK being more liberal than Ireland! Yes in terms of their abortion laws they were very behind until recently, but in every other way I can think of Ireland has been way more progressive. UK politics meanwhile (driven by middle England Sun readers) busy trying to brexit ourselves back to the spirit of the blitz or something. Can’t wait to get my blue passport, God save the king!
Evangelicals tend to not like mainline Protestants for being too liberal, the mainline Protestants are a lot less noisy and also traditionally better connected. Mainline Protestant conservatives have had no problem courting evangelicals historically though, which is one reason they’re in the situation they are now. Mainline Protestant conservative gives you a traditional stuffy republican politician, evangelical gives you MTG.
Probably because depending on the context “Christians” is likely referring to “Protestants.” There are some very significant differences between Catholic and Protestant Christianity, moreso than between Protestant denominations, whose differences tend to be a bit more trivial. Other comments make some good points, but it is not too far of a stretch to say that Catholicism may be different enough to be considered a separate religion (I don’t know who gets to draw these lines). But in the most technical sense, yes, Catholics are a subset of Christians.
Catholicism may be different enough to be considered a separate religion
I believe what you mean to say is that Protestant sects would be considered a separate religion, as Catholicism far predates other sects.
All Catholics are Christians, but not all Christians are Catholics. They are a subset by definition.
What I think they meant was that categorizing Catholicism as a seperate religion from Protestantism while Prostestantism claims Christianity makes no sense considering that Catholicism has an older claim to being Christian.
So, if anyone shouldn’t be able to claim “Christianity” because of being a new, differentiated religion then it should be Protestants. Using that logic it should be “Christians and Protestants”.
But I agree, they are all in fact Christians.
Every US president has been Christian but only one has been Catholic. It is considered as a clear distinction in the US imo
JFK and Biden makes 2
Two now
Because the Anglosphere was so xenophobic that even the Irish and Italians were too culturally exotic to them and thus concocted a justification to “other” their practices.
