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To: Iscool
You are not walking in love.

I might note that for centuries (from the time of the apostles and church fathers) there *was* only one true church.

Interestingly enough, and I had not ever heard this claim until a year or two ago, the oldest church might happen to be the Orthodox; the Roman bishop according to them, attempted to claim sole primacy; which claim was not accepted by all cities. Thus the first split in the West.

The Protestant reformation was open rebellion and schism; and while the printing press and the publication and distribution of Scripture in the common tongue helped counter some of the bureaucratic misuses of power by the Church, still many other evils were also unleashed.

I'm not going to get into a denominational argument here, except to note that many of the things I was confidently and arrogantly told of Catholics, turned out to be untrue.

I think greater humility on the part of ALL branches of the Church, should be the first step. Schism is not a great witness to unbelievers.

As far as your final remarks,

When God says there will be no signs given yet a religion comes up with signs and wonders to sway people to believe that their religion, which is contrary to scripture, is the true religion, then we are obligated to correct them with God's scripture...

Jesus Himself, in the gospels, told the Jews to believe because of His miracles: see John 10:38 and John 14:11.

And in the very next verse after John 14:11, Jesus told His disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father."

And miracles were a part of St. Paul's ministry.

So I cannot comprehend, nor follow, where you get your claim that "there will be no signs."

Second point. What do you mean "a religion comes up with signs and wonders" ?

For the Shroud itself, the reason it attracted so much notice is that it clearly *wasn't* a fake -- the fact that the image is a photographic negative, when photography wasn't invented until hundreds of years later; the image not being paint, but the results of a particular class of chemical reactions (Maillard reactions, known from cooking) with the soap residue left on the outer surface of the threads in the shroud, the 3-D nature of the image, the anatomical details which contradicted the 'knowledge' of the medieval period about crucifixion, the traces of hemoglobin breakdown products on the shroud, the traces of pollen left over from plants which grow in the vicinity of Jerusalem...

All of these put it out of the provenance of being a forgery: and hence the verb "comes up with" is inapplicable.

The reason the Catholics make a fuss over the Shroud, is that as far as they can tell, it is genuine, and a link to Jesus' resurrection. They don't INSIST on its being genuine, nor do they decree that it must be so as a matter of doctrine.

73 posted on 03/01/2015 8:05:06 AM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers
And in the very next verse after John 14:11, Jesus told His disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father."

And miracles were a part of St. Paul's ministry.

Apparitions (or ghosts) are not miracles...They are signs/wonders, albeit false signs...

74 posted on 03/01/2015 8:24:06 AM PST by Iscool
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