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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.
Yeah. If any religion preaches Jesus-plus, or the Word-plus, be VERY careful.
That’s not to say that confessional statements are bad, mind you. A statement or even a book of “This is what we believe” (such as the Lutheran Confessions as written in the Book of Concord) is okay and sometimes even desirable as long as the statement/book does not claim authority over the Word and can defend their statements solely from the Word.
Very good, and I understand precisely what you mean, Luircin.
+1
That’s hard to believe they really think that way. It’s a cult, with a capital C.
Maybe it’s time to turn the lights out on this thread…?
Yes. When the usual suspect has regressed to clamping hands over ears and squeezing eyes closed, there is not much left.
I think we should let it get to 3000 posts ... just because.
But I’m going to pass on the vote and let you men do it ... as it shou...
I don’t know if it’s time to close this thread out or not, but the usual suspects will arise again on a different thread. They will bring the same false doctrines they usually do, and it will be on again. We will have to refute the same false doctrines we have been refuting for years. 😀⛷👍
Hey, there are always other threads to participate on.
😉
—> I think we should let it get to 3000 posts
I think everyone should do what they think best!
I could post lots more Ellen White False Prophetess memes.
Plenty of heretical teachings to take us past 3k.
And it would be interesting to see someone swear they’re all true.
Go for it; I want to save the memes so that I can use them again!
I’m sure we will enjoy revealing the heretical prophet on this thread and any that follow. I have templates ready and reams of information.
I would venture to guess that most, if not all, are true. 😄😃😀 The one that got to me, was the one about Satan being the scapegoat. That idea is E-V-I-L with 4 capital letters. How different is it from the baphomet? Not a lot I would guess.
Not sure what you mean by “elevated”.
Got it.
Phil isn't sinless.
A sinner is someone who breaks GOD's law.
Therefore, Phil breaks GOD's law.
ERGO, Phil cannot now crow about how well he keeps GOD's law.
“Were Adam and Eve sinless before they “sinned”?”
——>We’ll, only if our Thievin’ Prophetess says they were sinless!!!!
Romans 5:12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are MILLIONS of them!
Which came first: the chicken or the egg, is a mere blip in the amount of questions that could be asked.
So many rabbit holes.
SC - you cheated!!!
You kept watching BOTH hands!
Heck; I’ve been responding to comments that were never made!
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