The saints are people who followed the principles of the religion. It's disingenuous to suggest that the actions of those who flouted Christianity's principles and rules should be allowed to define it.

> mixing emotional arguments with world views on the nature of existence is likely to annoy others

Perhaps, but the moral framework you cite as a benefit of religion is inextricably tied with a particular view on the nature of existence. People are far more likely to follow rules if they make sense.

It’s not that disingenuous when it’s the officials of the governing body of the faith as defined by the faith.

But this is the problem with any movement from feminism to Catholicism. It’s defined by its members but it’s members are individuals. If a group of people in the name of a movement do a bunch of things that most find disagreeable it’s not easy to separate them from the vanilla definition of the movement. There’s no objective definition of a collection of ideas. Religions and political persuasions can’t be intrinsically good, (though perhaps they can be intrinsically bad). There are certainly excellent ideas to be found in feminism and Catholicism. Yet Individuals in a belief system still have their own beliefs. There’s no purity of belief that can be identified. It’s a pointless endeavor.

And thus, saying my belief system is good as evidenced by these good people adhering to said system is a meaningless statement. I have no reason to believe that your interpretation of said system is the same as theirs. Similarly pointing to the villains of the system doesn’t mean anything either.

That's the beauty of the Catholic Church: there is purity of belief. There is a core set of things that all Catholics absolutely must believe, and any who do not, are not truly Catholics. These beliefs are laid down in many different ways and in many different books but they're all saying the same thing. The "table of contents" of these beliefs would be a book called the Catechism of The Catholic Church: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM Even though it's a full book of its own, it only barely touches on the core beliefs of our religion, like a tree trunk. The branches go very far and very wide, and you'll find them in all the writings of the Saints, all the writings of the Fathers of the Church, the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Bible, and many other good books. A good portion of them are laid down for free online at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/index.html which has the Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica (Summary of Theology), many writings of the Fathers of the Church, the Bible, and many other Catholic Church documents such as Papal encyclicals.

I object that "religious group" is a per-requisite (we live in a religion-soaked culture still, it's a default).

Most people benefit from joining any structured organization with strong-shared belief system. For example, the military very specifically operates and trains this way (it's in the wording - "a soldier will..." etc.). There's of course obvious reasons they should, but the concept is the same - build up a shared base of truth.

If we look to another area, think about the term "company man" and what's actually happened in the last 50 years to how the big corporations (or maybe any?) treat their workers. That used to once be a source of a identity and purpose as well (possibly not the most healthy or reliable one) but it's very much something which has changed. The active effort to kill the Union movement has similar consequences.

Couldn't agree more with that. Despite some of the talented thinkers the Roman Catholic church has produced, there are too many obviously despicable things they've supported to hold them in very high regard in my views (their refusal to allow women in leadership is another one which just doesn't jive). It's not honest to ignore that the bad parts were created by the exact same doctrines and structures that enabled good parts. After all, "By their fruits you will know them."

> The Catholic Church also held orgies in its sacred halls

You were lied to, my friend.

> enabled and hid a variety of pedophiles

Individuals did that, and that's very sad and damaging.

> and led a variety of violent conflicts for selfish gains

Read up on the Crusades (and Spanish Inquisition) from a Catholic perspective. It's not as cut and dry as people make it.

> The issue with specific religions is it holds specific beliefs as a pre requisite,

That's fine, as long as the beliefs are true.

> so it’s hard to just jump in amidst large bodies of diverse opinions

Look into any religion hard enough and you will find all categories of them to be logically and historically unsustainable except Catholicism. That's why I'm here. It is the only belief system fully compatible with intellectual integrity. Saint Thomas Aquinas said the same thing when he said that anyone who actually looked into Islam would see clearly that it is utterly absurd and full of contradictions.

> and conflicting scientific evidence.

There is none.

