re: For Catholics that went to Mass this weekend...

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This is inaccurate.

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The whole post is littered with inaccuracies.

You absolutely can make a real, adult profession of faith. The Church actually expects that, and that’s what Confirmation is about. Even outside of that you can renew your baptismal promises anytime and mean it with your whole heart.

The pushback isn’t against you choosing Christ again… I did too. It’s against the idea that the first baptism “didn’t count,” so you need to do it over. Baptism isn’t just your statement about God, it’s God acting on you. That’s why Scripture talks about one baptism. If God already did something real there, you don’t redo it, you build on it.

So no, nobody’s “losing points.” The question is just what baptism is. If it’s only your declaration, then sure, repeat it. If it’s also God marking you as His, then repeating it kind of treats that first act like it meant nothing.

On the corruption point… you’re not wrong that there have been serious sins and failures. No Catholic should pretend otherwise. I try not to hate these people but I can’t help but loathe them. However, bad members don’t equal a false Church. If anything, it proves the Church is made up of sinners who need Christ, not a club of the already perfect. Satan and demonic forces hate you and will do anything to destroy you and the Church Christ gave us. Christ actually established something that can carry His grace and truth despite human failure.

I completely misunderstood then. My apologies.

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We attack each other while the real enemy divides and conquers.

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That is my observation as the old fart in the room.

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It’s against the idea that the first baptism “didn’t count,” so you need to do it over. Baptism isn’t just your statement about God, it’s God acting on you. That’s why Scripture talks about one baptism. If God already did something real there, you don’t redo it, you build on it.

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I was not apart or aware of it, I gave no consent or willingness. What I was apart is I felt God calling me out of the church and too somewhere different, where my children can learn Jesus and I can reconnect. I felt none of that in the Catholic faith. The current church in my parish has long been plagued by corruption, political favoritism and entitlement. My wife grew up in a Catholic school and tried to be a model Catholic, only to see priests choose rich kids for activities and positions, people that didn’t even go to church. Again, the problem is the current church structure, creates parishes of obligation and tradition, not saving or enriching the spirit.

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The Church actually expects that, and that’s what Confirmation is about

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I did that as a teenager out of obligation, I felt nothing.

As a Catholic, did you go through the sacrament of Conformation?

As young adults, depending on your location ages can vary, we Catholics confirm our baptism.
Our parents witness our baptism as infants and we confirm those promises as young adults.

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Be the change you want to see

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I am, I changed churches

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I reject that the Church "decides" in an authoritative sense rather than "receives" what God has inspired.

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It’s because you’re deluded Foo, or you’re an idiot.

The Jews in the late 6th century BC who hadn’t been exiled had their own scriptures that differed from the “Jews” “returning” from Babylon. They fought over what was scripture back then. The native Jews called the ones sent to Jerusalem by King Cyrus “Parsi” meaning Persian, the root of which is where the term “Pharisee” came from. Those Babylonian Jews called the native Jews “Canaanites”. They fought over the land and the control of the temple and their scriptures.

Fast forward to the 1st century BC. Various sects of Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees, Samaritans, and many more held different scriptures authoritative though some overlapped. They had different versions of Isaiah and Deuteronomy and Kings and some had Enochic scriptures and some didn’t. Some rejected everything but the Torah but had different versions of those books. “Jesus” even told the temple authorities they didn’t know the scriptures… it wasn’t just about interpretation, but they didn’t recognize the authority of the correct scriptures.

Then in the 2nd-4th centuries AD the church fathers couldn’t decide what was authoritative scripture. Many of them rejected Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Peter, Revelation, 2/3 John, Titus and Timothy, and more because they believed them to be forgeries or in error.

Even today your cult endorses a canon that is different than the majority of Christians on this planet. Through many councils the church decided the canon and they your boys Martin Luther and John Calvin shite on it.

Why all the different churches today including Ethiopic, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches “receive” a different version of canonical authoritative scriptures from God? Why would he do that? The truth is he is a figment of your imagination and it’s all fabricated.

I know this is not on the topic of the thread, or what it has derailed to, but I want to share my insight on the latest Catholic debate thread on TD.com



Basically, in this video, Joe argues that miracles like Fatima point to at least Christianity and more the Catholic Faith. As he pointed out in his video, Mark 16:20 points to this idea (not Fatima but signs proving the words they preached)

I'd be interested to see if there are truly more supposed miracles in the Catholic faith than in other Christian denominations. I don't think miracles only happen in the Catholic faith; I'm sure they happen everywhere or at least they are claimed to happen everywhere.

Yes, the thread has already been derailed, and I'm about to derail it further.

Basically, we go back and forth on this biblical point and that biblical point in these threads. However, these miracles should at least be considered. If a miracle like Fatima is real than what does that say about the protestant approach to scripture? As Fatima disagrees with many protestant interpretations of the scripture.

I guess this is kinda my way to bow out of debates like this, which I used to debate a lot in. Arguments only do so much in the Christian faith; it is usually a personal encounter with Jesus that leads to someone coming into the Catholic faith, not some well-formed argument. I could argue as well as St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine, and it probably wouldn't convince people like FOO, canon ect.

Godbless and Happy Easter (yes it is still easter! At-least for Catholics)

My favorite atheist poster chimed in to drop some knowledge. Welcome… I tried to respond in the thread we had the back-and-forth in the other day, but it looks like they killed it and it wouldn’t let me respond. Didn’t want you to think I left you hanging.

As you eluded to yes, there were real disputes in Second Temple Judaism. Different groups (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes) had different emphases and even different textual traditions, and yeah, the early Church didn’t drop a finalized table of contents from the sky on day one. There was discernment over time.

If scripture was not self-interpreting and not self-identifying in a universally obvious way (which your own examples show), then some kind of visible, authoritative Church is exactly what you would expect if God intended to preserve a unified faith.

The Catholic claim isn’t that the Church “invented” the canon. It’s that the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, recognized and definitively settled what had already been used in the liturgy and apostolic life. That’s why, despite early debates, you see convergence in councils like Rome, Hippo, and Carthage, long before Trent. Again, I think you agree here but it’s leading me to my bigger point which is…

Why are there different canons today?

From a Catholic perspective, that’s not because God failed to preserve His word, It’s because Christians later separated from the authority that settled the question. The differences largely appear after the Reformation in the West, and through parallel developments in the East (like the broader Ethiopian canon). In other words, the divergence tracks with historical breaks in communion, not with God “revealing multiple Bibles.”

So the better question is: if Christ established a Church with real authority (Matthew 16, Luke 10:16), and promised the Spirit would guide it into truth (John 16:13), would we expect lasting doctrinal unity without that authority History seems to answer that pretty clearly.

As for your last line, saying it’s all fabricated, that’s a philosophical leap, not a historical one. The same historical data you’re appealing to actually shows a Church that consistently claimed divine authority, preserved texts, defined doctrine, and endured. The question isn’t whether that happened. It’s whether that claim is true.

And that’s not something history alone can dismiss. Question for you so we can continue to derail this thread into what actually matters…

-If objective moral truths exist (like real good and evil), where do they come from in a purely material universe?
-What caused the universe to begin? And if it began, how does something bound by space, time, and matter create itself?
-If the cause is outside space and time, what exactly is that cause in your view?
-The universe is incredibly fine-tuned for life. Do you see that as necessity, chance, or design? And why?
-Do you think consciousness and rational thought can fully arise from blind, unguided processes?
-What’s your take on simulation theory? If we’re in a simulation, doesn’t that still point to a higher intelligence outside our reality?
-If everything is ultimately accidental and without purpose, why should truth matter at all… including your own conclusions?