Posted on 04/01/2016 12:41:08 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
I am letting you be among the first to know. It is true. I am leaving the Catholic Church. I want you to know that this has not been a decision made in haste or without serious and intense research and consideration. But I can no longer remain in a church that I no longer believe in.
Let me explain.
I will be writing more about this soon, but for now let me just say there are five main reasons why I am leaving the Catholic Church:
1. I believe the sole rule of faith for Christians has to be Scripture. The Holy Bible is the only unchanging and definitive word of God that a Christian can build his or her life upon. Everything else, including the Catholic claims to authority, in the end, amount to ever-changing and ultimately sinking sand.
2. I believe works or any sense of salvific cooperation with God’s grace as constitutive to a Christian’s eternal life is unbiblical. “… not of works” (cf. Eph. 2:8-9) means not of works.
3. The idea of Mary and the saints being involved in the salvation of a Christian is tantamount to a denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s redeeming work on Calvary’s cross.
4. #3 can also be said of Purgatory, the “sacrifice” of the Mass, the Catholic view of salvation/justification, and more. These and more of the elements of Catholic teaching result in a denial of the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. More to follow in a more detailed post.
5. What Catholics call the “veneration” of Mary and the saints is actually idolatry.
These are just for starters here. Many of you know that for the last 28 years I have defended the above teachings and more from the Catholic Church. I can no longer do so in clear conscience.
And by the way, just so you know…
April fools!
If we post the same five verses it's in response to the five arguments posted by roman catholics.
Here’s my answer to the stupid Protestant questions: My mother loved me from the day I was conceived. She slaved for me and prayed for me. I reject the idiotic Protestant idea that the day my mother died, she turned into a doorstop, unable or unwilling to love me, and pray for me, and even help me in some manner now and then.
Wow. Just wow.
The catholic attitude I've seen on display so often on this board.
As is so typical of catholic postings when challenged on the accuracy of the DR translation instead of addressing the issue, the catholic must resort to personal attacks.
It's a nice wish that our departed loved ones can hear us and pray for us. However, that's what it is. A wish.
However, there is NOTHING in the NT, which is considerably longer than five verses, to support the roman catholic position of praying to believers who have departed this world.
This makes it a Biblical position. Until the catholic can show proof of this being practiced or taught in the NT, the roman catholic position is based on a falsehood.
Fair enough.
What is the actual Catholic response to your assertions, and by what reasoning do you dismiss them?
Obviously, a Catholic is NEVER going to ADMIT to ignoring an established fact in service to a specious doctrine. So what DO they say, and why do they hold so tightly to doctrines so thoroughly confuted?
The catholic has been indoctrinated to believe whatever the magesterium has taught them. They are not to question anything from what I've seen in these discussions.
There is a general lack of appealing to the original languages from what I've seen. This has caused two of the primary problems in catholicism as seen in the DR rendering of the passage in Genesis 3 and Luke 1.
Until the catholic can admit the DR's rendering is wrong they are bound to continue in the false doctrine.
The main problem though I see is pride. Roman catholicism has so entrenched itself in the worship of Mary it cannot back down from this.
To do so would totally undermine the church's authority.
It would result in the loss of millions and millions of catholics and a substantial amount of money.
It is for those reasons the roman catholic church will not change its stance on Mary.
Your fundamental, false assumption is that the NT is a comprehensive, all-inclusive, exhaustive guide to what Christianity is and what it allows or recommends.
Jesus is NOWHERE, NOT ONCE recorded as telling his disciples to WRITE ANYTHING.
That’s a remarkable fact, if it was Jesus’ intention that the writings of the NT were going to be the ONLY expression of the truths of the Christian Faith, the ONLY description of what Christians are to believe and to do.
The Protestant notion of the role of the Scriptures is preposterous, ahistorical, and self-contradictory. Sola Scriptura is taught NOWHERE in Scripture. This means the Sola Scriptura cannot be true.
Still can't address the issues involving the DR translation I see. Continue to dodge the issue.
However....
We see Luke moved to WRITE an account for Theophilus.
Do you even read the text before you post?
The phrase Sola Scriptura is not in the Bible however the appeal to the written word is clearly taught. And far more clearly than the vast majority of catholic positions on Mary, purgatory, indulgences, etc.
Yet we see the words, "it is written" 60 times in the NT and 16 times in the OT. There is very strong evidence that the written word was very important in the OT and NT.
A word search for written reveals the use of that word 118 times in the NT and 133 times in the OT. A number of these are included in the "it is written" phrase above.
A search on the word "write" reveals 38 uses in the NT and 35 times in the OT.
Recall that Jesus, when confronted by Satan, quoted the OT using the words, "it is written", three times.
Jesus appealed to the authority of written Scripture over the tradition of the pharisees.
Paul appealed to the OT 16 times in Romans.
The catholic will claim, "we have tradition!" to rely upon.
A search for tradition reveals ten uses. Most of these are not used in the affirmative.
Word search through Biblegateway.com using the NASB.
