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Locked on 04/24/2022 5:40:39 AM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childishness |
Posted on 03/06/2022 11:16:06 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
A man commits a serious crime, then he gets released. He has "paid his debt to society". But wait a minute, he's only ready for the half-way house. He's unlikely to get a prestigious job in his new prison suit coat, or any job at all; he has civil impediments, he can't vote or hold certain offices. His crime was serious enough that he won't be presumed to have been completely rehabilitated until he performs a notable service to society, or at least spends many years on the straight and narrow, so that his crime can be truly overlooked or forgotten.
In Catholic faith, your "debt to society" is paid by Jesus Christ on Calvary. It's called "eternal punishment", without Christ it keeps you from going to heaven. Supposing that you do take advantage of His sacrifice, you're truly sorry, have a firm purpose of amendment, if you relapse, you go again for forgiveness (to the Sacrament of Confession).
But your sin leaves a strong trace at another layer of impurity called "temporal punishment due to sin", like the civil impediments facing the half-way house prisoner. Because "nothing impure can enter heaven", there is a place or a state, a condition of purification to render you fit for heaven after Christ has finally saved you from hell. The Catholic Church calls it purgatory.
(Where is it in the bible? Where is the word Trinity in the bible? Where does it say that you only need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Many valid principles aren't stated explicitly in the bible, but it does say to "hold fast to the traditions you have learned, whether by word or by letter", because much of the Gospel wasn't written down, as Jesus only wrote in the sand, the majority of the Gospel was taught from word to ear to people who couldn't afford expensive books, the exceptions were what tended to get written down. But the implication that there is a purgatory, is contained in the bible--see the comments.)
The ex-con can receive a pardon or commutation of his probation from a Governor, if he performs some heroic deed, saving numerous lives, or, like Chuck Colson, performs a long-lasting, valuable community service helping numerous people who can't help themselves.
In the Catholic Church there are 2 ways for the residual, temporal effects due to sin to be expiated: suffering in this life, or after life, undergoing purifying suffering along with other people who will finally be saved, but have to suffer for long without the vision of God--that is what causes them their pain.
Their suffering isn't meritorious enough to grant their release, the saints in heaven and those on earth suffering and practicing virtue can pray for the suffering souls in purgatory. In no way is their release by slow transfer of suffering or practice of virtue, "buying heaven". It's a long, excruciating process.
How the misunderstanding arose that Catholics think they can buy their way into heaven, is involved with history more than 500 years old. For a millennium of Christendom between roughly 410 and 1410, there was a Medieval civilization with harmony between faith and government.
Many small farmers would cluster around the manor house of a military lord who would protect them, in exchange for a certain fixed obligation of labor and agricultural produce. In most cases, those "serfs" had much more leisure than factory workers of the industrial revolution; there were a large number of holy days without work, and except for planting and harvesting, there were long stretches of idle time.
Another large sector of the economy surrounded monasteries, where the monks developed most of the farming practices that stabilized the serfs and their manorial lords. The monks who worked those monastic lands were sworn to poverty, so that monasteries built up large accumulations of economic value over decades and centuries of labor.
At the beginning, when lands were being cleared and put into production there weren't prominent town fairs ruled by merchants and bankers. Money wasn't used for sustenance, not even much barter occurred, life was mostly agrarian.
Charity was woven into the economy of monasteries. It was estimated that you only need travel 12 miles in medieval England between monasteries, where you could get a meal and minimal lodging for free, based on need. And the charity was also spiritual, including the ancient Catholic principle of prayer for the dead, which is biblical. (See "prayer for the dead" in the original King James Bible in the comment.)
There were foundations and benefices for praying for the dead, that allowed a person of means to support monasteries' charitable works, and in proportional response the monks would pray for the souls of the donors.
It happened at the close of the middle ages, that militarily strong nobles cast their eyes on the labor value accumulated by the poverty-sworn monks of the monasteries, which those nobles perceived as monetary wealth, especially where gold and jewels had been donated by the devout to adorn churches.
(Protestant writer William Cobbett wrote in his 1824 "A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland", an anecdote, that an incredibly valuable, hand illustrated bible was stripped of it's bejeweled, gold cover, the much more valuable hand-illumined manuscript, thrown in the mud and trampled by horses hooves by raiders suppressing the monasteries in Henry VIII's England.)
A new religion growing up around this seizure of monastic lands and valuables, that sought to discredit the Catholic Church, spread the black legend that the "sale of indulgences" was abusive. But this was very exceptional. Today the stipend of a Mass said for the dead is $10.
