BIBLE AND THEOLOGY FORUM





Welcome!  You are at BibleAndTheology.com, which is the general forum for BibleAndTheology.org.  Persons are invited to post on Bible and Theology (widely interpreted).  Some postings may be chosen to be reposted on BibleAndTheology.org.  Give & receive love here. If you post here, please do not use "Anonymous" or the like. Choose your own screen names, but do not use one that you know is already being used by someone else. Please: 

1. You may debate with any ideas posted, but do not post objections to the topic, style, spelling, use of capital letters, or grammar of anyone's posting.  For example, you may debate whether the moon is made of green cheese, but kindly refrain from reviling a poster by telling him that it is politically incorrect to discuss green cheese.   

2. Do not post complaints or attacks vs. other posters.  

3. No obscene language,cuss words, or blasphemy may be used.   

4. Send complaints privately by e-mail to NellPatKay@hotmail.com.  If your posting is deleted, it could be because it violates forum rules or is just chosen for a short run on the forum.  

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you want the password, register your screen names by e-mail, as password may be needed again if problems arise on the Forum. CHECK OUT THE search function, which is good: it checks the content of the postings.


Note that if you paste onto the Forum, for some reason Bravenet may change your quote marks and apostrophes into something else, like little boxes or funny U's.   Thanks for coming, participating, and for showing love .


BIBLE AND THEOLOGY FORUM
Start a New Topic 
Author
Comment
FLAWED AMERICAN CONSTITUTION

The USA is not a democracy and never has been. Also it is not self-evident that "democracy" is best. We have a mixed constitution w/ elements of monarchy (president), republic, & oligarchy (confounded Supreme Court!). Our biggest element of govt is unelected beaurocracy w/ entitlement to office!

Our constitution's flaws:

1) no provision to stop the Supreme Court from legislating from the bench, deciding whatever they will, then twisting the constitution to support it.

2) no republic process for ratifying justices nor voting Supreme Court justices out of office by the people,

3) No statement that there shall be separation of church and state (no, it is not there!);

4) no acknowledgement that the Bible is God's word;

5) no acknowledgement that Jesus Christ is Lord (except for the date at the end, like "in the year of Our Lord," (which BTW, does not appear to have been any standard formula for dating at the time -- I have searched the old documents to find that out);

6) No maximum limit on taxation;

7) No guarantee of property (against property tax that leads to confiscation & makes home owners all renters);

8) No prohibition of sales tax, which impedes commerce.

Re: FLAWED AMERICAN CONSTITUTION

Sadly, we Christians are forced to endure the pressures and evils of secular life in America.

Just recently, the Obama administration has necessitated that employer insurance covers birth control costs for the worker! A sad day it is when the sanctity of unborn though fully spirit-filled life is attacked.

Luckily, we Christians can always have a nation of our own to look to when all the others have become corrupted: Vatican City is the only totally Christian nation in the world and consequently the only one that will be able to carry out Christ's message for all ages.

We must pray for the continual prosperity of the Catholic state so that its works and its embassies to foreign nations will protect the Christian faith to the best of its ability.

In Christ,
-Adam Villegas, Arch. Maj.

The Vatican Is a Christian State?

Adam Arch,

I hate to take issue with you because you are a friendly person.

So let's start where I think u & I agree.

Birth Control is one thing, Contraception quite another. Birth Control includes murdering the baby in the womb to prevent its birth. Contraception prevents a sperm from fertilizing an egg, not the same thing at all. However, neither are the business of Obama & company. Neither has the govt any business forcing those who oppose contraception (based on their religion) to pay for contraception.

I must say that Santorum (whom I support for Prexy) was not careful enough about how he addressed this issue. It is refreshing to me that he is a man who is not afraid to frankly state his POV, but he seems to have fallen into the liberal trap on this one (as he did in Puerto Rico also, BTW).

Yes, I agree that babies tho unborn have spirits. As you know (I think), John the Baptist is an example of an unborn baby even being a born-again Christian.

I wonder if you lived in the Vatican you would think it was a Christian nation & uncorrupt. Perhaps you mean it is the only nation left that overtly calls itself Christian? Nonetheless, leaders in any state should be prayed for. So, I prayed for the pope and cardinals today. But I cannot regard the Vatican as Christian. Because of its heresies I regard it as a satanic stronghold. It appears to me to be a spreader of
1) idolatry;
2) the false theory that men can receive validation of their sinful works. Thus it promotes a hardness to the true gospel in its adherents, a hardness to the gospel similar to the hardness I received growing up in a Protestant denomination, tho based on different principles;
3) a doer of evil in the name of Christ so as to discredit the name of Christian, a promoter of calling Christians child-molesters, crusaders, and torturers.

Re: The Vatican Is a Christian State?

