Joe Cool, I wasn’t mocking you; I was wishing you well! We’re both locked into our individual interpretations of scripture, and I suspect the more we argue with each other, the more firmly we’ll adhere to our own positions, if that’s possible. That, by the way, applies to me every bit as firmly as it does to you, if not more so.
I’ve also got a practical reason for not believing that the End Times or the Rapture will happen in my lifetime. I’m in my late 30’s, with no husband or even a boyfriend, no job, variable self-esteem, and a history of severe depression and suicide. While I do look forward to the idea of standing before the Presence of the Lord, I suspect He’d prefer it if I don’t try to do so prematurely. In other words, psychologically and spiritually, I need this attachment I have to the material world.
Polycarp, I’ll grant you the argument that the term “End Times” could be used to refer to the entire 1900 odd years since Christ’s ascension into heaven. I’m also spotty on the details of Rapture theology because it’s so foreign to my beliefs. When I use the term “End Times” when talking about Rapture Theology, what I mean is the notion that Christ will return during the remaining 40 or so years I’ve got left in this world. Sorry if there was any confusion.
For me, I see the last 1900 or so years as being summed up by the last few lines of the Recessional Prayer you and I are so fond of:
Whether the world ends tomorrow or 20,000 years from tomorrow, it doesn’t change the fact that I have work to do in this world. I look forward to the day when I can find out where I was wrong and where I was right, and when I can find out just why all this did happen, the good, the bad, and the ordinary. I am assured by faith that there is a loving Presence waiting for me, who will show me far more mercy than I have shown myself, and I look forward to being with all of you in that Presence. I’d just as soon it not happen just yet, though. Among other things, it’d ruin Christmas!
Joe_Cool, CJHoworth, and Polycarp, it dopesn’t matter what your eschatological worldview is–the question of Jesus’s return in 5 minutes of 5, 000 years, or never is not the proper concern of a Christian.
Your job is to fix on the here and now–are you being a vesssel for God’s work? Do you forgive those who have wronged you as you seek forgiveness from those you have wronged? Are you living each moment as a city on a hill, letting the fruits of the Holy spirit reflect in the way you treat others? If you have the “proper” view of the End Times and can quote II Thessalonians at the drop of a bookmark, yet you are scornful and rude to others, are grasping and covetous, are uncharitable and unloving, then you are straining out gnats and swallowing camels. It’s not what you believe that’s important, it’s how you behave!
Micah had it right, “You have been told, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: to do justice, to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Damn-it!..All this fuss over biblical interpretation is making the 3 part birthmark on my butt blaze brilliant blue! And now as I begin involentary slathering and the hair on my back and knuckles stand straight up and I lose all peripheral vision… I Know damn well being in Kentucky, Im gonna have a hard as hell time finding a young virgin to devoure!..Thanks a lot!
J_C:Sorry if this bothers you, but I consider Paul to be a somewhat more reliable and authoritative source on Christian doctrine than the Catholic church, any of the links you provided, or even you.
Paul, of course, didn’t say anything about a “one world government” or “one world currency”, so presumably you are not arguing from that in favor of current millennialist beliefs that the EU and the euro are somehow “significant” to the “End Times”.
By the way, you asked for a cite for the claim that “only a few fringe groups” among Christians hold millennialist views, and you were given cites. You now seem to be trying to argue that those cites don’t prove that millennialism isn’t true “Christian doctrine”. Of course they don’t: no two Christian sects agree on what is true Christian doctrine anyway. What they do prove is precisely what was claimed originally, namely that millennialist views are not espoused by most Christian denominations.
So, believe in the Rapture all you want, but don’t bristle when it is described as a “fringe belief” among Christians, because that’s exactly what it is. (IMHO you do have a right to bristle when it is described as a “daydream” or “backwards”, however, because that is a disrespectful characterization. I hope you yourself would never use such disrespectful terms to describe Christian doctrines that you don’t happen to agree with.)
Well, depends on how pedantic you want to be. Sure, Plesiosaurs are not members of either Class Saurischia or Orthinischia. But then, to out-pedantic you- “dinosaur” is not a taxonomic class name, nor is it truly a taxonomic term. (“DinosaurIA” IS a taxonomic term, however- but not according to all). Layfolks- and even some experts- use the generic, non-taxonomic word “dinosaur” to refer to all those extinct reptilian beasts.
