...are a sad and all-too-predictable lot, but there is some comedy to be derived from their blather.
Here are some more standard canards. Consider them a "starter kit" for your collection. Be the first Catholic on your block to get the whole set!
* * *A. The Church is lax and lazy. It has mindlessly absorbed dozens of pagan myths and thoughtlessly added them to Scripture without so much as stopping to ask for a second whether these "pious fantasies" contradict the Bible. That's why the 3rd and 4th Century Church got snookered into believing in the Assumption of Mary, the collection of relics, the communion of saints and the doctrine of the Trinity. It's all just pagan nonsense that drifted into a Church that had stopped caring about doctrinal purity.
B. The Church is narrow and squinting and obsessed with doctrinal purity. It picks over minute theological controversies concerning the nature of Christ and the Trinity and is prepared to excommunicate those who vary from its minutely detailed theological formulae by a hair's breadth. This is especially true of the 3rd and 4th Century Church which squabbled endlessly over minute points of scriptural interpretation and took it upon itself to define (according to the authoritarian opinions of the bishops, of course) what books did and did not belong to the canon of Scripture in order to buttress their power. Thank God the Jesus Seminar has shown that these books are but a small part of the rich trove of early Christian writings ruthlessly suppressed by the hierarchy. There is no reason we must accept just the "official" New Testament of the bishops. Let us embrace the gnostic, Arian, and Docetist views of the Christ event as well!
* * *A. The Church is cruelly restrictive of Christian liberty. It everywhere inhibits our freedom of choice and conscience.
B. The Church is absurdly supportive of the notion of human free will, while Scripture is abundantly clear that there is no such thing. God is sovereign and we are predestined according to his will, not ours.
C. The secular variation of A is that the Church is cruelly opposed to "freedom of choice" in the matter of abortion, daring to rebuke the absolute autonomy of individuals and imperialistically impinging on the right to reproductive freedom.
D. The secular variation of B is the Marxist/materialist/determinist claim that human free will is a ridiculous mystical notion and that all human behavior is determined, not by God, but by the motion of molecules and the forces of nature.
* * *A. The Church is flabby and far too tolerant of sinners in her midst.
B. The Church is bigoted and intolerant of anybody who won't toe the party line. Catholics live in continual fear of excommunication if they depart from her dogmas by a hairsbreadth.
* * *A. The Church is perpetually changing its tune and making up new doctrines.
B. The Church is hidebound and retrograde, refusing to change with the times and create new doctrines in light of new truths (as that homosexual practice, abortion, divorce and remarriage, women priests are A-OK).
* * *A. The Church is dark and fearful, despising the goodness of life with her penances and fastings and exalting saints who went barefoot in the snow to earn their salvation.
B. The Church is luxurious and wasteful, building large cathedrals and art collections and exalting clergy who never worked a day in their lives. Didn't the Apostle tell us to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling?" Yet these parasites talk only of the forgiveness of God while forgetting his justice and his demand for sacrifice for the Kingdom. Sinning on Friday, repenting on Saturday.
* * *A. The Church terrorizes us with the threat of hell and the terrible doctrine that no one gets a second chance.
B. The Church teaches that everyone gets a second chance in Purgatory.
C. The Church teaches a pink-and-fluffy heaven when science can prove no such thing. It's all a fantasy to speak of any chance at all. No one gets out of here alive.
* * *A. The Church is patriarchal, worshiping God as Father.
B. The Church is idolatrous, acclaiming Our Lady as Mother of the Church.
* * *A. The gospel is simple and the Church has made it complex.
B. The world is complex and the Church thinks it can go on relying on its simple little creeds and black-and-white dogmas and Scriptures.
* * *A. The Church is too materialistic, relying on sacraments as means of grace when the gospel is purely spiritual.
B. The Church is too spiritual, taking seriously the unseen supernatural world and totally ignorant of Modern Science and the need to face physical reality.
* * *A. Baptism is unnecessary for salvation, yet Catholics insist upon baptism as the normative means of salvation.
B. Catholics don't baptize, they sprinkle, and it is necessary to be baptized to be saved.
And the beat goes on. An apologist with a satiric bent might string this clamorous kaffuffle together in some way or other and draft something like an anti-creed, just to see if anyone catches on to the sheer Chestertonian irony and paradox of the complaints against the Faith. I offer the following for education or amusement (whichever comes first):
We, the faithful of the Holy Catholic Church are tritheists who insist on monotheism, while denigrating all that is feminine in the name of a primitive male sky-god and worshiping Mary as a goddess in defiance of the One True God of Israel. We are syncretists who began by stealing all our beliefs from Mithraism and the pagan mystery religions and then, suddenly and inexplicably, turned around (at some undefined point in the first, second, third, fourth or fifth centuries) and began to cruelly forbid all that was tinged with paganism. We are also dogmatists who believe that only Catholics will be saved and yet squishy Universalists who hold that everybody will be saved by works.
For us men and for our salvation, the Enigmatic Sage of Nazareth whom the Jesus Seminar has at last figured out came from no place in particular to say nothing special. For this reason early Catholics became obsessed with worshiping him and were willing to be crucified and burnt alive for his name's sake. In the process they naturally forgot everything they ever knew about the object of their obsession and, in single-minded devotion to a fanatical purity of faith, taught that we are saved by faith in him alone and that we get our salvation the old-fashioned way (by earning it and by observing Babylon Mystery Religions). Thus, we are obsessed with salvation by works and good deeds done on earth in utter ignorance of the true gift of heavenly grace God offers, but we are so wishful about pie in the sky, angels and saints that our faith in God's grace blinds us to the reality of the work that needs to be done right here on earth.
We pray to statues, while simultaneously being too spiritual to appreciate the truly earth-affirming nature of non-Christian creation-centered religions (which frequently pray to statues, whereas we only pray to some cloudy disembodied Spirit).
We anxiously buy indulgences to avoid spending eternity in Purgatory, yet we foolishly believe that we can have serene confidence of going to heaven merely because we have received Jesus in the sacraments and practiced holiness. We mindlessly do whatever the Pope tells us and believe in superstition rather than cold reason. Yet we think too much and have theologies, arts, philosophies and histories that are the creation of human wisdom rather than relying on the Spirit who is deeper than mere "head knowledge."
We ban the Bible for ordinary people but we also produce false, non-King James Version translations which we compel the faithful to read. We loathe sex while having thousands of children. The reason we have so many kids is because, unfortunately, it's the only way that a patriarchal religion of oppression can keep women down and force them into monotheistic tritheism that worships Mary.
I think that about covers it!