Thank you for the reply.
I agree (pehaps I miswrote) contraception is not murder, however, it is contrary to what God designed sexual intercourse for, i.e., reproduction. Anyuthing that goes against God's will is inherently evil. Ergo, contraception is against the will of God, a point supported by any true Christian.

I disagree with your statements regarding the Vatican state.
To start, it is not up to you to determine what is and what is not Christian, rather, it is up to the very definition. A Christian is one who believes in the message of Christ as given in the New Testament (can't argue versions on that one, Protestants haven't pulled out any books from there to refute that statement).
Anybody who says that Catholics are not Christian is either a) unaware, or b) intentionally malicious.
You may call Catholics "bad" Christians or even "Pseudo-Christians" (my personal term for non-Catholics) as that part is subjective.
However, there is no argument that can exist short of your changing the English language or the Bible itself.

1) In order for an icon or image to be constituted as an idol, the object itself must be deified. I apologize on behalf of the Catholic Church if anybody within it has deified an image. The RCC has never taught this and thus has never taught idolatry.

2) Validation of sinful works? Not sure what you mean by this. Seeing as I (a Catholic) have never heard of it, it probably is not a real teaching of the Church.

3) Child molestation is a personal sin, not a sin of the Church. There is no such thing as a sin of the Church. The Crusades were voluntary and called by SECULAR rulers, they were merely endorsed by Christianity. Torturers? I presume you meant to target the Inquisition in that one? The Inquisition also was in the hands of secular authorities. The Church pointed out who had heretical ideas; it was up to the civil auhtority to decide on execution or not. Even if this point were (stupidly) rejected, the RCC is not alone in having a "violent" past. In the 30 Years' War, both Catholics and Protestants killed the other. The early Christian martyrs were all Catholic. Hitler killed 3 million Catholics in the Holocaust.

Re: The Vatican Is a Christian State?

Well Arch, I hope you are having a good day.

I don't find anything in the Bible to forbid contraception. But agreeing or disagreeing on that will not damn anyone to Hell.

Since the Bible has a big doctrine called "separation," (be not unequally yoked, etc.), I am forced to make some kind of decision about whether or not I believe someone is a brother in Christ or not. I accept anyone regardless of denomination who defines Christ adequately (not as Michael the Archangel, etc.) and who trusts Him as only & sufficient Savior. Christians agree on the basics, but disagree on an awful lot of the details. People in all denominations (except possibly cults) disagree on many things, even within their groups.

In the literal sense of "catholic," of course the word begs the question. You can't be in the Body of Christ without being a Christian. However, I don't regard everyone in any denomination as a Christian. I was raised in a latitudinarian mainline Prot denomination, which IMHO was mostly filled with unsaved persons playing church, not real Christians. And IMO the papal system is so shot through with idolatry & denial that Christ is the only & sufficient Savior, that I regard it as by and large a religious organization of unsaved non-Christians. That is not to say that there is no one in it who is not a genuine Christian, however.

Give some thought to what you are doing when & if you bow before a statue & pray to it, likewise if you pray to some saint as if the saint were omnipresent (attribute of God). YHWH is a jealous God.

Validation is what people really seek who say that salvation is by works. That is not salvation; one is seeing for God to approve of what one does, not to be saved from what one does.

Re: The Vatican Is a Christian State?

Now that the subject has come up, let's tackle the topic of idolatry.

YOU claim that the Catholic Churh endorses idolatry and worship of saints, statues, Mary, etc.

The Catholic Church maintians that it does not and never has.

Off of this denial alone, we know that the RCC does not.

If I say that you worship Ba'al while you hold that you do not, you would be correct. So why would the RCC not be correct in this case.

If I say that you are a pagan while you hold that you are not, then obviously you would be correct.

However, I will continue as though the RCC's denial could not be trusted (though it would be ridiculous to assume this).

Idoaltry is the worship of an image or what it represents other than the true God.

Of course, the image itself is not worshipped and neither is the thing it repesents. Only God is worshipped, all else is venerated.

Any Catholic or Christian who ACTUALLY worships the saints is not a true Catholic or Christian.

Veneration of the saints and Mary is not necesary, but rather optional and simply recommended so as to form a better life of your own modeled after that of a holy person.

Saint Worship is Idolatry

Re: The Vatican Is a Christian State?

Now that the subject has come up, let's tackle the topic of idolatry.

YOU claim that the Catholic Churh endorses idolatry and worship of saints, statues, Mary, etc.

Of course papists deny idolatry because they know that idolatry is forbidden by God. So they won't put that word to what they do. The fact that a sinner denies his sin, is quite common, & it certainly does not relieve the charge of sin.

Papists bow before statues & address saints the way Christians address God, treating them as omnipresent, which is an attribute of God.

You cannot exculpate the practice by trying to play with vocabulary, venerate vs worship.

The way the papists use statues & pray to saints is no where in the Bible.

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.