WHY I COULD NEVER CHOOSE TO BE A PROTESTANT. (one stupid thread title is as good as another)

[Triumph1300]

Well, I DO know what Amadeus believes.
Not so sure about a few of the other ones.

 

[twinc]

This Louis Bouyer may be right about the success of Protestantism, but making Protestantism work is not and should not be any man's goal. Our goal should be to follow God wherever He leads us. For this reason He sent Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Protestantism did not solve the problems that had long existed in Catholicism as neither of them generally was following God. They were each striving for what they wanted for their own large or small group, rather than for what God really wanted from and for everyone... How many people on either side were really were interested in going the right Way, the Way that Jesus had lived as a man and had taught His followers? The power of Catholicism as a group of men was diminished considerably by the loss of numbers and by the opposition of the new Protestant groups but that was man's power, not God's. The power of God was working in His people, the ones following the lead of the Holy Spirit, without regard to whether they Catholic or Protestant or something else. These were the few who were NOT suppressing or quenching the Holy Spirit in themselves. These were the sincere ones who were moving closer to God.

God has always been working in a few believers submitted to the Holy Spirit from the time of that first day of Pentecost described in Acts 2. The prevalent teaching, among Catholics before and after the Reformation and later also among Protestants, which sought to quench the Holy Spirit, opened some hitherto closed doors for people who were following the Holy Spirit. The Reformation was in God's plan even if many of the Reformers like many of the Catholics were working on their own agendas rather than following the Holy Spirit. They were working as the left hand of God. God used their animosity toward each other to keep them from interfering with those few moving through the strait gate and the narrow way as led by the Holy Spirit toward Life.

you cannot eat your cake and have it - supposedly the ones who were not quenching or suppressing in themselves and moving closer to God where the ones who refused and refuse to walk with Him or put on Christ[Jn 6:53-57] and 6:66 - twinc

 

[twinc]

LOL The Reformers were Antichrist? That's brilliant. No, the Papacy is the Antichrist of prophecy, which seeks to take the place of God, and I'm just brimming with excitement when the prophecy of 2 Thessalonians, known all to well by those great 16th century - 19th century Protestant men of God, is fulfilled: "And then shall that great wicked (Papacy) be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming."

The message to you, twinc, is "come out of her (Papal Babylon) that you be not partakers of her sins and receive not of her plagues."

the Reformers were indeed antichrists for they chose to walk no more with Him or put on Christ - this is not accordjng to you or others and their crazy ideas but according to Christ via the Bible - so guess who are going to be destroyed - twinc

 

[mjrhealth]

the Reformers were indeed antichrists for they chose to walk no more with Him or put on Christ - this is not accordjng to you or others and their crazy ideas but according to Christ via the Bible - so guess who are going to be destroyed - twinc

And so it is with all religions, this bit

1Sa_8:7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

and this bit

Mat 20:25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
Mat 20:26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;

because they all have that same religious spirit, this one.

Rev_2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.

so all those who demand Gods people join up with there religions are actually causing them to sin by fornication, harlotry with a harlot.

God bless

 

[epostle1]

This Louis Bouyer may be right about the success of Protestantism, but making Protestantism work is not and should not be any man's goal. Our goal should be to follow God wherever He leads us. For this reason He sent Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus founded an infallible church to teach us correctly about Jesus. If you don't believe Jesus founded an infallible Church, then you don't believe the Bible, just selective parts.

Protestantism did not solve the problems that had long existed in Catholicism as neither of them generally was following God.

That's an opinion. You forget about the great saints that God rose up in every century. Some with signs and wonders.

They were each striving for what they wanted for their own large or small group, rather than for what God really wanted from and for everyone... How many people on either side were really were interested in going the right Way, the Way that Jesus had lived as a man and had taught His followers? The power of Catholicism as a group of men was diminished considerably by the loss of numbers and by the opposition of the new Protestant groups but that was man's power, not God's.

That's not true. There have always been weak and sinful members and there have always been great saints to renew the Church, like St. Francis of Assisi. There are about 10,000 - 20,000 declared saints, men and women of exemplary holiness, this does not count the ones off the list.

The power of God was working in His people, the ones following the lead of the Holy Spirit, without regard to whether they Catholic or Protestant or something else. These were the few who were NOT suppressing or quenching the Holy Spirit in themselves. These were the sincere ones who were moving closer to God.

Good for them. They do not counter or take away from Catholics who do NOT suppress or quench the Holy Spirit. What the Church lost in a few northern European countries, she gained from 1531 to 1538, eight million Aztec pagans of Mexico converted to Catholicism! Guadalupe and Our Lady of Guadalupe

God has always been working in a few believers submitted to the Holy Spirit from the time of that first day of Pentecost described in Acts 2. The prevalent teaching, among Catholics before and after the Reformation and later also among Protestants, which sought to quench the Holy Spirit, opened some hitherto closed doors for people who were following the Holy Spirit.

Please cite the "prevalent teaching" that quenches the Holy Spirit. Everything the Church has taught is available on line so it shouldn't be hard to find.

