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One example of many? Are they all as plainly and ridiculously far-fateched? Let us have a look see. You said:
Sometimes Fundamentalists object to asking our fellow Christians in heaven to pray for us by declaring that God has forbidden contact with the dead in passages such as Deuteronomy 18:10–11. In fact, he has not, because he at times has given it—for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. "There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. . . . For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed" (Deut. 18:10–15).
God thus indicates that one is not to conjure the dead for purposes of gaining information; one is to look to God’s prophets instead. Thus one is not to hold a seance. But anyone with an ounce of common sense can discern the vast qualitative difference between holding a seance to have the dead speak through you and a son humbly saying at his mother’s grave, "Mom, please pray to Jesus for me; I’m having a real problem right now." The difference between the two is the difference between night and day. One is an occult practice bent on getting secret information; the other is a humble request for a loved one to pray to God on one’s behalf.
Where are all these other phantom examples you have given? You gave nothing there that indicates the stricture against contact with the dead has been removed. You are as dishonest as the next Catholic. Sorry to be so plain about it. Call it base if you must. Flowery language I shall leave to the popes as they wax poetic about your heresies concerning Mary.
Sometimes Fundamentalists object to asking our fellow Christians in heaven to pray for us by declaring that God has forbidden contact with the dead in passages such as Deuteronomy 18:10–11. In fact, he has not, because he at times has given it—for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. "There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. . . . For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed" (Deut. 18:10–15).
God thus indicates that one is not to conjure the dead for purposes of gaining information; one is to look to God’s prophets instead. Thus one is not to hold a seance. But anyone with an ounce of common sense can discern the vast qualitative difference between holding a seance to have the dead speak through you and a son humbly saying at his mother’s grave, "Mom, please pray to Jesus for me; I’m having a real problem right now." The difference between the two is the difference between night and day. One is an occult practice bent on getting secret information; the other is a humble request for a loved one to pray to God on one’s behalf.
Where are all these other phantom examples you have given? You gave nothing there that indicates the stricture against contact with the dead has been removed. You are as dishonest as the next Catholic. Sorry to be so plain about it. Call it base if you must. Flowery language I shall leave to the popes as they wax poetic about your heresies concerning Mary.
Its not a lie. 3/4 of the Christians on Earth are part of the Catholic, Orthodox, other Eastern sects, or Anglicans denominations. Catholics alone make up a little under half of the Christians in the world with Catholic Christians making up 16% of the world's population and non-Catholic Christians making up 17% of the world's population, and the majority of that 17% is Orthodoxy.
It is a practise unknown in the New Testament and condemned by the Old. It has no validity whatsoever and hold Christianity up to ridicule. The idea that saints in Heaven, who are busy worshipping God, can hear hundreds of thousands of prayers is totally ridiculous. It was unknown in the first to hundred years after Christ.
Of course it is true. They are busy worshiping God, not waiting for us to pray to them. They would find it abhorrent. Prayers to the dead are forbidden in the OT.
You reach the height of absurdity. Those are not saints in heaven but angelic beings especially appointed to bring our prayers before God. It is symbolic to show that our prayers do reach God..
And as they are not offering our prayers to God they must clearly be unaware of them.
You reach the heights of absurdity.
What an absurd statement. How can God receiving our prayers directly tell us anything about the saints in Heaven. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
It is nothing of the kind. It says NOTHING about the saints in Heaven. As uual you RCs twist Scripture.
But they are not offered by saints. It is the ministry of angelic beings, and it is symbolic.
At last you are catching on that it is symbolic. But it has NOTHING to do with the saints in Heaven. The only mental person is you.
You are correct on that.
Having mediators in Heaven certainly contradicts Christ's mediatorship, and degrades it.
Indeed He is the only One able to act in that way, for no one else would be able too cope with it.
Of course it is they are acting as mediators. Otherwise why are they praying?
That is hardly true. Moses was not a mediator in the way Christ is, as you have admitted yourself.
Are you thick or just blind? Nowhere is there any suggestion that we pray to people on earth to intercede for us. Nor do they act as mediators. We pray for each other in order to sustain each other. We are intercessors, not mediators. Once we turn them into mediators, or special people with special powers, we blaspheme and destroy Christ's mediatorship. It is one thing for us to pray for each other. It is quite another to go to saints in Heaven to ask them to intervene in something that is no concern of theirs. You Roman Catholics are so deceitful in your arguments.
At least you are right on that. Although I note you select a passage that you can twist in your argument. ALL contact with the dead is forbidden.
What utter and complete nonsense. No one prayed to the dead on the Mount. Your comparison is balderdash.
He has forbidden prayers to the dead.
In other words you shall not contact the dead.
God thus indicates that you shall not contact the dead for any reason.
. Th And how is it different. if done with the purpose of speaking to the dead it is wrong. Sentiment does not make it right. (Incidentally his mother will not hear him).
Of course it is true. They are busy worshiping God, not waiting for us to pray to them. They would find it abhorrent. Prayers to the dead are forbidden in the OT.
You reach the height of absurdity. Those are not saints in heaven but angelic beings especially appointed to bring our prayers before God. It is symbolic to show that our prayers do reach God..
And as they are not offering our prayers to God they must clearly be unaware of them.