Of course, since a “sirrush” is a land animal, I guess it COULD have been a member of Class Saurischia, etc. Altho I have my doubts it was anything but legendary. But if somebody wants to point to that, or similar creatures, and say “that’s a mention of a dinosaur in the Bible” they aren’t nessesarily crazy, nor can they be declared wrong… although my opinion would be that they are.
My bro says that a strict reading of Paul- in context- would convince any reasonable man that Paul thought the “second coming” was going to be in that generation, or his lifetime- that is sometime around AD100 or so. He was wrong, too.
I’m going to go out on a limb here & predict that several times in the next 50 or so years many more will predict the soon-to-come “second coming”- they also will all be wrong.
Job 40:15 (NIV) don’t know how the Hebrew version reads though.
15 "Look at the behemoth, [1]
which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox.
16 What strength he has in his loins,
what power in the muscles of his belly!
17 His tail [2] sways like a cedar;
the sinews of his thighs are close-knit.
18 His bones are tubes of bronze,
his limbs like rods of iron.
19 He ranks first among the works of God,
yet his Maker can approach him with his sword.
20 The hills bring him their produce,
and all the wild animals play nearby.
21 Under the lotus plants he lies,
hidden among the reeds in the marsh.
22 The lotuses conceal him in their shadow;
the poplars by the stream surround him.
23 When the river rages, he is not alarmed;
he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth.
24 Can anyone capture him by the eyes, [3]
or trap him and pierce his nose?
Job 41
1 "Can you pull in the leviathan [1] with a fishhook
or tie down his tongue with a rope?
2 Can you put a cord through his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he keep begging you for mercy?
Will he speak to you with gentle words?
4 Will he make an agreement with you
for you to take him as your slave for life?
5 Can you make a pet of him like a bird
or put him on a leash for your girls?
6 Will traders barter for him?
Will they divide him up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill his hide with harpoons
or his head with fishing spears?
8 If you lay a hand on him,
you will remember the struggle and never do it again!
9 Any hope of subduing him is false;
the mere sight of him is overpowering.
10 No one is fierce enough to rouse him.
Who then is able to stand against me?
11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me.
12 “I will not fail to speak of his limbs,
his strength and his graceful form.
13 Who can strip off his outer coat?
Who would approach him with a bridle?
14 Who dares open the doors of his mouth,
ringed about with his fearsome teeth?
15 His back has [2] rows of shields
tightly sealed together;
16 each is so close to the next
that no air can pass between.
17 They are joined fast to one another;
they cling together and cannot be parted.
18 His snorting throws out flashes of light;
his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
19 Firebrands stream from his mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke pours from his nostrils
as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
21 His breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from his mouth.
22 Strength resides in his neck;
dismay goes before him.
23 The folds of his flesh are tightly joined;
they are firm and immovable.
24 His chest is hard as rock,
hard as a lower millstone.
25 When he rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before his thrashing.
26 The sword that reaches him has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
27 Iron he treats like straw
and bronze like rotten wood.
28 Arrows do not make him flee;
slingstones are like chaff to him.
29 A club seems to him but a piece of straw;
he laughs at the rattling of the lance.
30 His undersides are jagged potsherds,
leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
31 He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 Behind him he leaves a glistening wake;
one would think the deep had white hair.
33 Nothing on earth is his equal-
a creature without fear.
34 He looks down on all that are haughty;
he is king over all that are proud.”
Paul speaks there of the resurrection of the dead. That is a dogmatic belief of all Christian denominatios, AFAIK, including the authoritative and historical positions of the Catholic and Orthodox Church.
That doesn’t mean that it supports the bifurcated, two-Second Comings, Rapture-Tribulation nonsense spread in fringe churches at the edge of the Protestant Fundamentalist Frontiers. Those kinds of beliefs are anathema to historical Christianity, and are rejected by well beyond the majority of the Christian churches of history.
