Some Answers... Proved... please...

[Chaco64]

…i’ve asked around, and i can never get a straight answer, or if it’s straight, then it can’t be backed up…i want an expert, a preist or whatever, i dont care if you aren’t…i just want some backed up answers…you dont need to reply to all…

1:where in the bible does it say for us to pray to Mother Mary?

2:Where in the bible is it said for us to pray people out of Purgatory?

3:Where in the bible does it say we need to confess our sins to Preist and not God?

4:Why do we say “Hail Mary” 's so many times? why can’t she hear us the first time? (im serious)

5:Why wasn’t Mary mentioned or even hinted at in the old testament?

6oesn’t it say in the bible that false prophets will come telling people to not eat meat and to not marry…is that us catholics?

7:isn’t it wrong to pray vain repititions? or…what?

8:where is there a reference in the bible that when we die we might go to purgatory?

9:it says in the bible that every man is a sinner…if that is true…then the pope must be a sinner also…and if not, then what if he sinned before he became the pope?..who forgives the popes sins? and if he truly is sinless, then he is claiming to be God right?..because the bible says…no man is sinless…and last time i knew…the pope is still a man…

10:why did the catholic church remove the 2nd commandment in the bible, about graven images?

11:why do we pray to a statue? and to images of mary and joeseph and Jesus? when the bible says we should not bow to graven images.

12:God says he is a jealous God, and we shouldn’t put any Gods before him, …even Jesus, acknowledges God as the great, then why do we pray to Mary more than Jesus? …if you think about it…our whole religion is based upon Mary…why?

13:what did mary do that was so important that we build churches,statues and pray to 54 times to?

14:why do we say “Bless you” when someone sneezes?

15:if it is true that we should confes our sins to a preist, and he can forgive, then he must be claiming to be God, because as the pharisee’s said “who can forgive sin but God” and they were speaking to the true LORD…now im talking about the imperfect man…

all of these questions are as serious as hells fire, and i would really appreciate some answers…please…my soul is in the hands of your answers…

thank you,

das.

 

[WesleyF]

I think it will be better if you start a separate thread for each of your questions. The folks here have answers to all of your questions, but you need to co-operate with them if you want your questions to be answered. You may club 2 or 3 similar questions in one thread. In that way the number of threads will also reduce and it will be easier to answer your questions.

 

[GJx86]

…i’ve asked around, and i can never get a straight answer, or if it’s straight, then it can’t be backed up…i want an expert, a preist or whatever, i dont care if you aren’t…i just want some backed up answers…you dont need to reply to all…

Here are some brief answers that may help you. Others will have more to add.

1:where in the bible does it say for us to pray to Mother Mary?

James 5:16: The prayers of the righteous avail much.
Mark 12:27: Our God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Thus, the righteous dead live on before God, and he hears their prayers. Asking the Church Triumphant to pray for us is no different than asking the Church Militant to do so.

Also, 2 Maccabees 15:12: “Onias, the former high priest, a good and virtuous man, modest in appearance, gentle in manners, distinguished in speech, and trained from childhood in every virtuous practice, was praying with outstretched arms for the whole Jewish community.”

2:Where in the bible is it said for us to pray people out of Purgatory?

2 Maccabees 15:43-46.

Also, notice that:
(1) We must be perfectly holy to enter the Kingdom of God (Rev 21:27);
(2) While we are in the flesh, we cannot be perfectly holy (Romans 7);
(3) Therefore, either no one ever enters the Kingdom of God, or the justified are transformed from imperfectly holy to perfectly holy between death and glory.

3:Where in the bible does it say we need to confess our sins to Preist and not God?

John 20:20-23: The authority to forgive sins is given to men, who wield it on God’s behalf.

Who says that confessing sins to a man is separate from confessing them to God?
What exactly do you do to confess your sins to God?

4:Why do we say “Hail Mary” 's so many times? why can’t she hear us the first time? (im serious)

Have you ever prayed the Our Father more than once? If so, why do you say it so many times? If not, why do you disobey the commandment: “This is how you are to pray”?

5:Why wasn’t Mary mentioned or even hinted at in the old testament?

Genesis 3, for one, but why would she need to be mentioned there?

6oesn’t it say in the bible that false prophets will come telling people to not eat meat and to not marry…is that us catholics?

No. It refers to the Judaizers and the Gnostics.

7:isn’t it wrong to pray vain repititions? or…what?

What exactly is a “vain repetition”?

8:where is there a reference in the bible that when we die we might go to purgatory?

See #2.

