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Why I Had To Apostatize
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My mom had me baptized an infant into the Roman Catholic Church in 1944; and when old enough; enrolled me in catechism where I eventually completed First Holy Communion and Confirmation.
My aunt and uncle were Catholics, their son is a Catholic, one of my half brothers is now a semi retired Friar. My father-in-law was a Catholic, as was my mother-in-law. Everybody alive on my wife's side are Catholics; her aunts and uncles, and her cousins. My sister-in-law was a nun for a number of years before falling out with the hierarchy that controlled her order.
I have things to thank the Church for. It instilled within me an unshakable confidence in the Holy Bible as a reliable authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice. It also instilled within me a trust in the integrity of Jesus Christ. Very early in my youth; I began to believe that Christ knew what he was talking about and meant what he said.
I was very proud to be affiliated with Roman Catholicism, and confident as all get out that it is the one true Christian religion. Some Catholics see red whenever the Church is criticized and/or critiqued, but I never did. Some Catholics see criticism and/or critique of the Church's beliefs and practices as hatred for Catholics. I have never understood that mentality.
Ironically, one of the Church's enemies, the Jehovah's Witnesses, sometimes react the same way when somebody criticizes and/or critiques the Watch Tower Society. For some odd reason, it translates in their minds as hatred for Jehovah's Witnesses. I think some people have trouble telling the difference between a sport and a sport's fans; if you know what I mean.
Oddly, though I was confident that the Bible is a reliable authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice; I had never actually sat down and read it. A co-worker in a metal shop where I worked as a welder in 1968 suggested that I buy one and see for myself what it says.
Everything went smoothly till I got to the New Testament, and in no time at all I began to realize that Rome does not always agree with the Holy Bible; nor does it always agree with Christ. Well; that was not cool with me because I was, and still am, confident that the Holy Bible is a reliable authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, and that Christ knew what he was talking about and meant what he said.
Well; I soon became confronted with a very serious decision. Do I continue to follow Rome or do I switch to following the Holy Bible?
The decision was a no-brainer due to my confidence in the Holy Bible as a reliable authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice; and due to my trust in Jesus Christ's integrity— that he knew what he was talking about and meant what he said. So here I am today 47 years later still a Protestant.
http://cfbac.org/catholicism.htm
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Have not read it all but it's a good article so far..
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Christ spoke for God.
†. John 3:34 . . For he is sent by God. He speaks God's words, for God's Spirit is upon him without measure or limit
†. John 8:26 . . He that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him.
†. John 8:28 . . I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught me.
†. John 12:49 . . I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
†. John 14:24 . .The word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me.
†. Heb 1:1-2 . . In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His son
It is God's wishes that people listen to Christ.
†. Matt 17:5 . .While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying: This is My beloved son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to him!
It's risky to ignore the words that Jesus Christ spoke for God.
†. John 12:48 . . He who rejects me, and does not receive my sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.
According to the words that Jesus Christ spoke for God: non believers are supposed to be evangelized first and baptized afterwards (Matt 28:18-20, Mark 16:15-16). Seeing as how infants are de facto incapable of believing, then their baptism has to be held off until they're old enough to understand.
There are Christian churches out there who've got the cart before the horse and by doing so declare themselves Christ's opponents.
†. John 15:14 . .You are my friends if you do as I wish.
And they don't think much of him much neither.
†. John 14:15 . . If you love me, you will comply with what I command.
†. John 14:21 . .Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.
†. John 14:23-24 . . If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching . . He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.
I've noted in my many years of Bible study that there are two things that God values very highly. One is honesty, and the other is loyalty; which Webster's defines as unswerving in allegiance to one's lawful sovereign or government.
†. Luke 6:46-49 . .Why do you call me lord and master and do not do what I say?
. . . Everyone who comes to me, and hears my words, and acts upon them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood rose, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.
. . . But the one who has heard, and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house upon the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.
Churches that circumvent Christ's instructions as per Matt 28:18-20 and Mark 16:15-16 by baptizing infants are not only disloyal; but they are also akin to pagans who practice dark arts and/or worship Shiva and Vishnu.
†. 1Sam 15:23 . . Rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.
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According to Matt 23:23 and Luke 11:42, Christ okayed traditions just so long as they don't overturn, and/or clash with, the Bible. Take for example Christ's use of wine at his final Passover meal. That element isn't stipulated in God's instructions in the 12th chapter of Exodus. Passover wine is rabbi-given rather than God-given. But Christ went along with it anyway because the tradition is quite harmless; viz: it neither overturns, nor clashes with, Passover's God-given instructions.