If you had gone into a Christian church in the 300s and talked about the seven-year tribulation, the Rature, and all that Left Behind hoo hah, they would have run you out of town on a rail as a heretic. Such flights of fancy didn’t take hold until Darby’s inane theories were spread in the 1800s.
Such clearly figurative turns of phrase must be taken literally… why? We know that Heaven isn’t “up” nor is Hell “down,” so why must these verses, which base themselves on a cosmological worldview that no one take seriously anymore, be taken literally? If figuratively taken to mean the resurrection of the dead and gathering of all Christians at the very end of time, then there’s no problem making logical sense out of these verses. If you actually think people are going to soar into the air towards a Heaven in the clouds, then you’ve probably watched too many Superman movies.
Paul was a Catholic/Orthodox (there was only one church at the time, after all), so his teachings, by extension, are the teachings of the Catholic/Orthodox churches.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic *
**
I hate to be nitpicky, but “antichrist” actually refers to anything that takes the place of Christ. (I’d post a link to a Greek prefix page, but I can’t find it at the moment).
It’s not “anti-” against, it’s “anti-” in place of.
The Antichrist isn’t some satanic leader who corrupts the world, it’s anything that a person considers more important than God (so virtually anything can be antichrist).
If there was only one, why do you say “Catholic/Orthodox churches”? You can’t refer to one church as a multiple choice plural.
Besides, teachings of the church in Paul’s time is a far cry from the teachings of the Catholic church. Let’s not even go there. Paul was not a catholic - he was simply a member of the Body of Christ.
You can when you are speaking of a single organization or entity which later split into two parts, each of which has an equal claim to being the “valid” continuation of the previously existing unified organization.
Why not? Have you read “The Development of Christian Doctrine” by then-Anglican and vehemently anti-Catholic writer John Newman? It shows pretty clear continuity from the time of the apostles to the 19th Century Catholic Church, doctrinally.
If you want to “prove” that the early Church’s teachings were dissimlar to those of the modern Catholic Church, go ahead, give it a shot.
It’s not about pedantics, it’s about accuracy. By your logic, “mammal” could likewise include, well, anything I want it to include because “MammalIA” is the proper taxonomic name, not “mammal”. Which is, of course, nonsense.
Simply put: a dinosaur is a member of Dinosauria, a mammal is a member of Mammalia, a reptile is a member of Reptilia – I’m sure you see the pattern. And that pattern does not involve creatively defining “mammal”, “reptile”, “dinosaur”, etc., to include whatever you think they should include. Nor does it ultimately matter what layfolks think “dinosaur” means; the Teeming Millions are notorious for their ignorance (in GQ, you still see people asking if a duck’s quack echoes, for cryin’ out loud!). Dinosauria has an established taxanomic definition (the word was coined as such), and the number of taxonomists who do not accept Dinosauria as a valid taxon are very few indeed.
Obviously, the descriptions given within the Bible of these mythical beasts (e.g., Leviathan, Behemoth) do not match any known member of Dinosauria. While one might argue that they might represent undiscovered species, one would be foolish to do so: if we don’t know what these mystery species looks like, beyond that one might breathe fire, and another has bones of bronze, we certainly aren’t justified in grouping them with known dinosaurs. We aren’t even justified in calling them “extinct reptiles”, which rules out even your fast-and-loose definition.
In fact, these descriptions don’t mesh with the realities of any known organism. While you might be of the opinion that these beasts might possibly be dinosaurs (by whatever definition you choose to use), I could just as easily claim that they might represent extinct forms of mongeese. And I would have just as much evidence to support such a claim.
You’re right. Except that the apostles didn’t ascribe any special authority to the bishop of Rome, follow a pope, teach that said bishop was infallible, believe in transubstantiation, excommunicate and execute people for rejecting those doctrines, sell indulgences, discourage people from studying the scriptures - claiming for themselves the sole authority to give the word of God to the church, baptize infants, forbid clergy to marry, amass fortunes, bow to statues, pray to humans, cavort and plot with emperors, or bribe and murder to gain positions of power; the doctrinal continuity is there indeed.
Thank you, Joe, for revealing your true colors as an anti-Catholic bigot.
