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Why are you a non-denominational Christian?
- Thread starter jinc1019
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i believe there's an exhaustive list of things God hates in the proverbs if you do the exact opposite i'm sure he'll love it
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Have you been readin Chick Tracts lately? I really like the tract about Catholics worshiping the wafer god...very original
Protestantism started off as a protest (hence the name) against a period of corruption in the RCC (the Borgia family had greatly destroyed a lot of what the Church stood up for). Bear in mind that Martin Luther was a Catholic monk; he was baptised in the Church and took the Sacraments (contributing to Lutherans still revering the Eucharist, unlike the great majority of Protestants).
Luther wanted the Church to go back to its divine roots...the Pope did not listen to him and thus he started his own church (claiming that his church was the one that Jesus spoke of). This was met with disagreements between Lutherans, causing numerous splits. Thus Protestant denominations grew larger and larger. Since people would be able to interpret the Bible as they wanted to, splits were frequent over conflicting interpretations and views.This is Protestantism...a massive, divided group of denominations that disagree with each other.
The non-denominational movement is a sign of hope to me...a sign that all this bickering among denominations might stop and people will be united by common faith (this has always been the goal of the RCC, we are the universal Church).
As for praying to Mary and the saints...I'm glad that the great majority of Protestants I've met already fimly recognise that Catholics do not pray directly to them. Rather we are asking them to pray for us, completely different. Our loved ones in Heaven are always constantly praying for us, for they follow every stage of our lives. The saints do the same, in all their love and humility. Thus I believe that asking them to pray for us is simply natural...
Please, go learn more about the Catholic faith before making statements about it. I'm not here to preach, I'm simply correcting inaccuracies for educational purposes
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Hmmm RCC rooted in ancient Paganism, now where have I heard that before...
I recommend that you read this tract: Mama's Girls
It proves that the Pope created Islam through his agent, Muhammad, in order to capture Jerusalem. Then for some reason the Muslims turned agains the Pope, and thus the Crusades were waged against the former Muslim allies of the Church. Due to rising opposition between Roman and Eastern, the Church sent the crusaders to attack Constantinople.
In order to get revenge on the Orthodox Church, centuries later the Church sent Vladimir Lenin to create a revolution in Russia in order to kill the Tsar and destroy the Orthodox Church. However Lenin seemingly betrayed the Church and declared himself their enemy. In response, the Church helped Adolf Hitler to take power in Germany so that he could attack Russia, causing total chaos.
The Church then created Masonry to ''unify all religions''. The tolerance the Church shows to other faiths is all a conspiracy in order for everyone to adhere to Masonry. The hierarchy is apparently made up of Masons who worship Baal, while swearing oaths to Allah with their hands on the Quran.
Thus in effect Islam, Communism, Nazism and Masonry are the ''daughters'' of the Catholic Church.
If you want to believe that the RCC is rooted in Paganism, why not follow these theories as well?
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- Mar 22, 2012
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Not "of course." You don't know. That is speculation on your part. Paganism also has a history of teaching people coming back from the dead, does that mean Christianity is a complete fraud? I doubt you would say that.
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Thank you...perhaps Catholicism is a Christian denomination, all the mainstream historians and scholars agree. Pope John Paul II declassified centuries worth of archives, I don't think he'd do that if the Church had things t hide.
However let's just look at it in the Protestant viewpoint; Catholicism is all a joke, Sacraments are just symbols and asking intermission from saints is absurd. Notwithstanding...all the devotion Catholics give to Jesus, the prayers, the act of spending their lives following Christ....I cannot accept the fact that God would not look into the heart of an ordinary Catholic and not find love. Perhaps Catholicism isn't 100% correct, in that case I believe all the love we show to Jesus will make up for the sins we've committed (though rest assured that Jesus did to forgive our sins).
Even when I stuck between (non-denominational) Protestantism and Catholicism, I could never ever deny the sheer love Catholics showed to Jesus.
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- Mar 22, 2012
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I agree with you completely. Catholics (not all, but not all of any Christian denomination are) are obviously Christians. I think Christians who feel that way about Catholics do so because in the past, the Catholic Church has been pretty rough on Christians outside of the Church...This is all due to residual feelings left over from hundreds of years of problems between the two groups.
However, I would like to point out that your statement is partially wrong. There are many Protestants who do believe in grace-giving sacraments (Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and others).
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Yes, I do know. The ancient paganism has been my specific area of study for over 20 years. I know what I'm talking about. It is not speculation. I have considered writing a book on the topic.