> Look into any religion hard enough and you will find all categories of them to be logically and historically unsustainable except Catholicism. That's why I'm here. It is the only belief system fully compatible with intellectual integrity. Saint Thomas Aquinas said the same thing when he said that anyone who actually looked into Islam would see clearly that it is utterly absurd and full of contradictions.

Roman Catholicism says that communion will turn wine and bread into literal flesh and blood. How on earth is that "compatible with intellectual integrity"? Or believing in a literal virgin birth? Another thing I can't intellectually justify is insisting on priest celibacy and keeping women out of the priesthood.

I'm not going to debate in favor of Islam, but it seems that mainstream protestant beliefs (or at least those which I'm familiar with, the beliefs of United Methodism) are just as capable of claiming the good parts of Christian philosophy, without insisting on the parts which clearly just exist due to the the Roman Catholic penchant for power wrangling and hierarchies.

> Roman Catholicism says that communion will turn wine and bread into literal flesh and blood. How on earth is that "compatible with intellectual integrity"?

That is called Transubstantiation and it is a daily recurring miracle. Miracles, by definition, are God bending the rules of physics, which He created and continually sustains, and is thus allowed to bend. This is philosophical but logically consistent.

> Or believing in a literal virgin birth?

Another miracle.

> insisting on priest celibacy

That's a rule, and put there for a very good reason. The less divided your heart is by worldly cares, the more you can care only for the people God put in your care.

> keeping women out of the priesthood

Just as much as men are kept out of giving birth. Consider this quote from G. K. Chesterton: "How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute."

> are just as capable of claiming the good parts of Christian philosophy, without insisting on the parts which clearly just exist due to the the Roman Catholic penchant for power wrangling and hierarchies.

They say "you are saved by faith alone" and "the Bible is the sole authority on religion" and yet the Bible literally says "you are not saved by faith alone". That's plenty enough to disregard all their remaining arguments in my opinion.

After using the process of elimination, only the Catholic Church's doctrines remain intact.

So for #1 and #2, you just hand-wave your doctrine as "miracles" that defy all otherwise known and consistent laws of the universe. Doesn't seem like intellectual integrity to me.

And #3 and #4 are directly at odds. You say Priests are not allowed to have children, which is why they are celibate (fair enough) but we all know children can't be born without both a Father and Mother involved. So when men choose not to have children for the priesthood, it's seen as noble. But Women aren't given that same choice in your view (Except they are, because nuns exist, yet Nuns cannot ever actually lead the Church).

Why don't you admit that the reason the Catholic church does not allow women priests is not because "a women's function is laborious" (a function not all women naturally can even do, otherwise why can't barren women be priests?), but rather because you take the words of Paul literally and do not allow a woman to hold authority over a man? That's the real reason and you know it.

Also, the "faith alone" thing is a bit misunderstood to be honest, mostly caused by how protestants overload that word. They basically mean that you cannot be saved by works alone under any circumstance, and that if you are unable to produce any works but have faith, you can still be saved (the example here is the penitent thief on the cross). After that, they consider works to be a natural outcome of legitimate faith, and that if you have the chance to do works and don't you'll lose your justification by faith.

There's a sermon by Wesley on that here: http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley...

> So for #1 and #2, you just hand-wave your doctrine as "miracles" that defy all otherwise known and consistent laws of the universe. Doesn't seem like intellectual integrity to me.

It is not intellectually dishonest to believe that God, who governs the universe and it's laws is able to suspend them if he so chooses.

> Why don't you admit that the reason the Catholic church does not allow women priests is not because "a women's function is laborious" (a function not all women naturally can even do, otherwise why can't barren women be priests?), but rather because you take the words of Paul literally and do not allow a woman to hold authority over a man? That's the real reason and you know it.

No, that is not the real reason. The idea that men and women are complementary is rooted in Christian teaching since the beginning. My understanding is that the reason women are not allowed to be priests is partly because during mass the priest stands in for Christ ( in persona Christi ) and Christ was born a man. Women hold authority over men all the time in the Catholic church, many doctors of the Church are women.

