I wonder whose Troll account this guy is?

Dram

Quoted: Dino, <snip out one extremely long and boring example of an ad hominem> Dram out

What would you like to discuss Dram?  

The persecution of the Cathars by the Catholic Church? Or the persecution of Jews under Martin Luther's Protestants in Germany?

You mix your theology with your history, not surprising, I've seen you do the same thing with science and theology.  

Your knowledge of your particular form of Christianity is probably spot on.  You sound like you would fit right in at the Itasca Church of Christ I used to attend.   That doesn't make you in any sense knowledgeable about history or other views of the prophecy.

Go look up the Preterist view of revelations.   The Preterist view is similar to the historical view in that they view the fullfillment of the prophecy in the destruction of Jerusalem.   The difference is the Preterists think it was actually fulfilled prophecy and the historical view is it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem.  

You appear to be a futurist, which is simply another interpretation of the text.   Your view came into being in the 16th century from the writings of Francisco Ribera (1537-1591).   Funnily enough, he was a Jesuit.  His futurist view of revelations was a counter to the  Protestant view that the Roman Catholic church was the anti-Christ.  

You combine futurism with the Protestant view that the futurists were fighting.

The problem is that view relied on the fact that the Catholic Church was the only organization to rule for the required 1260 years and if that interpretation was correct, then the 2nd coming would already have occured.  

The futurist view treats the 1260 years as literal days and says they are at some point in the future there will be 3 1/2 years where  an Apostate rules the Catholic Church and the Anti-Christ will come to rule the earth.

I find it amusing because I learned this as a Protestant in a Church that abhorred Catholicism, but when you actually do the research you find the futurist view was actually started by a Jesuit to defend the Catholic Church against the very thing many evangelical Churches teach today.

Any time you want to debate in a friendly manner, I'm up for it Dram.  I would HIGHLY recommend you speak to your minister and educate yourself on the subject first.  You may know the dogma well, but you appear to lack understanding of the history that went into the development of that dogma.

btw, I'm not mentioning any of this to attempt to make you believe anything different, but you were EXTREMELY insulting in your manner of address about my knowledge of history, so I felt I needed to comment.

Its also another example of how you fail to debate, but instead simply attack, which my original post addressed.  The reason I commented was specificall because I notice this tendency.

If you want to debate, lets do so.  I'm more than happy to discuss things with you.   If you want to hurl insults, go back to GD or the pit.

*hugs*

Quoted: Quoted: (we've been forced to by many heresies, beginning with the Gnostics which WE defeated, thank you very much... Wow. I was cheering you on... up until you said that. As long as there is life, there will be gnosis, meaning experential knowledge, and those who seek it. Nothing was defeated, so to speak. Besides, there are so many different schools of thought considered gnostic, not all of them Christian, that even the mother Church couldn't have gotten them all. As I recall, there is still a sect of Gnostics (Manicheans, I think) in Iraq. I hate to burst your bubble, but we're still around. <--- Resident Heretic

Dear, I say this out of love - NONE of them are considered 'Christian'.

(not by Christians, anyway)

I'm really sorry, but that's just the way it is.

Sorry Dino, I stand by what I said about your lack of historical knowledge. Base line history. Uninflected non judgemental base line history.

The leaps and assertions I have read by you  are, by no means, less than herculean in stature.

If you "think" I am attacking you, then you have no knowledge of who I am and what an attack is. I have yet to post one here. Others will disagree violently with that assertion but that IS their right to disagree with me, as i utterly disagree with you.

I am flatly contrasting your knowledge level of history with the things you post, the only yardstick by which I might measure you. Your posts frankly amaze me, and not in a way that is advantageous to the aforementioned level.

You have made assertions about my beliefs that are so, ummm... "interesting" that I dont even know what to tell you but lets just make it simple and say they are wrong. Alot. An ocean of wrong.

And "futurist" ????????????????????? ummm... no. There you go leaping again. Dont even know where you dug that one up, nor how you seek to apply it to me. Once again, you are leaping about.

I also have no confusion on any subject pertaining to history or the matter of salvation, no pastor needed. I have a bible, a concordance and a few translations laying about... so nope.. no need here. Also, dogma is for catholics and those who espouse beliefs that share the same shape and hue, so ... no dogma here sir. None. I live my spiritual life like Jack Webb... "Just the facts sir, just the facts"... dogma is not at all a proper descriptive of the Bible nor its message. Dogma is man made philosophy.

If you dont like flat statements, that I am indeed allowed to make at will, why then there is no remedy for you sir. I flatly told you that we are not able to hold debate nor discourse due to the historical chasm that lies between us. There is no common ground that we might both stand on and debate, therefore, again I say... we have no options left.

And no, you get no "hug" here, I am highly averse to doing so with men... either strange or familiar.

Dram out

Dram,

please cite your sources for your "history."  What books are you getting your "history" out of, or are you claiming that God is infusing this knowledge of history right into your brain?


and once again, you have not answered these simple questions:  
1.  where does the Bible say that it is the sole source of authority?
2.  who decided, and how, what books were to be included in the Bible?

Quoted: That which inhabits the cath church has its roots in pagan mythologies and fables. <snipped the shouting> Pagan rites no matter how adulterated or changed have their beginning with the prince of lies and are utterly corrupt. Someone's been reading too many Jack Chick pamphlets, James White, and Dave Hunt books, and not actually studying the history of Christianity and the writings of the early Christians.

I studied under James many years ago when I was in Seminary. He's a good man. A bit too Calvanistic for my tastes, but a good man. He and I passed out tracts together on several occasions. Not Jack Chick though.. We rolled our own

I'm a "recovering" catholic and I do not consider the catholic church to be anything close to what Christ says His Church should be in the Bible. I refuse to even step foot into a catholic church for various reasons. (Mostly its anti-biblical teachings and traditions) I don't have a dog in this fight though, so I'll stay out of it for now. Besides, Dramborleg is doing a fine job.

And, when I say "anti-biblical" , I am refering to:
Transubstantiation
The veneration of Mary
Calling man "father"
Confession to man
Infant baptism
Repetative prayers
Praying to/worshiping idols
Purgatory
Repentance instead of penance
Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
Spiritual birth
Priesthood
Sainthood

And many others. Even though I haven't added to the discussion of this thread other than my opinion gathered from my studies of the catholic church and what is written in the Word of God, I had to back up my "anti-biblical" comment so as not to be considered trolling this thread.

Quoted: Dram, please cite your sources for your "history."  What books are you getting your "history" out of, or are you claiming that God is infusing this knowledge of history right into your brain? and once again, you have not answered these simple questions:   1.  where does the Bible say that it is the sole source of authority? 2.  who decided, and how, what books were to be included in the Bible?

I said I didn't have a dog in this fight, but these are just ignorant questions. Have you ever read the Bible? Do you own a Bible other than the huge one on your coffee table? (Stereotypical of most catholics, but right on the money huh?)

Let's take question #1.

Please read:

Job 34:13
Jude 25
Matt 28:18

Now please go to:

John 1:1

Who is the Word? God, right? Who has authority? God (the Trinity), right? God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit has authority. God is the Word. The Word is God. The Word is authority. Therefore, the Bible (Word), is all authority.

I'll let someone else answer #2 because that one is just as easy.

Looks like you're trolling now and trying to bait Dramborleg

Dram and AZ,

So someone asks for a specific verse from the Bible definitively stating that the Bible ALONE is the sole authority for a Christian and instead we get a THEOLOGICAL THEORY whereby two very distinct definitions of "word" are conflated.

"The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn) (Jesus who was born, lived, died, and was risen and resides at God's right hand" ) is taken as ontologically equal to the WRITTEN word?!

You really think any Bible sitting on your bookshelf IS God? God=word=bible?

1) that's crazy. (And you are the guys who laugh at the Eucharist!)

2) it doesn't answer the question: WHERE IN THE BIBLE - THAT YOU THINK IS THE SOLE AUTHORITY OF A CHRISTIAN DOES IT SPECIFICALLY CLAIM TO BE THE SOLE AUTHORITY OF A CHRISTIAN???

It doesn't say it ANYWHERE.

So all the while you dump on Catholics for doing theology (interpreting scripture with reason and logic) and thus coming up with the word "trinity" or "transubstantiation" to explain what Jesus must have meant when he said "The Father and I are one" and "The Father is greater than I" or "Eat...Drink...This is my body...this is my blood..."  you DO THE SAME THING but in favor of some Koranic view of the Bible as though IT is Jesus himself - so as to pull the rabbit out of the hat that somehow the Bible is the SOLE authority for a Christian when in fact it NEVER says any such thing.

Jesus Christ is NOT the Bible, guys.

As for our doctrines not being biblical....

Transubstantiation: Simply explains what Jesus meant in Jn 6: Bread and wine taken and blessed, that Jesus hands to his disciples and says "this IS my body, this IS my blood". He wasn't speaking metaphorically, symbollically, or jokingly. The Aramaic, Greek, and Latin extant MSS we have going back 2000 years is clear on this. If you have a better explaination how he can be telling us the truth, let's hear it. So far no Protestant has offered an explaination how Jesus can be serious in Jn 6 and all the Last Supper discoures, and in Luke and in Paul and in Revelation... without going into the truth about appearances and substances.

Again, you don't like theology - interpreting scripture thanks to logic and reason...except when you do and then to cook up crazy God=word=bible koranic nonsense.

The veneration of Mary: Totally biblically based. Read Luke 2 "All generations will call me blessed". We call her blessed - thus fulfilling the scripture. Do you?

Calling man "father": Re-read the Gospel of Matthew. Starts out by calling men "fathers" and Jesus himself, in his parables calls men fathers. John calls men fathers, as does Paul. So obviously Jesus' discourse to the Pharisees wasn't a literal condemnation of the term "father" - after all, he acknowledged the 10 Commandments as binding... "honor your father and your mother".

Confession to man When Jesus appeared to the Apostles he breathed on them and gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit with the power to forgive sins! (Check out Gospel of John!)

Infant baptism NO WHERE in the New Testament does it SPECIFY an age of consent to baptise anyone. Nor does it specify exactly HOW to baptise, other than using water and the words "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". Acts clearly distinguished the baptism of John with that of Jesus (check out the story of Apollos).

Besides, 8 day old Jewish boys were circumcised, thus becoming "Jews". Jesus commanded that "the little children" be sent to him and that no one hinder them. What's the first "encounter with Christ" in the Christian "way" if not Baptism?

Repetative prayers Paul was merely condemning repetition as though it OF ITSELF won grace. But what did Jesus say? He asked us to keep knocking...the parable of the pagan woman who "kept calling out" is indicative. What does the Book of Revelation have the angels and saints doing in Heaven if not crying out "holy, holy, holy"? That's repetitive!

Praying to/worshiping idols We don't worship statues. Or Icons. Worship requires sacrifice. Putting flowers at a grave stone, saluting a flag isn't "worship". Praying to someone isn't worship either. But because Protestant's culture is so paltry and you don't technically ever worship God by means of the sacrifice he commanded us to do "in memory of me" you wouldn't know prayer vs worship distinction.

Purgatory Bit of theology here: what does Peter and Paul mean when they say that nothing impure enters heaven and again that souls are purified "as though by fire" like gold, while any  work of straw and wood are consumed?

We know that Heaven and Hell are ETERNAL states. But we also know that neither state allows for change. Praying for the dead therefore would be pointless unless there was some TEMPORARY STATE as a preparation for entering Heaven. Maccabees 1 and 2 specifically mentions prayers for the dead "as a just thing to do".

Repentance instead of penance Um this is embarrassing. No Catholic can do "penance" until he has repented of sin. You can't "go and sin no more" until you've repented of the sin in the first place, but penance is a practical means of maintaining the conversion of heart.

Baptism for the forgiveness of sins Read Acts and Peter's discourse. It's there.

Spiritual birth John 3 "Born of water and the spirit"

Priesthood Peter calls us a "kingdom of priests". Now, logically, for Christians to be a kingdom of priests or a royal priesthood, you need men to be priests. If Jesus is called High Priest (in Hebrews) then that requires OTHER priests to exist because no High Priest can exist without the lower orders who exist in function of him. Basic 101 theology here.

All baptised believers are priests, but not of the same order. When you bless food or other people you are performing a priestly function whether you know it or not. When you say "God bless you" YOU ARE INVOKING A BLESSING on others! That's a PRIESTLY function.

Sainthood Totally a biblical concept. Doesn't Paul write of "the saints" and the holy ones? "Sanctos" means "holy" and holy means "reserved for God" - which Paul writes extensively about to Christians being.

We are all called to holiness.... what else would we BE if we are "temples of the Holy Spirit"??

How could the Holy Spirit reside in someone and not by the same fact make him "holy"?