You have that wrong. We aren't demanding any specific Scripture verses for answers to our questions. It's Catholics who provide the same five verses as answers.
EVERY. TIME.
For my part, I'd like to see something different for a change. It would show that at least someone is trying instead of spewing out the same Catholic apologetics websites answers.
Got that? The Protestant notion that my mother is a doorstop is stupid, and UGLY.
Hey, that's YOUR idea.
You can't lay your wild imaginings at the feet of *Protestants*.
They're yours. Man up and own them.
So show us where anyone said Prot converts to Catholicism are "bad" Christians? Or is that another contrivance of your imagination?
“Everybody who disagrees with me is a Bad Person.” Yeah. That’s a powerful argument.
Then Catholics need to stop using it.
Your projection is showing.
The lack of knowledge of Scripture demonstrated in that comment is appalling.
Revelation 1:9-11 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
Revelation 1:17-19 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.
Revelation 2:1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
Revelation 2:8 “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.
Revelation 2:12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.
Revelation 2:18 And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.
Revelation 3:1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
Revelation 3:7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
Revelation 3:14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.
Out of curiosity....do they cover the Bible in catholic seminaries?
I left tghe Catholics at age 20. Seemed way too many saints and not enough Christ. That’s just me.
Ah yes, sat5an’s best weapon to deflect Truth ... TOLERANCE. But you know what they say about tolerance toward evil ... and altering what God says so His words fit the dogmas of a religion meant to look ‘Christian’ is in fact, evil.
I was wondering the same thing.
It's not just you.
Lots of us felt the same way and did the same.
Do you play the hypocrite on all these heated threads? The post you made right before spittling out that above smarm had this little McGowenism: If you had any intellectual honesty in you, you would admit
The same half-dozen haters show up again and again.
The answers to all of your nattering so-called “questions” are readily available. But you never read or respond to authors like Staples. You come on this forum and post the same old same old anti-Catholic slurs, and ask the same stupid questions, hundreds and hundreds of times.
For 1500 years, no Christians believed the stupid notion that the saints in heaven are doorstops. No Christians believed that Jesus willed that the Scriptures were to be the TOTALLY EXHAUSTIVE compendium and description of Christianity. No one believed that a person could be saved while remaining an unrepentant grave sinner who merely honored Jesus with his lips. But these ugly, irrational notions were propagated by the fornicating, murdering heresiarchs Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.
Here is the absolutely central, fundamental belief of Protestantism: that Christ’s promise “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world” meant “I will leave you adrift for 1,500 years, and then the Christian Faith will be discovered by a group of fornicating mass murderers.”
Ah, so the real problem you have is massive ego pushing deep ignorance. well, that’s good to finally get a handle on. I don’t suppose you are open to reasoning out some of these errors you so free grace the threads with? Jesus spoke to His disciples; can you tell us when the ‘end of the age’ arrives? Can you tell us how Jesus is ‘WITH’ the disciples? Can you admit that He said this for our benefit also? Can you see that to even have that saying FROM JESUS requires writing things down? ... Naw, I didn’t think you could.
Pot talks mighty loud.
Still can't address the translation of the DR in Genesis and Luke can you?
As always, you have nothing but bluster to offer.
The answers to all of your nattering so-called “questions” are readily available. But you never read or respond to authors like Staples. You come on this forum and post the same old same old anti-Catholic slurs, and ask the same stupid questions, hundreds and hundreds of times.
Is Staples the only guy who speaks for roman catholicism? And again...for the record. I've read his website and his apologetics are weak at best. The comical aspect of this is I've used his website to prove to catholics what they believe when they deny catholicism teaches this doctrine or that doctrine.
In fact, the catholic encyclopedia online and the catechism have all been beneficial to show catholics what they actually believe when they deny posts made by Christians.
I sometimes think I know more about catholic beliefs than a lot of catholics on this board!
For 1500 years, no Christians believed the stupid notion that the saints in heaven are doorstops. No Christians believed that Jesus willed that the Scriptures were to be the TOTALLY EXHAUSTIVE compendium and description of Christianity. No one believed that a person could be saved while remaining an unrepentant grave sinner who merely honored Jesus with his lips. But these ugly, irrational notions were propagated by the fornicating, murdering heresiarchs Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.
You have proof that 100% of Christians believed as you claim?
No one believed that a person could be saved while remaining an unrepentant grave sinner who merely honored Jesus with his lips. But these ugly, irrational notions were propagated by the fornicating, murdering heresiarchs Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.
Has anyone ever said anything about being unrepentant?
Here is the absolutely central, fundamental belief of Protestantism: that Christ’s promise “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world” meant “I will leave you adrift for 1,500 years, and then the Christian Faith will be discovered by a group of fornicating mass murderers.
You must be talking about those wonderful popes roman catholicism's had.
You must be talking about the inquisition.
Shall we discuss pedophilia within the priesthood?
What in the world do they teach in catholic seminaries??
That's just one of the reasons that you made a terrible decision based on childish interpretations of reality....sad.
Again; what needle am I hunting for?
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