These are individuals who think that the Bible is ridiculous which could be Catholics since they officially take church traditions to be a higher authority than the Holy Scriptures.
Protestants officially take only the Scripture teachings as their authority.
Edit:
According to history, Roman Catholicism is not first century. The Christians of the first century would never have been part of baptized paganism. The Catholic Church did not start until Emperor Justinian placed the Roman Empire under a church/state system in the 6Th century. The real Christians went into hi dding for hundreds of years because this Roman Catholic Empire forbid anyone from reading the Bible except for the corrupted clergy.
"Roman Catholic=1st century, no denominations"
err.... Pauline and Judaic to name but two.
and remember why the protestants split off from the RC's..... all the evil ideas that the popes did in the name of 'god'... Papal sale of indulgences for example
Of course you know, don't you, Ryan, that lots of groups claim to be based on the original believers.
Here's a slightly different question to ask yourself: Find this verse: And Jesus saith unto them: create a complicated bureaucracy of religious professionals, and gather from the poor to provide their living that they may not get their hands dirty, nay that they may not even get them hardened, and build ye giant cathedrals with the sustenance of the poor, even unto slavery and wage slavery, Yea, and have ye a group of grown men who go around playing dress up and wear funny hats, and keep thee thine proceedings secret by writing things up in a dead language. Verily, should st thou harbor any child molester in thy midst, cast him not out, but merely mo vest thou him around, that he ma yest find new victims, and stonewall then when thy judgment day comet, lest ye lose thy life of ease.
I've even searched Bible Gateway, and I can't find it.
Catholics broke from the original church when they started doing things that are not condoned in the New Testament. Place the Catholic church alongside of the New Testament and you will find that there is no authority for priests, nuns, celibacy, holy water, infant baptism, rosaries, candles, icons, Purgatory and such.
It is a shame that so many like you are deceived by the lies and false teachings of the catholic church.
You are obviously indoctrinated by them. It is in your tone. The plain fact is that the failure of the roman catholic church to rightly divide the word of God, thus teaching plainly false doctrine that any person could recognize with even mild study of the Bible, is what caused people to walk away from the roman church and its teachings. The word Protestant means anyone that has protested against the false teachings of the roman church.
You claim that there are 38,000 denominations. I wonder if you could even list a hundred, let alone a thousand. I love it when foolish people hear something, and spread it around like it is truth, when the truth is that they have never studied it for themselves. I believe that this describes you.
It is the failure of ALL churches to rightly divide the word of God that has wrongly divided the Body of Christ. This includes your church, especially, for it is the original teacher of false doctrine. Actually, of ALL churches combined, less than 1% rightly divide the word of truth, leaving 99% off in left field somewhere....... some more than others.
ANY church that is not teaching Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery (Rom. 16:25) is not teaching the right message. If you believe that a person that studies the word of God, rightly divided, and preaches Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery is ridiculous, then you are in a sad state of being deceived.
The catholic church is a whore. It worships money. The Vatican is the wealthiest and most evil entity on the face of the earth. How do you not know this? You must be truly foolish.
EDIT: A word to Kevin S: You are a coward of the worst kind. You send a hate e-mail, and then block your account, so that no answer can be given. What a childish, self important little twerp you are.......
I agree that it is ridiculous that the Church is so split, but I wouldn't blame it on all Protestants. I'm a protestant myself, frustrated at the separation.
It's a pretty bad generalization.
Can I ask all those protestants on here who keep defending Protestantism ...
Which of the 38.000 Protestant cults, sects and denominations is the correct one?
If they all agreed with each other they would unite and there would only be one protestant denomination. So obviously they all disagree with each other on many important issues. This means either they are all wrong, or only one is right. If you think it is the latter, please tell us which one you think is right?
The only times the Bible speaks of Protestantism is when it is condemned and those that follow those doctrines of men.