The writings we have of the Apostles are sparse, and do not paint a complete picture of th early Church. Luckily, they are not our only authoritative writings regarding the Church of that period, and the period between the death ofthe Apostles and the final end of Christian persecutition under Rome.
Read the writings of the Early Church, those who studied at the feet of the Apostles and the first leaders of the Church, and you will see deference to the Bishop of Rome, the Successor to Peter, you will find belief in the Real Presence, later defined with the term “transubstantiation,” you will find that those who had committed sins could end their period of penance by visiting and comforting those Christians being persecuted in jail, the root of the “indulgence” system (which, to erase a very old canard, has nothing to do with forgiveness of guilt for sins). The early Church most certainly did baptize infants. The earliest records we have regarding the question of infant baptism tend to argue over how soon after birth baptism should be performed. It was centuries before charges against infant baptism were heard in Christendom. There is no evidence the early Church subscribed to modern day fundamentalists’ nonsense notion of “believer’s baptism.”
Catholics do not “bow” to statutes in the idolatrous meaning you are implying here, nor do they “pray” to humans.
As for your other spurious charges, those are not even doctrinal, or can even be argued to be doctrinal.
And you will find the first few centuries of Christendom rife with excommunications. And don’t lay all the bodies of the religious conflicts of the Reformation at the pope’s door. Your Protestant pals shed a great deal of blood, too.
You claim the Catholic (or Orthodox) Church is not the continuation of the early Christian, then prove it. Show us when these doctrines entered the Church. Of course, you would have to first figure out which of the above in your list are issues that are actually doctrinal (here’s a hint, of all your charges, only four are actually anything approaching Church doctrine). You would do well to avoid the lie-filled and oft-repudiated Boettner List in this endeavor.
I’m not anti-catholic. There are a great many faithful Christians in the catholic church. But that does not mean that the teachings of the RCC are in line with scripture. But thanks for the name-calling. It’s really cool and certainly appropriate in GD. :rolleyes:
Odd, since among the actual apostles, as opposed to those who studied at their feet, there was no particular deference to Peter. He was publicly rebuked by Paul (Galatians 2), and at the meeting of elders in Acts 15, James was clearly the leader. Don’t think I’m disparaging Peter - he was a great man of God and very important among the early believers - but he was not the pope. Additionally, the Bishop of Rome did not claim any special authority until Constantine converted to Christianity in the fourth century and placed him in a palace. And Leo I, in the 6th century, finally claimed Peter’s “apostolic authority”. Until then, the Roman bishop was just a bishop - not a “pope”.
See, now this is interesting. Last time I brought up transubstantiation on this board, I was branded a catholic hater because [the catholic apologist] said that the RCC does not teach this - that Christ is present in the bread and wine only as a sign, not literally. Now you brand me a catholic hater because the early church supposedly believed in transubstantiation (though the actual term wasn’t used yet).
So before I can rebut your point, we have to establish whether the RCC really teaches that when you eat the bread and wine, you are eating Jesus’s actual body and blood:
So it appears that the church actually does teach that. Now, the basis for all this is Jesus saying “this is my body”, “this is my blood”, and “eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood”. Now, to get from this to transubstantiation, this is required to be taken absolutely literally. Why should it be treated differently, though, from the time when he said “I am the bread of life” (is he literally made from a lump of dough and baked in an oven?), “I am the door” (is he made of wood, blocking an entryway?), “I am the good shepherd” (did he actually raise sheep and lay down his life to protect them?), or “I am the light of the world” (is he a literal lamp? A flashlight?)? He spoke in metaphor often.
Whether the early church believed that or not, it is not a scriptural teaching, and Jesus and the apostles did not teach it. Many in the early church also believed that Jesus was never actually manifested physically, but only as a shade or an angel. This belief was so widespread that John wrote against it in his epistles. But the fact that the early church believed it doesn’t make it so.
I may have to accept this, but I’m not entirely convinced. But, regardless of whether it’s a legitimate church teaching, indulgences have in the past, at least, and rightly or wrongly, been offered as advance forgiveness of sin, in order to coerce or influence cooperation with the church’s desires.
This bit bothers me though, in that the church claims the authority to pay off God’s justice in someone’s name, in the form of an indulgence:
Except, of course, for the fact that there is no mention whatsoever of the practice in the bible (which is the earliest record I’m aware of). In fact, in every instance of baptism that I’ve ever seen in the bible (perhaps I missed a few…please do point them out to me if that’s the case), the person being baptized is both an adult and a believer - baptism being an outward sign of obedience rather than conferring remission of original sin or any other such thing.
Every few days I take a walk up my street and see shrines to statues of mary all over the place - in yards and on catholic church grounds. Catholics bow to the crucifix before sitting in their pews, and light candles at the feet of more statues. I’ll accept that the official teaching is that the statues are merely symbols and reminders, but in practice, people do, in fact, pray to and at least outwardly appear to worship the actual statuary, even to the degree that dropping a picture of Jesus will get a person yelled at for “dropping the Lord.”
…Or do you deny that Mary and the other saints were human?
Who are “my protestant pals”? Just because I’m not a catholic doesn’t mean that everything protestant or done in the name of God by a protestant is A-OK to me. Lots of crappy things have been done in God’s name by lots of crappy people, both Catholic and Protestant. But, most of the things I’m talking about are official catholic teachings. That makes it an institutional sin, not that of some random jerk doing what he wants and blaming it on the church.
No, I don’t have to show when these doctrines entered the church to disprove continuity. All I have to do is show that, if you look at an early enough time in the church, those doctrines were not present. I have done so - using the documentation of the earliest possible period of the church - The Acts of the Apostles in the Bible.
Ok, I suppose that I am guilty of using my terminology improperly. The RCC as we know it now may have continued and evolved from the “early church”, but its teachings are not consistent with the teachings of the apostles (including the one they claim as pope), or of Jesus.
What I think you don’t get, DDG, is that just because something is happening, which may be a significant sign leading to the end times, doesn’t mean that the rapture or the end of the world is going to happen tomorrow. Only a fool would go out and sell their possessions because someone told them the world was going to end tomorrow. I said that I think the Euro is an important step towards the end.
Don’t worry, though, I don’t think you will need a memo.
Yes, you can explain away the friend in the OP if she didn’t get her facts from ** The Bible**…That is exactly the problem! people get their so called biblical facts from others people instead of reading it for themselves. They google themselves to death searching for cites, instead of reading it in the Bible.
And yes, anyone who says anything that contradicts the bible are “clueless idjits”, and anyone says “blah blah blah, so the world will end January 1, 2002” is also an “idjit”.
I do know what people were saying about Y2K, and you know what, I thought they were a bunch of fools. But thanks for the tip on google, but I’d rather not. I have my trusty Bible.
That is the problem. Every group believes " their reasons".
Why not forget about your reasons and just follow the Bible.
And to be quite honest with you, I would much rather be next to God and all His glory, than want to see more sunrises, but what’s important to me is different than what’s important to you.
From reading what you have posted, I don’t think you understand what is in store for you in heaven. You will have far more to look foward to. All that makes you unhappy will be gone. You will see things far beyond the prettiest sunset.
I try live each day to the fullest, but I would not turn away an opportunity to be next to God.
We are given some idea of what the times will be like and what must take place before the end. The Bible tell us that no one knows when, so for some moron to say this is the day of the end, and for others to believe it, is just ridiculous.
Diogenes, is there a cite for that? From what I could tell, it isn’t walled cities, it’s actual giants; the very tall, human (or semi-human?) kind.
*Deut. 3:11 For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man. * (a cubit was about 18")
or
*Deu 2:20 ( That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims;
Deu 2:21 A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead *
Anyway,
On Biblical dino-type creatures:
This topic has always been an interesting one for me. I find it most amusing that dinosaurs aren’t mentioned (even historically) in enough distinctive detail, except for the allusions to what some consider the “Leviathan” and “Behemoth”; which, I might add, some of our astute posters have adequately flogged here. I am of the mind that those passages reference a particular animal(s) which were not necessarily dinos, but some form of obviously now extinct critter.
Anecdote of some other mysterious Biblical creatures:
Even more interesting is the explicit references to an even more elusive individual; the **Satyr **.
