How do Christians justify not being catholic?

[Whateverist]

Because some people claim there is a Great Pumpkin which created and rules over us all, and it is just to hard to resist replying "is not!"

[Minimalist]

I think I'm a bit slow tonight (it was a long fucking day), but I'm not 100% sure what you are telling us here.

We have this petrine reference...which serves the needs of the church in Rome quite well but the other two references about the establishment of the church make no reference to "Peter."

For that matter this would be a fairly important statement but the other 3 gospels don't mention it?

Perhaps we have a little tampering going on.  Wouldn't be the first time the "Holy Horseshit" was tweaked to make it say what people wanted it to say.

[Nope]

The Catholics dictated what individual books constituted the Bible and every other sect follows their lead so there is that. A better question might be why there are any individual sects at all. There is only one Word (supposedly) so there should only be one religion. Either God screwed up dictating the Word to humanity (impossible if God is what is claimed of him) or people screwed up recording and relating the Word (something God should have foreseen). Either way, no religion can be trusted to be correct. But then there is faith which puts the Great Pumpkin on equal standing as Jesus.

Why are we atheists, again?

The fact that there are so many sects  seems to go against the spirit of this verse

1 Corinthians 14:33 

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace--as in all the congregations of the Lord's people.

Christians have killed one another over the different interpretations of their sacred book. That seems pretty disorderly to me.

[Pyrrho]

What the title says. Didn't Jesus pretty explicitly state that

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

and wouldn't that entail that only the Roman church is the the rightful successor of Jesus? I'm just interested in the rationale of evangelical/protestant Christians behind rejecting this claim.

You are believing Catholic propaganda about the origin of their church.  They tell you that they have an unbroken succession going back to Jesus, but try to find actual evidence that supports that claim and you will see a problem with believing them.

You will also want to research the question of when, and why, the books of the Bible are what they are.  Who picked them, and when they were selected (as well as looking at differences between different versions of the same books of the Bible).  You will want to think about some of the books that were rejected as well.  An interesting book on some of the early history of Christianity is The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels, though it is not a complete history of early Christianity.  But it does convey very well the idea that early Christians were far from uniform, and were arguably more diverse in their beliefs than Christians today.


But for something easy, take a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_...dox_Church

The Catholics are not the only ones who claim an unbroken succession from Jesus.  You may as well ask, How do Christians justify not being orthodox?


It is also worth mentioning that having an unbroken succession does not mean that everyone selected along the way was properly selected.  If Jesus picked a good church leader, that does not mean the successor of the successor of Jesus was properly selected.  If you believe that that is contradicted by your verse, please explain to us how one can reconcile the verses in which Jesus predicted his second coming would be before everyone alive in his time died, and the other problematic claims in Christianity.


Edited to add:

A snappy Protestant reply to the original question is:

Some Christians do not wish to belong to an international ring of pedophiles.  Which leads naturally to the question, How do Christians justify being Catholic?

[Minimalist]

Here.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/peter.htm


Check out the video.


Maybe some of the christards will shit themselves to death.

[Godscreated]

The church was to be built upon who Christ is, not humans, the church belongs to Christ and the church is the people, the people who belong to Christ. The church was established soon after Pentecost. The Catholic church was established hundreds of years later. The Catholic church has much wrong with it according to the NT scriptures. IMHO no denomination has everything right, I'm a Southern Baptist but I do not agree with some of the main beliefs of the denomination, doesn't make me not a Southern Baptist, just one who disagrees with some of the doctrine. So it really is simple, all that belong to Christ belong to His church and will be part of the everlasting Kingdom of Christ.

GC

[Minimalist]

Now all you need is the slightest bit of evidence that this christ-fellow actually existed.

You were doing quite well for a moment...until you hit that reef.

[Foxaèr]

They cannot even properly justify being Christian, never mind Catholic.

[vorlon13]

 . . . . . . . . .  . .

Edited to add:

A snappy Protestant reply to the original question is:

Some Christians do not wish to belong to an international ring of pedophiles.  Which leads naturally to the question, How do Christians justify being Catholic?

Indeed.  I'd say most every molested child could pass a polygraph test when asked if Catholicism was a false religion and they agreed.

I'd also assert there might not even be a majority of admins and poobahs in the Vatican that could pass a polygraph test if asked if Catholicism was a true religion and they agreed.

[Lek]

What the title says. Didn't Jesus pretty explicitly state that

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

and wouldn't that entail that only the Roman church is the the rightful successor of Jesus? I'm just interested in the rationale of evangelical/protestant Christians behind rejecting this claim.

Even if Jesus follow was literally saying that his church would be built upon Peter, it doesn't follow that the catholic church is the one true church. The fact that the church decided to replace Peter after his death and continued to do so was just a choice they made, not something directed by Jesus. The church was defined by the apostle Paul as "the body of Christ, which is made up of all his followers, not just those who follow the doctrine of a long line of church appointed bishops. Catholics and all other christians are part of the body of Christ and are brothers and sisters in Christ. We don't need to fight with each other over stuff like this. God knows who his followers are.