Hello SR,

I just wanted you to know that your replies to me are not going unnoticed and are read and appreciated. Particularly the charitable spirit in which they are given. Sometimes I'll have a reply and sometimes I won't. And if you will permit me I might even have the occasional question from time to time that can be grounds for further dialogue. But all is considered in good faith.

God Bless You.

This is not the first time you have expressed your support for the killing of *heretics*.

In some instances heresy was a treasonous offense which was a capital crime necessitating execution. In other instances it was a casus belli for war.

Consider the treason of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames. What is the primary issue here? That they revealed classified information to the Soviets that resulted in the disruption of US intelligence gathering operations or that they put society as a whole at risk?

Protestants can't help but employ the methods of revisionist historians to apply the modern understanding of things to the pre-modern world. which is fallacious on its face.

You are not going to convince anyone that you didn’t mean it at this point and all the deflections you post, in apparent attempts to blame shift and accuse others, is not going to change anyone’s recollection or mind.

The phrasing of this paragraph is interesting. You know why? It assumes that certain individuals hold dominion over this virtual construct that is the FR Religion Forum. That there is structure, a hierarchy to it all and that they are the masters of it. Enthroned to speak for the "community".

And I'm not talking about site administration either.

So I ask you, why should any of this concern me? In order to avoid loss of face? Respect? Credibility? Threat of being ostracized or excommunication (and I don't mean banned)?

ADDENDUM to #2942: A thought just occurred to me. The FR Religion Forum may just be the place of worship and fellowship for some protestants. Something to keep in mind.

What is up with this twisted nonsense;

Like when it is demonstrated that the Catholic claim of universality goes all the way back to 110 AD in contradiction to the initial claim of 12th century AD and so then the issue becomes papal primacy, is that the kind of goal post moving you're talking about?

That sentence/paragraph makes makes so little sense -- is so vague as to what is being referred to, it is impossible to figure out. But it is a "making it personal" right off the bat in the sense that it appears to me to be part of the continuing efforts of more than a few here to raise accusations of many sorts against myself (in hope that other RC'ers will believe them?) in order to discredit myself personally.

That is in part--- coming from yet another thread too --isn't it? One were I had engaged with you concerning various layered claims to 'authority' which the Church of Rome boasts as prerogative belonging solely to themselves -- which there after you had left off discussion, one of your co-religionists then accused me of "conflating" and being confused, etc., even after I had shown him the plain wordings which supported my overall contentions.

And now here on this thread, as it comes out (again) the claims are off-handedly and casually extended to be even over the very lives of persons -- should any dare to disagree or disobey -- in this instance -- the "any" being the Waldenses of old.

The combination of these things more than justifies my own contentions -- both on this thread and the previous which you seemed to have been alluding to.

Meanwhile, one of your your own initial statements;

Heresy is the murder of the soul. I don't have any problem with the practice of having heretics removed from our midst. I assume you have proof to back up your assertion of what was done, "indiscriminately"?

I very well DID provide evidence such did indeed occur.

This was and still is a central point in this ongoing discussion.

I've heard quite a lot from you --- but not much yet as for owning up to the ramifications of statements which you have made, such as the one highlighted above. .

"Removed from our midst". What a way to speak of wholesale murder!

As for the Waldenses being allegedly semi-pelagian (according to Lutz Kaelber) it stands to mention that he was writing of them in context of schools of asceticism in medieval religion. If the Waldenses are semi-pelagian there, then so would many Roman Catholic, monkish religious orders...

Regardless if there were something to be desired among Waldensian religious thought, that scarcely justifies what murdering papists did to them.

Somewhere along the line you told me to go look up the 'confession of Waldo'. I did so, finding on one RC apologetics webpage, where what they presented as alleged to be Waldo's confession was in their own opinion, Catholic to the core.

Of course, there on that page, they were of the polemic that the Waldenses were not 'proto-protestant' and attempting to make the case for that, even though it can be well enough established that the Waldenses did share much which is fundamental to Protestant differences in comparison to Roman Catholicism, when utilizing other sources, with myself having pointed out that their biggest theological "crime" as it were, was not bowing down to Romish sacerdotalism and further claims to authority... which is established well enough in the link for American Journal of Theology (1900) provided in this note [below].

But I find it interesting that among modern-day Catholics, on the one hand they (Waldenses) are described as heretics, and on another -- described as "Catholic to the core". Kind of reminds me of some of the Anglicans, a wee bit. :^')

As I had also said;

Even today --- there are many Roman Catholics, and others also -- who although they say they believe in Grace --- still believe they must also work to earn it.

