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To: Uncle Chip
Praying is a Judeo-Christian practice. Sprinkling with Holy Water is not of Judeo-Christian origin. It originates in pagan religious practice as the link says. Don't you read the links before answering???

I read 'em. And, as it happens, I tend to understand them. Judeo-Christian practice, huh? It's really funny how you support things when you support them, and how you dismiss things that you do not support.

2,298 posted on 03/29/2007 3:18:04 AM PDT by MarkBsnr (When you believe in nothing, then everything is acceptable.)
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To: MarkBsnr
I read 'em. And, as it happens, I tend to understand them. Judeo-Christian practice, huh?

But it is true. There is not one place in scripture where Jesus or the apostles or anyone created a gallon or even a drop of "Holy Water".

2,300 posted on 03/29/2007 3:32:40 AM PDT by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)
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To: MarkBsnr; Uncle Chip
Praying is a Judeo-Christian practice

As Uncle Chip phrases it, the issue is not practice, but origin. Uncle Chip's argument seems to be that because other religions performed ceremonial lustrations before Christians did, therefore the origin sort of has more corrupting mojo, which overpowers the feeble Holy Spirit's (as THEY, not I, seem to say) efforts to redeem.

Then if we were able to find evidence of prayer on the part of people outside the Judeo-Christian tradition would that show that prayer was somehow wrong for us because it was of pagan origin? Well, prayer is mentioned in the Bible, so presumably that certifies that in that case the Holy Spirit is able to handle its use by pagans.

However the Bible has numerous references to water sprinkled with hyssop as a ritual or cultic cleansing rather than merely a practical or sanitary cleansing -- though the distinction back then was not as bold and clear as it is now.

Nevertheless, the use of water for cultic lustration in the Bible does NOT, ah, purge away it's pagan origin, while the use of prayer in the Bible does purge away its cultic origin.

So what other objective difference can we find? Well, the obvious one is that these days the most frequent cultic use of water for ceremonial cleansing is in the Catholic Church. That seems to be the principle and operative difference between lustration and prayer. Both were done first by pagans. Both are in the Bible. But one is not done by Protestants.

So the argument comes down to "Catholics are wrong because they use practices used by Catholics, who, as we all know, are wrong."

Circle the arguments, uh, I mean, wagons!

2,304 posted on 03/29/2007 3:46:33 AM PDT by Mad Dawg (Tactical shotty, Marlin 1894c, S&W 686P, Sig 226 & 239, Beretta 92fs & 8357, Glock 22, & attitude!)
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