This is just a ridiculous anti-Catholic fairy tale.
By the way, Aaron wore a mitre too:
"And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office." (Exodus 28:4)
According you what you imply, Aaron must have been secretly worshipping Dagon.
If you don't think that a compatriot of Barrabas would have a mortal sin, you are really in a bit of denial.
Was the Good Thief really a compatriot (or accomplice) of Barabbas? I don't remember seeing that in the Bible...
In any case, we don't know if the Good Thief was in a state of mortal sin when he was on the cross. For instance, what if he had had his sins forgiven before he was arrested?
Yet what act of contrition is recorded? The only statements he made were "this man hath done nothing amiss" and "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom" (Luke 23). He did not do anything more than recognize Jesus Christ as Lord; where do you get a perfect act of contrition out of the words he is recorded to have said?
Well, Jesus knew what was in his heart, no matter what the thief said.
And quoting from the Council of Trent is a bit inflammatory, seeing as how it dictates that any true bible-believing Christian must be seen as anathema.
Not at all. Catholics are true Bible-believing Christians.
But, in any case, I'm not going to refrain from citing from particular ecumenical councils just because you disagree with them. After all, one of the main points of the Council of Trent was to point out Protestant errors.
By the way, I'm a little surprised that you don't agree that, when we are saved, God cleanses us of all our sins and of all temporal punishment due to our sins. I thought Protestants believed that. (I'm speaking of Canon XXX, which you quoted.)
These have never been rescinded.
Why should they have been rescinded? If you culpably (note the emphasis) deny one of these teachings of the Church, then how can you be counted as a member of the Church?
Which does a nice job of explaining that you have a very strong justification for rejecting everything said here, provided you are willing to take the rules of a manmade institution (the RCC) over the Word of God.
The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ. In Matthew 16:18-19, He told Peter He would do so, and In John 21 Jesus gave Peter authority over His Church.
The Catholic Church doesn't contradict the Word of God. If you look at the things you quoted, many of them are straight from the Bible. For instance, that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
As you might guess, I vote the other way. Sola Scriptura.
According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., 111, xxxix, 16), Papias said that Matthew collected (synetaxato; or, according to two manuscripts, synegraphato, composed) ta logia (the oracles or maxims of Jesus) in the Hebrew (Aramaic) language, and that each one translated them as best he could.
[...]
Finally, were the Logia of Matthew and the Gospel to which ecclesiastical writers refer written in Hebrew or Aramaic? Both hypotheses are held. Papias says that Matthew wrote the Logia in the Hebrew (Hebraidi) language; St. Irenæus and Eusebius maintain that he wrote his gospel for the Hebrews in their national language, and the same assertion is found in several writers. Matthew would, therefore, seem to have written in modernized Hebrew, the language then used by the scribes for teaching. But, in the time of Christ, the national language of the Jews was Aramaic, and when, in the New Testament, there is mention of the Hebrew language (Hebrais dialektos), it is Aramaic that is implied. Hence, the aforesaid writers may allude to the Aramaic and not to the Hebrew. Besides, as they assert, the Apostle Matthew wrote his Gospel to help popular teaching. To be understood by his readers who spoke Aramaic, he would have had to reproduce the original catechesis in this language, and it cannot be imagined why, or for whom, he should have taken the trouble to write it in Hebrew, when it would have had to be translated thence into Aramaic for use in religious services. Moreover, Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xxiv, 6) tells us that the Gospel of Matthew was a reproduction of his preaching, and this we know, was in Aramaic. An investigation of the Semitic idioms observed in the Gospel does not permit us to conclude as to whether the original was in Hebrew or Aramaic, as the two languages are so closely related. Besides, it must be home in mind that the greater part of these Semitisms simply reproduce colloquial Greek and are not of Hebrew or Aramaic origin. However, we believe the second hypothesis to be the more probable, viz., that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic.
Let us now recall the testimony of the other ecclesiastical writers on the Gospel of St. Matthew. St. Irenæus (Adv. Haer., III, i, 2) affirms that Matthew published among the Hebrews a Gospel which he wrote in their own language. Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, x, 3) says that, in India, Pantænus found the Gospel according to St. Matthew written in the Hebrew language, the Apostle Bartholomew having left it there. Again, in his "Hist. eccl." (VI xxv, 3, 4), Eusebius tells us that Origen, in his first book on the Gospel of St. Matthew, states that he has learned from tradition that the First Gospel was written by Matthew, who, having composed it in Hebrew, published it for the converts from Judaism. According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xxiv, 6), Matthew preached first to the Hebrews and, when obliged to go to other countries, gave them his Gospel written in his native tongue. St. Jerome has repeatedly declared that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ("Ad Damasum", xx; "Ad Hedib.", iv), but says that it is not known with certainty who translated it into Greek. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, etc., and all the commentators of the Middle Ages repeat that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. Erasmus was the first to express doubts on this subject: "It does not seem probable to me that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, since no one testifies that he has seen any trace of such a volume." This is not accurate, as St. Jerome uses Matthew's Hebrew text several times to solve difficulties of interpretation, which proves that he had it at hand. Pantænus also had it, as, according to St. Jerome ("De Viris Ill.", xxxvi), he brought it back to Alexandria. However, the testimony of Pantænus is only second-hand, and that of Jerome rem
I never said the original of the Bible was in Aramaic. I said that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, as evidenced by the name Cephas, which sometimes doesn't get translated into Greek since that was the actual name (Kepha) that the Jewish Christians were accustomed to calling Peter.