Which you had 'fixed', replacing work to earn it with -- "cooperate with it."

One subtle thing you may have overlooked -- I was not talking about what is taught (by some?) among the Roman Catholic church, but was speaking towards what many thought.

I don't know how many times I have seen the faith/works argument on these pages, with some FRoman or another woodenly reciting from the book of James. Faith without works being dead, and so on.

Then there are subtle things such as this from http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a2.htm;

"2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. ..."
[underlining for emphasis added]

In that portion of the CCC, as far as I can determine, there is little to no difference between attitudes commonly found among the first couple of centuries of Waldenses as those can be found spoken about in detail, here, Origin and Early Teachings of the Waldenses, According to Roman Catholic Writers of the The Thirteeenth Century" American Journal of Theology, IV (1900) p. 465-489 for they did include speaking much towards reliance upon the Spirit, in conjunction with their daily lives and works.

Who's to say that they did not incorporate this "cooperate with it" aspect which you used as a 'fix' to one of my statements? That one researcher? Himself possibly following others who had came to those conclusions -- all of that sort of expressing opinions done while the material they relied upon in formation of those opinions is not brought into view.

Thus --your citing of that man twice now -- is what is called "appeal to authority" and thus can be something of a logical fallacy. He is by his own description a sociologist -- not necessarily a theologian. Briefly scanning to page 24 of his book which have cited as if it were authoritative, there is evidence that generally supports my own contentions -- with it becoming obvious that the small portion which you brought as if it were some sort of compelling evidence, was like near-meaningless "cherry picking", as that bears upon our conversation here, yet your having done so serves to show how accusations against the Waldenses are still be grasped at in order to justify past centuries Romish atrocities ---much more than actually providing the sought for justification.

There is still yet another thing ---

Nowhere in earliest of the past centuries in which the Waldenses were persecuted were they THEN -- during those earliest times accused of being "semi-pelagian". The wording of that charge itself -- was not concurrent with the first centuries of them being persecuted by papists.

Getting back to how grace itself is described to function;
There is little difference there in CCC page I quoted from, compared to Calvinism either --- for in that systematic description, cooperation with the Spirit of the Lord is said to be impossible but for the regenerated soul -- and it being only that portion, Him by way of His own Spirit within a person -- which can do any work which can be called "good".

That type of Calvinistic description also does not conflict with your attempted correction of what I spoke about in how people -- Roman Catholics in that instance, would often think (judging from how they would talk about such things) as if they had to be constantly earning or perhaps better put (?) meriting by their own "cooperation" ...graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.

It stands to recall also our conversation on this thread in regards to past Roman Catholic persecution of Waldenses, included myself having said;

That "they" used to murder dissenters by the cartload proves the points, well enough.

To which you replied;

"To put down rebellion is not murder.

Which leads us to Waldo and his merry band of outlaws damning souls to Hell with their dualist semi-pelagian heresy who had no authority from the bishops to preach. So they rebelled which protestants are wont to do. And so today we have protestant holding them up as some sort of shining example of proto-protestant. ..."

They were not "dualist" in the sense which Arians could be though to be so, so be careful with the terminology...

First -- many of the 'Waldenses' were driven out of cities. Some of them retreated to the mountains, though others were also were said to circulate into towns and villages, plying various trades -- even attending Roman Catholic masses, at times, although accused by Inquisitors and others of doing so mockingly.

What could be missed in theological considerations -- is that receptionist, 'low church' views towards what Roman Catholics call Eucharist, and Anglicans and Lutherans refer to as the Lord's Supper and/or Holy Communion, is that the low view can carry one through participation in even those places where others hold to sacerdotal view towards the taking of communion, although being present within RC settings when doing so would be generally, according to those of the RCC to be considered to be a trespass.

From those holding low church view --- there would be no trespass, that aspect being all in the minds of others (and an erroneous view --from low church, receptionist perspective) leaving themselves not in theological contradiction with themselves, despite not being in full accord with sacerdotal views.

I emphasis this -- for it becomes plain enough that quite early on, even with Waldo himself, there was rejection of the sacerdotal aspect, which could leave them able to say honestly enough, that they agreed with the proposition that the mass could be valid enough, including "sacraments which may be rightly administered by a sinful priest...."

