Originally Posted by JAD_333

You're still missing my point. The structure and practices of the organization and the content of the message are completely separate. While I don't think you meant to disparage Catholicism or any of its christian derivations, your characterization of Catholicism as a collection of pagan rituals marked marked by the selling of dispensations and Roman-type structure is wide of the mark. However, if you were applying those characteristics to the Catholic Church (the temporal organization), I would agree with you.

What one must appreciate is that an original body of teaching inspires its original followers to organize a bricks and mortar system and a personnel structure to widen its reach and pass it along to future generations. Over time, the system evolves. There are power stuggles, disagreements, recruitment problems, financial shortages, and so on.

Pagan rituals found their way into the system because certain pagan groups were allowed to keep some of their rituals and festivals when they converted. You can see a lot of that in South America where, for example, Peruvian natives continue to celebrate ancient Inca fertility rites. But in spite of it all, the imperfect organization continues to carry the original message fairly intact from one generation to the other.

You can appreciate the message without tolerating the messenger. Many of those who don't appreciate the message, attempt to disparage it by attacking the messenger. I don't know where you stand in this regard. If you are merely poking around in history, that's fine, but you should at least be clear as to whether you are speaking of the message or the messenger.