I worked the sound board at this evangelical church and i noticed something. They do lik half an hour of 'praise and worship' music, and after a few months i noticed a pattern. They start hard, with a modern rock, poppy song that gets everyone clapping. Then the next song is slower and gets everyone swaying. Then two more rock type songs. The first gets them clapping again, and the second is even louder and harder and by the end they are jumping up and down. Then suddenly back to slow, sad, swaying. After working them into a frenzy, suddenly bring them down. Many start weeping. Then at the end of that song they extend it with long, solemn electric keyboard chords, while the people sway and pray with their eyes closed. The preacher keeps them going, softly repeating yes Jesus, yes Jesus over and over. Then come out the collection plates!

It is a mind game. These people know how to manipulate others very well, and yeah they can turn it on and off just like that because even the most 'faithful' of them know, deep down inside, that they are full of it. It is a religion full of actors and shysters.

Lets see how many 'thumbs down' I get for that one!!!  

I spoke to a priest about this last week. I didn't know it was wrong to attend a protestant church service. I'm curious about social or charity events where they say a prayer or have a short devotion. For example a charity sewing group where at the end they read a 2 minute devotion and say a prayer. Do I excuse myself before the devotion? What about eating meals with protestant when they pray?

Your priest would be best to advise you on this, but I've been told by a priest: "Make the sign of the cross, say an Our Father or Hail Mary, and finish with the sign of the cross"

Nothing can be a clearer sign of your Catholic Faith.  And if anyone should ask you: "are you Catholic?"....answer: "by the grace of God, I'm Catholic".  That should do it.
You may be nervous because it is bold, but they are bold in their error- You be bold in the Truth.

 Also, learn how to pray the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Gloria and Angelus, in Latin.  Actually, try to learn as many prayers as you can in Latin.  You are a Latin Rite Catholic, after all.

Pax Christi,

Brian

That is some 'smokin hot' advice!  Thank you for that!  I hear the Devil HATES Latin!
 :light-saber:

This dovetails nicely into a discussion that was recently had regarding whether man's participation in natural law is always sufficient for him to be called moral.  I posited that, in those cases where the observance of natural law does not come in the service of a religion or cultural affectation that is inimical to the true Christian religion, such a thing could be meritorious to a degree.  However, when those things are done in observance of a false religion, and especially to establish that person in obstinate belief and participation of it, I would argue that such a thing is odious to God.

However much Protestantism may superficially resemble the Catholic faith, which is uniquely and integrally the divinely revealed religion of God, it is substantially false.  It worships as its central figure and Person of the Godhead (and even the latter is variable; in Unitarian Protestantism there are no persons, and in Mormonism He is not God at all) a version of Christ that is objectively and historically untrue, and ascribes to Him a theology that is alien to the true faith.  The simple acceptance of Jesus Christ as Deity and a vague or totally incorrect notion of His role as the propitiation of all the sins of mankind is, in my estimation, insufficient to be considered the exercise of Christian faith.  I would further argue that prayers offered in the service of false religions, however well-meaning they might be, are still done in service of a religion that is objectively false.  To say otherwise, would be no different than to say that the prayers of a Moslem, whose false religion nonetheless places Jesus Christ as the greatest prophet of God, even above the Mohammed himself, are efficacious and pleasing to God.

A prayer is an expression of the interior spiritual life, which begins and ends in the service of that religion to which that spiritual life is dedicated.  The prayer as one of the most fundamental expressions of that religion must, I think, rightly be presumed to fall under the species of virtual intention to practice a false religion, insofar as the prayer, though not presently explicitly dedicated to a religion inimical to God and His true Church, nonetheless follows from a prior intellectual assent to the truth and efficacy of the same.

Against, this is just my own opinion.

Quote from: JohnGrey

 (and even the latter is variable; in Unitarian Protestantism there are no persons, and in Mormonism He is not God at all) a version of Christ that is objectively and historically untrue, and ascribes to Him a theology that is alien to the true faith.

This reminds me to ask, as I've been meaning to:  "Where does someone like Mitt Romney, Pat Boone, The Osmond's and the like get their graces? ie; clean cut, All American, successful, perfect white teeth, and lives nearly as clean as a whistle! Hardly at all associated in anyway with a 'scandal'.  Just curious for input.

First, you make the unfounded assumption that they are living virtuous lives.  We have only the most public of their actions to determine their virtue.  While I can't say anything about the Osmonds or Pat Boone (because I've never troubled myself to gain knowledge the lives of useless people), Mitt Romney is a well-known statist and during his political career has given public support for the legality of abortion in the United States.

Second, is it inconceivable that Satan would choose to not interfere in the exercise of such outwardly meritorious acts if the presumptive graces of those acts were destroyed by their exercise in service of false religion, and so that such upright action in the service of a false religion might aid in the spread of that false religion as well as religious indifferentism, to the ruin of souls?

Yes! Yes! I see your point!.....

That's odd.  I don't remember ever sitting for a caricature.

Thank you for the answers, I feel encouraged now. :)