Catholics vs Protestants--Civil War in the US?

[Finder]

May sound far fetched but listening and watching the media is like reading history of what has led to civil wars in the past.

Although a lot of the right wing pundits claim to be Catholic, they always stress "American Catholic" and not traditional Roman Catholic.(Hannity, O'Reilly, etc..)

Anyone who is familiar with the religious right wing realizes that many do not see Catholics as real christians.

Demonizing of priests has been successful the last decade. The average non-catholic accepts that they are more likely to be gay or pedophiles than other clergy.

The protests we have seen the past few weeks include MILLIONS--mostly catholics. They are extremely organized. After many right wing pundits used the fact that many waved Mexican flags to demonize the protesters, this week we see US flags held by millions. Again, very organized.

Many racist groups are organizing counter protests and trying to incite violence. Because of the organized nature and media coverage, they have failed. They won't give up though...

If these racist and christian identity groups get support from enough protestant churches it could get really messy.

[Warpy]

1. There have been riots every time some fundy wack job

has succeeded in getting babble classes or even the ten commandments pushed into schools. Believers can't agree on which babble or which commandment version belongs and they generally come to blows over it. The biggest one was in Philadelphia in (I think) 1854, one that turned into an Irish vs. Yankee Protestant riot that lasted for days. That one was started when the Protestants issued a law stating the KJV ten commandments be posted in all schools. They didn't even have JWs and Mormons to contend with!

These smug assholes even start fighting each other when it comes to doctrinal minutiae, so we're unlikely to see a war against Catholics. It's more likely to be a donnybrook involving all the believers who claim to have all the answers but few of the questions.

[spag68]

2. Right wing

counter protests are just the latest version of their divide and conquer tactics. This is nothing new for the elite class in this country. One day it's the corrupt unions, the next it's gays, and on and on. We have to find some way to get the legitimate messages out in a pragmatic and honest open way or we will fail again. Of course it helps that Mr. Bush is helping us by tearing at his own party.

[bryant69]

3. I don't know - a few other points

I don't know why they would single out Catholics when there are so many other religions and atheists they could slam into as well. I guess i could see how Catholics might be the biggest group and thus the biggest target.

I suspect you nailed it when you talked about "American" catholics - they will single out those faiths that do not hold up to what they see as the necessities for a good religion, i. e. political conservatism.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DBoon]

5. Why Catholics? Maybe illegal immigration

would have something to do with it.

[bryant69]

9. Possible - but the Catholic church would have to stick their

heads out pretty far for the focus to shift. In other words those who are motivated by bigotry are probably more motivated by racial bigotry than religious bigotry, and it would take a lot for them to change their focus, in my opinion.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Finder]

14. That is my point regarding how the protests are being reported...

as being organized by the Catholic church.

[Bridget Burke]

21. Who is reporting that the Protests are being organized....

By the Catholic Church? I'm sure the Church is playing a role. The plan being protested promised to make everyone who helps "illegals" criminals.

But I doubt the Church is doing it all.

[SmokingJacket]

4. What's the difference between a Roman Catholic and an

"American" Catholic? It's all the same church, is it not, with the same pope?

I don't think the majority of non-Catholic Americans even have an opinion about Catholics, and I don't see that a lot of hate could easily be worked up against them. But hey, stranger things have happened...

[DBoon]

7. Roman Catholics get their doctrine from the Pope

"American" catholics get it from Karl Rove's fax machine

[Scurrilous]

55. LOL

Good one. :thumbsup:

[etherealtruth]

62. Ha ha ha ...

...but wait, what about demographics (silly facts)? 1/2 the Roman Catholics in the US are democrats ... http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=95, maybe we should just ask them to vote republican :sarcasm:

[spag68]

10. hate

Please take note that a majority of the hate and hate crimes are committed by the CONSERVATIVES for crying out loud. The commies and socialists are long gone, so all the rethugs should stop crying about the hate when they are spewing it.

[Ignacio Upton]

6. I don't think that there is an "anti-Catholic" movement growing

However, the fundies, who are Evangelical Protestants, do not like the Catholics for the reasons as mentioned. HOWEVER, since a larger number of rank and file social conservatives in this country are Catholics, they see the need to work with them towards common ground. After abortion, birth control, GLBT relationships, and any promiscuous form of clothing are outlawed, then they will focus on each other. Mind you, in majority Catholic countries, Protestants minorities have been persecuted in the past (Spain, France, Italy come to mind), so it's a reciprocal persection, unlike, say, the Jews always being persecuted since they have been an ethnic and religious minority ever since their diaspora.

[Finder]

11. Most Catholics are social liberals...

and vote Democratic.

[Ignacio Upton]

53. Actually a slight majority of self-identifiying Catholics voted for Bush

For they only did so narrowly. American Catholics no longer vote in a cohesive block, as opposed to the era of the New Deal Coaltion through JFK's election.

