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Interesting post. This is where you get "purgatory" from? Looks to be a bit of a stretch my friend.

We shall see.

2 Mac?! Try using a book of actual Biblical Cannon.

It is a book of Biblical Canon (one 'n'). Martin Luther yanked it and 6 other books. He wanted to yank more, including New Testament books, but stopped himself. If he had done so, you would no longer believe in those NT books either. This disconnect is all traced directly back to Martin Luther.

Matt 12:32 supports purgatory? Hardly. It only states that those who refuse to listen to the Holy Spirit, those who resist the prompting of the Holy spirit, will not be saved.

I do apologize. These verses do need a little spelling out. The key here is not about the Holy Spirit, it's that those who blaspheme the Spirit will not be forgiven in this world *or* the *next* world.

It's an obvious statement, and not one that supports and purgatory.

1 Cor 3 is a chapter discussing the ministers of God and their teaching will be tested. You're stretching here.

Again, you miss the key point. The testing as done by fire.

If you can come up with one good Biblical verse saying: when we die there is a place called purgatory where we are cleansed before going to having I'll concede the point.

Well see, then us Catholics are damned if we do and damned if we don't. If we say something, you want biblical proof. If we provide it, you have to have it in a very specific statement, rather than piecing together various supporting texts. So instead of saying "pray for the dead so their sins may be forgiven them," you say that isn't clear enough, even though it basically says (even if not explicitly in exact words) that a) the dead exist somewhere between Heaven and Earth and Hell (I don't think people in Heaven sin, and people in Hell are beyond salvation, and obviously they are dead, so they exist in some other realm), b) their sins can be forgiven, meaning that they are stuck in this other realm until their sins are forgiven and c) that our prayers help.

But Protestants, who consider themselves good at biblical interpretation (the heart of Sola Scriptura) all of a sudden play dumb when it's a Catholic doctrine involved, and need everything spelled out in the most literal of terms.

It's like Sola Scriptura, which is not spelled out in those words nor is it spelled out that clearly, to use your example, God saying "There is this bible, and it is the only thing you need. You need nothing else. Have fun." Yet Protestants can piece together in kernel form various texts and poof, a concise theory of Sola Scriptura. Yet when Catholics do the same thing, it's not good enough.

"In every religious system, except that of the New Testament, the doctrine of purgatory after death and prayers for the dead have always found a place. In ancient and modern times, we find that paganism leaves hope after death for sinners, who, at the time of their departure, are unrepentant, and consciously unfit for heaven. For this purpose a "middle state" was invented in which guilt could be removed in the future world by means of purgatorial pains.

So what does this have to do with anything? It just means that some other religions believe in a sort of "limbo state." By your logic, then, Christianity is false because almost every other religion, pagans included, believe in a deity. By your logic! Somehow, because others believe this, that makes it false? Sorry, that's lame logic.

In Greece the doctrine of a purgatory was taught by the very chief of the philosophers. Thus Plato, speaking of the future judgment of the dead, holds out the hope of final deliverance for all, but maintains that, of "those who are judged," some must first "proceed to a subterranean place of judgment, where they shall sustain the punishment they have deserved." In pagan Rome, purgatory was also held up before the minds of men.

Again, by your logic, pagans like Socrates and the Romans also believed in deities that control the universe. By your logic that makes Christian belief in a deity false, nothing more than a pagan knock-off. Use a better line of reasoning. This one is a dead end.

In Egypt, substantially the same doctrine of purgatory was taught. But once this doctrine of purgatory was admitted into the popular mind, then the door was opened to all manner of priestly extortions. Prayers for the dead can be completely efficacious without the priest as intermediary and no priestly functions can be rendered unless there be special pay for them. Therefore, in every land we find the pagan priesthood "devouring widow's houses," and making merchandise of the tender feelings of sorrowing relatives sensitively alive to the immortal happiness of their be loved dead.

Again, same line of reasoning as above.

Such was the operation of the doctrine of purgatory and prayers for the dead among avowed and acknowledged pagans, and it differs in no way from the operation of the same doctrine as taught by the Roman Catholic Church.

THe belief in deities that control the universe does not differ from that of the pagans either. By your logic, that makes belief in a deity a pagan rip-off.

There are the same extortions in both.

The doctrine of purgatory is purely pagan,

The blief in a god or gods is purely pagan

and cannot for a moment stand in the light of Scripture. For those who die in Christ no purgatory is or can be needed; for "the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from all sin." If this be true, where can there be the need for any other cleansing? On the other hand, for those who die without personal union with Christ, and consequently unwashed, unjustified, unsaved, there can be no other cleansing; for, while "he that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath not life," and never can have it. Search the Scripture through, and it will be found that, in regard to all who "die in their sins." The decree of God is irreversible: "Let him that is unjust be unjust still, and let him that is filthy be filthy still.""