OK, I will check in later if you decide you are done pretending to be perfect.

Disagree, but thanks.

Oldbear83 said:

---

OK, I will check in later if you decide you are done pretending to be perfect.

---

Ive posted countless times on this board of my lack of perfection. Why are you judging me to be perfect?

Anyway, not seeing the point of this discourse as its not about me. It's about the word of God and how we get as many people with us to Heaven.

Id recommend focus as little time effort and emotion on your neighbor saying a hail mary and venerating the Mother of God. Youll never convince them to stop. Them doing so harms you not. If you choose not to partake the opportunity, you have free will.

Nowhere is a Catholic required to say the Hail
mary to get to Heaven. I choose to do so as she birthed Christianity and as mother of the King we were taught in the Old Testament the respect we are to have for the very special office of the Mother of the King

And is also Referenced quite clearly in Revelation. She also prays for us.

Fre3dombear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

---

Someone is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay paranoid about their fellow Christians, yet imagines it's the people he, well, "screeches" about.

---

One your buddies in a quote said "catholic just means universal" lmao. This the team youre on

---

This comment is the perfect example of ignorance solidified by arrogance, two elements that when mixed together form a permanent bond like an epoxy resin.

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

LIB,MR BEARS said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

OsoCoreyell said:

---

I want to know by what authority Catholics think it is sound theology to pray to Mary.

---

I'm not Roman Catholic but this explanation may help.

Intercessory prayer isn't praying to a person. It is a prayer request that others pray to God for us.

The Biblical support for it is found in these verse:

James 5:16 - Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."

John 11:26 - "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (It's a modern heresy that Christians die. Historically, the passing of the Christian has been thought of as the falling asleep of their body in the Lord to await a bodily resurrection. This is why Christians bury their dead, and don't cremate them.)

Hebrews 12:1 - "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." (We are surrounded by this great cloud today, not at some point when we get to heaven).

Revelation 8:3-4 "Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand."

The bolded portion of the text is the actual technical mechanism by which God hears your prayer, by the way.

But who gave this angel with the golden censer your prayer to offer to God? Revelation answers that too.

Revelation 5:8 "Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

As you can see, making prayer requests of other Christians is not limited to those in your Sunday School Class, Church, City, State, Country, or Generation.

---

There is NOTHING in Scripture that clearly and explicitly instructs us to pray to departed saints or Mary, or tells us that they even have the ability to receive prayers to begin with. There is no instance whatsoever anywhere in the Old or New Testament of anyone praying to a departed believer for any kind of intercession. None. There exists NO teaching from Jesus or his apostles that we can and should pray to Mary and the saints.

I just don't understand how a church can build a system of faith, worship, and practice on something like praying to Mary or the saints, when the basis of such a practice can only be derived by reading your assumptions into Scripture and drawing non sequitur inferences like you did in order to justify something that really isn't there. Especially since there is no real reason to do it. We have direct access to God and Jesus, and we are explicitly instructed by Jesus himself to go directly to them. This is the clear, unambiguous teaching of Scripture.

The prayers being in "bowls of incense" does not necessarily indicate that those prayers were directed to the saints or Mary. And there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this is the "actual mechanism" by which prayers go up to God. All this is pure eisegesis. And after all, the practice has no real benefit - what does a believer lose if they don't pray to Mary of the saints? On the other hand, if you DO pray to them, you risk committing idolatry and angering God. The risk/reward is way too high for something finding its basis only in haphazard eisegesis. Praying to Mary and the saints had its origins in pagan Rome. In order to make the pagans convert to Christianity, they were allowed to continue praying to their multiple gods, but they just renamed those gods after Christian figures, like Mary and the saints. Those of you who engage in this practice REALLY need to understand this history.

---

There is reason the curtain that partitioned the Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom.

---

Tradition is Mary sewed that curtain. Now Ps will say they dont do tradition because they sola scriptura yet the scriptura tells them that tradition is part of it.

Ps even invented a completely separate Bible that didnt exist prior to Martin Luther and somehow explain it away as its the scriptura they want to believe just like they completely ignore verses that nuke their beliefs

Even with all that Ps and Catholics believe statistically most of the same things. Its just the Ps toss aside some of the most critical ones

And of course Ps wouldnt even have a Bible to sola had the Catholics not created it. Bizarre place to find ones self.

---

Created it. That's rich.
The Catholics didn't make the books of the Bible authoritative. The books were already seen as authoritative by the early church. The premise that the catholic church created the Bible and made them authoritative is a bad or circular logic.
The truth is that God had already inspired the letters and they were already recognized as being inspired and authoritative by the early church.

---

Huh? Do you know what the word Catholic means? What a total word salad of nonsense simply denying fact and history. If that makes you feel better or helps you reconcile willfully schisming from the church Jesus founded on Peter the Rock.

One can inly be shown. What you choose to domwith it is free will.

---

The letters had already been created and already had authority and were recognized as such. The RC's didn't create the Bible and make it authoritative.

"Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."
(that's pretty much straight out of the Bible)

Holy (Revelation 21:27 and 1st Peter 1:16: "Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.") Mary, Mother of God [the Son]
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen."

Not Roman Catholic, but honestly the Hail Mary prayer is hardly an objectionable part of Catholicism regardless of where you fall in Christianity.

Realitybites said:

---

"Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."
(that's pretty much straight out of the Bible)

Holy (Revelation 21:27 and 1st Peter 1:16: "Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.") Mary, Mother of God [the Son]
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen."

Not Roman Catholic, but honestly the Hail Mary prayer is hardly an objectionable part of Catholicism regardless of where you fall in Christianity.

---

Sure, if it were just this prayer, you might have people who'd agree a little bit more easily with you. But unfortunately, this prayer is just a small part of the RC's Mary idolatry problem.

- uncle fred

D!

{ sipping coffee }

Go Bears!!

