Religion Generates Evil

[posthuman]

I have never been to a Catholic church that bashed others in the faith. I've been to several Protestant Churches that do. The Calvinist and Fundamentalist are the worse and most offensive of them all.

tbh i'm not sure i've ever heard anyone bring up the name 'Calvin' who wasn't bringing it up with the express purpose of bashing.
i've heard/seen people mention his name plenty of times without bashing, but iirc it's always been in response to someone who initially used it as something of a slur or mentioned it only in order to denigrate it and whatever ideas they associate with it. kinda like you just did.

 

[DudleyDorite]

Anen brother! I noticed that prove-all said, - “the bible says the Holy Spirit is the very power of God, not another person.”

That is the same erroneous argument that I heard from a man who lives on my mail route and attends the Worldwide church of God (Armstrongism) which would explain why he denies that the Holy Spirit is God. That man on my mail route is also obsessed with the Saturday Sabbath and so is prove-all.

Today that church is called the United Church of God. I don't agree with a lot of their theology or Prophecy but I do agree with them on the trinity.

Armstrong is one of the few who publicly admitted making a mistake, and I commend him for that.

 

[epostle]

Anen brother! I noticed that prove-all said, - “the bible says the Holy Spirit is the very power of God, not another person.”

There is not a single Catholic document or teaching, in a 2000 year period, that claims the the Holy Spirit , the very power of God, is found in another person. Until you produce evidence to the contrary, your statement is more of the same lies and falsehoods that is not of God. Preaching lies and falsehoods against a church you dreamed up is your religion. Catholics don't do that to your church, if you even have one.
Show me ONE (1) approved Catholic site that misrepresents, bashes, and insults your fundamentalist church (assuming you are of the paranoid fundamentalist variety),
And I can show you MILLIONS of anti-Catholic sites that have nothing better to do.
Most Protestant churches have outgrown the 16th century reformist rhetoric and have no desire to bash. The rest are Peter-Pan cults clinging to an outdated rebellious mentality that refuse to grow up. IMO, radical anti-Catholicism is compensating for an inferiority complex (lets build ourselves up by tearing them down). All the while, the historic Church wants other churches to be built up. Anti-authority and anti-institution are part of the fallen nature.
If you cannot or will not backup your straw man, idiotic insults, then don't make them in the first place.

 

[mailmandan]

There is not a single Catholic document or teaching, in a 2000 year period, that claims the the Holy Spirit , the very power of God, is found in another person.

I’m not sure why you’re arguing with me. I was refuting the statement made by prove-all in which he said the Holy Spirit was the very power of God, but he denies that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity/the Holy Spirit is God.

 

[tekton]

if you ever visit a mega-church that has 3 or 4 services each week ((repeating the same message a number of times to accommodate the large number of people)), it may be interesting to go to all of them in a row. see if the pastor cries at the same point in each one & the same people on stage go into the same emotional fits at the same points.

Well I planned on three. That was quite ambitious. Apparently today it will be just one (and not St. Jude).

I'll have to find a mega-church around here to see lol!

 

[epostle]

Religion is not evil, false religion is evil- which the Catholic church is. They are not Christ's church, and therefore they nor their behavior are connected with Christ.

Either you are brainwshed by "Bible-Christian" hate propaganda, or you are profoundly ignorant of Catholicism while claiming expertise.

This is what God accepts as true religion- to take care of widows and orphans in their distress. To help the poor and feed the hungry. To keep one self from being corrupted by this depraved and crooked generation.

I completely agree. This is what you say are the fruits of an evil, false religion:


Make your own judgment whether or not you have been deceived.

This is what God accepts as true religion- to take care of widows and orphans in their distress. To help the poor and feed the hungry.

Next on the agenda is the "works salvation" insult, that was condemned as a heresy 1000 years before the first Protestant was born.

 

[epostle]

I’m not sure why you’re arguing with me. I was refuting the statement made by prove-all in which he said the Holy Spirit was the very power of God, but he denies that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity/the Holy Spirit is God.

Sorry about that, I am not used to a 5 minute edit window. The heresiarch Arius was the first anti-trinitarian in the 3rd century. Refute him and their whole argument collapses.

 

[DudleyDorite]

Sorry about that, I am not used to a 5 minute edit window. The heresiarch Arius was the first anti-trinitarian in the 3rd century. Refute him and their whole argument collapses.