That Jesus "says" things in Greek in the Greek Bible doesn't mean He actually spoke those things in Greek. A French translation of the Bible has Jesus speaking those words in French, but that doesn't mean Jesus spoke French. Greek in those days was an international language, much like English today. The New Testament was written in Greek in order for as many people as possible to be able to read it, and not because everyone was speaking Greek when the original events described took place.
As for the computer studies you mentioned: it's been known for a while that at least the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew or Aramaic (which are related languages), both for textual reasons, and also because one of the early Christian writers (Eusebius, maybe?) said that the book of Matthew was originally written "in the language of the Jews", which could have been either Aramaic or Hebrew.
As to your final point, explain the thief on the cross. (...) He was being executed for a crime, so he clearly had some of what the RCC calls mortal sins.
Well, we don't really know if he was in the state of mortal sin, but for the sake of argument let's assume that he was.
He made no confession of sins to our Lord Jesus Christ yet he was told that he'd be in paradise that day. He didn't receive Final Unction nor did he get any of the sacraments.
An act of perfect contrition will cleanse us of our sins. The reason for the sacraments is that perfect contrition is rather rare, and so God wants to make things easier for us. The following is from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
PERFECT CONTRITION WITHOUT THE SACRAMENT
Regarding that contrition which has for its motive the love of God, the Council of Trent declares: "The Council further teaches that, though contrition may sometimes be made perfect by charity and may reconcile men to God before the actual reception of this sacrament, still the reconciliation is not to be ascribed to the contrition apart from the desire for the sacrament which it includes." The following proposition (no. 32) taken from Baius was condemned by Gregory XIII: "That charity which is the fullness of the law is not always conjoined with forgiveness of sins." Perfect contrition, with the desire of receiving the Sacrament of Penance, restores the sinner to grace at once. This is certainly the teaching of the Scholastic doctors (Peter Lombard in P.L., CXCII, 885; St. Thomas, In Lib. Sent. IV, ibid.; St. Bonaventure, In Lib. Sent. IV, ibid.). This doctrine they derived from Holy Writ. Scripture certainly ascribes to charity and the love of God the power to take away sin: "He that loveth me shall be loved by My Father"; "Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much". Since the act of perfect contrition implies necessarily this same love of God, theologians have ascribed to perfect contrition what Scripture teaches belongs to charity. Nor is this strange, for in the Old Covenant there was some way of recovering God' grace once man had sinned. God wills not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live (Ezech., xxxiii, 11). This total turning to God corresponds to our idea of perfect contrition; and if under the Old Law love sufficed for the pardon of the sinner, surely the coming of Christ and the institution of the Sacrament of Penance cannot be supposed to have increased the difficulty of obtaining forgiveness.
He couldn't do any meritorious works, he was being executed!
Meritorious works don't save you. For a work to be meritorious, you must already be in a state of grace - that is, you must already be saved. Someone who is in a state of mortal sin can do all the good works he wants, but it won't do him any good - he must first accept God's sanctifying grace.
There's a world of difference between Peter being told to feed the flock and the pope claiming to be the vicar of Christ. He is claiming in effect to be Christ on earth.
No, the Pope does not claim to be Christ on earth. That's not true and presumably you know that.
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
The Pope does not claim to be Christ, so I don't see why you're citing this passage. Also, the Popes have been claiming the same things for two thousand years, so clearly the Papacy is not what's being referred to here as a sign of the end of the world.
In Corinthians Paul is talking to some very persecuted believers, warning them that during the times of heavy persecution the idea of getting married carries an additional burden beyond regular times. At the beginning of the section you extracted a verse from this is clear; from 1Cor 7:26 " I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress".
Right, and it was in that time that the celibacy rule began. And since then, there have been many persecutions against the Church (in Muslim, Protestant, and Communist countries) which makes the celibacy rule a good one. Besides, what Paul says is true for all times: if you don't have a spouse, it's one less thing to distract you from devoting yourself totally to Christ.