Do you need examples? The elevation of Mary in the RCC is directly rooted in the elevation of Asherah to goddess status for being the mother of the divine children that the Canaanites called Ashtoreth and Molech by title. Then that divine mother/child status is also in the Ashtoreth/Baal relationship. Asherah is the mother of Ashtoreth and Molech who were the divine twins while Baal was the son of Ashtoreth. They all descended from Asherah who is identified as Na'amah in the Sumerian pantheon, the name of Noah's wife, the mother of us all. The divine mother goddess of paganism was from ancestor worship of the female progenitor of mankind, the mother of man and the gods by an individual that descended from the heavens.
Do you need a scripture reference too the veneration of the divine parents in the ancient Baalim worship?
Jer 2:23 How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways;
24 A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.
25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.
26 As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets,
27 Saying to a stock (pole), Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.
28 But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.
The pagan rock/stone/smooth stone was a symbol of Asherah, the divine mother figure. It was a symbol of the female sex organ while the Stock/Tree/Pole was a symbol of the male sex organ. An Asherah Pole was a carved phallic symbol carved from a standing tree trunk in the groves that was used for sexual rights of worship in the groves.
Asherah is the pagan rock, the one who 'brought us forth' ie gave birth to mankind. Deteronomy calls her the 'rock that begot thee'.
Det 32:15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
19 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.
20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
25 The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
26 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
27 Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this.
28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.
29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?
31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
34 Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
36 For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.
37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,
The rock here in whom they trusted is the divine mother figure. It is also connected in Isa 57 in a passage about the Baalim worship in the grove outside Jerusalem and the valley of Hinnom below where the children were sacrificed to Molech.
Isa 57:3 But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the harlot.
4 Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood,
5 Enflaming yourselves with idols (stock/pole/tree) under every green tree (of the grove), slaying the children in the valleys (valley of Hinnom) under the clifts of the rocks ( a reference to the serpents pool in the valley representing the vaginal opening of Asherah, 'mother earth')?
6 Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these?
7 Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice.
8 Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it.
9 And thou wentest to the king ('shameful king' ie Molech) with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell. (This verse pertains to ritual witchcraft conducted in Molech worship)
Most Christians don't understand these passages but the Baalim (Canaanite pantheon) worship is very familiar to me. I knew a high priestess of Ashtoreth. I know their doctrines. I have seen their practices. I recognize passages in scripture that pertain to that corruption.
I had a former Catholic turned pagan high priestess explain the parallels and how she got led into becoming a high priestess of Ashtoreth. She had it explained to her by visitations from Ashtoreth herself who was a spirit of a dead Nephilim, human/angelic hybrid daughter of one of the four angels bound at Babel at the Euphrates.
When scripture references 'idols of wood and stone' it is specifically referencing these symbols of the divine father and mother figures out of Baalim worship. Now Molech and Ashtoreth are referenced by their 'sun and the moon' symbols in scripture. Another symbol of Asherah is 'the earth' with 'mountains' being a symbol of high level spirits under her authority.
If you don't know the Hebrew symbols for the different pagan deities, you will miss 90%+ of the references to them.
Now when a women tried to bless Mary as Yeshua's mother, the divine mother, Yeshua rebuked her and told her to honor Yah (God), not Mary. There is no place in Christianity for veneration of the mother of a divine child. That is straight out of the ancient paganism.
That is just an example of the MANY scriptures dealing with the ancient paganism in scripture. They are scattered all over the Old Testament. Many times you have to go back to the original Hebrew to see how passage could be translated differently to recognize all the passages and what they are saying. If you don't understand the context, the passages are often mistranslated by the translators.
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I never stated that is wasn't a Christian denomination. My wife and her family were God fearing Christians. But the reformation was in breaking away from much of the corruption that had worked its way into the Roman church. Much of that corruption was the mixing of doctrines and practices of pagan origins that got mixed in from the time of Constantine when Christianity became the official Roman religion. Many pagans got swept into the church. Pagan temples got coverted to churches. For example the imagery of naked winged babies comes straight out of the pagan temples.
You won't find anyone saying 'Hail Mary ...' in most of the protestant denominations. They dropped the Mother goddess veneration of the RCC. They generally would NOT be praying to anyone other the Yeshua (Jesus) or Yah (YHVH, the Father). That is part of the corruption that the reformation did away with.
