Research Topics. Share this link:. Michael Lipka is an editorial manager of religion research at Pew Research Center. Facts are more important than ever. The most and least racially diverse U. American religious groups vary widely in their views of abortion. Blacks more likely than others in U. Religious Demographics. Are you a Faith and Flag Conservative? Progressive Left? Or somewhere in between? Take our quiz to find out.
Take our quiz to find out which one of our nine political typology groups is your best match. All you have to do is believe and accept that gift. Think of how you feel for your own children. No matter what they do will you stop loving them? As for what religion to follow?
Learn all you can without committing to one thing and when you see red flags or feel unsettled in your being, follow your instincts. Ask questions, challenge people in a loving way, and above all else, pray. God will speak and you will know His voice because it will give you a feeling of peace.
If you do not feel peace, then it means it is time to wait and take no action. Sending you prayers right now. All you have to do is accept it. You are studying two belief systems that conflict with one another. The more I work with him the stronger my Catholic Faith becomes.
Before I Started corresponding with him. I believe Jesus is the Son of God. That Jehovah is God. To me it looks like they believe in two gods but that not how they interpet it. She was too young or nieve to know better. Most of the blame belongs on the King and his promise to give her anything she wanted.
He also was tooooooo proud to go back on his word because of pride and embarrassment. He was just not a good man. I will continue to do so. What are you on about? We Catholics devolutly believe Jesus is the son of God.
I will pray for you. Jesus turned water into wine when they ran out during,yes a celebration.. I will let u do the research on that. In fact, the bible talks about birthday only twice. The first is found on Genesis , where it tells us that Pharaoh hung his cupbearer as a gift to himself.
Do you know what she asked for? And she got it. Jesus and his family made yearly trips every spring to the temple in Jerusalem to celebrate The Passover. When they got back home, they celebrated another festival that was part of The Passover: the Festival of Unfermented Cakes. Every Israelite at that time did the exact same thing. You also mention the time when Jesus converted water to wine at a celebration.
It was a wedding being held at Cana. Again… No birthday. It is a widely known fact that the early Roman Catholic Church fidgeted around with different dates in December, using a Julian calendar, settling on December 25 as a way to attract pagans non-Christians into the church. Saturnalia, the festival for Saturn, the Roman god of feasting and gift-giving, ended on this date.
For whatever reason, when the church decided to move to the modern Gregorian calendar in , they forgot maybe intentionally to adjust the date — December 25 is January 7 in the Gregorian calendar. Thus, Christmas is nothing more than a re-packaged pagan holiday used by the Catholic Church as a way to make conversion less of a shock.
This is called Greco-Roman Neopaganism. But what does the bible say? There are, however, clues that make December 25 implausible. Case closed. Do you know what Greeks and Romans did when celebrating birthdays?
Romans celebrated birthdays with huge parties that included, but were not limited to, sex orgies, heavy wine drinking, and surprise, surprise gift-giving. Is there any other more selfish celebration? Almost all Catholic celebrations have no biblical basis. Hell, the Catholic church itself has no biblical beginning. One of the comments above says the Apostle Peter created the Catholic church.
Hate to break it to you, but Christianity as an organized religion, which would later become the Catholic Church, was years later by Constantine — the most pagan Roman Caesar ever. Jesus never gave Peter any direction or commandment to create or lead a church of any kind.
To say that Jesus created the Catholic church is to say Jesus and Jehovah God approve of 1, years of stealing, rape, oppression, and murder at the feet of the Catholic Church.
To hail the church as this beacon of righteousness and piety is to ignore all the twisted interpretations and fiction created by it. Jesus taught love. How many people have been killed in the name of God and the Catholic church?
Jesus preached against idolatry. How many statues can you find at St. Jesus was a humble man who championed the poor. Would Jesus be proud of all the elaborate, nauseatingly elaborate costumes worn by the Pope? And most importantly, Jesus taught humility. What could be more arrogant than putting a human-made organization in par with Jesus Christ?
The key word in that sentence is observe. True Christians observe, act upon, the example Jesus set; so that others would be motivated to be better people by your actions. These are all facts that can easily be found. Truth, however, takes much time and effort. I was born into it. I truly believed this was the true religion. And then it dawned on me that religion and faith are not the same thing.
Religion has only one purpose: control. Faith in Jesus and Jehovah God is the complete opposite. Out of all the comments on this thread, I have been the only one to actually quote what the bible says. Denis, We celebrate birthdays because we honor the person- we are glad they were born.
It is not a selfish day- it is a day of love and appreciation. We also love the tradition of Santa Claus, which brings families together through gift giving and togetherness, and fun for all. Why do you criticise? The Catholic Church is all about love- I never once heard a priest speak ill about any other religion, yet all I ever here are negative comments about the Catholics. We are easy targets because we rarely defend ourselves.
Like I said in my last comment, I have nothing against Catholics. In fact, half of my family and many of my friends are Catholic. Rather, they are challenges to the institution of religion and the organized church. But it has also been responsible for the deaths of millions in its 1,plus year history. It has also been responsible for the persecution of anyone who dared criticize the Pope or the church in anyway.
For hundreds of years, the church kept Europe on a grip of tyranny and mysticism that only ended when people had the courage to stand up and challenge the immense power the Vatican had. The Catholic church today is just but a vestige of the church of a couple hundred years ago. Please notice how I am making a clear demarcation between the church and individual Catholics. Every human has a God-given right to worship as he or she sees fit without the fear of being ostracized or denigrated.