Realitybites said:

---

"Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."
(that's pretty much straight out of the Bible)

Holy (Revelation 21:27 and 1st Peter 1:16: "Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.") Mary, Mother of God [the Son]
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen."

Not Roman Catholic, but honestly the Hail Mary prayer is hardly an objectionable part of Catholicism regardless of where you fall in Christianity.

---

- Praying to Mary is not biblical. There's no evidence of praying to Mary in the early church until about the 3rd century, around the time when Christianity was compromised by pagan Rome.

- Mary is not the "Mother of God", also completely unbiblical. It is a man-made title given to Mary FOUR centuries after Jesus (I thought you Orthodox guys cared about not departing from the original faith?)

- Then there's this: "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words." - Jesus Christ

- Roman Catholics call Mary not "holy", but "THE ALL HOLY ONE". If one can't see the issue there, then the level of deception may be too deep for one to be helped.


Folks, for goodness sake, WAKE UP.

Realitybites said:

---

"Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."
(that's pretty much straight out of the Bible)

Holy (Revelation 21:27 and 1st Peter 1:16: "Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.") Mary, Mother of God [the Son]
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen."

Not Roman Catholic, but honestly the Hail Mary prayer is hardly an objectionable part of Catholicism regardless of where you fall in Christianity.

---

Finger pointing up at this ^^^^^

Bless you Mary mother of God. Thank you for bringing my Lord and Saviour into this incarnate world

The new Ark.

mother Mary

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Sure, if it were just this prayer, you might have people who'd agree a little bit more easily with you. But unfortunately, this prayer is just a small part of the RC's Mary idolatry problem.

---

Roman Catholicism absolutely has a massive problem with its Marian theology.

It's just that the Hail Mary isn't one of them.

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

LIB,MR BEARS said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

OsoCoreyell said:

---

I want to know by what authority Catholics think it is sound theology to pray to Mary.

---

I'm not Roman Catholic but this explanation may help.

Intercessory prayer isn't praying to a person. It is a prayer request that others pray to God for us.

The Biblical support for it is found in these verse:

James 5:16 - Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."

John 11:26 - "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (It's a modern heresy that Christians die. Historically, the passing of the Christian has been thought of as the falling asleep of their body in the Lord to await a bodily resurrection. This is why Christians bury their dead, and don't cremate them.)

Hebrews 12:1 - "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." (We are surrounded by this great cloud today, not at some point when we get to heaven).

Revelation 8:3-4 "Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand."

The bolded portion of the text is the actual technical mechanism by which God hears your prayer, by the way.

But who gave this angel with the golden censer your prayer to offer to God? Revelation answers that too.

Revelation 5:8 "Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

As you can see, making prayer requests of other Christians is not limited to those in your Sunday School Class, Church, City, State, Country, or Generation.

---

There is NOTHING in Scripture that clearly and explicitly instructs us to pray to departed saints or Mary, or tells us that they even have the ability to receive prayers to begin with. There is no instance whatsoever anywhere in the Old or New Testament of anyone praying to a departed believer for any kind of intercession. None. There exists NO teaching from Jesus or his apostles that we can and should pray to Mary and the saints.

I just don't understand how a church can build a system of faith, worship, and practice on something like praying to Mary or the saints, when the basis of such a practice can only be derived by reading your assumptions into Scripture and drawing non sequitur inferences like you did in order to justify something that really isn't there. Especially since there is no real reason to do it. We have direct access to God and Jesus, and we are explicitly instructed by Jesus himself to go directly to them. This is the clear, unambiguous teaching of Scripture.

The prayers being in "bowls of incense" does not necessarily indicate that those prayers were directed to the saints or Mary. And there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this is the "actual mechanism" by which prayers go up to God. All this is pure eisegesis. And after all, the practice has no real benefit - what does a believer lose if they don't pray to Mary of the saints? On the other hand, if you DO pray to them, you risk committing idolatry and angering God. The risk/reward is way too high for something finding its basis only in haphazard eisegesis. Praying to Mary and the saints had its origins in pagan Rome. In order to make the pagans convert to Christianity, they were allowed to continue praying to their multiple gods, but they just renamed those gods after Christian figures, like Mary and the saints. Those of you who engage in this practice REALLY need to understand this history.

---

There is reason the curtain that partitioned the Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom.

---

Tradition is Mary sewed that curtain. Now Ps will say they dont do tradition because they sola scriptura yet the scriptura tells them that tradition is part of it.

Ps even invented a completely separate Bible that didnt exist prior to Martin Luther and somehow explain it away as its the scriptura they want to believe just like they completely ignore verses that nuke their beliefs

Even with all that Ps and Catholics believe statistically most of the same things. Its just the Ps toss aside some of the most critical ones

And of course Ps wouldnt even have a Bible to sola had the Catholics not created it. Bizarre place to find ones self.

---

Created it. That's rich.
The Catholics didn't make the books of the Bible authoritative. The books were already seen as authoritative by the early church. The premise that the catholic church created the Bible and made them authoritative is a bad or circular logic.
The truth is that God had already inspired the letters and they were already recognized as being inspired and authoritative by the early church.

---

Huh? Do you know what the word Catholic means? What a total word salad of nonsense simply denying fact and history. If that makes you feel better or helps you reconcile willfully schisming from the church Jesus founded on Peter the Rock.

One can inly be shown. What you choose to domwith it is free will.

---

The letters had already been created and already had authority and were recognized as such. The RC's didn't create the Bible and make it authoritative.

---

You really should educate yourself on the councils.

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

LIB,MR BEARS said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

OsoCoreyell said:

---

I want to know by what authority Catholics think it is sound theology to pray to Mary.

---

I'm not Roman Catholic but this explanation may help.

Intercessory prayer isn't praying to a person. It is a prayer request that others pray to God for us.

The Biblical support for it is found in these verse:

James 5:16 - Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."