Now, that above part did change, later -- according to the testimony of RC Inquisitors, with later Waldenses rejecting the Romish church more entirely.

I will add here that despite not bringing citation to these pages from the The American Journal of Theology, Volume 4, published in 1900, that source does appear scholarly enough, and I do much base my own understanding and possible further argument or discussion on such as that source, though there are yet more sources, including also the many I have already provided links to.

It's worship of self, self-deification that is the order of the day for protestants.

Take that slander (and all the rest which you regularly create) and shove it right back into whichever dark holes it came out of in the first place.

Obviously you didn’t get it.

Of course you might mean the Catholic bible that someone tore some pages out of somewhere in the 1600's....

I'm still waiting for you to post the MISSING SCRIPTURES that PROVE purgatory's existence...

...there is a contradiction with Catholic doctrine.

Heat the oil hotter!

We got us a HERETIC in our midst!

ouch!

Peace be with you.

The "victor" is then free to write himself into history as the hero and the vanquished, as the devil.

How can we possibly trust what such heroes proclaim is the truth?

Since you've mentioned this...

Let's compare GENESIS

King James Version

Genesis 50:24–26

²⁴And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

²⁵And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.

²⁶So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

.

Joseph Smith Translation

Genesis 50:24–38

24 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die, and go unto my fathers; and I go down to my grave with joy. The God of my father Jacob be with you, to deliver you out of affliction in the days of your bondage; for the Lord hath visited me, and I have obtained a promise of the Lord, that out of the fruit of my loins, the Lord God will raise up a righteous branch out of my loins; and unto thee, whom my father Jacob hath named Israel, a prophet; (not the Messiah who is called Shilo;) and this prophet shall deliver my people out of Egypt in the days of thy bondage.

25 And it shall come to pass that they shall be scattered again; and a branch shall be broken off, and shall be carried into a far country; nevertheless they shall be remembered in the covenants of the Lord, when the Messiah cometh; for he shall be made manifest unto them in the latter days, in the Spirit of power; and shall bring them out of darkness into light; out of hidden darkness, and out of captivity unto freedom.

26 A seer shall the Lord my God raise up, who shall be a choice seer unto the fruit of my loins.

27 Thus saith the Lord God of my fathers unto me, A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins, and he shall be esteemed highly among the fruit of thy loins; and unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins, his brethren.

28 And he shall bring them to the knowledge of the covenants which I have made with thy fathers; and he shall do whatsoever work I shall command him.

29 And I will make him great in mine eyes, for he shall do my work; and he shall be great like unto him whom I have said I would raise up unto you, to deliver my people, O house of Israel, out of the land of Egypt; for a seer will I raise up to deliver my people out of the land of Egypt; and he shall be called Moses. And by this name he shall know that he is of thy house; for he shall be nursed by the king’s daughter, and shall be called her son.

30 And again, a seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins, and unto him will I give power to bring forth my word unto the seed of thy loins; and not to the bringing forth of my word only, saith the Lord, but to the convincing them of my word, which shall have already gone forth among them in the last days;

31 Wherefore the fruit of thy loins shall write, and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah, shall grow together unto the confounding of false doctrines, and laying down of contentions, and establishing peace among the fruit of thy loins, and bringing them to a knowledge of their fathers in the latter days; and also to the knowledge of my covenants, saith the Lord.

32 And out of weakness shall he be made strong, in that day when my work shall go forth among all my people, which shall restore them, who are of the house of Israel, in the last days.

33 And that seer will I bless, and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded; for this promise I give unto you; for I will remember you from generation to generation; and his name shall be called Joseph, and it shall be after the name of his father; and he shall be like unto you; for the thing which the Lord shall bring forth by his hand shall bring my people unto salvation.

34 And the Lord sware unto Joseph that he would preserve his seed forever, saying, I will raise up Moses, and a rod shall be in his hand, and he shall gather together my people, and he shall lead them as a flock, and he shall smite the waters of the Red Sea with his rod.

35 And he shall have judgment, and shall write the word of the Lord. And he shall not speak many words, for I will write unto him my law by the finger of mine own hand. And I will make a spokesman for him, and his name shall be called Aaron.

36 And it shall be done unto thee in the last days also, even as I have sworn. Therefore, Joseph said unto his brethren, God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land, unto the land which he sware unto Abraham, and unto Isaac, and to Jacob.

37 And Joseph confirmed many other things unto his brethren, and took an oath of the children of Israel, saying unto them, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.

