Why is that so hard for them to grasp?

I don't know it's all right there...And it's so simple...I had no trouble reading and understanding when I first read it...But then I didn't have any preconceived notions when I started...

Well, who knows? I would venture a guess, though I don't know for sure. It might be spiritual blindness. In vain do they worship Him, teaching for doctrine, the commandments of men. Ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Am I getting close? I had preconceived notions, because I was a catholic myself, but when I started reading the Bible, the ONLY source of truth, I got saved too. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure it out, does it? 🇵🇭😎 It is so simple, a child can understand it. 🙀😂 So maybe most can't see the forest because there are too many trees in the way. 😕😞 They think it can't be so simple, but it is. 😆😃😀😁😇😄

all true Christians agree on all Catholic doctrines....

One thing we DO all agree with!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/daqwGRdRIsk?feature=player_detailpage

Time to look at Ezekiel 45:17 to find out what Paul was referencing in Colossians....
17 Then it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, the New Moons, the Sabbaths, and at all the appointed seasons of the house of Israel. He shall prepare the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings to make atonement for the house of Israel.”
The drink, meat and holy day, new moon sabbath day OFFERINGS..

Not the ‘days’.. the offerings that were to be offered on those special ‘days’..
Which were done away with one atoning Lamb sacrifice on
the 14th day of His 1st month, Feast of Passover.

Which is interestingly, always the 6th and final Work day of His 2nd week on our Heavenly Father’s calendar regardless of when it falls on the pope Gregory calendar..same way the Work of Creation was finished on the 6th and final work Day in His 1st prophetic week within His month.

And if you will see, it is a shadow of things to come... not a shadow of things past.
People are free not to observe the Kingdom calendar that points to the Son.
Rome and the world have a substitute for people to place their faith in...
All of our life , work and worship are faith steps.. I have been blessed to reject Rome fully but everyone has their own faith walk.

Prophets like ezekiel and Isaiah have hints that what christendom says is done away with, like new moon days and Sabbaths are there for quite a while, like when the new heaven and new earth is made..

Amazing if Christendom saw Rome the way the first reformers saw Rome, the papacy and the pope.
Then maybe the world running on Antichrist’s calendar in these last days would register , at least with people who fight other roman lies and counterfeits.

Rome’s lies and counterfeits can only be seen when held up to the Light.
Nobody seems to do that with their calendar..

Quite a blind spot...

[paladinan]
I reject the equally ridiculous, free-will-denying idea that a Christian cannot lose his/her salvation once it is attained.

[MHGinTN]
To respond I would have to know 'when' you believe Salvation is attained. Care to share?

Certainly. Salvation, in the sense of "never again being in danger of hell", occurs when one DIES (in a state of friendship with God--the technical term is "in a state of sanctifying grace"--i.e. not in a state of mortal sin). Before that point, one can only be said to be "saved" in a conditional sense... as Scripture makes quite clear, since it describes salvation in past tense, present/ongoing tense, and future tense, in turn:

Example of past: "For by grace you have been saved through faith[...]" (Ephesians 2:8)

Example of present, ongoing: "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)

Example of future, conditional: "But he who endures to the end will be saved." (Matthew 10:22)

I will understand hesitating on that one, in the atmosphere now roiling about us.

:) Thanks. However, no hesitation was needed.

I would only offer that Salvation is not like a Yo-Yo, it is like unto a Rock,

On God's part, certainly: His atonement purchased for us the opening of the gates of paradise, if only we endure to the end (Matthew 10:22, etc.) on the narrow road (cf. Matthew 7:14), and actually choose to walk through it. But some who receive the saving Word (even with joy!) still abandon the Word in the face of persecutions and struggles, and some allow the pleasures and the cares of the world to choke the Word off, leaving it fruitless (cf. Matthew 13). Even St. Paul says that he did not consider himself to have attained the prize (Phillipians 3:13), and he described how he struggled and chastised his body, since he laments the possibility that--after having preached to others, he might still be disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Rest assured: to the extent that the salvation of anyone living on earth is NOT secure, it's not the fault of God!

