saintfan

We let Catholics post here? What the hell?



Sorry. It was right there on the tee. I simply had to swing at it...

burningmetal

Well let me first say that I agree completely on your examples of the catholic church. I should inform you, though, that I am a protestant.

Many people tend to think that Christianity and Catholicism are the same thing. I don't know what definition people are using, but to avoid confusion I'll be more specific from now on.

The Catholic church was once the central faith in the world, it WAS Christianity. But the church gradually became corrupt, and it had become power hungry. The church acted as a political party, it began twisting scripture to fit it's own views. Those who truly were about serving the Lord ,and not the church, knew what was happening and took a stand... In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenburg Germany, in protest of them. Hence the term "protestant".

What is my point? It isn't the hypocrisy of the religion, it's the actions of individuals who essentially make their own rules.

No where in the bible does it say a minister cannot marry. No where does it say that Mary shall be worshiped. Crucifix's symbolize the death of Jesus, when we all should be celebrating his resurrection. Fasting for 40 days? There are instances in the bible where people fasted fora certain amount of time, but Jesus shed his blood for the very reason that we would no longer have to make sacrifices to be made holy. We are made holy through Simply accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and repenting of our sins, by asking HIM for forgiveness... Not a priest, which is another serious issue with the catholic church.

Let us not forget that liars exist, and are quite prominent today. Just because a man claims to be a man of God does not make him so. All of the pride that you mentioned, and the instances where you hear about child molesting, are clear indications of selfish men, who use their pulpit as a means of personal gain. Not as a means to spread God's word and glorify HIS name.

But I don't want to just pick on the Catholic church, as I believe there are a few members of that church who truly love the Lord, but unfortunately have not educated themselves in what the catholic church has stood for.

There are people who claim to be protestant, who don't know anything about God's word, or they are just flat out lying for the same reasons I mentioned above. To give themselves a pulpit, or a podium to stand in front of a bunch of people and feel important. A true man of God, who is led by the holy spirit, and not by selfish pride, speaks only of the truth according to God's word and does so out of compassion for others. He does not boast of himself, or pretend to be a bridge of God's forgiveness (i.e, priests "forgiving" people's sins). Now, we ARE supposed to forgive others. But there is a difference between forgiving someone for what they did to you, and forgiving on BEHALF of God. Only God can do that.

Lust, gluttony, pride, adultery, idolatry, covetousness, hatred, murder, etc. are all sins. I mentioned in my last post that no one is sinless, and it is very difficult to live up to the standards that God Requires. But here is the beauty of God's grace: He created us, he understands everything about us, and he offers forgiveness of sins. It is impossible for man to go an entire lifetime without committing sin. This again is why Jesus was sent to die for the sins of all. It was THE ultimate sacrifice.

So to say that because someone commits a sin his faith is hypocritical, is not accurate at all. God has give us his word. There are those who follow it, those who distort it, and those who don't believe it at all. That is a consequence of free will. He told us what he expected of us, but he did not make our choices for us. All people are hypocritical at times, but we need to ask for forgiveness when we make mistakes.

You brought up judgment. God says thou shall not judge. We do not have the right to condemn people to hell on our own accord. Nor do we have the right to say that we are better than someone, or what we think they deserve. When we do any of these things, it is a sin. I am guilty a lot of times of seeing someone on tv who has committed rape or murder, and I say something like "that piece of crap deserves to die, I hope they burn him". Or "I hope he rots in hell". It's an emotional reaction to an extreme circumstance, and it's easy to forget that we're not supposed to say those things. So we need to catch ourselves, ask for forgiveness, and pray for the person instead. Very hard thing to do, but it is what is what God expects of us all.

But when I say to you, or anyone, that if you don't believe in and serve the Lord before your time is up that you will go to hell, I am not judging or condemning you. It's a warning that God has given us all to repent and serve him, and we have an obligation to spread God's word. I can't force anyone to believe or serve God. That's not my job. My only obligation is to plant the seeds, and let people decide for themselves.

And when you ask is God a hypocrite and only he can judge: No, and yes: He created everything (even if you don't believe He did, let's just assume for the sake of possibility that He did), he decreed right from wrong, and without him, we wouldn't understand either of the two. He is not a president. He is THE Creator... Who else should be the one to ultimately decide what is right, who has pleased him, and who has not? He said "thou" shall not judge, not "neither thou nor I shall judge". It is impossible for God to be hypocritical when he is the very reason for life itself. He gives us ample warning in his word, and so when a person either does not believe, or claims to be a christian but never chooses to repent of the sins that we inevitably all commit, we cannot say that God was unjust with us.