> Also, the "faith alone" thing is a bit misunderstood to be honest, mostly caused by how protestants overload that word. They basically mean that you cannot be saved by works alone under any circumstance, and that if you are unable to produce any works but have faith, you can still be saved (the example here is the penitent thief on the cross). After that, they consider works to be a natural outcome of legitimate faith, and that if you have the chance to do works and don't you'll lose your justification by faith.

This is just a long winded way of saying you are not saved by faith alone.

Doctor of the Church means a teacher whose teachings are universally applicable to everyone in the Catholic Church. It has nothing to do with authority. Many nuns were traditionally teachers of children, too. And each of the female doctors of the church, as far as I know, where nuns who submitted all their teachings to their superiors and confessors, who then examined and verified her writings for orthodoxy (1 Timothy 2:14) before recommending them for others or permitting them to be published (cf. Imprimi Potest).

St. Paul's words come from a deeper natural distinction between man and woman, and have to do with the fall of Adam and Eve, where Eve was the one who was deceived by the serpent, and also that Eve was created from Adam, and thus woman from man. Man was created first, because man is the default gender of humanity, and from man came woman. "But now man is born of woman," St. Paul also says, "and all things are from God." We are equal in dignity but not in our roles. Some women cannot bare children, but all men cannot bare children. Some men cannot be priests, for example if castrated, yet all women cannot be priests, because man is the gender God assigned to fatherhood and leadership, to represent his fatherhood and paternal leadership. Yet we are not to lead as the world leads, by "lording it over" others; we are to lead as Jesus led, meekly, humbly, with gentleness, by example, and doing everything in our power to help those whom God has put in our charge to accomplish their duties, unlike the Pharisees who "lay heavy burdens" on their charges "but will not lift one finger to help them carry it." Everyone has the heavy burden of going through a wearisome life, and our jobs as fathers are to show them how to make that burden lighter, first and foremost by bringing them to Jesus, who says "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

St. John Paul II talked a lot about this subject about 45 years ago, here's a PDF with a clickable table of contents: https://d2wldr9tsuuj1b.cloudfront.net/2232/documents/2016/9/...

What makes, for example, Hinduism unsustainable?

I'm not pretending to know anything I'm trying to understand what the op meant with this remark.

>Look into any religion hard enough and you will find all categories of them to be logically and historically unsustainable except Catholicism.

It was a joke. Take a chill pill. As far as I am concerned, all religion is nothing but a brain management technique to allow us to elevate ourselves over our basest of instincts. Beyond that the difference is primarily influenced by when the religion evolved, where it evolved and is a matter of specifics. That said, Hinduism is interesting when it comes to the concept of moksha because no other known religion (there could be other ones that state this idea, but I don't know) talks about it - the world is an illusion wrapped around your eyes, wake up from it! But that's me, my subjective view. Someone else might find something else as more interesting. Someone who dislikes this comment will downvote it.

What is a social organization but a group of individuals?

When individuals agree on basic absolute truths, they are organized into a social group. When a few individuals deviate from what the original group agreed on to be absolute truth, and the remaining individuals who do agree with the originally agreed upon original truths say that those people are not "one of us", even if the dissenters shout "we are part of the original group", it's obvious to everyone that they aren't. This is also true of the Protestants (Luther, Zwigli, Calvin) and all heretics before and after them. But it's just as true for those in the Church who do evil, because even though they aren't committing formal heresy, they are showing by their evil actions that they do not really know the God that we teach, because otherwise they wouldn't be doing evil. That's not to say they aren't formally part of the Church -- the Catholic Church is a hospital for sinners just as well as a museum of Saints. But these evil people don't at all represent what we teach, because they don't follow it. I myself have done plenty of wrong in my past and I have no excuse except that I was a poor excuse for a Christian, and I did not represent what my holy Church teaches, and for that I am deeply ashamed. But that doesn't change that what my Church teaches is true, even though I did not understand it correctly it apply it to myself well.

Sure