There was no trinity before the third century. It came about long after the apostles had passed from the scene.

The bishops of Rome had discussed a way to better describe God. It was a debate between Arius and Athanasius.
The full-blown doctrine of the Trinity came to fruition in the fourth century at two great ecumenical (universal) councils: Nicea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.)
It took almost 100 years and finally the bishops accepted Athanasius view of a triad of gods like several other pagan religions.

 

[DudleyDorite]

Either you are brainwshed by "Bible-Christian" hate propaganda, or you are profoundly ignorant of Catholicism while claiming expertise.
I completely agree. This is what you say are the fruits of an evil, false religion:

View attachment 186947
Make your own judgment whether or not you have been deceived.

Next on the agenda is the "works salvation" insult, that was condemned as a heresy 1000 years before the first Protestant was born.

The Catholic Church far outdoes the Protestant's when it comes to missions. They are the most Charitable Christian organization on earth.

 

[epostle]

tbh i'm not sure i've ever heard anyone bring up the name 'Calvin' who wasn't bringing it up with the express purpose of bashing.
i've heard/seen people mention his name plenty of times without bashing, but iirc it's always been in response to someone who initially used it as something of a slur or mentioned it only in order to denigrate it and whatever ideas they associate with it. kinda like you just did.

I didn't denigrate Calvin, he did that to himself. He is the primary source of Protestant iconoclasm. In order to refute baseless charges of idolatry, sometimes I go to the source. Extreme iconoclasm lends itself to Gnosticism, or Manichaenism. Shall I elaborate?
Did you know, that according to Calvin, a guitar in church is, by extension, idolatry too? Why did he incite mobs to smash priceless organs? Calvinism is a heresy, but Calvinists are not heretics.

This is not an idol in any church by todays standards, but Scripture in art form, for some, remains under the spell of Calvin. What I don't understand is why Calvin College has an arts department.​

It's a good thing Bach was a Lutheran.

 

[Dino246]

Well, now this thread is the place to defend Catholicism and decry the Trinity.

Yup, I must agree, religion generates evil.

 

[Laish]

Well, now this thread is the place to defend Catholicism and decry the Trinity.

Yup, I must agree, religion generates evil.

Nope brother it’s a tool like a hammer. You can use it to build a house to shelter you and your family or use it to hit your neighbors over the head .
Blessings
Bill

 

[GRASSESANDDRAGONFLIES]

There is not a single Catholic document or teaching, in a 2000 year period, that claims the the Holy Spirit , the very power of God, is found in another person. Until you produce evidence to the contrary, your statement is more of the same lies and falsehoods that is not of God. Preaching lies and falsehoods against a church you dreamed up is your religion. Catholics don't do that to your church, if you even have one.
Show me ONE (1) approved Catholic site that misrepresents, bashes, and insults your fundamentalist church (assuming you are of the paranoid fundamentalist variety),
And I can show you MILLIONS of anti-Catholic sites that have nothing better to do.
Most Protestant churches have outgrown the 16th century reformist rhetoric and have no desire to bash. The rest are Peter-Pan cults clinging to an outdated rebellious mentality that refuse to grow up. IMO, radical anti-Catholicism is compensating for an inferiority complex (lets build ourselves up by tearing them down). All the while, the historic Church wants other churches to be built up. Anti-authority and anti-institution are part of the fallen nature.
If you cannot or will not backup your straw man, idiotic insults, then don't make them in the first place.

View attachment 186946

You seem very aggressive for one who hopes to speak of the Holy Spirit. At least that's how I read you.
Are you familiar with Article 8, I Believe In The Holy Spirit, of the Roman Catholic Catechism? Starting with section 687?

 

[DiscipleDave]

Is it possible that religion through an unknown process produce more evil than good. I am just saying that because of all the scandals that have recently come out especially sexual scandals. These are not a few people but large scale organized rapes! For example, it looks like every catholic priest is an abuser and all bishops approved that (may be even the pope). When I see that I am ashamed to be a christian. Why does something that is supposed to make us good, produce so much evil?

You do not understand who the enemy is:

Eph_6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Our Battle is against satan and his forces. This generation seems to lose sight of that TRUTH.

