Phrases/assertions which make you look ignorant.

Please, never ever use any of the following phrases or assertions. You will only look ignorant.

• Institutional Church (as pejorative). Simply contentless. Nobody believes in it, not even the Catholics. People only define it by their opposition to it, and as yet I've not seen a coherent definition which applies to any real ecclesiology. Using this term only marks you as either an ignorant anti-Catholic bigot or an ignorant and easily-persuaded sheep.
  
• The Church went evil after Constantine... There are many forms of this assertion, most blatantly wrong. Please, don't embarass yourself by proving in one fell swoop that you not only don't know anything about Constantine and the post-Constantinian era of the Church, but that you don't know anything about the third-century Church, either. I repeat: any argument referring to Constantine will almost inevitably demonstrate you are ignorant. It will also probably beg the question.
• "God told me..." Or anything along those lines. Response is, uniformly, firmly-raised eyebrow and severe doubts about your discernment.
• Any opposition between "Obedience to God" and "Obedience to the Church", however it is couched. This will generally be begging the question and is in the same school as the "institutional church" assertion.
• Opposing "true worship" to "the dead traditions of man" or other such nonsense. My comments are becoming redundant. I'm sure you can imagine why I find this line of thought ignorant.
• It's not a religion, it's a relationship. Another contentless assertion. Please, if you have something to say, say it, and do not use a cliche that depends on redefining words to do so. It illumines nothing.
• Any contraposition of religion per se with science per se. Hello: I know more about the philosophy of science than you. I know what "science" says and does not say. I also know more about the philosophy of religion than you do. Yes, there are some degenerate forms of Christianity which try their darnedest to fight against science as such, but you can safely ignore them and concentrate your attention on the difference between materialistic determinism, deism, and the philosophical Christian view of creation. Unless you like to be thought of as an ignorant bigot.
• More to be added later.

I hope this has been helpful to us both. THE LIFE YOU SAVE COULD BE YOUR OWN.

I also cannot brook any conversation of "spirituality" as opposed to "religion": I have never heard anything of value come out of somebody's mouth once that distinction has been made [against religion and for spirituality, invariably], but I don't think it betrays ignorance. Those are the sorts of conversations I'd avoid anyways whether or not the parties involved were ignorant.