[maveric]

8. Catholicism is the first church of Christianity.

Excluding Catholics from christianity is just dumb!

[Finder]

12. First official Christian Church of Rome. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

15. Don't think you're quite correct.

I think you'll find that Armenian and Greek Orthodox are both older. So Rome wasn't first - just became a centre.

[Finder]

17. I was referring to official church in Rome.

I think there are many older sects..Coptic, Syrian, Gnostic.

[Ignacio Upton]

60. Christianity had many denominations in the early days

It even had different Biblical timelines. However, the current timeline of the Bible that we know today was established with the Nicene Creed. There were various regional Christian outposts based on where the disciples settled. Peter settled in Rome, while others settled in Jerusalem, Antioch, Damascus, Constantinople, Alexandria, etc. Since "all roads led to Rome," the Roman branch inevitably became the most important and powerful Christian outpost. BTW, all non-Protestant denominations call themselves "Catholic." Eastern Orthodox is the same as "Eastern Rite Catholics."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed

[dipsydoodle]

13. History has generally shown catholics

to be two faced. This is as good an example as any : http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/yugoslavia_catholic_church.htm

Back in 2000 the then pope apologised for the sins of the catholic church for the past 2000 years - load of propaganda really. Hardly compensated for the millions of lives lost due to them.

I went to Church of St Peter in Rome while on holiday back in 1991. Most of the tourists didn't bother to check out the part with the gold roof. They all considered it to be in bad taste - paid for in blood.

I didn't use lower case by mistake - I used it to convey the contempt they deserve.

[Finder]

16. The contempt who deserves?

[dipsydoodle]

25. Wherever

lower case was used instead of generally accepted use of upper case.

[Left Is Write]

35. When you spell catholic with a lower case C, it has a different meaning

than Catholic with a capital C (as in, Roman Catholic).

If you want people to know that you are speaking specifically of Roman Catholicism, you should capitalize, whether you feel contemptuous or not.

[dipsydoodle]

39. Fair comment

Nothing I wrote was intended to taken personally by any of you. It was their historic "we are right and you will agree/conform" attutude that bears some resemblence to you current government.

[Left Is Write]

41. I'm not Roman Catholic...

so I didn't take it personally. Just wanted to point out the differences.

[Bridget Burke]

28. Not all the knee-jerk anti-Catholics....

Are inbred snake-handlers.

[dipsydoodle]

30. On a one to one basis

I'm not anti-Catholic, Jew, whatever, black , whatever, gay ,whatever. No cause whatsoever to be so.

What I said about the church was historically accurate. I'm also only too well aware of what the protestants did in Ireland over a period of 400 years or so which is equally unforgivable.

[Bridget Burke]

32. OK. Just be sure to avoid the great pre-Columbian monuments...

In Mesoamerica. Blood flowed there, as well.

[Bridget Burke]

19. Well, there are lots of big, fancy buildings in DC.

Including the Museums. Let's tear them all down & spend the money on your favorite causes.

In fact, let's break up ALL the museums & destroy any building that can't be distinguished from the regional HQ of a medium-sized insurance company.

Interesting conspiracy site. Blame the Catholic Church & The Zionists for everything! Far too much Celtic Twilight, too.

[dipsydoodle]

27. I don't actually see the link

Incas and Mayans and museums other than the fact that museums house the artefacts which are all that remain of those empires.

[Bridget Burke]

29. The Mayans & Incas were not gentle pacifists...

Neither were the Aztecs. Quite a few remnants of those empires remain, even in bad repair. And the descendants haven't forgotten the past.

[Sapphire Blue]

45. More history here for your "contempt they deserve"...

http://www.catholicworker.org/

[Bridget Burke]

49. Don't confuse people with facts.

They might start to doubt their beliefs.

[WilliamPitt]

52. Excuse me

But stuff your broad-brush generalizations. If you mean to say Catholic leadership is two-faced, then say so. But you just called me, my mother, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my aunt, my uncle, and my 15 cousins two-faced. I call bullshit.

[paparush]

18. With these two guys running the show, nothing is impossible...

[Finder]

33. LOL, good one. n/t

[MrPrax]

20. Why?

I don't see where the friction would occur unless people are posting things like how the anti-immigration bill movement is Catholic?

It seems to me that there are MORE than enough similarities between the two institutions for their various supporters to avoid any real conflicts (abortion, gays, Islamo-fascists, Israel, stem cell, etc).

If anything, the Catholic church's positions are to the right of the evangelical/fundamentalist movements--like 'priest's fucking or getting married or being a woman. Falwell looks positively liberal next to Catholic teachings.

[Bridget Burke]

31. Where has the RC Church come out against "Islamo-fascists"?

The Crusades were a LONG time ago. I can't recall the Church using that particularly ugly word.