38 So Joseph died when he was an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and they put him in a coffin in Egypt; and he was kept from burial by the children of Israel, that he might be carried up and laid in the sepulchre with his father. And thus they remembered the oath which they sware unto him.

"We are at fault for not slaying them."

Got a count of how many Martin killed?

There is a hint of it in Genesis 49:29....

But WAIT!!

there's MORE!

Luther has no more excuse then those who said like things before him.

Luther at the beginning sought the welfare of Jews, but their intractable hardness, pride, acts and blasphemies finally exasperated him, while Luther was never one to mince words and use acerbic speech at times. The Jews of old provoked even Moses "spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips," (Psalms 106:33) but Luther was wrong in advising worse things than conservative want to be done to illegal immigrants.

Yet many things are charged with inciting antisemitism. Paul himself stated by the Holy Spirit,

For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16)

But Paul was willing to be damned for them.

And

Patristic bishops of the patristic era such as Augustine argued that the Jews should be left alive and suffering as a perpetual reminder of their murder of Christ. Other Church Fathers, such as John Chrysostom went longer in their condemnation. Ephraim the Syrian wrote polemics against Jews in the 4th century, including the repeated accusation that Satan dwells among them as a partner. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_antisemitism#The_Church_Fathers

Yet Hitler's use of things to justify the holocaust must be understood as one aspect of his deception.

Listen to this speech:

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…

And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed.”

[Adolf Hitler, speech in Munich on April 12, 1922, countering a political opponent, Count Lerchenfeld, who opposed antisemitism on his personal Christian feelings. Published in "My New Order", quoted in Freethought Today April 1990]

What guile!

I would reword one sentence as " Luther at the beginning sought the welfare of Jews, but" his own hatred finally overcame him and left us his legacy The Jews and Their Lies, and the horrific implementation of it by a wicked generation of his nation.
If we try to blame the Jews as a people for not accepting Lutheranism in the 16th Century by comparing them to the Jews of Moses and Paul's day, it perhaps has the side effect of making out the Jews as a race to have a perpetual defects due to their perpetual unwillingness to change their religion. This has tended all through history to be the ource of their persecution. Do I blame previous Catholics for such persecution ? Absolutely ! Yet I see that frail old MSN walking to the Western Wall, putting a prayer note into a crack, on behalf of the Catholic Church, asking for forgiveness for mistreating the Jews and not doing enough to help them, my heart just melts. I forgive. Moses and Paul were both willing to share the fate of their brethren rather than enter the kingdom without them. That shows me they had God's love and mercy. I don't see that in Luther, and of course not those who used his words in that generation of monstrous wickedness. I would agree that the Scriptures teach blindness to Messiah (which is not Lutheranism) has happened to Israel in part, until the fullness of the Gentiles come in, and then all Israel will be saved. What a glorious time that will be !
Your post of Hitler's speech was brilliant, as well as brave. It reminds us how easily a man can be corrupted who strays from sound doctrine and makes up his own religion, using and twisting the Bible toward an unbalanced and evil end. The Jews always seem to be the target of the adversary, in every generation. Knowing that Messiah has already conquered sin and death, the adversary was left with the strategy of destroying the remnant of Israel to perhaps thwart the prophecy and inflict the most pain and suffering on he apple of God's eye.

>>So, when you stated "rejecting Catholicism is rejecting the church that Christ founded and thus rejecting Christ", you didn't mean it?<<

It has to be a confusing mental gymnastics nightmare being a Catholic. They have their hierarchy proclaiming no one outside the Catholic Church is saved to " of course they do". Of course those that get saved outside the Catholic Church aren't perfectly saved or something like that.

If we take that to mean the souls who had gone before, (which I believe), then it only makes sense to pray that that reunion be as wonderful as God can make it.

When I go; I'll be gathered to mine as well: in the GraveYard!

The Scriptures mention dead folks...

Daniel 12:2
Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-6
1 But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him.
2 It is the same for all, since the same event happens
to the righteous and the wicked,
to the good and the evil,
to the clean and the unclean,
to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice.
As the good one is, so is the sinner, and
he who swears is as he who shuns an oath.

3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 4 But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.

Put me down as not much caring what Luther did. God used him to point out errors in the Catholic Church. God also used Judas. Following any man or organization other than Christ alone is not of God. The constant focus on man or an organization is idolitry.

Tease the dog all you want; but PLEASE!; do NOT complain if it gets off the chain and BITES YOU!

How many did Luther kill?