Absolutely. One of the most bizarre things I experienced when I was exploring Christianity and attending services at different churches was all the bitching about other denominations. I don’t know how anybody can be that certain that their religion is right and everyone else is wrong, let alone that the specific interpretation of their religion that they follow is right and all the other interpretations are wrong. It’s so off putting.
I see a lot of hostility towards catholics among evangelical christians. I don’t know why. If you read chick tracts it is full of very bad things about catholics, like it’s some kind of evil satanic church or something.
In my experience, people all of all denominations bitch about one another, but most of the hostility goes towards Catholics. As one example, I have a lot of respect for the Seveth-Day Adventists, but then I got into a debate with a couple of people at the church I went to about how they think that the Catholic Church is the anti-Christ responsible for deceiving most of humanity to abandon observing the Sabbath and that all Catholics will go to Hell… or something.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s racism and nationalism.
The US seems to have a bit of hostility towards hispanics, and that they’re catholic doesn’t help.
I was shocked the first time a Christian friend told me his religion taught that we Catholics are the spawn of Satan. After I thought about it a bit though I actually took it as a good thing because that’s what the *Pharisees said about Jesus so why should I expect anything different?
Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”
(Matthew 12:22)
- Pharisee: a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law.
Yea, seems Chick tracts are successful because many evangelicals share the belief. I don’t know why.
I tell my evangelical friends about becoming catholic they made it seem like I was joining the church of Satan or something.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/g4zh3h/the_best_chick_tracts/
According to Chick, the Jesuits assassinated Abraham Lincoln, and they’re like military or something.
They got this huge cartoon series featuring this guy called Alberto Riviera or something.
I don’t think it was about racism or nationalism because this Adventist congregation was probably the most ethnically diverse I church I’ve ever been to. Some people, I think, just find the idea of Popes and praying to Saints really abhorrent, for reasons I don’t really understand. Then again, at the priest at my local Catholic church wasn’t much better. When I chatted to him after the service about the different churches I’d went to and the differences I encountered, he spent the whole time complaining about how they’re all “wrong”. When I pointed out that the Anglican church I regularly attended up to that point had an almost identical mass to his Catholic church and how I was surprised at the similarities, he “corrected” me for referring to their service as a “mass” and said that the Anglicans can “pretend to be doing mass” as much as they like, but it “doesn’t count” because it isn’t officiated by a Catholic priest. I wanted to ask him if that meant all the Anglicans at that church were going to Hell the way the Adventists and many Protestants believe Catholics will, but I didn’t want to open up that particular can of worms again…
I thought the official catholic position is that you don’t necessarily go to hell just because you happen to be born in the wrong place…
If you don’t want to open a can of worms with a priest, it’s fine, but official catholic position is pretty much what they have to follow.
The priest I talk to seems far more pragmatic compared to most pastors I run into.
The Adventists literally believe the Pope (or the Catholic Church as a whole) is the anti-Christ and I was surprised to find from my conversation with some of them that many of them believe they can stand in solidarity with Muslims before doing the same with Catholics. Don’t get me wrong, I would love it if all followers of Abrahamic faiths stood in solidarity with one another against the rising tide of secularist nihilism, but it certainly surprised me to see that they rated Catholics below Muslims on their hierarchy.
You’re correct, but if Anglican mass is “playing pretend” and “doesn’t count”, they’re presumably not going to be “saved” either. This particular priest didn’t certainly didn’t have anything positive to say about followers of other denominations.
At the end of the day, priests are just like any other pastor. You will have good ones and bad ones. It’s foolish to expect every pastors to act like God.
Most Baptists I speak to think Mormons are satanic or a cult. Then Mormons and baptists think Catholics are a cult And round and round it goes.
I’ve never met a priest whose ever said something positive about other denominations. It would be nice to actually find one who just says "I can’t judge others ". I 've never met one. I guess it’s not in their interests to say that. So much for the fruits of faith.
This 
A number of priests over the years have mentioned in their homilies that they, too, go to confession and must pray for forgiveness from God and hope grace is given them to enter heaven upon death.
I’ve talked to priests about my mom who never learned of the gospel and then died. I said I’d never see her in heaven because protestants believe that if someone never hears the gospel, they go to hell because nobody preached to them or whatever. The priest said that the Catholics don’t believe that just because people die without knowing the Gospel they would go to hell forever. So I find the Catholic position to be more reasonable. Also they have been trying to go through with the ecumenical movement where they will reconcile with other denomination. Perhaps individual priests may not always be perfect, or perhaps you spoke to them before the church decided to reach out to other denominations, but the official Catholic position is what it is, now.
I heard the Catholic church used to be a lot more judgmental and closed minded in the past.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
Romans 1:20 NIV
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.”
Psalms 19:1-4 NIV
“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”
2 Timothy 4:3 NIV
Because I never knew your mother, I cannot say where she is now. All I can do you show you what the Bible says. Believe or not, that’s up to you.
But the question is, is someone going to hell just because they happen to be born to the wrong parents/country? They worship God in their own way, I believe most people do.
But protestants say you must worship God their way or else you go to hell.
Would a fair God fault people for this?
It would be incredibly refreshing for me to meet one believer, let alone a religious leader, who said something like “I don’t know which religion, if any, is true, but this one makes the most sense to me, so that’s why I believe it and I can’t judge others for their beliefs.” Instead, the people I speak to about this topic have typically never given much thought to whether or not what they believe is true or they’re absolutely adamant that they’re right and everyone else is wrong. When I ask them why they’re so certain, they typically say something like “I just know it” or recount some kind of spiritual experience they had. When I mention that people from other religious backgrounds are equally certain and have sometimes even had their own equally profound spiritual experiences, the response is that they’re either just wrong and that their spiritual experiences were demonic.
Some Protestants make excuses. For example, they say that people who have never heard the Gospel before, like your mum, can still be saved (does that mean that you’re responsible for sending somebody to Hell for eternity if you’re the person who introduces them to the Gospel which they then they reject it?) and that children below a certain age (and adults with a certain mental age) will automatically be saved. If these exceptions are true, then it puts lie to the idea that you must believe in Jesus to be saved. If these exceptions aren’t true, then God is a monster.
Likewise, if somebody is born in Pakistan and lives their life as a perfectly good Muslim never considering Christianity because they have no need to, or even if somebody uses their own God-given mental faculties to reach the conclusion that Islam makes more sense than Christianity and becomes a Muslim for that reason, then God would be a monster to send those people to Hell.
Or someone can come to the conclusion that there is no God and that they live a perfectly good life according to their society, not knowing who really created everything.
God would be cruel to condemn people to hell for this.
I agree. But, if a monotheistic God does exist, then I think it’s especially monstrous for Him to send people to Hell forever for worshipping Him the wrong way than for rejecting Him entirely. Christians who think this is good and proper behaviour for a loving God argue that because Muslims don’t believe Jesus is God, they are therefore worshipping a different god. I’ve tried to accept this argument, but it doesn’t make the situation sound any less monstrous.
Supposedly the Quakers believe that Jesus died for everyone’s sins, and so everyone goes to heaven, even if not immediately.
I don’t believe a monotheistic God would condemn people to hell just because they didn’t know how to worship God the right way. I mean yes, the heavens declare God’s glory, but it doesn’t exactly have “instructions on how to worship God” written there.
Even atheists would proclaim that there are big forces at work that we cannot comprehend, just that they don’t believe in a divine being.