What are the TRUE differences Catholicism / Protestantism

[rockmom]

From what text are you quoting here, RM?

 

 

I have posted information from Catholic.com

 

More formal language and detailed information is available through the Vatican website at the link posted above.

[All Tell]

Pope...What scripture is he found?

 

Mother Mary...very important role..In the birth of Christ.

 

Be Baptized after knowing why you should be by immersion.

 

Catholics are encouraged not to read the Bible. Thats what I've been told.

(I hope that would change)

 

At the early age a child is taught confession...Penitent We confess to Jesus Christ. Not to a Man

 

Nowhere in the Bible does it mentionof "Limbo or Purgatory". Purgatory is man's think so's.

 

Prayer to the Saints...not in the Bible they are dead men/ Pray to Jesus Christ.

 

Idols...Again Man Made. What does scripture say about Idols?

 

Rosary..Tradition is man made..Jesus.."When you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do".

 

Mass..man made started in the 1200's. John said in 19:30

"Christ said it is finished". There is only one sacrifice. The jews sacrificed regularly for their Sins, Jesus died once on the cross for our sins. No longer is a "daily sacrifice " needed.

 

Hope this helps.

AL

 

I'm going to ask a question that needs just a yes or no answer, no explaination, no context, no scriptural justification.

 

Will a devout Catholic go to Heaven?

[Alabama Larry]

RockMom, thanks for that. I hope it helps the person who asked the question...Like I tried to do.

 

Birdsfan.."Garbage"? My beliefs system (scripture driven) is Garbage?

 

Every thing I posted is Scripturely based.

 

Now if you disagree with that. Thats fine. See how RockMom responded to my post compared to your response.

 

I responded to the topic, through scripture and using my debate experince with Catholics. Not once in those talks did we refer to someones beliefs system in the way that you did. OK use the little cartoon symbols, I'll use scripture.

 

Now show me where the Bible speaks about these issues that you called "Garbage". I'll be waiting.

 

Peter was married..is the Pope?

 

Mary went to see Jesus and he turned her away. Her other children didn't follow Jesus.

 

Mary is "highly favored" Her job was done. She is mentioned One time after the Gospels. Why is that Garbage Man?

 

You have freewill to believe how you want to...but don't call my beliefs garbage again. I mean it.

[titletownclown]

I have nothing of substance to add to this topic; however, I am not going to let that fact stop me from posting here.

 

I believe Catholics and Protestants have an equal opportunity of ending up in hell just as they have an equal opportunity of ending up in heaven.

 

I have never ever understood the need by some to claim that "their denomination" is the one true path to heaven. If you put 50 people in a room and asked them to read the Bible, then gave them a list of 10 questions concerning their interpretation of those 10 topics, you would end up with 500 different answers.

 

I have attended a plethora of churches in my past including Baptist, Methodist, 1st Christian, Catholic, among others. My assessment is this. I have found each of them to be filled with loving, caring people who truly try to follow Christ's teachings and accept Jesus as their saviour. And I have found each of them to be filled with people who are full of crap.

 

I have always been, and always will be non-denominational, always!!! I am NOT a Protestant or a Catholic. I am a Christian (a sinner with many demons to wrestle with like all the rest). I currently attend a Baptist church in Danville. However, I do not consider myself a Baptist. I attend this church because the sermons are meaningful and interesting, the people are approachable, and the Music Minister heads a praise band in which I play the guitar each Sunday. :thumb: I do not, however, believe my church is any better than any other or that I have a leg up on getting to Heaven because I go to this particular church.

 

Judge not lest ye be judged.

 

In the end it comes down to this: Do you accept Jesus as your personal saviour and lord and do you try to follow his teachings and live your life accordingly? If the answer is yes, then close your eyes, throw a dart, and that will be the perfect church for you.

[Alabama Larry]

AllTell...great question. In Romans 14:11 it says through Paul "Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord". This comes from the passage found in Isaiah 45:23. I would NEVER tell someone they were not going to Heaven. But I do know the pattern that God has sent forth, and Man has freewill (see Birdsfan) and can make a choice. John 14:6 says "I am the Way the truth and the life No one comes to the Father except through me" This Father is our heavenly one, we only have that Father.

 

RockMom, I didn't mean my Beliefs was "Right or Wrong", but I am from the deep south raised in a vert strict Southern Baptist background. I respsect all people beliefs. I have met with very wonderful people who are Catholic and have dear friends who are. I'm also human and can make mistakes...(make one every day) I was just stateing what I've been told through my research about Bible Study/Catholics..."They will tell you what you should know".

