I think one of the more pernicious things about all of the above is that MANY RC'S HEREON !KNOW! THEY ARE AWASH IN IDOLATRY.Mind reading again Quix? Where is your "Christian" charity?
Posted on 02/05/2011 11:07:42 AM PST by Gamecock
In the book of Judges we read about another generation which arose, which knew neither the Lord nor what He had done (Judges 2:10). Today, it appears that a generation has arisen, which like Israel under the Judges, knows little of either the Lord nor of what He did during the time of the Protestant exodus and the struggles in the wilderness, which followed in the 16th and 17th century. Sometimes this is from a cowardly dislike of controversy and confrontation. But few people seem to understand either the evils from which the Reformation delivered us or the blessings which the Reformation won for us.
The Reformation delivered the Church from gross ignorance and spiritual darkness The church, before the Reformation, was a church without the Bible. And a church without a Bible is as useless as a lighthouse without light, a candlestick without a candle, or a motor vehicle without an engine. The priests and people knew scarcely anything about God’s Word or the way of salvation in Christ.
Bishop J.C. Ryle described the situation: “The immense majority of the clergy did little more than say masses and offer up pretended sacrifices, repeat Latin prayers and chant Latin hymns (which of course most of the people could not understand), hear confessions, grant absolutions, give extreme unction, and take money to get dead people out of purgatory.”
Bishop Latimer observed: “When the devil gets influence in a church, up go candles and down goes preaching.”
Quarterly sermons (that is, once every three months) were prescribed to the clergy, but not insisted upon. Latimer noted that while the mass was never left unsaid for a single Sunday, sermons might be omitted for 20 Sundays in succession. Indeed, to preach much was to incur the suspicion of being a heretic.
Bishop Hooper, who along with Bishop Latimer was burned alive at the stake under Queen Mary, did a survey in 1551 and found that out of 311 clergy in his Diocese, 168 were unable to repeat the Ten Commandments, 31 of those 168 could not even say in which part of the Scripture the Ten Commandments were to be found, 40 could not tell where the Lord’s Prayer was written, and 31 of the 40 did not even know who the author of the Lord’s Prayer was!
Bishop Ryle summarized the situation: “Before the Reformation was a religion without knowledge, without faith and without lively hope – a religion without justification, regeneration and sanctification – a religion without any clear views of Christ and the Holy Ghost. Except in rare instances, it was little better than an organized system of Mary worship, saint worship, image worship, relic worship, pilgrimages, alms giving, formalism, ceremonialism, processions, penances, absolutions, masses and blind obedience to the priests. It was a huge higgledy-piggledy of ignorance and idolatry, and serving an unknown God by deputy. The only practical result was that the priests took the people’s money and undertook to secure their salvation. And the people flattered themselves that the more they gave to the priests, the more sure they were to go to Heaven!”
The Reformation delivered the church from childish superstitions The Roman Catholic church, before the Reformation, taught its members to seek spiritual benefit from so-called relics of dead saints and to treat them with divine honor. Calvin’s “Inventory of Relics” and Hobart Seymour’s “Pilgrimage to Rome” catalog some of the ludicrous swindles which were perpetrated by the church of Rome. This included pieces of wood “of the true cross” enough to load a large ship, thorns professing to be part of the Saviour’s crown of thorns, enough to make a huge faggot, at least 14 nails said to have been used at the Crucifixion, four spearheads – each purporting to be the one which pierced our Lord’s side, at least three seamless coats of Christ, for which the soldiers cast lots, Saint James’s hand, bones of Mary Magdalene, toenails from Saint Edmund, some bread, purported to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper, a girdle of the Virgin Mary and milk from the Virgin Mary! The Royal Commissioners of Henry VIII examined a vial at the Abbey in Gloucestershire, which was said to contain the blood of Christ! The Commissioners found that it contained the blood of a duck.
There were literally thousands of profane and vile inventions, fabrications and deceptions, which Roman priests imposed on the people before the Reformation. They must have known that they were deceiving the people, yet they persisted in presenting these lies and requiring that the ignorant laity believe them. Sometimes the priests induced dying sinners to give vast tracts of lands to abbeys and monasteries, in order to atone for their bad lives. In one way or another, they were continually separating sinners from their money and accumulating property and wealth in the hands of the Roman church.