The Gates of Hell open which way?...

I'm not sure what you mean, here; could you clarify? Who's talking about opening the gates of hell? Matthew 16:18ff talks about the gates of hell not PREVAILING against the Church...

And how is Peter opening those gates if he is the rock?

Where do you get the idea that St. Peter is opening the gates of hell?

I would offer humbly that the profession of Whom is Christ, the Son of the Living God is the rock of Salvation against which the gates of Hell cannot resist the escape of even the long dead faithers, such as Abraham.

Ah. I think I see: you're referring to the release (from Sheol) of the righteous who died before the victory of Christ? Christ did that; St. Peter did not, nor did he ever claim to do so, nor does the Catholic Church teach that he did.

In the Nicean Creed we read that Jesus descended into Hades, and led capticity captive.

Actually, the Nicene Creed (the modern version is actually the amended "Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed", since it was amended at the Council of Constantinople, in 381 A.D.--there IS an "original" Nicene Creed, which is very similar) doesn't mention the descent to the abode of the dead; only the Apostles' Creed does that. But the Greek doesn't say "hades"--it says "κατώτατα"--i.e. "lowest place"; there's a distinction between "hades" (which we would regard as "hell", the place of the damned), and "sheol" (which we would regard as "the limbo of the Fathers" or "the waiting place of those who came before Christ"). The promise of Matthew 16:18 refers to the fact that hell (the place of the damned, the power of Satan) will never prevail against the Church of Christ.

If Catholics believe in Pergatory, then the gates of that place cannot prevail against the profession of Whom Christ Is when God reveals it to the human heart, for it is His absolute authority.

Purgatory doesn't have "gates"; purgatory is the state of being in which those who are in friendship with God, but who are still tainted with self-love and are not yet perfect, are purified ("purged") by the fires of the burning love of God. Those who are in Purgatory are already saved; it's just a matter of them having the last of their lesser impurities cleansed, before they enter the fullness of Heaven and stand before the all-Holy God.

No institution of man can muster that kind of authority, brother. [And here I reference obliquely the questionable addition of 'binding' authority which so conveniently the Catholic Church claims to wear but which does not appear in the oldest manuscripts, IMS).

The Church of Christ is not a mere institution of man; it is established by Christ, Himself, and it is preserved and vivified by the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, you're right: it could do nothing good (much less anything supernatural) at ALL.

Re: "binding and loosing"--that's clearly in Matthew 16 and Matthew 18, and it's a direct antitype of the "binding and loosing" portrayed in the Davidic Kingdom (see Isaiah 22, and look for the account of Eliakim). St. Peter (and the other apostles) have that power because Jesus DELEGATED that power to them; they do not have that power on their own.

Perhaps that is why the Catholic Church wishes to claim divine establishment of the institution?

She claims divine establishment of Herself simply because we have Jesus' word for the matter, and that She IS divinely established. She didn't invent that idea, any more than She invented Herself.

When you stand before Christ be sure to tell Him that you deserve salvation because you were baptised.

Do you think anyone would be so foolish as to actually try that line? On second thought, don't answer that. I am reasonably sure many will try that, and find themselves up the proverbial creek. 🚣🏿😱😭😹 Why anyone would be so presumptuous as to think they actually have anything coming, is beyond me. 😩😭👎 No one has anything coming. No one. No way, no how. 🚯🚷

This issue is actually one of the core issues I examined before returning to the Church. The Catechism was helpful in this regard (para 106, that’s what I was thinking of when I was posting before on this subject) however the forums at Catholic Answers was also helpful.

You might find this post of interest http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=10337477&postcount=11

However the entire thread there is useful for this.

But returning to the post cited, the main point is this:

The term dictated can be understood in a couple ways. There is dictation in business, such as reciting something you want someone else to write word for word. Or there is dictation as in a non-mechanical steering. We see this in sports, for example, when we say, “Team X dictated the pace of the game.”

In the 1994 Magisterial text Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, we find this:

The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself. As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human. It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources. For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit. It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods.