Also, remember that Jesus supported celibacy for all times: "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." (Matthew 19:12)
And again you took 1stJohn 1:9 out of context; John does not call for anyone to confess sins to him (and since he was the only apostle left living at that time, he would be the best choice). John does not say that he confesses sins to any man. Merely he says that we are to confess our sins, and that He will forgive us.
"And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.'" (John 20:22-23)
So how is John supposed to know what sins to remit if no one confesses their sins to him? Is he supposed to guess?
Study the grammar and it will be clear to you that the implied receiver of the confession is also the granter of the forgiveness. And from the rest of the chapter that is unmistakably God Himself.
Yes, it is God who forgives sins. When we confess our sins to priests, it is God who forgives us our sins through the priests. If God did not intend to act through men to forgive us our sins, then why did Jesus breathe on the Apostles and say that whatever sins they forgave would be forgiven?
You miss a major point about the gender issues here with Petros and Petra. If the Lord wished to say Peter's name in Aramaic, He would have. But He chose Greek,
No, he actually said it in Aramaic, which was the language used in Palestine in that time. That's also why Peter is sometimes called Cephas in the Bible. Peter (or Petros) is just the Greek translation of it, as it appears in the Bible.
What you should realize is that the use of contraception leads to the devaluation of women. Without contraceptives, sex can often mean a pregnancy, and this would be a problem for an unmarried couple. So people would tend to wait until marriage to have sex, and single men would see women as potential spouses. With contraceptives, people don't worry about children being conceived, and so men are free to see women as objects to be used for their own pleasure, rather than as potential wives and mothers of their children.
If you're going to base the RCC upon Matthew 16:18-19, there is one key thing you need to understand. The greek word (Petros, a small movable stone) translated as Peter is masculine, as you would expect referring to Peter. However the word used (Petra, a boulder, massive foundation stone) for the rock upon which the church is to be based is a feminine gender noun in the greek.
Peter, in fact, was given the name Cephas (or Kepha), which is a "large rock" in Aramaic. He's called Petros and not Petra in Greek because Peter was a man, and wouldn't be called by a feminine name.
Leaving this aside, note that in the same passage, God the Father reveals something to Peter that is revealed to no one else, and it is for this very reason that Jesus gives Simon a new name (which is significant in the Bible). Also, Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom, and anything that Peter binds or looses on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven. So Jesus gives Peter authority that reaches heaven.
So no, the RCC claims that they derive legitimacy from that passage are as bogus as their reworking the ten commandments to leave off Exodus 20:4-6
Nothing is left off. The part you quote falls under the commandment to worship God alone. The fact is that God only forbids images that are intended to be false gods. We know this because God commanded many images to be made. For instance:
Exodus 25:18-22 And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
Exodus 26:1,31 Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.... And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made:
Numbers 21:8-9 And the LORD said unto Moses, "Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
As for the rest of your points, go to Catholic apologetics sites and you'll find them addressed there.
The pope claims to be the "vicar of Christ", saying that he is "in the place of Christ" (look up vicar and see what it means).
Jesus himself made Peter His vicar. Just before He ascended into heaven, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, told Peter, "Feed my sheep." (John 21:17) He would no longer be on earth as the visible head of the Church, so He made Peter the visible head.
Jesus also made others His vicars (on a smaller scale) earlier on, and said to them, "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me." (Luke 10:16)
Paul said he acted in Christ's place: "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5:20)
You claim Peter as the first pope, he was married, you have a problem there.
There's no problem with this, lots of Catholic priests (especially in the Eastern rites) are married.
In 1 Tim 3:2-5 you can see why a celibate clergy is dead wrong... A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife
What he's saying here is the husband of at most one wife (that is, not divorced and remarried, since that would make him a bigamist). You quote Paul here; have a look at the following passage, in which he says that it is better to remain celibate in order to devote oneself to God:
He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:32-33)
The eucharist. The blasphemous claim here is that the Lord Jesus Christ dies again each time in the eucharist.
Not at all. The Eucharist, which makes the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, as He Himself said, does not sacrifice Christ over and over again. The sacrifice of the Mass is the one sacrifice of Christ, which is made present to us.
Forgiveness of sins by the clergy.
"And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.'" (John 20:22-23)
Obviously, if they are to forgive sins, they must know what those sins are. Thus, they have to hear those sins confessed. And so we see who we are to confess to in the following:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
Sorry, my mistake, I got confused from reading some of the parent posts and thought you were talking about what Protestants call the apocrypha, and we Catholics call the deuterocanonical books, and saying that those were "totally different" from the rest of the Bible and disagreed with it.
However, I think you're wrong about the term "deuteronomical". As I understand it, that's an adjective that describes something having to do with the book of Deuteronomy. The correct term should be, as I had said earlier, "deuterocanonical".
