Is this website okay?

[MrsFrozen]

Has anyone ever seen this website? [url="http://www.religioustolerance.org/"]http://www.religioustolerance.org/[/url] Is it accurate, specifically about Catholicism?

For instance, comparing Catholicism with Protestantism, "Catholics say salvation is earned via sacraments; Many Protestants: by a single act of trusting Jesus as Lord & Savior."

Is that accurate?

[Brother Adam]

That phrase is somewhat accurate, but could be written better.

[Theoketos]

I would say that it exacerbates, unecessarily, the differences, and thus is in accurate.

[Brother Adam]

I looked more at the site. I would not use it as a trustworthy site. They seem to try to get their facts right, but do a poor job in some places and show a bias against the Church in such topics as "Mass crimes of the Church" and list the Nazi Holocust.

[frozencell]

It seems to be worthy of a serious attempt at objectivity. I did notice a few things thats eem to be a little biased. One was how they referred to the duetorocanonical books as the Apocrypha. But, all in all, to an educated person, there is some real worth here to be researched.

[cmotherofpirl]

It is written by protestants who do not understand catholic teachings. They are not amenable to correction, so take what you read with a grain of salt.

[Cure of Ars]

I don't like the site and I think they are unfair in many respects. For example on there position on

[url="http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_hist_c.htm"]CURRENT ROMAN CATHOLIC BELIEFS ON ABORTION[/url]

has a lot of half truths. For example it says;

[quote]The Apostolic Constitutions (circa 380 CE) allowed abortion if it was done early enough in pregnancy. But it condemned abortion if the fetus was of human shape and contained a soul: "Thou shalt not slay the child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. For everything that is shaped, and his received a soul from God, if slain, it shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." (7:3)[/quote]

They are reading into the text. No where does it say that abortion is ok. It says that it is murder if human life is "shaped" and "received a soul". This does not mean that early abortions are not a grave sin. It does not say that abortion is ok. They are projecting something onto the text that is not there.

[quote]St. Augustine (354-430 CE) returned to the Aristotelian Greek Pagan concept of "delayed ensoulment". He wrote that a human soul cannot live in an unformed body. 1 Thus, early in pregnancy, an abortion is not murder because no soul is destroyed (or, more accurately, only a vegetable or animal soul is terminated).[/quote]

This is a half truth because it makes it sound like St. Augustine was pro abortion. But if you look at what he says Augustin believed that abortion was a grave sin. Here are some examples;


[quote]
Sometimes, indeed, this lustful cruelty, or if you please, cruel lust, resorts to such extravagant methods as to use poisonous drugs to secure barrenness; or else, if unsuccessful in this, to destroy the conceived seed by some means previous to birth, preferring that its offspring should rather perish than receive vitality; or if it was advancing to life within the womb, should be slain before it was born.

-De Nube et Concupiscentia 1.17 (15)



On the undeveloped fetus:

Hence in the first place arises a question about abortive conceptions, which have indeed been born in the mother's womb, but not so born that they could be born again. For if we shall decide that these are to rise again, we cannot object to any conclusion that may be drawn in regard to those which are fully formed. Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified? But who will dare to deny, though he may not dare to affirm, that at the resurrection every defect in the form shall be supplied, and that thus the perfection which time would have brought shall not be wanting, any more than the blemishes which time did bring shall be present: so that the nature shall neither want anything suitable and in harmony with it that length of days would have added, nor be debased by the presence of anything of an opposite kind that length of days has added; but that what is not yet complete shall be completed, just as what has been injured shall be renewed.

-Enchiridion 23.85.4



On therapeutic abortion:

And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man's power to resolve it: At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead.

-Enchiridion 23.86



Therefore brothers, you see how perverse they are and hastening wickedness, who are immature, they seek abortion of the conception before the birth; they are those who tell us, "I do not see that which you say must be believed."

- Sermon 126, line 12[/quote]


[quote]The Roman Catholic church has occasionally "held funeral and burial services" for aborted fetuses. 3 However, this has not been the general rule. Embryos and pre-viable fetus have not usually been considered full persons to the extent of being worthy of a formal requiem mass or a formal burial service.[/quote]

This one makes me angry. It would be imposible for the Church to hold a funeral for ever aborted fetus. There are around 1,000 abortions commited every day in the Untied States alone. The Church has a mass for aborted fetus as a whole and when we have Mass for all souls day. This charge is not fair.


I could go on but if you want to read more this is from the reference section;

[b]Abortion[/b]
--[url="http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/earlychurchfathers/fatherscover.html"]Early Church Fathers: Excerpts Pertaining to Abortion[/url]
--[url="http://www.catholic.com/library/Abortion.asp"]Abortion[/url]
--[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/ABORTN.TXT"]Church Fathers and Abortion[/url]
--[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLENC/ENCYC043.HTM"]Historical Opposition of the Catholic Church to Abortion[/url]
--[url="http://www.armyofgod.com/ChurchFathers.html"]Church Fathers on Abortion[/url]
--[url="http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mis/mis_02christiantradition1.html#b44"]A Theologians' Brief On the place of the human embryo within tradition [/url]
--[url="http://www.chattablogs.com/hagioipateres/archives/009707.html"]The Church Fathers and Ancient Councils on Abortion[/url]
--[url="http://www.solt3.org/pipermail/catholicnews/2004-April/000266.html"]St. Thomas Aquinas and Abortion[/url]
--[url="http://members.aol.com/abtrbng/canonl.htm"]Canon Law (dealing with Abortion)[/url]
--[url="http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisteriumencyc.htm"]Papal Encyclicals on Abortion[/url]
--[url="http://www.abortionfacts.com/history/history.asp"]The History of Abortion[/url]

Edited October 10, 2004 by Cure of Ars

[MrsFrozen]

Thanks for your replies. I'm trying to find a good site that gives basic true information about many different religions. I see the discrepancies on the Church. I probably shouldn't use this website if they can't even get the info on the largest Christian Church in the world right. Can anyone recommend another one?

[MrsFrozen]

Cure of Ars, I agree. That is upsetting.

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='MrsFrozen' date='Oct 9 2004, 05:19 PM'] For instance, comparing Catholicism with Protestantism, "Catholics say salvation is earned via sacraments; Many Protestants: by a single act of trusting Jesus as Lord & Savior."

Is that accurate? [/quote]
A ha!

you guys just agreed to this statement. Thus, you believe in salvation by works.

[Brother Adam]

You're a riot ICTHUS.

Aha! Protestants believe in salvation by the action of their own doing - accepting or trusting in Jesus! They believe in works salvation!

As one famous news anchor says: "Give me a break".

Then again you would have to actually study the Old Testament to begin to understand the Christians relationship with the Jewish people and what a covenant is.

[Theoketos]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Oct 10 2004, 10:23 AM'] A ha!

you guys just agreed to this statement. Thus, you believe in salvation by works. [/quote]
The orginal statement is an over simplification of what we really believe. Each Sacrament requires and act of Faith, in which we are called to give our life to our personal savior. This is usually part of the matter of each of the Sacrament, including and most pertinently Bapstism, by which we are made righteous by faith.

The works would mean nothing with out faith, duh

Oh, and Faith would be dead with out these works, according to what your hero called the Gospel of Straw.... -_-

We are saved by Fatih!



A ha! haha aha ha ha aha

Amen brother.