I’m Catholic, but I do not go to church.
In my opinion the Catholic church is becoming old fashioned and with a big distance between the Catholic management and normal life.
The most important difference in my opinion is the Virgin treatment, in Spain the Virgin tradition is one of the most important, and helps to keep people attached to the religion.
I think values are important and religion help us to do not forget them.

Luther also beautifully encapsulated the position of a believer whose conscience leads him to difficult conclusions.
He said ‘Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen.’ [Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.]

Hi,
I’m Catholic, I don’t go to church but I like to pray or to talk with Good sometimes. I belive in Him, and I think this is a Faith issue.
The different religions exist because people are different, and cultures are different. As we talk different languages, we can have different religions. The danger begins when the religion becames in fanatism. But when you are not a fanatic you can have any religion. I think the religion is good, because it learns you about the good things of the humanity. It is important that people don’t use the religion to profit themselves, and this is one thing that people have done in the history a lot of times. It is for this cause that there is a lot of people that don’t like religion, but they forgot the origin of the religion.
When I have traveled abroad I have visited some Protestan Churchs. They are very similar to the Catholic Churchs, but with less images and simbols. I like them, I think they are more quiet.
Conchi Calvo

I think it is true that Protestants know more about Catholicism than Catholics, especially Catholics in predominantly Catholic countries, know about Protestantism. It is perhaps also true that Catholics, especially Catholics in predominantly Catholic countries, know more about the Counter-Reformation than they do about the Reformation.
One thing I can say about my Protestant friends and kin is that they know their Scriptures astonishingly well. They also know their hymns magnificently well. They have excellent taste in church music.
In general, Protestant religions strike me as beautifully sober and sedate. But there are Protestants I know who also appreciate the pomp and circumstance, the bombast, the sentimentality, and the iconic clutter and aesthetic kitsch of Catholicism, complete with its virgins, saints, popes, and transubstantiations.
I learned a little about the Protestant religions in John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, a wonderful novel.

Hello Wesley!!
There are many coincidences in dates and religions that cannot be just a coincidence!!!
We humans are not very original when it comes to religions, I find the similarities in the lives of the main characters of some religions interesting …Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mitras were all (supposed to be) born on the 25th of December from a virgin. Most of them had supernatural (or unexplainable) episodes in their lives.
Regards,
Cristina

I grew up in a society divided by religion. Roman Catholicism was the main tribe, but there were also Presbyterians, Methodists and other flavours of what was called ‘Church of Ireland’. I was brought up by Roman Catholic parents and educated by Catholic nuns from the age of four to seven, Marist Brothers (also a Catholic order) from seven to twelve and Catholic priests from twelve to seventeen. But it wasn’t our faith or theological beliefs that separated us from our Protestant neighbours. Roman Catholicism was closely aligned to ethnic Irish nationalism and the Church of Ireland Protestants were seen (by many Catholics) as a vestige of imperial oppression, a hangover from the tyrannical British Empire that once ruled the land. Tribalism, sectarianism and fear of what we believed they represented ran deep on both sides of this divide and prevented most of us from ever getting to know who so many of our neighbours were and what they felt, thought, feared and believed in.
I wish I had grown up in a society where the purpose of religion was (as Anna and Concepción so clearly point out) to help us to remember our values and to teach us about the good side of humanity.
Hey, I saw some turrón in my local supermarket the other day. It must be nearly Christmas!

Here in Hervey Bay, Australia, there are two Catholic churches, no mosques nor synagogues nor temples, and then: Hervey Bay Full Gospel Church, Bayside Christian Church, Church by the Bay, Hervey Bay Gospel Chapel, St James Lutheran Church, Hervey Bay Baptist Church, Hervey Bay Christian Church, Church of Christ, St David’s Presbyterian Church, Salvation Army Hervey Bay, and Uniting Church Howard. There is also a church called St John’s Anglican Church, but the Anglicans aren’t considered Protestants, right? The Church of the Latter Day Saints is not considered Protestant either, is it?
What strikes me is that, when I was living in Germany, there was only one type of Protestant church, which I believe was Lutheran. Am I right, Wesley, to say that there are more types of Protestantism in the USA and in Australia than in Europe?
I’ve spoken to Protestants here, and many of them say that they go to one of the above-mentioned Protestant churches one Sunday, and to another one the next Sunday. So it seems that there is freedom of choice when you’re Protestant, at least here in Hervey Bay. You don’t have to strictly belong to one denomination. What about in the US?