Correction: three unrepentant sins.
Fortunately, some of us were able to able to break out of the myths and syncretic paganism. šš I had never heard of the unholy trinity, of Nimrod, Semiramis or Tammuz.
We were indeed, and still are. š
Oh the irony of a Catholic pointing fingers of judgment against some religious figureās personal sins.
Just how many priests got shuffled around from parish to parish to protect them from the consequences of their child molesting?
And how many homosexual priests remain in the priesthood allegedly administering sacraments?
And the cocaine fueled homosexual orgies at the Vatican?
And Catholics have the chutzpah to point fingers of condemnation at Ravi as if they are pure as the new driven snow.
And besides , who are you to know the state of his soul to pass judgment on it?
So you’re teaching me that the god of catholiciism is a yo yo god, abiding in the born again then leaving then coming in again? THAT is anathema. The parable of the prodigal son DOES have several depths, but not your implication of a yo yo game. If that were the way the new covenant worked then you would need to sacrifice Jesus again and again ... coem tot hink of it, your religion claims to do just that, or keep Him being sacrificed so the priesthood can convey rebirth over and over. THAT is not the definition of the New Covenant. Your ‘teaching’ fails on the face of it.
So this church you claim is the church Jesus is sustaining was His church even during the inquisition, the murder of thousands of non-catholics in the name of righteousness of the catholic ORG, and now is infected with hundreds of sexual degenerate priests dishing our ‘holy’ rituals. What a maroon you show yourself to be. The Church Jesus started on the day of Pentecost is a spiritual entity not an ORG infected with satanic minions such as slither around in catholiciism. God beckons unbelievers to come and hear the Word of God and be transformed into born again members of The Body of Christ. Your degenerate run religion is NOT the Body of Christ. Get out before God gives you up to total darkness.
Chain? At the other end of that chain is a millstone. Careful where you put it down.
You did.
You pointed me to history. You pointed me to the RCC catechism.
Don’t blame me that your history and your catechism taught me about what Catholicism is.
I find it pretty sad ‘cause you’re in your Bible a lot more than most Catholics I know, and even assign authority to the Word.
Setting aside your argument by popularity fallacy, you’re arguing against your own concept of God by allowing all those filthy non-Catholics to exist.
No itās not. John MacArthur put it well. Without purgatory, Catholicism is a hard sell. Since they have no assurance of Salvation, they must have some idea of a second chance, after death. That is purgatory.
I was told I could get a soul out of purgatory, by attending mass on 9 straight first Fridays, or 5 straight first Saturdays, with a generous donation. I felt powerful, that I could actually get a soul out of purgatory. I asked if I could know the name of the person that I got out of Purgatory.
I know where the real Purgatory is. Itās in Colorado, and it has great skiing. šš But, the doctrine of purgatory, is out of the pit of hell. I canāt believe I used to accept it as gospel truth. Itās not.
Who gave you that demonic argument?
Jesus told us that NO MAN comes tot he Father but by Him, Jesus. Put that in your calculus and notice God is Sovereign, not your ORG. Jesus went to the cross to redeem your spirit, not your flesh (soul and body = flesh in the Biblical sense). Your blasphemous notion of purgatory focuses you catholics on the flesh, which is dying and will be discarded for born agains when Jesus comes IN THE CLOUDS to remove His Body of Christ Believers.
If someone is resorting to the “fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong” argument, then you can be relatively sure they haven’t got much left.
This is a disingenuous claim. Catholicism is not responsible for for giving the world the Word of God.
Scripture came through the Jews from the Holy Spirit. Taking all known Scripture and assembling it into one handy, convenient compendium, took no great act of genius. It would have happened eventually by someone somewhere.
And compiling them together does NOT make them the source of Scripture that they can take credit for the work of God.
Catholicism needs to be careful in their constant attempts to usurp God. It will not end well for them.
Catholicism is no ark of salvation to anyone.
Speaking of devious, an organization that fancies itself a church and yet allows homosexual, child molesting priests to continue to serve in it is NO church of God.
God does no condone or tolerate that level of sin, as evidenced by Revelation 2 & 3. Whatever is keeping your sin riddled organization going, it sure isnāt God.
You know, you keep on making the same arguments about Catholicism even though we have A: refuted them, and B: aren’t convinced by them.
I don’t think anyone currently reading is going to be convinced by what you’re saying lately.
Are you trying to convince us, or yourself?
1,111 gotta mean something!
Oh yeah; it points out faulty RCC logic.
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