How can Christianity be a subset of itself?

Catholic ideals are a type of Christian ideals. The way the two of you are phrasing this doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like saying "I grew up studying kung fu but I prefer martial arts".

It's not a subset its the central part of all subsets. The Catholic religion is based on Christianity but differs through certain aspects. Those aspects I don't necessarily think are right. Get it?

Aww sugar, thanks I'm glad I'm not the only one in a mid-religion crisis. :D

Good Lord...:laughing:

It's starting to sound like I'm not the one who doesn't get it here. Do tigers differ from animals? Do sandwiches differ from food?

How?

You are suggesting Catholics, in certain respects are not christian. As Christianity goes, that would mean they are decidedly "unchristian" at points, as a philosophy.

In another way, Christians believe in Christ and that we should strive to be him...except when they think the Devil has it right?

I'm not sure you're saying what you mean here.

I think she means that Catholics have been historically more conservative in their beliefs ( i.e toward abortion and science), while "Christians" are more liberal towards social issues? Christianity isn't really a religion, it's more of a broad term that encompasses Christ-centric religions such as Catholicism and the hundreds of Protestant sects that have abounded since the reformation. There are some significant differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, such as whether or not Mary is a saint/holy, interpretations of Biblical morality, and the role of clergy.

The immediate major difference I think of between protestants and catholics is that catholism reveres saints which according to protestantism you don't, I guess because it's seen as conflicting with the commandment there should only be one God.

And (many) protestant believe you can recieve God's forgiveness for ones sins by asking for it.

Christianity is most definitely a religion, I have no idea where you're getting the idea that it isn't. The word you are looking for to describe the different types Christianity is denomination. Catholics, Orthodox, Baptists, Lutherans, Anglicans, etc., etc. are all different denominations of the religion of Christianity. These divisions are not something unique to Christianity either, there are different denominations or schools or whatever of all large religions as far as I know.

Can you tell me the tenets of Christianty? There is no such thing as a unified Christian church, the closest thing to being one would be the Catholic Church. People say "Oh, I'm Christian", but there are vast ideological differences between denominations that don't allow the creation of a unified church. The whole idea of Protestant Christianity is that your interpretations allow you to define your own religion.

What's your point? All the denominations are still a part of the same religion. If they were all unified as a single church they wouldn't be split into various denominations. And frankly I wouldn't call the divisions between denominations vast by and large, certainly not as vast as the divisions between different religions.

Here's a nice chart of the major branches of the Christian religion for your enjoyment:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tyBranches.svg