The magesterial document referenced is found here http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/pbcinter.htm

Thanks,

LOL, the works based religion (WBR) I was in, WAS the Roman Catholic Church. MHG knew exactly what I meant.

Then you didn't have a good understanding of it while you were in it, FRiend. The Catholic Church is not a "works-based" religion, in the least; it's absolutely impossible for any human to "work" his way into Heaven (as if he somehow had some "right" to "earn" Heaven by mere human efforts); every faithful and well-informed Catholic knows that, and this has been taught by the Catholic Church for 200 years.

I am not into WBRs

Nor am I. That's my point: your portrayal of the Catholic Church is rather severely warped... as a glance at the Catechism of the Catholic Church (and, perhaps, a willingness not to sneer at "all things Catholic" simply out of emotional bias and revulsion) could easily tell you.

no matter if they think God saves 95% and they save 5% of themselves,

Good grief. Do you see, now, why I say that your portrayal of the Catholic Church is distorted? The very idea of "5% (or any % above zero) saving themselves" is imaginary nonsense! Where do you get that sort of idea, anyway? Was it from those who hate the Catholic Church, and who want to tarnish Her? It certainly wasn't from any true Catholic teaching...

and stop the Luther fixation. I am not positive what Luther believed and I don't follow him.

I have no "Luther fixation"; I mention him only because he was one of the main progenitors of the errors of "sola Scriptura", "sola fide", and other such unbiblical bits of nonsense which form the basis of Protestantism (and of all non-Catholic fundamentalist divisions who have inherited those errors). To the extent that you believe "sola Scriptura" and "sola fide", you most certainly ARE following Luther, though you might be doing so unwittingly.

Have a nice eternity. Maybe I will see you at the pearly gates.

:) I certainly hope so! Pray for me, and I'll pray for you, to that end!

;*) Love the emoticons.

;*) Love the emoticons

IPhone 6. 🇵🇭😄😃😀😇😂😎

But, just as Daniel says, we have mere sophistry

But which rushed reply (I was going to be gone for some hours) needed some proof reading, sad to say).

P1: An infallible magisterium is necessary to know what is of God P2: Only Catholicism possesses an infallible magisterium Therefore: Only Catholicism provides what is necessary to know what is of God

Which premise is what i was responding to, and includes both knowing what Scripture consists of and means, and which is behind all "The Catholic Church gave us the Bible" polemical assertions in response to refutation from Scripture.

Cardinal Avery Dulles: People cannot discover the contents of revelation by their unaided powers of reason and observation. They have to be told by people who have received in from on high. Even the most qualified scholars who have access to the Bible and the ancient historical sources fall into serious disagreements about matters of belief.” - Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, “Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith,” p. 72; http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/08/magisterial-cat-and-mouse-game.html

It is the living Church and not Scripture that St. Paul indicates as the pillar and the unshakable ground of truth....no matter what be done the believer cannot believe in the Bible nor find in it the object of his faith until he has previously made an act of faith in the intermediary authorities..." - Catholic Encyclopedia>Tradition and Living Magisterium; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm

The whole argument is that the Cath magisterium has uniquely received the revelation from on high, only by which we assuredly know what Divine revelation consists of and means, thus we need faith in in this intermediary authority to assuredly correctly know what the word of God is and means.

Thus the now classic quote by Keating:

“the mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as definitely true is a guarantee that it is true.” — Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 275.

And Manning,

The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour.

Which means Rome can "remember" a specific event Scripture never records or foretells, that of a fable that lacks even early historical testimony , and even make binding doctrine out of it though even her own scholars were adverse to it:

Ratzinger writes (emp. mine), Before Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers' answer was emphatically negative . What here became evident was the one-sidedness, not only of the historical, but of the historicist method in theology. “Tradition” was identified with what could be proved on the basis of texts. Altaner, the patrologist from Wurzburg…had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the 5C; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the “apostolic tradition. And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared.