The Church's position on gays is wrong but does not show the raw hatred demonstrated by such as Rev Phelps. And I think the Church is wrong on the role of women. But the conservative Protestants don't have as many female ministers as the more liberal denominations; they have pretty definite ideas of the "role" of women.

The Church is against aggressive war & capital punishment. And it is FOR social justice. Hardly beliefs of the Religious Right.

[MrPrax]

42. LOL

Oh yeah...the catholic cult has been a real shaker and mover in the 'social justice' field.

How diluted can a person be--oh brainwashing and a pecular noxious blend of 'guilt' and 'redemption' keeps them in line.

That's right--you keep the faith in what is essentially a political movement...you wanna call it a religion--you can, it's a free country courtesy of non-catholics; their history, their writings and their struggle for the past 4 hundred years!!

(Funny how one finds so few catholics in that struggle, huh?)

[dipsydoodle]

44. It seems odd if you have that situation

In England, from observation, at wedding and funerals I'd say that that there are a substantial number of lady ministers. I can't actually think of any sound reason why that shouldn't be so. I note you said " conservative Protestant" does that make the difference. I could maybe understand the "ultras" like Amish and Mennonite being like that.

[Bridget Burke]

48. There are many "Mainstream Protestant" female clergy here.

Episcopalian, United Methodist, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc. are considered "Mainstream" in the US.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is the largest Protestant denomination in the country. Historically, the SBC avoided political involvement, but that changed--in Texas, in fact. The SBC & the Republican Party joined together, driving out the more moderate Republicans & winning many votes. The current Religious Right owes much of its power to that unholy union. "Governor" Bush rode into office with their help.

The SBC has stated that women should NOT be pastors. Being Protestants, not all their congregations agree. There are some female ministers in the SBC, but their numbers are small.

Southern Baptists believe that women should not serve as pastors of local churches because the Apostle Paul teaches that a woman is not to “usurp authority over the man” in church (I Timothy 2:12), and the epistle to the Hebrew Christians states clearly that the office of pastor is indeed a position of authority (Hebrews 13:7, 17). The Southern Baptist Convention has merely reaffirmed that belief and the authority of the Scriptures that support it.

www.beliefnet.com/story/32/story_3293_1.html

Who needs "sound" reasoning? Just read The Bible!

[dipsydoodle]

57. That is due to the fact

that when the Bible was originally put together/composed the person(s) doing so appear to be have been somewhat selective about what did or didn't merit entry. That is quite apart from subsequent mis-translations which either innocently or maliciously compounded the matter further. As a result the role and position of women in society was distorted. This may have been further propounded by further edits in the King James version of The Bible.

I gather that much of this has only come to light following the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls etc. Hopefully one day someone will find buried in the desert a complete set of intact gospels whatever which may then be published unamended, other than translation, as originally written.

A friend of mine told me once that the only Bible which seems to be more or less unamended is a Jewish copy of the Old Testament.

[Bridget Burke]

61. I know a fair amount about the roots of the Bible.

But those who believe in "Scriptural Inerrancy" do not care. They want to take every word in the King James Bible as absolute truth. Except for the parts in Deuteronomy that make laws they would rather ignore. And they'd rather ignore a good bit of what Jesus said. But--they want Creationism taught in the Public Schools.

The SBC is in the Inerrancy camp.

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Catholics vs Protestants. Maybe.

But if it happens, the real hurting will be on the Jews, Pagans and Atheists.

Collateral damage to the christo-fundy wars.

[BlooInBloo]

23. Wouldn't be much of a fight... Prots outnumber Caths by 2:1

[Finder]

34. Are you sure?

[BlooInBloo]

40. Sorry - I usually post links....

http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#Pew_branches

[Left Is Write]

36. Maybe so, but there are many, many, many different

denominations that fall under "Protestants." It isn't one huge group with a single leader, a la Roman Catholicism.

Protestants are not all of one mind, you know. I can't imagine my church (ELCA) ever becoming involved in some kind of Protestant vs. Catholic "war."

[Beelzebud]

24. If I had a nickle for eveytime I hear about a new American civil war -

I could fund a new American civil war by now. :D

[Sapphire Blue]

26. "... many do not see Catholics as real christians." No, they don't...

(Edited for links)

Recently I went to a 'Christian' bookstore, looking for a particular movie: 'Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story'. The store personnel said they had never heard of it. I explained that it was a movie about Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. I was then told that I would need to go to a Catholic store to find it... to which I replied, "Well, excuse me, I thought Catholics were Christians. It seems that, w/all the gwb, falwell & dobson books that you have here, this is not really a Christian store."

[Left Is Write]

38. Not all Protestants feel that way.

I am an ELCA Lutheran. We are well aware that Roman Catholics are Christians.