9:it says in the bible that every man is a sinner…if that is true…then the pope must be a sinner also…and if not, then what if he sinned before he became the pope?..who forgives the popes sins? and if he truly is sinless, then he is claiming to be God right?..because the bible says…no man is sinless…and last time i knew…the pope is still a man…

No one ever said the Pope was sinless.

God forgives the Pope’s sins. He does so through the physical mediation of an ordained priest or bishop.

10:why did the catholic church remove the 2nd commandment in the bible, about graven images?

It didn’t. There are more than 10 imperative statements in the Ten Commandments; Catholics use a different numbering than most Protestants do. See here.

11:why do we pray to a statue? and to images of mary and joeseph and Jesus? when the bible says we should not bow to graven images.

Statues and icons serve as reminders of Our Lord, the saints, and heavenly realities. When we pray, we use these physical signs to help us call these realities to mind.

Anyone who actually worshipped a statue as though that statue were itself a god would indeed be guilty of idolatry.

12:God says he is a jealous God, and we shouldn’t put any Gods before him, …even Jesus, acknowledges God as the great, then why do we pray to Mary more than Jesus? …if you think about it…our whole religion is based upon Mary…why?

I don’t think this is true at all. For someone who purports to be a Catholic, you sure don’t seem to have been to many Masses–if you had, you would know how Christ-centered the Church’s liturgy is… Hmm.

15:if it is true that we should confes our sins to a preist, and he can forgive, then he must be claiming to be God, because as the pharisee’s said “who can forgive sin but God” and they were speaking to the true LORD…now im talking about the imperfect man…

The priest is not God, but he acts with God’s authority. See John 20:20-23.

thank you,

das.

Sure thing. Hope this helped.

 

[DavidFilmer]

I agree with WesleyF - this thread is far too diverse. Answers and rebuttals would descend into utter chaos. The thread raises 15 distinct questions, any one of which is sufficient to merit a thread of its own (though a search of this forum and the CA libraries would readily answer most of the questions raised here).

But one question was absolutely new to me (and I thought I had seen everything):

5:Why wasn’t Mary mentioned or even hinted at in the old testament?

Huh? I mean, really, huh???

Mary was the very first prophesy in Scripture (followed closely and inseparably (of course) by the prophesy of her Divine Son): Gen 3:15

And I thought all Christians had at least a passing familiarity with Isaiah 7:14: “Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and his name shall be Immanuel.” The particular Virgin referenced in this passage was, um, Mary.

I really had no idea that some Christians were completely unaware of these Biblical passages. Catholics yet have much work to do to educate our separated brethren in the Scriptures they claim to revere!

 

[Thing]

The first thing you need to accept is the historical fact that the Bible came from the Church, not the Church from the Bible. The Church existed long before the letters it wrote to itself, and before those letters were gathered by itself to make a bible - (from bublos, Greek plural of book). So the Church writers of the book existed as a Church before the book they wrote existed. So your questions should begin - ‘where is that teaching taught in the Church?’, not where is that teaching in the bible. The bible is only one part of the Churches teaching.

Its like going to a college lecture, you are given handouts, you take notes yourself, and you commit to your memory other things your lecturer says, to be written at a later stage.
All of these three types of information come from the lecturer herself and together they constitute the lecture.
I suggest you throw away your notes and forget everything you remember of your lecture, next time you attend a lecture (if you do). You will not be comfortable with that idea. The lecturer speaks for an hour but may only touch on a few points in the handouts.
So, where are those teachings contained in the historical Church? I think is the question.

 

[fellowChristian]

#1. We don’t pray to Mary. We ask Mary, and also the Saints to pray with us and for us.Just like I can ask you to pray with and for me. We all are part of His family both in heaven and on earth.

Ephesians 3:14-15
14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

15from whom every family in heaven **and on **earth derives its name,

we are not seperated by death…

**Romans 8:35-39 **

**2 Corinthians 1:11 **
11you also joining in helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many.

#2. Purgatory to purge or to cleanse. For nothing unclean can enter heaven.

Purgatory in Scripture
scripturecatholic.com/purgatory.html

#3. I could ask you where in the Bible does it say to confess only to God? But I’ll answer your question…

John 20:23

23"If **you **forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if **you **retain the sins of any, they have been retained."

In order for the apostles to exercise this gift of forgiving sins, the penitents must orally confess their sins to them because the apostles are not mind readers. The text makes this very clear.

2 Corinthians 2:10

10But one whom you forgive anything,** I **forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if **I **have forgiven anything, **I **did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ,

Confession in Scripture
scripturecatholic.com/confession.html

#4. Hail Mary is Biblical. But what you’re asking is about repeating.

Revelation 4:8

8And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and **day and night they do not cease to say, “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME.” **

VAIN AND REPITITIOUS PRAYER
scripturecatholic.com/vain_and_repetitious_prayer.html

#5. Mary is more then hinted you just have to know what to look for.