The Reformation was in God's plan even if many of the Reformers like many of the Catholics were working on their own agendas rather than following the Holy Spirit. They were working as the left hand of God. God used their animosity toward each other to keep them from interfering with those few moving through the strait gate and the narrow way as led by the Holy Spirit toward Life.

How many Protestants advocated speaking in tongues between the 16th and the 19th century? Not many, if any at all. Was all of Protestantism quenching the Holy Spirit in a 300 year period?

There is a difference between animosity and blatant apostasy.

The moral deficiencies of the original Protestant so-called "reformers" were the MOTIVE, for their apostasy. It was not merely that they were sinners. They were sinners who apostatized BECAUSE of their sins.
If Henry VIII did not want to divorce his sacramentally married wife, marry his chippie mistress, steal Church lands and use the money to pay off his personal debts, England would still be Catholic. Henry VIII made himself 'head of the Church" in England. He had more mistresses than wives and he killed several of those. He used his 'religious authority' to ignore the teaching of Our Lord and Savior on divorce and serve his own lusts. he was also guilty of greed, egoism, cruelty, murder, extortion, and irreligion.

If Martin Luther did not suffer from severe bipolar manic-depressant illness with frank psychosis during his periods of mania, he would never have invented a purely formal definition of 'righteousness' that was evacuated of all moral content and inspired millions of others to settle for a sub-Christian notion of discipleship…
Luther lived with his paramour for 1 1/2 years before marrying her. He was complicit in the bigamy of Philip of Hess. He encouraged gangs of thugs to invade convents and rape the nuns therein.
Luther sanctioned the death penalty for Anabaptists (including peaceful ones). No pope has done anything like the founders of the so called reformation.. But the "left hand of God" has been making false accusations for 500 years.

If Zwingli the priest had not been a sex crazed rogue who seduced the young women in his congregation... and frequented prostitutes...

If Calvin had not been an egomaniac who had murderous intent towards anyone who disagreed with him and in fact executed many people under horrendous conditions. He treated the Genevans so badly that they through him out of town, but in the social chaos that ensued they invited him back so he could use his form of dictatorial repression to stabilize the social disaster the 'reform' had created. And there are the credible charges of his own private vices...the left hand of God???

If Knox had not been part of the assassination team that murdered Cardinal Beaton..."the left hand of God"???

- Cranmer was Henry's foil to destroy the Church. He had a secret wife in Germany while he pretended to be a celibate priest.

All in all they were total moral reprobates and hypocrites. Forgive me for not finding them worthy to challenge Historic Christianity, especially when their false doctrines were at the service of their personal vices.

The faults of the so-called "reformers" are central to their apostasy.

To turn around and complain that some Catholics may not have been nice is besides the point. No matter how mean some of them were, they stayed in the Church. Jesus said that he had come to save sinners, not righteous people. In light of that, claiming that Catholics were sinners therefore someone needed to found a new Church makes no sense! Sinners need to be in THE Church and no other.

+++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer and statement of intent: Unfortunately, the religious "scandal score" needs to be evened up now and then, and the lesser-known "skeletons in the closet" need to be rescued from obscurity, surveyed, and exposed. I take no pleasure in "dredging up" these unsavory occurrences, but it is necessary for honest, fair historical appraisal. This does not mean that I have forsaken ecumenism, or that I wish to bash Protestants, or that I deny corresponding Catholic shortcomings.

Historical facts are what they are, and most Protestants (and Catholics) are unaware of the following historical events and beliefs (while, on the other hand, one always hears about the embarrassing and scandalous Catholic stuff -- and not often very accurately or fairly at that). If (as I suspect might often be the case) readers are shocked or surprised by the very title of this paper, this would be a case in point, and justification enough for my purposes of education. With that end and stated outlook in mind, I offer this copiously-researched treatise, with all due respect to my Protestant brethren, yet not without some remaining trepidation.
In Defense of the Church: The Protestant Inquisition: "Reformation" Intolerance and Persecution
C O N T E N T S

I. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE: AN INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
II. PROTESTANT DIVISIONS AND MUTUAL ANIMOSITIES
III. PLUNDER AS AN AGENT OF RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION
IV. SYSTEMATIC SUPPRESSION OF CATHOLICISM
V. VIOLENT RADICALISM AND THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION
VI. DEATH AND TORTURE FOR CATHOLICS, PROTESTANT DISSIDENTS, AND JEWS
VII. PROTESTANT CENSORSHIP
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[Citations will refer to authors in the Bibliography; any additional information will appear right after the citation]
[P = Protestant scholar / S = secular scholar]
In Defense of the Church: The Protestant Inquisition: "Reformation" Intolerance and Persecution
So you can't accuse the source of doctrinal bias.

