Posted on 12/29/2010 11:41:03 AM PST by markomalley
This is a re-post of a previous blog but it warrants repeating. From time to time I get non-Catholics who read the blog and invite me to read their blogs in the hopes I will decide to convert. They believe they are being obedient to "preach the gospel in season and out." The presupposition with some of these individuals is that Catholicism is a false religion or a "false gospel" . The fact that a person would believe Catholicism is false clearly indicates that they have never studied what Catholicism is all about from a Catholic perspective. It is easy to draw a caricature of what Catholicism is based on myths, lies, distortions. After all, this has been going on for the past 500 years and the purveyors of falsehood have had an abundant amount of time to perfect their attacks.
What I can tell you is that when a person begins to read what the Church actually says about itself and its doctrines, the scales often fall from their eyes and the Holy Spirit brings them Home. I was one of those.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this): "Constantine must have been the real source of the Catholic Church's teachings because after his reign the Church grew tremendously, and before his reign it wasn't as well-known" (Ignores the simple fact that Constantine merely stopped the persecution of Christians with the Edict of Milan and allowed Christianity to spread. It also ignores the writings of the Church Fathers who lived before Constantine -- and who were Catholic.)
Straw man: "You guys worship statues, and that's evil. Therefore, your religion is Satanic." (Ignores that fact that we don't worship statues)
(comes From FISHEATERS WEBSITE)
INDEED.
No need to apologize for not being able to understand that. It was totally incoherent.
Galatians 3
1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
7Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Unless I have no clue about this category of thread . . .
it doesn’t seem like a fitting beginning for an Ecumenical thread.
And certainly it’s quickly devolved into tomato throwing.
Gee, Pope, I want to white out the verses that disagree with you and rid myself of any books written by people who disagree with you.
The author was not making antagonistic statements. Please read it again......all he did was ask questions.....a lot of them.
Just questions.....I'm sorry you took them to be antagonistic; I think the author meant for people to do some real soul-searching.
It appears that did not happen, but people jumped to the defensive rather than be honest with themselves and answer the questions.
Yes, I agree it would be a challenge to answer each one of them. But isn't that what the author intended? Seems to me that was his purpose in writing the entire article.
Thankfully I read bkaycee’s great post 33 before it was removed.
Not sure why it was removed. It wasn’t antagonistic in the least. In fact, I thought it was quite restrained and generous.
This thread is filled with back-handed slights at Protestants.
Ecumenical? No way.
Matthew and I Corinthians are books of the Bible. (That's “first” Corinthians, there are two books with that name in the New Testament)
Augistine, Melanchton, Luther, and Athanasuis, all wrote about the Old West and made mention of a few Bible related things in them.
4 Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)
It is simple, Jesus did what was needed, what we absolutely could not do for ourselves. Our belief in this produces a desire to glorify our Lord with good works, this desire is from the work of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore the assumption is that Protestants have not done any "soul-searching."
We've done plenty of it. And the result of that "soul-searching" is that the papacy is in error and does not preach the gospel of Christ correctly according to the word of God.
The author used the word "hate."
Protestants do not "hate" Roman Catholics. Christians "hate" "another gospel" preached by "another Christ."
As we are commanded to do.
"Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way." -- Psalm 119:104
Not when you click your heels to say I wish I was in Kansas several times on planet earth.
Why because the emperor might not have clothes on while she declares she is already there!
You wrote:
“M. Luther said he would fully retract if he were proven wrong in the Bible, the RCC refused debate.”
Actually Luther had already lost the debate in Leipzig - even some Protestants have admitted this but you’ll have to look pretty hard to find the references.
“The Emperor Charles declared him an outlaw whom anyone could kill after 20 days.”
No. Luther was not declared an outlaw until AFTER his TWENTY DAY SAFE CONDUCT PASS EXPIRED. At that that Charles issued arrest orders for Luther. You really seem to be making things up. Are you a government school product?
“He clearly had no chance to “stay and fight” The RCC and the German Govt. made sure of this.”
Nope. Luther chose heresy and schism.
This thread is filled with back-handed slights at Protestants.
Ecumenical? No way.
A post like this appears to be designed to have the ecumenical designation removed. Not to mention, it is antagonistic.
Maury got your paternity results? Which one of the four guys is your daddy?
I quoted the part that was antagonistic and what you quoted was not what I pointed out.
His first question was the antagonistic one. Accusing people of being haters simply because they think something is false and say so.
Thinking something is false does not inherently mean that the person *hates* it.
He was just engaging in rhetoric there.
There was no point in reading any further because the rest of the questions were just as likely to be loaded as the first one.
He lost his credibility there on the first *question*.
The first question is there. Only a question. I can’t judge by what you are saying....but it seems very defensive for just a simple question.
I was belittled by Protestants my entire life through grade school and high school. I was called the odd ball Catholic. The fish-eater or cheese eater or egg-salad sandwich eater.
Even though those Protestants belittled me, I never asked myself why they hated Catholcism so much.
It was not my duty to judge their ridiculousness. (But I still cried at times.....however, I have never HATED Protestants.)
So what is different here?
Why was it removed? It was a great post....and spot on of the differences between the sides of the issue of faith.
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