Religion only seems to part of the problem as you are stating above, but it is not religion. Satan attacks all religions of the world. Satan does not bother with those who are UNreligeous, He has already got them. Those who start to believe in a God, are those that satan comes after with full force. So even though it may seem religion is the problem, its not. It is satan attacking those who are religious all the more.

satan is the enemy, satan comes after those priest to tempt them continually to commit sin. NO different then satan coming after you, continually tempting you to commit sin as well. Have you got rid of that sin that so easily besets you or do you still continue to do that sin? And that continually.

What? The priests sin is worse than your own sin that you do daily?

People, know you not that satan sole purpose, is to get as many people to continue to live in sin until they die or are killed. That is his goal and his mission on this Earth. The priests continue to live in sin because they obey satan. You continue to live in sin because you obey satan. BOTH continue to live in sin and belong to satan. Do those priests confess that Jesus is the Son of God? Do they profess to be Christians? You also profess that Jesus is the Son of God, and you also profess to be Christians. They live in sin, you live in sin. satan has BOTH..

How easy is it for satan to get us Christians to focus on other peoples sins, and not on our own sins. "Theirs is way worse" Somehow makes this generation feel better about themselves does it not? Your sins are not near as bad as others, right?
God forbid. Sin is sin, it is disobedience to God. Men put a value on sin, this one worse than that one, and so forth.

As i said, even though we humans have a tendency to put value on this or that sin, which one is worse which one is OK, The TRUTH is all of them disobey God and obey the temptations of the devil. A person who steals a million dollars, and a person who steals a TV, Both commit sin. Both failed to love those who they stole from, both chose to obey the enemy and NOT God.

A homosexual that practices the act of homosexual behavior is no different than a Heterosexual who practices the act of Heterosexual behavior without being married. Both sin. Heterosexual would do well to remember that.

The enemy is not other people, the enemy is satan. As long as satan can get a person to continue to live in sin, he has them on his team for the final battle.

This generation would do well to know who the actual enemy is. This generation would do well to stop obeying the enemy of Jesus Christ, and start looking to Jesus for His Strength, and His Power against satan and his temptations, as to overcome them and not comply with the enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Know you not that when you are tempted to commit a sin, that Jesus is there saying "Don't do it, it is sinful" And if you obey His enemy the devil, for selfish reasons, how have you not denied Jesus? Is it not written plainly and clearly that with every single temptation that comes upon you, that Jesus makes sure it is not so strong that you can't handle it, and He also makes a path out of it for you. If you choose to commit the sin anyways, did you not deny the very path that Jesus gave you out of it? And for what? For your own selfishness. All willing sin is done because of selfishness.

People wake up from your slumber, we are all here on this planet to be tested and this generation is failing miserably. Start Loving one another TODAY, Stop being selfish, Jesus gave His life for you, should you not be willing to give your life in service to Him? Stop living your life as you see fit, start living your life in obedience to your Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, Give your life up, for Him.


^i^

††† In His Holy and Precious Name, Jesus Christ †††

DiscipleDave

 

[epostle]

There was no trinity before the third century. It came about long after the apostles had passed from the scene.

Nonsense. The Trinity is expressed, in primitive form, in Scripture.
Matthew 28:19.
The parallelism of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is not unique to Matthew’s Gospel, but appears elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g., 2 Cor. 13:14, Heb. 9:14), as well as in the writings of the earliest Christians, who clearly understood them in the sense that we do today—that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three divine persons who are one divine being (God).

Dialogue with a Jehovahs Witness on the Trinity by Dave Armstrong Part 1

The bishops of Rome had discussed a way to better describe God. It was a debate between Arius and Athanasius.

Wrong. Nicae is not in Rome, and bishops came to the council from all over the Christian world, not just Rome. It is impossible to hold an ecumenical council without sanction from the Pope. He was too sick to travel to Nicae, and sent 2 legates with his full authority.

The full-blown doctrine of the Trinity came to fruition in the fourth century at two great ecumenical (universal) councils: Nicea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.)

A further development ( a deeper understanding and clarification of the same truths) occurred at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The authoritive verdicts are accepted by Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox. But rejected by a former Congregationist minister who started his own church in 1860.

There is no such thing as "a full blown doctrine" just as there is no such thing as a full blown revealed truth.

It took almost 100 years and finally the bishops accepted Athanasius view of a triad of gods like several other pagan religions.

You have no evidence to support this blatant lie.
Re-writing history, denial of the canons of the Council of Nicae, denial of the accumulated evidence of the ante-Nicene Fathers, denial of historical context
IS DISHONEST.
Force fitting false histories to fit presuppositions
IS DISHONEST.