 

[epostle1]

In Defense of the Church: The Protestant Inquisition: "Reformation" Intolerance and Persecution

• • 
    The Reformation was intolerant from its cradle, and its authors were universal persecutors . . .
  Auguste Comte also writes:
  • 
    The intolerance of Protestantism was certainly not less tyrannical than that with which Catholicism is so much reproached. (Philosophie Positive, IV, 51)
  What makes, however, Protestant persecutions specially revolting is the fact that they were absolutely inconsistent with the primary doctrine of Protestantism -- the right of private judgment in matters of religious belief! Nothing can be more illogical than at one moment to assert that one may interpret the Bible to suit himself, and at the next to torture and kill him for having done so! Nor should we ever forget that . . . the Protestants were the aggressors, the Catholics were the defenders. The Protestants were attempting to destroy the old, established Christian Church, which had existed 1500 years, and to replace it by something new, untried and revolutionary. The Catholics were upholding a Faith, hallowed by centuries of pious associations and sublime achievements; the Protestants, on the contrary, were fighting for a creed . . . which already was beginning to disintegrate into hostile sects, each of which, if it gained the upper hand, commenced to persecute the rest! . . . All religious persecution is bad; but in this case, of the two parties guilty of it, the Catholics certainly had the more defensible motives for their conduct. At all events, the argument that the persecutions for heresy, perpetrated by the Catholics, constitute a reason why one should not enter the Catholic Church, has not a particle more force than a similar argument would have against one's entering the Protestant Church. In both there have been those deserving of blame in this respect, and what applies to one applies also to the other. (Stoddard, 204-205, 209-210)
  In Defense of the Church: The Protestant Inquisition: "Reformation" Intolerance and Persecution
  
  
  

 

[amadeus]

it seems that Amadeus and the author of post 273 will not accept that if your give your child to the Church for the first few years of its life that child will remain a Catholic for life - twinc

My mother gave me to the Catholic Church as a child. I remained faithfully until I graduated from high school. I have been gone from the CC more than 55 years now. I do belong to God and follow Him, but the severance from formal Catholicism is complete. So what is that about remaining a Catholic for life? I heard that same story many years ago, but it is not true.

 

[epostle1]

It's not true for you, but it's true for 1.1 billion others. It seems to me you skipped over my post. I can understand being ignorant of history, but willfully ignorant is another matter. Most Protestants don't want to know the awful truth of their ancestry, but blame everything on the CC with fallacious arguments. You are saying you can't belong to God and follow Him and be a Catholic. You have been nurturing prejudice for a long time.

Please cite the "prevalent teaching" that quenches the Holy Spirit. (re: post #279) Everything the Church has taught is available on line. There is no such teaching. Cite the "prevalent teaching" and prove you have not been indoctrinated with Protestant polemics. Provide links to the documents so I know you are not making stuff up.
Either that, or knock off the cheap Catholic bashing. Or does the Holy Spirit guide you to do that?

 

[brakelite]

In Defense of the Church: The Protestant Inquisition: "Reformation" Intolerance and Persecution

• • At all events, the argument that the persecutions for heresy, perpetrated by the Catholics, constitute a reason why one should not enter the Catholic Church, has not a particle more force than a similar argument would have against one's entering the Protestant Church. In both there have been those deserving of blame in this respect, and what applies to one applies also to the other. (Stoddard, 204-205, 209-210)

The persecutions for heresy by Catholics are simply one of the reasons Catholicism should be shunned. A secondary reason, and more important, is that Catholicism to this day still defends that evil as being not only appropriate, but necessary. Protestants in the beginning of their learning to shed all they had been taught and indoctrinated in, certainly persecuted many who disagreed with them. To call it inquisition is just a blatant lie. Protestants did learn that religious freedom means just that. Even freedom for the non-believer. In the US constitution they even legislated it into law. Papal denunciations of the US constitution which is contrary to Catholic belief, proves my point.
Your constant denial of the obvious is no different than someone fronting up to the judgment throne of God and justifying his many murders and adulteries because "everyone else did it".

 

[brakelite]

You are saying you can't belong to God and follow Him and be a Catholic. You have been nurturing prejudice for a long time.

There are many sincere genuine Christians in the Catholic Church. That they are genuine sincere Christians at all is not because of anything the church has done to encourage them, but despite it. Your church is THE Antichrist. The reformers knew it. They used the Bible to prove it. The council of Trent was devised and called to refute those charges. The Jesuits were given the task to destroy Protestantism, at all costs. The counter reformation was devised and carried out in order to deflect truth regarding the corrupt and evil system of Rome and turn it elsewhere. It has had remarkable success. Protestants today no longer believe the Papacy is the antichrist. They have fallen for the futurist lie of the Jesuits. Expecting some boogey man to come from the distant horizon while Rome leans over the back fence inviting everybody to a barbecue. I'm not falling for your church's lies. And you need to get out of there yourself because when God destroys that evil system, those still tied to it will not be spared.

 

[brakelite]

Sooooo, when Jesus told Peter that the gates of Hell would NOT prevail against His Church (Matt. 16:18) - He was just kidding - or lying?

Please enlighten us . . .

Jesus prayer was on behalf of the church. That hell should not prevail against His church. It did not apply to any apostate pagan/pseudo Christian enterprise that ascended from the ruins of emperor worship.

 

[brakelite]

Jesus founded an infallible church to teach us correctly about Jesus.

On the say of a power drunk vainglorious self delusional self worshipping pretender to the empirical throne, Pius 12th in 1870 was papal infallibility pronounced. But church infallibility? When did that take place?

 

[amadeus]

Jesus founded an infallible church to teach us correctly about Jesus. If you don't believe Jesus founded an infallible Church, then you don't believe the Bible, just selective parts.