The power of the priests was practically despotic and was used for every purpose except the advancement of the Christian faith. It seemed that their primary object was power. To them confession had to be made. Without their absolution and extreme unction no professing Christian could be saved. Without their masses no soul could be redeemed from purgatory. In short, they were, to all intents and purposes, the mediators between Christ and man. To please and honor the Roman church was a devout Christian’s first duty. To injure them was the greatest of sins. One of the indulgences issued in 1498, with the authority of the Pope, claimed: “To absolve people from usury, theft, manslaughter, fornication and all crime whatsoever, except smiting the clergy and conspiring against the Pope!”
A starving man in a famine may be reduced to eating rats and rubbish, rather than die of hunger. Similarly, a conscience-stricken soul, deprived of God’s Word, should not be judged too harshly by us, if they struggled to find comfort in the most debasing superstition. However, we must never forget that it was from such superstitions which the Reformation delivered us.
The Reformation delivered the church from blatant immorality Before the Reformation, the lives of the clergy were simply scandalous. There were brothels in the Vatican. The Popes, Cardinals and Bishops openly consorted with prostitutes and engaged in the most debauched orgies. The local priests became notorious for gluttony, drunkenness and gambling. As Bishop Ryle pointed out: “To expect the huge roots of ignorance and superstition, which filled our land, to bear any but corrupt fruit, would be unreasonable and absurd.”
Contemporary art depicted friars as foxes preaching with the neck of a stolen goose peeping out of the hood behind; as wolves giving absolution, with the sheep partly concealed under their cloaks; or as apes sitting on a sick man’s bed with a crucifix in one hand and with the other hand in the suffering person’s pocket! Such public contempt in art reflects the scorn with which the clergy were held at the time.
Bishop Ryle pointed out: “But the blackest spot on the character of our pre-Reformation clergy in England is one of which it is painful to speak … their horrible contempt of the 7th Commandment … the consequences of shutting up herds of men and women in the prime of life, in monasteries and nunneries, were such that I will not defile my paper by dwelling upon them … if ever there was a plausible theory weighed in the balance and found utterly wanting, it is the favorite theory that celibacy and monasticism promote holiness … monasteries and nunneries were frequently sinks of iniquity.”
The report of the Royal Commissioners, under Henry VIII, declared: “That manifest sin, vicious, carnal and abominable living, is daily used and committed in abbeys, priories, and other religious houses of monks, cannons and nuns, and that albeit many continual visitations have been had, by the space of 200 years or more, for an honest and charitable reformation of such unthrifty, carnal and abominable living, yet that nevertheless, little or none amendment was hitherto had, but that their vicious living shamefully increased and augmented.”
It was observed that: “There is no surer recipe for promoting immorality than fullness of bread and abundance of idleness.” (Ezekiel 16:49) It is from such superstition, corruption, immorality, ignorance and idolatry that the Reformation freed the church.
The Reformation gave the church back the Bible In 1519, six men and a woman were burned at Coventry for teaching their children the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed in English. Nothing seems to have alarmed and enraged the Roman priesthood as much as the spread of Bibles in the local language. It was for the crime of translating the Bible into English that the Reformer, William Tyndale, was burned at the stake. Of all the aspects which combined to make up the Reformation, no other aspect received such bitter opposition as the translation and circulation of the Scriptures. The translation of the Bible struck a blow at the root of the whole Roman Catholic system. The Bible, as the only rule of faith and conduct, freely available in the local languages, was a threat to all the superstitions and abuses of the medieval Roman popery. With the Bible in every parish church, every thoughtful man soon saw that the religion of the priests had no basis in Holy Scripture.
The Reformation opened the road to the throne of Grace The way of salvation had become blocked up and made impassible by heaps of superstitious rubble. “He who desired to obtain forgiveness had to seek it through a jungle of priests, saints, Mary worship, masses, penances, confession, absolution and the like, so that there might as well have been no throne of Grace at all.” J.C. Ryle
The Reformers hacked their way through this huge jungle of papal obstruction and cleared the way for every heavy-laden sinner to go straight to the Lord Jesus Christ for remission of sins.
