To Jeb Bush, the Pope is a false prophet. Worse, a popular false prophet, who believes in global warming. Wikipedia lists Jeb Bush as being currently Roman Catholic.If you're Catholic, yeah. But Jeb Bush is Protestant. There's a much larger global population of Catholics, but America's got more Protestants (something something Martin Luther). Notice, it was really kind of them to split up "evangelic" and "mainline" protestant, so I can know that the evangelical majority still dominates (fuck!).
I hate linking to this, but the first few paragraphs explain why I was confused. HAHAHah wow, they misspelled "Catholicism" in the linked article's title. Nice. cgod, yes, more or less correct. Super confused because I knew that Dubya was Protestant. Protestants and Catholics only forge alliances when it is absolutely necessary, like, say, Christmas dinner at the Bush residence.
I have Catholics on one side of my family and Protestants on the other. I think you would be hard pressed to get them to name five differences between the two sides. The 17th century was a long time ago. While a there might be a few in each barrel who seriously object to the other sides dogma I think most religious people are generally ignorant of the nuances of their religion. Hell Mitt Romney made a decent run at the White House and he's a Mormon.
Really? I'll hammer some out now, as related to me through Protestant propaganda: 1) Protestants believe that they are "saved" through faith exclusively. Catholics believe that your actions have repercussions. 2) Catholics have saints and the Pope. Protestants have, uhhh... a string of televangelists, which at least doesn't include Ratzinger, but that's about the only good news there. 3) Catholics baptize babies. Protestants wait until they have had ample time to brainwash the child before asking them whether or not they'd like to be forcibly held underwater. If the brainwashing was successful, it's a yes. 4) Protestant "mass" isn't called mass, and it's slightly less ritualistic than a Catholic's Sunday morning. 5) Catholics drink REAL WINE for communion, and Protestants (Baptists, at least) roll with grape juice. Yeah, I was planning on getting drunk off of a third of a shot of wine. OK, yeah, you were right. I really degenerated towards the end. Still, that #1 is a big deal to a lot of folks. I remember it being hammered into my fragile little brain early on. I brought up ol' Mitt's magic Mormon underwear to my parents, who would follow the GOP off a cliff. It definitely created some cognitive dissonance for them. This especially intrigues me because I vividly recall a Sunday School lesson from when I was around 11 or 12, titled (no, seriously) "Why Other Religions Are Wrong", which seemed to feature the LDS/Mormons. Sometime between then and graduating high school, things went terribly wrong for me. Literally, went to hell. According to my parents. Cheers! :)I think you would be hard pressed to get them to name five differences between the two sides.
Yup, number one is big to some folks but not to most. Most people don't know a hell of a lot about their religion and care even less. Religions has become pretty personal in this day and age. You'll meet the people who think you are going to hell because you don't do what they do but not all that many. Earn your gold star for praising Jesus in the way which you do and it's hard enough to understand what you belive let alone try and figure out what the other guy does. I don't think many religions are still teaching the "Why Other Religions Are Wrong" unit. In a way it's good, less friction. Back in the 17th century you could wipe out a city for Jesus and the people of that city could all be Christians. My sister is a raging Catholic, she's feeding homeless people, teaching the teens, collecting recyclables for god but knows nothing about her faith. I'm faithless but will still argue with anyone who cares about that the First Council of Nicaea is where it all hit the shitter. The differences of faith are interesting and if people are going to go through the bother they should at least give a fuck but they don't. The Evangelicals differentiate a lot more than the rest. Their legalistic "accept Jesus Christ as your savior or go to hell!" shtick runs pretty strong. They do often stand apart but I don't think most of them understand much more than the legalistic dogma they get spoon fed.