I do believe that Jesus started a Church but the thing that is infallible is the Holy Spirit in a believer. The organization without individuals filled with the Holy Spirit is an empty thing... even if someone names it, "church". People, even Spirit filled people, are not infallible until and if they have overcome all that stands between them and God. Only someone who has already overcome the world as Jesus overcame the world is infallible. Who are those?

That's an opinion. You forget about the great saints that God rose up in every century. Some with signs and wonders. That's not true. There have always been weak and sinful members and there have always been great saints to renew the Church, like St. Francis of Assisi. There are about 10,000 - 20,000 declared saints, men and women of exemplary holiness, this does not count the ones off the list. Good for them. They do not counter or take away from Catholics who do NOT suppress or quench the Holy Spirit. What the Church lost in a few northern European countries, she gained from 1531 to 1538, eight million Aztec pagans of Mexico converted to Catholicism! Guadalupe and Our Lady of Guadalupe
Please cite the "prevalent teaching" that quenches the Holy Spirit. Everything the Church has taught is available on line so it shouldn't be hard to find. How many Protestants advocated speaking in tongues between the 16th and the 19th century? Not many, if any at all. Was all of Protestantism quenching the Holy Spirit in a 300 year period?

I do believe that there has always been an thread, [a remnant of sincere Holy Ghost filled believers], running uninterrupted from that day of Pentecost 2000 years ago [Acts chapter 2] when the Holy Ghost was poured out until now. It was not held together by any church group, but by the Holy Spirit which quickened people when they were not quenching the Spirit in them. There were some who strived to do always the right thing and asked God continuously to help them. The thread was the Holy Spirit in people, not any established church. There is such a thread, but there also many people from the beginning of Christianity to now who have been quenching the Holy Spirit if they ever had it in them at all.

Cite a prevalent teaching that quenches the Holy Spirit? It has been occurring from the time the New Testament was written and has continued in both Catholicism and Protestantism. Why was the Apostle Paul inspired by God to write this?

"Quench not the Spirit."I Thess 5:19

People have been establishing rituals and programs to follow during each gathering of believers which prevent the Holy Spirit from leading them for centuries. That was and is the "prevalent teaching" to quench the Spirit. In both Catholic and Protestant gatherings it is the norm to keep your mouth shut and to sit still unless it is in accord with established rules and programs and rituals. This pressures or even forces anyone who is not a part of the established hierarchy who does have something from God to share to quench or stifle it. They may say it is to prevent chaos, but it also has the effect of preventing God from breaking man's routines just as the traditions of Pharisees did so long ago. Is God not able to lead people at a gathering by means of the the Holy Ghost? According to the established rules someone does not believe God is capable and by the enforcement of their rules they are teaching the people to believe the same way.

Even if the Holy Spirit in you gives you a message from God to tell the people while sitting in the pew during a gathering you must stifle it, [quench it] because to do otherwise would be out of order, that is, out of men's order. They've done it in Catholicism for hundreds of years. They done it in Protestantism since the time of Martin Luther.

God does have an order but men regularly preempt God's order with their own and then say that it is His. In the OT God only had direct close contact/communication with a few priests and prophets and they served as intermediaries between Him and the people. Did nothing change when Jesus came? Where is the royal priesthood of believers... of people who have a personal contact with God by means of the Holy Ghost in them?

T

here is a difference between animosity and blatant apostasy.

The moral deficiencies of the original Protestant so-called "reformers" were the MOTIVE, for their apostasy. It was not merely that they were sinners. They were sinners who apostatized BECAUSE of their sins.

Yes, there a difference between animosity and apostasy, but who are you or I to make judgment against the Reformers saying that none of them had a good cause to do what they did or that none of them were being led by God in what they did? We did not live then and we do not know the minds and hearts of all of those who did... on either side. Who was on the Lord's side then? Who is on the Lord's side now?

We can read history, but which historians should be believed: the ones biased in favor of the Catholics or the one biased in favor of the Reformers? How about those who were always on God's side? Some may have used the Reformation as an excuse to walk along their own pathway, but were not also some seeking a place where someone was not working to stifle the lead of the Holy Spirit? No, the Reformation did not bring everyone into God's fold. Rather it did what the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel did.

 

[amadeus]

If Henry VIII did not want to divorce his sacramentally married wife, marry his chippie mistress, steal Church lands and use the money to pay off his personal debts, England would still be Catholic. Henry VIII made himself 'head of the Church" in England. He had more mistresses than wives and he killed several of those. He used his 'religious authority' to ignore the teaching of Our Lord and Savior on divorce and serve his own lusts. he was also guilty of greed, egoism, cruelty, murder, extortion, and irreligion.

If Martin Luther did not suffer from severe bipolar manic-depressant illness with frank psychosis during his periods of mania, he would never have invented a purely formal definition of 'righteousness' that was evacuated of all moral content and inspired millions of others to settle for a sub-Christian notion of discipleship…

Luther lived with his paramour for 1 1/2 years before marrying her. He was complicit in the bigamy of Philip of Hess. He encouraged gangs of thugs to invade convents and rape the nuns therein.

Luther sanctioned the death penalty for Anabaptists (including peaceful ones). No pope has done anything like the founders of the so called reformation.. But the "left hand of God" has been making false accusations for 500 years.

