I am curious what specialist arguments are useful when debating Catholics.

they have a different sort of religious rules (Then Protestants) such as Sacred Tradition, Magisterial, Pope Infallibility, and Ecumenical Councils

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"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine

Most of the same fundamental arguments apply. Non-divinity of Jesus, fallibility of scripture, how can the pope be infallible when the catholic church has changed positions a few times? Most of the OT does not apply because most write it off as apocryphal

Focus on the new testament.

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GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences

There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

I am being told that I have to read a book (apparently written by a Catholic Author) on the subject of scripture interpretation in light of tradition and Magisterial teaching. To me, from what I have seen it is just smoke and mirrors and don't reallt want to wade through a several hundred page book of BS.

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"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine

What are you debating with them about?

In my experience, the best thing to do is to cement the philosophical position that you aren't really using the bible and canon if you're just picking and choosing passages from the bible. If you're doing that, then you're just going to end up with your value system, not the bible's value system.

@Alyrium, a lot of Christians will say that a specific passage in the New Testament isn't canon because it's written by a specific apostle (usually Paul), and doesn't reflect the true attitudes of Jesus. Of course, if you do that then you can get anything you want out of the bible, which makes it meaningless as a source of information.

It is in a discussion of the NH Gay Bishop who is planning to get a Civil Union.

One of the arguments is that it is against the bible and my argument has been that the bible contradicts itself and have rules (in the New Testament) which cannot be followed. Part of teh argument appears to be that when you look at these with tradition and Magisterial teaching, they either disappear or are explained away.

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"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine

What parts of the new testament are these? Because I have read the bible cover to cover... I have even talked to Jews who let me know that in the original context and language the bit in leviticus about the gay refers to gay prostitution in the temple so.... But Max is gay so that could be a bit of bias.

As to "giving in to unnatural urges" that was God making them do an orgy. hardly a legal recognition of gay unions.

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GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences

There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Ask them if they support other silly rules in the bible, like killing people who don't follow your religion (first re-written commandment).

Well, I said New Testament because they know the ammo I can use from the Old Testament.

They were more criticizing (or trying to) Misquoting Jesus

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"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine

My attacks on the RCC usually revolve around the following points:

1) Condoms and the AIDS crisis in Africa. The church has remained genocidal in its approach to sex and condoms, preferring that people die in droves rather than put a condom on.

2) Standard theistic and christian specific arguments; God doesn't exist, Jesus was not the son of God, if God was real moral people would have to stand against it, etc.

3) Child sex abuse and how the church covered it up, aiding and abetting known paedophiles, helping them escape justice, and even electing one of the people critical to such injustice and blatant evil as its patriarch. Said celibate patriarch who helped paedophiles escape justice then lectures the rest of the world on how to have sex.



Their saints and Mary etc are just examples of the rampant superstition and occultism in the church and are fairly unimportant in comparison to the rampant assholery.

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EBC|Fucking Metal|Artist|Androgynous Sexfiend|Gozer Kvltist|
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"America is, now, the most powerful and economically prosperous nation in the country." - Master of Ossus

Church doctrine is to Catholics as the Bible is to fundies. Tailor your arguments accordingly.

The other major argument is that I know nothing about the early history of the church.

I don't know specific but I do know that there were dozens of competing branches of Christianity some which have values which go directly against the proto-Catholic doctrines. Arianism, for example, did not consider Christ divine and some Gnostics had Christ in their religious doctrines while others did not.

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"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine

Yes, this is key. I once debated a Catholic who insisted that because the church doctrines "kept up with the times" so to speak, that the source of our morality was obviously divine, inspired by the Bible and altered by God through the church. When I asked him to provide just one example where the church lead social change instead of just following it, he got angry and kept steering around the point.

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I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
-Winston Churchhill

I think a part of my sanity has been lost throughout this whole experience. And some of my foreskin - My cheating work colleague at it again

They might come up with an idea proposed by someone who wasn't really Christian, but is generally believed to be Christian (Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, etc.) and then say that the church caused the change.

One problem I have in specific is that I was in a debate with a Catholic and I was talking about the early Christian church and how many competing branches there were. I was told that I did not know what I was talking about and that the person had a bachelors with a specialty with early church history. I have a suspicion that the church colleges teaches a very unbalanced course

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"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine

Well, a church college seems just about as likely to offer a balanced and accurate picture of Christian history, as an Ordensburgen school would have been likely to offer a balanced and accurate picture of German history...

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I find myself endlessly fascinated by your career - Stark, in a fit of Nerd-Validation, November 3, 2011

You know what else behaves this way? Assuming that the person will change if only X happens? Yeah. Abuse victims. American liberals are suffering from a case of electoral Stockholm syndrome. - Aly, re: Obama enthusiasts expecting a change-of-direction, after the 2012 election

What books would people recommend for early Christian History. I have read a few books but much of what I used to tie it together has been Wiki. I try to find alternate sources to support what is stated there when possible

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"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine