Debating a Protestant

[Subrosa]

Here is something a Protestant asked:

If Jesus Christ was born poor, fought for the poor, and hated the abusers of money and the rich… Then why do you adhere to a system who’s leaders is one fo the wealthiest in the world (the pope). Not only that, but would Christs Church establish its own banks charging interest and not allow the general public to know anything about this money? Money hasn’t helped the rcc’s IQ.

christianpost.com/article/20071207/30383_Two_of_Six_Preachers_Turn_Over_Financial_Data_for_Probe.htm
abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3959763
asp.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Benny%20Hinn

Sub

 

[jpaul]

Now I’m discussing Sola Scriptura with this Protestant. One of them linked this article into the discussion.

The link clearly says, at the bottom of the page:

How should I respond to these statements? Thanks.

Peace and all-good!

I just discover the CatholicBridge.com. A good website indeed. Thanks to Pixie Dust.

The websites of Former Baptist Evangelist Steve Ray (catholicconvert.com), EWTN and Catholic Answers also contain good apologetic resources.

Let us all pray for the conversion of the Protestants to the true Church of Christ and that their hate may be replaced with humility and love for the truth.

jpaul

 

[DylanO]

One of these protestants says that there were “many early Christian Churches ‘crushed’ by the Catholic Church.” Some examples his gives are Bogomilism, Catharism, and the Culdees.

He says:

They had many doctrines I dont agree with, but many that I do. But i am not calling for a return to these sects. I think our Christian doctrines far surpass theirs in levels of accuracy. My reason to bringing forth these Early Christian sects (Influenced by Gnosticism) is because they have one thing in common. They hated the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and were similarly persecuted and eventually crushed by both.

It also helps to dispel the myth that Catholicism and Orthodoxy were the only churches prior to the Reformation, as this is known to be false. There were many Christian sects over the course of our Christian history, but all met their fate at the hands of the catholic beast. I sort of like the Gnostics. They put more emphasis on seeking the truth, than on dogma and traditions.

As a Catholic I was forever trying to justify doctrines. Trying to justify idol worship, prayers to Mary and the Saints etc etc… And Catholics are still now defending the actions of their church… Which, as Catholics, they ought to do. But, one thing they can not explain away, is the amount of Christians that church has killed. It’s unforgivable.

Another protestant claims:

The Waldenses are another example. They dwelt in isolation in the Alps, they wanted to live a simple life and they denied the supremacy of Rome. So Pope Innocent VIII had them executed and the women were raped and then burned in a barn.

More then 700 men were butchered in cold blood.

I got this info from An Expose of the Roman Catholic Church by Charles A. Weisman - Inhuman Persecutions of the Waldenses.

How should these claims be responded to?

 

[lisromero]

One of the practice Protestants attack is the sign of the cross. I was looking it up to defend every attack and answer every lecture contrary to Catholic faith my pastor brother inlaw teaches.

The sign of the cross.
Confession to a priest.
How we honor the Blessed Mother.
The levels of respect we give the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph, Jesus and God the Father.
The Seven Sacraments.
The Great Commission which is often mentioned as the fulfillment of being God’s child. (Mat 28:18-20)
Thus a person should be "born again and baptized with water(immerse).
Is there a link where I can get answers for these queries?

 

[Pixie_Dust]

One of the practice Protestants attack is the sign of the cross. I was looking it up to defend every attack and answer every lecture contrary to Catholic faith my pastor brother inlaw teaches.

The sign of the cross.
Confession to a priest.
How we honor the Blessed Mother.
The levels of respect we give the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph, Jesus and God the Father.
The Seven Sacraments.
The Great Commission which is often mentioned as the fulfillment of being God’s child. (Mat 28:18-20)
Thus a person should be "born again and baptized with water(immerse).
Is there a link where I can get answers for these queries?

The Catholic Answers Library has some good articles. Also try the Catholic Bridge and the Bible Christian Society’s 2-minute Apologetics.

 

[DylanO]

One protestant had this to say:

The catholic’s have a belief they call the doctrine of Mental Reservaton. This states they can lie to you and misled you with no mental quams if you are a heretic. Here again is the truth, which of course no one wants to know, from a recognized Catholic source.

Cardinal Hosius (Catholic, 1524), President of the Council of Trent:

“Were it not that the baptists have been greviously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers.” (Hossius, Letters, Apud Opera, pages 112, 113.)

In 251 Ad, Baptist (Ana-Baptist) churches declared non-fellowship with what became the Catholic church over the non-biblical Catholic heresy’s of infant baptism and baptismal regeneration. When Contantine conquered under the “sign of the cross”, which actually was the Eyptian Ank, the persecution of true Christians began. Tertullian,one of the Early Church Fathers born 50 years after the death of the Apostle John, was Ana-Baptist. St. Patrick refused to Baptize infants, making him an Ana-Baptist. When the RC’s moved into Ireland they approriated his converts for they where both after all “christians”, and began to pollute the Irish christian’s with their lies.

After making themslves the only game in town by murdering most of the Baptists, everyone was Catholic. The beliefs ranged from close to scripture to out right witchcraft. This continued throught the Dark Ages untill some Catholics who wanted to know the whole truth began reading the Bible and then translated it into the language of the common man. These where the Reformers.

Now, the answer to your question is: The “church” didn’t convert Europe by the sword, they just killed everyone who was not nominally Catholic. Whether you call anyone who converted to being nominal Catholic for the sake of not being buthered, conversion by the sword is a manner of semantics.

The unabridged version of Foxe’s Book of Mayrtr’s should be read.

Mexico and South America where forced conversions. The natives could be sprinkled or die, period. They retained there Paganism but then again, so did most the “Catholics” in Europe.

The Catholic Church maintains it is political ruler over all the governments on earth. It uses Catholic rulers to do it’s dirty work so it can say:“It wasn’t us, it was them.” You hear that arguement a lot on this web site.

The sign of a Demonized fanatic is this: They hate the KJB (1611) and they hate the original Baptists. It is important to note the modern Baptist Church in America is not Baptist other than only baptizing adults. They are Crypto-Catholic in though and operation, even those who claim to be KJB only. I am frequently accussed of being a fanatic by others on this site. I take that as a compliment considering the source. I have noticed two things in the Bible: One, the majority is always wrong. Two, those who have the truth are always ridiculed and persecuted by those who don’t.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

One protestant had this to say:

First of all, the Council of Trent took place in 1545.

Secondly, a quick Google search on “Hosius, Letters, Apud Opera, pages 112, 113” brings up a whole lot of Baptist websites claiming this as a quote from Hosius but no original source.

Somebody else has done their homework though:

angelfire.com/ms/seanie/forgeries/hosius.html
Snippet:

"The purported statement is nowhere to be found in the letters of Cardinal Hosius

* There is no section titled "Apud Opera" among Hosius‘ complete works. And there is no letter of that name. So the reference "Letters, Apud Opera" is apparently meaningless. Similarly, I could find no publication of his with this title.
* I decided to check all of Cardinal Hosius‘ letters for references to the Anabaptists. The section in his "Opera Omnia" entitled "Liber Epistelarum" contains all of Cardinal Hosius‘ letters, 277 in total, written in Latin. I have read through all of these letters, and in only 12 of them (letters XXVIII, XLI, XLIII, CV, CXVI, CXXVIII, CXXIX, CXXXIV, CL, CLVII, CLVIII, and CLX) is there any mention of the Anabaptists. In none of them is to be found the statement cited at the top. To all intents and purposes, this statement appears to be a fake.
* Nowhere in the letters of Hosius are the "reformers" referred to as such. Rather, they are referred to as "Lutherani", "Calvinisti", "Zuingliani" and, especially in his other works, "haeretici". The purported statement of Hosius uses language he never uses in his "Opera omnia", and so its authenticity must be called into question. "

 

[ricko]

Half truths and outright lies. They will give references to lies knowing that most people will not look them up or cannot. Sometimes they take something that really exists and give a wrong discription of it such as “Mental Reservations”. Here is what the real teaching is:

According to the common Catholic teaching it is never allowable to tell a lie, not even to save human life. A lie is something intrinsically evil, and as evil may not be done that good may come of it, we are never allowed to tell a lie. However, we are also under an obligation to keep secrets faithfully, and sometimes the easiest way of fulfilling that duty is to say what is false, or to tell a lie. Writers of all creeds and of none, both ancient and modern, have frankly accepted this position.

Follows, is an example:

I believe, as at present advised, that when one is asked by murderers bent on taking the life of someone hiding in the house whether he is in, no answer should be given; and if this betrays him, his death will be imputable to the murderers, not to the other’s silence. Or he may use an equivocal expression, and say ‘He is not at home,’ or something like that. And this can be defended by a great number of instances found in the Old Testament. Or he may say simply that he is not there, and if his conscience tells him that he ought to say that, then he will not speak against his conscience, nor will he sin. Nor is St. Augustine really opposed to any of these methods.

 

[DylanO]

**In response to that protestant I stated: **

Me:

It gets wearying hearing these old lies over and over again.

The claimed quote of Cardinal Hosius is considered fraudulent. Indeed Baptist sites quote two entirely different statements and claim they were from the same pages. What he said was:But this sect of Anabaptists is greatly divided. For they neither agree on the main doctrines among themselves …"( Est autem & haec Anabaptistarum secta valde dissecta: Neque enim doctrine capitibus inter se conveniunt. ) It has also been in Augustines century, (fuit etiam Augustini seculo, & ficut aliae pleraeque omnes haereses) all heresies immediately from the beginning divided into many parts (sic & haec statim ab initio multas in partes fuit divisa)
and
"Nonne videmus a Lutheranismo ad Calvinismum, a Calvinismo ad Anabaptismum, ab Anabaptismo ad Trideismum, a Trideismi ad Atheism iam esse ventum? "

(“Do we not already see the wind to be from Lutheranism to Calvinism, from Calvinism to Anabaptism, from Anabaptism to Trideism, from Trideism to Atheism?”).

letter CLVII “Carolo Archiduci Austriae” (from “Opera Omnia”, Liber Epistolarum) For more information check out this site.

Pope Paul IV condemned the attempts to forcibly convert natives. Therefore, the claim of forced conversions is a lie (The Church considers a forced conversion invalid). As stated before, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is considered a work of propaganda by credible scholars.

The claim about the Anabaptists is also a lie. Tertullian was not an Anabaptist, he recommended not to baptize little children (and even single people) but he did not state (and this is decisive) that the baptism of little children was invalid, as the baptists do.Can you prove where St. Patrick refused to baptize infants? The Anabaptists were a 16th century phenomenon.

The disputes in AD 251 were not over the issues claimed. Indeed, the idea of “rebaptizing” was condemned. So, you want to claim kinship here, you are claiming kinship to a heretical group.

The Baptist church in fact was founded in the 17th century out of the Puritan separatist struggles. The claims that the original Church in Jerusalem was Baptist is false. They usurp Matthew 16:18 as applying to themselves.

As for the “hatred” of the KJV, you may be interested to know that it was published, not against the Catholics, but as a “safe” version compared to the Geneva Bible which Calvinist and Puritan in nature, which was considered a threat to England’s Anglican Church.

Indeed, the early Baptists of England would have considered the Geneva Bible, not the KJV to be authentic.

You should read Alister Mcgrath’s Christianity’s Dangerous Idea. Mcgrath, being a Protestant might be credible to you, but he would utterly reject your claims.

The protestant then responded to me with:

protestant:

The official stand of th RCC is that every one that disagrees with them is lying and their sources are false. Here are two other quotes from known liars.

“The Baptists are the only body of known Christians that have never benn symbolized with Rome.” Sir Issac Newton

“Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay secreted in almost all the countries of Europe persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of modern Dutch Baptists.” Mosheim (Lutheran)

“It must have already occured to our readers that the Baptists are the same sect of Christians that where formerly discribed as Ana-baptists. Indeed this to have been their leading principle from the time of Tertullian to the present time.” Edinburg Cyclopedia (Presbyterian).

Again one see’s the “Doctrine of Mental Reservation” at work. You wouldn’t like to quote that from your sources would you?

I have read Tertullian (160-235) also. Beside not liking infant baptism he did not care for your damnable pagan festivals of Christmas and Easter either.

Yes, I do claim connection to a heretical group. Noting that a heretic is by your definition anyone who disagrees with you.

1. There is no infant baptism in the NT/OT of the Bible, unless you stretch to include Moses and Israel baptized in the cloud as they passed through the Red Sea. That is not Christian Baptism. Infant baptism is found nowhere in the NT. In the NT you have to repent first. Infants cannot repent and have nothing to repent of contrary to another crooked doctrine of yours.
2. You hate the Bible (OT/NT, “Received Text” Bibles: Old Latin, Old Syriac, Greek NT, Gothic, German, English) where it disagrees with you. This is the argument Calvin and Luther settled with you. Your church fathers can go to bloody hell when they disagree with scripture!
3. God sunk the “Spanish Armada” to preserve the truth, it is unfortunate we have to wait a few more years until he sinks the “Whore” (the Catholic Church).

What should I say in response to this?

 

[Pixie_Dust]

What should I say in response to this?

“Have a wonderful day. I’m going to go read my Bible now - Matthew 10:14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words: going forth out of that house or city shake off the dust from your feet.”

 

[DylanO]

I’m debating a protestant in regards to “repetitious prayers” and graven images. I sent him some articles written on this subject an this is what he said in response:

Catholics DO NOT just repeat the same prayer over and over again when they pray the Rosary. The Rosary is a progression of many prayers – the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria, the Hail Mary and the Salve Regina – and these prayers are accompanied by many holy meditations. As the Rosary progresses, Catholics meditate on the joyful, the sorrowful, and the glorious mysteries of the life of Christ and His Mother. True, the Hail Mary is repeated many times during the course of the Rosary, and some of the other prayers are repeated several times, but this is not “vain” repetition, certainly not the vain repetition condemned by Our Lord.

Repetition is repetition. Of course they don’t admit that it’s vein, but it is.

The vain repetition He condemned is that of people who pray standing “in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.”

No, that was the previous verse:

Matthew 6
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

See, not for their public speaking, but for their much speaking.

No prayer is vain, no matter how often repeated, if it is sincere, for Christ Himself engaged in repetitious prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (". . . he went again: and he prayed the third time, saying the selfsame word" – Matt. 26:39, 42, 44), and we are informed in the Apocalypse (Revelation) 4:8 that the angels in Heaven never cease repeating, night and day, the canticle: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.” The publican humbly repeated the prayer: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” and he went away justified; whereas the pharisee went home unjustified after his long-winded extemporaneous prayer. (Luke 18:9-14). God was likewise pleased with the repetitious prayer of the three young men in the fiery furnace, whom He preserved miraculously untouched by the flames. (Dan. 3:52-90). Protestants also engage in repetitious prayer: the same prayers at mealtime grace, the same prayers at Benediction, etc. The time lapse is no factor; it is still repetitious.

These weren’t routine prayers. They were isolated incidents in which people in really bad situations repeated their prayer a few times, rather than losing faith and resorting to their own measures rather than relying on God. They weren’t done in unison in a crowd.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath

But the Catholic Church has images of saints and statues of Jesus all over the place. That’s a direct contradiction to the commandment you just quoted.

The Baltimore Catechism, a Catholic religious textbook long used to educate Catholic children in the Faith, says: “We do not pray to the crucifix or to the images of Christ and of the saints, but to the persons of whom they remind us” (q. 96). We Catholics do not worship statues, we use them to remind us of our beloved family in heaven, even as you might look at a photo of a relative when he or she is far away. We know the Ten Commandments and would never address our prayers to a plaster statue, since the statue itself can do nothing.

But they shouldn’t be praying to dead people. Dead people are dead. They can’t hear you. Why would you be praying to dead people? No where in the Bible does it say to pray to dead people (or saints, etc).

Continued…

 

[DylanO]

The commandment cited above opposes the making of pagan idols to worship, such as the Golden Calf, which was an image of the false Egyptian god Apis. That’s why God added the words “Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them.” He doesn’t want us to make images for the purpose of idolatrous worship. This commandment does not apply to artwork, like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or monuments like the Lincoln Memorial or the Statue of Liberty, since none of these images are intended for idolatrous worship. And since we Catholics do not worship our holy images or attribute divinity to them, this commandment does not apply to Catholic practice either.

Yet another “What God really meant was…” argument.

I’m not sure the Sistine Chapel is scriptural either. I think God’s reasoning is this: Humans are not to imagine that they can, in any way, shape or form, capture any fraction of his greatness, infinity, etc. Having images of him all over the place is a clear violation of that.

Notice that, as long as they are not worshipped, God does not absolutely forbid the use of statues and other images in houses of worship. After all, in Exodus 25:18, shortly after issuing the command in question, God says “Thou shalt make also two cherubims of gold: of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat”. These cherubim on the Ark were images of things “in heaven above”, and so seemingly prohibited by Exodus 20:4-5! Is God contradicting Himself? No, for although they were intended for use in the Tabernacle, and thus had a religious purpose, they were not themselves objects of worship!

Ya, and if you touched the Ark of the Covenant, even to keep it from falling off the platform when the oxen stumbled, you got struck dead! The Ark of the Covenant was a very special item. It’s a huge mistake to construe permission to violate a commandment based on that! The Bible says that no one could survive seeing the face of God, yet Moses saw the face of God. A general rule always gives way to a specific rule, but a specific rule does not over turn a general rule. An ambulance can go through a red light, but that doesn’t mean anyone can go through one.

Again, in Numbers 21:8-9, when the Israelites were plagued by serpents, the Lord told Moses to “Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that everyone who is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live”. Moses did so, and people were healed by looking at it! If God opposed all images, why would he have chosen to heal His people through one, and even made it a type of the Messiah (John 3:14-5)? Evidently, He does not oppose all images.

Ya, but that wasn’t an image of God, and neither were the things on the Ark.

Same as above. I’m not claiming that he never said to make any statutes, but we’re not to attempt to depict God in any physical way. That’s what it says.

There still aren’t any people in heaven.
garnertedarmstrong.org/pu…miseHeaven.htm
garnertedarmstrong.org/pu…rusRichMan.htm
garnertedarmstrong.org/pubs/immortal.htm

Now Christ has opened heaven to humanity,

No he didn’t.

Passage 1 Timothy 6:13-16:
13In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

Notice, it says no one has seen or can see. It doesn’t say, no one who’s still alive, it says no one. It also says he alone is immortal, which means the Catholic (and Protestant, for that matter) notion of the immortality of the soul, is completely wrong. If they can’t even get that straight, you should have zero confidence in anything they say.

so we can adorn the houses of worship of the New Covenant with images of the saints in heaven. As long as sacred images of heavenly figures are not worshipped, God has no problem with us making them.

That’s speculation on your part, it’s not what the Bible says.

Here’s what God thinks of people who try to reason their way out of obeying his commandments:

Numbers 15 - the man stoned for breaking the sabbath
32 While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, 34 and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” 36 So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.

I guess “Oh well, I wasn’t tired, so I figured it didn’t apply to me” wasn’t good enough, was it??

Could someone help me defend the Catholic position?

 

[mercygate]

Could someone help me defend the Catholic position?

Well, the commandment, as you note is not to make images of our own devising (make to thyself) for the purpose of worship. In general, we do not make images of God the Father. Something like the Sistine Chapel is depicting a scriptural event, and the image is not made as an object of worship.

This thread has been slow so I haven’t gone back up thread to see if the historical development of iconography was covered (maybe by me?) The representation of Jesus is a different thing from representing the un-imageable Father. The images of the saints show the Christ-like character of the saint. And, as you have said, these images are not made “to ourself” for the purpose of worship.

This guy is using a literalistic interpretation of the Commandment that does not take into account how the Incarnation has fulfilled all Commandments. Christ IS the image. In Christianity, historically, the use of images for devotion was not widespread until after the recovery of a cloth purported to bear the imprint of Jesus’ face – it is unclear whether this cloth was the Shroud of Turin, the mandylion, or Veronica’s veil. But it was the fifth century.

A hundred years later, images were plentiful, as were images of Our Lady holding the infant Jesus. The emergence of images reflected the development of doctrine against heresies concerning the Incarnation.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I’m debating a Protestant who claims that Catholics “worship” the Virgin Mary and this so-called “worship” is “actually the worship of the goddess Tammuz”. He provided this link: barr-family.com/godsword/queen.htm

I’ve seen this claim before and have seen it refuted but, I can’t seem to find any links that refute it, at this moment. Could someone provide some helpful links?

Protestant: You worship Mary!
Catholic: No, I don’t.
P: Yes, you do.
C: No, I don’t.
P: Do too.
C: Do not.
P: Liar, liar, pants on fire.
C: I know you are but what am I?

Sheesh.

 

[Gamera]

**In response to that protestant I stated: **

The protestant then responded to me with:

What should I say in response to this?

Nothing. Don’t throw pearls before swine. Run as fast and as far from this person as possible and never look back.

Now, if you’d like to know good responses in order to increase your own knowledge, that’s another matter. I’m all for that. And to take the last one first, Revelation 18:20 identifies the Whore of Babylon as the entity which killed the “apostles.” The Apostles were martyred by the Pagan Roman Empire. Your angatonist cannot maintain that the Apostles were killed by the Catholic Church without admitting that the Catholic Church existed back in the First Century. He can’t have it both ways.

As for the fallacy that “the dead can’t hear us, they’re dead,” consider Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus at the Transfiguration. Were Moses and Elijah “asleep?” Consider Jesus spending the three days between Crucifixion and Resurrection preaching to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:19). Were they “asleep?” Then why would Jesus preach to them? Revelation Chapter 4 depicts twenty-four elders in heaven worshipping God and singing to Him. Are they “asleep” at the time? Your antagonist clearly doesn’t know his Bible very well.