Minority Status
I recently argued with a friend of mine about minority status in America. She said that Christians were the minority in America and Catholics were the majority.
The idea that I stated, that Catholics and Christians were the same, seemed totally offensive to her. She said that she, as a Christian, did not believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Because they held to different customs and beliefs from the Protestant church, they could not possibly be part of Christiandom.
Among the things that I find wrong with her position, two take absolute prominence.
Firstly, when traveling around any city in the US, there is a marked 3:1 ratio of protestant churches to Catholic churches. That might even be understated. Thus, the argument that protestant Christianity is a minority belief in comparison to catholic Christianity is simply erroneous.
More importantly, it was the Catholic church that first instituted Christianity on a broad scale, giving Catholics a greater claim on the Christian label than Protestants.
Typical arguments with Protestants have led to discussions regarding a statement in the book of Revelation that says, "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." Of course, any intelligent person knows that the writer was referring only to the text of the book of the Revelation, because the compilation known today as the Christian Holy Book had not been established. But Christians dislike intelligence, and protestants that I have argued with typically refer to this text as applying to the entirety of the Bible.
So, how much of the text of the Bible was deleted by the protestant church, but remains in the Catholic Bible?
The truth is that Christianity thrives in part on the assumption that Christians are being denounced and persecuted for their faith. But that is not so. Whether Catholic or Protestant, Christianity is the majority belief system in the US. Christians of any stripe, therefore, cannot claim minority status.
I am become death, destroyer of worlds
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"She said that Christians
"She said that Christians were the minority in America and Catholics were the majority."
That's like, my whole family. It took me over an hour to convince my brother that it's the belief in jesus as the son of god that defines a christian, not how each sect individually worships. The rest of my family can't be convinced.
It's weird how some noncatholic christians view catholics as pretty much on par with satanists. My entire family sees them as "not real christians" and "cultists".
They also do very much view themselves in the minority status. They think athiests are everywhere, running tv stations and the government and some such. It's friggin impossible to show them actual statistics, because they are "produced as part of the non christian agenda." If it isn't pro-christian, it's anti-christian, no ambiguity, no middle ground, no neutral. It's like a parallel universe.