/lit/ - Literature

>>19662778
Basically. Orthodoxism is the correct path, Catholicists are progressives, and Protestants are trannies.

>>19662778
Catholics/Protestants are beautiful and Orthodox are...uh...hanging in there XD

>>19662778
wikipedia

>>19662787
Do you realize that retarded and fake physiognomy posts only make you look like a retard? You're probably a British deformed tranny turdface who's salty about gay marriage.

>>19662778
The last hurrah of the Roman senatorial class was the Roman papal bureaucratic organization, upon which most bureaucracies in the Western world are based *or a reaction to.*

Ask this on /his/

>>19662778
Orthodox usually means the Eastern Orthodox churches of Greece, Russia, Serbia, etc. They don't have a single head of the church, each of their churches has a patriarch as its head, although the Ecumenical Patriarch is nominally the first among equals. They believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, a major disagreement with Catholics arising from not accepting an alternation to the Nicene Creed accepted by a Catholic Pope in the early middle ages. They believe the eucharist (bread and wine) fully becomes Jesus' body and blood but don't accept the Catholics' specific philosophical explanation of how it works.

Catholicism means you accept the bishop of Rome as Pope and head of the church. For Catholics, the Church is synonymous with the organisation that is the Catholic Church. Theologically they believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. They have a specific understanding of the eucharist called transubstantiation, which means the bread and wine entirely become Jesus' body and blood in all fundamental ways and only have the accidental of bread and wine (in simple terms, they only look like bread and wine).

Protestant is an umbrella term for Western Christians who split away from the Catholic Church during the reformation in the 16th century. Protestantism includes a wide variety of different theologies, but they all reject the supremacy of the Pope and reject the Catholic (and Orthodox) belief that being saved and going to heaven includes merit earned from accepting sacraments (like baptism, eucharist, etc.) and pious deeds like donating to the church. Instead, Protestants believe that faith is the only thing that gets you into heaven. Beliefs about the eucharist vary, Lutherans believe in consubstantiation: that Jesus' body and blood are fully present in the eucharist but that it also remains bread and wine. Others such as Anglicans affirm the real presence of Jesus in the eucharist but without a specific explanation of how it works. Some believe in only a spiritual presence of Jesus in the bread and wine, a minority believe it's just symbolic. In cmon with Catholics they believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and Son.

>>19662902
nice post, any book recs on this?

>>19662778
Western and Eastern (Orthodox) churches split in the Great Schism in 1054. The Western churches believe that the Holy Ghost comes from the Father and the Son, whereas in the Eastern church the Holy Ghost comes from the Father. The addition of the latin filique (=and the son) to the Western liturgy was seen as a one of the major issues leading to the schism. The Eastern churches also forbade the use of unleavened bread, whereas it was mandated in the Western church.
The Catholic church was very corrupt in the early 16th century, going as far as to sell people places in heaven (indulgences). Luther advocated several reforms, but was rejected, excommunicated and outlawed. Eventually he ended up establishing his own movement (Lutheranism) based on /sola scriptura/ and salvation through faith rather than work.
Inspired by Luther, several protestant movements began to form around different theologians. There are too many to count, but they all reject Catholic dogmas and the pope. Protestantism is a general word for all of these, but they are all quite different and have different theological underpinnings, e.g. Calvinists don't believe that Christs body and blood are not physically present during eucharist, only the spirit, whereas Lutherans do believe that His body and blood are physically present. However, unlike the Catholics, Lutherans do not believe that the bread and wine /change/ to body and blood. Still, protestant groups are probably more similar to each other than to Catholism or to the Eastern church.
In principle all of these are different forms of Christianity, but historically members of one group have rejected the others' claim to being Christian. For example, some protestant groups would claim that since catholics worship the pope, Mary and the saints instead of the Trinity, they are pagans, not Christians.
There is also the Church of the Latter-day Saints, based on Joseph Smith's finding of buried gold tablets in New York in 1823 showing Jews having actually moved to America and built an ancient civilization there. Since they have an entirely different set of theological beliefs compared to any Christian movement, and they follow a 'second Bible', the Book of Mormon, no one besides the mormons believes them to be Christian.

>>19662778
I'll try to be as unbiased as possible but
Orthodoxy
>Christianity, for good or for worse. It is definitely full of LARPers though.
Catholicism
>Whatever weird Pagan thing you've been doing is fine, we'll make it Catholic! If you want the Latin mass like ye olde times, we have that too! Just say yes to these few points so that you're in direct contention with every other Christian Church, and by all means stick to us, do NOT read the Bible, just listen to the Pope OK?
Protestant
>I don't really like ALL of Christianity, so I've decided to ignore everything but the Bible. Now that I think about it, there are parts I dislike in the Bible as well, I will ignore those parts too lol. Jesus makes you rich IRL if you're a nice guy.
Also Protestant
>Jesus makes you rich IRL if you're gay.

>>19662778
Non-theologian answer since there are already good one here - and I respect a wellrounded thread:

Orthodox split from Catholicism because the Eastern Roman emperor did not want to bow down to Pope. For Catholics Pope is the greatest leader greater than even kings and emperors. This isn't the case for Orthodox where "the patriarch" is clearly inferior to the emperor. In short, based Eastern Emperor did not want to bow to Pope, and they decided to use one of the loopholes as an excuse.

Protestant church was originally a well meaning one, a reaction to excessive corruption of the Catholic church, but it got subverted by Germanic princes, as well as any other elites of that time who saw the opportunity to do a "Orthodox v2" split. Take note that protestant church has very little power compared to the leadership within specific protestant countries.