John 11:26 - "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (It's a modern heresy that Christians die. Historically, the passing of the Christian has been thought of as the falling asleep of their body in the Lord to await a bodily resurrection. This is why Christians bury their dead, and don't cremate them.)

Hebrews 12:1 - "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." (We are surrounded by this great cloud today, not at some point when we get to heaven).

Revelation 8:3-4 "Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand."

The bolded portion of the text is the actual technical mechanism by which God hears your prayer, by the way.

But who gave this angel with the golden censer your prayer to offer to God? Revelation answers that too.

Revelation 5:8 "Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

As you can see, making prayer requests of other Christians is not limited to those in your Sunday School Class, Church, City, State, Country, or Generation.

---

There is NOTHING in Scripture that clearly and explicitly instructs us to pray to departed saints or Mary, or tells us that they even have the ability to receive prayers to begin with. There is no instance whatsoever anywhere in the Old or New Testament of anyone praying to a departed believer for any kind of intercession. None. There exists NO teaching from Jesus or his apostles that we can and should pray to Mary and the saints.

I just don't understand how a church can build a system of faith, worship, and practice on something like praying to Mary or the saints, when the basis of such a practice can only be derived by reading your assumptions into Scripture and drawing non sequitur inferences like you did in order to justify something that really isn't there. Especially since there is no real reason to do it. We have direct access to God and Jesus, and we are explicitly instructed by Jesus himself to go directly to them. This is the clear, unambiguous teaching of Scripture.

The prayers being in "bowls of incense" does not necessarily indicate that those prayers were directed to the saints or Mary. And there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this is the "actual mechanism" by which prayers go up to God. All this is pure eisegesis. And after all, the practice has no real benefit - what does a believer lose if they don't pray to Mary of the saints? On the other hand, if you DO pray to them, you risk committing idolatry and angering God. The risk/reward is way too high for something finding its basis only in haphazard eisegesis. Praying to Mary and the saints had its origins in pagan Rome. In order to make the pagans convert to Christianity, they were allowed to continue praying to their multiple gods, but they just renamed those gods after Christian figures, like Mary and the saints. Those of you who engage in this practice REALLY need to understand this history.

---

There is reason the curtain that partitioned the Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom.

---

Tradition is Mary sewed that curtain. Now Ps will say they dont do tradition because they sola scriptura yet the scriptura tells them that tradition is part of it.

Ps even invented a completely separate Bible that didnt exist prior to Martin Luther and somehow explain it away as its the scriptura they want to believe just like they completely ignore verses that nuke their beliefs

Even with all that Ps and Catholics believe statistically most of the same things. Its just the Ps toss aside some of the most critical ones

And of course Ps wouldnt even have a Bible to sola had the Catholics not created it. Bizarre place to find ones self.

---

Created it. That's rich.
The Catholics didn't make the books of the Bible authoritative. The books were already seen as authoritative by the early church. The premise that the catholic church created the Bible and made them authoritative is a bad or circular logic.
The truth is that God had already inspired the letters and they were already recognized as being inspired and authoritative by the early church.

---

Huh? Do you know what the word Catholic means? What a total word salad of nonsense simply denying fact and history. If that makes you feel better or helps you reconcile willfully schisming from the church Jesus founded on Peter the Rock.

One can inly be shown. What you choose to domwith it is free will.

---

The letters had already been created and already had authority and were recognized as such. The RC's didn't create the Bible and make it authoritative.

---

You really should educate yourself on the councils.

---

OK, I get it now. You're talking about the catholic church, lower case "c". Glad you're recognizing that the RC church isn't the same as the early church. It's veered far away from the early church and its practices, adopted thousands of non-scriptural and superfluous "traditional" beliefs since then.
Just glad you recognize that the books had authority by the church long before anything resembling the RC church got a hold of them.

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

LIB,MR BEARS said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Realitybites said:

---

OsoCoreyell said:

---

I want to know by what authority Catholics think it is sound theology to pray to Mary.

---

I'm not Roman Catholic but this explanation may help.

Intercessory prayer isn't praying to a person. It is a prayer request that others pray to God for us.

The Biblical support for it is found in these verse:

James 5:16 - Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."

John 11:26 - "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (It's a modern heresy that Christians die. Historically, the passing of the Christian has been thought of as the falling asleep of their body in the Lord to await a bodily resurrection. This is why Christians bury their dead, and don't cremate them.)

Hebrews 12:1 - "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." (We are surrounded by this great cloud today, not at some point when we get to heaven).

Revelation 8:3-4 "Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand."

The bolded portion of the text is the actual technical mechanism by which God hears your prayer, by the way.

But who gave this angel with the golden censer your prayer to offer to God? Revelation answers that too.

Revelation 5:8 "Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

As you can see, making prayer requests of other Christians is not limited to those in your Sunday School Class, Church, City, State, Country, or Generation.

---

There is NOTHING in Scripture that clearly and explicitly instructs us to pray to departed saints or Mary, or tells us that they even have the ability to receive prayers to begin with. There is no instance whatsoever anywhere in the Old or New Testament of anyone praying to a departed believer for any kind of intercession. None. There exists NO teaching from Jesus or his apostles that we can and should pray to Mary and the saints.

I just don't understand how a church can build a system of faith, worship, and practice on something like praying to Mary or the saints, when the basis of such a practice can only be derived by reading your assumptions into Scripture and drawing non sequitur inferences like you did in order to justify something that really isn't there. Especially since there is no real reason to do it. We have direct access to God and Jesus, and we are explicitly instructed by Jesus himself to go directly to them. This is the clear, unambiguous teaching of Scripture.