If Zwingli the priest had not been a sex crazed rogue who seduced the young women in his congregation... and frequented prostitutes...

If Calvin had not been an egomaniac who had murderous intent towards anyone who disagreed with him and in fact executed many people under horrendous conditions. He treated the Genevans so badly that they through him out of town, but in the social chaos that ensued they invited him back so he could use his form of dictatorial repression to stabilize the social disaster the 'reform' had created. And there are the credible charges of his own private vices...the left hand of God???

If Knox had not been part of the assassination team that murdered Cardinal Beaton..."the left hand of God"???

- Cranmer was Henry's foil to destroy the Church. He had a secret wife in Germany while he pretended to be a celibate priest.

All in all they were total moral reprobates and hypocrites. Forgive me for not finding them worthy to challenge Historic Christianity, especially when their false doctrines were at the service of their personal vices.

The faults of the so-called "reformers" are central to their apostasy.

I have really already addressed this. Let us all get on the Lord's side and lift each other up instead of pointing fingers and tearing each other down. Give God rather than man the glory!

To turn around and complain that some Catholics may not have been nice is besides the point. No matter how mean some of them were, they stayed in the Church. Jesus said that he had come to save sinners, not righteous people. In light of that, claiming that Catholics were sinners therefore someone needed to found a new Church makes no sense! Sinners need to be in THE Church and no other.

Saying that the CC is the Church won't change what it is or what it isn't. I know that some Catholics follow God, and you know that many of them do not. The same is true of those believers not affiliated with the CC , commonly called Protestants.

I did not say that someone needed to found a new church. I said that people need to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit within themselves. The ones that do and continue to do so will be part of the Body of Christ.

In spite of your arguments to the contrary our situation really is very similar to that of the two groups of people under Rehoboam and Jeroboam after the death of Solomon. In that time there were always a few in both places who loved God. The people born in the south could not help where they were born any more than those born in the north could not help where they were born. All of them could help how they followed God... or not. It is always the choice of the individual.

 

[Phoneman777]

Careful - your ignorance is showing again . . .

First of all - an "anathema" is simply an excommunication. It isn't a damnation or a physical punishment.

As for Popes being responsible for 50-150 MILLION deaths - there is so much that is perversely wrong with that statement - it's difficult to know where to begin. This would have completely wiped out MOST of Europe.
150 million indeed . . .

FIRST of all, 150 million is 300% more than 50 million - so your numbers are ridiculously skewed.
This would have completely wiped out MOST of Europe. 150 million indeed . . .

SECONDLY - not ONE single Protestant was ever put to death BY a Pope or by a Papal decree.
If there was - the onus is on YOU to provide the documentation instead of your asinine accusations.

As for the couple of hundred people that Queen Mary had executed - that was HER decision - not the Pope's.
As for Elizabeth, as I informed you earlier - her murderous numbers go into the tens of thousands.

Ummm, talk about control freaks . . .

Y'know, Jesuits are supposed to be the "best and the brightest" among all Catholics, but you are definitely the exception, friend. The Biblical definition for Anathema is "cursed", but it seems necessary to clarify for your confused, deluded, misguided, Catholic self that nothing "cursed" is allowed in heaven.

Perhaps your blind devotion to the RCC - the Roman Child-raping Church - has blinded you to the idea of "conservative" and "liberal" estimates. It is extremely difficult to know just how many innocent victims there were of the almost thirteen century slaughter that was the Roman Child-raping Church rampage, who were murdered simply because they either refused to or were suspected of refusing to believe what the Satanic Papal Antichrist commanded them to believe. Only time and eternity will reveal just how severe the slaughter actually was.

Why are you incapable of understanding the extremely simplistic idea that Bloody Mary, motivated by her devotion to the RCC (which was equally as blind as yours is) ordered the execution of non-Catholics as part of a campaign to bring England back to subservience to the Papal Antichrist, while Queen Elizabeth was fighting to stop this campaign? The fact remains that if the RCC would have just given up her Satanic Control Freakism, much bloodshed would have been avoided.

 

[Truth7t7]

150 reasons why I am Catholic

Why I Could Never Be A Catholic?

#1 The Pope Is Not The Vicar Of Christ On Earth!

#2 The Roman Catholic Church Is Not The One True Church!

#3 The Roman Catholic Pope/Church Is Not Infallible!

Three Strikes Your Out!

CARM

Following is a summarized paragraph with references found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) of many of the false teachings of Roman Catholicism.

-----------------------

1. The Catholic Church is the one true church (CCC 2105)
2. Infallibility of the Catholic Church, (CCC 2035)
3. Only the Roman Catholic Church has authority to interpret Scripture (CCC 100)
4. The Pope is the head of the church and has the authority of Christ (CCC 2034)
5. The Roman Catholic Church is necessary for salvation (CCC 846)
6. Sacred Tradition equal to scripture (CCC 82)
7. Forgiveness of sins, salvation, is by faith and works (CCC 2036 CCC 2080 2068)
8. Full benefit of Salvation is only through the Roman Catholic Church (Vatican 2, Decree on Ecumenism, 3)
9. Grace can be merited (CCC 2010 CCC 2027)
10. The merit of Mary and the Saints can be applied to Catholics and others (1477)
11. Penance is necessary for salvation (CCC 980)
12. Purgatory (CCC 1031 CCC 1475)
13. Indulgences (CCC 1471 CCC 1478 CCC 1498 CCC 1472)
14. Mary is Mediatrix (CCC 969)
15. Mary brings us the gifts of eternal salvation (CCC 969)
16. Mary delivers souls from death (CCC 966)
17. Prayer to the saints (CCC 2677)
18. The Communion elements become the actual body and blood of Christ (CCC 1374 CCC 1376).

 

[epostle1]

I do believe that Jesus started a Church but the thing that is infallible is the Holy Spirit in a believer. The organization without individuals filled with the Holy Spirit is an empty thing... even if someone names it, "church". People, even Spirit filled people, are not infallible until and if they have overcome all that stands between them and God. Only someone who has already overcome the world as Jesus overcame the world is infallible. Who are those?

That has nothing to do with infallibility. You are giving me a typical Protestant definition and it isn't biblical.

I do believe that there has always been an thread, [a remnant of sincere Holy Ghost filled believers], running uninterrupted from that day of Pentecost 2000 years ago [Acts chapter 2] when the Holy Ghost was poured out until now. It was not held together by any church group, but by the Holy Spirit which quickened people when they were not quenching the Spirit in them. There were some who strived to do always the right thing and asked God continuously to help them. The thread was the Holy Spirit in people, not any established church. There is such a thread, but there also many people from the beginning of Christianity to now who have been quenching the Holy Spirit if they ever had it in them at all.

That's fine and dandy but you have no names of people "who followed the Holy Spirit" at the beginning of Christianity. What you have is a theory.

Cite a prevalent teaching that quenches the Holy Spirit? It has been occurring from the time the New Testament was written and has continued in both Catholicism and Protestantism. Why was the Apostle Paul inspired by God to write this?

"Quench not the Spirit."I Thess 5:19

That's a nice quote but you are back-peddling. You are the one that brought up "prevalent teaching that quenches the Holy Spirit". You can't support this nonsense with a single example so you hide behind a scripture quote. If I recall, we were discussing teaching in the pre-reformation era that quenches the Holy Spirit, not Thessalonians. However, Paul is cited in nearly every teaching from the Council of Nicea to Vatican II. Read the footnotes on any page of the catechism.

People have been establishing rituals and programs to follow during each gathering of believers which prevent the Holy Spirit from leading them for centuries. That was and is the "prevalent teaching" to quench the Spirit.

Just as you can't give names of people in the early days of the Church who followed the Holy Spirit to their deaths, you can't name your fictitious rituals and programs that quenched the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn't abolish ritual, He perfected them. [/quote]In both Catholic and Protestant gatherings it is the norm to keep your mouth shut and to sit still unless it is in accord with established rules and programs and rituals. This pressures or even forces anyone who is not a part of the established hierarchy who does have something from God to share to quench or stifle it. They may say it is to prevent chaos, but it also has the effect of preventing God from breaking man's routines just as the traditions of Pharisees did so long ago. Is God not able to lead people at a gathering by means of the the Holy Ghost? According to the established rules someone does not believe God is capable and by the enforcement of their rules they are teaching the people to believe the same way.[/quote] Children are supposed to learn, not teach. In the early church, only the ordained could teach. You should know that.

Even if the Holy Spirit in you gives you a message from God to tell the people while sitting in the pew during a gathering you must stifle it, [quench it] because to do otherwise would be out of order, that is, out of men's order. They've done it in Catholicism for hundreds of years. They done it in Protestantism since the time of Martin Luther.

This is prejudiced nonsense. There is a mechanism in certain communities where such giftings are the norm, Protestant and Catholic. One does not need to speak in tongues and put on a holy act to do the multitude of ministries in the Church. It's been how many years? and you still carry around the same pain, the same animosity you learned as a child in high school. We all have traumas from our childhood, I don't think you've ever gotten over them.
[/quote]God does have an order but men regularly preempt God's order with their own and then say that it is His. In the OT God only had direct close contact/communication with a few priests and prophets and they served as intermediaries between Him and the people. Did nothing change when Jesus came? Where is the royal priesthood of believers... of people who have a personal contact with God by means of the Holy Ghost in them?[/quote] It's called baptism.

Yes, there a difference between animosity and apostasy, but who are you or I to make judgment against the Reformers saying that none of them had a good cause to do what they did or that none of them were being led by God in what they did? We did not live then and we do not know the minds and hearts of all of those who did...

on either side. Who was on the Lord's side then? Who is on the Lord's side now?

The side that seeks forgiveness and reconciliation, and it isn't Protestantism.

We can read history, but which historians should be believed: the ones biased in favor of the Catholics or the one biased in favor of the Reformers?

I made it perfectly clear, the citations given in the link I gave are from Protestant and secular historians. There are no Catholic historians being cited. [/quote]How about those who were always on God's side?

Good for them. I don't deny that there were many Protestants on God's side, and many today but the reformation as a whole was a dismal failure. Just one example: in it's first 60 years, there were 200 interpretations of "this is my body". Chaos is not from God.

