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Michael_Paul
Guest
If there is anyone who would like to read James White’s blog today and rebut it. I think that that would be a good idea. I might have given it a try but I’m not feeling well today.
MP
MP
- Status
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thessalonian
Guest
"a living body, vital, filled with the Spirit, not with the arrogance and pomp of Rome. "
Man what an arrogant blog.
Man what an arrogant blog.
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michaelgazin
Guest
Here is the blog if anyone doesn’t care to go to the site
19 May
**Vatican City: Selling Grace:yawn: **
http://69.49.233.15/images/jpeg/Vatican1sml.jpg It was bought and paid for by the most gross selling of the grace of God in the form of the blasphemous doctrine of indulgences. Maybe that is why I could not even begin to think it was grand, or glorious, or even attractive: it stinks of the deadness of man’s religion and worse, the perversion of the gospel of grace. As far as man’s structures goes, to call it ornate is to engage in vast understatement. http://69.49.233.15/images/jpeg/Vatican3sml.jpgIt contains art treasures beyond estimation: here is but one, the famous work of Michaelangelo, situated to your right as soon as you enter the edifice. But St. Peter’s is cold, hard, unfeeling, dead. The ornately decorated crypts mock the dead bones within them: these great pontiffs, many of whom lived lives of power and luxury and wealth, took none of it with them. And while their crypts are meant to point to their great power and works, today they are visited primarily by a gawking public without a clue as to who they were, what they did, or why, and in fact, could completely care less.
Some are almost mocked by the artwork meant to honor them. This picture is very dark mainly because what it is of is very dark: this was a recent Pope (I don’t recall the name—all the Roman numerals and Pauls etc. started to run together, but I’m sure someone will write to let me know), but I noted to our guide that if someone made a ghoulish statue like that of me I’d come back from the dead to anathematize them. It is just horrible. It truly looks like a skeleton in papal garments. But maybe it says more than it was meant to say.
In any case, the crypts found in the main structure itself are massive, and ornate. This one is one of the largest. The light was not sufficient for me to read the inscription, so this particular fellow is safe. I could not help but be amused, however, for right after I took this picture, out of the crypt zipped a motorized go-cart type thing, carrying some kind of boxes. It just seemed rather less than glorifying to the fellow who was being so greatly honored. His crypt has become a passageway for moving “stuff” around this huge mausoleum. No matter what else one says, the idea that any of the apostles would have ever wanted such wealth wasted upon their bones is beyond all question absurd. And though poor Peter is prominently noted around the structure, one thing is for sure: he cannot be blamed for anything done in his name by later generations of power-hungry men who have created such a religion as Rome’s.
I managed just this somewhat less than sharp image of the alleged resting place of Peter’s bones in St. Peter’s. I could not help but smile as I scanned around the structure at the citation of all the key Petrine passages, in gold (!) around the top of the walls, passages such as Matthew 16, Luke 22:32, etc., knowing how easily and forcefully the misuse of such passages can be refuted, and has been refuted, time and time again. I stood in the midst of the enemy camp and could not help but realize that everything I was seeing hangs in mid-air, all of its foundations having been washed away. I thought of all of the forged historical documents that had given rise to this place and the system it represents as well, and wondered at how it continues to stand despite floating without foundation. Someday the fiction will cease, in God’s time.
Of course, one of the longest lines I stood in was the one visiting the underground crypts, specifically, that of John Paul II. No one really cared much about the rest of them—and in a hundred years, this one will not stop anyone for long, either. But for now, it remain a huge attraction. Give him credit: it’s not overly ornate, and in comparison to the gaudy, self-aggrandizing ones in the main structure, it speaks far better than most.
[continued]
19 May
**Vatican City: Selling Grace:yawn: **
http://69.49.233.15/images/jpeg/Vatican1sml.jpg It was bought and paid for by the most gross selling of the grace of God in the form of the blasphemous doctrine of indulgences. Maybe that is why I could not even begin to think it was grand, or glorious, or even attractive: it stinks of the deadness of man’s religion and worse, the perversion of the gospel of grace. As far as man’s structures goes, to call it ornate is to engage in vast understatement. http://69.49.233.15/images/jpeg/Vatican3sml.jpgIt contains art treasures beyond estimation: here is but one, the famous work of Michaelangelo, situated to your right as soon as you enter the edifice. But St. Peter’s is cold, hard, unfeeling, dead. The ornately decorated crypts mock the dead bones within them: these great pontiffs, many of whom lived lives of power and luxury and wealth, took none of it with them. And while their crypts are meant to point to their great power and works, today they are visited primarily by a gawking public without a clue as to who they were, what they did, or why, and in fact, could completely care less.
Some are almost mocked by the artwork meant to honor them. This picture is very dark mainly because what it is of is very dark: this was a recent Pope (I don’t recall the name—all the Roman numerals and Pauls etc. started to run together, but I’m sure someone will write to let me know), but I noted to our guide that if someone made a ghoulish statue like that of me I’d come back from the dead to anathematize them. It is just horrible. It truly looks like a skeleton in papal garments. But maybe it says more than it was meant to say.In any case, the crypts found in the main structure itself are massive, and ornate. This one is one of the largest. The light was not sufficient for me to read the inscription, so this particular fellow is safe. I could not help but be amused, however, for right after I took this picture, out of the crypt zipped a motorized go-cart type thing, carrying some kind of boxes. It just seemed rather less than glorifying to the fellow who was being so greatly honored. His crypt has become a passageway for moving “stuff” around this huge mausoleum. No matter what else one says, the idea that any of the apostles would have ever wanted such wealth wasted upon their bones is beyond all question absurd. And though poor Peter is prominently noted around the structure, one thing is for sure: he cannot be blamed for anything done in his name by later generations of power-hungry men who have created such a religion as Rome’s.