The prayers being in "bowls of incense" does not necessarily indicate that those prayers were directed to the saints or Mary. And there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this is the "actual mechanism" by which prayers go up to God. All this is pure eisegesis. And after all, the practice has no real benefit - what does a believer lose if they don't pray to Mary of the saints? On the other hand, if you DO pray to them, you risk committing idolatry and angering God. The risk/reward is way too high for something finding its basis only in haphazard eisegesis. Praying to Mary and the saints had its origins in pagan Rome. In order to make the pagans convert to Christianity, they were allowed to continue praying to their multiple gods, but they just renamed those gods after Christian figures, like Mary and the saints. Those of you who engage in this practice REALLY need to understand this history.

---

There is reason the curtain that partitioned the Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom.

---

Tradition is Mary sewed that curtain. Now Ps will say they dont do tradition because they sola scriptura yet the scriptura tells them that tradition is part of it.

Ps even invented a completely separate Bible that didnt exist prior to Martin Luther and somehow explain it away as its the scriptura they want to believe just like they completely ignore verses that nuke their beliefs

Even with all that Ps and Catholics believe statistically most of the same things. Its just the Ps toss aside some of the most critical ones

And of course Ps wouldnt even have a Bible to sola had the Catholics not created it. Bizarre place to find ones self.

---

Created it. That's rich.
The Catholics didn't make the books of the Bible authoritative. The books were already seen as authoritative by the early church. The premise that the catholic church created the Bible and made them authoritative is a bad or circular logic.
The truth is that God had already inspired the letters and they were already recognized as being inspired and authoritative by the early church.

---

Huh? Do you know what the word Catholic means? What a total word salad of nonsense simply denying fact and history. If that makes you feel better or helps you reconcile willfully schisming from the church Jesus founded on Peter the Rock.

One can inly be shown. What you choose to domwith it is free will.

---

The letters had already been created and already had authority and were recognized as such. The RC's didn't create the Bible and make it authoritative.

---

You really should educate yourself on the councils.

---

OK, I get it now. You're talking about the catholic church, lower case "c". Glad you're recognizing that the RC church isn't the same as the early church. It's veered far away from the early church and its practices, adopted thousands of non-scriptural and superfluous "traditional" beliefs since then.
Just glad you recognize that the books had authority by the church long before anything resembling the RC church got a hold of them.

---

There is only one Catholic church. Others schismed starting in 1054.

One thing we know for sure, whatever P church you attend if you do is absolutely nothing like the early church.

The Catholic church of course if you go to the TLM is basically the mass of the last couple thousand years. Novus Ordo of course was part of ecumenism attempting to weaken the Catholic church from within starting in the late 1960s/1970s.

Im sure you know all this as your posts reveal your extensive knowledge of the history of the Catholic church and Christianity writ large

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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ARbear13 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

I think we've all heard people wrongly use " judge not lest ye be judged." Read by itself, it sounds like a clear cut statement. When I hear people misuse the verse, I try to provide them context rather than let them continue down the wrong thought path.

Can you provide context to any of the statements in question so that I and others aren't misinterpreting the statement the same way the "judge not" statement gets misinterpreted.

---

All of these quotes are from treatises penned by famous Catholic theologians who are widely regarded in the Church as exceptionally advanced. They build their arguments and statements upon Catholic first principles (such as the absolute sovereignty of God and sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice at Calvary) that were already fully understood and accepted by the intended audience. Most of those papal quotes were from missives that were directly specifically to other Catholic bishops, so pontiffs such as Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius IX could be certain that their audience had the theological background necessary to understand them in their proper context. The other quotes are from professional theologians, such as St. Alphonsus Liguori, who wrote them for highly educated clergy or lay audiences who wanted to understand Marian devotion at a deeper theological level. They definitely were not intended for a Protestant or lay Catholic audience that isn't well-versed in Catholic theology. Let's just say that one is passing out Liguori's four volume Moral Theology to random visitors at Sunday Mass.

It's helpful to think of these theological treatises like math textbooks. A textbook focused on multivariable calculus is not going to begin with basic addition and subtraction; it's going to assume that you already know a great deal about mathematics before you begin reading. The Catholic Church has spilled so much ink about theology over the past few thousand years that trying to rehash these arguments on a message board is an exercise in futility. If you are actually interested in learning more about Catholic Mariology and aren't just using this as a line of attack, I would suggest starting with the Catechism or Scott Hahn's book Hail, Holy Queen. Hahn is a former Presbyterian minster turned Catholic theologian who writes about Catholic doctrine specifically for a Protestant or formerly Protestant audience.

The extent of the average parishioner's Marian devotion consists of an occasional Rosary, which is a meditation on the life of Christ from Mary's perspective, and attendance at the Masses commemorating the Marian dogmas. All four Marian dogmas are actually meant to establish a truth about Christ Himself, a point that has been emphasized and expounded upon by the priest at every one I've ever attended.

Mary is rarely mentioned at Mass outside the aforementioned feast day Masses, Christmas, and Easter. Mass is the one weekly event that Catholics are required to attend, and it is all about God and is directed to God. In fact, a normal Sunday Mass is only going to mention the Virgin Mary once, in the recitation of the Nicene or Apostles' Creed. Contrast that with the dozens of times the various Persons of the Trinity will be specifically mentioned at every Mass.

---

I like the last paragraph as it matches what I have seen at masses I've attended.

Regarding the previous paragraphs, I'll see if I can find the crib notes.

---

So... do you think he provided adequate "context" for those statements that successfully show that they aren't saying what they are saying?

I think he fell way short. There wasn't any "context" provided at all that rendered those statements harmless. Just the excuse that "these guys are too smart for us to understand what they meant, and it'd be too hard to explain".

I really hope these Roman Catholics will come to the realization that if you find yourself having a difficult time constantly having to offer excuses and complicated, circuitous explanations and obfuscation for language that suggest you worship Mary and credit her for salvation........ that maybe, just MAYBE, it's because you actually ARE worshiping Mary and crediting her for salvation.

Canoso said it best - God simplifies, the Devil confuses.

Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

Oldbear83 said:

---

Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

---

Yes. Reading in english something written in greek 2000 years ago and being your own pope completely ignoring thousands of years of knowledge in the topic makes you right

Theres some good logic for ya.

Hey guys! I was reading. Heres what i think they meant. I was born in 1996. And go to bible study on occasion. Trust me.

Fre3dombear said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

---

Yes. Reading in english something written in greek 2000 years ago and being your own pope completely ignoring thousands of years of knowledge in the topic makes you right

Theres some good logic for ya.

Hey guys! I was reading. Heres what i think they meant. I was born in 1996. And go to bible study on occasion. Trust me.

---

As you know, most of your traditions, transubstantiation, and other non scriptural beliefs came 1000 years after the early church. Your religion is completely different than the early church. So much "religion" completely made up by men and not practiced at all by the apostles. I'm not talking structure. Sola Scripture is certainly more like the early church than not. It is based on the word and taken in context with the people and time it was written. RC's have to create some spaghetti mythos to justify so many of their extraneous beliefs.

The Mary idolatry is just one of those. It's not enough to venerate her, you must create a mythos about her, she must then be a perpetual virgin, she must have never sinned, she must be the queen, etc. You need a purgatory because Jesus dying wasn't enough, you must be punished. All made up WELL after the early church, yet they are cornerstones of your church ... why ... to support the extrabiblical beliefs that have deviated from scripture, and they can't be undone by the church now because it's too engrained, and perhaps to profitable.

Bragging about Greek and Latin when the Scriptures Jesus Himself referred to were in Hebrew is a bit silly.

And if all that tradition and history mattered more than the plain words in Scripture, we should have all been Jews, hmmmm?

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

---

Yes. Reading in english something written in greek 2000 years ago and being your own pope completely ignoring thousands of years of knowledge in the topic makes you right

Theres some good logic for ya.

Hey guys! I was reading. Heres what i think they meant. I was born in 1996. And go to bible study on occasion. Trust me.

---

As you know, most of your traditions, transubstantiation, and other non scriptural beliefs came 1000 years after the early church. Your religion is completely different than the early church. So much "religion" completely made up by men and not practiced at all by the apostles. I'm not talking structure. Sola Scripture is certainly more like the early church than not. It is based on the word and taken in context with the people and time it was written. RC's have to create some spaghetti mythos to justify so many of their extraneous beliefs.

The Mary idolatry is just one of those. It's not enough to venerate her, you must create a mythos about her, she must then be a perpetual virgin, she must have never sinned, she must be the queen, etc. You need a purgatory because Jesus dying wasn't enough, you must be punished. All made up WELL after the early church, yet they are cornerstones of your church ... why ... to support the extrabiblical beliefs that have deviated from scripture, and they can't be undone by the church now because it's too engrained, and perhaps to profitable.

---

The sacrifice of the mass as is has been going in for near 2000 years. This is well documented. The other prayers said in the mass have existed for ummmmm 1700+ years. Basically since the time of the creation of the Bible by the Catholic church.

Have you been to a Catholic mass?

Youre losing this argument.

Sola scriptura and osas and the eucharist is "just a symbol!!!!!", the basic tenants of a faith invented by a guy that wanted to bed a nun a few hundred years ago that said "sin and sin boldly" is not something id want to have guiding my soul.

It is leading you astray. You should spend much time reading the esrly church fathers and watching Scott Hahn etc to at least challenge what youve been told

This is why a magisterium Is helpful. Otherwise you are your own pope and frankly have no idea what you're talking about by a cursory read of the Bible. In english.

Oldbear83 said:

---

Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

---

You're talking about appeal to antiquity, which is inapplicable here.

Oldbear83 said:

---

Bragging about Greek and Latin when the Scriptures Jesus Himself referred to were in Hebrew is a bit silly.

And if all that tradition and history mattered more than the plain words in Scripture, we should have all been Jews, hmmmm?

---

Oh my

Listen. The founder of your church omitted entire books of the Bible and changed several words. Thats very well documented. Again, youre proving you are lacking in some fundamentals.

It just puts you at a disadvantage to defend your points

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

---

Yes. Reading in english something written in greek 2000 years ago and being your own pope completely ignoring thousands of years of knowledge in the topic makes you right

Theres some good logic for ya.

Hey guys! I was reading. Heres what i think they meant. I was born in 1996. And go to bible study on occasion. Trust me.

---

As you know, most of your traditions, transubstantiation, and other non scriptural beliefs came 1000 years after the early church. Your religion is completely different than the early church. So much "religion" completely made up by men and not practiced at all by the apostles. I'm not talking structure. Sola Scripture is certainly more like the early church than not. It is based on the word and taken in context with the people and time it was written. RC's have to create some spaghetti mythos to justify so many of their extraneous beliefs.

The Mary idolatry is just one of those. It's not enough to venerate her, you must create a mythos about her, she must then be a perpetual virgin, she must have never sinned, she must be the queen, etc. You need a purgatory because Jesus dying wasn't enough, you must be punished. All made up WELL after the early church, yet they are cornerstones of your church ... why ... to support the extrabiblical beliefs that have deviated from scripture, and they can't be undone by the church now because it's too engrained, and perhaps to profitable.

---

The sacrifice of the mass as is has been going in for near 2000 years. This is well documented. The other prayers said in the mass have existed for ummmmm 1700+ years. Basically since the time of the creation of the Bible by the Catholic church.

Have you been to a Catholic mass?

Youre losing this argument.

Sola scriptura and osas and the eucharist is "just a symbol!!!!!", the basic tenants of a faith invented by a guy that wanted to bed a nun a few hundred years ago that said "sin and sin boldly" is not something id want to have guiding my soul.

It is leading you astray. You should spend much time reading the esrly church fathers and watching Scott Hahn etc to at least challenge what youve been told

This is why a magisterium Is helpful. Otherwise you are your own pope and frankly have no idea what you're talking about by a cursory read of the Bible. In english.