But,

subsequent “remembering” (cf. Jn 16:4, for instance) can come to recognize what it has not caught sight of previously [because the needed evidence was absent] and was already handed down in the original Word” [via invisible, amorphous oral tradition] - J. Ratzinger, Milestones (Ignatius, n.d.), 58-59.

People can not honestly believe that nonsense, do they? LOL.

Amen. People are being led astray by both Catholics and Mormons.

Selah! Whatta coupon!

Are you saying baptism Is not part of protestant religions? If so, that is as fake as most of the stuff posted by some Catholics on here. I accepted Christ as a child and was baptized in a farm pond! Every Protestant church I have attended, practiced that belief. When I go by that pond on the way to my family in MS, I remember that day.

The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that,...It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods.

Which is pretty much a strawman, as far as scholarly evangelical understanding recognizing that God used both the writers personality (as seen with the passionate Paul) as well as cultural expressions. I did hear an effective evangelist once state that "they gnashed on him with their teeth" (Acts 7:54) meant the Jews at issue where literally biting Stephen though.

However, let us consider the opposite manner of exegesis which Rome has taught for decades, right in her own sanctioned Bible notes.

“You may hear interpreters of the Bible who are literalists or fundamentalists. They explain the Bible according to the letter: Eve really ate from the apple and Jonah was miraculously kept alive in the belly of the whale. Then there are ultra-liberal scholars who qualify the whole Bible as another book of fairly tales. Catholic Bible scholars follow the sound middle of the road.” (15. “How do you know”)

However, they are clearly driving on the left.

It “explains”, under “Literary Genres” (p. 19) that Genesis 2 (Adam and Eve and creation details) and Gn. 3 (the story of the Fall), Gn. 4:1-16 (Cain and Abel), Gn. 6-8 (Noah and the Flood), and Gn. 11:1-9 (Tower of Babel: the footnotes on which state, in part, “an imaginative origin of the diversity of the languages among the various peoples inhabiting the earth”) are “folktales,” using allegory to teach a religious lesson.

It next states that the story of Balaam and the donkey and the angel (Num. 22:1-21; 22:36-38) was a fable, while the records of Gn. (chapters) 37-50 (Joseph), 12-36 (Abraham, Issaac, Jacob), Exodus, Judges 13-16 (Samson) 1Sam. 17 (David and Goliath) and that of the Exodus are stories which are "historical at their core," but overall the author simply used mere "traditions" to teach a religious lesson. After all, its understanding that “Inspiration is guidance” means that Scripture is “God’s word and man’s word.” What this means is that the NAB rejects such things as that the Bible's attribution of Divine sanction to wars of conquest, “cannot be qualified as revelation from God,” and states,

Think of the ‘holy wars’ of total destruction, fought by the Hebrews when they invaded Palestine. The search for meaning in those wars centuries later was inspired, but the conclusions which attributed all those atrocities to the command of God were imperfect and provisional." (4. "Inspiration and Revelation," p. 18)

It also holds that such things as “cloud, angels (blasting trumpets), smoke, fire, earthquakes,lighting, thunder, war, calamities, lies and persecution are Biblical figures of speech.” (8. “The Bible on God.”)

The Preface to Genesis in my St. Joseph's 1970 NAB edition attributes it to many authors, rather than Moses as indicated in Dt. 31:24, and the footnote to Gn. 1:5 refers to the days of creation as a “highly artificial literal structure.”

Even in the the current online NABRE, the The footnote (http://www.usccb.org/bible/gn/1:26#01001026-1) to Gn. 1:26 states that “sometimes in the Bible, God was imagined as presiding over an assembly of heavenly beings who deliberated and decided about matters on earth,” thus negating this as literal, and God as referring to Himself in the plural (“Us” or “Our”) which He does 6 times in the OT. Likewise, the footnote to Ex. 10:19 (http://www.usccb.org/bible/ex/10:19#02010019-1) regarding the Red Sea informs readers regarding what the Israelites crossed over that it is literally the Reed Sea, which was “probably a body of shallow water somewhat to the north of the present deep Red Sea.” Thus rendered, the miracle would have been Pharaoh’s army drowning in shallow waters!