>>19662902
>>19662921
>>19662952
>>19662957
nice posts, thanks

>>19662778
Protestants worship Jesus, Catholics and Orthodox worship Mary but also catholics have the pope but Orthodox do not.

Is there a denomination that reads the bible metaphorically instead of literally or spiritually. As in, the sins are sins not because of god punishing you but because those are just things that make your life worse. I like viewing the bible as a collection of old wisdom or philosophy dressed up in an easy to digest format compared to trudging through Aristotle or Plato.

>>19663008
young earth creationists are mostly a Protestant thing.

>>19663008
Judaism

>>19662906
No, unfortunately. It's what I've picked up from conversations, articles and videos over the years. There are loads more differences like purgatory and all the different Protestant movements which can overlap with each other.

>>19663008
Ah no, you meant the whole Bible. Truth is, most people do not believe in anything specific, including Christians. I live in a Catholic country, but if you ask a Catholic about "turn the other cheek", or "love your enemies" he'll say it's bullshit. Not that it's a metaphor, but just straight up stupid. Honestly speaking there are also blatant idolaters in Catholicism who straight up worship Mary because Mary is a nice looking lady while Jesus is a skinny guy on a cross. They have no real idea of "intercession" when they pray to Mary or the Saints, who are often just treated as magical people that you can ask for. Have a leg infection? Pray to the Patron of Leg Infections so that it's healed. There's no concept of Saints as "spiritual" Doctors, in the sense that they impart wisdom, or they offer an example. They're treated literally the same way as you'd pray to Diana before a hunt or whatever. It's Pagan through and through. In elderly people there's always a preference for saints or Mary to Jesus. Many Catholics are actually agnostics. "Yes, I believe in Jesus, God, and all that..." do they believe in transubstantieation? What? That's bollocks lol. Every detail on Jesus' teaching? That's pretty stupid, no way I'll do that.
I haven't asked about Mary but they probably have all sorts of discordant opinions on Mary as well.
Vast majority of Catholics have never touched a Bible or even a Gospel from the age they took their first Communion. They just go to Church on Sundays and then act like hardore atheists when they walk out. Most Catholics have an extremely foggy view of Christianity, but I'm sure it's not just a Catholic thing and Protestants do the same in places where Protestantism is the norm, although fogginess of Protestants comes from whatever weird arbitrary interpretation of the Scriptures they cooked up to justify what they're doing at any given moment.

>>19662921
>The Eastern churches also forbade the use of unleavened bread,
Feel like I should have known this, gonna have to read up properly on the Great Schism.
>protestant groups are probably more similar to each other than to Catholism or to the Eastern church
I'd call out the Anglicans / Church of England as an exception to this, but am happy to be told I'm wrong.

>>19662778
It's like dungeons and dragons for people who dont really care about jesus at all but like insulting each other

>>19662778

This would make a good infographic. Probably there's one out there but I bet /lit/ could make a better one if we pulled together, which we won't.

What you want is to separate the various sects according to a minimum number of key yes/no questions. Then you have a grid showing how each sect answers.

Here's some of the obvious questions:

— Accept Pop as God's supreme representative on earth? [Y/N]

— Believe in Original Sin? [Y/N]

— Believe in strict Transubstantiation? [Y/N]

— Believe that every person should seek individual enlightenment through reading the Bible? [Y/N]

— Believe that only a select few are predestined for salvation? [Y/N]

— Believe that faith alone guarantees salvation? [Y/N]

— Believe in a literal Purgatory? [Y/N]

etc

>>19663141
Pop = Pope. Probably a Freudian slip. Pls Catholics no bully.

>>19663064
The Church of England isn't dogmatic in the way the Catholic Church is, there have been theological disputes throughout its history like high church vs low church and Arminianism vs Calvinism. In terms of form it tends to be high church, such as having bishops and commemorating saints days, but that's the case for Lutheranism too.

A bunch of people who hate each other even though their whole shtick is believing that Jesus was the son of God, which they all do.

>>19662906
For Catholicism, start with their catechism. There is no single unified catechism for Eastern Orthodoxy, but there are a few attempted versions out there. The catechism will cover the core dogmas of the respective churches.

>>19662902
>They believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone,
What's the significance of this?

>>19662902
>Beliefs about the eucharist vary,
Can you explain the significance of this too? I don't understand why it's so important to all denominations.

>>19662902
>belief that being saved and going to heaven includes merit earned from accepting sacraments
That's not true. You cannot bootstrap your way into heaven, but you are called to live a Christlike life. You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven if you do not fully embrace Christ in your mind and body. The sacaraments are gifts of the Holy Spirit that help us to do this.

>>19662921
>. The addition of the latin filique (=and the son) to the Western liturgy was seen as a one of the major issues leading to the schism.
Why did Catholics wanted so badly to add this?

>>19662921
>The Catholic church was very corrupt in the early 16th century, going as far as to sell people places in heaven (indulgences)
Protestant bias. It wasn't selling people places in heaven. If people were donating to the Chuch, that would be seen as a good deed, and good deeds are likely to get you into heaven. The way you argue about it shows you're either indoctrinated by Prots or you're manipulating others.

>>19663424
That's incorrect as well, they were selling a reduction of your term in Purgatory

>>19663141
>This would make a good infographic. Probably there's one out there but I bet /lit/ could make a better one if we pulled together, which we won't.
Anyone knows of such a chart? I've only seen chronological ones rather than ideological