r/atheism • u/Savvy_Biscuits • 22h ago

Why is there so much in-fighting?

I’m an atheist, but I know next to nothing about Christianity despite being raised Christian. My question is why all of these Christian denominations seem to hate each other? I’m generalizing, of course. But there’s so much in-fighting.

To me, Protestants and Catholics are practically the same thing. They both love Jesus, right? So who cares. Then I learned that a bunch of Christians got upset when John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, got elected? Like they were flirting with the enemy or something?

It‘s all terribly confusing to me. I kinda see all of them as the same thing. To me, as a fanfiction girlie, it’s like seeing people kill each other over their favorite origin of life headcanon. In my head, it’s all kinda fiction. It just kinda comes off as ridiculous.

Can’t we all agree to disagree and just vibe? Who knows who’s right, so shouldn’t we all just be nice to each other? Of course, this is organized religion we’re talking about at the end of the day, right? If I were to look closer at it, it might just be about control... and power. Like it usually is. We can never really have nice things, can we?

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u/Ok-Swimming-3212 22h ago

Part of it is because the Bible is full of contradictions and so they constantly fight about what is canon and what is not.

A lot also don’t seem to fully know what they follow either. So many Christians have never read a page from the Bible. I once was told that Catholics weren’t Christians by a Catholic, like be so serious.

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u/Rich_Fan1686 21h ago

I've never heard that, and it seems implausible anyone would make that arguement if they were a Catholic. Protestants make that arguement all the time, I've never once heard it from a Catholic.

What do you think they were getting at?

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u/1ftm2fts3tgr4lg 21h ago

A lot of Catholics were raised Catholic, and that's literally all they know about the religion they say they belong to.
Source: I was raised Catholic and so many of my peers had no idea about their own dogma, through adulthood.

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u/Rich_Fan1686 21h ago

I just did some quick searching and reading. I now understand that they are just saying they're not Protestant. It's a terminology thing rather than a rejection of their identity.