Some may have used the Reformation as an excuse to walk along their own pathway, but were not also some seeking a place where someone was not working to stifle the lead of the Holy Spirit? No, the Reformation did not bring everyone into God's fold. Rather it did what the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel did.

Why does it keep getting worse?

 

[amadeus]

That has nothing to do with infallibility. You are giving me a typical Protestant definition and it isn't biblical.

The Holy Spirit is then according to you Not infallible?

That's fine and dandy but you have no names of people "who followed the Holy Spirit" at the beginning of Christianity. What you have is a theory.

I have no names because I follow the Holy Spirit, rather than man's history according no matter who the historian. It is not my job to say who is or who is not following the Spirit. You have a list made up by men and say they followed the Holy Spirit but God is the only One who always knows who is or is not... following.

A theory? A theory is a label that men assign to a conclusion after so much experimentation in science. Additional and later experimentation may disallow a previously established theory. But are to live by faith in God not in a theory. Faith as you know is the "substance of things hoped, the evidence of things not seen". No, experimentation or science is required to have faith in God. All we have to do is ask of God and follow as He directs us. Knowledge of history even the history of faithful men is not a requirement.

That's a nice quote but you are back-peddling. You are the one that brought up "prevalent teaching that quenches the Holy Spirit". You can't support this nonsense with a single example so you hide behind a scripture quote. If I recall, we were discussing teaching in the pre-reformation era that quenches the Holy Spirit, not Thessalonians. However, Paul is cited in nearly every teaching from the Council of Nicea to Vatican II. Read the footnotes on any page of the catechism.

I was not discussing just pre-reformation quenching, but all quenching of the Spirit from that first Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus until now.

It is not nonsense that men have been teaching men to ignore the Way of God in favor of the ways of men since the first man Adam. Jesus opened up a new Way, but the ways of men remain the same even for many men who have joined themselves to organized churches. No organization, Catholic or Protestant, saves any man.

Men in organizations have set rules and ways, but while at times they may touch on the things of God, they as an organized group do not and cannot lead a person the right Way. Only God can do that.

As to scriptures which tell us not to follow leaders who are either false and/or who quench the Holy Spirit and teach others to do the same, if you know your Bible you know that there are many. But if I were to take time to list even a few of them you would still read them only according to the CC without checking with in with God via the Holy Spirit. Therefore you would miss God's Word. Probably you don't how to do this for which I am saddened on your behalf. I will provide you with one verse written by Apostle Paul but likely you will also not understand what message it sends to men.

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." I Cor 11:1

Just as you can't give names of people in the early days of the Church who followed the Holy Spirit to their deaths, you can't name your fictitious rituals and programs that quenched the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn't abolish ritual, He perfected them.

Jesus brought the reality of God and the things of God to replace the types and shadows that many men today, both Catholic and Protestant, continue to hold and even to add to...

Why accept the type of shadow when we can have the reality? I could name many specific rituals and programs that men practice which quench the Holy Spirit and which teach other to quench the Holy Spirit. I have already mentioned more than one but you shrug them off when they go against your man made traditions. Therein do you follow the example of the Pharisees

Children are supposed to learn, not teach. In the early church, only the ordained could teach. You should know that.

The saints of God, that is the ones set apart by God, are supposed to learn, yes, moving from the milk of the Word to the meat. It is the job of the ministers of God to help them get there, but for the most part among Catholics and among many Protestants they cannot get away from the milk... they are not moving toward perfection, the perfection which is found as said in Jesus:

"For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;" Eph 4:12-14

How many believers who sit in the pews where you attend no longer require the help of the ministry because they have moved beyond spiritual childhood? Sounds to me like ministers are not doing their job.

Yet, what are we to be?

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." I John 3:2

How many where you worship God are now ready to see him as he is? Only those who are ready will see Him.

This is prejudiced nonsense. There is a mechanism in certain communities where such giftings are the norm, Protestant and Catholic. One does not need to speak in tongues and put on a holy act to do the multitude of ministries in the Church. It's been how many years? and you still carry around the same pain, the same animosity you learned as a child in high school. We all have traumas from our childhood, I don't think you've ever gotten over them.

What are you talking about? No where in my conversation with you on this thread did I mention tongues nor did I mention having any pain in high school.

Amadeus said previously: God does have an order but men regularly preempt God's order with their own and then say that it is His. In the OT God only had direct close contact/communication with a few priests and prophets and they served as intermediaries between Him and the people. Did nothing change when Jesus came? Where is the royal priesthood of believers... of people who have a personal contact with God by means of the Holy Ghost in them?

It's called baptism.

The side that seeks forgiveness and reconciliation, and it isn't Protestantism.[/quote]
God's order is called "baptism"? Your second sentence appears to be a fragment. I am not responding to it because I don't know what you are saying.

I made it perfectly clear, the citations given in the link I gave are from Protestant and secular historians. There are no Catholic historians being cited.

It makes no difference to me. I was talking to you not any historian regardless of bias. As you may have noticed I am not in accord with any mainline Protestant group. I have never belonged to any mainline church group since leaving Catholicism. I belong to God and I follow the Holy Spirit rather than any man or men.