The Reformation restored Biblical simplicity to worship Before the Reformation, the laity were only present at church services as passive, ignorant spectators. The elaborate, theatrical presentations of the sacraments were a solemn farce because the ceremonies and prayers were in Latin. The laity could bring their bodies to the services, but their minds, understanding, reason and spirit could take no part at all. For this reason, the 24th Article of the Church of England declared: “It is a thing totally repugnant to the Word of God and the custom of the primitive church to have public prayer in the church or to minister the sacraments in a tongue not understood of the people.”
The Reformation gave a Biblical understanding of the office of a minister Before the Reformation, the concept of the Christian ministry was sacerdotal. That is – it was understood that every clergyman was a sacrificing priest. The clergy were understood to hold the keys of Heaven and to be practically the mediators between God and man.
The Reformers brought the office of the clergy down to its Scriptural level. They stripped it entirely of any sacerdotal character. They cast out the words “sacrifice” and “altar”. They taught that the clergy were pastors, ambassadors, messengers, witnesses, evangelists, teachers and ministers of the Word and sacraments. The Reformers taught that the chief business of every Christian minister is to preach the Word and to be diligent in prayer and the reading of the Scriptures. The Reformers taught the immense superiority of the pulpit to the confessional. For this reason, where the altar used to be, the Lord’s table was placed with an open Bible, or a pulpit, showing the centrality of God’s Word in the worship of Protestant churches.
The Reformation restored a Biblical understanding of holiness Before the Reformation, it was believed that a monastic life and vows of celibacy were the only ways to escape sin and to attain sanctification. Multitudes of men and women poured into the monasteries and convents under the vain idea that this would please God and ensure their eternal salvation.
The Reformers struck at the root of this fallacy by establishing the great Scriptural principle that true religion was not to be found in retiring into convents and monasteries and fleeing from the difficulties of daily life, but in manfully facing up to our difficulties and doing our duty diligently - in every position to which God calls us. It is not by running away from the world, that we fulfill God’s call, but by courageously resisting the devil, the flesh and the world and overcoming them in daily life. That is how true holiness is to be exhibited. For this reason, the Reformers dissolved the monasteries and convents in their areas and freed the inmates to be reintegrated into normal life.
The Reformers also ordered that the Ten Commandments be set up in every parish church and taught to every child, and that our duty towards God and our neighbor be set forth in the Catechism. They insisted that you cannot become saints by shirking your duties in society.
A Heritage of Faith and Freedom We must continually thank God for the Reformation. It lit the flames of knowledge and freedom which we must ensure are never allowed to be extinguished or to grow dim. We need to continually remember that the Reformation was won for us by the blood of many tens of thousands of martyrs. It was not only by their preaching and praying, and writing and legislation, but by their sacrifices that our religious liberty, freedom of conscience and Christian heritage was won.
The Reformation found church members steeped in ignorance and left them in possession of knowledge. It found them without Bibles and left them with the Bible in every parish. It found them in darkness and left them in light. It found them bound in fear and left them enjoying the liberty and peace which only Christ can give. It found them strangers to the blood of Christ’s atonement, to faith, grace and holiness and left them with the key of all those blessings in their hands. It found them blind and left them with spiritual eyes to see. It found them slaves to superstition and set them free to serve Christ.
As Bishop Ryle declared: “Are we to return to a church which boasts that she is infallible and never changes – to a church which has never repented her pre-Reformation superstitions and abominations – to a church which has never confessed and abjured her countless corruptions? Are we to go back to gross ignorance of true religion? Shame on us, I say, if we entertain the idea for a moment! Let the Israelite return to Egypt, if he will. Let the prodigal go back to his husks among the swine. Let the dog return to his vomit. But let no Englishman with brains in his head, ever listen to the idea of exchanging Protestantism for Popery, or returning to the bondage of the church of Rome. No, indeed! … God forbid! The man who counsels such base apostasy and suicidal folly, must be judicially blind. The iron collar has been broken; let us not put it on again. The prison has been thrown open; let us not resume the yoke and return to our chains … Let us not go back to ignorance, superstition, priestcraft and immorality.”