So you see, my friends, your anti-Catholic pre-suppositions are based on some fairly simple presuppositions and mistakes. WE READ THE BIBLE and draw the conclusions therein that don't contradict other books of the bible.

Quoted: I studied under James many years ago when I was in Seminary. He's a good man. A bit too Calvanistic for my tastes, but a good man. He and I passed out tracts together on several occasions. Not Jack Chick though.. We rolled our own I'm a "recovering" catholic and I do not consider the catholic church to be anything close to what Christ says His Church should be in the Bible. I refuse to even step foot into a catholic church for various reasons. (Mostly its anti-biblical teachings and traditions) I don't have a dog in this fight though, so I'll stay out of it for now. Besides, Dramborleg is doing a fine job. And, when I say "anti-biblical" , I am refering to: Transubstantiation The veneration of Mary Calling man "father" Confession to man Infant baptism Repetative prayers Praying to/worshiping idols Purgatory Repentance instead of penance Baptism for the forgiveness of sins Spiritual birth Priesthood Sainthood

Yep, definitely a James White student.

JusAdBellum has already adressed your list of so-called anti-biblical teachings.  I'll just add a few:
The veneration of Mary  Luke 1:28  And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
Luke 1:42  And she cried out with a loud voice and said: Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb
Luk 1:48  Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid: for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Calling man "father"  1Cor 4:14-15  I write not these things to confound you: but I admonish you as my dearest children.   15  For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you.
1Tim 1:1-2  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the commandment of God our Saviour and Christ Jesus our hope:  2  To Timothy, his beloved son in faith.
1Tim 1:18  This precept, I commend to thee, O son Timothy: according to the prophecies going before on thee, that thou war in them a good warfare,
2Tim 2:1  Thou therefore, my son, be strong in Christ Jesus:
Tit 1:4  To Titus, my beloved son according to the common faith, grace and peace, from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Saviour.

Confession to man  James 5:16  Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much.

Purgatory 2Ma 12:43-46 And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection.  44 (For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead,)  45 And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them.  46 It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.

I said I didn't have a dog in this fight, but these are just ignorant questions. Have you ever read the Bible? Do you own a Bible other than the huge one on your coffee table? (Stereotypical of most catholics, but right on the money huh?)

No, you are not right on the money.  You paint me with a stereotype and you don't even know me.  I've read the Bible plenty of times.  In different translations.  

The questions are not ignorant at all.  They get at the core of why there is a difference between Catholics and Protestants.  Why is your Bible missing some books from the OT?  Who decided which books belonged in the Bible?  Who decided that the Apocalypse of John is divinely inspired, and who decided that the apocalypse of Peter is not divinely inspired, but Philemon is?  These are very important questions and ingnorant only in that you must not know the history of how the canon of Scripture came about; who held what position on certain epistles and gospels and who included what books in which list of scriptures, etc.

So, the questions still stand:
1. where does the Bible say that it is the sole source of authority  (not your interpretation of prooftexts, but clear Scriptural quotes)?
2. who decided, and how, what books were to be included in the Bible?

great post.

Crickets. Crickets.

They won't answer....because they can't and still remain Protestant.

Answer #1: sola scritura is NOT spelled out anywhere in the Bible. Not even hinted at.
Answer #2: The same Church that has bishops (therefore sacraments of Order etc) and held Councils (therefore had a hierarchy) decided which books were and were not divinely inspired.

Maybe you think that Church is best represented by the Greek Orthodox or maybe by the Catholic Church. Either way you have bishops, in a hierarchy, and 7 sacraments, teaching authoritatively on matters of faith and morals, NOT an "every man for himself" individualistic religion of the book.

Now then, we don't go around condemning Protestants to hell and claiming they're are somehow not Christians because they don't believe everything we do. It's not a two-way street.

But when provoked, i.e. called non-Christians or called idolators etc. we not only can but have just returned fire, verse by verse, proving ourselves correct and the accusers' so far standing on thin air.

Catholicism isn't right because Protestantism is wrong (alot of Protestantism - maybe not AROwner's version, but others here like AZ and Drams seems to think they're right because we're wrong, because they say we are).

We're right because our faith is true and doesn't contradict anything in the scriptures taken as a whole rather than as a part, and doesn't contradict right (i.e. sane) reason either.

Yes, that's a tall order to claim but bring it on. Not one thing in the official teaching (as opposed to what various theologians or local pastors will say or write) is irrational or ultimately unscriptural.

Every single papal encyclical is chuck full of scripture quotes, showing how moral or theological doctrine is based on or organically, logically deduced from scripture and the revelation we receive from tradition (liturgy & morals).

Try reading Evangelium Vitae, or Veritatis Splendor sometime. They aren't neo-pagan philosophy texts.

It's on now! (and I wasn't going to get in this)

You really think any Bible sitting on your bookshelf IS God? God=word=bible?

Did I say that? Nope. I do not believe my Bible is God. I said His Word is God. My Bible is made from ink and paper. I do not worship inanimate objects. His Word is what I worship. You’re trying to convolute my statement and that’s a Bozo-no no in a debate..

1) that's crazy. (And you are the guys who laugh at the Eucharist!) 2) it doesn't answer the question: WHERE IN THE BIBLE - THAT YOU THINK IS THE SOLE AUTHORITY OF A CHRISTIAN DOES IT SPECIFICALLY CLAIM TO BE THE SOLE AUTHORITY OF A CHRISTIAN???

I gave you an example and you poo pooed on it. We would have to start another thread on Sola Scriptura. But, since you asked for it, here it is. The doctrine of sola scriptura is based upon the inspiration of Scripture.  I direct you to Paul's second letter to Timothy.  II Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction, for training in righteousness, in order that the man of God might be complete, fully equipped for every good work." Note that Scripture is theopneustos, "God-breathed."  That which is theopneustos has ultimate authority; there can be no higher authority than God's very speaking.  "All Scripture is God-breathed."  Because Scripture is God-breathed, and represents God's very voice speaking, it is profitable for the work of the ministry in the Church of Jesus Christ.  We are told that the work of teaching, and rebuking, and correcting, and training in righteousness, can be undertaken due to the nature of Scripture as God-breathed. When the Church listens to Scripture, she is  hearing her Lord speaking to her.  The authority of the Church then, in teaching, and rebuking, and instructing, is derived, despite catholic claims to the contrary, from Scripture itself. Paul teaches that the Bible is a rule of faith.  He says the Church's function of teaching and rebuking and instructing is to be based upon God-inspired Scriptures. This passage teaches the sufficiency of the Scriptures to function in this way. Paul not only does not refer us to another rule of faith, but implicitly denies the necessity of such a rule of faith by his teaching on the ability of Scripture to completely equip the man of God.

Shall I go on?

It doesn't say it ANYWHERE.

So all the while you dump on Catholics for doing theology (interpreting scripture with reason and logic) and thus coming up with the word "trinity" or "transubstantiation" to explain what Jesus must have meant when he said "The Father and I are one" and "The Father is greater than I" or "Eat...Drink...This is my body...this is my blood..." you DO THE SAME THING but in favor of some Koranic view of the Bible as though IT is Jesus himself - so as to pull the rabbit out of the hat that somehow the Bible is the SOLE authority for a Christian when in fact it NEVER says any such thing.

Are you saying the Trinity is a false belief now?

Jesus Christ is NOT the Bible, guys. As for our doctrines not being biblical.... Transubstantiation: Simply explains what Jesus meant in Jn 6: Bread and wine taken and blessed, that Jesus hands to his disciples and says "this IS my body, this IS my blood". He wasn't speaking metaphorically, symbollically, or jokingly. The Aramaic, Greek, and Latin extant MSS we have going back 2000 years is clear on this. If you have a better explaination how he can be telling us the truth, let's hear it. So far no Protestant has offered an explaination how Jesus can be serious in Jn 6 and all the Last Supper discoures, and in Luke and in Paul and in Revelation... without going into the truth about appearances and substances.

Ahh yes, John 6:53-54… Teaching the church to partake in literal cannibalism. Read what Jesus had to say BEFORE that passage in John 6:33-35 which catholics like to ignore –

For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. John 6:33-35

Jesus continues in John 6:40

And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him,[/b] may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.[b]John 6:40

Let’s stick with good ol’ John here for a bit. Now go to John 6:63

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63

This teaching is consistent with the rest of Scripture. Eternal life comes through believing in Jesus Christ, not eating His body. Jesus points out that eternal life comes through believing in Him. Jesus was talking spiritually, not physically. He was explaining that spiritually, all life comes through faith in Him, not eating His body.

In fact, God FORBIDS cannibalism!

But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. Gen 9:4

Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. Lev. 17:12

Paul had something to say about this also in his writings.

For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 1Cor. 11:23-24

Hello! McFly! We are to do this to REMEMBER Him. When Jesus said, "Take, eat: this is my body," He was not suggesting that they reach out and begin eating His literal body. To even suggest such is ridiculous. He was speaking spiritually about what He was about to accomplish on the cross. Notice how that verse ends: "...this do in remembrance of me." Observing the Lord's Supper is a remembrance of Christ's work at Calvary, not a reenactment. The same is true of Christ's blood.

After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 1Cor. 11:25

Jesus Himself taught the same lesson in Luke 22:19

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.Luke 22:19

So, Why does the Catholic church deliberately take one verse of Scripture out of context and build a doctrine the Bible obviously does not teach? Why would the Catholic church rather have you eating God than placing your faith in Him?

I’ll answer more later


Edited to get the red out
Made it difficult to read...

Quoted: great post. Crickets. Crickets. They won't answer....because they can't and still remain Protestant. Keep up your futile attempts at insults and your credibility is shot with me. Answer #1: sola scritura is NOT spelled out anywhere in the Bible. Not even hinted at. See above post... Answer #2: The same Church that has bishops (therefore sacraments of Order etc) and held Councils (therefore had a hierarchy) decided which books were and were not divinely inspired. Maybe you think that Church is best represented by the Greek Orthodox or maybe by the Catholic Church. Either way you have bishops, in a hierarchy, and 7 sacraments, teaching authoritatively on matters of faith and morals, NOT an "every man for himself" individualistic religion of the book. Now then, we don't go around condemning Protestants to hell and claiming they're are somehow not Christians because they don't believe everything we do. It's not a two-way street. Yes you do! If my sins are not absolved by a catholic priest before I die, my soul goes to hell. Maybe purgatory depending on whether my sins were mortal or venial (also non-Scriptural). Remember, I wasn't always a Christian. I was a catholic for 30 years prior.. Most of my family still are catholic. We just don't talk beliefs when we're together.. But when provoked, i.e. called non-Christians or called idolators etc. we not only can but have just returned fire, verse by verse, proving ourselves correct and the accusers' so far standing on thin air. Oh please...Do you always play the victim? This is a debate. Hopefully a civil one. Once it starts going downhill, I'm out... Catholicism isn't right because Protestantism is wrong (alot of Protestantism - maybe not AROwner's version, but others here like AZ and Drams seems to think they're right because we're wrong, because they say we are). You know nothing about my "version" of Christianity. Also, arowneragain and I have spoken about spiritual things in the past and we seem to agree for the most part.. I'm proud to call him my brother in Christ. We're right because our faith is true and doesn't contradict anything in the scriptures taken as a whole rather than as a part, and doesn't contradict right (i.e. sane) reason either. Load of horse poop! Should I choose to continue in this thread, I will prove your statement wrong. Yes, that's a tall order to claim but bring it on. Not one thing in the official teaching (as opposed to what various theologians or local pastors will say or write) is irrational or ultimately unscriptural. If they are unscriptural, as you say, prove it rather than spewing nonsense! Every single papal encyclical is chuck full of scripture quotes, showing how moral or theological doctrine is based on or organically, logically deduced from scripture and the revelation we receive from tradition (liturgy & morals). Revelation from tradition? Oy vay! I'll tackle that one too later down the road. The papacy is another bone of contention with me. But, we'll save that for another day as I think sola scriptura is going to dominate this thread. Try reading Evangelium Vitae, or Veritatis Splendor sometime. They aren't neo-pagan philosophy texts.