*Isa 34:14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. *
The word Satyr comes from two derivations:
saw-eer’ and saw-ar
saw-eer’ = shaggy; as noun, a he goat; by analogy a faun: - devil, goat, hairy, kid, rough, satyr.
saw-ar = to storm; by implication to shiver, that is, fear: - be (horribly) afraid, fear, hurl as a storm, be tempestuous, come like (take away as with) a whirlwind.
To paraphrase…a horribly terrifying demon goat. Hmmmm…
Or how about Unicorns? Although not as convincing…referred to in other versions as a wild ox;
Psa 92:10 But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil. (one passage of several) Me thinks if it is really a wild ox, why the demarcation between the two as in the following passage:
*Psa 29:6 He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. *
Isn’t a young ‘wild ox’ a calf too? Why not just refer to them both as a calf, such as to say, “He makes them to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion also.”
There are no doctrines of the Catholic Church that disagree with Scripture, when Scripture is read with Catholic eyes. They may disagree with your reading ofscripture, but that is not the same thing. So the question becomes, whose interpretation of Scripture is more valid, yours, or the Catholic Church’s? Why should people listen to you, and not the historical positions of the oldest Christian organization in the world?
Not true. Peter is the first to speak at Pentecost, he is always listed first in the listings of the disciples. Peter alone is given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, Peter alone is given the role of sheperd of Jesus’ flock (“tend my sheep, etc”). Paul goes to Peter upon his conversion. Yes, Paul corrects Peter for being two-faced in his application of his OWN teaching regarding Gentiles and Jews in the Church, but the question there is not whether Peter is teaching improperly, but whether his actions match his words. Such charges have rightfully be levelled by faithful bishops against various popes throughout history.
James was the bishop of Jerusalem, so such was his role. When an Ecumenical Council is held, like that of Acts 15, the bishop of the city the Council is hosted in presides over the council. Only twice has the Pope presided over an Ecumenical Council, and there have been more than a dozen of them. Just because the Pope didn’t preside at Trent, for instance, doesn’t mean that Trent is a mark against Papal authority.
Not so. Clement of Rome was very proactive in intervening in events throughout the Church, and appealed to the authority of Peter when doing so. This was in the 90s, centuries before Constantine. Clement was the second successor to Peter as Bishop of Rome, following Linus.
This page lists some of the references to Petrine authority and the primacy of Rome in the texts of the Early Church Fathers.
No one is claiming that the office of Pope hasn’t developed over time – all Christian practices, traditions, theologies and understandings have. However, your attribution of this claim of authority being rooted only in Leo I is absolutely wrong.
Whoever you were speaking with was ignorant of Catholic teaching on communion.
It does. It always has. Though it wasn’t until the Fourth Lateran Council, responding to the first anti-real presence movements in the Churhc, that the process and term Transubstantiation was settled upon.
Yes. There is no reason not to take Jesus at his word. He promised to give us his body and blood to eat and drink, and in the Eucharist, he does.
This was a reference to the Eucharist, which he was to offer up almost exactly one year later for the first time, at the next Passover, the Last Supper.
Jesus never matched those statements by showing a door and saying “this door is me,” or “this light is me.” He showed us what he meant, when he said he was the Bread and Wine. And the Church took him at his literal word. You have to move forward centuries into Church history, to the cusp of the second Millenium, before finding anyone who disagrees with the teaching of the Real Presence.
Prove it’s not Scriptural. The early church thought Jesus taught it, they were taught by the Apostles, and thought the Apostles taught it. Were Jesus and the Apostles such poor teachers that none of their students understood their lessons?
Surely, if the Scriptures – which are simply written recountings of the lessons the Early Church leaders and members heard orally many, many times in their lives – do not teach the real presence, the Early Church would not have so unanimously believed it. Surely there would have been arguments over this. We see records of all sorts of arguments in the Early Church, and between the Early Church and the heretical sects that sprung up alongside it. But nothing regarding this. Why?
Gnostics and heretics did. Not the Church Fathers. And as you indicated, John, a Bishop of the Catholic Church, corrected their misbelief, as the Catholic Church (and later the Catholic and Orthodox Churches) would do throughout time, until the Reformation, when abunch of people decided they were smarter and more holy than all the previous Christians of history, and decided to ignore the authority that had always guided the Christian religion.