No, the apocrypha (or deuterocanonicals as we call them) do not disagree with the rest of the Bible. In fact, these books were included in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible used by the Evangelists.
Roman Catholicism is biblical Christianity. We have the Pope, bishops and priests, the Eucharist (the Body and Blood of Christ), the forgiveness of sins by clergy, etc.
The various sects can be called Christian in the sense that they believe in the basics of Christianity, such as those expressed in the Nicene Creed, and have a valid baptism (through which we enter the Church).
But you're right, there's only one true Christian Church. Christ only had one flock, and only founded one Church, the Catholic Church:
Matthew 16:18-19 "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
There's a difference between, on the one hand, certain cases of exploiting religion for political ends (and anything can be exploited in such a way), and the idea that there was a widespread conspiracy to exploit religion in such a way, to such an extent that the Sacred Scriptures would be tampered with to that end. Clearly the latter did not happen, nor is there any evidence that this happened.
"The Bible is considered sacred, so people would not manipulate it..." are you just trolling or do you really believe this???
I really believe this.
Popes involved in love triangles with their son and daughter, Orgies that would make Romans blush, Parties costing 100,000s of ducats
No one denies that human beings are sinful. However, this doesn't take away from the fact that the Bible was considered an inspired text.
the selling of forgiviness for sins that people will commit in the future
This is not true.
There was absolutelty NOTHING sacred in the church for the entire span of 300+ years.
There was much that was sacred. You're merely showing your anti-Catholic bias here.
And your ignorant suggestion that "the rulers wanted to "keep the people dumb" is just propaganda" is an even dumber statement. You could have atleast provided a source for such a foolish proclomation.
I thought it was those who make accusations who have to provide evidence.
The Church forbade ANYTHING to be written in the venacular. Why? Because only priests were allowed to learn to read and write Latin. The church did not even want people to be able to read the Bible. In fact, it was highly discouraged. Reading the Bible was only for those of the cloth, the common man was too "dumb" to be given such a privledge.
Nor is it at all true that the Catholic Church was opposed to the printing and distribution of Bible translations in vernacular languages (it did oppose some Protestant translations which it felt were inaccurate). For instance, between 1466 and the onset of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 at least fourteen editions appeared in High German, and five in Low German: Strasburg: 1466, 1470, 1485; Basel, Switzerland: 1474; Augsburg: 1473 (2),1477 (2), 1480, 1487, 1490, 1507, 1518; Nuremburg: 1483. Bible Translations in Low German include: Cologne: 1480 (2); Lubeck: 1494; Halberstadt: 1522; Delf: before 1522 (2)
The situation was no different in other European countries. From 1450 to 1550, for example, there appeared (with express permission from Rome) more than forty Italian editions or translations of the Bible and eighteen French editions, as well as others in Bohemian, Belgian, Russian, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian. Spain published editions starting in 1478 with the full approval of the Spanish Inquisition. A total of 626 editions appeared, of which 198 were in the vernacular languages, with the sanction of the Catholic Church, before any Protestant version saw the light of day.
The use of the local (Tuscan) dialect of Italian rather than Latin was a daring gamble at the time; most serious writing was done in Latin because the vernacular languages kept changing and people were afraid that no one would be able to read them in a few years. Some dialects lasted better than others and luckily, Tuscan did pretty well that way.
When Erasmus wrote criticisms of the Church in Latin, the Pope read them, laughed and enjoyed them as good entertainment.
The point is that the saints I mentioned were among the rulers of the time, and so if Christianity, as was suggested in one of the parent posts, were being used by the aristocracy merely as a means of control of the rest of the population, then these saints would have known about it. Clearly that isn't the case.
The fact is that people in the Middle Ages believed in Christianity. Thousands of people devoted their lives to it, including rulers, which according to your theory should have known better. Some of the greatest saints were rich and powerful men who gave up their wealth and power to become monks. For example, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony of Padua. St. Thomas Aquinas was imprisoned for two years by his aristocratic family for wanting to turn his back on his wealth and become a monk.
This is obviously false. There are difference here and there, but they are scribal errors or things of that nature. If someone wanted to edit the Bible to edit it for political purposes, I'm sure those changes would have made the Bible much more obviously "in their favour". As it is, though, the Bible supports the weak rather than the strong, so your theory doesn't make sense.
As for the "kings and churches" in power, if you look at history, you'll see that for the most part, the kings have often been the enemies of the Church. Look at, for instance, the history of the Holy Roman Empire vs. the Church. If one side had tried to change the Bible in their favor, would the other side have accepted it? No.
Thirdly, Christianity had from an early date spread out quite widely over the world. A change in the Bible in one part of the world would not appear in Bibles on the other side of the world. Biblical scholars use manuscripts from around the world for this very reason, and the differences found are not that large.