John 17:21 (King James Version)
21That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 (King James Version)
3For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Matthew 15:7-9 (King James Version)
7Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
8This people drawer nigh unto me with their mouth, and honorerThe with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
9But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
1.) I would not refer to protestantism as ridiculous, only because I thing it is unnecessarily offensive to do so. I think your point, however, is entirely and obviously correct.
2.) REGARDING THE "ANSWER" FROM
the member called "THE BELOVED APOSTLE PAUL" :
What at first glance appeared to be a potentially substantial and important answer from the liar and fraud who calls himself or herself "The Beloved Apostle Paul" shows us all what protestantism really is at its heart.
That answer, with it's oily and condescending accusations against the ask er, and then the just plain vitriolic and nasty edit to another member, was nothing more than a hate-filled load of deceptive rubbish. The "answer", partly by taking an entirely private dispute into the public domain and then insulting and humiliating another human being for nothing but the personal pleasure of doing so, was utterly contrary to Christianity.
The "answer" from the fraud calling himself or herself "The Beloved Apostle Paul" did as so many protestants so typically tend to do. It took potshots at Catholics, and appeared to show how right protestants are, by insulting Catholics and saying "We're not like them." It showed any interested person just how insincere and self-serving people are when they endeavor to hate the overwhelming majority of Christians, namely Catholics.
The implied demand that 100 protestant denominations be listed, or else the claim that there are 38,000 such denominations must be false, was typical legalistic protestant rebellion at its clearest. If I thought the demand was even vaguely sincere, I am confident that I could name single American counties in which there are 100 discrete, disconnected, disparate essentially defiant protestant churches. The number, of course, does not matter much. Twenty would be as clear as 100, which would be as clear as 38, 000 or a million.
The "answer" from the person self-labeled "The Beloved Apostle Paul" was, I think, very telling in it's revelation of the heart of much of protestantism. That heart is not one true savior, Jesus Christ, but is many hearts brimming with pride and fury. Much Protestantism is built on the hatred of Catholics, which hatred burns boldly in the hearts of many protestants.
Where, pray tell, are the spirit-filled but gentle devout Christian protestants like the Reverend Billy Graham and his son, Franklin? The Grahams are mistaken about wanting to stay separate from The Catholic Church, but they do not attack and mock us, at least not in anything I ever have heard or read. Where are their followers in this forum?
Maybe this forum attracts an inordinate number of protestants who hate Catholics, but I must say that in traveling long distances by highways sometimes, I hear the same sort of nasty and deceptive preaching on the radio. It makes sense to me, since protestants are in fact defined by their separating from the overwhelming majority of Christians. They are separatists at heart, it seems. It only makes sense that there would be a hundred or a thousand or many thousands of denominations of protestantism.
Even among undeniably peaceful and beautiful protestants like the Anabaptists, The Mennonites, The Amish and other self-labeled "plain" lifestyle Christians, there is a lot of separatism and disunity. It tends not to come with vicious nastiness and abuse as is seen in many other protestant sects, but it still is separatist. I think protestantism is fundamentally wrong in its obvious tendency to divide and separate Christians.
I have personal reasons for not wanting to call protestantism ridiculous, but if I had to argue why or how it is not ridiculous, I don't think I would be able to make much of an argument. That which divides Christians is poor Christianity at best, and is in my opinion destructive to Christianity. I don't suppose that is so much ridiculous as much as it is genuinely tragic.
As much as I would like to join you in Protestant bashing (and I have done more than my share), I was listening to a c-d by Fr. Larry Richards that's kinda made me back off just a tad. Fr. Larry quotes St Thomas Aquinas as saying that, given the choice between good and evil, man will always choose the good...even if it is only evil in the guise of good.
The father of protestantism is not Martin Luther. The father of protestantism is Satan. But the father of all lies made this one appear good. Protestantism is ridiculous. Let us pray for protestants.
Who thinks Protestantism is ridiculous?