When you have a passage of Scripture, like the Eucharist, that can be taken two ways, and it is historically taken one way throughout all Christendom, and is central to the Christian religion, and isn’t argued against for almost 1000 years, that makes a massive case in favor of that interpretation. All you have on your side is the late-arrivals of Protestants – and then, only some Protestants. Anglicans and Lutherans also believe in the Real Presence, and see it suppoted Scripturally, though they disagree with the means and terminology of the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation.
Generally, only Calvinists and their descendents, like Baptists and Presbyterians, disagree with the concept of the Real Presence. Hardly strong evidence for your side.
If the Real Presence is so obviously not there, where were the Christians of the first 1600 years of Church history that realized this fact?
That was a gross violation of official Church teaching, and was a practice condemned repeatedly at the Council of Trent.
The Bible mentions the baptism of “entire households,” a term which in that day included a man, his wife, their children and their servants, their servants’ spouses, and all their servants’ children. Unless you can show somewhere that states that only the adults in these households were baptized, you have to turn to other sources to find if the Early Church baptized infants… and the earliest discussions on baptism, when infants are mentioned, do not contest the issue of whether infants should be baptized. That they should is merely accepted as fact.
And in the Bible, Paul compares Baptism to circumcision. When adult males convert to Judaism, they are circumcized (or pricked, if they’re already circumcized). However, children born to already-Jewish parents were circumcized only ays after birth. At no point in his comparison of Baptism and circumcision does Paul say “oh, yeah, by the way, I mean this only in regards to adult baptism… don’t baptize kids.”
For adults the circumcision, or baptism, is a sign of conversion to the faith in Yahweh, or Christ. For children born into families of the faith of Judaism, circumcision is not conversion, but the beginning steps into a life within the faith. So too has baptism always been for the children of those born into Christianity.
So?
Outward appearances are meaningless, and Catholics DO NOT PRAY TO STATUES.
That’s called respect. If I drop a picture of my family, I would react somewhat the same way.
No, I deny that those quotes indicate the current meaning of the word “prayer.” Prayer in modern American speech connotes worship. Catholics do not worship (as in give praise and devotion due only to God) Mary or the saints.
There are only three real sides in Christendom: The Catholics, the Orthodox (and related churches) and the Protestants. You’re clearly neither Catholic, nor Orthodox. Ergo, you are Protestant.
Of course not. Yet people like you seem to enjoy holding individual Catholics responsible for every bad thing any person has ever done in the name of Catholicism, licit or not. Turnabout is fair play.
Not really. You mentioned the pope three times, transubstantiation, and infant baptism, all of which are Catholic teachings.
You also try to beat up Catholics by bringing up the execution of people for heresy, selling of indulgences, clerical celibacy, the “amassing of fortunes” (funny, I know no rich priests or bishops), worshipping statues and humans and “plotting with emerors, or bribe and murder,” none of which are Catholic “teachings.”
And as for when the Church discouraged people from studying the Bible, they never hid the text from people, the Church simply held the position, proven by Protestantism, that when you have a million people reading the Bible from their own perspective, without guidance and instruction, you’ll end up with a million different understandings, most of them nonsense.
Which is another way of doing the same thing, actually, just negatively.
No, you have not. You mentioned Acts a total of once in your post. Twice counting this mention.
You have yet to show this in any way, shape, or form, even regarding the three simple issues you actually raised regarding Church teachings. All you’ve shown is that the church’s teachings on the pope, Communion and baptism do not match your Protestant fundamentalist reading of the Bible.
So on one side, there’s all the great minds, saints and Chrsitians of the Church throughout history. And on the other side, is you. Why should anyone consider your opinion more holy, inspired or valuable than all those of all the Church Fathers throughout all time?
J_D: *Every group believes " their reasons". Why not forget about your reasons and just follow the Bible. *
Well, since the Bible doesn’t say anything about the Euro, it looks as though your reason for thinking that “the Euro is an important step towards the end” has no Biblical justification. So why do you still think the Euro is somehow important?
I am of the mind that those passages reference a particular animal(s) which were not necessarily dinos, but some form of obviously now extinct critter.