I'll stick to reading Scripture..Thanks anyway

Transubstantiation: Simply explains what Jesus meant in Jn 6: Bread and wine taken and blessed, that Jesus hands to his disciples and says "this IS my body, this IS my blood". He wasn't speaking metaphorically, symbollically, or jokingly. The Aramaic, Greek, and Latin extant MSS we have going back 2000 years is clear on this. If you have a better explaination how he can be telling us the truth, let's hear it. So far no Protestant has offered an explaination how Jesus can be serious in Jn 6 and all the Last Supper discoures, and in Luke and in Paul and in Revelation... without going into the truth about appearances and substances.
_______________________________________________________________________
Well, your dogma falls apart when you state that bread actually becomes real flesh. So, you would have Jesus telling us to EAT HIS FLESH for REAL... Jesus wants cannibals in heaven. I have listened to local catholic radio and also read a report that a scientist examined blessed eucharist and said it was indeed flesh. Wow, that is just amazing, a priest creates flesh with a prayer. Hmm. For us Christians, Christ simply meant for us to partake of the unleaven bread and WINE (NOT GRAPEJUICE), as He did, in His memory... to internalize His sacrifice. Without the aid of much Dogmatic man made writing, there is no other way to arrive at the DEAD FLESH you would have us believe you are consuming.
__________________________________________________________________________

Again, you don't like theology - interpreting scripture thanks to logic and reason...except when you do and then to cook up crazy God=word=bible koranic nonsense.
_________________________________________________________________________
Hmm... dont like the Word do you? That is why there is no debate with you, friend. You do not and cannot agree that the Word is what It says It is. Which is fine for you.

The veneration of Mary: Totally biblically based. Read Luke 2 "All generations will call me blessed". We call her blessed - thus fulfilling the scripture. Do you?
Of course she was blessed, she was given the priveledge of carrying the Child of God to term and giving birth. If someone who espouses to be a Christian does not consider this a blessing, then they are astray. But this is where Christians and catholics differ. The catholics created an enormous amount of man made dogma that surrounds Mary. They would have us believe that Jesus was an only child. Here is a sample of what Jesus thought of His mother and his physical brothers:
M't:12:46: While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.
M't:12:47: Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.
M't:12:48: But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
M't:12:49: And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
M't:12:50: For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

And yet your dogma would have us believe that Jesus thought Mary was the umm... "queen of heaven".  Umm... ok, sure.

Calling man "father": Re-read the Gospel of Matthew. Starts out by calling men "fathers" and Jesus himself, in his parables calls men fathers. John calls men fathers, as does Paul. So obviously Jesus' discourse to the Pharisees wasn't a literal condemnation of the term "father" - after all, he acknowledged the 10 Commandments as binding... "honor your father and your mother".

The catholics call priests father as in a spiritual father, there is no other interpretation that fits their beliefs.

M't:23:9: And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Very clear reasoning of why not to call a man a spiritual father as God is our only Spiritual Father here or in heaven.

Confession to man When Jesus appeared to the Apostles he breathed on them and gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit with the power to forgive sins! (Check out Gospel of John!)

Yes, it does indeed say to confess your sins to one another. Not to a specially created class of confessors that will give you formulaic prayers of a certain number to gain forgiveness. That is flat out man made dogma thanks.

Infant baptism NO WHERE in the New Testament does it SPECIFY an age of consent to baptise anyone. Nor does it specify exactly HOW to baptise, other than using water and the words "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". Acts clearly distinguished the baptism of John with that of Jesus (check out the story of Apollos).

Besides, 8 day old Jewish boys were circumcised, thus becoming "Jews". Jesus commanded that "the little children" be sent to him and that no one hinder them. What's the first "encounter with Christ" in the Christian "way" if not Baptism?

Not one place in the Bible does it mention children being baptized. Not one. The only people baptized were those who followed the following formula:
1. Recognize that Jesus died for your sins.
2. Repent of your sins.
3. Arise and be baptized.
I have yet to run into any children who have repented of their non-existant sins, have you sir?
(silence... crickets chirping....silence...twig snaps...silence... someone coughs....) No, didnt think so. Christ said he came to seek and save the LOST, children are not lost friends, not ever. Christ said we are to become LIKE children, to have their innocenct outlook. Not your doctrine of original sin.

Repetative prayers Paul was merely condemning repetition as though it OF ITSELF won grace. But what did Jesus say? He asked us to keep knocking...the parable of the pagan woman who "kept calling out" is indicative. What does the Book of Revelation have the angels and saints doing in Heaven if not crying out "holy, holy, holy"? That's repetitive!

M't:6:7: But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

This applies most particularly to catholics as they are indeed fond of long winded prayers of a formulaic nature. Much of the catholic dogma has its roots in the worship of pagan gods/goddesses (as was revealed to me in a PAMPHLET that I was given by a catholic, that had as its origin a catholic church, meant to tell people that YES, certain catholic practices had as their origination those of pagan worship)  And as I mentioned above, they are quite blunt in stating that their repetition of SPECIFIC prayers at the behest of a "spiritual father" will cleanse them of sin. There can be no argument about this if one is honest as that is indeed a fact.

Praying to/worshiping idols We don't worship statues. Or Icons. Worship requires sacrifice. Putting flowers at a grave stone, saluting a flag isn't "worship". Praying to someone isn't worship either. But because Protestant's culture is so paltry and you don't technically ever worship God by means of the sacrifice he commanded us to do "in memory of me" you wouldn't know prayer vs worship distinction.

Dont pray to idols eh? Hmm... wrong. I have seen uncounted kissing of rings, statues feet, bowing before "holy" objects, paintings, mummified remains, etc etc ... ad nauseum. You claim a "sacrifice" must be made to worship???? No, friend, to kneel before a truly beautiful statue and pray feelingly for that figures intercession is indeed worship. As though the figure was the physical locus of that "dead persons" energy or earthly manifestation.

Purgatory Bit of theology here: what does Peter and Paul mean when they say that nothing impure enters heaven and again that souls are purified "as though by fire" like gold, while any work of straw and wood are consumed?

More well imagined and written dogma of men.

We know that Heaven and Hell are ETERNAL states. But we also know that neither state allows for change. Praying for the dead therefore would be pointless unless there was some TEMPORARY STATE as a preparation for entering Heaven. Maccabees 1 and 2 specifically mentions prayers for the dead "as a just thing to do".

Repentance instead of penance Um this is embarrassing. No Catholic can do "penance" until he has repented of sin. You can't "go and sin no more" until you've repented of the sin in the first place, but penance is a practical means of maintaining the conversion of heart.

Baptism for the forgiveness of sins Read Acts and Peter's discourse. It's there. Better believe its there!

Spiritual birth John 3 "Born of water and the spirit" Yep again!

Priesthood Peter calls us a "kingdom of priests". Now, logically, for Christians to be a kingdom of priests or a royal priesthood, you need men to be priests. If Jesus is called High Priest (in Hebrews) then that requires OTHER priests to exist because no High Priest can exist without the lower orders who exist in function of him. Basic 101 theology here.

All baptised believers are priests, but not of the same order. When you bless food or other people you are performing a priestly function whether you know it or not. When you say "God bless you" YOU ARE INVOKING A BLESSING on others! That's a PRIESTLY function.

Heb:6:20: Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Jesus gave eternal sacrifice for us, we have no need of anyone to intercede on our behalf between ourselves and Christ Jesus. To have a "class of priests" is ridiculous as Christ is my intercessor with God. I go to Christ directly, my personal relationship if you will, with all that is necessary... what can your priest do for me that I cannot do for myself? Tell me how many hail mary or our fathers to recite to be forgiven? Christs sacrifice is nullified by this type of belief system.

There is no special "order", unless you are of the catholic faith. There is no special anything, frankly. That is a concept that has as its origins, MAN.

Sainthood Totally a biblical concept. Doesn't Paul write of "the saints" and the holy ones? "Sanctos" means "holy" and holy means "reserved for God" - which Paul writes extensively about to Christians being.

Christians, are saints. Period. No special orders or classes. NONE. Unless you believe catholic dogma.

Corrected to put my answers in red, I did not look at the board code close enough to see the slash mark in the second red

Dram

Jumping in here late but...

Quoted:
In the following years the churches I attended observed communion regularly.
Not in Catholic Churches.

This, like the feasts and observances in the OT, served as a reminder of the sacrifice of our Lord and the forgiveness of sins & healing of our bodies made available by Him.

As I said, in the churches I attended, communion was open to all believers.
But here you come onto the problem of what the Church should do with those who profess to believe in Christ yet reject His teaching. Protestents reject that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. You must understand, not even a Catholic is supposed to receive the Holy Eucharist if he or she is not in a state of grace.



Thus, I was surprised that I was excluded from communion within the Catholic church in which I attended the friend's wedding.  I was disrespected.
It was you who was attempting to disrespect the Holy Eucharist and the Catholic Church by your action of going to receive something you knew full well you did not believe in.

The message was one of exclusion, rather than ecumenical inclusion.  The message communicated to me was that I, a believer in Jesus Christ, a born again follower of Yeshua of Nazareth, is considered to be an unwashed, unclean apostate by the RCC.  
One cannot simply ignore Truth for "ecuminism". They don't crucify people who say "go play nice and be ecuminical".


So, I have been baptized.  I have confessed Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  I have repented of my old lifestyle.  I regularly confess my sins to Him and receive His forgiveness.  Thus, I am qualified to receive communion and do so every time it is offered in my church.
Protestants have no Apostolic succesion, no sacramental ordination, thus no consecration. You would be "qualified" to receive "communion" in your church no matter what since it's nothing other than bread, and Protestants don't really pretend it is otherwise.

"The doctrine of sola scriptura is based upon the inspiration of Scripture"... "Based on" means that you INFER that "doctrine" from scripture, NOT THAT IT'S IN SCRIPTURE.

That's point 1.

Point 2 is, since Scripture "alone" is NOT spelled out, you have to shoe-horn it in by neglecting other clear lines in Scripture where both the apostle and Jesus specifically mention MEN having teaching authority. Such as the great commission where by Jesus commands HIS APOSTLES to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey all his commandments and promising THEM that he'd be with THEM always.

Jesus does not command anyone to write his Gospel down. They did so "that you may believe" but also acknowledge that he did and said other things. So scripture is IMPORTANT and USEFUL. But not sufficient.

"Sufficient" is not a word you'll find in the Bible attached to Scripture. God didn't just hand the Law over to the People and leave them without Judges, Prophets and kings. Neither did Jesus merely preach the Gospel, command his apostles to write it down and then leave the world completely without shepherds.

Indeed in John he commanded Peter to shepherd the flock. In Matthew he commands the Apostles to make disciples and teach them to obey HIS  commands. He even 'BREATHED ON THEM' THEREBY GIVING THEM THE HOLY SPIRIT AND POWER TO FORGIVE SINS.

In Acts we see controversy in Antioch NOT BEING RESOLVED BY CONSULTING THE "SUFFICIENT" BIBLE, BUT BY BRINGING THE DISPUTE TO THE APOSTLES IN JERUSALEM.

And they didn't just write a letter to the Christians in Antioch (which would be scripture) they also SENT TWO REPRESENTATIVES to make sure it was interpretted correctly.

As for self-elected elders... Neither Paul nor Timothy nor Titus were elected from within their communities to be elders. They were commissioned by others and sent "apostoloi" means "to be sent". That means hierarchy, not democracy.

No, we are not condeming you to hell. Baptism forgives sin. We also accept the concept that God is merciful and that while there is an ordinary economy of salvation, i.e. the sacraments, given God's mercy perfect acts of contrition for sin are possible.

So no, Catholics don't suppose Protestants are damned.

As for "venial/mortal" not being scriptural, you simply haven't read the Epistles of St John. He does write of sins to pray for and sins you can't pray for because they're deadly. "Mortal" is merely the Latin for "deadly".

Jesus too makes a DISTINCTION between sins forgivable and a sin that's unforgiveable - the sin against the Holy Spirit. He also DISTINGUISHES between the slave who doesn't know His Master's will yet does something wrong as getting fewer stripes (whippings) as the servant who DOES know His Master's will and yet does something wrong.

Note too Jesus' warnings about DIFFERENT results of sins of anger - calling your brother one name isn't the same as calling him a different thing.

In Acts we see Saul sinning by helping with the execution of St Stephen. But Ananias and Saphirra drop dead for lying to the Holy Spirit. Again, what are we to suppose if not that some sins are worse than others?

Both Paul and Matthew make it clear that Jesus didn't give the power of binding and loosing or the gift of the Holy Spirit to everyone. Acts clearly shows that Deacons could baptise but not lay hands for the giving of the Holy Spirit.

IF THE EARLY CHURCH HAD NO ORDERS OR HIERARCHY, if all Christians were automatically saints without no distinction, then Paul's talk about one body with many DIFFERENT parts wouldn't make any sense.

If you are automatically "holy" or a "saint" just by being a believer then what does all the warnings of the epistles mean? Corinthians and the letters of John warning people from following bad example seem to imply if not state that some by the name of Christian were not living the "way" or following the truth. Surely they weren't "holy" as Holiness has an ontological effect. It's not a badge we wear but a state of existence.

