Replying, Again, To The Catholic Who Is Lying About Salvation

Random Catholic guy
who boasts of advanced degrees in Catholicism, 
still insists that the official Catholic position about salvation is that anyone who doesn't know (when they die) that Catholicism is true ... will still get into heaven if they're of sufficient moral character. 

 
He couldn't be bothered to go read the blog where I refute that claim.

So I explained it all to him in posted comments instead. 

The short version is this:

1. Headlines across the world immediately proclaimed, "Even Atheists Can Go To Heaven." A Vatican spokesman quickly intervened. Father Thomas Rosica said "people who know the Catholic Church cannot be saved if they refuse to enter or remain in her." --
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2. Official Vatican online database, under "IV. Hell" says: "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell." 1034 Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe (in the truth according to Catholicism) and be converted (into Catholicism)" ... "1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."615" ... 1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent (obligatory) upon man (all of mankind) to make use of his freedom in view of (must focus on) his eternal destiny. ... the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."616"
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I have more official Catholic sources I can cite. But surely this is sufficient. We don't need to comb through every word on the subject ever uttered in any form by official Vatican sources. The above-cited, official Vatican sources are not vague about this issue. Also, if what you said was accurate, then they wouldn't be baptizing babies. Infants and toddlers don't know enough about Catholicism to be obligated to embrace Catholicism. According to you, that's all it takes to ensure they go straight to Heaven if they die. And yet, the Vatican has always disagreed with you on this issue.
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This is exactly the reason for the ever-popular meme of the Native Eskimo Indian.

"Would I go to Hell if I didn't know about your beliefs?" "No. Not if you didn't know." "Then why did you tell me?"
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Consider how absolutely evil (and ironic) it would be to tell people about the Divine Ultimatum, when the very act of telling them creates a special obligation they weren't under before.
NOW if they don't join your religion, they'll be sent to a special place forever, where they'll be trapped in unimaginable suffering.
Whereas, if you would just NOT TELL THEM, then they can be judged by their moral character instead.
[Although, what Catholics are calling "moral Character" actually has nothing to do with moral character. I say that because God-shopping (or "seeking (any) "God") is irrelevant, at best, to a person's moral character. I say "at best", because cogent arguments could be made that God-shopping indicates emotional immaturity. And emotional immaturity indicates under-developed moral maturity. Worse yet, all forms of literal Christianity require a lack of moral clarity in order to seem plausible.] In any case, per Catholicism, the very act of telling someone about it ... greatly increases the chances they'll end up in that "Hell"; if we assume, of course, that such a place, terms, and conditions are actually real.
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Consider, also, how wildly irrational the entire proposition really is. According to the official Vatican website I quoted from (above), ... every human (presumably above the age of accountability, and presumably only people with a minimum IQ who can even grasp the concepts), ... are OBLIGATED to play a high stakes game of Hide and Seek with a very specific Creator-deity they don't even know exists. We're all obligated, according to official Catholic-Fundamentalism,
and according to all the Protestant fundamentalists too,
to assume: * a creator-deity exists,
* there is only one (or technically 3) of those,
* is hiding,
* demands to be found,
* only makes that demand via unsubstantiated rumors circulated by non-credible human sources,
* isn't even known to have MADE those demands until AFTER someone arbitrarily assumes that bizarre idea and eventually-maybe confirms that such a specific ultimatum is being circulated, unless that person just-so-happens to be born into a family or culture where they hear about it without ever asking about it. * And then the person who is God-shopping for no good reason must still ... * avoid being tricked (through no fault of their own) into thinking some RIVAL Christian faction is true, or that some rival other worldview is true, * and then stumble into the "correct" version of Christianity, * hear the message, * and then embrace it (depsite no available rational or moral reason to do so); "Or else" that "God" will punish them forever for not SEEKING, or for not JOINING, *BUT that same "God" will totally let them off the hook if they spend part of every day, for their entire old-enough life, hardcore-God-shopped, but ultimately failed to stumble into the correct version of the "offer" before they died.
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Worse yet, the DETAILS of "the offer" are also as wildly irrational as the conditions under-which "the offer" is made. Consider: With nothing to go on, except faith in arbitrarily trusted, utterly fallible, self-proclaimed messengers, ... we're supposed to believe that some Jewish carpenter in the Iron Age was perfect; just because some anonymous dudes who wrote about it (many decades later) (but disagreed on many important details) heard rumors that he was perfect.

We're also supposed to believe that the ancient barbaric cult reasoning and practice of "scapegoating" is core to a Grand Plan concocted by the Creator Of The Universe ... to enable himself to "forgive" US ... for HIS CHOICE to create us flawed. -But only if we play a sick and irrational game, and either win or die trying.
 

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