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The problem with the Catholic church is very similar to the problem of the Mormon Church. They both view themselves as the only true churches, and outside of them there is no salvation. So salvation becomes the work of man, and not the work of God.

What Popes Have Said About Salvation

“We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.)

“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)

“Consider the fact that whoever has not been in the peace and unity of the Church cannot have the Lord. …Although given over to flames and fires, they burn, or, thrown to wild beasts, they lay down their lives, there will not be (for them) that crown of faith but the punishment of faithlessness. …Such a one can be slain, he cannot be crowned. …[If] slain outside the Church, he cannot attain the rewards of the Church.” (Pope Pelagius II 578 – 590)

“With our hearts we believe and with our lips we confess but one Church, not that of the heretics, but the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside which we believe that no one is saved.” (Pope Innocent III 1198 – 121)

“It must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood.” (Pope Pius IX 1846 – 1878.)

“Some say they are not bound by the doctrine which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation. Others finally belittle the reasonable character of the credibility of Christian Faith. These and like ERRORS, it is clear, have crept in among certain of our sons who are deceived by imprudent zeal for souls or by false science.” (Pope Pius XII 1939-1958.)

Remember that if a pope speaks ex cathedra (from the chair) then it is according to the catholic church infallible. If these things were said "from the chair" then they are official Catholic Doctrine.

Quote from wikipedia:
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church that states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error "When, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church."

In addition to this I believe the Catholic Church is encouraging Papal worship, idolatry in the form of "veneration" of statues of popes, the Virgin Mary, saints etc.
It is encouraging bowing down, and going through things carved by human hands to communicate with God when the Bible states clearly that there is only one mediator between God and man - Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5).

It teaches people a work Salvation, much like the Mormons do.

Salvation, in Roman Catholicism, is a process with many steps: Actual Grace, Faith, Good Works, Baptism, Participation in the Sacraments, Penance, Indulgences, and Keeping the Commandments. Basically, salvation is attained through baptism and good works. It is maintained by good works and participation in the sacraments. If lost, it is regained through the sacrament of Penance which only a Roman Catholic priest can administer. Add to this purgatorial cleansing after a person dies, and you can see that salvation is an arduous process.

I'm not saying one should accept sin to accept them. It's a matter that they understand why it's a sin. To a homosexual, we are robbing them of loving another and showing inequality. All I know is it's a sin, but not even I know why it's a sin. Our population has more than doubled in the last fifty years, so procreation isn't a problem.

I've never been able to think about other men with lust or a romantic love, and some very famous individuals who drew in the attention of the other sex had to hide their feelings about others of the same sex. Many homosexual individuals face persecution and abuse frequently, so I don't understand why anyone would merely become confused about loving and/or lusting after another while enduring that. From my understanding, most reeducation facilities, used to change homosexuals to heterosexuals, have failed too.
A childhood friend of mine was raised under the teachings of the church, and her mom wanted her to understand Christians values. So by the time she was a teenager, it became very hard for her to confess she was gay. Certainly drove me nuts since I had a crush on her, but I can't imagine how her mom must've responded back then.

Sorry, I still don't understand. It doesn't say that was His intention to create a family as such. Of course He'd start the world from one man and one woman. They're the only pair that can procreate. I don't see how it prohibits same sex couples from raising a child too though, or even prohibits a single homosexual from adopting.

Even within all the scriptures, I don't believe I've heard one that prohibits raising a child, or even becomes frowned on.

Jeez. The Mormon church truly fills itself with contradiction, doesn't it?
I'm not worried about my cousin though. She went to the Mormon church as a trade. Her Mormon friend invited her to one of their services, but my cousin only agreed to do so if her friend would attend her church in return.
My cousin got kicked out of the Mormon church for asking to many questions, and her friend ended up enjoying the open and welcoming atmosphere of another church.

That does make sense though, about the Catholic church. I had no idea the Pope was meant to be regarded as infallible. Kind of hard to swallow when the last pope had to step down because of legal confrontation. At least I think it was legal confrontation. We as people love to tell our own spin of a story. sweatdrop

Fortunately, Micah, I don't think sharing the gospel with him will be a problem. That cousin I was talking about earlier? She married a youth pastor. My brother and I are always asking questions too, which honestly, makes some of the family uncomfortable, but it helps clear things up too.
My grandpa, though, claims to be devoted to them. However, I kind of wonder if he's just too scared to let go of them. Frankly, it doesn't seem that he doesn't know much about the Gospel, and it worries me when he claims the authority of knowledge about it. None-the-less, he's not without reason. It might be like pulling teeth, but he doesn't deny truth.

You may not accept them, but reasons were certainly listed. Even your reasons for why you don't accept them as answers were addressed earlier, if you think through what I wrote. The information is there, if you ever choose to look into it more.

I hope you will be able to share the Gospel with him. That's gonna be the most important distinction I think you can make. Try to learn the Gospel better yourself (we can all always be doing this, I think), and also what Rome teaches about salvation, so you can show how they do not line up with one another. Even if he doesn't hold to their view, he is claiming to be devoted to them, so he should definitely think about the fact that they are teaching a false Gospel and what Galatians says about adding anything to faith for salvation.

Now here's a real tough one I've had trouble with.
Genesis was estimated to be written somewhere around 1400 B.C. and the Epic of Gilgamesh was said to be written around 2100 B.C.
The Bible and The Epic of Gilgamesh both tell nearly identical stories similar to The Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark. I found a nice comparison on Wikipedia for an example.

Garden of Eden
The parallels between the stories of Enkidu/Shamhat and Adam/Eve have been long recognized by scholars. In both, a man is created from the soil by a god, and lives in a natural setting amongst the animals. He is introduced to a woman who tempts him. In both stories the man accepts food from the woman, covers his nakedness, and must leave his former realm, unable to return. The presence of a snake that steals a plant of immortality from the hero later in the epic is another point of similarity.

Noah's Flood
Andrew George submits that the Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that "few doubt" that it derives from a Mesopotamian account. What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale "point by point and in the same order", even when the story permits other alternatives. In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: "The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling." Ziusudra ("he who found long life"), Utnapishtim ("he who found life") and Noah ("he who found rest") are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.

I've heard rumors that the Bible has been tampered with in the past to help influence others of different faiths to comfortably convert to Christianity. Is this such tampering?

Glad to see you're right on top of this! It doesn't disprove the possibility of the Bible following another story, but there are many other conspiracies one could throw at the Bible, in an attempt to disprove it, and no amount of facts will change someone set in their ways sometimes. That's the sad part about a conspiracy; if something is proven, surely someone must be covering up the REAL truth. Just gotta pray for those kinda people.
At the very least, it proves that such a theory isn't a fact.
Thank you for the quick reply!

It is not a problem. smile That is true. Evidence alone can never bring anyone to Jesus.

I like how you said "alone". Very true. If that were the case, everyone would believe already, because they already have evidence according to Romans 1. Haha.

Also, flood stories are cool. I remember seeing Gilgamesh, and thinking "Wow, this just supports what the Bible says". We have the truth of the flood written down in Scripture, and then we see another story outside of the Bible talking about a global flood as well. Totally agree with your explanation.

Something I've always hated, by the way, is when dates are thrown out as if it prevents the true, Biblical religion from being the oldest. "This religion predates your religion!" Okay, so what is that based upon? "Well, we have older manuscripts for this religion than for your religion." Older manuscripts do not prove the other religion is itself actually older, it only shows you have an older written document talking about said religion. It does not exclude the possibility that our religion has even older documents than the other, but we have yet to discover them, or that our religion is actually older, but simply does not have older surviving manuscripts to demonstrate it's age.

Genesis 2:18-25

18Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

23The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”

24For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
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Matthew 19:3-9

3Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? 6“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” 7They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?” 8He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
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Do you still disagree that marriage is here defined by God to be between a man and woman only?