And after affirming all of the Bible is the word of of, in its preface to the Pentateuch, it asks, "How should a modern religiously minded person read the Pentateuch?," and in answering that it asserts (consistent with the aforementioned discredited liberal JEDP theory, which holds the Pentateuch was not written mainly by Moses, but was the work of later writers, editors and redactors as late as the sixth century BC), "The story had to be reinterpreted, and the Priestly editor is often credited with doing so. A preface (Gn 1) was added, emphasizing God’s intent that human beings continue in existence through their progeny and possess their own land. Good news, surely, to a devastated people wondering whether they would survive and repossess their ancestral land. The ending of the old story was changed to depict Israel at the threshold of the promised land (the plains of Moab) rather than in it." (http://www.usccb.org/bible/scripture.cfm?src=_intros/pentateuch-intro.htm)

Its (NABRE) footnote (http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/6#01006001-1) in regards to Gn. 6 and the sons of heaven having relations with the daughters of men explains it as “apparently alluding to an old legend.” and explains away the flood as a story that “ultimately draws upon an ancient Mesopotamian tradition of a great flood.” Its teaching also imagines the story as being a composite account with discrepancies. The 1970 footnote on Gen. 6:1-4 states, “This is apparently a fragment of an old legend that had borrowed much from ancient mythology.” It goes on to explain the “sons of heaven” are “the celestial beings of mythology.”

In addition, even the ages of the patriarchs after the flood are deemed to be “artificial and devoid of historical value.” (Genesis 11:10-26)

All of which impugns the overall literal nature the O.T. historical accounts, and as Scripture interprets Scripture, we see that the Holy Spirit refers to such stories as being literal historical events (Adam and Eve: Mt. 19:4; Abraham, Issac, Exodus and Moses: Acts 7; Rm. 4; Heb. 11; Jonah and the fish: Mt. 12:39-41; Balaam and the donkey: 2Pt. 2:15; Jude. 1:1; Rev. 2:14). Indeed “the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety” (2Cor. 11:3; Rev. 12:9), and if Jonah did not spend 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the whale then neither did the Lord, while Israel's history is always and inclusively treated as literal.

Regarding the Gospels, the teaching of my 1970 NAB speculates that some of the miracle stories of Jesus in the New Testament (the fulfillment of of the Hebrew Bible) may be “adaptations” of similar ones in the Old Testament, and that the Lord may not have actually been involved in the debates the gospel writers record He was in, and thinks that most of which Jesus is recorded as saying was probably “theological elaboration” by the writers.

Going beyond the Holy Spirit condensing or expanding the words of Christ, as seen by duplicate accounts, it states under "Reading the Gospels,

“The Church was so firmly convinced that the risen Lord who is Jesus of history lived in her, and taught through her, that she expressed her teaching in the form of Jesus’ sayings. The words are not Jesus but from the Church.” “Can we discover at least some words of Jesus that have escaped such elaboration? Bible scholars point to the very short sayings of Jesus, as for example those put together by Matthew in chapter 5, 1-12”

It does allow that the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod, was “extremely probable,” and that people leaving Bethlehem to escape the massacre, is equally probable, but outside the historical background to this tradition, “the rest is interpretation.” This means is taught as justified due to the authors intent.

It additionally conveys such things as that Matthew placed Jesus in Egypt to convince his readers that Jesus was the real Israel, and may have only represented Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, to show that Jesus wa the s like Moses who received the law on Mount Sinai. (St. Joseph edition, 1970; How to read your Bible, "The Gospels," 13e, f, g. and i)

The “Conditioned thought patterns” (7) hermeneutic also paves the way for the specious argumentation of feminists who seek to negate the headship of the man as being due to condescension to culture, a very dangerous hermeneutic, and unwarranted when dealing with such texts as 1Cor. 11:3.