If you have a Bible in your own language, and enjoy to read and study God’s Word, never forget that you owe that Bible to the Reformation. Brave men and women died that you could have the freedom to delight in God’s Word.
If you know the joy of sins forgiven and new life in Christ, if you are walking by faith and enjoying peace with God, never forget that you owe this priceless privilege to the Reformation.
If you enjoy Church services, Scripture choruses, Hymns, prayers and sermons in your own language, remember that for this you are also indebted to the Reformation.
If you appreciate the Biblical and practical sermons of your pastor, and his counsel, never forget that for this you are indebted to the Reformation. The Reformation is the source of many blessings. We need to ask if we are on the side of the Reformers, or of those who burned them and the Bible. “… Contend earnestly for the Faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Jude 3
You and I agree on that. What a deception the RCC has perpetrated on it’s members by changing the little c on catholic to a big c. Satan can be subtle that way.
Amen and Amen
It might not in an area of high population density, where there would be lots of churches of a particular denomination, but in rural areas where there may only be one or two churches of a particular denomination, that is not the case.
Besides, denominational affiliation is not important. A relationship with Christ is.
When I stand before God, and if He were to ask me why He should let me into heaven, I'm certainly not going to appeal to baptism, or church membership, or money given. It's only and all on the shed blood of Christ and the atonement that he made for me.
My trust is in what HE did for me, not what I've done.
My denominational affiliation does not describe who I am in Christ.
FWIW, I have stated which doctrinal position is the one I adhere to. You just need to pay attention.
And you know that how?
Because the trend goes beyond the thread - there is plenty of nastiness, particularly when the "Rowdy Protestant" unofficial ping list goes out.
Were any of the FRoman Catholics there to verify what the say happened in the day in which Latimer was living? He was there. On what basis do you know that he was lying? You must have some documentation to back yourself up.
He was there. That doesn't mean he read the situation correctly, and it doesn't mean he wasn't without biases. Scholars such as Duffy claim English Catholicism was alive and well - something Latimer wouldn't have agreed with. Besides that, his legitimate complaints about abuses are intertwined with his theological positions that Catholics rejected then and would reject now.
What God desires is a relationship with Him, not an adherence to a laundry list of legalistic do's and don't's - of which the Catholic church is not the only guilty party in that respect by any means.
Yes, we get that - and that relationship is EXACTLY what we're trying to encourage. The Catholic Church hasn't done it well, and frankly at times, we've not really done it at all - that would have been the case in many places during the time in question.
I was raised Catholic in an extended Catholic family, which included priests and a nun, grew up with Catholic classmates, worked with Catholic co-workers.
Then you should have learned the importance of the Sacraments and know that you don't have them where you are - and that you are always welcome to come home.
As I said upthread, it's too big for this thread. If we picked *one* it might be manageable.
And frankly, an open thread is no place for such a discussion... Were such a discussion to be on an "Ecumenic" thread, which would curtail the nastiness from both sides, it might be a discussion worth having.
Tell me why we have Catholic threads that consistently trash the "Protestant" differences? Are not Catholics just as worthy of criticism?
If Catholics are posting threads "trashing" differences we have with Protestants, call them on it in a calm manner as I'm trying to do here.
It is scarce only on those threads that get sidetracked into flame throwing. I have even seen some of them go for thousands of posts with only a few dishonest or hateful comments. People who are interested in apologetics seem to manage just fine with others who oppose as long as respect is mutual. There are many Roman Catholics on this site with whom I have a loving and congenial relationship. We exchange prayer requests, blessings and disappointments. I am convinced that there are very few Freepers who have no point to share other than in flame-baiting, but ignored, they usually slink away.
I absolutely love the opportunity I have here on Free Republic to "talk" to people from all walks of life and I am grateful we have such a forum to do so. I would hate for the few "ingrates" to spoil it for the rest of us and, if we let them, we have only ourselves to blame.
