The early missionaries were constantly subsuming pagan practices, festivals and icons into a thinly disguised veneer of christianity to enable the new converts to better make the leap as was rightly pointed out, Easter being a prime example. What we think of as a 100 per cent Christian festival is in fact named after an Anglo-saxon goddess of spring. I like it, it shows these early Christians had a strong pragmatic streak that kept their spiritual outlook from becoming too conflated or fundamentalist. Unfortunately that came later. This is why Catholicism has such a strong aesthetic facination and why it was so successful, it met that strong need in us for iconic worship/adoration etc and I still say that it is probably one of the more organic religions which seeks to redefine itself at regular intervals rather than sticking to staid outmoded concepts.

When you say ""early Christians"" do you mean Roman Catholic???
Why???

Early Christianity never celebrated ""easter"" it was and still is called pascha......What people have done is created their own version and translated it into something that is in fact wrong and misleading to some that dont do any kind of research .........

Sorry Helen I am giving examples from the conversion of the celts and anglo-saxons not the very early years of the church. Their cultural, spiritual and artistic interpretation of christianity helped to influence catholicism, the iconography and the almost panatheistic representation of the saints and the virgin.

The only thing I know of the very early christians is that they found the crucifix to be an offensive symbol.

The bible says do not let any man judge you concerning festivals
and moons and feasts and sabbaths.

so your judgement has no validity. do you know the mind of god?


1. easter is the celebration of the lords death, it was not the church who
created the bunny and rabit easter. we created an easter with the celebration of the death of god in
rememberance of god.

god said to the church..

"" whatever you bound on earth is bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven ""

"" let (no) (man) judge you in matters of food and drink, or sabbaths, or festivals ""

corinthians.


2. The saints were not honored like pagaan godesses.

that is so bogus. to be canonized a saint one must have had three
or more miracles in his/her life. the church is very serious on this issue.


3. all saints worshipped jesus christ, many saints worked miracles of healings, many saints died for christ.
Not one single saint was a pagan.

4. we do not worship saints or mary.

Our church for 1900 strait years taught this and will always teach this.


we honor them as god perfected them and ask them for their prayers for us.



5. Over and over our church condemns paganism as evil.


6. the churchc of the apostles believed in the same beliefs as catholics.


7. peter and paul went to convert rome, the most pagan of empires. their victory came in 313 ad when constantinople made it the
state religion.


Our church teaches that jesus is the lord, the church is the only means of perfection because of the sacraments of
perfection.

The church is backed up by scripture all throughout the NT/OT.

God promised a church he would creat with the keys to the kingdom. he promised it wouls spread throughout the world.

And finally promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against (it).

peace.

Originally posted by Truth The church is backed up by scripture all throughout the NT/OT.

Which is only logical, because the only thing God Himself wrote was the Ten Commandments & Jesus himself wrote no scriptures at all...Of course the scriptures are going to back up the Church that uses them.



[Edited on 28-2-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

no disrespect meant to anyone here but I have a little trouble with these 10 commandments in that how does a God who is in a form that is beyond all human comprehension manage to scribe his eternal laws on a slab of stone?

I seriously wonder if Moses went up the mountain with his chisel and did them himself. In no way am I criticising the content - they are valuable and powerful rules, but I have trouble believing they came direct from God with no human intervention.

due to the circimstances described in the Bible, I've wondered that myself numerous times over the years...Moses was out of sight on the mountain more than long enough to have carved them himself.

Even so, whether there's any doubt in the situation itself, the *content* of the Commandments is stronger than any possible doubt on their origin. They speak of love, respect & justice...Does it matter if there's doubt of *how* they were made?

They're a far cry better than any laws written since that time...

I guess the question of how they were made only becomes an issue when certain people use the alleged divine creation of the commandments as an argument that their faith is the only correct one

Wandering, cyber-chums; but I think we can address the original question with some degree of certainty.
It is a fact that the BVM ñ as the ghastly modern missals call the Bearer of Christ ñ has gained a better profile over the last 130 years: assumption, perpetual virginity, and what you will; but the doctrinal and dogmatic situation remains as it was.
No doubt, a benighted Peruvian yam-digger may be found convinced that he/she/it is praying TO the Virgin Mary (or a saint or ten) but Roman Catholics are permitted only to ask for ìintercessionî . That is to say, they ask that their prayer be strengthened by the souls of proven merit (in their terms) either in heaven (as in Maryís case) or elsewhere (as in the saintsí cases).
Given the perfection accorded to Mary as a human being ( ìgratia plenaî; benedicta tuî; ìmater deiî) it is little wonder that she is the chosen intercessionary.
ìOra pro nobis nunc et in hora mortis nostraeî ñ pray for us now and in the hour of our death.î
This is an entirely logical request for a Roman Catholic ñ that the most blessed of all human souls might be asked to add to oneís prayers.
If one is not RC ñ one takes oneís choice.
It is a poor thing that the beliefs of a billion-plus should be treated as they have been treated, at times, here.

estrogen thank you very much.

Im glad to see someone who knows what we really teach stick up for
what we are sayiing although not a catholic.

my final pont on this issue is that we have never ever taught the worship of saints
or mary, only their prayers in the communion of saints.

if you would study our doctrines you would notbe ignorant to them.


