"...lying teachers who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction. (2 Peter 2:1)
Timothy is instructed to "war in them a good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some rejecting have made shipwreck concerning the faith. Of whom is Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have delivered up to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme" (1 Tim 1:18-20)
First, the Church is merely following, like it always does, the Tradition given to it, whether orally or written. Thus, don't be angry with the Church, turn to God and the Scriptures which call us to anathema heretics.
Second, if you read the last quote carefully, you will understand what "anathema" means. It is meant to toss a person out of the community for the express purpose for that person to repent and return to the community - for outside, "there is no salvation". The intent of anathema, then, is not to condemn anyone to hell, but to bring about repentence. Anathema, then, doesn't condemn anyone to hell - again, you present the straw man called "Catholic".
Protestants do not believe the same about your eternal fate
First, you don't understand what Catholics believe, so your comparison falls short. Secondly, you must not have heard of Jimmy Swaggart, many members of the Southern Baptist Church, and a plethora of Calvinists, such as James White and RC Sproul. There is no need to type such misinformation. Most people here will see right through it.
"All the elect ..."
And there is your presumption. You KNOW you are of the elect, when you COULDN'T know. God knows, but how can we? Do Calvinists get a copy of the Book of Life? Only by our continued action, faith, and repentence do we know. We can't know what our status will be in 2008, though. This is arrogant presumption that ignores the FACT that the Scripture tells us to beware of falling, to persevere, to remain in Christ. This presumes that possibility of NOT persevering...
Rejoice? Of course. What ever led you to believe we are not? It is Advent season. We joyfully await our savior.
Regards
What most people see through is the mantra that if someone doesn't agree with you it must be that they don't understand. Hell, as much as you post on these threads it must be you that doesn't understand your own dogma. Ever wonder why you're not getting through to anyone?
First, the Church is merely following, like it always does, the Tradition given to it, whether orally or written.Well, therein lies the crux of the problem.
There are two types of people: those that will, and those that WILL not. For the former, no proof is required, for the latter no amount of proof is sufficient. And for the latter, they remain deliberately and WILLFULLY ignorant.
What an enormous amount of Catholic doctrine is based upon is the supposition that the Word of God (the Bible) is insufficient in and of itself, is incomplete and lacking with respect to doctrine and truth needed for salvation and must therefor be supplemented by tradition and the philosophy of men, interpreted only by the Magisterium of the Church. Neither the Catholic Church, nor the magisterium nor its tradition existed during the 2000 years of the OT, and obviously God's Word of that era (which continues today and is larger in volume than the NT) had no need for either.
I've shown thoroughly, methodically and systematically the problems that arise with the Catholic idea that the Bible is "insufficient", and outright contradicts what the Bible says. Nor do the problems end there, indeed, they rise to the height of absurdity.
The Isodorian Decretals are the published works of the so-called Church Fathers. Within this body is a great deal of fraud that has been mixed in and has become indistinguishable from fact. But these ideas have become incorporated into the very dogmas of the Church in effect to this very day. Von Dollinger informs us that spurious tradition was manufactured and eventually became the basis for almost the entire papal system and much of canon law. The Decretals were used to build up ficticious sayings of the popes and to put tradition on par with that of Scripture.
Attributed to pope Julius in about A.D. 338 is a saying that "the Church of Rome, by a singular privelege, has the right of opening and shutting the gates of heaven to whom she will" and that the popes inherit "innocence and sanctity from Peter" and are therefor holy and infallible and all Christendom must tremble before them 1 Von Dollinger writes about his exhaustive study of the original documents:
Towards the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth century, the process of forgeries and fictions in the interests of Rome was actively carried out there. THen began the compilation of spurious acts of Roman martyrs, which was continued for some centuries, and which modern criticism, even at Rome, has been obliged to give up...Unlike the Bible, readily available in one volume, tradition is contained in many volumes: at least 35 volumes of Greek and Latin Church fathers, usually ending with Gregory I in A.D. 604; another 35 volumes of Church council decrees, 25 volumes of popes sayings and decrees, 55 volumes of alleged sayings and deeds of the saints. Ultimately this outweighs that of the Scripture about 150:1. Therefor, the average Catholic doesn't have access to the greater part of what the Catholic Church calls the Word of God.While this tendancy to forging documents was so strong in Rome, it is remarkable that for a thousand years no attempt was made there to form a collection of canons...more than twenty Synods had been held in Rome since 313, but there were no records of them to be found.2
The words "tradition" or "traditions" occur 14 times in the NT. Eight references (Mt 15:2,3,6; Mk 7:3,5,8,9,13) are Christ's statements in the Gospels, and all of them are derogatory of Jewish traditions. In Mt 15:1-9 Christ outright denounces tradition as being perverted and redered ineffective GOd's Word. Paul makes five references, two of which are clearly derogatory (Col 2:8; Gal 1:14). Peter makes one reference (I Pt 1:18) that is also deragotory. This leaves three favorable references to tradition (I Cor 11:12; II Thes 2:15; 3:6). It is upon these latter three verses that the entire position of the Roman Catholic Church rests with respect to tradition. However, none of these passages refer to Roman Catholic tradition as its developed through the centuries since the time of the apostles.
Paul speaks of things that he and other apostles had already taught, nor can any present day tradition be traced back to the apostels. It just can't be done, anybody who does so is outright guilty of fraud. Christ quoted extensively from Scripture, and claimed that all of it must be fullfilled (not tradition). Paul assures us in II Tim 3:16; II Pt 1:20,21) that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God. Timothy is exhorted in II Tim 4:2) to preach the word, nary a word about tradition. This would be a most curious omission if tradition is essential or even valid.
Unlike the Bible, much of what this tradition contradicts, written tradition and official dogma of the Church has frequently changed (even to the degree of propounding contradictory ideas about profound issues such as abortion). Most Catholics would be shocked to discover that the infallible Church and popes have changed their minds several times on this topic alone.
Scripture says of God, "I change not." Why would His Word be subject to continual revision? And finally, Christ condemned all oral tradition developed by the rabbis as having perverted the written Word of God, so why would He want the church to have the same corrupting influence?
1J.H. Ignaz von Dollinger, The Pope and the Council (London, 1869), pp.79-93
2Ibid., pp. 99-106