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†. John 6:53 . .Truly, truly, I say to you: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.
The kind of life about which Christ spoke is eternal life.
†. John 6:54 . . He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life
Note the grammatical tense of Christ's "have" verb; it's present tense rather than future, indicating that people who correctly ingest his flesh, and imbibe his blood, have eternal life right now-- no delay and no waiting period.
Just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that transubstantiation is true. Then according to John 6:54, Christians who take a full communion on Sunday morning would be endowed with eternal life the very minute that the elements went down the hatch. In point of fact, the moment they swallowed the elements, those who ingested them would be impervious to the wages of sin seeing as how eternal life is immortal; viz: it's a kind of life over which death has no power.
†. Rom 6:23 . .The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
†. John 5:24 . . I assure you, those who listen to my message, and believe in God who sent me, have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.
Webster's defines "never" as not ever, at no time, not in any degree, not under any condition.
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Christ's believing followers don't pray to Jesus' mom because the spirit of God's son is a barrier to that kind of behavior.
†. Gal 4:6 . . And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of His son into your hearts calling out: Abba! Father.
Abba is an Aramaic word that means, among other things, dad, daddy, pop, papa, padre, dada, or father, et al. Abba isn't a formal title; but rather, pretty much informal because it's a filial vocative. What I mean is; when I'm out in the garage working and my son and his mother are in the kitchen talking about me, the noun "dad" is just who I am to my boy. But when he wants to get my attention by calling out: Dad! Where are you? Then dad becomes a vocative.
In other words: when the spirit of His son wants God's attention, he calls out Abba! But after he has God's attention, he stops using Abba because it isn't necessary to use a vocative once a child has its father's attention.
Anyway; what it boils down to is this: the spirit of His son always compels Christ's believing followers to call out to a father, never to a mother and the reason for that is actually quite simple. Christ never prays to a mother; but always to a father; hence those inhabited by his spirit will do the very same thing.
That, by the way, is a pretty good litmus test. If somebody is comfortable praying to Christ's mom, then that's pretty good evidence that they are not inhabited by the spirit of God's son; which means of course that they have not yet undergone adoption into His home.
†. Rom 8:15-17 . . For you have not received a spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we call out: Abba! Father. The Spirit itself testifies to our spirit, that we are God's kin.
The pronouns "you" and "we" and "our' in that passage are of course restricted to people who have been given the spirit of adoption. Obviously then; those who don't have it, are quite christless; and in grave danger of the lake of fire depicted at Rev 20:11-15.
†. Rom 8:9 . . If anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
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†. Luke 11:1-2 . . One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him: Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. He said to them: When you pray, say Father
There are no instances of the Lord and Master of New Testament Christianity-- nor of any of the inspired New Testament writers --either commanding, teaching, encouraging, leading by example, or even so much as suggesting --that prayer be made to celestial beings and/or deceased human beings: and for good reason. Christ-- himself a devoted, observant Jew --never prayed to his mother, nor to celestial beings, nor to deceased human beings, nor to anybody other than the one true God of the Jews: his Father.
Since that was the Son's habit (and also his instructions), then that very same compulsion should be evident in all God's kin since they are supposed to be recipients of the only begotten Son's filial mentality.
†. Gal 4:6a . . And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of His son into your hearts
The nature of a son's spirit is quite a bit different than the nature of a father's spirit or the nature of a mother's spirit. In particular; Christ's spirit is the mentality of God's offspring. So that anyone who truly has the Son's spirit in their hearts should be experiencing the very same personal filial bond with the Father that Jesus experiences.
Recipients of the spirit of His son are also recipients of another kind of sprit too.
†. Rom 8:15-17 . . For you have not received a spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we call out: Abba! Father.
Here's how the spirit of adoption works:
If I were to meet President Barack Hussein Obama, I would have to make an appointment first; and then stand back and address him as Sir or Mister President. But his two daughters Sasha and Malia can run right up uninvited and cling to his arm because he's their father; and they call him daddy. Now if the Obama's should adopt a little boy some day, he will have all the very same rights and privileges as the Obama's natural born daughters; including a right to inherit. Their new son would have every right to run up uninvited to Mr. Obama yelling: Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! and cling to his other arm.
In other words: the spirit of adoption imparts to God's legal children a heartfelt bond with God that enables them to feel the love, and the friendship, and the security feelings that normal boys and girls feel with their birth parents.
