>>”you are allowed/encouraged to pray to saints.”
>
>I’m not getting into a flame war..but come on now...Have you never asked “others” to pray for you?
There is a BIG difference in “praying to” & “praying for.”
Consider these two sentences:
a) “As a Christian I pray for Caesar.”
b) “As a Christian I pray to Caesar.”
The second one is a contradiction because Jews [and by extension Christians] are not to pray to any God other than “the god of Abraham, Issac, & Jacob”. This is where we get into the Trinity; in the first chapter of john we see Jesus as being God’s Word [and also being God], later [Philippians 2:6-8] we see that Jesus who was God and had every right to grasp co-equality instead took the ultimate path of humility and obedience.
James 5:16 even exhorts us to pray FOR one another; yet, one of my favorite bible-stories [Daniel & the Lion’s Den — http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Dan%206:1-28&version=KJV ] is involving praying TO somebody [other than the King].
So, yes, I challenge you to prove that there is NO [or even little] difference in “praying to” and “praying for.”
LOok this is bad enought without this distraction and disagreement.
Please, respectfully, take it to a religion thread. This is the reason I truly fear any talk of revolution - humorless souls like you will go forth and cleanse the land of all ‘heresy’. Just let it go.