Fourth, we have Biblical manuscripts that are very old, so any subsequent changes to the Biblical text would be pretty obvious when compared to these early texts.
Fifth, the Bible is actually considered sacred, so people would not manipulate it (or would not allow others to manipulate it) for the cynical reasons you suggest.
Sixth, the idea that the rulers wanted to "keep the people dumb" is just propaganda.
Even if we speak of the Old Testament, we can see by a comparison of the Jewish Bible with that kept by the Samaritans that there are not very large differences between those texts either. In any case, the Jews would not edit the Bible for political purposes. Have you ever read the Old Testament? It's not very kind to Jewish rulers.
POV-Ray is a free raytracer for making computer-generated images. You can build up 3D scenes using the Scene Description Language (SDL), rather than a modeller; and after a little practice, you naturally move toward writing algorithms to generate more complex images, etc. It comes with lots of sample code, a good help file, and could be used as a way to learn programming. The nice thing about it is that the language itself is simple to use, and making pretty pictures is a good incentive to keep practicing and learning more.
Also worth noting is that Tolkin was one of the original translators of the New Jerusalem Bible.
Actually, he did his translation for the Jerusalem Bible, not the New Jerusalem Bible; the latter is based on the former. By the way, in case anyone is interested in getting a copy of it, the original Jerusalem Bible is better than the new one, in my opinion.
Also, as someone else pointed out, Tolkien didn't translate the entire Bible, but only a small amount (mainly the book of Job). You can actually recognize his writing style in that book, which is kind of strange...
Anyway, from Tolkien's Letters (#294):
"Naming me among the 'principal collaborators' was an undeserved courtesy on the part of the editor of the Jerusalem Bible. I was consulted on one or two points of style, and criticized some contributions of others. I was originally assigned a large amount of text to translate, but after doing some necessary preliminary work I was obliged to resign owing to pressure of other work, and only completed 'Jonah', one of the shortest books."
What using this computer would be like
on
Alien Case Mod
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· Score: 5, Funny
Dallas: Something has attached itself to him. We have to get him to the infirmary right away. Ripley: What kind of thing? I need a clear definition. Dallas: An attachment. Open the email! Ripley: Wait a minute. If we let it in, the computer could be infected. You know the quarantine procedure. Twenty-four hours for decontamination. Dallas: He could die in twenty-four hours. Open the email! Ripley: Listen to me, if we break quarantine, we could all die. Lambert: Could you open the damned email? We have to get him inside. Ripley: No! I can't do that and if you were in my position, you'd do the same. Dallas: Ripley, this is an order. Open that email right now, do you hear me? Ripley: Yes. Dallas: Ripley! This is an order! Do you hear me? Ripley: Yes. I read you. The answer is negative.
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This is just a ridiculous anti-Catholic fairy tale.
By the way, Aaron wore a mitre too:
"And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office." (Exodus 28:4)
According you what you imply, Aaron must have been secretly worshipping Dagon.
If you don't think that a compatriot of Barrabas would have a mortal sin, you are really in a bit of denial.
Was the Good Thief really a compatriot (or accomplice) of Barabbas? I don't remember seeing that in the Bible...
In any case, we don't know if the Good Thief was in a state of mortal sin when he was on the cross. For instance, what if he had had his sins forgiven before he was arrested?
Yet what act of contrition is recorded? The only statements he made were "this man hath done nothing amiss" and "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom" (Luke 23). He did not do anything more than recognize Jesus Christ as Lord; where do you get a perfect act of contrition out of the words he is recorded to have said?
Well, Jesus knew what was in his heart, no matter what the thief said.
And quoting from the Council of Trent is a bit inflammatory, seeing as how it dictates that any true bible-believing Christian must be seen as anathema.
Not at all. Catholics are true Bible-believing Christians.
But, in any case, I'm not going to refrain from citing from particular ecumenical councils just because you disagree with them. After all, one of the main points of the Council of Trent was to point out Protestant errors.
By the way, I'm a little surprised that you don't agree that, when we are saved, God cleanses us of all our sins and of all temporal punishment due to our sins. I thought Protestants believed that. (I'm speaking of Canon XXX, which you quoted.)
These have never been rescinded.
Why should they have been rescinded? If you culpably (note the emphasis) deny one of these teachings of the Church, then how can you be counted as a member of the Church?
Which does a nice job of explaining that you have a very strong justification for rejecting everything said here, provided you are willing to take the rules of a manmade institution (the RCC) over the Word of God.
The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ. In Matthew 16:18-19, He told Peter He would do so, and In John 21 Jesus gave Peter authority over His Church.
