Flat Earth cirruculum..Follow

The incest parts could have benefitted from some illustrations.

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

A Christian behaving like a Christian will do "good works". This in no way diminishes non-Christians "good works".

Oh, and the bolded bit? If you claim to be a Christian but don't behave like one, your salvation is in question.


"By your fruits you shall be known" and all that.


On that note, Pope Frank opined that non-Christians who live "a good life" are just as likely to get into heaven. So, there's that, I guess.

They say Peter hung a sign on the gates: "No fat chicks."

That's not the "correction" at all. The correction is really about correcting a conflating of two very different words: Redemption and Salvation. Redemption is from Original Sin and was given to all mankind by Christs sacrifice on the cross. This makes it possible for man to go to heaven, but by no means guarantees it. Salvation refers to going to heaven and is earned. Period. And while I may personally not agree with this position, the official position of the Catholic Church is not only that only through Christ can salvation be achieved, but only through the Catholic Church.

I'm not precluding that Francis might think that's a bit heavy handed in this day and age, and it's something that Catholic's usually don't dwell on, but if Francis were to desire to reverse that position, he'd have to do it while wearing the funny pope hat and sitting in his magic pope chair and holding his magic pope stick, not whilst giving an off the cuff sermon one day. The Pope is only infallible under certain conditions.

You ex-Catholics or whatever you call yourselves.. You have good reason to have become agnostic.. but you have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. If you think that the dogma of the Vatican and the Papacy reflect Christ's Truth you have been gravely misled.

Constantine "The Great" is one of the main sources of "The Universal Church" that you know and love (or hate); not Christ; and it is likely the biggest catalyst for the fall of the Western Roman Empire and probably the Dark Ages as well (something that more militant atheists like to blame on Christianity) .

After playing the "Caesar game" in the West he exploited a Christian power-base in the (far richer) East. Instigating one civil war after another he finally gained control and went to work setting up his new version of Rome by propagating his image as the "savior of the Christians"... ordained by God..(Paving the way for Divine Right)

He instituted the Christian Religion as a propaganda machine with the military class essentially usurping the role of Christian elders all throughout the Roman/Christian world... This was not Christ's Church.. this was just the latest incarnation of Imperial Rome; autocratic and authoritarian. It had NOTHING to do with salvation of redemption and had EVERYTHING to do with the emperor maintaining power and control. Military officers were simply given the titles of deacons and presbyters. It was the perfect tool.. just like all the other religions... but this time, the emperor, by identifying himself with "God Almighty" could guarantee perfect blind loyalty in his subjects.. all by standing in front of the cross. Then he has his Council of Nicea to make sure that everyone understands and believes without question that the The State and the Church are ONE.

Along the way he starves the Western empire.. pulls the legions away from the frontiers..
Once bustling Roman colonies became little more than slums in a very short time. This resulted in no one left to fill the military leading to a total upheaval of the entire Western Roman army. After that only the richest of the rich owned any land.. so by the 5th century the main part of the army consisted of starving peasants working for little more than food; no longer loyal to any empire but only loyal to their land lord.. AKA Serfdom.

Now a few emperors later.. to question "The Church" is to question "The State" and then heresy and treason go hand and hand. Anyone who dared to question it is not only a heretic but an enemy of the state.. leading the way to all the Papal corruption.. mass murders.. and mass apostasy that is the framework for what you view as "The Church".

But don't be deceived.. these things had to happen. It is the nature of man and the nature of the society. It was inevitable... but rest assured that during all this time the TRUTH of God and Jesus Christ, His Death and Resurrection, was not impeded.. it still existed long before any Protestant movement.. it existed between the lines and survived by squeezing through the cracks of time. . You aren't going to hear much about the millions of Christians that questioned these things and have stood up for the Truth and suffered and died as "heretics". It's the butchers and dictators that write history.. I don't have an axe to grind against Catholics.. I'm just trying to tell if as plainly as I have understood it.. These things shouldn't be anything new.. but I just just ask that you think about these things and consider what you have been led to believe.. It, indeed, is a mistake to just believe something simply because it's what another human being taught you. Don't just determine what you don't believe but consider why you don't believe it. Just because you have figured out what is false doesn't mean you have figured out what is true.
Spoiler1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus



Edited, Mar 20th 2014 3:32am by Kelvyquayo

Not me. I'm still a card-carrying member of the mass apostasy propaganda machine

Ladies Night at Tabernacle! Bottomless cups of wine! Free fish on Fridays!

While this may be true, there is a common phrase uttered in prisons:

"He picked up the Bible (Or Quran) when he walked in the gate, and he put it back down when he walked out."

He went from being a Blood, to a Wine, and then returned to being a Blood?

Well it does kinda say so in your title

I recognize that the RCC doesn't hold the monopoly for being a mass apostasy propaganda machine.
If it seems like I'm singling out the CC.. well, I was just because I obviously wanted to put a fine point on it because the founding of that was one of the earliest forms of apostasy of Christians but the buck certainly doesn't stop there. Just like in Judges every succeeding generation of doctrine becomes just as corrupt. The protestants certainly didn't have hands clean of the blood of fellow Christians.

John Calvin set up his own protestant version of the the Vatican in Geneva and soon had a religious police state that spread throughout all of Europe that promulgated with The Westminster Confession. Suddenly in large parts of Europe if you weren't of the "Reformed Church" you were severely punished, tortured, killed. Usually burned.. over stuff like ...does infant baptism save or notSpoiler (short answer is NO, but infants are saved by grace).

There was a reason the "pilgrims" and Puritans were kicked out of Europe just in time for the Renaissance.. The classic "Pilgrims" of Plymouth Rock would have probably hung most people reading this. They were wrong. I can't think of many historical "main stream" Christian movements" that have been anything but an exercise in trying to control people.

Most of them have some sprinkled dab of falseness in it so make the whole thing a broken machine. The "if it works for you" mentality for religion cannot make sense if God is God and God has expectations.. Spoilerwell 1 expectation: to believe the Messiah died and was resurrected to stand in place for your judgement . ...everything else that distracts people from coming to that seems to be one more excuse someone can use to reject God and instead choose to follow a human doctrine that attempts to supersede the Gospel. It is without a doubt that the good news will find it's way through the thickest of fog (human nature).

The way of Christ is supposed to be the same all points in history, it doesn't change with the times and culture. I understand that not everyone is going to recognize that. I don't expect non-Christians to act like Christians but I do expect Christians to act like Christians unlike what is evidenced throughout most of its history; however the ones conquering history aren't truely reflecting actual, immutable Christness (or the active striving for thereof).

It probably should have gone without saying that I didn't view it that way anyway. So you spending that many keystrokes on saying "But it's okay 'cause these guys are too" is a little weird.

Trust me, if I was worried about what random internet people had to say about religion, I'd have unplugged my computer and set it on fire years ago

You think that's bad, you should see what they're like after converting to Judaism.