I like it too, and I've seen threads that have been fine. But I've also seen threads disrupted by flamethrowers from both sides.
I don't know how much you follow the main threads, but on one of the FReepathon threads, several posters suggested eliminating the RF altogether - too much strain on the mods and on the system. Perhaps we ought consider that and start to police each other better -- i.e. fraternally correct the members of our own confession to tone down some of these discussions, use the Ecumenic and Caucus threads when possible, and the like. Because all the non-RF FReepers see are the flamewars, and that's a poor witness coming from all of us.
I've got to attend to other things, so this is my last post on the thread. Feel free to FReepmail me if you'd like.
Even in this case, if it were, the dynamic and cause is different.
The cause appears to be that RC'S
ABSOLUTELY INSIST
on maintaining the sensibilities
of treating the
VATICAN INSTITUTION --including all the personages (including the caricatured Mary)
as though anything said about all such
were said about them personally or their earthly mother.
THAT ALONE, TO PRODDYS AND MOST FAIR-MINDED SANE FOLKS,
SMACKS OF AN OUTRAGEOUS DEGREE OF
CERTAINLY, IT IS THIN-SKINNED, OBSESSIVE, 2 YEAR OLD ATTACHMENT DISORDERED IDIOCY.
And y'all are blind as bats to both the idolatry and the thin-skinnedness. It is like you consider it a
DIVINE RIGHT OF TYRANNICAL KINGS for the whole group.
Y'all viciously, harshly, mean-spiritedly, vengefully VERY PERSONALLY attack some of us Proddys almost 24/7.
YET WE DON'T GET A GANG TO PARK ON THE ABUSE BUTTON.
like y'all seem to every other day, if not every other hour! THAT, by any NONDAFFYNITIONARY definition
IS THIN-SKINNED.
And y'all have a virtual FR monopoly on it.
We don't even usually ping the RM unless it's sooooo outrageously off the wall as to be an offense to a family site--or occasionally, more rank brazen hypocrisy than we feel like putting up with at the moment.
Actually, most of us discourage Proddys from hitting the abuse button virtually totally, except in extreme outrageousness--lewdness etc--cases. We don't want to be seen as acting like the thin-skinned-2-year-old-mentality-whiny-wailing-pouting-!!!DEMANDING!!! RC's so we just leave it alone, nearly all the time.
The vast majority of the time, it's just PRIVILEGED business as usual from the RC's and yawn material to most of the Proddys. Therefore, y'all get away far more often with far greater personal assaultiveness than any Proddy does.
SOMETIMES it even appears that even the regular RM has to pretend that a Proddy offense is worse than it really is so that he'll be able to appear more even handed by ALSO slapping down a Proddy at roughly the same time.
It is though y'all have been sooooo personally assaultively and routinely
Why else would a perfectly kosher thread--in fair-minded terms--vis a vis the normal Rel Forum/FR rules, be locked virtually from the git-go? The only logical explanation is, that RC's sat on the abuse button because the thread outraged their thin-skinned sensibilities. I don't really blame the mods that much, whether it was regular or fill-in. Obviously, the system can only handle a finite amount of countless RC's sitting on the abuse button.
Trouble is, that likely encourages the RC's to be even more thin-skinned and at least continue to be chronically so-- INSTEAD OF GROWING UP SPIRITUALLY.
AND STILL, Y'ALL WAIL AS THOUGH !!!Y'ALL!!! ARE THE DISADVANTAGED ONES! WHAT GALACTIC LEVEL HUBRIS AND POOR REALITY TESTING! SHEESH!
IIRC, IN ALL MY YEARS ON FR, PRODDYS HAVE NEVER PULLED SUCH A STUNT. We wouldn't think of it. We have no need to. We'd rather the outrage remained for all to see and connect to the source of it.
We don't even make much of a fuss about all the absurd hypocritical, hysterical "OPC" postings that are so off the wall.