You mentioned Hell, Purgatory, Gehenna, and Valley of the Son of Hinnom... The bible mentions none other than hell. It is most decidedly not a place on earth. Hell is a place where your soul goes, not to die, but live in agony for eternity. It is described as the lake of fire. Imagine burning alive forever. I can't even fathom the horror. But no one goes there without making a conscience decision to reject God.

Purgatory is the Pagan version of where souls go for judgement. God does not put us on a waiting list. When you die, your soul arrives at the throne of judgement, and it is already known what your destination will be. I don't know what exact words would be said, but you would be sent accordingly. With this said, I don't understand what correlation you are making between these other places, and the ONE place that is mentioned in the bible many times.

The choice to believe or disbelieve what is said in the bible, of course, is always yours to make.

Lastly, about Nostradamus and prophecies: Nostradamus routinely gives vague and almost completely unrecognizable "references" (presumed references) to events in history. Bible prophecy is extremely accurate and foretells events many, many years into the future in perfect descending order. Not every single prophecy has been fulfilled, as each one has to happen in it's exact written order.

The bible speaks of the conditions that we will see when Christ's return is near, that will set into place fulfilling of each prophecy. Here is an article that gives a very good outline of those prophecies, the conditions that we see today, and how many have only become possible in the last 50 years: Seven Prophecies That Must Be Fulfilled Before Jesus Christ's Return - Good News Magazine | United Church of God

There are scriptures listed in there that you can look up, if you'd like to further investigate them for yourself. This is all a very long read, but it's important for purposes of understanding.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.

TheOak

The bible in its original language does not have the word "hell". Some things get lost in translation, I suppose this an item that gains a different perspective in translation.

In the original Hebrew bible the word is Gehinnom, and Gehinnom is an actual dirt and rocks patch of ground with GPS coordinates. .
Gehenna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


However, back to Thomas Jefferson's intent with the separation of Church and state.

It was not to keep Christian values out of Government, it was to keep specific faiths from shaping our government into what they believe.

Thomas Jefferson and the framers wanted God in this country, not any one mans version of God... and there in lays the impasse.

burningmetal

Well, yes there are certainly different words used to describe hell in different languages. Hell, of course, being the English term". It is also referred to as the "lake of fire", "fiery hell", "bottomless pit", "outer darkness", and "unquenchable fire" among others. "Gehenna" is a Greek word that translates into "hell" or "the fires of hell", and Gehinnom is the Hebrew translation of the same word, as you already know. Technically speaking, it could be said that "hell" does not not exist in the Hebrew version because the word itself does not appear, but the references to an eternal place of damnation are numerous, and all of them depict a place of great suffering, and not just a place where bodies are dumped and cease to exist, as some believe. And the fact that it is consistently spoken of as a place of fire, tells you these aren't just random places.

There are many instances in the Bible where Jesus, Himself, speaks of it. I'll give you one of these scriptures from Matthew 25:41.

"Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:"... That is from the New King James Version.

That verse, translated from Hebrew- "Also He will say to those on his left: 'Depart from Me ye cursed ones, and go into the everlasting fire, to the place prepared for you, with Satan and his messengers'".

As you can see, nothing there is lost in translation in the NKJV version, from the Hebrew version. Just worded slightly differently.

I recommend reading chapter 25 in it's entirety, for greater perspective, but you can see that this place is not exactly a secret in the Bible. It's actually quite evident.

Gehinnom appears to be a symbolic term used to reference the place of punishment, but it is not used often, and is by no means the only term used. The Bible is very explicit about this place being that of ETERNAL fire. Certainly not a giant burn pile somewhere outside of Jerusalem.

Matthew 10:28, from Hebrew translation, says: "Do not fear those who kill, who have no power to kill souls; but fear The One who has power to destroy the soul and the body in Gehinnom".

The EARTHLY place of Gehinnom has no mention of killing souls. This suggests that this word was used in different contexts, either literally or symbolically. No matter the term used, the Bible repeatedly speaks of a place that is most certainly unlike any place living beings have ever seen.

Take this for what you will, but I hope it helps shed some light.



As for the separation of church and state, I didn't suggest it was to keep Christian faith out, if you'll look at what I said about that. It is well known that Christian values were a huge part of the founding fathers.

My take on it was just as you said. To keep others from governing based on personal beliefs. I said that I would like to keep certain Christian values upheld, and that is because those values jive with common human morality, even if you're not a believer in God. But I think the founders understood that it was unlikely every elected individual would have held the same faith or religious values. Therefore, there needed to be a central, agreed upon set of checks and balances, to make law. This prevents dictatorship. At least it is supposed to.

Barack Obama is trying his best to rewrite the constitution.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.