The NAB has gone through revisions, but I have found the same O. T. footnotes in “The Catholic Study Bible,” Oxford University Press, 1990, which also has the proper stamps, and uses the 1970 O.T. text and the 1986 revised N.T. And a Roman Catholic apologist using the 1992 version also lists some of the same errors described below, and is likewise critical of the liberal scholarship behind it (though he elsewhere denigrated Israel as illegally occupying Palestine), while a Roman Catholic cardinal is also crtical of the NAB on additional grounds.

1Cor. 5:1; 6:13; 7:2; 10:8; 2Cor. 12:21; Eph. 5:3; Gal. 5:19; Col. 3:5; 1Thes. 4:3; but simply has “immorality,” even though in most cases it is in a sexual context.

It is a slippery slope when historical statements are made out to be literary devices, and Muslims have taken advantage of the NAB's liberal hermeneutic to impugn the veracity of the Bible, http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Shabir-Ally/nab.htm.

On the other hand there are Catholics who only sanction the Douay-Rheims Bible, yet one Roman Catholic apologist criticizes it as well. (http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4300&CFID=45541857&CFTOKEN=30609021)

More .

Thanks.

But since neither you or those who believed the OT prophets and became the NT church are infallible, then according to some RCs neither you nor they can even truly know what is good!

[paladinan]
Afterward, Jesus and His disciples went (in the VERY FIRST VERSE after the conversation with Nicodemus) and they BAPTIZED (with water, since that's the very meaning of the word--see Acts 8:36-38, etc.)... and we know that Jesus baptized both with water (see above) and with the Holy Spirit (see above). WATER AND SPIRIT. [Iscool]
Baptize means water???

(*sigh*) WITH water. WITH water. Baptize means "to wash/bathe WITH water". Did you not see the little word "WITH", right before the word "water", in the part which you highlighted in pink, underlined format? You quoted and highlighted it, yourself; how could you not see it?

Had you asked, "Baptize means 'WITH water???'", I would have said, "Yes, exactly." But you went off on the odd idea of "baptize = water"... and doubled-down on that bizarre idea by mixing-and-matching the words "baptize" and "water" in other sentences. Can't you see your error, here? Honestly...

You are the one who said water means baptize...

Good grief.

Let me try again.

Baptism is not water. Baptism USES water. Water is not baptism. Water is USED IN baptism. I'm not sure why this idea is so difficult to grasp.

And that is your proof

FRiend, that isn't "my" version of ANYTHING; that logical mess was entirely of your invention, not mine.

that being born again includes baptism since the word water is in there...

No. I know, from various dictionaries (English, Greek, etc.), and from the history of the Jews, that baptism is the process by which one is bathed with water in the context of a ritual ceremony (which represents a cleansing of the soul, in addition to cleansing of the body--the key difference is that the Sacrament of Baptism, established by Christ, actually ENACTS what it symbolizes). That's really not my invention; go look it up.

When I mentioned the scene with St. Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, it was a clear example of someone showing that water is a necessary ingredient in what everyone would recognize as "baptism". Did you miss, for example, St. John the Baptist? He was at the Jordan for a reason: to baptize with WATER. That's how it's done. That's what the word ("baptism") MEANS (i.e. to wash with WATER in a ritual ceremony). Does that clarify, at least a bit?

And now here you are back-peddling claiming water does not mean baptism...

Please quote me in any place where I said that "water means baptism". Please. Because the only one in this entire thread who has ever said this, from what I can read, is you. How can I "back-pedal" on something which I never said (and certainly don't believe), and which you falsely attributed to me?

And being 'born' has nothing to do with baptism...'Born' is not baptism...

(*headdesk*)

FRiend... let me try one more time. (Wow... this is like trying to get through to Nicodemus!)

Are you at all familiar with the idea of being "born again"? And are you aware of the fact that this does NOT entail painful labor on your biological mother's part, or midwives, or cutting of umbilical cords, or the other sundry things involved in a natural, biological birth? And are you aware of the fact that faith is a critical, indispensable component of that "new birth"? If so, then you have the tools to see that someone coming along and saying "hey... birth doesn't mean faith!" is woefully confused. That's analogous to what you're doing, here.