Evidently it is the norm for a huge percentage of RC's to go through life with an umbilical cord attached to
--THE INSTITUTION
--THE POPE
--THE CARICATURED MARY
--THE DOGMA
--VARIOUS GRADUATED SAINTS
It's not only UNBiblical, it's a stench to mature Christians and even mature non-Christians. We have our spiritual priorities more Biblically straighter than that!
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.KJV
Luke 14:26 (The Message)
Figure the Cost
25-27One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one's own self!—can't be my disciple. Anyone who won't shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can't be my disciple.
Luke 14:26 (Young's Literal Translation)
26`If any one doth come unto me, and doth not hate his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and yet even his own life, he is not able to be my disciple;
Luke 14:26 (New Living Translation)
26 “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.
IT IS AS THOUGH RC'S DO NOT EVEN DISTINGUISH SIGNIFICANTLY BETWEEN GOD, MARY, THE VATICAN INSTITUTION, &/OR THE POPE.
Not in their thinking. Certainly NOT in their emotions. NOT in their reflexes. Certainly NOT in their general terminally thin-skinned sensibilities.
THAT BY UNDAFFYNITIONARY DEFINITION = IDOLATRY!
It is NOT 'merely' a clash of cultures. It is a great clash of REALITIES. It is perception, cognition, emotions, constructs--the whole of reality. And for those reasons, it's not likely to change.
I wish I was wealthy enough--I'd commission a Kelly Role Construct double blind study. I can virtually guarantee that RC's would GREATLY demonstrate exactly what I wrote immediately above in the preceding few paragraphs. God, The Pope, The VATICAN INSTITUTION and Mary would ALL come out clustered fairly tightly together.
THAT IS A RATHER ACCURATE EMPIRICAL, OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF IDOLATRY.
I bet it would show up even with folks knowing what would likely be proven--if they were AT ALL HONEST as they completed the REP GRID. I don't know if we could get a dozen RC's and a dozen Proddys to fill the thing out, or not. It's about 24 X 24 weighted decisions in sorting the people in one's life. That's a fair amount of bother.
IF anyone wants to try, I could give you the list of people/roles in your life to include with the above. Here's the link.
http://gigi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca:2000/WebGrid/Elicit/Initial.rgrid And the home page of that site:
http://gigi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca:2000/
I'm not really expecting any takers.
I think one of the more pernicious things about all of the above is that MANY RC'S HEREON !KNOW! THEY ARE AWASH IN IDOLATRY.
And that's why they squeal like stuck pigs at virtually every Proddy post about such. They are CONVICTED in their own hearts and spirits and MUST LASH OUT to maintain rationalized, denial layered equilibrium.
Holy Spirit is faithful to convict. And even where consciences are seared from decades of INSTITUTIONAL BRAINWASHING, Holy Spirit still works to convict.
Ahhh, well, maybe some RC's on the fence about leaving the horror shows and lurkers on the fence about joining the Vatican farce will be rescued from the pit by our Proddys' humble postings. God knows where our hearts are, whether anyone else does, or not.
MOST of the time, snarky is not that big a deal to me.
I only hope that folks will hang around and work the relationship through in a Christian way.
I realize that’s not likely with most RC’s on FR. So I just let it go, most of the time.
Sometimes snarkiness is soooooooooooooo hypocritical or sooooooooooo outrageous that it begs for a slap-down and I oblige.
Most of the time—it’s just flawed humans being human and I walk on by without much notice.
All the more so if the person has a shred of a genuine good heart about them.
Thanks for your thoughtful and sincere reply.
I agree with many of your points.
“Can I conclude, then, you are conceding that the author is correct in his repudiation of the Roman Catholic Church and its failure to remain faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ?”
You may conclude anything you want. That the expressed conclusion in the quote above is manifestly false to fact simply demonstrates the flawed process that must have been followed to arrive at such an obvious and wrong, not to say grossly insulting conclusion.
Let’s see you defend this obvious and outright lie from the article:
“The church, before the Reformation, was a church without the Bible.”
Go ahead, defend that grotesque falsehood.
Even in this case, if it were, the dynamic and cause is different.