---

Someone, please make this stop.

I can't take any more of this person's "knowledge".

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

---

Yes. Reading in english something written in greek 2000 years ago and being your own pope completely ignoring thousands of years of knowledge in the topic makes you right

Theres some good logic for ya.

Hey guys! I was reading. Heres what i think they meant. I was born in 1996. And go to bible study on occasion. Trust me.

---

As you know, most of your traditions, transubstantiation, and other non scriptural beliefs came 1000 years after the early church. Your religion is completely different than the early church. So much "religion" completely made up by men and not practiced at all by the apostles. I'm not talking structure. Sola Scripture is certainly more like the early church than not. It is based on the word and taken in context with the people and time it was written. RC's have to create some spaghetti mythos to justify so many of their extraneous beliefs.

The Mary idolatry is just one of those. It's not enough to venerate her, you must create a mythos about her, she must then be a perpetual virgin, she must have never sinned, she must be the queen, etc. You need a purgatory because Jesus dying wasn't enough, you must be punished. All made up WELL after the early church, yet they are cornerstones of your church ... why ... to support the extrabiblical beliefs that have deviated from scripture, and they can't be undone by the church now because it's too engrained, and perhaps to profitable.

---

The sacrifice of the mass as is has been going in for near 2000 years. This is well documented. The other prayers said in the mass have existed for ummmmm 1700+ years. Basically since the time of the creation of the Bible by the Catholic church.

Have you been to a Catholic mass?

Youre losing this argument.

Sola scriptura and osas and the eucharist is "just a symbol!!!!!", the basic tenants of a faith invented by a guy that wanted to bed a nun a few hundred years ago that said "sin and sin boldly" is not something id want to have guiding my soul.

It is leading you astray. You should spend much time reading the esrly church fathers and watching Scott Hahn etc to at least challenge what youve been told

This is why a magisterium Is helpful. Otherwise you are your own pope and frankly have no idea what you're talking about by a cursory read of the Bible. In english.

---

You don't know any history that disagrees with the RC indoctrination.
Transubstantiation was absolutely made popular 1200+ years later, and well after that much of the scholars thought it was wrong. And now, somehow those 1200 years of faithful christ followers who did not think they were literally drinking blood, are sadly according to RC's should have been destined for hell. If transubstantiation was the practice of the earliest church, there'd have been zero need to "adopt" it 1000 years later. It's obvious the apostles didn't teach it.

And Mass isn't the issue. Of course there was a form of mass. The issue is how the RC church has morphed Christianity from its roots into Christ plus ____ (fill in the blank)".

The founder of MY Church is the Lord.

Yours, apparently some human you like better.

I am simply using logic to your RC claims.

Not my fault how that works out

Fre3dombear said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Bragging about Greek and Latin when the Scriptures Jesus Himself referred to were in Hebrew is a bit silly.

And if all that tradition and history mattered more than the plain words in Scripture, we should have all been Jews, hmmmm?

---

Oh my

Listen. The founder of your church omitted entire books of the Bible and changed several words. Thats very well documented. Again, youre proving you are lacking in some fundamentals.

It just puts you at a disadvantage to defend your points

---

You're referring to the books of the apocrypha, which the Reformers believed was not part of the canon. Here's a list of Roman Catholic sources that also believed that the apocryphal books were NOT canon scripture:

• St. Jerome (342-420), author of the Latin Vulgate Bible
• Cardinal Cajetan (1469-1534)
• Primasius (ca 550)
• Pope Gregory the Great (540-604)
• the Venerable of Bede (672-735)
• Agobard of Lyons (769-840)
• Alcuin (735-804)
• Walafrid Strabo (808-849)
• Haymo of Halberstady
• Ambrose of Autpert (730-784)
• Radulphus Flavacencius
• Hugh of St. Victor (1096-1141)
• Richard of St. Victor (died 1173)
• John of Salisbury (1100-1180)
• Peter Cellensis (1115-1183)
• Rupert of Deutz
• Honorius of Auten (1080-1140)
• Peter Comestor
• Peter Mauritius
• Adam Scotus
• Hugh of St. Cher (1200-1263)
• Philip of Harvengt
• Nicholas of Lyra (1270-1349)
• William of Okham
• Antoninus
• Alonso Tostado
• Dionysius the Carthusian (1402-1471)
• Thomas Walden
• Jean Driedo
• John Ferris
• Jacobus Faber Stapulensis
• the Glossa Ordinaria, THE standard reference of church father commentaries, 12th century
• the Biblia Complutensia, a bible translation by Cardinal Ximenes, sanctioned by Pope Leo X
• the Latin bible, Johannes Petrius (1527)
• the Latin bible, Sanctes Pagnini (1528)

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Transubstantiation was absolutely made popular 1200+ years later, and well after that much of the scholars thought it was wrong. And now, somehow those 1200 years of faithful christ followers who did not think they were literally drinking blood, are sadly according to RC's should have been destined for hell. If transubstantiation was the practice of the earliest church, there'd have been zero need to "adopt" it 1000 years later. It's obvious the apostles didn't teach it.
And Mass isn't the issue. Of course there was a form of mass. The issue is how the RC church has morphed Christianity from its roots into Christ plus ____ (fill in the blank)".

---

For the record, the church of the first millenium does not teach the theology of alchemical transubstantiation as the Roman Catholic Church does. Orthodoxy's formulation of this is much closer to the traditional Lutheran formulation - that Christ's True Body and True Blood are present in the Eucharist, but the mechanism by which they are present remain a mystery that we cannot know this side of heaven. Orthodoxy also does not teach that Christ is "resacrified" in the liturgy.