The Catholic Church doesn't contradict the Word of God. If you look at the things you quoted, many of them are straight from the Bible. For instance, that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
As you might guess, I vote the other way. Sola Scriptura.
Where does the Bible teach Sola Scriptura?
In case anyone's interested, Jerry Pournelle has a blog:
The View from Chaos Manor
I never said the original of the Bible was in Aramaic. I said that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, as evidenced by the name Cephas, which sometimes doesn't get translated into Greek since that was the actual name (Kepha) that the Jewish Christians were accustomed to calling Peter.
That Jesus "says" things in Greek in the Greek Bible doesn't mean He actually spoke those things in Greek. A French translation of the Bible has Jesus speaking those words in French, but that doesn't mean Jesus spoke French. Greek in those days was an international language, much like English today. The New Testament was written in Greek in order for as many people as possible to be able to read it, and not because everyone was speaking Greek when the original events described took place.
As for the computer studies you mentioned: it's been known for a while that at least the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew or Aramaic (which are related languages), both for textual reasons, and also because one of the early Christian writers (Eusebius, maybe?) said that the book of Matthew was originally written "in the language of the Jews", which could have been either Aramaic or Hebrew.
Well, we don't really know if he was in the state of mortal sin, but for the sake of argument let's assume that he was.
He made no confession of sins to our Lord Jesus Christ yet he was told that he'd be in paradise that day. He didn't receive Final Unction nor did he get any of the sacraments.
An act of perfect contrition will cleanse us of our sins. The reason for the sacraments is that perfect contrition is rather rare, and so God wants to make things easier for us. The following is from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
He couldn't do any meritorious works, he was being executed!
Meritorious works don't save you. For a work to be meritorious, you must already be in a state of grace - that is, you must already be saved. Someone who is in a state of mortal sin can do all the good works he wants, but it won't do him any good - he must first accept God's sanctifying grace.
There's a world of difference between Peter being told to feed the flock and the pope claiming to be the vicar of Christ. He is claiming in effect to be Christ on earth.
No, the Pope does not claim to be Christ on earth. That's not true and presumably you know that.
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
The Pope does not claim to be Christ, so I don't see why you're citing this passage. Also, the Popes have been claiming the same things for two thousand years, so clearly the Papacy is not what's being referred to here as a sign of the end of the world.
In Corinthians Paul is talking to some very persecuted believers, warning them that during the times of heavy persecution the idea of getting married carries an additional burden beyond regular times. At the beginning of the section you extracted a verse from this is clear; from 1Cor 7:26 " I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress".
Right, and it was in that time that the celibacy rule began. And since then, there have been many persecutions against the Church (in Muslim, Protestant, and Communist countries) which makes the celibacy rule a good one. Besides, what Paul says is true for all times: if you don't have a spouse, it's one less thing to distract you from devoting yourself totally to Christ.
Also, remember that Jesus supported celibacy for all times:
"For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." (Matthew 19:12)
And again you took 1stJohn 1:9 out of context; John does not call for anyone to confess sins to him (and since he was the only apostle left living at that time, he would be the best choice). John does not say that he confesses sins to any man. Merely he says that we are to confess our sins, and that He will forgive us.
"And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.'" (John 20:22-23)
So how is John supposed to know what sins to remit if no one confesses their sins to him? Is he supposed to guess?
Study the grammar and it will be clear to you that the implied receiver of the confession is also the granter of the forgiveness. And from the rest of the chapter that is unmistakably God Himself.
Yes, it is God who forgives sins. When we confess our sins to priests, it is God who forgives us our sins through the priests. If God did not intend to act through men to forgive us our sins, then why did Jesus breathe on the Apostles and say that whatever sins they forgave would be forgiven?
You miss a major point about the gender issues here with Petros and Petra. If the Lord wished to say Peter's name in Aramaic, He would have. But He chose Greek,
No, he actually said it in Aramaic, which was the language used in Palestine in that time. That's also why Peter is sometimes called Cephas in the Bible. Peter (or Petros) is just the Greek translation of it, as it appears in the Bible.
the catholic church denying women contraception
What you should realize is that the use of contraception leads to the devaluation of women. Without contraceptives, sex can often mean a pregnancy, and this would be a problem for an unmarried couple. So people would tend to wait until marriage to have sex, and single men would see women as potential spouses. With contraceptives, people don't worry about children being conceived, and so men are free to see women as objects to be used for their own pleasure, rather than as potential wives and mothers of their children.
If you're going to base the RCC upon Matthew 16:18-19, there is one key thing you need to understand. The greek word (Petros, a small movable stone) translated as Peter is masculine, as you would expect referring to Peter. However the word used (Petra, a boulder, massive foundation stone) for the rock upon which the church is to be based is a feminine gender noun in the greek.