The cause appears to be that RC'S
ABSOLUTELY INSIST
on maintaining the sensibilities
of treating the
VATICAN INSTITUTION --including all the personages (including the caricatured Mary)
as though anything said about all such
were said about them personally or their earthly mother.
THAT ALONE, TO PRODDYS AND MOST FAIR-MINDED SANE FOLKS,
SMACKS OF AN OUTRAGEOUS DEGREE OF
CERTAINLY, IT IS THIN-SKINNED, OBSESSIVE, 2 YEAR OLD ATTACHMENT DISORDERED IDIOCY.
And y'all are blind as bats to both the idolatry and the thin-skinnedness. It is like you consider it a
DIVINE RIGHT OF TYRANNICAL KINGS for the whole group.
Y'all viciously, harshly, mean-spiritedly, vengefully VERY PERSONALLY attack some of us Proddys almost 24/7.
YET WE DON'T GET A GANG TO PARK ON THE ABUSE BUTTON.
like y'all seem to every other day, if not every other hour! THAT, by any NONDAFFYNITIONARY definition
IS THIN-SKINNED.
And y'all have a virtual FR monopoly on it.
We don't even usually ping the RM unless it's sooooo outrageously off the wall as to be an offense to a family site--or occasionally, more rank brazen hypocrisy than we feel like putting up with at the moment.
Actually, most of us discourage Proddys from hitting the abuse button virtually totally, except in extreme outrageousness--lewdness etc--cases. We don't want to be seen as acting like the thin-skinned-2-year-old-mentality-whiny-wailing-pouting-!!!DEMANDING!!! RC's so we just leave it alone, nearly all the time.
The vast majority of the time, it's just PRIVILEGED business as usual from the RC's and yawn material to most of the Proddys. Therefore, y'all get away far more often with far greater personal assaultiveness than any Proddy does.
SOMETIMES it even appears that even the regular RM has to pretend that a Proddy offense is worse than it really is so that he'll be able to appear more even handed by ALSO slapping down a Proddy at roughly the same time.
It is though y'all have been sooooo personally assaultively and routinely
Why else would a perfectly kosher thread--in fair-minded terms--vis a vis the normal Rel Forum/FR rules, be locked virtually from the git-go? The only logical explanation is, that RC's sat on the abuse button because the thread outraged their thin-skinned sensibilities. I don't really blame the mods that much, whether it was regular or fill-in. Obviously, the system can only handle a finite amount of countless RC's sitting on the abuse button.
Trouble is, that likely encourages the RC's to be even more thin-skinned and at least continue to be chronically so-- INSTEAD OF GROWING UP SPIRITUALLY.
AND STILL, Y'ALL WAIL AS THOUGH !!!Y'ALL!!! ARE THE DISADVANTAGED ONES! WHAT GALACTIC LEVEL HUBRIS AND POOR REALITY TESTING! SHEESH!
IIRC, IN ALL MY YEARS ON FR, PRODDYS HAVE NEVER PULLED SUCH A STUNT. We wouldn't think of it. We have no need to. We'd rather the outrage remained for all to see and connect to the source of it.
We don't even make much of a fuss about all the absurd hypocritical, hysterical "OPC" postings that are so off the wall.
Evidently it is the norm for a huge percentage of RC's to go through life with an umbilical cord attached to
--THE INSTITUTION
--THE POPE
--THE CARICATURED MARY
--THE DOGMA
--VARIOUS GRADUATED SAINTS
It's not only UNBiblical, it's a stench to mature Christians and even mature non-Christians. We have our spiritual priorities more Biblically straighter than that!
Not in their thinking. Certainly NOT in their emotions. NOT in their reflexes. Certainly NOT in their general terminally thin-skinned sensibilities.
THAT BY UNDAFFYNITIONARY DEFINITION = IDOLATRY!
It is NOT 'merely' a clash of cultures. It is a great clash of REALITIES. It is perception, cognition, emotions, constructs--the whole of reality. And for those reasons, it's not likely to change.
I wish I was wealthy enough--I'd commission a Kelly Role Construct double blind study. I can virtually guarantee that RC's would GREATLY demonstrate exactly what I wrote immediately above in the preceding few paragraphs. God, The Pope, The VATICAN INSTITUTION and Mary would ALL come out clustered fairly tightly together.