 

[twinc]

The Holy Spirit is then according to you Not infallible?


I have no names because I follow the Holy Spirit, rather than man's history according no matter who the historian. It is not my job to say who is or who is not following the Spirit. You have a list made up by men and say they followed the Holy Spirit but God is the only One who always knows who is or is not... following.

A theory? A theory is a label that men assign to a conclusion after so much experimentation in science. Additional and later experimentation may disallow a previously established theory. But are to live by faith in God not in a theory. Faith as you know is the "substance of things hoped, the evidence of things not seen". No, experimentation or science is required to have faith in God. All we have to do is ask of God and follow as He directs us. Knowledge of history even the history of faithful men is not a requirement.


I was not discussing just pre-reformation quenching, but all quenching of the Spirit from that first Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus until now.

It is not nonsense that men have been teaching men to ignore the Way of God in favor of the ways of men since the first man Adam. Jesus opened up a new Way, but the ways of men remain the same even for many men who have joined themselves to organized churches. No organization, Catholic or Protestant, saves any man.

Men in organizations have set rules and ways, but while at times they may touch on the things of God, they as an organized group do not and cannot lead a person the right Way. Only God can do that.

As to scriptures which tell us not to follow leaders who are either false and/or who quench the Holy Spirit and teach others to do the same, if you know your Bible you know that there are many. But if I were to take time to list even a few of them you would still read them only according to the CC without checking with in with God via the Holy Spirit. Therefore you would miss God's Word. Probably you don't how to do this for which I am saddened on your behalf. I will provide you with one verse written by Apostle Paul but likely you will also not understand what message it sends to men.

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." I Cor 11:1


Jesus brought the reality of God and the things of God to replace the types and shadows that many men today, both Catholic and Protestant, continue to hold and even to add to...

Why accept the type of shadow when we can have the reality? I could name many specific rituals and programs that men practice which quench the Holy Spirit and which teach other to quench the Holy Spirit. I have already mentioned more than one but you shrug them off when they go against your man made traditions. Therein do you follow the example of the Pharisees


The saints of God, that is the ones set apart by God, are supposed to learn, yes, moving from the milk of the Word to the meat. It is the job of the ministers of God to help them get there, but for the most part among Catholics and among many Protestants they cannot get away from the milk... they are not moving toward perfection, the perfection which is found as said in Jesus:

"For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;" Eph 4:12-14

How many believers who sit in the pews where you attend no longer require the help of the ministry because they have moved beyond spiritual childhood? Sounds to me like ministers are not doing their job.

Yet, what are we to be?

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." I John 3:2

How many where you worship God are now ready to see him as he is? Only those who are ready will see Him.


What are you talking about? No where in my conversation with you on this thread did I mention tongues nor did I mention having any pain in high school.



It's called baptism.

The side that seeks forgiveness and reconciliation, and it isn't Protestantism.

God's order is called "baptism"? Your second sentence appears to be a fragment. I am not responding to it because I don't know what you are saying.

It makes no difference to me. I was talking to you not any historian regardless of bias. As you may have noticed I am not in accord with any mainline Protestant group. I have never belonged to any mainline church group since leaving Catholicism. I belong to God and I follow the Holy Spirit rather than any man or men. [/QUOTE]


that is all according to you and imagination and lies according to Christ via the Bible where He informs us that you walk no more with Him - it seems you are really anti and not really pro Christ and His Church or His bible - twinc

 

[twinc]

Why I Could Never Be A Catholic?

#1 The Pope Is Not The Vicar Of Christ On Earth!

#2 The Roman Catholic Church Is Not The One True Church!

#3 The Roman Catholic Pope/Church Is Not Infallible!

Three Strikes Your Out!

CARM

Following is a summarized paragraph with references found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) of many of the false teachings of Roman Catholicism.

-----------------------

1. The Catholic Church is the one true church (CCC 2105)
2. Infallibility of the Catholic Church, (CCC 2035)
3. Only the Roman Catholic Church has authority to interpret Scripture (CCC 100)
4. The Pope is the head of the church and has the authority of Christ (CCC 2034)
5. The Roman Catholic Church is necessary for salvation (CCC 846)
6. Sacred Tradition equal to scripture (CCC 82)
7. Forgiveness of sins, salvation, is by faith and works (CCC 2036 CCC 2080 2068)
8. Full benefit of Salvation is only through the Roman Catholic Church (Vatican 2, Decree on Ecumenism, 3)
9. Grace can be merited (CCC 2010 CCC 2027)
10. The merit of Mary and the Saints can be applied to Catholics and others (1477)
11. Penance is necessary for salvation (CCC 980)
12. Purgatory (CCC 1031 CCC 1475)
13. Indulgences (CCC 1471 CCC 1478 CCC 1498 CCC 1472)
14. Mary is Mediatrix (CCC 969)
15. Mary brings us the gifts of eternal salvation (CCC 969)
16. Mary delivers souls from death (CCC 966)
17. Prayer to the saints (CCC 2677)
18. The Communion elements become the actual body and blood of Christ (CCC 1374 CCC 1376).

beg your pardon but false according to who or how many self appointed individual infallible Protestant Popes - twinc