Users Online Now:
1,212
(
Who's On?
)
Visitors Today:
347,653
Pageviews Today:
460,602
Threads Today:
148
Posts Today:
2,026
04:00 AM
Directory
Adv. Search
Topics
Forum
Back to Forum
Back to Thread
REPLY TO THREAD
Subject
All christians FOLLOW the Catholic Church's authority and infallibility
User Name
Font color:
Default
Dark Red
Red
Orange
Brown
Yellow
Green
Olive
Cyan
Blue
Dark Blue
Indigo
Violet
Black
Font:
Default
Verdana
Tahoma
Ms Sans Serif
In accordance with industry accepted best practices we ask that users limit their copy / paste of copyrighted material to the relevant portions of the article you wish to discuss and no more than 50% of the source material, provide a link back to the original article and provide your original comments / criticism in your post with the article.
[quote:Anonymous Coward 77416903:MV8zOTk0Nzk5XzcyMzY3MTc4XzMxQ0MyNTUy] [quote:Anonymous Coward 75263717:MV8zOTk0Nzk5XzcyMjkwNzk4XzdGMTkwOEEz] [quote:GSB/LTD:MV8zOTk0Nzk5XzcyMjg5MzY3XzJGNUZDNzFC] OP: What you are overlooking is that the fall of the Roman Empire was [u]not[/u] due to widepsread immorality as many believe, but in fact the collapse only began when Chrisitanity replaced Polythesism under Constantine I; for 750 years the Romans built a civilisation unmatched even by today's standards and then [u]in only 175 years the Christians completely destroyed it. [/u] And, before you start to proclaim Theodosius I as some ersatz Holy man, you'd better know that he was excommunicated in 390 by Ambrose Bishop of Milan. True: he did ban all pagan worship -in public or private- and closed all their temples, but after diminishing them in a 4-year war, he also allowed the Visigoths to settle onto Roman territory which only allowed them to return to attack years later and destroy what little he had accomplished. When Theodosius I died in 395, he left what remained of the eastern Empire to his 17yr old son Arcadius and the western portion to his 10-yr old son Honorius. They were both feckless rulers who in turn passed Rome on to their own young wildly incompetent sons. They also chose not to engage those same Visigoths their Daddy had stupidly not banished and in 410 the Visgoths sacked Rome itself. Many people are under the impression that Constantine was a noble Emperor dedicated to Christianity. The Church itself promotes this endlessly, but it[u] is utter bullshit![/u] In reality, he saw in the Christians an easily-led power bloc that would help him seize control of the Empire and once he attained the throne of Rome he only tossed them crumbs in return. He raised taxes to inordinant levels, prompting the Christians to rebel - they thought that since they shared the same beliefs as the Emperor they should get special treatment and demanded same! Instead, Constantine spent those taxes on bejewelled robes/slippers and built a new, massive and lavish capitol city -Constantinople- which he vainly named after himself. [u]Should I also mention that he murdered his own wife and son? [/u]Further -in spite of his public worship of Christianity- Constantine refused to be baptized into that faith until he was virtually on his deathbed and even then only wanted to have it done in the Jordan River as a PR stunt; he never made it [u]and was killed enroute at the hands of a disgruntled Christian[/u]; this occurred shortly after his baptism by devoted acolyte/ass-sniffer Eusebius - who was a wealthy Priest, self-proclaimed religious historian and propagandist... he was nothing more a shameless brown-noser whose sole purpose was to establish himself as the only authority on the Catholic Church. It was Eusebius who wrote all the texts that proclaimed Constantine a legendary Christian ruler when in fact they were both nothing more than a couple of con artists! Eusebius was likewise instrumental in assembling those Biblical scriptures at the Council of Rome, even though he too had been previously excommunicated for heretical beliefs... but to this day, the Catholic Church holds him aloft in near-Sainthood! There were 25 Emperors after Constantine and all but one of them were "Christians" - the sole holdout was Julian who was immediately branded an Apostate when he attempted to return Rome to it's earlier religious practices. Julian was a very popular ruler because the average Roman citizen was already weary of the constantly restrictive Christian tenets and because Julian lowered those high taxes that Constantine and his immediate followers had levied. The other 24 Christian Emperors ran Rome right into the ground and that's what caused the Dark Ages where your preciously omnipotent Church banned all formal study outside of itself and in so doing marched civilisation back a couple of hundred years in the process. One final thought: your greatest mistake is in believing that the Catholic Church is infallible when history has proven endlessly the exact opposite. This renders your final sentence above the most ludicrous of all: that a Church is authoritative and infallible just because it claims to be and that this magically somehow makes it true. And for you to further suggest if you do not accept that declaration as fact then you must then dismiss the entire New Testament only adds insult to your thoughtless philosophical injury. You Sir, are a fool of the greatest magnitude who clearly knows very little of the documented, ancient history that your Church has ardently supressed for 1500 years. [/quote] The Church only uses its authority of infallibility on things like the Eucharist, confession, etc.. that has to do with salvation. Not all doctrine is infallible. They don't abuse the power of binding and loosing authority that "Jesus" gave the Church. Yes, there is evil in the Church and there always will be evil in the Church. Jesus invites sinners to the Church; He's a physician for sinners not the righteous. The Apostles were sinners, St Paul was a murderer of people, Judas gave Jesus over for 30 pieces of silver, etc... Did Jesus tell other apostles to stop preaching? Did He tell St. Paul to stop writing? Unfortunately the Church has done some really evil things! But, if you were satan and you know Jesus started the Catholic Church to "help" souls get into heaven, who are you going to attack? The Catholic Church. Good quick video: https://www.catholic.com/video/infallibility-of-the-pope Some background: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/infallibility#V._WHAT_TEACHING_IS_INFALLIBLE.3F God Bless [/quote] Forgive me, these pages/vid are really not helpful - far too didactic and the guy who gives answers on the vid is, shall I say, not the best at gospelling. Some of the EWTN and RCIA materials would be much better, more accessible than these. [/quote]
Original Message
Here's why...
In Matt 16: 17-19
Jesus changes Simon's name (means little grain of sand in Aramaic) to Kepha (means massive rock in Aramaic; Peter) and says "upon Kepha I will build my Church and the gates of hell will never overpower it." - though hell is trying very hard to overpower it in today's world! Jesus then gives Peter (1st Pope) the keys to the kingdom of heaven and says,
"whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
The Church has binding and loosing authority. Think about that for a minute. If it is bound in heaven it has to be perfect because heaven is perfect. This is the basis for authority and infallibility of the Church.
Now... to how all christians FOLLOW the authority and infallibility of the Catholic Church:
The Catholic Church compiled the New Testament of the Bible in 382AD during the Council of Rome (see link below). The Church leaders under Pope Damasus I used the binding and loosing authority and infallibility of the Catholic Church to vote on what books and letters should be in the Bible or not. They voted out the gospel of Hebrews for example but voted in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There were thousand of books and letters that the Church had to review which many authors thought were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
If you don't believe in the authority and infallibility of the Catholic Church that compiled the New Testament then you will have to claim the New Testament is invalid and wrong.
[
link to en.wikipedia.org (secure)
]
God Bless! Jim
Pictures (click to insert)
General
Politics
Bananas
People
Potentially Offensive
Emotions
Big Round Smilies
Aliens and Space
Friendship & Love
Textual
Doom
Misc Small Smilies
Religion
Love
Random
View All Categories
|
Next Page >>