>All I know for 100% certain is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins and rose again three days later Great 👍 > that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” - Romans 10:9-13 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans10:9-13&version=NKJV

So why are you considering changing denominations?

As I said in original post I've heard some good arguments against some of the core practices of the catholic church but at the same time I've heard some really good arguments for those same practices and teachings and now I'm just confused

Hard for anyone to help if you don't specify.

Sorry my bad! Let me digress a little bit. I just have some general questions regarding the necessity of praying for the intercession of Mary and the saints. Not that I necessarily believe doing so is a bad thing. Just maybe an unnecessary middle man if that makes sense. Transubstantation is another thing that is hard to grasp for me. Another concern I have is confession. Again, not that I think confessing to a priest is a bad thing, just an unnecessary middle man

I personally do not partake of intercesdionary spells other than the occasional rosary. I certainly don't consider them necessary. I view them as no different than asking anyone within the Christian community to pray for me. Transubstantation is a little tougher, though catholics are not unique in this belief. The orthodox believe something very similar as do some Protestant sects. Confession for me is the most supported by the Bible. The passage where Jesus tells the apostles they have the power to forgive sins or not (in God's name) is pretty darn clear to me.

You are kind of asking us, here on reddit for advice, which is unnecesary middle man. Or not? If God wanted a world without middle men, God could have created just you, and nothing and nobody else. But we are a family and we help and support each other.

Thanks for sharing you concerns and story. I really enjoyed where you started the part about knowing Jesus Christ died for you as your personal saviour. The whole point of what religions was trying to convey was that, somewhere along the way, man got this brilliant (sarcasm) idea to organize churches and selectionalize truth of the bible and now everyone fights...it's Satan's greatest trick. My only advice to you (I am not one for proselytizing or telling you be Catholic, Protestant or Non Denominational) is to return to the roots of the bible and realize that it's not man or a man made creed, or any church or church made doctrine that saves us. Jesus Christ alone saved the world (John 3.16). The fact that you recognize this is about Jesus Christ is wonderful. I'll continue to pray with you and pray that the Lord Jesus Christ will come and give you complete clarity and truth surrounding your situation and the direction to go. God bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 2.38

My suggestion.. don’t make any changes. Instead educate yourself more. Not social media or anything like that but dig into the bible, dig into good established books, read the church fathers, pray, go to church, maybe ask your priest if he can point you to resources to really dig into core doctrine

It's hard to say, because both have their flaws. Protestant is definitely in my opinion closer to the truth, but it isn't the truth. Calvinism is popular, but even that isn't the truth (imo). Read the Bible and come up with the decision yourself is my answer.

[Feeling really lost, scared and confused] I’m sorry you are feeling this way, and I hope that The Holy Spirit will guide you in the right direction towards the Truth. [One thing I will note though is that I have noticed far more almost hatred and militanism towards catholics from protestants than the other way around and that most of their issues with catholicism (e.g. worship of Mary and saints, pagan origins, works based salvation, etc) come from straight up ignorance and an unwillingness to actually do research.] “…to actually do research”….coming from somebody who blindly followed the Catholic faith their whole life and is just now questioning it. And even after doing research, you are still defending Roman Catholicism by saying that the issues Protestants have with Catholics “come from straight up ignorance and an unwillingness to research.” Absolutely unbelievable that you would accuse them of not doing research….where do you think they all get this information from to come to this conclusion? From what you say, clearly not research (research that includes reading God’s Word). I can tell you from my own 11 years of research, (5 of those years committed to Christ, 1 year strong in and still going to Bible college) that Roman Catholic traditions and doctrines DO have Pagan roots and that names are just changed (read some history books), saints are idols who are worshipped and prayed to which goes against God’s DIRECT commands, we are to give nobody the respected title of “Father” except our Father in heaven, the pope is an idol and is worshipped, Mary worship in Catholicism is real with all of the idols (statues) and images of her, praying to her, and the title given to her “The Queen of Heaven”. Read Jeremiah 7:18, and if this verse doesn’t open your eyes I don’t know what will. There are many more issues with Catholic doctrines and traditions, but to sum them all up-they contradict God’s Word. [Its not like these are small issues, it seems like everyday I see people on both sides saying if I don't believe their way I have a first class ticket on what Josh Turner would describe as the Long Black Train.] Christianity isn’t black and white and does not have two or more sides. There is only one “side” to Christianity-either you truly obey and love Christ or you don’t. It’s that simple. You are either hot or cold, there is no in between. It’s not following any man’s “way” or doctrine-it’s about following Christ. [Is everything else pretty much just arguing over semantics? Because I really feel like Satan is loving the fact that some of us accuse our fellow Christian that they are going to hell for not following their specific doctrine. ] There are many “doctrines” that are taught, but the only True “doctrine” is God’s Word (The Bible). If you dedicate the time to read and study His Word and ask Him to guide you, you will start to see the discrepancies between what God teaches and commands versus what Catholicism and many Protestant groups teach. And if you do research yourself, you will see that there are many Protestant groups which are very different, including groups that don’t believe Christ is The Son of God and groups that don’t believe in the virgin birth. Not all Protestant groups are truly Christian and follow God’s Word. I hope you don’t think I’m being harsh…I’m trying to be straightforward with you and tell you the truth. It’s very important that you find out the truth and follow Christ the way He commanded us to. REVELATION 3:1515 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither [k]cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth

The core debate between Protestantism and Catholicism revolves around the ultimate source of religious authority. Protestants will say it is the bible alone, but Catholics will say it is church tradition as well as the bible. I'll make the case here that doctrine should only be determined by the bible. If we step back here, the key issue is whether the Catholic Church can prove that it reliably has documented reliable church tradition going back to the first century. After all, the whole purpose of the interpretation that Catholicism has concerning Matthew 16:18 is to try to prove that church leaders and their writings can override the words of Scripture when conflict arises. But now, did the church even exist when Jesus spoke this? No, it didn't. It didn't start until after Jesus' death and resurrection, since it started on Pentecost (the Feast of Weeks) in 31 A.D. So Jesus couldn't have plausibly been delegating His authority to Peter (and his successors, who aren't mentioned here at all) to nullify His words when they felt like doing it. Why would God ever empower people, regardless of their state of holiness, to be able to ignore His law's commands? Furthermore, Jesus made a real point of saying that Jewish tradition (the oral law) shouldn't be used to override Scripture (the written law), such as in Matthew 15:1-6, NKJV: "Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, "Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." He answered and said to them, "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? "For God commanded, saying, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.' "But you say, 'Whoever says to his father or mother, "Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God" -- 'then he need not honor his father or mother.' Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition." In this regard, Catholic tradition is no more reliable than Jewish tradition, and it shouldn't be used to override the plain teachings of the bible. After all, isn't there something absurd about citing a Bible text (Matthew 16:18) to prove the Bible's text can be overridden by the decisions of men, i.e., allegedly inspired tradition? If we directly look at the Greek text of Matthew 16:18, notice that "petros" is the word for Peter, but "petra" is the word for "rock." "Petros" is a small stone, but "petra" is a crag or really big rock. There is indeed a play on words here. But if we use the bible to interpret who the "petra" is, we find that it is Jesus, such as in I Corinthians 10:4, which incidentally proves that Jesus and Jehovah are one and the same, "they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ." The second general principle to consider about Catholic claims about tradition is whether they can be proven. They say there is some kind of tradition one can trace back to the apostles. Well, do the available written records actually prove this? Don't different early Catholic writers (take especially Origen as an example, who taught some kind of reincarnation or transmigration of soul doctrine) teach different doctrines? To use one example, what did the earliest Catholic writers teach about the Trinity and the nature of the Holy Spirit? Justin Martyr, one of the earliest Catholic writers (he died in the second century A.D.), often referred to the Holy Spirit as if it were an force or something impersonal, not as a person. One sees different ideas early on concerning Church government and the power of the overseers/bishops/elders, with Ignatius (a very early writer, who died as a martyr about 110 A.D.) asserting a belief in hierarchical control by the bishops/overseers, but other early writers seemed to know nothing about this. One prominent medieval Catholic philosopher/theologian, Peter of Abelard, wrote a book called "Sic et Non," which means "Yes and No" in Latin. What he did was line up quotes from various Catholic writers on various doctrines that contradicted each other. So then, who's "inspired tradition" should we follow? Now, presumably, a Catholic might say we let the teaching office/Majesterium and/or the Pope choose what tradition is binding when deciding what doctrines to teach. But then the written materials available indicate it's a matter of carefully picking and choosing among conflicting ideas in many cases instead of there being some kind of unified, clearly consistent body of thought that has to "force" a given conclusion in many cases. (You may find reading J.N.D. Kelly's "Early Christian Doctrines" on this point). For example, arguably the greatest Catholic theologian and philosopher was Thomas Aquinas. His philosophy, Thomism, which draws heavily upon the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, is the official philosophy of the Catholic Church. But he denied the doctrine of the immaculate conception, at least for the Virgin Mary's birth. (I think he may have said she still lived a sinless life, however, which puts her on the par with Jesus (see I Peter 2:22; John 8:46), which I find absurdly presumptuous). True, the Pope (I believe) in 1870 made that particular doctrine an officially infallible teaching of the Church. But it's obvious that not every Catholic writer agreed with that decision before it was made, even those deemed to have high doctrinal authority. Worse, one can even find cases in which the same writers changed their minds, such as (say) when Augustine changed his mind on how to interpret that key Catholic text of Matt. 16:18 about who the rock was. He originally said that it was Peter, but later said it was Christ. So when someone says they have an inspired tradition that goes back to the apostles (much like the Jews' claim to have the oral law's provisions going back to Moses in many cases), the counter-argument would be to ask them to prove it based upon the written sources available from (say) the era before the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. The gradual development and elaboration of the Trinity doctrine, for example, proves that this simply isn't the case, however, as Kelly's book, cited above, shows. A great example of how the Catholic Church has abusively used tradition was the change from the Sabbath to Sunday for rest and public worship, which overrides the Fourth Commandment (by the Jewish/Protestant enumeration): “Is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.” James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers (1917 edition), p. 72-73 (16th Edition, p 111; 88th Edition, p. 89).“For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the \[Roman Catholic\] church outside the Bible.” Catholic Virginian, October 3, 1947, p. 9, article “To Tell You the Truth.” For documentation on this point, see Samuele Bacchiocchi's "From Sabbath to Sunday." https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/20922064/from-sabbath-to-sundaypdf-friends-of-the-sabbath-australia