nyj said:
With the closing of IDD, there will wind up being instances of people with too much time on their hands with too little to do. These people will be more prone to surf new fora and participate in them. That means we can expect an influx of non-Catholics into OBOB asking all sorts of things, and debating several others.
As we all know, the instant a Catholic (or Orthodox) member of CF as much as shows their nose in P/R/E, a vocal minority there starts screaming bloody murder. Doesn't matter that they don't call their own P/R/E brethren on the carpet for coming into OBOB, they act as if Catholics posting in P/R/E is a huge crime, worthy of immediate suspension.
So, if I may make a suggestion: Catholics place a moratorium on posting in P/R/E. I mean, no posts whatsoever. No fellowship, no correction of lies and slander, and especially no debating.
Given the tone of several posts that I have read in OBOB and in P/R/E, warnings will come hard and fast, and I don't think much will be done to curb it. So, I think it's in our best interest to just avoid that place.
Just my two cents. Keep the change.
I hope this post doesn't break any rules in this forum, but I'm gonna risk it anyway, and if I perish, I perish. (Or if I'm banned, I'm banned, anyway. LOL)
That's probably a really good idea, nyj. I know that you guys often feel that you're only responding in that forum to "clear up misconceptions about your faith," but the thing is, often the people posting those "misconceptions" don't see them as misconceptions. Think of it this way. People in this forum feel perfectly free to say things like, "Protestant Christianity didn't exist until the 16th century," without fear of contradiction. According to your interpretation of history, you see yourselves as the original church, and Protestants as late-comers, and most of the people here, apparently see this as an "objective fact," not under dispute. But that's not how we see it. I read a good deal of church history, myself, and the way I see it is that the particular ecclesiology that developed into modern day Catholicism was the development of one particular tradition in the church, but not the only one.
But if that way of looking at it is difficult for you to follow (especially without a bunch of historical stuff to back it up), perhaps another view is easier for you get my point. According to the ecclesiology of some Eastern Orthodox, there's the view that the Western Church departed from Apostolic Christianity and the Eastern Church remained faithful to the apostolic traditions. According to that view, Catholicism was "the first Protestant church." Now you can dispute the validity of that view, but what if there were an Eastern Orthodox forum where Catholics couldn't debate. An Eastern Orthodox could put forth that statement, and you would be forced to let it stand, even though you'd consider it a misrepresentation of Catholicism. The same is true in the PRE. I can't come in here and debate with you over whether or not Protestantism was a "latecomer," even though you can state it all you want. I consider it a misrepresentation, but I can't debate it. The same is true for you guys in the PRE. So if your only reason for coming there is to clear up "misrepresentations", then it's probably better to stay away, just as you expect us to stay away if we just want to come in and clear up "misrepresentations" about Protestantism.
Now I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with everything every Protestant says about Catholicism in the PRE. I'm not saying that everything that's said in that forum is true while everything that's said in here is false. But I know many different Catholics who hold different views about Protestantism, as well. I've known of some who can represent Protestantism in what I consider a fairly accurate way, and still disagree with it. That's fine. Others latch onto the poorest expressions of Protestantism and try to portray them as a correct representation of same. And certainly, some Protestants point to the very worst of Catholicism and hold that up as a correct representation of your beliefs. But, like it or not, when it comes to the PRE or the OBOB forum, we need to leave it up to the fellow members of each others respective communions to correct them. And if that isn't happening, then we just have to accept it.
Is there anyone here to whom any of this makes any sense?
(I decided that, as a gesture of good will, even though I dispute the "catholic" nature of your communion, I'll edit my post and refer to you merely as Catholics in this forum.)