THAT IS A RATHER ACCURATE EMPIRICAL, OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF IDOLATRY.
I bet it would show up even with folks knowing what would likely be proven--if they were AT ALL HONEST as they completed the REP GRID. I don't know if we could get a dozen RC's and a dozen Proddys to fill the thing out, or not. It's about 24 X 24 weighted decisions in sorting the people in one's life. That's a fair amount of bother.
IF anyone wants to try, I could give you the list of people/roles in your life to include with the above. Here's the link.
http://gigi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca:2000/WebGrid/Elicit/Initial.rgrid And the home page of that site:
http://gigi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca:2000/
I'm not really expecting any takers.
I think one of the more pernicious things about all of the above is that MANY RC'S HEREON !KNOW! THEY ARE AWASH IN IDOLATRY.
And that's why they squeal like stuck pigs at virtually every Proddy post about such. They are CONVICTED in their own hearts and spirits and MUST LASH OUT to maintain rationalized, denial layered equilibrium.
Holy Spirit is faithful to convict. And even where consciences are seared from decades of INSTITUTIONAL BRAINWASHING, Holy Spirit still works to convict.
Ahhh, well, maybe some RC's on the fence about leaving the horror shows and lurkers on the fence about joining the Vatican farce will be rescued from the pit by our Proddys' humble postings. God knows where our hearts are, whether anyone else does, or not.
“I have even seen some of them go for thousands of posts with only a few dishonest or hateful comments.”
Go look into a mirror. Look at the disgraceful, loaded question you asked me that I quoted above. Playing that kind of “have you stopped beating your wife yet” gotcha is both dishonest and, imho, hateful. Nasty and juvenile are words that leap to mind.
And your nasty, juvenile question was milk and honey compared to the truly bile filled screeds posted by the multi-collored font twisting haters here.
So go get a mirror, look into it. But be careful getting off that High Horse of yours, a fall could really hurt.
I think one of the more pernicious things about all of the above is that MANY RC'S HEREON !KNOW! THEY ARE AWASH IN IDOLATRY.Mind reading again Quix? Where is your "Christian" charity?
“If you find that everyone is against you... perhaps it’s time to ask if it’s them, or if it’s you.”
Indeed.
Reading this article makes one word come to my mind: rubbish.
The blatant lies & smears are shocking. It’s nothing more than a hit piece whose only intention is to spread hate of the Catholic Church. And reading the posts here prove that. I’ve never seen such seething, foaming-at-the-mouth vitriol in my life. Not even from liberals. Perhaps these bigots ought to look in the mirror.
I prayed before the Blessed Sacrament last night for these people (one in particular whose posts are obnoxious & beligerent at best). They have big problems. I hope the Holy Spirit shows them the truth & that they are more open to it.
“The blatant lies & smears are shocking.”
I agree. Beyond words shocking. Crude lies that any honest person would cringe at. And yet we get challenged with puerile “questions” like this:
“Can I conclude, then, you are conceding that the author is correct in his repudiation of the Roman Catholic Church and its failure to remain faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ?”
***“Paul was talking about the Reformation.
forbidding to marry - this refers to the Church being the Bride of Christ, if you aren’t in the Church, you aren’t married to Christ.
abstaining from meat - this means not receiving the Eucharist, which is the Body of Christ.***
With all this twisting the Eucharist should be a pretzel, not a waffer!
This article was a pretty good read and while it did highlight the Biblical illiteracy of the RC clergy during the Dark Age, when the RCC was the dominant church. I think it failed to highlight the political element. When Constantine began the transformation of the church in Rome into an arm of the state the political calculations in it's actions became of greater concern than Scriptural literacy.
The Reformation churches did not break this connection between church and state in their quest to return to Scripture as the rule of the faith. If they had they would have been destroyed like all the other Christian Churches that refused to submit to Roman control prior to this.
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
I’m sensing alot of evil lurking on this thread, seeking to ruin souls. You know who you are.
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