Since I have joined Armorgams . . .I see a lot of Atheists and their threads about why people believe in God etc . . . I wanted to start a thread about the bible and christianity.
The purpose of this thread is to debate a different book of the bible each week. We will discuss lessons, morals, and different stories.
We will have friendly debates. Please . . . if you are atheist or of other beliefs . . . you may discuss in this thread, just PLEASE no fighting, flaming, spamming, trolling . . . etc
This week we will begin from the beginning . . . .Genesis
A religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth.
Cult pejoratively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices could be considered strange or sinister.
If we can fit Islam into the term Cult we can fit Catholocism under the same term. They are idol worshipers they pray to the saints and to Mary which no where in scripture is this allowed we are to pray to God and to Him alone in the name of His son Jesus Christ. The Roman Catholics are essentially pagans. They (whether they admitt it or not) pray to several 'gods' that they say are saints. We are a fallen race why then should we pray to other people that are in our race that are just as fallen as we? Most of their 'saints' are some of the most immoral people in this world that never felt a bit of remorse for it. Ontop of that they worship paintings, and 'relics' like milk from the 'virgin mary' which we all know is a load of bs. They are Pagans! And have very VERY strange beliefs. God forgives sins not the Pope. Communion is to remember Christ not make bread and wine into flesh and blood and be cannibals! I could go on but I'll give it a rest. Does this not sound strange and sinister both?
They (whether they admitt it or not) pray to several 'gods' that they say are saints.
We don't believe saints are gods. We believe that God gave them power on earth to do extraordinary things, and as such, they may be able to help us with certain situations.
We are a fallen race why then should we pray to other people that are in our race that are just as fallen as we? Most of their 'saints' are some of the most immoral people in this world that never felt a bit of remorse for it.
Who are you referring to here? Some of the apostles, as well as Paul, are saints in our religion, and I don't see how they are immoral and have never felt a bit of remorse.
Ontop of that they worship paintings, and 'relics' like milk from the 'virgin mary' which we all know is a load of bs.
I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I go to Church every week, and I've never worshipped or seen any Catholics worship paintings.
God forgives sins not the Pope.
Whoops, I think you mean a priest. And you're right, God forgives sins, but confessing them to a priest has a different purpose. Telling someone what you did wrong makes it less likely that you'll do it again, because the human mind doesn't like to confess making a mistake to another. Saying it in your room alone to a god you don't know for certain exists is not the same at all.
Communion is to remember Christ not make bread and wine into flesh and blood and be cannibals!
So when Jesus said this is my body and blood he really meant "eat flesh"? We don't believe we're eating flesh and blood physically, but spiritually. We believe Jesus is present in the bread and wine, and we use the words he used just to symbolize that.
I could go on but I'll give it a rest. Does this not sound strange and sinister both?
It does, but half your facts are false and the others barely touch on the subject enough to understand it.
So when Jesus said this is my body and blood he really meant "eat flesh"? We don't believe we're eating flesh and blood physically, but spiritually. We believe Jesus is present in the bread and wine, and we use the words he used just to symbolize that.
Here is what most Catholics believe. Transmutation of the bread and wine into the ACTUAL flesh and blood of Christ. Here is something I yanked off of a site for you, enjoy.
"We believe that in this sacred rite (i.e. The Holy Eucharist) our Lord Jesus Christ is present not symbolically, (Typikos), not figuratively (eikonikos), not by an abundance of grace, as in the other Mysteries, not by simple descent, but indeed truly and actually, so that after the sanctification of the Bread and wine, the bread is changed (i.e. via Transmutation), converted, transformed, into the actual True Body of the Lord, which was born in Bethlehem of the Ever-Virgin, was Baptized in the Jordan, suffered and was buried, resurrected, ascended, Who sits at the right hand of God the Father, and is to appear in the clouds of heaven; and the wine is changed and transmutated into the Actual True Blood of the Lord, which at the time of His suffering on the Cross was shed for the life of the world. Yet again, we believe that after the sanctification of the bread and wine there remains no longer the bread and wine themselves, but the Very Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, under the appearance and form of the bread and the wine."
I am a Protestant, but I have attended mass and while they place far too much emphasis on tradition and often look down on Protestants as poor misguided souls lacking all the tradition and leaning solely on the bible (a good thing in my opinion) they do mean well. Many of their problems can be traced back to Constantine when Christianity and Paganism were combined to form his version of the Church. They are close enough to Orthodox Catholics that they see them as brothers of a kind and will take communion with them, but they won't have communion with Protestants unless they declare that they believe in Transmutation.
"We believe that in this sacred rite (i.e. The Holy Eucharist) our Lord Jesus Christ is present not symbolically, (Typikos), not figuratively (eikonikos), not by an abundance of grace, as in the other Mysteries, not by simple descent, but indeed truly and actually, so that after the sanctification of the Bread and wine, the bread is changed (i.e. via Transmutation), converted, transformed, into the actual True Body of the Lord, which was born in Bethlehem of the Ever-Virgin, was Baptized in the Jordan, suffered and was buried, resurrected, ascended, Who sits at the right hand of God the Father, and is to appear in the clouds of heaven; and the wine is changed and transmutated into the Actual True Blood of the Lord, which at the time of His suffering on the Cross was shed for the life of the world. Yet again, we believe that after the sanctification of the bread and wine there remains no longer the bread and wine themselves, but the Very Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, under the appearance and form of the bread and the wine."
Put that way it come off as seeming strange, and a little creepy.
[quote=Kirby998]I'm a Protestant and I defend Catholics, you don't like it? Leave.[/quote]
It's sort of hard to follow the Bible and defend Catholics. Catholics follow many things that are not found in the Bible AND they do change scripture a bit.
We believe that in this sacred rite (i.e. The Holy Eucharist) our Lord Jesus Christ is present not symbolically, (Typikos), not figuratively (eikonikos), not by an abundance of grace, as in the other Mysteries, not by simple descent, but indeed truly and actually, so that after the sanctification of the Bread and wine, the bread is changed (i.e. via Transmutation), converted, transformed, into the actual True Body of the Lord
It does not say "hysically", it says "actually". And actually, the spirit is the only true essence of what we are. Our physical bodies decay and die; as I said, Christ is spiritually in the bread and wine (I believe, disagree as you will). But his physically decayed corpse does not transport in place of the bread and wine.
Put that way it come off as seeming strange, and a little creepy.
It does, but I think anything can be seen as strange and creepy if it is being delivered to a different audience.
all Christians use the same bible except Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses... I think..
No. The Catholic bible has an additional 13 chapters called the Apocrypha. They are considered by Protestants to be only history and not part of the Old Testament. Interestingly enough different sites disagree about how many books are in the Jewish canon.
