BobRyan said:
Me too.
#1. Worshipping bread as though it were God.
#2. Praying to the dead
#3. purgatory
#4. Indulgences
#5. "Mary sinless like Christ"
Mary - Queen of heaven
Mary - coRedemptrix with Christ
Mary - all powerful like Christ
#6. Extermination of the saints
7. Catholic Armies sent to kill Catholic Armies -- each having a Pope to call the other "AntiChrist"
And Briyoni answers:
Why bother....there are those who cling desperately to their invincible ignorance.....it astounds me forever.....however one can still pray for those who seem so intent to hate and loathe the RCC
It is not that we hate the RCC. We do detest the doctrines. But let me try and shed some light on the situation. I'll take the doctrines that Bob has listed and elaborate on them:
1. Worshiping bread as though it were God.
--As a Catholic, if you had accused me of doing that I would have taken offence and denied it. I was ignorant of the Bible, but knew that somehow Christ was mysteriously present in that piece of bread we call the "host." I diddn't actually worship it, per se. It was a mystery. I simply naively accepted what the priests taught. I was no theologian, did not know the Bible, and obviously could not look at anything from a Biblical perspective. I accepted the Catholic teaching. So don't tell me that I was worshiping a piece of bread as if it was God. I wasn't!
--After I was saved, I began to realize what the bread represented, the concept of transubstantiation. Now I look at things from a Biblical perspective and not from a Catholic perspective. That is the only way that I can look at things, and indeed must. I must look at things from God's perspective, not man's (the RCC). If indeed Christ is present in the host, then the priest is bowing down before it, and worshiping it. I saw him doing this all of my life. The accusation holds true.
2. Praying to the dead.
--If, as a Catholic, you had accused me of that, if would have resulted in picking a fight, and more than just verbal. What an insult! I, like most believers today, believe that all Christians go to be with the Lord, when they die. to say that I am praying to dead people is just ridiculous. Probably the only one on this board that doesn't believe that is Bob, because he is SDA, and believes in soul sleep. Being absent from the body is to present with the Lord. That is a basic Bible belief.
Again, after becoming saved and studying the Bible, I had to change my beliefs. First I had to examine my beliefs concerning the definition of "dead."
Often we ask the children when passing a cenetary: "How many survivors do you think are buried there?" After one or two may hazard a guess, the obvious answer is NONE. Survivors aren't buried. We don't bury people that are alive. All of them are dead. It is fruitless to go into a cemetary and pray to a corpse, a dead person--even if you believed that corpse was the corpse of Mary, Peter, Paul, James, etc. They are all dead, and their bodies will not be raised until the resurrection takes place. Thus when you pray to one of those spirits in heaven you are still praying to a dead person, simply because their body is dead. We don't go to a cemetary and pray to the dead. It is the same concept.
Furthermore, and more importantly, only God deserves prayer. Prayer is worship. Any prayer directed to another is taken away from the only One who deserves it--Our creator and Sovereign the Lord Jesus Christ. How dare we insult HIm, by giving glory to another! Prayer belongs to God alone. Again, I must look at things from God's point of view, not man's.
3. Purgatory. It is a belief of the Catholic Church. I believed it because I was taught it, not because the Bible taught.
As a saved person, I found out that the Bible doesn't teach it so I rejected it. It is a man-made doctrine. That one is easy.
4. Mary was sinless like Christ. Again a Catholic doctrine without any foundation in Scipture. It only has foundation in logic--that a sinless Christ had to come from a sinless person.
--But the Bible says otherwise. I must accept what the Bible teaches.
The next three doctrines that you listed concerning Mary were never emphasized or even taught when I was a Catholic. Some of them would have offended me as a Catholic. To say that Mary was as powerful as God is offensive. She is not. How can she be? Why the false accusation? I don't think a Catholic believes that to this day.
--However there may be some in the Catholic Church that unwittingly act as if she is as powerful as God by the way that they pray to her, by the requests they place upon her. They don't realize that Mary has to by omnipresent, omnipotent, omnisicient--the attributes that make her equal to God--in order to answer their prayers. Again it is looking at things from a Biblical perspective.
Points 6 & 7 have to do with history. That history I was ignorant of. I was not ignorant of the Crusades, but was taught it from a different point of view.
After I got saved, and looked into the history more in depth I saw what really happened and the atrocities of the RCC. As a Catholic I would have never believed it. Both salvation, and knowledge opens one's eyes.
