Believing Catholicism is wrong is the official position of Protestants for hundreds of years now. Are they all bigots?

Many Mormons call it bigotry when Christians refuse to recognize LDS as a branch of Christianity. Are they right? As a Catholic, do you consider Mormons to be Christians?

Bigot is a word thrown around too often, as if people think all criticism can only come from hatred.

didymus on June 5, 2009 at 5:51 PM

When a person believes their views are correct about anything, they usually believe others’ differing views are wrong. Criticism and difference of opinion is not always evidence of bigotry. And bigotry is a term too frequently used. However, that doesn’t mean that bigots do not exist.

So, what do you call people who say of all Catholics that they are not real Christians, but Papists, idol worshipers and Mary worshipers who should be condemned to eternal damnation unless they become members of a different Christian denomination? I call them ignorant, bigoted bullies.

And I do consider Mormons to be Christians, even though I cannot agree with some of their beliefs which I find incorrect and which distinguish them from all other Christians.

Finally, as a Catholic, I do not believe that only Catholics get to Heaven, or that all Catholics get to heaven, or that non-Catholic Christians, or followers of other faiths, or even those who have questions about or no believe at all in God, are condemned to eternal Hell. Some people are simply good, regardless of their faith or lack of faith.

And God works in mysterious ways.

Believing Catholicism is wrong is the official position of Protestants for hundreds of years now. Are they all bigots?
didymus on June 5, 2009 at 5:51 PM

I’ll be charitable and assume that you don’t realize you’ve committed the error in logic called “straw man fallacy.” Believing Catholicism is wrong is not bigotry (They wouldn’t be Protestant otherwise; of course they think Catholics are wrong; so what?). However. Writing all Catholics off as non-Christians, as ThackerAgency has done many times, is bigotry. Yes, it is a strong word. Words have meanings, and that one fits.

Many Mormons call it bigotry when Christians refuse to recognize LDS as a branch of Christianity. Are they right? As a Catholic, do you consider Mormons to be Christians?

One of the basic beliefs of all Christians is that God is one, and is three persons in one God: one Father, one Son (called Jesus Christ, who came to earth and died for our sins) and one Holy Spirit. The Apostles’ Creed will do nicely for the historical record on what all Christians have believed in common since the beginning of the faith.

Mormons believe that God the Father was once a man, that we can all become Gods eventually and make our own planets, and that Jesus and Satan are brothers (so God has more than one son). Jehovah’s Witnesses, among other beliefs, do not believe the Holy Spirit is a Person nor do they believe Jesus is divine, so they don’t believe in the Trinity. Are they Christians? You tell me.

Bigot is a word thrown around too often, as if people think all criticism can only come from hatred.

didymus on June 5, 2009 at 5:51 PM

“Bigot” is a word indeed thrown around often by liberals. That does not mean the word doesn’t have meaning. And I will use it when it fits.

Let me put it this way…I have endured, time and time again, your bigotry against Catholics on this site based on your “better Christian” status — no, I take that back, make that, “you’re Catholic so you’re not really Christian” status, so now I will tell you that I NEVER want to hear you inveighing against the millions upon millions of Catholics who follow the teachings of Jesus (who BTW said even looking at a woman with lust is as bad as adultery–Matt. 5:28) more faithfully than you do, EVER again.

Believing Catholicism is wrong is the official position of Protestants for hundreds of years now. Are they all bigots?

Many Mormons call it bigotry when Christians refuse to recognize LDS as a branch of Christianity. Are they right? As a Catholic, do you consider Mormons to be Christians?

Bigot is a word thrown around too often, as if people think all criticism can only come from hatred.

Look, I know in America the new favorite past time is being outraged, but this was just a dumb stunt.

The article should be IGNORED and it will go away. I subscribe to playboy and I doubt I would have seen the article if it was not posted here.

The article was in poor taste. It was removed. The more you talk about it here, the more the AOL guy talks about it, the more it is out there. If YOU and CONSERVATIVES stop talking about it, it will go away.

Why are you giving Playboy so much credibility? Is their influence so great that every word they write is a literary movement? You ask why MSNBC talks about Rush all the time. This is a dumb non-story that will go away as soon as we are finished with our favorite past time of being outraged – which should be common in a free country.