Peter, in fact, was given the name Cephas (or Kepha), which is a "large rock" in Aramaic. He's called Petros and not Petra in Greek because Peter was a man, and wouldn't be called by a feminine name.
Leaving this aside, note that in the same passage, God the Father reveals something to Peter that is revealed to no one else, and it is for this very reason that Jesus gives Simon a new name (which is significant in the Bible). Also, Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom, and anything that Peter binds or looses on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven. So Jesus gives Peter authority that reaches heaven.
So no, the RCC claims that they derive legitimacy from that passage are as bogus as their reworking the ten commandments to leave off Exodus 20:4-6
Nothing is left off. The part you quote falls under the commandment to worship God alone. The fact is that God only forbids images that are intended to be false gods. We know this because God commanded many images to be made. For instance:
Exodus 25:18-22
And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
Exodus 26:1,31
Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.... And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made:
Numbers 21:8-9
And the LORD said unto Moses, "Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
As for the rest of your points, go to Catholic apologetics sites and you'll find them addressed there.
The pope claims to be the "vicar of Christ", saying that he is "in the place of Christ" (look up vicar and see what it means).
Jesus himself made Peter His vicar. Just before He ascended into heaven, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, told Peter, "Feed my sheep." (John 21:17) He would no longer be on earth as the visible head of the Church, so He made Peter the visible head.
Jesus also made others His vicars (on a smaller scale) earlier on, and said to them, "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me." (Luke 10:16)
Paul said he acted in Christ's place: "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5:20)
You claim Peter as the first pope, he was married, you have a problem there.
There's no problem with this, lots of Catholic priests (especially in the Eastern rites) are married.
In 1 Tim 3:2-5 you can see why a celibate clergy is dead wrong... A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife
What he's saying here is the husband of at most one wife (that is, not divorced and remarried, since that would make him a bigamist). You quote Paul here; have a look at the following passage, in which he says that it is better to remain celibate in order to devote oneself to God:
He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:32-33)
The eucharist. The blasphemous claim here is that the Lord Jesus Christ dies again each time in the eucharist.
Not at all. The Eucharist, which makes the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, as He Himself said, does not sacrifice Christ over and over again. The sacrifice of the Mass is the one sacrifice of Christ, which is made present to us.
Forgiveness of sins by the clergy.
"And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.'" (John 20:22-23)
Obviously, if they are to forgive sins, they must know what those sins are. Thus, they have to hear those sins confessed. And so we see who we are to confess to in the following:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
Sorry, my mistake, I got confused from reading some of the parent posts and thought you were talking about what Protestants call the apocrypha, and we Catholics call the deuterocanonical books, and saying that those were "totally different" from the rest of the Bible and disagreed with it.
However, I think you're wrong about the term "deuteronomical". As I understand it, that's an adjective that describes something having to do with the book of Deuteronomy. The correct term should be, as I had said earlier, "deuterocanonical".
Anyway, sorry about the misunderstanding!
No, the apocrypha (or deuterocanonicals as we call them) do not disagree with the rest of the Bible. In fact, these books were included in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible used by the Evangelists.
Roman Catholicism is biblical Christianity. We have the Pope, bishops and priests, the Eucharist (the Body and Blood of Christ), the forgiveness of sins by clergy, etc.
The various sects can be called Christian in the sense that they believe in the basics of Christianity, such as those expressed in the Nicene Creed, and have a valid baptism (through which we enter the Church).
But you're right, there's only one true Christian Church. Christ only had one flock, and only founded one Church, the Catholic Church:
Matthew 16:18-19
"And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
There's a difference between, on the one hand, certain cases of exploiting religion for political ends (and anything can be exploited in such a way), and the idea that there was a widespread conspiracy to exploit religion in such a way, to such an extent that the Sacred Scriptures would be tampered with to that end. Clearly the latter did not happen, nor is there any evidence that this happened.
I really believe this.
Popes involved in love triangles with their son and daughter, Orgies that would make Romans blush, Parties costing 100,000s of ducats
No one denies that human beings are sinful. However, this doesn't take away from the fact that the Bible was considered an inspired text.
the selling of forgiviness for sins that people will commit in the future
This is not true.
There was absolutelty NOTHING sacred in the church for the entire span of 300+ years.
There was much that was sacred. You're merely showing your anti-Catholic bias here.
And your ignorant suggestion that "the rulers wanted to "keep the people dumb" is just propaganda" is an even dumber statement. You could have atleast provided a source for such a foolish proclomation.
I thought it was those who make accusations who have to provide evidence.
The Church forbade ANYTHING to be written in the venacular. Why? Because only priests were allowed to learn to read and write Latin. The church did not even want people to be able to read the Bible. In fact, it was highly discouraged. Reading the Bible was only for those of the cloth, the common man was too "dumb" to be given such a privledge.