Realitybites said:

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TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Transubstantiation was absolutely made popular 1200+ years later, and well after that much of the scholars thought it was wrong. And now, somehow those 1200 years of faithful christ followers who did not think they were literally drinking blood, are sadly according to RC's should have been destined for hell. If transubstantiation was the practice of the earliest church, there'd have been zero need to "adopt" it 1000 years later. It's obvious the apostles didn't teach it.
And Mass isn't the issue. Of course there was a form of mass. The issue is how the RC church has morphed Christianity from its roots into Christ plus ____ (fill in the blank)".

---

For the record, the church of the first millenium does not teach the theology of alchemical transubstantiation as the Roman Catholic Church does. Orthodoxy's formulation of this is much closer to the traditional Lutheran formulation - that Christ's True Body and True Blood are present in the Eucharist, but the mechanism by which they are present remain a mystery that we cannot know this side of heaven. Orthodoxy also does not teach that Christ is "resacrified" in the liturgy.

---

The big error is the Roman Catholic and Orthodox requirement of the Eucharist for salvation. It's such a silly idea that one's salvation entirely rests on their ability to get access to and eat and drink bread and wine that's been blessed by a Catholic or Orthodox priest. That means a person can truly believe and trust in Jesus with all their heart, but that doesn't matter, they'll still go to Hell unless they physically eat something. The African tribesman across the globe, who merely hears the gospel, and believes, but is completely unable to take part in water baptism or the Eucharist still goes to Hell. This is certainly NOT the Gospel, and it would make Jesus a liar, because he said that if you believe in him you will have eternal life. What Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy teach is that no, no, Jesus is wrong - you can believe in him, but still go to Hell unless you do this checklist of things under our authority to dispense them. This is adding to and obfuscating the simplicity of the Gospel. And it turns the gospel of grace into a gospel of works.

Oldbear83 said:

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The founder of MY Church is the Lord.

Yours, apparently some human you like better.

---

Jesus Christ was human. The founder of Catholicism before men splintered the flock and led many astray.

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

---

Fre3dombear said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

---

Yes. Reading in english something written in greek 2000 years ago and being your own pope completely ignoring thousands of years of knowledge in the topic makes you right

Theres some good logic for ya.

Hey guys! I was reading. Heres what i think they meant. I was born in 1996. And go to bible study on occasion. Trust me.

---

As you know, most of your traditions, transubstantiation, and other non scriptural beliefs came 1000 years after the early church. Your religion is completely different than the early church. So much "religion" completely made up by men and not practiced at all by the apostles. I'm not talking structure. Sola Scripture is certainly more like the early church than not. It is based on the word and taken in context with the people and time it was written. RC's have to create some spaghetti mythos to justify so many of their extraneous beliefs.

The Mary idolatry is just one of those. It's not enough to venerate her, you must create a mythos about her, she must then be a perpetual virgin, she must have never sinned, she must be the queen, etc. You need a purgatory because Jesus dying wasn't enough, you must be punished. All made up WELL after the early church, yet they are cornerstones of your church ... why ... to support the extrabiblical beliefs that have deviated from scripture, and they can't be undone by the church now because it's too engrained, and perhaps to profitable.

---

The sacrifice of the mass as is has been going in for near 2000 years. This is well documented. The other prayers said in the mass have existed for ummmmm 1700+ years. Basically since the time of the creation of the Bible by the Catholic church.

Have you been to a Catholic mass?

Youre losing this argument.

Sola scriptura and osas and the eucharist is "just a symbol!!!!!", the basic tenants of a faith invented by a guy that wanted to bed a nun a few hundred years ago that said "sin and sin boldly" is not something id want to have guiding my soul.

It is leading you astray. You should spend much time reading the esrly church fathers and watching Scott Hahn etc to at least challenge what youve been told

This is why a magisterium Is helpful. Otherwise you are your own pope and frankly have no idea what you're talking about by a cursory read of the Bible. In english.

---

You don't know any history that disagrees with the RC indoctrination.
Transubstantiation was absolutely made popular 1200+ years later, and well after that much of the scholars thought it was wrong. And now, somehow those 1200 years of faithful christ followers who did not think they were literally drinking blood, are sadly according to RC's should have been destined for hell. If transubstantiation was the practice of the earliest church, there'd have been zero need to "adopt" it 1000 years later. It's obvious the apostles didn't teach it.

And Mass isn't the issue. Of course there was a form of mass. The issue is how the RC church has morphed Christianity from its roots into Christ plus ____ (fill in the blank)".

---

Youre conflating the introduction of the word "transubstantiation" with the concept of what it means. Like saying "the word internet didnt exist in the 100s!!!"

Realitybites said:

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TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Transubstantiation was absolutely made popular 1200+ years later, and well after that much of the scholars thought it was wrong. And now, somehow those 1200 years of faithful christ followers who did not think they were literally drinking blood, are sadly according to RC's should have been destined for hell. If transubstantiation was the practice of the earliest church, there'd have been zero need to "adopt" it 1000 years later. It's obvious the apostles didn't teach it.
And Mass isn't the issue. Of course there was a form of mass. The issue is how the RC church has morphed Christianity from its roots into Christ plus ____ (fill in the blank)".

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For the record, the church of the first millenium does not teach the theology of alchemical transubstantiation as the Roman Catholic Church does. Orthodoxy's formulation of this is much closer to the traditional Lutheran formulation - that Christ's True Body and True Blood are present in the Eucharist, but the mechanism by which they are present remain a mystery that we cannot know this side of heaven. Orthodoxy also does not teach that Christ is "resacrified" in the liturgy.

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"The mystery of faiiiiiiiiiith"

Said every Sunday at mass and at every mass when transubstantiation occurs.

In fact, the very words come straight from the Bible just depends if they John 6:53 or john 6:61 in their beliefs.

Fre3dombear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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The founder of MY Church is the Lord.

Yours, apparently some human you like better.

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Jesus Christ was human. The founder of Catholicism before men splintered the flock and led many astray.