 

Also great scripture on the Jailer. We don't know the ages of the Family.

 

Peter was a great person who after turning from Christ three times and going back to the jewish ways after Jesus had gone to heaven comes back strong. We see there is no Pope in scripture, but if someone wants to have a leader and call him the Pope thats fine with me.

 

Someone asked me Why don't you send your kids to Catholic school, "Can you afford it"? I can afford it. I made a choice...and there are great Catholic schools here in Louisville.

[5wide]

One thing...it is my understanding that Catholics are currently encouraged to read the Bible. It is also my understanding that in the past that wasn't always the case. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

 

But, if I'm right, why was this the case and what was it based on? I assume it would have been the result of the church leaders rules. Which brings me to my point....if the church traditions and rules passed on from leaders are equal to scripture, then it seems to that they would be unchanging, rather than being revised by later leaders that say it was a mistake. That has always been a hang-up for me, but again, I may be misunderstanding the Catholic stance on these things.

 

I don't want to come off as attacking anyone's beliefs. I'm just trying to lay out a few questions I have to see if what I've heard and read is correct or not and to find out the truth.

[Birdsfan]

Birdsfan.."Garbage"? My beliefs system (scripture driven) is Garbage?

In as much as you have "tried" to paint ours as such -- yes.

 

Rockmom (as expected) did a fine job of bringing a logical foundation to my purely emotional reaction to your remarks.

 

But I do know the pattern that God has sent forth, and Man has freewill (see Birdsfan) and can make a choice.

Alabama Larry - Let me tell you right here and now, I do not appreciate the implication you are making here!!!!!!! :fight:

[Birdsfan]

I have never ever understood the need by some to claim that "their denomination" is the one true path to heaven. If you put 50 people in a room and asked them to read the Bible, then gave them a list of 10 questions concerning their interpretation of those 10 topics, you would end up with 500 different answers.

 

I have attended a plethora of churches in my past including Baptist, Methodist, 1st Christian, Catholic, among others. My assessment is this. I have found each of them to be filled with loving, caring people who truly try to follow Christ's teachings and accept Jesus as their saviour. And I have found each of them to be filled with people who are full of crap.

This is excellent! Agree wholeheartedly! :thumb:

[Birdsfan]

OK use the little cartoon symbols, I'll use scripture.

At least a smiley can't be twisted. :lol:

[rockmom]

To continue in answering Alabama Larry's questions:

 

At the early age a child is taught confession...Penitent We confess to Jesus Christ. Not to a Man

Are all of our sins—past, present, and future—forgiven once and for all when we become Christians? Not according to the Bible or the early Church Fathers. Scripture nowhere states that our future sins are forgiven; instead, it teaches us to pray, "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matt. 6:12).

 

The means by which God forgives sins after baptism is confession: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Minor or venial sins can be confessed directly to God, but for grave or mortal sins, which crush the spiritual life out of the soul, God has instituted a different means for obtaining forgiveness—the sacrament known popularly as confession, penance, or reconciliation.

 

This sacrament is rooted in the mission God gave to Christ in his capacity as the Son of man on earth to go and forgive sins (cf. Matt. 9:6). Thus, the crowds who witnessed this new power "glorified God, who had given such authority to men" (Matt. 9:8; note the plural "men"). After his resurrection, Jesus passed on his mission to forgive sins to his ministers, telling them, "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. . . . Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:21–23).

[rockmom]

Nowhere in the Bible does it mentionof "Limbo or Purgatory". Purgatory is man's think so's.

 

"For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin" (2 Macc. 12:44-45).

 

"Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny" (Matt. 5:25-26).

 

"Each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:13-15).

 

"For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey . . ." (1 Peter 3:18-20).

 

"But nothing unclean shall enter it [heaven] . . ." (Rev. 21:27).

[rockmom]

Prayer to the Saints...not in the Bible they are dead men/ Pray to Jesus Christ.

"‘And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? He is not God of the dead, but of the living . . .’" (Mark 12:26-27)

 

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely . . ." (Heb. 12:1).

 

"And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints" (Rev. 5:8).

[rockmom]

Idols...Again Man Made. What does scripture say about Idols?

It is right to warn people against the sin of idolatry when they are committing it. But calling Catholics idolaters because they have images of Christ and the saints is based on misunderstanding or ignorance of what the Bible says about the purpose and uses (both good and bad) of statues.

Since the days of the apostles, the Catholic Church has consistently condemned the sin of idolatry. The early Church Fathers warn against this sin, and Church councils also dealt with the issue.