Being a Catholic doesn't make you a Christian BUT there are many Christians in the RCC. It all comes down to if the individual is just taking part in religion they were born into verses having Yeshua as their personal savior. For example the high priestess of Ashtoreth I knew was raised Catholic but was not a Christian. She just attended as a family requirement but rejected the ways of God. She even attended Catholic schools all her life but did all her praying to the 'queen of heaven' who she KNEW was a title of Ashtoreth from her biblical studies required by her Catholic schools.
Now as Catholicism spread, often they would incorporate local pagan gods in as local saints to help recruit pagan societies.
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If you want to believe that the RCC is rooted in Paganism, why not follow these theories as well?
Because I know nothing of those other theories but I do have extensive knowledge of the ancient paganism as my specialty.
Oh, don't get me wrong. There are also doctrines and practices in protestant churches that are rooted in the ancient paganism that got passed on into the protestant denominations. Augustine shaped much of the early doctrine and his doctrines are also heavily biased on Greek philosophy. Many of his personal doctrines got carried over into mainstream Protestantism.
Many of the Calvinistic doctrines are rooted in doctrines right out of Baal worship for example. The concept that the gods control all aspects of our life is rooted in Baalim worship and denies that man has free will.
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Yes, it's in the bible as a reference to a pagan goddess the people had fallen into worshiping and they were rebuked for doing so and told they would die for the practice.
Edit addition:
I also agree that there is no need to pray through an intermediary when we can go straight to the throne. I had to explain it to my Catholic wife that she didn't need to even go to a priest to repent. We all had the Holy Spirit within us and we could all go directly to Yeshua as our high priest to get us in right standing with the Father. There was no need for an intermediary of priests, saints and most certainly of Mary.
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- Mar 22, 2012
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Look, I won't argue with you on the issue because I am not an "expert" on it by any stretch of the imagination. You seem to have done a great deal more on this subject in terms of research that I have. It sounds very interesting by the way....
However, some of the comparisons you make could easily be explained away without jumping to that position.
I am curious though...and if you want you could PM me on this...but 1. Where/how did you even get started on studying such a subject. 2. Have you found in your research that the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is a pagan doctrine? 3. What do you recommend then Christians do in order to ensure they are practicing the faith of the Apostles? Do you think any one denomination or group has it closer to the teachings of the Apostles than all the others?
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You might as well say worshipping/praying to Jesus is idolatry. This is one of the reasons Jews and Muslims see Christianity as a false religion, since they ONLY worship God (as they see Him) and no one else.
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On this point I am in 100% agreement. I won't align myself with any denomination until I find one I could agree with. Granted you don't have to be in total agreement in most non-denominational churches because of the varied backgrounds of the members.
IMO every church/congregation/denomination has some error and it is up to the individual within it to overcome the error present by testing every teaching presented. Just because it comes from the pulpit doesn't make it correct.
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Idolatry by definition is putting another god before our creator and we know that all things were created by Him and through Him. Now I agree that Jews and Muslims don't accept that fact.
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- Mar 22, 2012
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Now one denomination I know has many good basic doctrines but does not follow a full gospel position on the spiritual gifts. It is a rather small denomination but good for other basic doctrine and that is the Plymouth Brethren. It is similar to Baptist but on bible studying steroids without the total focus on salvation but on growth after salvation through study of scripture.
There isn't even a pastor in a PB congregation but a board of elders that alternates on teaching or traveling speakers that go from congregation to congregation. It is strictly set up according to scripture in all aspects but they do hold to an interpretation that the spiritual gifts have ceased.
I would consider it a good starter congregation until you out grow it spiritually. That was my family background until my mother got cast out for getting involved with a deliverance ministry. She was accused of being charismatic before we even knew what that was. We did end up in a charismatic non-denominational church but with much needed scriptural knowledge that seems to be lacking in many charismatic churches that tend to focus mostly on the spiritual aspects but have severe deficiencies in other areas.
Get what you can from whatever denomination. They will generally all have strengths and weaknesses.
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Yes I agree. We should consider the idea of humankind's fallen state. Just as we are all a mixture of good and bad, so are the organisations we create.
So it's a bit unrealistic to expect that any one organization will have everything right in theory or in practice.
But I also think that is the way God has designed it in the NT. So that we do not become self righteous like the Jews at Jesus time and think that all we need is an organization, instead of love and a relationship with God.
As Jesus says, it's only by joining our spirit to God's that we can really worship him anyway, and we don't need a church to do that.
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