Do you have any idea why the follow up councils of Ephesus, Constantinople and Chalcedon were convened in the first place? I submit you don't know and don't care. All main Councils on the Trinity were convened because of challenging heresies.

"The [Trinity] can be proven from Scripture, indeed (material sufficiency), but Scripture Alone as a principle was not formally sufficient to prevent the Arian crisis from occurring. In other words, the decisive factor in these controversies was the appeal to apostolic succession and Tradition, which showed that the Church had always been trinitarian."

I am not going to spend hours gathering evidence of Trinitarian thought BEFORE Nicae, you would just ignore it anyway, so here is a link. It features quotes from PROTESTANT scholars, so you can't accuse me of doctrinal bias:
Answer to Harold Kupp on the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers
Holy Trinity and Modern Arians Part 2

 

[epostle]

You seem very aggressive for one who hopes to speak of the Holy Spirit. At least that's how I read you.
Are you familiar with Article 8, I Believe In The Holy Spirit, of the Roman Catholic Catechism? Starting with section 687?

Thank you for the courtesy of providing a paragraph number. A link to the page, plus footnotes, brings in more context, like this:
CCC187
footnotes:
7 1 Cor 2:11.
8 Jn 16:13.
9 Jn 14:17.

 

[epostle]

.

I tend to overheat and be abrasive. It's a sin I struggle with. Sorry if I have offended you.

 

[epostle]

ANALOGY:
a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
"an analogy between the workings of nature and those of human societies"
- a correspondence or partial similarity.
- a thing that is comparable to something else in significant respects.
"works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature"

.+..
The human family is analogous to the Trinity
​

In seeking to understand the traditional family, Christians should keep in mind that not only are individual persons created in the image of God, but so is the family itself. The human family is the closest analogy that mankind will ever come to concretely understanding the Blessed Trinity.

The creeds teach that while there is one God, He exists in three distinct persons. The bible, on the other hand, reveals that man is made in the 'image of God'. From these two truths, therefore, we can acknowledge that the complete image of God is found in the Triune understanding of Him.

This understanding of His Triune nature is reflected by the human family whose personal relationships approach the likeness of the Trinity.

There are multiple demonstrations of this truth.

Consider the unity of the Trinity which is reflected in the unity of the family. Or the "family of persons" which is found in both. The persons of the Trinity share the 'same substance ' while a human family becomes one flesh: wife with husband and parents with children.

There is also another element in the Trinity that lends itself to human likeness. The Nicene Creed professes this about the Trinity: "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life who proceeds from the Father and the Son."

In Catholic theology, the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the will of both the Father and the Son, or in other words, through the activity which they engage in, otherwise known as "love".

The Holy Spirit is poured forth through the exchange of love between the Father and the Son. This is why perhaps Jesus says to the Apostles: " Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you." (John 16:7)

In the eternal economy of the Trinity, therefore, a person 'proceeds' from the love between two other persons. And so, the Holy Spirit is love 'proceeding' or 'coming from' the first two persons of the Blessed Trinity.
The human family has a rather striking parallel to this dynamic. The ultimate act of intimacy in a marriage mirrors the eternal exchange of love between the first two persons of the Trinity.

And like the eternal or continual procession of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, the act of love between a man and a woman causes a 'procession' of another human person (i.e. the birth of a child).

Thus, it is precisely because the homosexual sex act is not ordered to the procession of another person, that it can never be a Trinitarian reflection of the divine essence.

Indeed, the sexual act itself, which is supposed to be a reflection of the Trinitarian relationship, becomes, through the homosexual act, a blasphemy against God since it ends up distorting the Trinitarian image of Him.

The human sexual act either affirms God's image or it distorts it. This is why all forms of contraceptive sex, including the homosexual act, are serious sins: they seek to create God in another image. It is anti-Trinitarian.

http://catholic-legate.com/articles/antitrinity.html

IMO, denial of the Trinity is an existential denial of the human family.

​

 

[preacher4truth]

Do you understand grammer?

Did you mean "grammar," or, are you speaking of a person's granny?

 

[epostle]

Did you mean "grammar," or, are you speaking of a person's granny?

Please lower your font, when used sparingly large fonts are more effective. Nobody likes to be screamed at.

It seems odd that certain who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others. Charles Spurgeon