And the fact that some were apostles and others deacons and deacons couldn't give gifts that apostles could (to say nothing of the fact that not all people were presyberoi who could be called to annoint people with oil and pray that they be healed) shows us that there were indeed orders in this Kingdom.

Jesus' mention of seats at his right and left hand being reserved also shows that this Kingdom has a hierarchy.

With Peter as the first Pope (the Bishop of Rome)- Catholicism is the original Christian religion.  All the sects since then have been started by rogue ministers who couldn’t hack it as a Catholic.

Thankfully, to the forgiveness of sins by Jesus, it is possible  for non-Catholics to be forgiven for their wayward ways and go to heaven with the Catholics.  

IBTL! hurrah, my first!

j/k

A friend of mine with Italian roots once dated a girl from GA.  She took him to to meet her folks and her very old and hard of hearing grandma.  The grandma asked him "Do you go to church?"  Lou answered, "Yes ma'am.  I'm Catholic."  The grandma smiled and leaned over to her granddaughter.  In a whisper that wasn't quite a whisper she asked "Is that Christian, dear?"

You gotta love dem Southern Baptists!!!


-yj

Everytime someone asks one of these questions or starts one of these threads, it's invariably a huge dogfight between this group and that group.

Maybe the best thing to do is to stop pointing at what is different between the two and start sharing what is common between the two.

Christian unity is what we should be striving for, not arguing over points of dogma.

Look at some of the examples of others on this site for example, who have done things to help others out of the goodness of their heart. There are many examples.

So do I. I believe that all those who are baptised "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" are Christians. Maybe not good ones, but Christians nevertheless.

So those with whom I am arguing scriptural interpretation are - in my opinion - Christian. As am I, BTW, since I've been baptised. I've also done the "declare the Lord your personal savior" thing too being Confirmed and all. But they seem to believe that believing "on" the Lord Jesus isn't enough. You also have to repudiate this, that, and the other "tradition of men" that they deem bad, while holding fast to some other traditions of men (which they don't call "traditions" but are nevertheless).

So I'm drawing them in the "circle of trust" while they are drawing me and other Catholics "out" of it.

They say we worship Mary; we deny it. If we really did, why bother lying? What's to be gained by hoodwinking people into joining when they'd only discover some such awful secret and leave?

We hold to the Nicene Creed - as do they apparently. But this isn't enough for "them" who deem they are given the green light to determine who is "in" and who is "out". But like I said, Baptism is that line. Since we're all Baptised, we're all in some sort of union, albeit imperfect, with Jesus.

tfod
Team Member
Free Mylhouse


With Peter as the first Pope (the Bishop of Rome)- Catholicism is the original Christian religion. All the sects since then have been started by rogue ministers who couldn’t hack it as a Catholic.
_______________________________________________________________________________




Listen to that guy... way too funny... rogues who could not hack it eh? Yes, could not hack man made dogma and pagan ceremonies.

Yup, a real live yuk fest.

Dram

Quoted: tfod Team Member Free Mylhouse With Peter as the first Pope (the Bishop of Rome)- Catholicism is the original Christian religion. All the sects since then have been started by rogue ministers who couldn’t hack it as a Catholic. _______________________________________________________________________________ Listen to that guy... way too funny... rogues who could not hack it eh? Yes, could not hack man made dogma and pagan ceremonies. Yup, a real live yuk fest. Dram

I wonder if he's aware there were popes that:
Were married
Participated in orgies
Purchased the papacy
Ordered executions
Started wars
Were 12 years old

hmmmmm......

Vicar of who?

I quoted a passage to you regarding the doctrine of sola scriptura and you did what every RC apologist does. You mention “sufficiency”. Good job! You know your catholic talking points. I have a feeling you’re not being forthright about your education.  

So, I quote for you, once again, what Paul said in II Timothy 3 16-17

"All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction, for training in righteousness, in order that the man of God might be complete, fully equipped for every good work." II Timothy 3:16-17

I quoted another Biblical scholar below because he says it WAY better than I could even attempt to. I may have gone to Baptist Seminary, but I am in no way a Biblical Scholar”. I’m a firearms instructor! (Who happens to be born again)

So, to answer you’re statement on sufficiency -

It is common for Roman Catholic apologists to follow an error made by John Henry Cardinal Newman, with reference to this passage. Newman said that if this verse proves the sufficiency of Scripture, it proves too much, for Paul is talking here only of the Old Testament, which would leave the New Testament as an unnecessary addition.  But such is not Paul's point at all.  Scripture, Paul's point is, if it is Scripture at all, is God-breathed.  Paul is not speaking about the extent of the canon but the nature of Scripture itself as originating in God.  All Scripture then, including the New Testament, is God-breathed. Because Scripture is God-breathed, and hence represents God's very voice speaking, it is profitable for the work of the ministry in the Church of Jesus Christ.  We are told that the work of teaching, and rebuking, and correcting, and training in righteousness, can be undertaken due to the nature of Scripture as God-breathed.  What is Paul's point? The Church is not left without the voice of God.  For when the Church listens to Scripture, she is  hearing her Lord speaking to her.  The authority of the Church then, in teaching, and rebuking, and instructing, is derived, despite Roman Catholic claims to the contrary, from Scripture itself The fact that the Church has God's voice always present with her in God-breathed Scripture, means the man of God, specifically here, of course, Timothy, but I doubt anyone would disagree that these comments refer to all those who belong to Christ and who are a part of His body, the Church, might be complete, fully equipped for every good work. The first term to examine, is the adjective translated, "complete," the Greek term, a[rtios" (artios).  We note that it is related in its root to the second term we will examine, the verb which is translated, "fully equipped," that being the verb, ejxartivzw (exartizo).  Paul is here providing us with a play on words--the verb compounding and emphasizing the meaning present in the adjective. Now, the term, a[rtios", Vine tells us means, "fitted, complete."   Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker tell us the term means, "complete, capable, proficient."  That is, as they say, "able to meet all demands," giving the specific citation of II Timothy 3:17 as the reference.  One of the newest lexical resources, Louw and Nida's Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, uses the term, "qualified" as well.  The great Greek scholar, Richard Trench, in his Synonyms of the New Testament, said with reference to this term, "If we ask ourselves under what special aspects 'completeness' is contemplated in artios, it would be safe to answer that it is not as the presence only of all the parts which are necessary for that 'completeness', but involves, further, the adaptation and aptitude of these parts for the ends which they were designed to serve.  The man of God, St. Paul would say, should be furnished and accomplished with all which is necessary for the carrying out of the work to which he is appointed." Paul here asserts that the man of God can be complete, capable, proficient, and qualified because he has available to him, always, God's inspired Scriptures.  Surely, here Paul would have to direct us to any and all other rules of faith that we would need to be complete but, he does not. But, Paul was not satisfied to merely state that the man of God may be a[rtios", "complete," but, he goes on to define what he means.  "Fully equipped for every good work."  The term is ejxartivzw, here in the perfect-passive-participial form, the prefix, ex, having, as Robertson noted, the perfective force.  Vine tells us that here in II Timothy, it means "to fit out, that is, to furnish completely."   Bauer, Arndt Gingrich and Danker expressed this with the term, "equip."  Hendrickson makes reference to a related term, katartizw (katartizo), and it's use at Luke 6:40, where it is translated, "fully trained."  We see here, then, that Paul teaches that the man of God is thoroughly or completely equipped for every good work.  Now, what does it mean to say that one "is fully equipped," if not to say that one is sufficient for a task? We see then, that the Roman position is contradicted by that of the Apostle.  For he knew of no other rule of faith that was necessary so that the man of God could be equipped for every good work.  No other rule of faith, that is, than the Scriptures. I would like to direct you to the Scriptural standard, "by the mouth of two or three witnesses shall a fact be established."  I first refer you to Louw and Nida's Greek-English Lexicon, where we encounter the definition given for the semantic domain of ejxartivzw, I quote, "To make someone completely adequate, or sufficient for something; to make adequate, to furnish completely, to cause to be fully qualified; adequacy."  They translate our passage as, "completely qualified for every good deed."  While Louw and Nida give us two witnesses, I wish to direct you as well to the well-known scholarly resource by Fritz Reinecker and Cleon Rogers, entitled Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament.   Here, we find the following, in regards to both terms, here in verse 17:   "a[rtios":  fit, complete, capable, sufficient, i.e., able to meet all demands; ejxartivzw: completely outfitted, fully furnished, fully equipped, fully supplied." Paul here teaches that the Bible is A rule of faith.  For he says the Church's function of teaching and rebuking and instructing is to be based upon God-inspired Scriptures. We see that this passage teaches the sufficiency of the Scriptures to function in this way. We see that Paul not only does not refer us to another rule of faith, but implicitly denies the necessity of such a rule of faith by his teaching on the ability of Scripture to completely equip the man of God.

There are other references to sola scriptura in God’s Word. But, if this is sufficient (pun intended), whether you agree or not, why don’t we move onto another topic..

No, we are not condeming you to hell. Baptism forgives sin. We also accept the concept that God is merciful and that while there is an ordinary economy of salvation, i.e. the sacraments, given God's mercy perfect acts of contrition for sin are possible.

So, because I was baptised catholic as an infant, my sins are forgiven? No need to repent? Are Baptists, who as an adult, are baptised, they're sins are forgiven in the catholic church? If they convert to catholocism, do they have to be re-baptised?

What about the thief on the cross? Jesus told him he would be with him in paradise. He wasn't baptised. How did he get a free ticket to heaven without baptism? The woman who touched Jesus' clothing was told her sins were forgiven and was she baptised? Several instances in the Bible where sins were forgiven without baptism.

And, as far as "acts of contrition", now you're talking another anti-biblical term. We are saved by grace and not by works (you know the passage)... Nothing I do, short of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, can take away my salvation. I can give it back or make a false statement of salvation where I was never truly saved, but I can't lose it once I have it because I didn't serve out some sort of punishment that man creates for me. (Yes, for you Calvanists out there, I believe that once saved always saved)

So no, Catholics don't suppose Protestants are damned.

Yes you do! C'mon man, get real here.... If ya ain't catholic, ya ain't going to heaven. I was taught that in my catechism class in elementary school... Those crazy nuns...

Jesus too makes a DISTINCTION between sins forgivable and a sin that's unforgiveable - the sin against the Holy Spirit. He also DISTINGUISHES between the slave who doesn't know His Master's will yet does something wrong as getting fewer stripes (whippings) as the servant who DOES know His Master's will and yet does something wrong.

Yes, only ONE unforgiveable sin..Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.. That's it.. Period..

Note too Jesus' warnings about DIFFERENT results of sins of anger - calling your brother one name isn't the same as calling him a different thing.

And your point is? Jesus pointed out a lot of sin. He also said that if you believe in Him, repent of your sins, follow Him, all is forgiven! Isn't He wonderful?

In Acts we see Saul sinning by helping with the execution of St Stephen. But Ananias and Saphirra drop dead for lying to the Holy Spirit. Again, what are we to suppose if not that some sins are worse than others?

So, when Saul (later Paul) died, did he go to heaven or purgatory for a spell? I thought murder was a mortal sin... ???

Quoted: _______________________________________________________________________________ Listen to that guy... way too funny... rogues who could not hack it eh? Yes, could not hack man made dogma and pagan ceremonies. Yup, a real live yuk fest. Dram

Quoted: I wonder if he's aware there were popes that: Were married Participated in orgies Purchased the papacy Ordered executions Started wars Were 12 years old hmmmmm...... Vicar of who?

While people will continue to have flaws, the Church was founded directly by Jesus, and the Roman Catholic Church can withstand what hell has to offer.  

Feel free to attend any Roman Catholic mass.  Jesus loves you.  

Quoted: So, when Saul (later Paul) died, did he go to heaven or purgatory for a spell? I thought murder was a mortal sin... ???

There is only one sin which cannot be forgiven

:
We see then, that the Roman position is contradicted by that of the Apostle.  For he knew of no other rule of faith that was necessary so that the man of God could be equipped for every good work.  No other rule of faith, that is, than the Scriptures.
No, actually. He did know another rule of faith, that which was preached to him by the disciples.


Paul here teaches that the Bible is A rule of faith.
No again, the bible, as Catholics created and protestants use, did not exist until several hundred years later.


We see that this passage teaches the sufficiency of the Scriptures to function in this way.
No a third time. Christ said to teach HIS gospel. NOT the Old Testament, but the fulfillment of it.

We see that Paul not only does not refer us to another rule of faith, but implicitly denies the necessity of such a rule of faith by his teaching on the ability of Scripture to completely equip the man of God.
You would then have to become a Jew.

There are other references to sola scriptura in God’s Word. But, if this is sufficient (pun intended), whether you agree or not, why don’t we move onto another topic..
No there is not one anywhere including this one. How could Paul be referring to something that did not even yet exist?


"All of you need to follow the Bible and not the authority of myself or the other disciples which we were given by Christ and will then pass on to others. It should be out in a couple hundred years however."
Yeah, that makes sense.

E-Mary was a sinner like all humans, her body decomposed like all others and she cannot intercede for people just like no other people who are dead can either.

Um, let's see the explicit SCRIPTURE proving that Mary was a sinner.

Paul's claim that "all have sinned", if taken ABSOLUTELY would have to INCLUDE Jesus as he is truely a man. Obviously that's not the case so neither can that "all" mean "absolutely all".

No where in the Gospels or anywhere else is Mary considered a sinner.

But SHE DOES CLAIM GOD TO BE SAVIOR. This was 33 years before he died, thus saving humanity... she is greeted by the Angel (much like Gideon was greeted) not by her given name but by how God saw her. "Full of Grace" (and this is BEFORE she says "yes" to his message).

So Catholic doctrine grappling with ZERO scriptures claiming her to be a sinner + a clear reference to her being "full of grace" and therefore without sin at least when the angel appears to her... concludes that by a singular grace of God (well within his power) he spared her of the effect of original sin from the moment of her conception in preparation for the stupendous Incarnation of the Word into this world via her body.

Bottom line: Catholics read the whole of scripture not just St Paul and we take the prophecies and images of the Temple + stone tablets and Mary + Jesus much, much more seriously and realistically than others.

C-Sinless, her body never decomposed, and she can intercede for people.

Well, we have relics of everything else, the crown of thorns, nails, cross... you think the early Church wouldn't have built a stupendous tomb for her if she in truth died? Look what they did for St Peter's tomb!

Now, to be cruel, I note that the New Testament nowhere specifically says that Peter and Paul were executed by the Romans. Yet Protestants assume - based on history and tradition that they in fact died holy deaths (and died). Don't be knee-jerk quick to claim Catholics can't know or say anything about what happened or didn't happen to Mary "because it's not spelled out in the New Testament" but then go off and assume that Paul died and died well.

It's got to work both ways. You assume he died and died well. We call him "St." after all. Yet that conclusion isn't "biblically based" but historically based. For us Catholics this doesn't present a problem. It's a massive problem for Protestants who normally use the "if it's not written it can't be believed" line with Mary but not with Paul.

E-Lord's supper is a sacrement but symbolic.

[edit, can't kill the bold here] "My words are spirit and truth" are taken as Jesus claiming to be symbollic? Canabalism is OK provided it's symbolic?

[edit...can't kill the bold here. ]
'bout to have some fun here: killing an innocent person is murder and is forbidden right? Yet God commanded Abraham to kill his son Isaac. God commands you to do it.... and it's OK as he is the arbiter of right and wrong. He forbids men in the OT from eating other men. But commands his followers in the NT to eat and drink his body and blood. Apparently canibalism - which is why most followers left him.

Peter didn't "you have words of eternal life". Ah yes, Life. Now gentlemen, what pray tell IS life?

Think reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaal hard here: the Catholic Church accepts Aristotelian Philosophy to the extent that Being is more than what we can perceive with our senses. It includes what we can know conceptually with our minds but not directly feel or see.

Accidentally - physically, Jesus was totally a man. But at the same time and without contradiction, he was also God.

How is that possible? It's NOT POSSIBLE if there is no distinction between accidents and substances, and between natures and persons.

"Spirit and truth" isn't code for "symbolic". After all, Jesus' words are called "spirit and truth" - if that means "symbolic for something completely different" then the Gnostics were RIGHT and we ought to be worshipping a pantheon of demiurgs and gods. If "spirit" means "symbolic" then St John was saying God is spirit = God is a symbol.

Spirit and truth when applied to his words 'unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall have no life within you, for my flesh is real food and my blood real drink" points to a reality not PERCEIVED WITH SENSES, BUT CONCEPTUALLY KNOWABLE WITH OUR MINDS. YOU DON'T PERCEIVE SUBSTANCE. IT IS KNOWABLE ONLY INDIRECTLY.

C-wine and crackers become actual blood and body. Actually, wine and unleavened bread.

E- man has direct access to God and needs, and indeed cannot have, anything between man and God.

Jesus is God and sends out the 12 Apostles to "make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all my commands, and lo I am with you always."

JESUS DIDN'T GO TO THE NATIONS HIMSELF. HE SENT OTHERS TO GO FOR HIM. The one mediator between God and Man himself sent others out to lead people back to God through him.

Mary, Popes, and saints don't lead people to the Father without Jesus! The Doxology is always and has always been "to the Father in the Son by the Holy Spirit". They are not holy by some innate power of themselves, but in virtue of their relationship with Jesus!

We don't COMMUNE with Mary or the Pope or saints in our Mass, we partake of Jesus!

C-Pope, various appointed saints, Mary, etc. can intercede for man with God and may even be necessary.

The Church is necessary because Jesus founded it  and it's his body. How could you become part of his family and not be part of his family? Or become a member of his Kingdom and yet not be a part of the Kingdom? Insofar as you pray for other people, YOU ARE INTERCEEDING WITH GOD FOR THEM. What ELSE could "i will pray for you" mean? Or is that "symbolic but doesn't really mean anything" too?

E- when man dies he goes to Heaven or hell. This is true...ultimately as Heaven and Hell are the only two eternal states of being. Purgation, cleansing, is BY DEFINITION a process and thus is NOT ETERNAL.

C- when man dies, he goes to Heaven, hell or purgatory and can be prayed or bought out of purgatory.

E- The Bible is for man's direct edification and inspired by God.

The Bible a) wasn't a self-published compendium of books, so it's not self-sufficient and b) any book needs to be interpretted, it doesn't interpret itself as the very phenomenon of us arguing about a single chapter like John 6 proves. c) it IS INSPIRED BY GOD THOUGH.

C-need Pope's or priests help to explain Bible. In the Gospels Jesus nowhere commands his disciples to write anything down and hand it out for man's direct edification. In Acts men preach and teach, they don't publish and then let people guide themselves. After theCouncil of Jerusalem they write a letter - but also send two living representatives to Antioch to make sure their written instructions are carried out! That was a slam dunk case where 'sola scriture' would have been seen in action... but it wasn't. Men with teaching authority had to be there to make sure a simple letter was carried out.

E- only God can forgive sin and then only when man repents and asks for God's forgiveness. Where in the New Testament is it conclusively stated by Jesus that "only God" can forgive sins? How does this square with Jesus' teaching us to pray "forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who tresspass against us"? Or is our forgiveness of others' sins merely symbollic too? What did Jesus mean when he breathed on the Apostles after his Resurrection and told them "receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, whose sins you hold bound are bound"?

The fact that "evangelicals" don't recall this clear scripture quote or can't interpet it to mean what it apparently clearly states: God giving men the power to forgive sins in His name.... tells me that either they don't know their bible as much as they like to pride themselves on... or they do, but some ulterior tradition of men keeps them going symbollic when it's literal and keeps them literal when they ought to go metaphoric. It also proves phenomenologically that the Bible isn't a self-interpreting book.

C- Pope and priests can forgive sins also. In His name, yes. Naturally.

There are others too. Am I correct?

If you're speaking of your particular group of Evangelicals and not others (pace: Arowner) then, I'd say (from my Catholic perspective) you have a good read on them but made some mistakes on what the Catholics would say for themselves (we never call the wafer "cracker". It's bread. Wheat+water, no leaven. Crackers have leaven.)

Quoted: "Spirit and truth" isn't code for "symbolic". After all, Jesus' words are called "spirit and truth" - if that means "symbolic for something completely different" then the Gnostics were RIGHT and we ought to be worshipping a pantheon of demiurgs and gods. If "spirit" means "symbolic" then St John was saying God is spirit = God is a symbol.

Hi.. Sorry.... I didn't read the rest of the post but the word "gnostic" caught my eye and I feel compelled to address this real quick before I head out the door.

In all actuality, the Gnostics didn't worship anything, any more than Buddhists do. Gnosticism isn't about worship of a deity.

I have quoted here a bunch of really quality answers to the marian question, not written by me, but still very well written and researched.

Dram




IMMACULATE CONCEPTION -- Mary was preserved from all stain of original sin from the first instant of her conception. ("Catechism" 490-492).

In Luke 1:46-47, Mary said: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour". Mary knew that she needed a savior.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was first introduced by a heretic (a man whose teachings were officially declared to be contrary to Church doctrine). For centuries this doctrine was unanimously rejected by popes, Fathers and theologians of the Catholic Church. (Note 13)

ALL-HOLY -- Mary, "the All-Holy," lived a perfectly sinless life. ("Catechism" 411, 493)

Romans 3:23 says "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God". Revelation 15:4 says, "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy". Romans 3:10 says, "There is none righteous, no, not one".

Jesus is the only person who is referred to in Scripture as sinless. Hebrews 4:15 says, "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." 2  Corinthians 5:21 says, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 1  Peter 2:22 says, "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth".

In contrast, Mary said that God is her Savior. (Luke 1:47) If God was her Savior, then Mary was not sinless. Sinless people do not need a Savior.

In the Book of Revelation, when they were searching for someone who was worthy to break the seals and open the scroll, the only person who was found to be worthy was Jesus. Nobody else in Heaven or on earth (including Mary) was worthy to open the scroll or even look inside it. (Revelation 5:1-5)

PERPETUAL VIRGINITY -- Mary was a virgin before, during and after the birth of Christ. ("Catechism" 496-511)

Matthew 1:24-25 says, "Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS." "Till" (until) means that after that point, Joseph did "know" (have sexual relations with) Mary. (See Genesis 4:1 where Adam "knew" Eve and she conceived and had a son.)

Jesus had brothers and sisters. The Bible even tells us their names. Matthew 13:54-56 says, "

And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hatch this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?"

Other Scripture verses which specifically refer to Jesus’ brothers are: Matthew 12:46; John 2:12; John 7:3; Acts 1:14; and Galatians 1:19.

I was always taught that "brothers" and "sisters" were general terms that really could refer to any kind of kinsman, including cousins. This is true in the Hebrew language. However, the New Testament is written in Greek, which is an extremely precise language. It makes a clear distinction between the words used to describe family relationships. There is a Greek word which refers to people who are relatives but not of the immediate family, such as aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and cousins. There are other Greek words which refer specifically to a person’s brother or sister within a family. (Note 14)

MOTHER OF GOD -- Because she is the mother of Jesus, and Jesus is God, therefore Mary is the Mother of God. ("Catechism" 963, 971, 2677).

The Incarnation means that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. Mary was only the mother of Jesus as man, and not the mother of Jesus as God. According to the Bible, the world was created through Jesus. This was long before Mary was born. Hebrews 1:1-2 says,

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds".

Colossians 1:16-17 says,

"For by him [Jesus] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things [including Mary] were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things [including Mary] , and by him all things consist".

John 8:58 says, "Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am." Jesus existed before Abraham was born. That means that He also existed before Mary was born. In John 17:5, Jesus says, "And now O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." So Jesus existed even before the world began. Jesus came first -- not Mary.

MOTHER OF THE CHURCH -- Mary is the Mother of the Church. "Catechism" 963, 975).

Acts 1:13-14 gives a picture of a group of people praying together. Mary is mentioned as one of them, but nothing indicates any special prominence.      

"And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Phillip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren."  

Mary was probably in the Upper Room when the tongues of fire fell upon the 120 disciples. However, she is never mentioned again in the Book of Acts, which is our only historical record of how the Church was born. She is also not specifically identified in the epistles. Paul did send greetings to "Mary", but that was a common name. (In the Gospels and in the Book of Acts, she is referred to as "Mary the mother of Jesus" to distinguish her from other women named Mary.)

It is notable that John, who took Mary into his home after Jesus was crucified, does not mention her in his epistles, and he only mentions her on two occasions in his Gospel (the wedding at Cana and the crucifixion of Jesus). John mentions Mary Magdalene more than he mentions Jesus' mother.

ASSUMPTION -- At the end of her life, Mary was taken up ("assumed") body and soul into Heaven. ("Catechism" 966, 974)

There is no biblical reference to the assumption of Mary. The Gospel of John was written around 90 A.D., which is more than 100 years after Mary was born. (Surely Mary was more than ten years old when Jesus was conceived.) If Mary had been supernaturally assumed into Heaven, wouldn't John (the disciple that Mary lived with) have mentioned it? When Enoch and Elijah were taken up to Heaven, the Bible recorded it. With Elijah it was recorded in some detail. (See Genesis 6:24 and 2 Kings 2:1-18.)

The Assumption of Mary was officially declared to be a dogma of the Roman Catholic faith in 1950. This means that every Roman Catholic is required to believe this doctrine without questioning it. However, as we will see, the teaching of the Assumption originated with heretical writings which were officially condemned by the early Church.

In 495 A.D., Pope Gelasius issued a decree which rejected this teaching as heresy and its proponents as heretics. In the sixth century, Pope Hormisdas also condemned as heretics those authors who taught the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary. The early Church clearly considered the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary to be a heresy worthy of condemnation. Here we have "infallible" popes declaring something to be a heresy. Then in 1950, Pope Pius XII, another "infallible" pope, declared it to be official Roman Catholic doctrine. (Note 15)

CO-MEDIATOR -- Mary is the Co-Mediator to whom we can entrust all our cares and petitions. ("Catechism" 968-970, 2677)

There is only one mediator and that is Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 says, "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." Hebrews 7:25 says,Wherefore he [Jesus] is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." Ephesians 3:12 says, "In whom [Jesus} we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him."

If Jesus is constantly interceding for us and He is able to save us "to the uttermost," (utterly, completely) then He doesn't need Mary's help. If we can approach God with "boldness" and "confidence" because of our faith in Jesus, then we don't need Mary's help either.  

QUEEN OF HEAVEN -- God has exalted Mary in heavenly glory as Queen of Heaven and earth. ("Catechism" 966) She is to be praised with special devotion. ("Catechism" 971, 2675)

Psalm 148:13 says, "Let them praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven." This makes it quite clear that only God’s name (not Mary’s) is to be exalted. (In Catholic Bibles the numbering of the chapters and verses of some of the Psalms is slightly different.)

When people tried to give Mary special honor and pre-eminence because she was His mother, Jesus corrected them.

"And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." (Luke 11:27-28)

In chapters four and five of the Book of Revelation, we are given a quite detailed picture of Heaven. God is seated on the throne, surrounded by 24 elders and four living creatures. The Lamb (Jesus) is standing in the center of the throne. Thousands upon thousands of angels circle the throne, singing God's praises. And Mary is not in the picture at all.

While he [Jesus] was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother."

- Apostle Matthew111

And as he [Jesus] said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb [of Mary] that bore you, and the breasts [of Mary] that you sucked!" But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

- Apostle Luke112

I don't know if this is covered anywhere in the rules of the site, but it sure does help to give attribution to whatever quote you use Dram, so if we fall in love with the message we'll know which church to join, or conversely which theologian to laugh at at the next meeting of the minds.

I could cut and paste encyclicals or apologetic books too. I don't because my posts are my thoughts on the matter, unless I quote someone with "" attribution.

Getting to your apologist's attempt at a rebuttal of Catholic doctrine.

We have already explained above why Mary calling God her "savior" in Luke 2 doesn't logically necessitate her being in sin. After all, God saving her from original sin at the moment of her conception is just as possible for him as saving us from our sins after birth.

Now except for the angel's greeting of Mary with "Hail Full of Grace", there's no reason we would have suspected that Mary had a unique relationship with God prior to the Incarnation.... that an the obvious parallels of the Temple and her body.  But given the very troubling greeting (hence, her being troubled by it, since the angel didn't call her by her given name), the Church had to conclude something was going on. The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception makes the most sense given SCRIPTURE.

All you have in Scripture to "rebute" this is Paul. But as I showed, if Paul's statement was categorical, then Jesus himself would have been implicated. Showing elsewhere in Scripture where Jesus is called just proves that Luke 2 exonerates Mary. Then of course, Joseph was also called a Just man.... but we won't get into that here.

2) You claim that only God is holy? Exodus has Yahweh calling the very ground around the burning bush holy. That line isn't the categorical your would-be apologist THINKS it is.

3) Reference to Jesus as high priest in Hebrews (by way of proof-texting Jesus as the only sin-less one) is precisely the proof-text that there exists priests besides him, and in function of him! Typically protestants use one one proof-text at a time, thematically. it never occurs to them that you can't talk of "high priest" without an "order" of priests.

"Sinless people do not need a savior" WRONG. How would she be kept from Original sin if not by God's grace? It was God who saved her from sin, in virtue of Her becoming the mother of the Lord....the temple of the incarnate word.

But why the animus against Mary? Why the jealousy? So Jesus alone can open the seals? Yeah and your point is? He's God. I wouldn't expect Mary or any saint to open the seals either. Mary is not in competition with Jesus in Catholic doctrine.

4) Perpetual Virginity and the word "till". This is why neophytes shouldn't do theology. Just run a word search on that word "till" in the New Testament to see if it means what you are trying to shoe-horn it to mean. We see it used elsewhere when describing things put under Jesus "till" something happens. If "till" means what you WANT it to mean, then paradoxically, once Jesus wins in the end, he loses.

Matthew's point (made clear in the Greek) is that Joseph is not the blood father of Jesus.

As for the brothers and sisters - that's so stupid. In Matthew 12:46 it is THE CROWDS who say "his mother and brothers" - just as it was the Crowds who say that Joseph was his father. So THAT particular text isn't the proof you think it is.

Your anonymous apologists also goes off on explaining that Greek allows for distinctions between  "brothers and sisters" and cousins. So it does, so it does. But not New Testament Greek! In New Testament (as opposed to say, philosophic or classic Greek) Greek "adelphoi" (brothers/companions/cousins) is used interchangably.

Mt12:46 uses "adelphoi", for relations of Jesus. But Acts 1:16 uses the SAME WORD in the mouth of Peter when addressing the throng of men (we learn later to number over 3000 since they're the ones baptised that day). Now is your erudite anonymous apologists willing to argue that that crowd of 3000 were all blood brothers of Peter?



As for his brethren James and Joses... check out all the Marys at the foot of the cross. One of them obviously NOT MARY the mother of Jesus was Mary, mother of Joses...

5) Mary not Mother of God. This is typical ***Edited<va-gunnut>*** Protestant over-reaching as though Catholics think Mary is Mother as God is Father, some how metaphysically of the same being or something.

TOTAL BS MISREADING OF THE POINT OF CALLING MARY MOTHER OF GOD. The point is to defend the Divinity of Christ NOT to divinize Mary. The Second Person of the Trinity, the Word, has a Mother. That woman has a name. Mary. Mary's son, was not just a man, but also God.

***Edited<va-gunnut>*** what do you call a Mom whose son is man and God? You call her God's mom. Nobody had a problem with this until 1500.

6) Nothing special about Mary being listed in the group of the Apostles who received the Holy Spirit? Well, apart from the fact that she's the only woman named and she just so happens to have been Jesus' Mom and all, no, I guess that's right.  

For a gold star you might want to ask your anonymous apologists where Matthew and Luke got the information they used in their GOSPELS about the childhood of Jesus.

This is where "sola scritura" really gets you guys in trouble. You assume that if the authors don't spell things out for you, something didn't happen. So Mary is not highlighted in the text. But she helped the authors write the text!!!!!!!!!!!!! No big deal right?

7) No biblical reference to Mary's death or bodily assumption. Yeah, and NO BIBLICAL REFERENCE TO PAUL AND PETER'S DEATHS EITHER. You ASSUME that Paul died a martyr's death (because the Church says so). But the BIBLE doesn't say that he died or even died well.

As for ancient Popes condemning the assumption... I think someone is playing footloose with the facts. But something tells me that if this anonymous hack can't even read Koine Greek he probably can't read Latin so how do we know this anonymous apologist even knows what the 5th Century Pope was writting about? Without quotes, we won't know.

8) Mediation: Yes, Jesus doesn't need our help. He didn't need to found a Church either. But he did and he chose to need our help. I know he doesn't need us metaphysically but he chose us anywhy. Why don't you ask him why he created and choses superfluous beings that add nothing to his glory? I'm sure the answer will have something to do with the concept "love".

Jesus says "as the Father sent me, so I send you". That doesn't sound jealous to me. He also commanded us to pray together. Added that where 2 or more pray together in his name special graces flow.... why is that if this "hyper-individualized" concept of "just me and God" was his ideal?

Maybe because we're part of a family and he wants us all to get along?

Where you see some colossal obstacle to God in Mary and the saints we see friends and family members joining us in love and praise and worship of the Father, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit.

9) Queen of Heaven. So let's get this straight. If a pagan religion coins a phrase to name their gods, that vitiates *(makes evil) the term for all time? Yahweh is called "Lord of Hosts" which means "Lord of Armies". But the pagans called Mars "god of war". If what the pagans use as terminology somehow means God can't use it then we're toast. Satan apes God, I'm not surprised some pagans called their goddesses queen or queen of heaven. But what are we supposed to call the mother of the King of Heaven? Um.... mom? Well, if Jesus is King (and he is) and Mary is his mom...then politically that'd make her a queen.

Oh I see, we're not supposed to honor Jesus' mom because that somehow lessens our love for him?

Psalm 148:13 DOESN'T MEAN what you think it means. If it did. then it countradicts Luke 2 where Mary is praised by an angel and her cousin as blessed among women and all generations will call her blessed.  

That's a pretty special honor if you ask me. As for Jesus... he didn't DISS his mom. You don't think she followed him and believed in him? You don't think she did God's will? How would his conditions for being mother and brother and sister leave her out? She heard the word of God and kept it.

Which brings us to sola fidae - faith alone. That line of Jesus about keeping the word of God is a slam dunk proof text AGAINST faith alone saving you. It's not belief alone that saves but obedience to the will of God.

DOING THE WILL OF GOD is a far cry from merely believing God. But again, lots of protestants don't see how one proof text applies for more than one doctrine. Doh!

As for "sniff" well she's not featured in Revelation "sniff" Re-read chapter 12.

But of course Revelation is about he Catholic Mass and so is Christo-centric, nor Marian-centric. Again, just because it's not spelled out doesn't mean it's not true.

Now I apologize if I come across as a bit harsh and flippant. It's just that I take the time to personally answer these "yeah but what about this proof-text zinger" questions instead of merely cutting and pasting from the vast array of Catholic apologists and materials. I take the time because you guys are worth it. Paul chides the Galatians much more than I do you guys too

I'm sarcastic because so much that passes for erudition is pap and ridiculous - like guys on the SF talking about settling for a .22 and a .38 or claiming the racking sound alone scares away bad guys. Protestants going "after" Mary to drop her a peg is just misguided. Jesus is YOUR LORD. DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DISS HIS MOM?!

He obeys the Commandment 'honor your father and your mother' better than any of us. I think you can't go wrong honoring his mom. To my knowledge he nowhere forbids this.  

Nothing like watching you melt down over Truth, now is there?

stupid

lies

BS

pap

When you have nothing intelligent to add, insults will do just fine.

Now wont they?

Dram out

Drams 'cut and paste' just got OWNED.

Oh no Twire, no ownage at all. Got PLENTY more where that comes from

And I have LOADS of neat stuff from ancient history about the ascent of the popes of Rome.

Just wait a minute or so and I will be back.

Btw, your arguments are really really weak Twire. The same man made dogma over and over again. I quote scripture and you quote dogma. Amazing really that you believe what you are writing. You have a great time parsing out True scripture to accommodate a pagan goddess.

Be back soon,

Dram

Quoted: I quote scripture out of context and you quote dogma, which is the Truth that Jesus revealed to us and the Apostles handed on, "whether by word or by [their] epistle".

Fixed it for you...

You have a great time parsing out True scripture to accommodate a pagan goddess.

And you have a great time parsing out True scripture to accommodate unhistorical, incorrect, man-made doctrines of sola scriptura and sola fide.  You have yet to cogently answer the two key questions:

1.  Where does the Bible say that it is the only authority?  (not someone's interpretation of some prooftexts, but a clear statement)
2.  Who decided, and how, what books were to be in the Bible?



edited to make it purtier.

Quoted: Oh no Twire, no ownage at all. Got PLENTY more where that comes from And I have LOADS of neat stuff from ancient history about the ascent of the popes of Rome. Just wait a minute or so and I will be back. Btw, your arguments are really really weak Twire. The same man made dogma over and over again. I quote scripture and you quote dogma. Amazing really that you believe what you are writing. You have a great time parsing out True scripture to accommodate a pagan goddess. Be back soon, Dram

You, sir, are not a fundamentalist OR a protestant. YOU are an anti-Catholic. Pure and simple.

JusAdBellum answered your 'cut and paste' tract material point for point. And he did it with logic, scripture, historical reference and common sense IN HIS OWN WORDS.

'Plenty more' of the same type of post will not strengthen your position at all. It will only go to further show that you are devoid of original thought, objective analysis or rational debate.

You were owned.

I can't imagine that God cares which of the erroneous human interpretations of His word you swear allegiance to, just so long as you swear allegiance to Him.

Quoted: I get annoyed anytime someone uses the terms Catholics and Christians as if they were different. What you mean are Protestant or Catholic, which along with the Orthodox sects are all Christian. BTW, I'm a student at a Jesuit school, but I'm an atheist Edit: Speeling mistake in title.

I am with you on this.  There are a lot of ignorant people out there who have no idea about other people's cultures or religions (a special thanks to the stellar public education system).  Some lame ass Catholics also don't even have this figured out.  Just a lot of stupid people out there.  

Quoted: I've always used the terms either Protestant or Catholic. I went to Catholic school from K thru college, but I was raised Pentecostal. I just called myself Protestant, and referred to my close friends as Catholics. Same thing in a Christian group I was a part of during college, which was non-denominational. We still used these terms when explaining how we feel from the point of view of our faith. But, yes, we are all Christians under the same banner of Christ. We just do things a little differently. I still attend mass with friends every once in a while, I've been in Catholic weddings--I just can't celebrate the sacraments.

My brother, who is Luthern, would not find it very amusing that you lumped him it with the Protestants.  Martin Luther was not part of the Church of England.  Some Baptists and other religions (Calvinists I think) also make this differentiation.  

Quoted: I have quoted here a bunch of really quality answers to the marian question, not written by me, but still very well written and researched.

Actually, they are not really quality answers.  They pretty much parrot what so many other anti-Catholic websites have to offer.  

I had to search through several websites since they all sound basically the same and seem paraphrased off of one another, but since you didn't see fit to provide your source, I found it for you:
Anti-Catholic website

This lady is an "ex-nun" who wasn't allowed to take her final vows.   She became upset when she heard liberal claptrap coming from the pulpit instead of Church teaching (understandably) and left the Church basically because she disagreed with what was NOT Church teaching to begin with.

I have homeschooling lessons to do, so I can't sit her and answer all of the misconceptions and misinterpretations you have cut and pasted.  I'm sure a couple others will do just as well or better than I could.

FWIW, dram, I never called YOU stupid, pap, etc.

I was reacting to the arguments as being stupid (getting the Greek wrong),

pap (repeating the same old accusations that have been refuted),

BS (making claims about what Catholics believe without even checking to see if Catholics actually believe it - such as that we think we earn heaven without grace, which is the Pelagian heresy we fought and beat centuries before Luther missed the forest for the trees).

As others have mentioned, we are waiting for a response on where the New Testament explicitly states that it alone is the sole guide of the Christian, and where scripture alone (as opposed to theological theories foisted on scripture by Medievals like Luther, Calvin, and others) claims faith alone saves.

At the very least it appears that you can't find scripture to back up the "sola scritura" doctrine.

So where did it come from if not 500 year old traditions of men?

And apart from a couple of out-of-context phrases about faith and grace, not explained in St Paul, you don't see anyone in the 4 Gospels claiming that faith and nothing more "saves" a soul if by "salvation" we mean "game-over, you win, eternal reward in Heaven" and not "redemption from past sins and a new relationship with God".

Elsewhere I have asked if anyone knew the colossal difference theologically between 3 words often used interchangably *(kind of like calling America a "democracy" when we mean "republic with democratic customs"): Redemption, Justification, Salvation.

Paul often uses them interchangeably. But they are distinct when dealing with scripture as a whole and theology. Not to know this is to doom oneself to drawing wrong conclusions.

From Joseph McCabe ( a former priest and advocate for atheism, not a position I concur with but he did do his homework on the church he left and that is fact ) :

THE ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY
OF all the fictions which still shelter from the storm of modern criticism under the leaky umbrella of "Catholic Truth," the legend of the divine foundation of the Papacy and the Papal system is quite the boldest and most romantic. No divine force, but a pitifully human series of forgeries and coercions, of pious frauds and truculent ambitions, perpetrated in an age of deep ignorance, built up the Papal power, hierarchy, and creed.

The Christian hierarchy arose in a very simple way. In the primitive community, which met at times to break bread in memory of Christ and meditate on his words, some division of labour was needed. It fell to "the elder" to break the bread and address the little group. It fell to a few of the younger men to carry round the bread to be "ministers" or servants. Then, as scandals grew among the brethren and sisters, it was just as natural to appoint an "overseer" for each group of communities. In Greek, which these early Christians generally spoke (even at Rome), elder is πρεσβυτερος; minister or servant is διακονος; and overseer is επισκοπος. Hence the words priest, deacon, and bishop.

Certain of these primitive communities were believed to have been founded by the immediate followers of Christ, the apostles, and they were called "apostolic churches," and entitled to especial respect. Until the fifth or sixth century the Roman Church was just one of these "apostolic" churches. Its bishop was called "Pope" only because every bishop was called "Pope" (as every priest is in the East today) during the first few centuries.

But the Roman Pope had two peculiar advantages, and these formed the foundation of his ambition to rule the whole Church. In the first place, Rome was the metropolis of the Empire, the greatest city of the world. In the second place, it was somehow generally believed by the end of the second century, though there is no other serious evidence of the fact, that the Roman Church had been founded by Peter.

In the Gospels Peter has a remarkable position. Christ is represented as saying to him (Matthew xvi, 18): "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock [πετρα] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." This poor little pun on Peter's name was obviously not made by Christ. The word "church" had no meaning at all in the days of Christ and Peter. A Galilean fisherman would have asked in astonishment what this mysterious thing was which was to be built upon him. There was no such word in Aramaic. Christ would have had to say "synagogue"; and he hated synagogues. The pun belongs to a later date. There came a time when Peter and Paul quarrelled, as Paul tells us, and there was a party of Peter and a party of Paul; and some zealous Petrist, possibly of the Roman Church, got that passage interpolated into the Gospel. That crude little pun has changed the course of history and made the life-work of Christ a mockery.

From the Epistle to the Romans, which is generally admitted to be genuine, we gather that there were a few Christian families at Rome, living in obscurity in the squalid shipping suburb, by the year A.D. 59. Probably three years later Paul reached Rome and was put to death there after two years of arguing in the poor rooms of his followers. I have examined at length all the evidence for this early period in a recent and larger work, A History of the Popes (1939) and several other volumes and need say here only that the "Letter of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth," though not unchallenged, is the decisive document. Catholic writers quite falsely represent it as an assertion of his authority by Pope Clement in the last decade of the first century and make him base his authority on St. Peter. On the contrary, the letter is written in the name of the Roman community, not of its bishop, and is a friendly appeal from one church to another. It states that Paul came to Rome and was martyred there, but it does not even say that Peter ever came to Rome, much less died there. The one or two non-Catholic historians who have admitted the presence of Peter at Rome seem to have overlooked this most important fact. At the end of the century the Roman community was still just one amongst many and claimed no authority. Nor is there the least recognition of such authority in the letters of Ignatius and the works of Irenaeus, which are never quoted. Indeed, as the Church was now torn asunder by the Gnostic controversy, the fact that no Eastern bishop made the least appeal to Rome to settle it plainly shows that until near the end of the second century, when the forgery about Peter was in circulation, Rome did not even claim any authority.

The seed began to germinate before the end of the second century. The ecclesiastical historian Eusebius tells us (bk. v, 34) that Bishop Victor, of Rome, heard that the Churches of Asia Minor did not celebrate Easter on the same day as the Romans, and he commanded them to change. That was about the year 190. Catholic Truth is very careful to tell of this first assertion of Papal supremacy, and just as careful to suppress the sequel. The bishops of Asia Minor told Victor, in very plain Greek, to mind his own business. Victor, haughtily, threatened to excommunicate them, whereupon even the bishops of the West "bitterly attacked Victor" (Eusebius says) for his arrogance, and declared that they would take no notice of his excommunication. Possibly they knew that, as Bishop Hippolytus tells us, Pope Victor was a friend of the emperor's mistress, Marcia, the vicious companion of one of the most brutal of the emperors.

It was thirty years after this severe snub before a Roman Pope repeated the claim. Tertullian, the famous African writer, speaks disdainfully in one of his works (On Chastity, ch. i) of some bishop who calls himself "the supreme pontiff" and "the bishop of bishops." This seems to refer to Pope Callistus; and if Tertullian had known the personal history of that remarkable adventurer, he would have used even more violent language. For seventeen centuries Callistus has been honoured in the Roman Church as "Saint and Martyr." But about ninety years ago we discovered the manuscript of a work written by a Roman contemporary of Callistus, and it pitilessly exposes the way in which the Roman Church, by means of deliberate forgeries, glorified its early bishops. Callistus was an astute ex-slave, of dubious character, who died comfortably in his bed after a very brief, but very remarkable, tenure of the Papal office. For Catholic Truth and the Papal officials, of course, this discovery makes no difference. For them Callistus is still "Saint and Martyr"; and, by an exquisite irony, his rival and exposer, the anti-Pope Hippolytus, is also a "Saint and Martyr" in the Roman literature! [1]

Thirty years later, in 252, we have another opportunity to test the Papal claim Those were days when bishops did not mince their words, and the famous Bishop Cyprian of Carthage tells his "dear brother" Cornelius of Rome, in a letter (Ep. lv), precisely what he thinks of him for listening amiably to certain schismatical ruffians who have gone to Rome to complain of Cyprian. Naturally it is enough for the Catholic writer that they have appealed to Rome. Even Mgr. Duchesne, one of the ablest of modern Catholic scholars, emphasizes the fact, and he quotes Cyprian describing Rome as "the principal Church — the source of sacerdotal unity." [2] The truth is that Cyprian sternly rebukes Pope Cornelius for interfering. "Why did these men come to you?" he asks; and he goes on:

Since it is acknowledged by all of us, and is right and just, that a case must be heard where a crime has been committed, and that each pastor shall have his own portion of the flock, and render to God an account of his conduct, those whom we rule must not roam about and disturb the good relations of bishops by their lying audacity.

Quite clearly Bishop Cyprian knew nothing about the divine institution of the Roman supremacy! But Mgr. Duchesne presently finds a clearer proof. In the year 254 the bishops of Gaul wrote to tell Cyprian, the Carthaginian Pope, and Stephen, the Roman Pope, that one of their colleagues had been deposed for evil conduct, and he refused to submit. Cyprian therefore wrote to Stephen, and, says Duchesne (p. 304), "according to Cyprian it was the duty of the Pope to intervene in Gaul." It is a pity that even the most distinguished Catholic scholars pervert history in the interest of the Papacy. What Cyprian plainly says (Ep. lxvii) is, that it is "our duty" (the equal duty of Stephen and Cyprian), and that makes all the difference in the world. The Gallic bishops had appealed to both. Cyprian had responded at once; and his letter to Stephen, for whom he had no respect, is a caustic injunction to do his duty as soon as possible.

Nor was this the last word of these African bishops, whom the Catholic writer represents as admitting Rome's supremacy. A few years later we again find Cyprian writing to his "dear brother," who has been pushing his claim. He writes now in the name of all the African bishops, and he closes his letter (Ep. lxxii) with this heavy sarcasm:

We use no violence and make laws for none, because each prelate has the right to follow his own judgment in the administration of the Church, and must render an account to the Lord.

Stephen, in reply, brandished his poor Papal credentials, and told them to submit or be excommunicated. The Africans met in solemn council to frame a reply, and it was one of flat and contemptuous defiance. It opens with these bitterly ironic words:

We judge no man, and we cut off no man from communion for differing from us. None of us regards himself as the bishop of bishops, or seeks by tyrannical threats to compel his colleagues to obey him.

And this letter, Mgr. Duchesne and the Catholic apologists assure their readers, does not call into question the Pope's claim of authority! The African Church, we must remember, is of peculiar significance in' this respect. It was not only more important than any other section of Western Christendom, but it looked to Rome as its "mother-church." Rome was the very heart of that mighty Empire of which the northern fringe of Africa was but a colony. Hence it is that the African bishops speak of Rome as "the principal church" and "the source of sacerdotal unity." But to say, in face of these repeated letters, that the African bishops acknowledged the authority of Rome over them is a piece of audacity which Catholic Truth alone could achieve without a blush of modesty. At that time, and until the days when Goth and Vandal shattered the provincial churches, the claims of Rome were a laughing-stock to all. Mere compliments to the Pope are of no more significance than they are to-day in the mouths of many Anglicans.

