Have you noticed how many people seem to make a religion out of castigating catholicism?
106105
Early leaders of the church tried to make everyone feel welcome, even pagans. In doing this they incorporated many pagan practices into the church by mixing them with Christianity. Because of this, A lot of Catholic ritual has obvious pagan aspects. This by itself makes Catholicism open to criticism by those who think theirs is the ONLY religion. And then of course the pedophile priests don't help things either. When I was growing up in a Catholic part of New Orleans, every kid knew of some other kid that had been molested by his priest. My friend got all of his buddies fraudulent baptismal certificates from the priest that was molesting him. We used the certificates to get ID with drinking ages on them. One guy even used his to join the military at 14. With stuff like this going on for decades, the religion is very open to criticism.
406571
i ve been asking this for so long. thank god i am not alone. i am so sick of this anti-catholic bs that has no validity whatsoever.\n\nyou would expect this kind of garbage from the secular world, but i have no idea what these protestants are thinking sometimes.\n\nhere's an idea protestants...why don't you actually learn about the catholic church first. as opposed to just blurting out a bunch of nonsense like we worship mary, and the pope ,etc.  give me a break already. still goin with those arguments?? don't even waste my time then.
972878
Yes, Midge. there is and we have to stop it. Especially us Catholics. We can't just change the whole doctrine of the church just for "Tolerance" and "Appeasement" . We need to keep our church whole and traditional. The Catholic church has been pretty black and white in the past, now some of it is becoming gray. I hardly hear much in my church anymore about pro-life issues. Only the small groups do anything about it, but it is no longer preached. What's happening here? Can't be a liberal Catholic!\nGod Bless and Merry Christmas to you!
194071
Catholics do a lot of things not in the bible.  They live by their own little set of rules and ideas they consider "truths".  Most cannot give a reason for their actions/beliefs, etc beyond "because that's what the catholic church says" and they just blindly follow it.
897047
Possibly but mostly by people of other religions.
1092019
What you've written is what organized "theocracies" have perpetrated since the dawn of recorded history. While the Catholic Pontiffs of yesteryear have acted particularly egregiously, they are not the only examples of how "Cows, Pigs, Wars, & Witches" (- the title of an anti-religious anthology of anthropolgical, cross-cultural studies, written in the 1970's) have come to be enlisted to create fear in the masses and exact control over protracted periods of time. Look at what the "Religious Right" want to do in this country. I suggest you read a book by Kevin Phillips entitled "American Theocracy." In there you can derive the sense that even a country such as ours is vulnerable to these age-old tactics... for example, think on just how effective the "culture of fear" trumped up by the present administration has been in creating an effecient "smokescreen" or deversionary force to escape the public's otherwise probing eyes.
181495
There are alot of confused people in this world. Catholicism IS a Christian denomination, just as Protestant, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, etc. are.
419024
I think the reason is that people are trying to show how smart they are about religion and they are also trying to convert other people any way they can.
862169
Yes I do. The majority of these people do not understand the office of the Pope and I sadly think they do not want to understand. They think nothing about God appointing Moses and Joshua and so on down the line but anything Catholic they automatically reject to their peril.
1086506
Shinto/Buddhism dually observed makes up the majority. A handful of Christians here and there, too.
204922
Yes.\n\nI'm a Godmother to one of my nieces and also to a friend's daughter and both of those Godfathers were not Catholic.  This was 37 and and 30 years ago!\n\n(By the way, I'm no longer Catholic!)
739146
about 6.5 Billion... I don't know the actual percentages but over half follow Islam... the next largest would be Catholicism followed closely by Christianity.
604304
most people do believe in the theory of dan brown\nalso, it seems most catholics too believe in it. otherwise there would have been no such heated debates over the topic. so i advise you to FACE THE TRUTH
264125
People reject God and make up their own religion.
563929
I am a Roman Catholic and what makes me feel that my religion is a True one is that we Christians belong to a REVEALED RELIGION. i.e. God becomes Man, Dies for the whole human race, reconciles us back to our Father in Heaven and then Glorifies his name by rising from the dead.
403903
Yes if any indian did not want to convert into catholicism they were killed, tortured and so on.  \nthat is the reason why so many people today are catholics because they were brainwashed into converting and so on!
1176038
The Catholic religion was started in around 320 AD.  Christianity was a struggling religion at that time.  King Constantine was a believer in pagan dieties.  During one of his war campaigns he supposedly saw a cross in the sky and decided to change the religion of state to Christianity.  He started what we know as the Catholic Church.  But, many of his pagan ideas and festivals were incorporated into this new religion.  The Catholic religion became very powerful and is still so today.  Actually ruling the kingdoms more than the kings themselves.  The authority is self proclaimed and does not come from God.  They do not follow the bible if it contradicts their beliefs.  Their beliefs have changed a lot during their long reign.  The first Popes were allowed to marry and so were their priests.  Some Popes fathered sons that later became Popes.  Many of todays main stream religions are offshoots of the Catholic religion and carry with them the pagan teachings. Many people in England were frustrated by the Catholic churches teachings and that is a main reason many came to America to live.  But, their new religions still followed some of the Catholic teachings.  The World Council of Churches of today dictate what their members (of which most religions belong to, except for the Catholic religion but they weild great influence over this Council) what these main teachings are, Trinity, Hell Fire, Immortal Soul etc.