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Catholics Don't Believe You Can Earn Your Way to Heaven
Tradition | 03-06-2022 | CharlesOconnell

Posted on 03/06/2022 11:16:06 AM PST by CharlesOConnell

A man commits a serious crime, then he gets released. He has "paid his debt to society". But wait a minute, he's only ready for the half-way house. He's unlikely to get a prestigious job in his new prison suit coat, or any job at all; he has civil impediments, he can't vote or hold certain offices. His crime was serious enough that he won't be presumed to have been completely rehabilitated until he performs a notable service to society, or at least spends many years on the straight and narrow, so that his crime can be truly overlooked or forgotten.

In Catholic faith, your "debt to society" is paid by Jesus Christ on Calvary. It's called "eternal punishment", without Christ it keeps you from going to heaven. Supposing that you do take advantage of His sacrifice, you're truly sorry, have a firm purpose of amendment, if you relapse, you go again for forgiveness (to the Sacrament of Confession).

But your sin leaves a strong trace at another layer of impurity called "temporal punishment due to sin", like the civil impediments facing the half-way house prisoner. Because "nothing impure can enter heaven", there is a place or a state, a condition of purification to render you fit for heaven after Christ has finally saved you from hell. The Catholic Church calls it purgatory.

(Where is it in the bible? Where is the word Trinity in the bible? Where does it say that you only need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Many valid principles aren't stated explicitly in the bible, but it does say to "hold fast to the traditions you have learned, whether by word or by letter", because much of the Gospel wasn't written down, as Jesus only wrote in the sand, the majority of the Gospel was taught from word to ear to people who couldn't afford expensive books, the exceptions were what tended to get written down. But the implication that there is a purgatory, is contained in the bible--see the comments.)

The ex-con can receive a pardon or commutation of his probation from a Governor, if he performs some heroic deed, saving numerous lives, or, like Chuck Colson, performs a long-lasting, valuable community service helping numerous people who can't help themselves.

In the Catholic Church there are 2 ways for the residual, temporal effects due to sin to be expiated: suffering in this life, or after life, undergoing purifying suffering along with other people who will finally be saved, but have to suffer for long without the vision of God--that is what causes them their pain.

Their suffering isn't meritorious enough to grant their release, the saints in heaven and those on earth suffering and practicing virtue can pray for the suffering souls in purgatory. In no way is their release by slow transfer of suffering or practice of virtue, "buying heaven". It's a long, excruciating process.

How the misunderstanding arose that Catholics think they can buy their way into heaven, is involved with history more than 500 years old. For a millennium of Christendom between roughly 410 and 1410, there was a Medieval civilization with harmony between faith and government.

Many small farmers would cluster around the manor house of a military lord who would protect them, in exchange for a certain fixed obligation of labor and agricultural produce. In most cases, those "serfs" had much more leisure than factory workers of the industrial revolution; there were a large number of holy days without work, and except for planting and harvesting, there were long stretches of idle time.

Another large sector of the economy surrounded monasteries, where the monks developed most of the farming practices that stabilized the serfs and their manorial lords. The monks who worked those monastic lands were sworn to poverty, so that monasteries built up large accumulations of economic value over decades and centuries of labor.

At the beginning, when lands were being cleared and put into production there weren't prominent town fairs ruled by merchants and bankers. Money wasn't used for sustenance, not even much barter occurred, life was mostly agrarian.

Charity was woven into the economy of monasteries. It was estimated that you only need travel 12 miles in medieval England between monasteries, where you could get a meal and minimal lodging for free, based on need. And the charity was also spiritual, including the ancient Catholic principle of prayer for the dead, which is biblical. (See "prayer for the dead" in the original King James Bible in the comment.)

There were foundations and benefices for praying for the dead, that allowed a person of means to support monasteries' charitable works, and in proportional response the monks would pray for the souls of the donors.

It happened at the close of the middle ages, that militarily strong nobles cast their eyes on the labor value accumulated by the poverty-sworn monks of the monasteries, which those nobles perceived as monetary wealth, especially where gold and jewels had been donated by the devout to adorn churches.

(Protestant writer William Cobbett wrote in his 1824 "A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland", an anecdote, that an incredibly valuable, hand illustrated bible was stripped of it's bejeweled, gold cover, the much more valuable hand-illumined manuscript, thrown in the mud and trampled by horses hooves by raiders suppressing the monasteries in Henry VIII's England.)

A new religion growing up around this seizure of monastic lands and valuables, that sought to discredit the Catholic Church, spread the black legend that the "sale of indulgences" was abusive. But this was very exceptional. Today the stipend of a Mass said for the dead is $10.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Religion & Culture; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; catholicbashing; cult; dontbelieve; indulgences; praytomary
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To: Luircin

bingo

(and not worth the private stuff either.)


421 posted on 03/18/2022 12:55:31 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: imardmd1
But nowhere does he say that Jesus WILL NOT baptize with water.

Come on, man!

Leave this 'debate' tactic for the Catholics.

422 posted on 03/18/2022 12:57:05 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: imardmd1
But nowhere does he say that Jesus WILL NOT baptize with water.

Comeon, man!

Leave this 'debate' tactic for the Catholics.

423 posted on 03/18/2022 12:58:03 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: imardmd1
Actually Jesus DID baptize the twelve men that He recruited for His inner circle of students.

(though Jesus himself baptized not...


Well; which is it?

424 posted on 03/18/2022 12:59:14 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: imardmd1
A username is not appearing in the tagline identifying this post.

It shows on mine.



I sure seems to me that we are all caught up in worrying about h2O and its method of application on humans, when we SHOULD be corcerned more about...
 
 

406 posted on 3/18/2022, 7:36:23 AM by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

425 posted on 03/18/2022 1:02:50 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion; MHGinTN; imardmd1; Luircin
Why does this seem to be an attempt to draw attention away from your own water baptism?

Good question, "Why does it?"


Any of you other folks still in this thread have an opinion?

426 posted on 03/18/2022 1:09:19 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MurphsLaw

Cast your straw upon the water, for in many days, a man may appear created from it.


427 posted on 03/18/2022 1:10:50 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
... I'm not even sure what the question is... or why it is relevant to the topic of this thread... 🤔
428 posted on 03/18/2022 1:12:08 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion (Fraud vitiates everything.)
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To: MHGinTN

I give cataract surgery four stars!!!

It definitely improved MY vision!


429 posted on 03/18/2022 1:12:10 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Elsie, I’m approaching that cataract time.
What kids Je of lenses did you choose?


430 posted on 03/18/2022 2:27:19 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion (Fraud vitiates everything.)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

Recovering from it now. I chose distance lenses and now I can see a fly on a cow’s back but can’t focus on anything up close even with reading glasses! Do the ‘standard’


431 posted on 03/18/2022 5:07:10 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: Elsie

Playing a fool is not a fitting presence for a Christian. The passage tells you He baptized his twelve but not others. ... Or are you really that dense?


432 posted on 03/18/2022 5:08:53 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

I got just the basic ones.

There was a selection that allowed one eye to see far/mid-range in focus and the other eye to see mid-range/near in focus; thus not needing reading glasses.

That seemed a bit strange to me.

There was another option but I couldn’t understand that one either.

I opted for reading glass (if I need them)

I can do the arms lentgh to read most normal text sizes without the readers.

What got me was the extra amount of money they wanted for the non-basic lens.

What’s the big deal? They just have the same material but slightly different focal length.

Too greedy for my skin-flint ways!


433 posted on 03/18/2022 5:10:03 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MHGinTN
The passage tells you He baptized his twelve but not others.

HMMMmmm...

That's what I get for having Hoosier as my first language.

Plain American English eludes me from time-to-time.


Perhaps these guys can explain it better.


(I assume that AV really means King James Version)

1 When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,

2 (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)

3 He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.

434 posted on 03/18/2022 5:21:34 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion
you've heard of red herrings or rabbit holes??!!??
435 posted on 03/18/2022 5:27:06 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

https://biblehub.com/parallel/john/4-2.htm


436 posted on 03/18/2022 5:29:27 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MHGinTN
... can’t focus on anything up close even with reading glasses!

That's strange.

I tried on various power(?) until I got a pair that seemed ok.

They are +2.00



437 posted on 03/18/2022 5:32:04 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MHGinTN
... can’t focus on anything up close even with reading glasses!

That's strange.

I tried on various power(?) until I got a pair that seemed ok.

They are +2.00



438 posted on 03/18/2022 5:35:42 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion; MHGinTN

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/treatments/best-artificial-lens-IOL-cataract-surgery

Which Artificial Lens Can You Afford?

Not all IOL types are covered by insurance. But Medicare and most insurance companies do cover the cost of the most common IOL, the monofocal lens.

These lenses have been used for decades and are the most popular type.

 

Multifocal, EDOF and accommodative IOLs can reduce the need for glasses or contact lenses.

But the ability to read and perform other tasks without glasses varies from person to person.

These IOLs are often called “premium” lenses.

They are more expensive than monofocals and are often not fully covered by insurance.

 

 

 

BINGO!!

439 posted on 03/18/2022 5:36:23 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Well; ya gots TWO eyes doncha??!!??


440 posted on 03/18/2022 5:37:39 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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