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There is no mention of a "pope" in Scripture. Just one of several important deviations Rome made from Christ's Church.

The 'splintering' started with Rome.

Fre3dombear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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The founder of MY Church is the Lord.

Yours, apparently some human you like better.

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Jesus Christ was human. The founder of Catholicism before men splintered the flock and led many astray.

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The Father did not send His Son into the world to found a religion, of which Roman Catholicism is but one of a multitude, as is Christianity. He came to eliminate the need for religion as such, therefore setting mankind free from it. Every person chooses either to remain a slave to religion or be free from it in Christ, not in a church. Any church.

Fre3dombear said:

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TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Our RC friends are arguing that because Roman Catholicism came around before the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, that somehow means the RCs are right and the Protestants are wrong. That fallacy is known as Primacy Bias, and in many other topics is properly dismissed for the rubbish it is. For the record, its opposite, Recency Bias (the idea that a new idea is somehow automatically superior to the former) is also rubbish, yet that problem has not emerged here.

The funny thing, is that a plain reading of Scripture tells this lesson many times:

Adam was the first man, but it was Abraham who pleased God so that God called him "friend";

Saul was Israel's first king, but it was David whom God loved best.

And so on. For all the dozens of books we have, it's odd how much gets ignored when someone wants a press a point on a biased interpretation of a single verse.

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Yes. Reading in english something written in greek 2000 years ago and being your own pope completely ignoring thousands of years of knowledge in the topic makes you right

Theres some good logic for ya.

Hey guys! I was reading. Heres what i think they meant. I was born in 1996. And go to bible study on occasion. Trust me.

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As you know, most of your traditions, transubstantiation, and other non scriptural beliefs came 1000 years after the early church. Your religion is completely different than the early church. So much "religion" completely made up by men and not practiced at all by the apostles. I'm not talking structure. Sola Scripture is certainly more like the early church than not. It is based on the word and taken in context with the people and time it was written. RC's have to create some spaghetti mythos to justify so many of their extraneous beliefs.

The Mary idolatry is just one of those. It's not enough to venerate her, you must create a mythos about her, she must then be a perpetual virgin, she must have never sinned, she must be the queen, etc. You need a purgatory because Jesus dying wasn't enough, you must be punished. All made up WELL after the early church, yet they are cornerstones of your church ... why ... to support the extrabiblical beliefs that have deviated from scripture, and they can't be undone by the church now because it's too engrained, and perhaps to profitable.

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The sacrifice of the mass as is has been going in for near 2000 years. This is well documented. The other prayers said in the mass have existed for ummmmm 1700+ years. Basically since the time of the creation of the Bible by the Catholic church.

Have you been to a Catholic mass?

Youre losing this argument.

Sola scriptura and osas and the eucharist is "just a symbol!!!!!", the basic tenants of a faith invented by a guy that wanted to bed a nun a few hundred years ago that said "sin and sin boldly" is not something id want to have guiding my soul.

It is leading you astray. You should spend much time reading the esrly church fathers and watching Scott Hahn etc to at least challenge what youve been told

This is why a magisterium Is helpful. Otherwise you are your own pope and frankly have no idea what you're talking about by a cursory read of the Bible. In english.

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You don't know any history that disagrees with the RC indoctrination.
Transubstantiation was absolutely made popular 1200+ years later, and well after that much of the scholars thought it was wrong. And now, somehow those 1200 years of faithful christ followers who did not think they were literally drinking blood, are sadly according to RC's should have been destined for hell. If transubstantiation was the practice of the earliest church, there'd have been zero need to "adopt" it 1000 years later. It's obvious the apostles didn't teach it.

And Mass isn't the issue. Of course there was a form of mass. The issue is how the RC church has morphed Christianity from its roots into Christ plus ____ (fill in the blank)".

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Youre conflating the introduction of the word "transubstantiation" with the concept of what it means. Like saying "the word internet didnt exist in the 100s!!!"

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This is just false. There's more evidence that it was viewed as a symbol than there is of transubstantiation. The literal interpretation was not part of the early church. You can't find one early church person that in context consistently claimed that it was real blood and real flesh. Real presence is not transubstantiation.

The obvious truth is that Christ would not himself drink blood while a jew, nor would he have asked his disciples to drink blood either. It was a sin, and he was sinless. Additionally, if thatt did happen, then the apostles would have made it clear because it would have been a HUGE problem for everyone. It most certainly would have been in scripture AND in the early church teachings. Additionally if I recall, Joseph Martyr or one of the early ones' corrected some uneducated people's false understanding of it being literal blood.

As for the early church's concept. It leaned heavily towards symbolism - not "mere" symbolism as we think it today. But symbols can have deep meaning. To make this point clear - a cloth thrown on the ground is no big deal. But if that cloth is a flag then it represents something on a very deep level. For example, if a democrat was to burn a US flag on memorial day, decent people would be deeply offended because in context, on that holiday, that cloth represents the blood of so many who fought for this country. And if Iranians do it, decent people are offended because that cloth represents the current US citizenry and country as a whole. It has very deep meaning.

So when it comes to the early church, the symbolism is quite real and meaningful, holy to say the least. That is why they'd say things like the bread is not mere common bread, so yes, in their mind it's still bread but it means something more. They didn't even want any consecrated bread to drop on the floor because it represented Holy Jesus's sacrifice - his life, ministry, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Last, certainly, real Prescence as you are alluding to, at least can make a little more sense than the transubstantiation claims of the RC, and I can respect that. But even then, it's clear that you're willingly omitting the early references to symbolism.

And last, Occam's razor pretty clearly favors symbolism, just due to the myriad of examples of similar metaphors by Jesus, plus the apostles teaching, the entirety of scripture, and the early church, combined with human observation.

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Fwiw, I appreciate the conversation, I respect devout Catholics and the Orthodox. I think they're wrong on many things, but as I've said before, God can find us even with a bit of bad theology.