 

The Second Council of Nicaea (787), which dealt largely with the question of the religious use of images and icons, said, "[T]he one who redeemed us from the darkness of idolatrous insanity, Christ our God, when he took for his bride his holy Catholic Church . . . promised he would guard her and assured his holy disciples saying, ‘I am with you every day until the consummation of this age.’ . . . To this gracious offer some people paid no attention; being hoodwinked by the treacherous foe they abandoned the true line of reasoning . . . and they failed to distinguish the holy from the profane, asserting that the icons of our Lord and of his saints were no different from the wooden images of satanic idols."

 

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) taught that idolatry is committed "by worshipping idols and images as God, or believing that they possess any divinity or virtue entitling them to our worship, by praying to, or reposing confidence in them" (374).

 

"Idolatry is a perversion of man’s innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who ‘transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God’" (CCC 2114).

 

The Church absolutely recognizes and condemns the sin of idolatry. What anti-Catholics fail to recognize is the distinction between thinking a piece of stone or plaster is a god and desiring to visually remember Christ and the saints in heaven by making statues in their honor. The making and use of religious statues is a thoroughly biblical practice. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know his Bible

[Hasbeen]

I have nothing of substance to add to this topic; however, I am not going to let that fact stop me from posting here.

 

 

Perfect! My new BGP creedo. :thumb:

[rockmom]

Rosary..Tradition is man made..Jesus.."When you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do".

First we must understand that they are meditations. When Catholics recite the twelve prayers that form a decade of the rosary, they meditate on the mystery associated with that decade. If they merely recite the prayers, whether vocally or silently, they’re missing the essence of the rosary. It isn’t just a recitation of prayers, but a meditation on the grace of God. Critics, not knowing about the meditation part, imagine the rosary must be boring, uselessly repetitious, meaningless, and their criticism carries weight if you reduce the rosary to a formula. Christ forbade meaningless repetition (Matt. 6:7), but the Bible itself prescribes some prayers that involve repetition. Look at Psalms 136, which is a litany (a prayer with a recurring refrain) meant to be sung in the Jewish Temple. In the psalm the refrain is "His mercy endures forever." Sometimes in Psalms 136 the refrain starts before a sentence is finished, meaning it is more repetitious than the rosary, though this prayer was written directly under the inspiration of God.

 

It is the meditation on the mysteries that gives the rosary its staying power. The Joyful Mysteries are these: the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), the Visitation (Luke 1:40-56), the Nativity (Luke 2:6-20), the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:21-39), and the Finding of the child Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41-51).

 

Then come the Sorrowful Mysteries: the Agony in the Garden (Matt. 26:36-46), the Scourging (Matt. 27:26), the Crowning with Thorns (Matt. 27:29), the Carrying of the Cross (John 19:17), and the Crucifixion (Luke 23:33-46).

 

The final Mysteries are the Glorious: the Resurrection (Luke 24:1-12), the Ascension (Luke 24:50-51), the Descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4), the Assumption of Mary into heaven (Rev. 12), and her Coronation (cf. Rev. 12:1).

 

With the exception of the last two, each mystery is explicitly scriptural. True, the Assumption and Coronation of Mary are not explicitly stated in the Bible, but they are not contrary to it, so there is no reason to reject them out of hand. Given the scriptural basis of most of the mysteries, it’s little wonder that many Protestants, once they understand the meditations that are the essence of the rosary, happily take it up as a devotion. We’ve looked at the prayers found in the rosary and the mysteries around which it is formed. Now let’s see how it was formed historically.

The Rosary

The six fundamental prayers listed above are also part of the Catholic rosary, a devotion dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God. (CCC 971) The rosary consists of fifteen decades. Each decade focuses upon a particular mystery in the life of Christ and his Blessed Mother. It is customary to say five decades at a time, while meditating upon one set of mysteries.

Joyful Mysteries

I. The Annunciation

 

II. The Visitation

 

III. The Birth of our Lord

 

IV. The Presentation of our Lord

 

V. The Finding of our Lord in the

 

Sorrowful Mysteries

I. The Agony in the Garden

 

II. The Scourging at the Pillar

 

III. The Crowning with Thorns

 

IV. The Carrying of the Cross

 

V. The Crucifixion and Death of our Lord

 

Glorious Mysteries

I. The Resurrection

 

II. The Ascension

 

III. The Descent of the Holy Spirit

 

IV. The Assumption of our Blessed Mother into Heaven

 

V. The Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth