[Mad Dawg]

The intercessory prayer issue is tangentially related -- perhaps more than tangentially because if the saints in heaven (whom the other side calls "those who have died " while we call them "the Blessed" -- different emphasis) cannot pray for others, then asking them to is batting on a sticky wicket.

So when the assertion of that inability was made, I thought it would bear examining. But in response to my request mostly what I have received is answers to some other questions or references to the state of the dead before Christ rose and mounted on high taking captivity captive.

I don't know what the problem is, but I DO know that there IS a problem here. They are laying down smoke between us and the original assertion, as though distraction were a valid dialectical technique.

[D-fendr]

But in response to my request mostly what I have received is answers to some other questions or references to the state of the dead before Christ rose and mounted on high taking captivity captive.

My reaction to many of the proof texts is 'So, it's like Christ never happened?'

They are laying down smoke between us and the original assertion, as though distraction were a valid dialectical technique.

Occasionally a linear cogent debate is enjoined for a brief while, until it gets close to some resolution when a new 'distraction' is thrown out, then boilerplate assertions usually with a nice dollop of slander.

A few days later the same issue is approached, as if the previous debate never happened. Memory hole. Rinse and repeat.

Perhaps some new information is gained by lurkers and readers, but the handful repeating the same answered or refuted accusations over and over... doubtful, at least from the evidence here.