Really? What about Dante's "Divine Comedy"? What about the various vernacular editions of the Bible made before the Reformation?
Concerning Dante's use of the vernacular in the "Divine Comedy":
When Erasmus wrote criticisms of the Church in Latin, the Pope read them, laughed and enjoyed them as good entertainment.
Really? Where's your evidence for this?
The point is that the saints I mentioned were among the rulers of the time, and so if Christianity, as was suggested in one of the parent posts, were being used by the aristocracy merely as a means of control of the rest of the population, then these saints would have known about it. Clearly that isn't the case.
The fact is that people in the Middle Ages believed in Christianity. Thousands of people devoted their lives to it, including rulers, which according to your theory should have known better. Some of the greatest saints were rich and powerful men who gave up their wealth and power to become monks. For example, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony of Padua. St. Thomas Aquinas was imprisoned for two years by his aristocratic family for wanting to turn his back on his wealth and become a monk.
This is obviously false. There are difference here and there, but they are scribal errors or things of that nature. If someone wanted to edit the Bible to edit it for political purposes, I'm sure those changes would have made the Bible much more obviously "in their favour". As it is, though, the Bible supports the weak rather than the strong, so your theory doesn't make sense.
As for the "kings and churches" in power, if you look at history, you'll see that for the most part, the kings have often been the enemies of the Church. Look at, for instance, the history of the Holy Roman Empire vs. the Church. If one side had tried to change the Bible in their favor, would the other side have accepted it? No.
Thirdly, Christianity had from an early date spread out quite widely over the world. A change in the Bible in one part of the world would not appear in Bibles on the other side of the world. Biblical scholars use manuscripts from around the world for this very reason, and the differences found are not that large.
Fourth, we have Biblical manuscripts that are very old, so any subsequent changes to the Biblical text would be pretty obvious when compared to these early texts.
Fifth, the Bible is actually considered sacred, so people would not manipulate it (or would not allow others to manipulate it) for the cynical reasons you suggest.
Sixth, the idea that the rulers wanted to "keep the people dumb" is just propaganda.
Even if we speak of the Old Testament, we can see by a comparison of the Jewish Bible with that kept by the Samaritans that there are not very large differences between those texts either. In any case, the Jews would not edit the Bible for political purposes. Have you ever read the Old Testament? It's not very kind to Jewish rulers.
POV-Ray is a free raytracer for making computer-generated images. You can build up 3D scenes using the Scene Description Language (SDL), rather than a modeller; and after a little practice, you naturally move toward writing algorithms to generate more complex images, etc. It comes with lots of sample code, a good help file, and could be used as a way to learn programming. The nice thing about it is that the language itself is simple to use, and making pretty pictures is a good incentive to keep practicing and learning more.
You can do pretty nice things with the SDL. The help files explain how to write a raytracer within POV-Ray. You can also read and write text files, etc.
Also worth noting is that Tolkin was one of the original translators of the New Jerusalem Bible.
Actually, he did his translation for the Jerusalem Bible, not the New Jerusalem Bible; the latter is based on the former. By the way, in case anyone is interested in getting a copy of it, the original Jerusalem Bible is better than the new one, in my opinion.
Also, as someone else pointed out, Tolkien didn't translate the entire Bible, but only a small amount (mainly the book of Job). You can actually recognize his writing style in that book, which is kind of strange...
Anyway, from Tolkien's Letters (#294):
"Naming me among the 'principal collaborators' was an undeserved courtesy on the part of the editor of the Jerusalem Bible. I was consulted on one or two points of style, and criticized some contributions of others. I was originally assigned a large amount of text to translate, but after doing some necessary preliminary work I was obliged to resign owing to pressure of other work, and only completed 'Jonah', one of the shortest books."
-1 torog (i.e. "troll")
Just wait till Project Gutenberg gets a hold of these!"
You can already find some Sumerian texts on the Internet, along with translations:
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
Dallas: Something has attached itself to him. We have to get him to the infirmary right away.
Ripley: What kind of thing? I need a clear definition.
Dallas: An attachment. Open the email!
Ripley: Wait a minute. If we let it in, the computer could be infected. You know the quarantine procedure. Twenty-four hours for decontamination.
Dallas: He could die in twenty-four hours. Open the email!
Ripley: Listen to me, if we break quarantine, we could all die.
Lambert: Could you open the damned email? We have to get him inside.
Ripley: No! I can't do that and if you were in my position, you'd do the same.
Dallas: Ripley, this is an order. Open that email right now, do you hear me?
Ripley: Yes.
Dallas: Ripley! This is an order! Do you hear me?
Ripley: Yes. I read you. The answer is negative.