why are catholics and believers mistakenly lumped in the same category?

It is impossible to give a universal statement on the salvation of all members of any denomination of Christianity. Not ALL Baptists are saved. Not ALL Presbyterians are saved. Not ALL Lutherans are saved. Salvation is determined by personal faith in Jesus alone for salvation, not by titles or denominational identification. Despite the unbiblical beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, there are genuine believers who attend Roman Catholic churches. There are many Roman Catholics who have genuinely placed their faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. However, these Catholic Christians are believers despite what the Catholic Church teaches, not because of what it teaches. To varying degrees, the Catholic Church teaches from the Bible and points people to Jesus Christ as the Savior. As a result, people are sometimes saved in Catholic churches. The Bible has an impact whenever it is proclaimed (Isaiah 55:11). Catholic Christians remain in the Catholic Church out of ignorance of what the Catholic Church truly stands for, out of family tradition and peer pressure, or out of a desire to reach other Catholics for Christ.

I must say you have asked politely of those things you mentioned - you deserve credit for doing that.

I have to tell you, though, all the things you mentioned are not as you have come to hear about them, or understand them to be.

It will be too long here to tell you one by one in detail those things you mentioned as being Catholic, but in principle, let me say that in a vast majority of such stuff, it is in the approach to the interpretation of the bible that is at the crux of it. The Catholic Church's approach to interpreting the bible is different from the Protestant's way - it takes into account the context in which the bible was written, its history, Traditions of the Church since Jesus's days, and so on, whilst the other churches tend to interprete the bible literalistically.

The other principle I would say that leads to misunderstanding of the Catholic Church's beliefs and practices is simply that many people, like you, heard it all wrong and do not know what the actual meaning eg infallibility of the Pope - what do you understand by this? What does the Catholic Church means by this? They are vastly different, as indicated by your question. My recommendation to you is to go to a good Catholic forum where you can have these issues addressed - Yahoo Answers is not a forum in a format that is easy to use to address these questions.

You can try this forum:

http://messages.yahoo.com/yahoo/Religion_%26_Belie...

Keep asking!

why so eager to cut oneself off from the roots from which you sprang?

for a believer to deny Catholicsm is akin to a child denying its parent.

the reason why the Catholic church holds the beliefs it does is simply because the church has the right, as being the one true unbroken church of God, and the pope has the right, being the one true remaining member of apostolic succession, to make decisions regarding the nature of the Catholic faith.

Let me cast it into the following analogy.

Protestants are like consumers who bought a dvd player.. with the dvd player they were issued a manual. Being good consumers they followed everything that the manual said to do regarding the use and care of the dvd player.

Then one day, one of these owners of a dvd player heard that the parent company, Sony, was coming out with a newer model of the dvd player. There were some differences between this newer model and the model they already owned. Now the dvd player owner was upset and berated Sony corp saying "you sold us this dvd player and it conforms to the specifications laid out in the owner's manual. But now you are talking about a new dvd player with new features. The manual I have does not match the specifications of this new player. As such your new player is not and cannot be acceptable to me as a dvd player!"

That seems to me to be precisely what is happening between the two branches of Christianity.

I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. (John 16:12-13)

The Catholic Church does not use Holy Scripture as the only basis of doctrine. It could not. The early Catholic church existed before and during the time that the New Testament was written (by Catholics).

There were hundreds of Christian writings during the first and second centuries. Which New Testament writings would become official was not fully decided until about 400 C.E.

Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding the early church (and is guiding the church today) to make the correct choices about things like:

+ The Holy Trinity (which is also only hinted at in the Bible)

+ Going to church on Sunday instead of Saturday (which is actually directly against one of the Ten Commandments)

+ The Communion of Saints

+ Which writings include in the New Testament?

Things that are even more modern like

+ Slavery is bad. Slavery is never declared evil in the Bible. This was one of the justifications for slavery in the Confederate States.

+ Democracy is good. The Bible states that either God should be the leader of the nation like Israel before the kings or kings should be the leader, "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." This was talked about a lot during the American Revolution.

This second source of doctrine is called Apostolic Tradition.

Do Christians who do not allow the continuing guiding force of the Holy Spirit to make their beliefs more and more perfect, still endorse slavery as Colossians 3:22 commands, "Slaves, obey your human masters in everything"?

Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)

We instruct you, brothers, in the name of (our) Lord Jesus Christ,to shun any brother who conducts himself in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition they received from us. (2 Thessalonians 3:6)

I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you. (1 Corinthians 11:2)

For more information, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 80 and following: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect1chpt2....

With love in Christ.

The same way christians get lumped together with true believers. Where in your bible do you find it said that we can be saved by saying a prayer to Jesus? Where in your bible does it say that the scriptures inspired by God would be the 66 books in the protestant bible? Where does it say that the interpretations by christians are the true and accurate ones?

Born agains are soo obsessed with playing the "Holier Than Thou" card against anyone who claims they love Jesus as much as they do...

Well, here's some food for thought. Have you ever considered that the "Word of God" probably doesn't even come close to what it once originally said?

Have you ever considered that what you read isn't always what was originally written?

Christians, as yourselves, interpret the bible to your own liking. And the very truth is, most of these laws were man-made to begin with, and translated to suit humans' conveniences. The scriptures have been fudged with, and filtered through so many language translations over the centuries, from their original Semitic, Aramaic, Coptic, and Greek translations -- that nothing remains the true "WORD OF GOD".

I'm talking the very early gospels, to include the standard canon which includes Matthew, Luke, Mark and John, and letters to Paul, etc. It all has been 'Lost in Translation' -- so to speak.

Once scholars (mostly monks) began translating these original texts to the Latin, and Old english translations, and making their own 'corrections' and changes, under the rule of highly-political Archbishops ... they often changed the wording as they saw fit for whatever laws, and ideologies they were trying to impose on the people at the time.

Even all that BS about having to give your church 10% of your earnings, was something created by some political zealot.

Did Jesus really say this? What was our Lord's true message?

Didn't he say "Give to Caesar, what belongs to Caesar"?

Think people. Afterall, Romans, Jews and early Christians were always in conflict during those days. Fudging with bible translations over the ages for political purposes was so common, that according to Bart D. Ehrman, the world's leading expert in ancient translations of biblical texts, the original author of Revelations (and his name wasn't John either) even had to put a disclaimer against anyone altering the text.

Aware that these texts could be used to support such views, early Christian scribes made simple, but profound changes which altered the context of the original meaning altogether.

So stop thinking that you have the "Word of God" all pegged out, and stop being so judgemental of other people

... educate yourself before you pass judgement on anyone...

For all you know, YOU may not even be on the right path yourself.

I am a secular Christian, meaning I don't care to be a part of anyone's church. I care to search for truth and meaning on my own. And no - I don't think that an "ever-merciful God" wastes his days plotting out people's damnation.

And neither should you

A Christian believer is one who believes in the God of the Nicene Creed which Catholics do. All other Christian believers got their Christian basics from the Catholic Church including the New Testament and its canon.

because at the root of it what makes a religion CHRISTIAN is that they beleive jesus was the son of god. and the catholics do beleive that jesus was the son of god. so that makes them beleivers as much as any snake handler or other off the wall christian cult

All branches have added and taken away from the word of god. That's why they're branches and not orthodox.

Well, one group uses a man dressed up in a gown and another group uses snakes and talks in tongues. Easy for me to see the reason for lumping.