[Sapphire Blue]

43. No, not all, but many do, as quoted from the OP.

[Left Is Write]

46. I wonder how many "many" is.

One could just as easily say "many" Protestants recognize that Roman Catholics fall under the Christian umbrella.

[Finder]

47. I specifically used religious right wing. n/t

[Bridget Burke]

50. Ah--the true Religious Right regards your group suspiciously...

Along with the United Methodists & the Episcopalians. You're only a few cuts above the Hell-Bound Catholics.

[Left Is Write]

54. They must be suspicious of the Chimperor too...

'cause he's allegedly United Methodist.

Too bad they don't realize Jesus was a liberal. ;)

[Bridget Burke]

56. I believe the Chimp has fallen away from the United Methodists.

That denomination sounds a bit too sane for him. They DID oppose the Invasion of Iraq. As did many denominations. Even the Catholics.

[Left Is Write]

58. If I were a UMC member...

I'd definitely want to distance myself from that man.

[brainshrub]

37. Oh pluh-ezz

I'm Catholic and there is a group of Mexicans who rent the little house across the street. (Possibly illegal, but I don't know or care - they are great neighbors.)

Four blocks away is a fundie-Baptist mega-church.

Now as much as I don't agree with them, they have never been anything less than cordial. There is some griping about how they were able to get around zoning for their ubber-church, and the traffic on Sundays is a pain. However, they don't make anyone in my neighborhood feel uncomfortable.

There is no way in a religious civil war is going to break out in the United States anytime soon.

Are fundies sometimes annoying? Yes.

Are they assholes who will kill you if your Catholic? No.

[Ian David]

59. The question isn't "can they." The question is, "WOULD They if the could?"

Bosnia.

Sudan.

Germany.

Iraq.

Darfur.

It Can't Happen Here
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It Can't Happen Here is a satirical political novel by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1935. It features newspaperman Doremus Jessup struggling against the fascist regime of President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who was modeled either on Gerald B. Winrod, an evangelist who held far-right political points of view earning him the nickname "The Jayhawk Nazi", or on Huey Long. It serves as a warning that political movements akin to Fascism or Nazism can come to power in countries such as the United States when people blindly support their leaders. It is thought to have inspired both Philip K. Dick's SF novel The Man in the High Castle and Philip Roth's recent The Plot Against America.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here


Also:

The Wave (book)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wave is a young adult novel by Todd Strasser (under the pen name "Morton Rhue"). It is a fictionalized account of the "Third Wave" teaching experiment that took place in a Cubberley High School history class in Palo Alto, California.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_%28book%29


The Third Wave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Third Wave was the name given by history teacher Ron Jones to his unanticipated and unprecedented recreation of Nazi Germany.

The experiment took place at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California during 1967. Jones, unable to explain to his students why the German youth allowed the Nazi Party to exterminate millions of Jews, decided to show them instead. Starting with simple things like classroom discipline, Jones managed to meld his history class into a group with a supreme sense of purpose and no small amount of cliquishness. Jones named the movement "The Third Wave," after the common wisdom that the third in a series of ocean waves is always the strongest, and claimed its members would revolutionize the world. The experiment took on a life of its own, with students from all over the school joining in; Jones agonized over the outcome of the exercise before bringing it to a halt by claiming that the movement had a world-wide leader, and then displaying a film clip of him: Adolf Hitler.

Despite the clear implications of this study on the malleability of young minds (of particular interest to both psychologists seeking to understand and prevent it, and would-be world dictators attempting to recreate it), little has surfaced on the subject; Todd Strasser, under the pen name Morton Rhue, wrote a young-adult novel on the subject (entitled The Wave), which was later made into a movie and a play; later, Jones himself came forward with his own material. Researchers of the experiment have had some trouble in eliciting reports from any of the students involved.

There exists some doubt that the experiment took the full form described by Jones. The Catamount, the school newspaper at Cubberley, reported details that conflicted with Jones' published account.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave


Also:


Stanford prison experiment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

The Stanford prison experiment, was a landmark psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life. It was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University. Volunteers played the roles of guards and prisoners and lived in a mock prison. However, the experiment quickly got out of hand and was ended early.

Ethical concerns surrounding the famous experiment often draw comparisons to the Milgram experiment, which was conducted in 1963 at Yale University by Stanley Milgram, Zimbardo's former high school friend.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment





ALso:

Milgram experiment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Milgram experiment (Obedience to Authority Study) was a famous scientific experiment of social psychology. The experiment was first described by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University in an article titled Behavioral Study of Obedience published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963, and later discussed at book length in his 1974 Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. It was intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant's personal conscience.

The experiments began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" (Milgram, 1974)

Milgram summed up in the article "The Perils of Obedience" (Milgram 1974), writing:

"The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation."

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[Nimrod2005]

51. Bring it on!!!