I managed just this somewhat less than sharp image of the alleged resting place of Peter’s bones in St. Peter’s. I could not help but smile as I scanned around the structure at the citation of all the key Petrine passages, in gold (!) around the top of the walls, passages such as Matthew 16, Luke 22:32, etc., knowing how easily and forcefully the misuse of such passages can be refuted, and has been refuted, time and time again. I stood in the midst of the enemy camp and could not help but realize that everything I was seeing hangs in mid-air, all of its foundations having been washed away. I thought of all of the forged historical documents that had given rise to this place and the system it represents as well, and wondered at how it continues to stand despite floating without foundation. Someday the fiction will cease, in God’s time.
Of course, one of the longest lines I stood in was the one visiting the underground crypts, specifically, that of John Paul II. No one really cared much about the rest of them—and in a hundred years, this one will not stop anyone for long, either. But for now, it remain a huge attraction. Give him credit: it’s not overly ornate, and in comparison to the gaudy, self-aggrandizing ones in the main structure, it speaks far better than most.
[continued]
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michaelgazin
Guest
After we left St. Peter’s our host took us back around a corner away from the crowds and pointed out this building, quietly situated behind the main area. Why point out this building? Because it houses the records of the Inquisition. Inside that building are the records documenting Rome’s murder of countless simple believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I could not help but comment that if Rome is Christ’s Church, why not throw open all her secret archives and libraries and let everything see the light of day? Because we all know what would happen. Instead, just to the right of this picture stood one of the Swiss guards. Rome is not ready to be honest with her own history.
As I walked about this, the center of Roman power and history, I could not help but shake my head at the emptiness it represents. I thought of the formerly Reformed evangelicals in my own country who find it exhilarating to “play footsie” with Rome and to pay homage to this empty shell of external religion. How can this cold marble structure filled with dead men’s bones be attractive to anyone? I honestly do not know. Connection with history? What history? The history of man’s constant unwillingness to submit to the supremacy of grace and to deny to God His freedom in salvation? I guess so. How much more vital, how much more meaningful, is the true connection to history, that of the work of the living God in glorifying Himself down through the ages in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the building of His Church—a living body, vital, filled with the Spirit, not with the arrogance and pomp of Rome.
As I walked about this, the center of Roman power and history, I could not help but shake my head at the emptiness it represents. I thought of the formerly Reformed evangelicals in my own country who find it exhilarating to “play footsie” with Rome and to pay homage to this empty shell of external religion. How can this cold marble structure filled with dead men’s bones be attractive to anyone? I honestly do not know. Connection with history? What history? The history of man’s constant unwillingness to submit to the supremacy of grace and to deny to God His freedom in salvation? I guess so. How much more vital, how much more meaningful, is the true connection to history, that of the work of the living God in glorifying Himself down through the ages in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the building of His Church—a living body, vital, filled with the Spirit, not with the arrogance and pomp of Rome.
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Della
Guest
My response? There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT see. How I pity such a close-minded bigot as this man is!
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CARose
Guest
The problem is I can’t begin to think of how I could respond to him in a way that would open his mind or heart. If visiting the Vatican engenders this response on his part, he truly demonstrates a hardened heart.
I think the most important thing we can do for him is add him to our prayers.
CARose
I think the most important thing we can do for him is add him to our prayers.
CARose
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dirtydog
Guest
The man has been exposed as a complete idiot by too many already. Just let him and his fellow swine happily wallow in their conspiratorial mud and walk away.
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michaelgazin
Guest
He also posted in the blog entry immediately preceding this one:
"but let me note now the fact that when we all heard about the “1.1 billion Roman Catholics” in the world during the recent explosion of news regarding the Papacy, the number is pure bunk IF you count those who actually follow the religion with sufficient fervor for it to impact their daily life in even the most minimum fashion. This is a secular nation. Prostitution is open (first thing I saw upon entering Rome). If Romanism is the one true religion, well then, the one true religion can have zero impact upon the culture in which it is allegedly predominant. As much as my Roman Catholic friends will dislike this, Rome is a dead religion in this nation."
"but let me note now the fact that when we all heard about the “1.1 billion Roman Catholics” in the world during the recent explosion of news regarding the Papacy, the number is pure bunk IF you count those who actually follow the religion with sufficient fervor for it to impact their daily life in even the most minimum fashion. This is a secular nation. Prostitution is open (first thing I saw upon entering Rome). If Romanism is the one true religion, well then, the one true religion can have zero impact upon the culture in which it is allegedly predominant. As much as my Roman Catholic friends will dislike this, Rome is a dead religion in this nation."
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michaelgazin
Guest
That would explain the thousands of Romans running on foot from every part of the city to the Vatican when Benedict was elected.
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Sarah_Jane
Guest
:yawn:
- Status