Christians: What's your relationship with the dead?

reply to post by JesuitGarlic

Maccabees is in the Catholic Bible which has be shown to be unreliable (such books were rejected by the early Christians for good reason)....your passage isn't considered 'scriptural'/from God...if you want to pass off this text then you should make others reading it aware that it is only in certain select streams of Bibles that have it

Maccabees is more of a history lesson, it deals with what happened after the jews got back from Babylon and Antiochus IV was stirring up trouble. He was prophesied of in the book of Daniel.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by wildtimes

 

Show me one place in the bible where you can pray the dead into heaven and i'll eat that page. You can't and you won't find it. Orthodox jews are Talmudic Jews not Torah Jews and nowhere in the Torah does it say you can pray the dead into heaven either. Praying for the dead is Mithraism. The Talmud was compiled 200 years after the destruction of the Temple and it was to give jews hope after their excommunication. They turned to lies instead of searching out the why the Temple had been destroyed and then seeking to atone for their sin. The Kolmidre prayer rescinds any covenants or oaths and promises they made, effectively allowing them to lie, cheat an steal and it not be a sin, that's about as far from Torah as you can get.

Maccabees predates the Temple destruction by several hundred years, and as I have pointed out before, praying for the dead (at least as how Catholics and Eastern Orthodox view it,) has nothing to do with salvation. If you have rejected Christ or die in a state of mortal sin, no amount of praying is going to save you from damnation.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

I can't because I don't have the Bible memorized, and I'm not even remotely inclined to read it just to prove something that you have already told me isn't there. I beleve you. I was only pointing out what the Tibetan Buddhists believe. Sheesh!

The Roman Catholic Church, however, DID preach that (keep in mind, I'm NOT CATHOLIC!), and even took money from the bereft for "praying" by "clergy" . The more money you gave them, the longer they would "pray" for the dead unbaptized (babies, mostly, who were believed to go to Limbo). I can find a source if you like, I wrote a book based on the 17th century beliefs of English common people and the way the RCC took advantage of them.

(They still do.)

This thread, however, is about having a relationship with the dead, not praying to unseen spirits or long-dead saints to do anything about them getting into heaven.


Oh, and, don't eat Bible pages, dude; do you know what processes go into ink and books? Especially those gold-lined pages. Have some pretzels. Or rice cakes.

reply to post by JesuitGarlic

DUDE .. IT"S ALL OFF TOPIC. Start a new thread with that crap. This one is 'What's your relationship with the dead'?? You've already gone off topic with your 'everyone is going to hell who doesn't worship God on Saturday' bunk. Go start a new thread with a new topic for whatever you are going to spew next ...

reply to post by adjensen


All sin is mortal man. That's the whole "wages of sin is death" factor. Only difference is christians took the only way out of that mess.

reply to post by FlyersFan


best not misquote me...the Sabbath test occurs during the Tribulation period when the false Christ comes (which will be very soon, and similar to the no worship of idols/bow down to images test against the 2nd commandment in Daniel 3). For those that are aware that God expects them to still keep the Sabbath then they are to do so already. For all those now and in the past that have died without that awareness then God does not consider it against someone.

The issue is hardly off-top...it is one of the main agendas behind the deceptions of the fallen angels impersonating the dead, get people to doubt the worth and truth of the word of God and they will have no foundation to cling to when all manner of signs and lying wonders are assailed against them.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by adjensen

 

All sin is mortal man. That's the whole "wages of sin is death" factor. Only difference is christians took the only way out of that mess.

Well, since the question was in regards to the Catholic concept of Purgatory, I felt it helpful to note the difference between mortal and venial sin.

But it does raise a question -- let's say that I'm a "saved" Christian, by whatever means or method you want to say. But one day, for some reason, I rob a bank, get into a shootout with the police, murder three of them and then get cut down myself. In no way have I renounced Christ or claimed to have abandoned Christianity.

Would I go to heaven?

For a Catholic, it's cut and dried -- no, I would not, because that is a state of mortal sin, and by my actions, I have rejected Christ. For a Protestant, the proper answer is yes, but that's offensive, so the response is usually no, with some weak argument like "they must not have been a real Christian" to support it, and ignoring the fact that such an argument tends to indicate that works do play a role in our salvation/damnation.

Now, on the other hand, let's say that I'm chatting up a girl, she asks if I think that her pants make her butt look big, and even though I think that they do, I wisely say "no," violating the commandment against lying. Ten minutes later, I have a heart attack and find myself before God.

Would I go to heaven?

For a Catholic, it's cut and dried -- yes, because I have only committed a venial sin (assuming that's the only one that is on my head.) For a Protestant, the answer would be yes, but that brings up the difficulty of the previous example, because if "all sin is mortal", then the answer to these two scenarios needs to be the same, and that's hard to reconcile.

reply to post by adjensen

But it does raise a question -- let's say that I'm a "saved" Christian, by whatever means or method you want to say. But one day, for some reason, I rob a bank, get into a shootout with the police, murder three of them and then get cut down myself. In no way have I renounced Christ or claimed to have abandoned Christianity.

Would I go to heaven?

I would say you wouldn't go to heaven, because if you could do all that then you never had a salvation experience and your spirit was never changed. You were never saved to begin with. You cannot abandon what you were never a part of.

Now i take the baptist point of view that once saved you cannot be unsaved, because salvation is not given upon a person's own merit, and because Jesus said he would not turn away any who come to him, nor would he leave or forsake us and per John 10, none can remove us from his hand, this means even ourselves, to do so would mean you have more power than he does and that is impossible. Thats why it is written its a fearful thing to put yourself in the hands of the Living God, because nothing can take you from him, nor is there any escape once he has you.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by adjensen

 

But it does raise a question -- let's say that I'm a "saved" Christian, by whatever means or method you want to say. But one day, for some reason, I rob a bank, get into a shootout with the police, murder three of them and then get cut down myself. In no way have I renounced Christ or claimed to have abandoned Christianity.

Would I go to heaven?

I would say you wouldn't go to heaven, because if you could do all that then you never had a salvation experience and your spirit was never changed. You were never saved to begin with. You cannot abandon what you were never a part of.

Bingo, and that's what Calvin taught, as a counter to both the Catholics and to Luther.

All three faiths have a central tension, regarding salvation.

Catholic: Am I in a state of mortal sin?
Non-reformed Protestant: Will I remain faithful to the end of my life?
Reformed Protestant: Did I have a genuine salvation experience?

You can see that each one has its plusses and minuses, but the key problem that I see with the Reformed position is that the "genuineness" of the salvation experience is evaluated by later events in a person's life, so it's really not much different than the other two. Someone can live 50 years under the impression that the altar call they had at age 15 was genuine, and then commit a serious sin and be told that that experience must not have been genuine.

As a thought experiment, let's say that there are two scenarios... in the first, he goes through with the affair, in the second, he's killed in a car accident the week before. Same person, same salvation experience at age 15, but does he go to hell in the "car accident" scenario because even though he didn't commit a sin (well, that one,) his salvation experience was the same as the scenario where he did have the affair, so it must not have been genuine?

I don't really have an answer for that, I'm just tossing it out as food for thought.

ATTENTION!!!!

For those who have forgotten, this is the topic.

Christians: What's your relationship with the dead?

Please refrain from further off topic debates.......

My mother passed on October 27th at 4:30 am. She had been sick for sometime, we expected her to go any second. I am not a christian, so sorry to bump into your thread. I did however want to let you know what I have been going through.

Three days after her passing I was frustrated, she had said she would come back to visit. I believed her but had yet seen any signs. While sitting on the couch with my husband I cryed and asked him why she hadn't come to see me yet. His answer was "Honey maybe she is busy." At that moment my phone rang(my phone anounces the caller) it said "Call from MOM!" My mothers cell phone was turned off and in the kitchen drawer where it had been for about a week. Then the call went to voicemail. When I checked voicemail it was silent.
A second or two later my husband said oh yeah I forgot someone gave me some chocolates to give you today.
They were SEAS chocolates, my mothers favorites.
So within min of my being frustrated my mother called and gave me signs to comfort me. I now smell her everywhere and I know she is at peace.
I am so looking forward to seeing her again in my next life hopefully as a friend and not a daughter.

I hope you find the answers you seek.