You reach the heights of absurdity.
What an absurd statement. How can God receiving our prayers directly tell us anything about the saints in Heaven. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
It is nothing of the kind. It says NOTHING about the saints in Heaven. As uual you RCs twist Scripture.
But they are not offered by saints. It is the ministry of angelic beings, and it is symbolic.
At last you are catching on that it is symbolic. But it has NOTHING to do with the saints in Heaven. The only mental person is you.
You are correct on that.
Having mediators in Heaven certainly contradicts Christ's mediatorship, and degrades it.
Indeed He is the only One able to act in that way, for no one else would be able too cope with it.
Of course it is they are acting as mediators. Otherwise why are they praying?
That is hardly true. Moses was not a mediator in the way Christ is, as you have admitted yourself.
Are you thick or just blind? Nowhere is there any suggestion that we pray to people on earth to intercede for us. Nor do they act as mediators. We pray for each other in order to sustain each other. We are intercessors, not mediators. Once we turn them into mediators, or special people with special powers, we blaspheme and destroy Christ's mediatorship. It is one thing for us to pray for each other. It is quite another to go to saints in Heaven to ask them to intervene in something that is no concern of theirs. You Roman Catholics are so deceitful in your arguments.
At least you are right on that. Although I note you select a passage that you can twist in your argument. ALL contact with the dead is forbidden.
What utter and complete nonsense. No one prayed to the dead on the Mount. Your comparison is balderdash.
He has forbidden prayers to the dead.
In other words you shall not contact the dead.
God thus indicates that you shall not contact the dead for any reason.
. Th And how is it different. if done with the purpose of speaking to the dead it is wrong. Sentiment does not make it right. (Incidentally his mother will not hear him).
Really? I seem to remember for years the Pentecostals were the largest growing of denominations, & that the Southern Baptists held the title of being the largest denomination.
BTW, the word "orthodoxy" has changed so much in the last several years as to now mean (in the US anyway) protestant denominations that look & act like the RCC.
BTW, the word "orthodoxy" has changed so much in the last several years as to now mean (in the US anyway) protestant denominations that look & act like the RCC.
These statistics are nonsense and unprovable. No one really knows how many TRUE Christians there are. This numbering is based on claims that churches make and they are all exaggerated and based on false premises.
But at least it demonstrates that Roman Catholics are on the whole not true Christians. For Scripture is quite clear on the fact that God's true believers are always A REMNANT..
But at least it demonstrates that Roman Catholics are on the whole not true Christians. For Scripture is quite clear on the fact that God's true believers are always A REMNANT..
God's remnant are in all Christendom. Spiritual Babylon is decaying. She is apostatizing from "the everlasting gospel". Hence there will come a point (only God knows) when the following call will go out:
Rev 18:2 “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! ...4 I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; 5 for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
But as of now Babylon has not fallen. So we shouldn't condemn those Christians who are still in Babylon.
Rev 18:2 “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! ...4 I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; 5 for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
But as of now Babylon has not fallen. So we shouldn't condemn those Christians who are still in Babylon.
Originally Posted by valiant
But at least it demonstrates that Roman Catholics are on the whole not true Christians. For Scripture is quite clear on the fact that God's true believers are always A REMNANT..
Did I condemn anyone? I merely laid down the facts. It is God who condemns those who profess to be Christians and are not. We are to discern them and separate from them NOW (2 Thess 3.6; 1 Tim 6.20; 1 John 2.19; 2 John 10; etc).
It is true that 75% of the people on this World do call themselves a Christian. Only about 10% of those ARE True Christians.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
[SUP]1 [/SUP] Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you,
[SUP]2 [/SUP] not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.
[SUP]3 [/SUP] Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,
[SUP]4 [/SUP] who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
[SUP]5 [/SUP] Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
[SUP]6 [/SUP] And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.
[SUP]7 [/SUP] For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.
[SUP]8 [/SUP] And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
[SUP]9 [/SUP] The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,
[SUP]10 [/SUP] and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
[SUP]11 [/SUP] And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
[SUP]12 [/SUP] that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
There must be a falling away of us True Christians for the Anti-Christ to appear. Its those who have pleasures in Unrighteousness that are the False Christians in the World.
When you see all the True Christians gone from this World is when you will see the Anti-Christ appear!
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
[SUP]1 [/SUP] Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you,
[SUP]2 [/SUP] not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.
[SUP]3 [/SUP] Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,
[SUP]4 [/SUP] who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
[SUP]5 [/SUP] Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
[SUP]6 [/SUP] And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.
[SUP]7 [/SUP] For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.
[SUP]8 [/SUP] And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
[SUP]9 [/SUP] The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,
[SUP]10 [/SUP] and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
[SUP]11 [/SUP] And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
[SUP]12 [/SUP] that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
There must be a falling away of us True Christians for the Anti-Christ to appear. Its those who have pleasures in Unrighteousness that are the False Christians in the World.
When you see all the True Christians gone from this World is when you will see the Anti-Christ appear!
The 75% stat you cite is easily refutable.
About 2.2 billion of the 7 billion people worldwide call themselves Christian. That is about 30% of the global population. I have no idea how many of those 2.2 billion are are actually saved. We should focus on those who aren't, whether they call themselves Christian or not. They all need the true Gospel.