So let me try to explain, anew.

Baptism is the process by which a person is ceremonially washed in water, as a symbol of inner conversion/renewal of mind/heart. It isn't done with sand, or oil, or honey, or even melted cheese; it's done with water. This ceremonial washing was well known to the Jews, centuries before Christ walked the earth (cf. Exodus 29:4, Numbers 19:7-8, etc.).

Honestly... your comments read as if you've never, ever heard of the idea that baptism involves water. Have you seriously never heard of any connection between "baptism" and "water", before? Forgive my surprise... but it's a bit like finding someone who has never heard of any connection between "sandwich" and "bread"!

Now... you go on to say this:

So now you clearly admit that there is no evidence of baptism in John 3:5...

I must have missed where I did that. Can you show me?

And if scripture means anything to you at all, consider this:

There's no need for melodrama; Scripture is very dear to me. Is it dear to you?

Act 1:5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. What it DOES NOT say is that the Holy Ghost will baptize you with water... Every time it says baptize/baptism in the scripture is no indication that water is always present...

"Every time", there's no indication that water was "ALWAYS" present? You may have to iron out the syntax of that sentence, for me...

But let me give you a challenge: if you can find even one instance of the act of "baptism" occurring in Scripture (aside from when Jesus uses it as a metaphor for being "plunged into" suffering--cf. Mark 10:58, Luke 12:50, etc.) where Scripture flatly says that water was NOT there, then I'll admit defeat, and move on. Otherwise, I think I need to go with the preponderance of positive evidence (the definition of "baptize"--i.e. washing/bathing with water--the Jewish history with the practice, the sight of water triggering the eunuch's request for baptism [otherwise, why didn't the sight of fire, or oil, or wind in the plants, move the eunuch to ask for baptism--since those are all symbols of the Holy Spirit?], and 2000 years of Christian history which disagrees with your rather odd and novel idea), rather than make up something with NO supporting evidence, on the rather dubious pretext that "the Bible doesn't say that it ISN'T true!"

'Born again' is the result of being baptized into the Holy Ghost...

Of course it is! The Holy Ghost uses the symbol of water washing to enact a true spiritual cleansing; the two ideas (Holy Ghost, and water) are not mutually exclusive.

(You wouldn't happen to be Pentecostal, would you?)

In one instance we are baptized (immersed) into water...

Right.

In the other instance we are baptized (immersed) into the Holy Ghost

Again, right... through the means of the water and the words (cf. Ephesians 5:26: "that He might sanctify [the Church], having cleansed Her by the washing of water with the Word").

(no water)...

And THERE'S where you go off the tracks, into mere opinion and unscriptural nonsense.

All right. But can you explain, step by step, HOW your Scripture quote (John 20:30-31) proves anything of the sort?

Should have read Christianity instead of Protestant religions. My brain has a fibro fog moment. I do not think well when I hurt like a truck ran over me. Guess I should have gone to the dr after my resident ghost pushed me down. : ). Really do not know what she could have done.

First let me say, I hate Latin. I hated it when I was a catholic altar boy. I hated it when I took it at the catholic high school I went to. I prefer to use English words. Only scripture and only faith. Yes, I ONLY accept that. Nothing else. On that, we will probably have to agree to disagree, probably forever. Maybe we do not mean the same thing by WBR. let me give you my definition. A WBR, to me, means it is a combination of faith and good works, either to get saved, or stay saved. If it is 95% faith, and 5% works, to endure, or to keep it, it is a WBR. I do not accept that. If the Catholic Church is not a WBR, according to that definition, then those priests and nuns gave me some bad information. Without trying to mind read, I have a feeling I know what you are thinking. You might possibly be thinking that I believe I can get saved by faith and then live like Hell. Am I right? I can answer that thought with one word: NO. It can't be done.

Now, I would like to hear your plan of salvation. What will you use to get to Heaven? Preferably the short and to the point version. I will pray that we see each other at the Pearly Gates. 🇵🇭😎🙉🙈🙊