It’s not just him. I’ve heard this argument many times from the Baptists and Methodists where I live who seem very critical of this denomination. They often refer to Catholics as a cult of pagans. Pagans because they worship Saints and the Mother Mary. The main reason being that they don’t soley worship “god”. Aside from that, I don’t view Catholics any different than Christians. They’re all the same to me. This is just the usual case of the pot calling the kettle black.
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I guess that’s about the same thing as the animosity between sunni and shia muslims.
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Exactly. I’ve said it many times in these debates. The Christians are unable to decide what their religion is or what it should be. They have all of these denominations pointing fingers at each other. I feel like the Baptists and the Catholics are the worst ones.
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Given they are the largest denomination of a religion that has 45k different sects and denominations globally, that split from Judaism, it is beyond ironic for anyone of those sects to make such a claim, and even more so if they have no objective evidence any deity exists.
It’s equally nonsensical, and based on subjective interpretations of archaic superstitions that at their core rely on unfalsifiable and unevidenced claims for magic.
What’s ironic is when they seek out an atheist debate forum, and reel off claims, then refuse to even attempt to explain or evidence those claims, but then get all precious when others question them, or ask for evidence to support those claims.
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I might be naive or ignorant about this but I always figured that all it took to be a xtian is to worship the Jesus character as god.
Christian
adjective
- relating to or professing Christianity or its teachings.
noun - a person who has received Christian baptism or is a believer in Christianity.
I’d need a very compelling argument to disagree with that. Remind me, what did @Unique offer to support his claim that “catholics are not Christians”?
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He’s given absolutely nothing to back this claim. It’s one of those things Christians do when they don’t like something. They do that by spreading misinformation about it.
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I agree that @Unique has not backed up her/his claims. They need to fish or cut bait pretty soon. My patience is running low.
Some Xtians do it, yes. But they sure don’t corner the market one it. Certain politicians come to mind as well. 
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It’s like arguing: “Who is the better Starship Captian, Kirk or Picard?” Or we could go with: “Who is more giving, the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus?” I know, I know, “Who is faster, The Flash, or Superman?” So many good analogies.
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There are Adoptionists who consider Jesus the perfect man adopted by god but not divine, those who think he is semi divine and those who think he is fully divine but separate to YHWH.
Most non Trinitarian sects, fall into these categories, then you have the JWs… Then there are the Messianic Christian, and Messianic Jewish cults. There are plenty more and they all stem from those ones I outlined in my little series about the 1st century sects and cults.
To be a christian you only have to acknowledge that the Joshua/Yeshua/Jesus figure existed and accept any number of the choices of ritual that surround your Jesus of preference.
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Actually, I think it’s more like “What’s better, surströmming or hákarl?”
Tasting surströmming (fermented baltic herring):
Hákarl (fermented greenland shark):
I have tasted neither, but the surströmming depicted in the video above is really that vile, but the vileness is especially enhanced because they open the tin wrongly. It’s supposed to be opened submerged in a bucket of water (really!). Hákarl is also described as something that makes first-timers gag unvoluntarily.
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Here in Korea we have Hongeo Sounds like ‘hung-oh.’
Exactly so, though subjectively Christians will always denounce the other sects and denominations, and I have no problem with that, only with @Unique making a bare assertion and presenting it as if it were an objective fact, when it demonstrably is just a subjective opinion, and one he has refused to offer a single word of explanation on when asked.
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Of course, the resulting hilarious and rampant anti-consilience we see routinely from mythology fanboys across the planet, is a direct consequence of their treating uncritically as fact, the assorted and frequently mutually contradictory assertions of pre-scientific mythologies.
It’s an epistemological pathology that’s never going to be cured, until said mythologies are treated as the mythologies they actually are, instead of being given wholly unwarrantable reverence as purported sources of ineffable “wisdom”.
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Not once has a visiting theist failed to take umbrage with the words myth, and superstition, but then also failed to explain their objection when those words are duly defined.
Myth
noun
A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
Superstition
noun
- excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural.
- a widely held but irrational belief in supernatural influences, especially as leading to good or bad luck, or a practice based on such a belief.
So I get they might object to the overly credulous part in superstition, but since they unerringly fail to offer any objective evidence for a deity, and what they offer could be found in any of the innumerable religions imagining innumerable deities that litter the globe and human history, then even that seems apropos.
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Are you sure? I doubt that you can show any evidence that there is a god or that he, she or it inspired anything. Compiled by the Holy Spirit". So a ghost took all the “inspired” writings bundled them together in some kind of order and then published them. Thanks for correcting that misunderstanding, and stating only the facts which I’m sure everyone is anticipating with joy in their hearts for even an iota of verifiable evidence. Which we all know will not come because after all you have explained you’re not here to debate but to learn.
As an aside @Unique I’m sure that you meant penned rather than pinned but the picture that popped into my mind was a Monty Python type skit featuring men dressed in robes, playing pin the tail on the donkey. Lacking a donkey they had to draw straws, short straw is the donkey. Although I have no evidence to prove this actually happened I am sure it happened. My faith is strong. On that day Jesus drew the short straw.
Do not wait for apologies because they do not come very often, just focus on maintaining faith. Bad moments desire confrontation. Bad people need to be confronted. Let God deal with those who cause you distress.
Religious faith is defined as strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof, so it is useless in testing claims, and since I have no religion and don’t believe any deity exists, I have no use for religious faith at all.
What? How can a moment have desire, desires require sentience?
Well bad is a subjective term of course, but I would challenge actions, and the beliefs that provoke them, if I consider the to be bad, for example the biblical narratives that endorse slavery, ethnic cleansing and sex trafficking prisoners, that desire believers to kill people if they think they are witches, or the endless misogynistic platitudes, some of which you have espoused here.
You might as well be asking me to wait for Superman to intervene. I don’t think you have a good grasp of what atheism means.
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I don’t think you ever came here to debate. You came here to preach about your religion. You obviously mistake us Atheists for Christians. We are not. Far from it. How would you like it if a Muslim or a Hindu preached at you about a religion you didn’t like, believe in, or care about?
Oh look, it’s blind assertions and sanctimonious panhandling time again …
Actually, here in the UK, it’s a matter of comedy how often people will say “sorry” even when there is no need. But you don’t get out much, do you?
“Faith” is worthless and a waste of time, as you keep demonstrating every time you post here. “Faith” is nothing more than uncritical acceptance of unsupported assertions, which again you and every other mythology fanboy here demonstrates with your assorted collapsed intellectual soufflés masquerading badly as erudition.
When those “bad moments” involve natural disasters, they don’t require “confrontation” in the belligerent sense of the word (did your homeschooling never teach you how English attaches multiple meanings to words?), but action aimed at assisting the victims.
As for bad people, so long as they don’t act in a malign manner to others, they can usually be treated with indifference, as many of them tend to be opportunists that are controllable by suitable preventive measures. The truly toxic ones for which this approach fails, do of course require robust countermeasures, but it’s interesting how the possibility of education or rehabilitation is alien to the very people who loudly proclaim their adherence to the teachings of someone who advocated this approach.
Since neither you, nor any other mythology fanboy, has ever provided an atom of evidence for your cartoon magic man, we’ll dispense therewith and seek courses of action that work.