ThackerAgency on June 5, 2009 at 9:30 AM

Hey, Thacker, maybe you’ve been too busy with your one-handed “reading” to notice, but the leftist practice of demeaning conservative women through fantasies of forced sex is by no means a new phenomenon. It has been “out there” for at least a decade on the Internet, and probably before then. However, until that Playboy.com piece, it had been limited to the world of individual orifices who sent hate mail/email or posted in newsgroups and free-for-all leftist blogs (hello, Matt Taibbi). The lovely Michelle Malkin had been the subject of “hate f*ck” screeds (commonly referring to her Asian and/or Filipina heritage) long before they had that name. That was even before she had her own site and her detractors had only a tiny .jpg atop her syndicated columns to (ahem) work with.

Even Hustler‘s self-aware sleazebag founder Larry Flynt, in all his years of sliming Christians, Republicans, and decent people in general in deliberately shocking fashion, hadn’t published anything (to my knowledge) targeting political opponents for rape fantasies. I presume that Flynt’s porn movie parody of Sarah Palin doesn’t involve her being raped, because that would have (I think) have gotten out. But it was the relatively prudish Playboy that actually dug deep, plumbed the depths of the liberal soul, and gave a mainstream imprateur to the idea that speaking of fantasies of sexually sullying women you “hate” is acceptable political discourse.

A female Politico.com blogger all but endorsed the idea by excising the misogyny from the Playboy piece with a scalpel and pretended it was about “Hat[ing] to Love” beautiful conservative chicks. That is not shocking to me, because liberal women have commonly tolerated sexism practiced by men who are sympatico with their most valued ideal: the right to abortion on demand. Uber-feminist Gloria Steinem, among the loudest voices targeting then-SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas for destruction (ostensibly) due to contradictory sexual harassment allegations, authored a editorial published in the New York Times on March 22, 1998 defending pro-choice Bill Clinton against more credible allegations of harassment by implying that every boss is — and always has been — entitled to one free shot at hired hotties:

The truth is that even if the allegations are true, the President is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb and reckless pass at a supporter during a low point in her life. She pushed him away, she said, and it never happened again. In other words, President Clinton took “no” for an answer.

In her original story, Paula Jones essentially said the same thing. She went to then-Governor Clinton’s hotel room, where she said he asked her to perform oral sex and even dropped his trousers. She refused, and even she claims that he said something like, “Well, I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Now, Thacker, you WON’T find that piece on the New York Times website — which is supposed to contain archives going back to the 1920′s — but you will find it on an obscure educrat newsgroup, where it was posted in a “Women’s Equity” section two weeks after it was first published. A letter to the editor objecting to Steinem’s vapid point three days hence is still online at nytimes.com.

Why can’t you find the original Steinem editorial in the New York Times‘ archives? Because some people — likely Steinem herself — wants it to “go away.” Why? Because it reveals her to be a fool and a hypocrite. She knows that if that editorial stayed within easy access, the next time she opened her trap about sexual harassment, it would be held in her face like she was a dog learning to be housebroken. And rightly so.

Saying “if CONSERVATIVES stop talking about it it will go away” is an argument that Playboy understands well, because it doesn’t want to face the consequences of its contribution to the coarseness of the political debate. On the other hand, LIBERALS never stop talking about misstatements and errors conservatives make, and aren’t above simply making schtuff up out of thin air and pretending it’s established fact. Just in the past week, Katie Couric furthered the lie that Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house, and Rachel Maddow — defending Judge Sotomayor — repeated a specious, Wikipedia-sourced, apochryphal alleged decade-old quote from Rush Limbaugh that Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin should have been given the Congressional Medal of Freedom.

You may enjoy the double-standard of “being outraged.” I don’t. Conceding the internet and the airwaves to dirty liars on one side of the debate may be for you, but it’s not for me. If you’ve got nothing to say, get outta the way.

You may now resume your “reading,” Thacker. Lock your door and close your blinds.

WLet me put it this way. . . if playgirl wanted to do a list of GUYS they wanted to ‘HF’ and I was at the top, I’d love it. . . but that’s just me.

No, that’s just you being a man.

Did AOL fire Tommy Christopher for criticizing Playboy?
Ed Morrissey on June 5, 2009 at 8:46 am

He’s being punished for doing the right thing.
Jim Treacher on June 5, 2009 at 11:34 AM

No, TC was fired because he was known to have incoming links from HotAir.com and therefore has been friendly with e-e-e-e-e-evil conservatives.

Since the incoming AOL management knew he couldn’t be fired only for that reason, the “official” reason from corporate will be poor overall performance of his blog relative to a salary that was suddenly considered too expensive.

Childish? Yes. That is The Way of the Liberal.

WTF? You don’t endorse non-profits? What does that mean? You don’t support churches, Goodwill, and other community pillars?

The Race Card on June 5, 2009 at 10:27 AM

Obviously thinking is not your strong suit.

Saying that one doesn’t endorse non-profits in general, is not the same as saying one doesn’t support particular non-profits.

The difference is subtle, but if you would get your head out of Obama’s nether regions, you will be able to see it.

I like Tommy Christopher and I have a lot of respect for him. He’s one of just a small handful of liberal bloggers I can listen to, and I really appreciate his fairness despite the fact that I disagree with him on almost every political issue there is. We need MORE journalists like Tommy Christopher, not fewer!! What has gotten into them????

Again, I wouldn’t vote for Tommy Christopher for dogcatcher, but I often delight in his commentary and have a very deep appreciation for his integrity in light of his fairness.

Wow. This really bites. Truly.

AOL long ago fell off my radar, in the era of AOL vs. Compuserve.

if playgirl wanted to do a list of GUYS they wanted to ‘HF’ and I was at the top, I’d love it. . .

ThackerAgency on June 5, 2009 at 9:32 AM

I take it you have not considered that with certain devices, women can rape men in exactly the same degrading manner that men rape men. I hope you would not masochistically “love” being abused in such a manner.

Next to murder, forcibly using another person’s body for one’s own sadistic sexual pleasure is the worst possible crime against an individual. Rape can have a devastating and pervasive, lifetime impact on victims, regardless of whether they are male or female.

The Playboy article was vile, degrading and dehumanizing. It’s not the critics of it who should have been fired, but all who contributed to its brief on-line publication.

I only wish it had just been silence. What bothered me more than NOW’s MIA approach to this issue was the “defense” offered for these women from a liberal who believed at least one of the women (Michelle) deserved to have “venom” shot back at her.

When I was younger I would cough up these little balls of phlegm or lung or something that smelled like death. Erbe’s piece was about as foul as that.

Funny, but I think this stinks. He’s being punished for doing the right thing.

Jim Treacher on June 5, 2009 at 11:34 AM

That is perhaps the most plainly-stated, unfunny thing you have written. No snark, but all truth.

maverick muse on June 5, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Thanks. I’d just never heard that one.

I subscribe to playboy ….

ThackerAgency on June 5, 2009 at 9:30 AM

Let me put it this way. . . if playgirl wanted to do a list of GUYS they wanted to ‘HF’ and I was at the top, I’d love it. . . but that’s just me.

ThackerAgency on June 5, 2009 at 9:32 AM

Let me put it this way…I have endured, time and time again, your bigotry against Catholics on this site based on your “better Christian” status — no, I take that back, make that, “you’re Catholic so you’re not really Christian” status, so now I will tell you that I NEVER want to hear you inveighing against the millions upon millions of Catholics who follow the teachings of Jesus (who BTW said even looking at a woman with lust is as bad as adultery–Matt. 5:28) more faithfully than you do, EVER again.

Yes, I am ANGRY. Hope that’s QUITE clear.

Early 20th Century American expression, “I’ll bet you a nickle to a doughnut” my mom grew up hearing and used to say raising us (not that she’d give us a nickle or a doughnut unless we earned it, mind you).

No, he was fired for criticizing Jim Treacher. You don’t mess with Treacher.

Blake on June 5, 2009 at 10:05 AM

Funny, but I think this stinks. He’s being punished for doing the right thing.

Absolutely. The Conservative Woman is an endangered species in American society. And the Women’s Liberation movement was never meant to celebrate womanhood or women’s rights, but to further persecute the same. It’s been said before, Socialists are cannibals, and Leftist women are the most ferocious predators.

I’ll bet a nickle to a doughnut

maverick muse on June 5, 2009 at 11:07 AM

What does that mean?