Some professing Christians think it's disrespectful to regard the Bible's God as a dad. But that kind of thinking isn't the mentality of a child in the home; no, that is the mentality of hired hands, and subjects, and vassals, and slaves. I am none of those; no, I am kin to The King. There's a place of my own all set around the table in His home waiting for me to arrive.
Do you see now why I cannot pray to Christ's mom? It's just simply impossible to overcome not only my family ties to Christ's Father, but also the powerful impulses of the spirit of adoption. The spirit of adoption always wins out over all other spirits when it comes time for me to pray because it just naturally compels me to use a vocative to get my adoptive Father's attention without my even thinking about it.
Adoption severs any and all obligations related to one's biological parents; and in the eyes of the law, one's adoptive parents are just as "biological" as the originals. Though I was at one time the son of an earthly father, I am now the legal son of a celestial father so that Christ is not only my master; but also my sibling; and in point of fact, since his mom is a Christian, then she too is my sibling; and all three of us share the same paterfamilias together.
†. John 20:17 . . Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and unto your Father; and unto my God, and unto your God.
What this all boils down to is that God's kin should feel an overwhelming compulsion to pray to their adoptive Father without their having to be told to. It should come naturally (so to speak), just as naturally as it came to Jesus. And they should feel an equally overwhelming revulsion praying to somebody else.
So then, people with a habit of praying to celestial beings, and/or ordinary human beings like Christ's mom and departed saints, obviously have neither the spirit of God's son in their heart, nor the spirit of adoption. No, the spirit in their heart compels them to call out to pagan gods.
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Some co-workers of mine who soldiered in Viet Nam during the decade of the 70's, related to me how they were detailed to go out into the jungle and tally the number of VC dead so that high command could evaluate the effectiveness of heavy bombing runs. The enemy's bodies were often ripped to pieces making the dead difficult to count; so what the guys did was scrounge up enough body parts to assemble a John Doe; then they could enter the man they assembled into the log as a dead soldier. That came to be known as a kick-count.
What Catholicism has done is cobble up an alleged biblical prayer by piecing together excerpts of Gabriel's and Elizabeth's dialogue; in effect, scrounging up a kick-count prayer.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the "Hail Mary" is not an in-the-Bible prayer, but is a developed prayer; and it was developed over a number of years.
Here's the entire text of the so-called Hail Mary. Words enclosed by brackets are inserted words.
Hail [Mary] full of grace, the Lord is with thee,
blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb [Jesus].
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
"Hail, the Lord is with thee" was plagiarized from Gabriel's greeting at Luke 1:28 (Douay-Rheims version).
"[Mary] full of grace" is fabricated.
"blessed art thou amongst women" was plagiarized from Elizabeth's greeting at Luke 1:42 (Douay-Rheims version).
"blessed is the fruit of thy womb" was also plagiarized from Elizabeth's greeting at Luke 1:42 (Douay-Rheims version).
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." is stated by the official Catechism of the Council of Trent to have been fabricated by the Church itself.
Obviously then, portions of the Hail Mary, in its official form, are borrowed from the Bible; but the body text of the prayer itself, is not actually in the Bible; but rather, it's a man-made supplication concocted from plagiarized excerpts of conversations between Christ's mom, Gabriel, and Elizabeth; with an ending invocation composed entirely by Roman Catholic imagination.
The Father's legitimate children would never recite a rote mantra like the Ave Maria because they're commanded to approach the throne of grace with candor.
†. Heb 4:16 . . Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
The Greek word for "boldly" is parrhesia (par-rhay-see'-ah) which means all out-spokenness, i.e. frankness, bluntness, and/or confidence.
In other words: the Father's legitimate children are not supposed to be shy about speaking up and telling their Father exactly what's on their minds. Mantras like the Ave Maria are not what I call forthright, out-spoken, frank and/or speaking up.
NOTE: I cannot imagine anybody talking to their own mother with rote mantras so how nutsy is it attempting to contact Christ's mother with rote mantras?
†. Jude 1:20 . . Continue to pray as you are directed by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit speaks for Christ (John 16:13-14). So then, it is Christ's wishes that his Father's children communicate with God rather than somebody else.
†. Rom 8:15-17 . . For you have not received a spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we call out: Abba! Father.
†. Gal 4:6 . . And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of His son into your hearts calling out: Abba! Father.
He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
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I agree with many of your points on particular Roman Catholic doctrines such as transubstantiation and praying to Mary.
What I like about the Catholics is their consistent, womb-to-tomb, pro-life stance, encompassing not just abortion but also poverty, health care, war and peace, the death penalty, and the environment.
Last edited by njtom; 08-03-2015 at 01:02 PM.
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