"" the rest ofthe men wrotethe bible ""

md, i believe hat god put is commands in scripture, that god inspire these men
the (prophets) to write. they even reference the church years before i began in the OT. i believe esus
is god, he had 12 disciples that spoke for him..

ad i will not lose this faith until i die, because jesus has revealed himself to me in such a way i cannot deny him nor his words.


if any bod has any problems sincerely with a teaching of our church let mknow and illtr and explain it, other than tha
im done talking about the scriptures and whether they be false or not.


peace.

Originally posted by arc I guess the question of how they were made only becomes an issue when certain people use the alleged divine creation of the commandments as an argument that their faith is the only correct one

This is why I have faith in God, but not any icon or object...Including the organization of religion. The pen is mightier than the sword...The Words on the tablets mean so much more than the tablets themselves.

Truth, I never indicated that I'd like to see you give up your faith...With the world the way it is, faith might be the only thing we poor mortals can truly have.

In a nutshell, the only thing I've *ever* tried to point out in this forum is that God Himself is the ultimate teacher...But everything wrought by the hand of man (even under true inspiration) is like taking classes in school where the only instructors you can see are *subsititute teachers*; These people seek to interject themselves between you & God...The *only* possible intermediary that the scriptures call for is Jesus, yet the whole church *organization* forces itself in between you & Him. This is how I've been discussing my views: religion vs. faith. The only teachings that we can see & read are the ones that were prepared by the "substitute teachers". Inspiration or no, the substitute teachers are just as fallable & imperfect as any other mortal being. The scriptures, as they were written, are nothing better than "second-hand" information. This is true with *any* religion.


[Edited on 2-3-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

i got a question if it(the pray) doesn;t praise mary and consider her a god why does it start with "hail mary"

Dear F16, it begins "hail" for purely linguistic reasons -and the fact that syllables were needed for the sake of liturigical music and so forth.
It is simply a rendering of the Latin "ave": which is simply "hello/greetings" in Latin - and "hail" is, etymologically, the first part of Modern English "hello".
It has no theological value and had, say, Lithuanian, become a world language, it would have been different.
" Ave"/"hail" might have been used to almost anyone at that time.
And, please do not confuse "praise" with "pray".

Dear F16, it begins "hail" for purely linguistic reasons -and the fact that syllables were needed for the sake of liturigical music and so forth.
It is simply a rendering of the Latin "ave": which is simply "hello/greetings" in Latin - and "hail" is, etymologically, the first part of Modern English "hello".
It has no theological value and had, say, Lithuanian, become a world language, it would have been different.
" Ave"/"hail" might have been used to almost anyone at that time.
And, please do not confuse "praise" with "pray".

helen, the church of christ subsides in rome, this is where paul and peter
went to convert babylon.

the orthodox broke in 1054, the cause was (not) doctrinal, but rather political and material because of jealousy between
east and west.

Christ saidthis..

"" Upon this rock (of peter) i will build my (church) ""

They deny that the pope is headof the church, something chrst gave to the church, something that must be believed, and something thathe church of
the apostles believed.

The orthodox deny that the hly spirit proceeds from the father and son.


thats a catolic dogma that (must) be believed. the apotles believe this dogma and it was revealed by jesus himself.



1JOHN 5:8

"" And there are (three) that give testimony in (heaven) : the (father), The word, and the holy (spirit), and
these (three) are (one) ""



it must be believed.

so the same as the pope must be the successor of peter, a catholic dogma that existed
well before the shcis of 1054.

They also reject the last 13 councils of the romaan churc.

councils which are infallble given by christ to the church.


also christ said very clearly.

"" whatever you bound onearth you bound i heaven, whatever you loose
on earth you loose in heaven ""


the orthodox are not only shcissmatical but truley heretical.


they deny key dogmas which must be believed.


peace.

Matthew 6:6 last half "pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

1 Timothy 2:5 "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;"

ya i've thought about that one! and its always puzzled me cuz doesn't it say something about when two or more pray together

hey i have to say something to james the lesser. all of the books of the bible are gods word. he told them what to put in those books. so you definetly need to follow what the bible not just the ten commandments. okay?

Ummm...Which *version* of the Bible is God's Word? There's so many splinter-versions of Christianity in general & there's so many different versions of the Bible, how are you supposed to know which one it the *true* book?

Answer: The only way to know what the *true* scriptures are would be to learn how to read 3 different ancient languages (Hebrew, Latin, Greek) & read the Dead Sea Scrolls to know the Word as it was originally written. And yet, you'll find problems even then...There's no way to know for certain if *all* of the original Scrolls have been found; The age of centuries has degraded the documents themselves & their entire content is not intact; If you're relying on "professional" translations of the original texts, then you're also going to have to put up qith a certain amount of "human error" as well.

Plus there's the fact that the Churches (Roman Catholic, primarily) that have "reinterpreted", revised, retranslated & blatent *editing* they've performed on the bible as well...All in all, between the "human margin of error" & the political motivations that Church Heirarchies have used to *change* the original content of the texts, how can anyone know for certain *which version to believe in*?

If you think that it would be considered to be "heretical" to point out these flaws, then you need to study history itself to find out that I've only been speaking the *truth*.