But a question still comes up, does God need a human-made religious organization to fulfill his purposes? Organized religion has pushed itself to the fore so much that it is hard for people to understand a simple truth: like King Solomon said, God does not reside in temples made of stone. Thus, no human-made religious organization can claim it is the only true one. All genuine love is cemented on truth. Christians for whom doctrine and religious membership is of the highest importance are rendered tense and fearful by the suppression of questioning.
Do not expect those who run the institutions to be sensitive to the difference. God needs no particular person, church, denomination, creed or organization to accomplish his purpose. He will make use of those, in all their diversity, who are ready to be used, but will leave to themselves those who labor for their own ends. Nonetheless, questioning the institution [of the Catholic church] is synonymous, for many, with attacking God — something not long to be tolerated… Actually, they are protecting themselves, their view of the world, and their sense of security.
The religious institution has given them meaning, a sense of purpose, and, in some cases, careers. Anyone perceived as a threat to these things is a threat indeed. I could read your installments all day long; simply fascinating. Although I no longer practice religion in an organized sense, I do believe Jehovah God is within all of us and a controlling organized group is not required for one to have faith and live a good honest life. Denis J. Well written Denis J. Brought up as a Catholic non-practicing , I am a seeker of truth and knowledge, but more importantly; a decent human being I try to be.
Anyways, What truly matters in this world, is how we treat and behave towards others, and this planet that was given to us to maintain and look after, and in having the faith to believe that right ways are the ways to all our salvations.
Blessings to all. Another way in teaching about Purgatory. We leave the judging to God not any whom for no human has a right to say that a person is going to hell. Now just wait … We all just want to have faith in something , Wat ever higher power you believe in is no wrong. Once a man was judged n look wat happen to him, he was crucified n died on the cross for us so lets learn from that.
Peace out. Sacred Scripture the Bible is just one part of the deposit of Catholic faith, the others being sacred Tradition and the Magisterium the teaching authority of the Church. Please be reminded that Tradition pre-dates written documentation, and the canon of the Bible was put together by the Catholic Church itself — and stood unified more than a thousand years before Martin Luther took it upon himself to reject Traditon and the teaching authority of the Church. There may be practical similarities between the two faiths, but they are fundamentally very different.
Let me point at that Catholics did not add 7 books to the bible. Catholics canonized what books would be in the bible in the first place. We were given authority to teach the multitudes when Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom thereby making him the first Pope. So our Bible is the original Bible.
Martin Luther took out those 7 books during the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church was started by Jesus when he appointed Peter the head of the church years ago. Jehovah witnesses church was started by Charles Taze Russell less than yrs ago. The choice is clear. I follow Jesus. Catholics do not use symbols or idols in their worship. When we worship, we only have the Holy Trinity in our minds and heart.
The symbols and images of angels, symbols, and saints help us remember and serve as teaching tools. This was especially true in the early days of the church. God never forbade the use of religious symbols and images, he forbade the worship of said images, which Catholics do not do.
In fact, there are multiple references in the scripture in which God commanded the use of images and statues. Also, pretty much any celebratory day could have some type of pagan rituals. An example is the use of a Christmas tree during Christmas. This is a really weak argument and fallacious. Catholics do not use any form of paganism when celebrating these days. The holy trinity is first and foremost in our minds and hearts during these days. The Pagan influence fallacy can not be taken seriously.
Yes, the two churches are extremely different. The next being that the Watchtower version of the bible is heavily distorted and constructed by four people without training in Ancient Greek or Hebrew. He never got angry or responded in a way that was harsh and critical. Instead he spoke with love and patience, used illustrations in a way that helped others to see what his message was. We all know the scriptures that speak about how God feels when we judge others. Bare with me while I try to sum up what happened to me.
There is a reason behind it… I was part of a family, child-hood cult until I was 10 years old that can only be described as so out of this world, twisted, and takes brain-washing to a whole new level. The life-time mental and emotional damage I have seen it had on every one of my family members, is heartbreaking. Trust in religion and hypocrisy was huge for most of us. I could write a book on it. I went from there into a 15 year old teenager and jumped into only what I knew growing up….
Into a controlling and abusive relationship with much older men twice. Another book I could write on. I began working on myself trying to figure out who I wanted to be and where I wanted my life to go. As a year old single mom of 2 toddlers, I enrolled in college classes, begin counseling, signed up in life skills courses and support groups.
Moreover, there is a great difference between eating blood and receiving a life-giving blood transfusion. Indeed, even ultra-Orthodox Jews, who strictly observe the Old Testament kosher laws, recognize that blood transfusions are not prohibited by the command not to eat blood.
Witnesses do not believe eating fat is wrong, and would see no problem at all with someone munching on fried pork rinds i. But their vehement opposition to eating blood, when contrasted with their approval of eating fat, presents a serious problem for them. Because Leviticus, the book they go to in order to substantiate their prohibition of eating and receiving transfusions of blood, contains, in the same passages, prohibitions against eating fat.
The fat of an animal that dies of itself, and the fat of one that is torn by beasts, may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which an offering by fire is made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people. Moreover you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwellings. These verses and others like them are difficult for Witnesses to explain, given that they lean heavily on the prohibitions against eating blood.
First, they quote passages out of context, highlighting only those verses that appear to support their beliefs, while ignoring others that contradict those beliefs. Second, their own NWT often distorts the text so as to support their beliefs. Be wary, then, when the Witnesses come to your door.
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