We have next to see how this Roman ambition was enforced by such violence, fraud, and forgery as have no parallel in the history of civilized religion. I have said that the Roman Church remained until the end of the third century, although it scandalized the Africans by dropping the ancient discipline and admitting large numbers of loose-living Romans (as Bishop Hippolytus tells us), a poor, small, and ignorant body. We know from the semi-official Calendar of the Popes (Liber Pontificalis) that they had not a chapel of the humblest description until about 220, and that they could not afford silver vessels for altar use until about 230. We have reason to believe that they did not in the year 250 number more than 20,000 in a city of a million people, although they had suffered scarcely any persecution for seventy years. Their sufferings really began — we will presently set aside their mendacious accounts of earlier persecutions — under the Emperor Decius, and continued under Diocletian. Very few were martyred, the whole 20,000, except a few score, denying their faith, and by the year 310 the Roman Church was a tiny and despised body. Then there occurred three events which entirely changed the situation. The first was the conversion of the Emperor Constantine. Dazed by the sudden change from fierce hatred to favour, the Roman Christians emerged from the catacombs into a shower of gold, and their church grew rapidly. Constantine used no pressure, but the path of promotion now lay through Christianity, as the Pagans sadly complained The Pope began to live in a palace. His bishopric began at last to share the prestige of the Imperial city.

The second event which favoured the Roman ambition was that in the fourth century Eastern Christendom was torn into shreds, and spattered with blood, by the fierce struggle of Arians and Trinitarians. The Roman Church, which was in these early centuries very far from being a seat of learning, did not understand the subtleties of the Greeks, and it remained simply Trinitarian. Naturally the Trinitarian bishops of the East then began to flatter it and appeal to it. They did not at any time grant its claim of supremacy, though in the fourth century they might have found this a useful weapon against the Arians. In the very heat of the struggle they laid it down, in the famous Council of Nicæa (Canon VI), that the Bishop of Rome had merely the same authority in his own region as had the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch in their regions In fact, when Pope Liberius himself incurred the taint of heresy (as we shall see), when Pope Damasus proved so slow to assist and so arrogant that St. Basil used stronger language about the Roman bishop than even Tertullian and Cyprian had done, the Eastern bishops clustered round Constantinople and left the Popes to pursue their ambition in the West. But for a time the freedom from heresy, the comparative calm, of the Roman Church gave it some prestige, and many of the flattering tributes (often deliberately enhanced by later Roman forgers) which the Catholic writer quotes belong to this diplomatic period.

The third event was the most important of all. We have seen, and shall see further, how the Western bishops were Just as disdainful as the Eastern of the Roman Pope's claim to rule them. But very soon after the establishment of Christianity in Europe there occurred the mighty downpour of barbarians from the forests of Germany which destroyed the Roman Empire and prepared Europe for the Middle Ages. This great catastrophe shattered the provincial churches — of Gaul and Spain and Africa — annihilated the Roman school-system, and brought a sudden and dense darkness upon Southern Europe and Africa. There are other points to consider be/ore we examine this closely, but it must be mentioned, in anticipation, here as the third and chief event which enabled the Popes to enforce their fraudulent calm.

During the fourth century, as is known, Christianity became the established religion of the Empire. Only fifty years before it had pathetically pleaded for religious freedom. Now the Roman Church, guiding the consciences of Emperors, lightly adopted persecution in Its turn, and fell upon all the other religions with truculent severity. The rival temples were closed, or converted into churches. For thirty years the emperors persecuted all other sects, even sentence of death being decreed against them. The city of Rome became, by what we should call Act of Parliament, entirely Christian. The Roman bishopric gained incalculably in wealth and power.

The writers of the time leave no room for doubt that this material gain was accompanied by a very serious loss of character But in estimating this we must again be on our guard against "Catholic Truth." The Roman Church did not fall so far as is sometimes believed, because it had not nearly so far to fall. The pretty and touching picture of that Church during the persecutions which is still given in Catholic literature is appallingly untruthful. I have spoken of lies and forgeries, and the reader may feel that this is intemperate language. Not in the least. The story of the condition of the Roman Church before the conversion of Constantine has been grossly and deliberately falsified, and the forgeries by means of which this was done begin about the period we have reached.

According to the Catholic writers, and even the official liturgy of their Church, the Roman community of the first three centuries was so decked and perfumed with saints and martyrs that it must have had a divine spirit in it. Now the far greater part, the overwhelmingly greater part, of the Acts of the Martyrs and Lives of the Saints on which this claim is based are impudent forgeries, perpetrated by Roman Christians from the fourth to the eighth century in order to give a divine halo to the very humble, and very human, history of their Church.

This is not merely a contention of "heretics and unbelievers." It is not even a new discovery. The legends of the martyrs are so gross that Catholic historians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries frequently denounced them. Cardinal Baronius and Father Pagi repeatedly rejected them. The learned and pious Tillemont, in the fifth volume of his Mémoires, slays hundreds of them. Pope Benedict XIV, of the eighteenth century, a scholar who by some mischance was made a Pope, was so ashamed of the extent to which these forgeries permeate the official ritual of his Church that he entered upon a great reform; but the cardinals and monks obstructed his work, and the literature of the Church still teems with legends from these tainted sources. In fact, many of these forgeries were already notorious in the year 494, when Pope Gelasius timidly and haltingly condemned them.

These forgeries are so gross that one needs very little historical knowledge in order to detect them. Large numbers of Roman martyrs are, like the Pope Callistus whom I have mentioned, put in the reign of the friendly Emperor Alexander Severus, who certainly persecuted none. One of these Roman forgers, of the sixth Of seventh century. is bold enough to claim five thousand martyrs for Rome alone under the gentle Alexander Severus! Other large numbers of Roman martyrs are put in the reign of the Emperor Maximin; and Dr. Garres has shown that there were hardly any put to death in the whole Empire, least of all at Rome, under Maximin. [3] The semi-official catalogue of the Popes makes saints and martyrs of no less than thirteen of the Popes of the third century, when there were scarcely more than three or four.

No one questions that the Roman Church had a certain number of martyrs in the days of the genuine persecutions, but nine-tenths of the pretty stories which are popular in Catholic literature — the stories of St. Agnes and St. Cecilia, of St. Lucia and St. Catherine, of St. Lawrence and St. George and St. Sebastian, and so on — are pious romances. Even when the martyrdom may be genuine, the Catholic story of it is generally a late and unbridled fiction.

A short account of the havoc which modern scholars have made of the Acts of the Martyrs is given by a Catholic professor, Albert Ehrhard, of the Vienna University, and will cause any inquiring Catholic to shudder. [4] Dr. Ehrhard mentions a French work, L'Amphithèâtre Flavien, by Father Delehaye, a Jesuit, and calls it "an important contribution to the criticism of the Roman acts of the martyrs." It is a "criticism" of such a nature that it dissolves into fiction all the touching pictures (down to Mr. G. B. Shaw's Androcles and the Lion) of the "martyrs of the Coliseum." It proves that no Christians were ever martyred in the Amphitheatre (Coliseum). The English translation of Father Delehaye's Legends of the Saints (1907) gives an appalling account of these Roman forgeries. Another scholar has, Professor Ehrhard admits (p. 555), shown that "a whole class" of these saints and martyrs are actually pagan myths which have been converted into Christian martyrs. The whole literature which this Catholic professor surveys is one mighty massacre of saints and martyrs, very few surviving the ordeal. These fictions are often leniently called "pious fancies" and "works of edification." Modern charity covers too many ancient sins. These things were intended to deceive; they have deceived countless millions for fourteen centuries, and in the hands of priests they deceive millions to-day.

The early Roman Church was a poor little sect, like any other. It had some noble-spirited martyrs during the three or four short persecutions (in two hundred and fifty years) which affected it; but it had a far larger number who either sacrificed to the gods or bought a false certificate that they had done so. It had many men and women of strict life, and still more of lax life. Its first thirty Popes were obscure men of no distinction in the Church, of no learning, who just managed to hold together their ten or twenty thousand followers until the golden days of Constantine began.

Then, with the enlargement and enrichment of the Church, the saints almost disappeared and the sinners multiplied, Pope Liberius was sent into exile for refusing to sign an heretical formula. But when he heard that "the faithful" had set up an anti-Pope he "embraced the heretical perversity" (St. Jerome says), and returned to struggle for his flesh-pots. His followers and those of his rival fought terrible battles, in which many were slain; and it is one of the most piquant outcomes of the early zeal to make martyrs (on paper) that the semi-official Catalogue of the Popes [5] included the anti-Pope Felix, who died in his bed, as "Saint and Martyr"! Felix is, like Saint and Martyr Callistus, one of the jewels in the crown of the early Roman Church.

When Pope Liberius died the bloody battle was renewed. Two Popes, Damasus and Ursicinus, were elected, and we have unchallenged contemporary records of the way in which the supporters of Damasus ("Saint" Damasus, of course — though his Christian opponents called him, significantly, "the tickler of women's ears," and he was sued in the civil court for adultery) fell with swords and axes and staves upon the other faction. In one church alone they, after a furious siege, killed no less than one hundred and sixty of their Christian brethren. The deadly conflict spread all over Rome, and lasted for weeks. There were more martyrs at Rome in that one month (October, 366) than in the whole of the "persecutions"; and again a number of the murdered supporters of the anti-Pope found a place in the Roman lists of martyrs!

In face of the letters of St. Jerome, who lived in Rome about that time, it is useless to pretend that these were the isolated skirmishes of "the lower orders." The community was generally corrupt. Catholic Truth is, of course, quite familiar with the letters of St. Jerome. From them it quotes to an admiring public the edifying life of Fabiola and Paula and other Christian ladies. But it omits to add that Jerome very emphatically describes this little group of his pupils as a small oasis of virtue in a great desert of vice. Priests, nuns, and laity, men and women, he describes as sordid, greedy, unchaste, and utterly irreligious. [6] He actually forbids his virtuous young ladies ever to remain in a room with a Roman priest; and when the Christian Emperors are compelled to declare all legacies to priests invalid he sadly confesses that it is a just censure of their greed.

This was the real Roman world which Catholic Truth describes as converted to the true faith and the ways of virtue; and Damasus was the Pope who, above all others, pressed the Papal ambition for supremacy. Yet here we touch only the lighter fringe of the dark story of the making of the Papacy.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:
[1] For details and authorities, on this and many other points here discussed. see the author's Crises In the History of the Papacy (1916) and A History of the Popes (1939).
[2] The Early History of the Christian Church, i, 303.
[3] Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1876, p. 539.
[4] Die altchristliche Literatur (1900), pp. 539-92.
[5] An English translation of this was published by Columbia University in 1916. The editor, Dr. Loomis, warns us that we have in it much "manifest fiction and deliberate fabrication."
[6] See especially Letters xxii and cxxv (in the Migne edition). Jerome repeats a hundred times that this is the quite general condition of the Roman Church.

Dram

You fellows wanted some good historical research, why enjoy the above.

And Twire, just because you adhere to a doctrine of Scripture + Man = God, does in no way infer that I do, nor that your papist maunderings can change one word of what Christ left us in the Bible.

Owned?  Sorry dear boy, most assuredly not. Scripture Owns papist dogma each and every time.

And loony, the authority of the scriptures is irrefutable:

Joh:1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Ga:1:8: But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

2Tm:3:16: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

2Tm:4:3: For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;


Scripture ONLY.

NOT

Scripture PLUS.

You fine catholic fellows trust in man, I will trust in the Lord Himself and His Scripture.

But, if the Book is True, and I hold that it is, at some point you will greatly rue trusting in the words of man and not Scripture.

Dram out

Brother Dram, that was a humdinger of a reply post!

While I cannot vouchsafe everything that Mr. McCabe wrote, he did a credible job in pointing out the fallacy of thinking that the 'Bishop of Rome' was anything more than a local priest exalted by men, not God, to a lofty position in the local church congregation.

Thanks for the post. I have some research to do!



Eric The(FirstCentury)Hun

Praise God!

My Brother Hun has stopped in, a true Church Historian, please wade in Brother... the fields are white with harvest!

Folks, my Texas Brother is truly steeped in Church history, and I do tend to consider myself but a mere shadow of his knowledge base. I pity the uninformed who would debate the Hun, truly I do.

Dram out

Quoted: Joh:1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Wow. I mean just.. wow.

You really don't have any idea what that actually means, do you?

I've read what you've written here in this thread and it would seem to me that you're guilty of a very grievous sin: idolatry. You seem to very much put the Bible almost before God.

Quoted: Drams 'cut and paste' just got OWNED.

This is why I gave up on answering anything from you Twire. It's turned into a "competition" rather than a discussion amongst gentlemen (and ladies). You have shown your contempt and nasty demeanor towards anybody who does not believe as you do, as opposed to what is shown by your fellow catholics. This is why I asked if you prayed about your comments in another post. But, rather than humbling yourself and examining your heart, you made a feeble attempt to belittle me and other posters. This isn't a competition and nobody is going to win.

I can see it now..When the Jews were stoning the prostitute and Jesus said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and all the other Jews were telling the guys throwing the rocks "Dude, you were just OWNED by Jesus"...