Genesis 3:15

15And I will put enmity
     Between you and **the woman**,
     And between your seed and **her seed**;
     He shall bruise you on the head,
     And you shall bruise him on the heel."

Isaiah 7:14

14"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a **virgin **will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.

Isaiah 66:7

7"Before she travailed, she brought forth;
     Before her pain came, she gave birth to a boy.

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
scripturecatholic.com/blessed_virgin_mary.html

#6. Jesus sacrificed His Flesh for us on Good Friday.
Out of respect and thanks we give up flesh/meat on Good Friday.
Because His blood is warm we give up all warm blooded meat. It’s that simple.

Fasting in Scripture
scripturecatholic.com/fasting.html

#7. is the same thing as #4

#8. look at answer to #2.

#9. The pope is a sinner. He has a confessor. He is part of the Apostloic succession that goes all the way back to Peter getting the keyes from Jesus.Peter was the first head bishop and before he died he passed on the office to the next bishop.

List of popes
newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm

APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY AND SUCCESSION
scripturecatholic.com/apostolic_succession.html

THE PRIMACY OF PETER
scripturecatholic.com/primacy_of_peter.html

#10 The Catholic Church did no such thing.

This the** Catechism of the Catholic Church **it is the basics of what the Church teaches. Scroll all the way to the bottom you’ll find the Ten Commandments.

usccb.org/catechism/text/entiretoc1.shtml

#11. Catholics pray to statues like you do to pictures of your family. You don’t right? Well neither do we pray to statues. They are reminders of those who lived holy lives and we ask them to pray for us and with us. They are great focal points in prayer.

#12. No it’s not. Mary is His mother she leads us to her Son. When you want to speak to the King you might be wise to show some respect to His mother the Queen.

Scripture Catholic will help you with the rest.
scripturecatholic.com/

You need to also learn the history of the Protestant Reformation. And where the Bible came from…

My question to you is which came first the Bible or the church?

 

[gookykookypig]

There are questions that are not answered word for word, it’s because we are living beings, we’re not robots or databased answering machines. We cannot let the Bible answer a question by itself, for the Bible cannot speak for itself. It must have an interpreter or a preacher.

We can answer those questions from the Bible, but remember God’s word is alive and it is as sharp as a double-edged sword. You cannot feed it in yourself and to others deliberately like cereals. As a sharp thing, you must endure and slowly absorb it through it’s meaning and the power that it has to save you.

Let us answer you questions in the sensible manner that we can cherish the word of God and present it to you with all it’s grandeur, not a teddy that we throw to you when you need it.

 

[Todd_Easton]

1:where in the bible does it say for us to pray to Mother Mary?
In 1 Thessalonians 5:25, St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonian Christians asking them to pray for him. Asking the Blessed Virgin Mary to pray for us is essentially the same thing, namely asking another Christian to pray for us.

2:Where in the bible is it said for us to pray people out of Purgatory?
2 Maccabees 12:38-46 says that praying for the dead that they might be loosed from their sins is a “holy and pious” thing to do. In 2 Timothy 1:18, St. Paul thus prays that God might have mercy on Onesiphorus, who has obviously died.

3:Where in the bible does it say we need to confess our sins to Preist and not God?
Catholics actually confess their sins to both God and his priest because Jesus Christ gave his apostles the authority to forgive or retain sins in his name (John 20:22-23), and this authority has been passed down through the ages to Catholic priests, through the laying on of hands. If Jesus Christ did not want us to confess our sins to priests, why would he give the authority to forgive or retains sins to his apostles? James 5:14-16 directs the sick to call for the priests (elders) of the church and to confess their sins to one another.

4:Why do we say “Hail Mary” 's so many times? why can’t she hear us the first time? (im serious)
The same question could be asked of Jesus Christ who prayed to his heavenly Father three times saying the same words (Matthew 26:44) or St. Paul who prayed three times that God might remove the “thorn in his flesh.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-8)
In the recitation of the rosary, the repeated “Hail Mary” prayers are suppose to serve as a prayerful background while the events of Christ’s life (the mysteries of the rosary) are being meditated upon.

5:Why wasn’t Mary mentioned or even hinted at in the old testament?
As other posters have said, Genesis 3:15 and Isaiah 7:14 are generally considered to be prophesies concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.

6oesn’t it say in the bible that false prophets will come telling people to not eat meat and to not marry…is that us catholics?
The Catholic Church does not as a general rule tell people not to eat meat and not to marry. Setting aside special days for prayer and fasting from food in general, or from meat in particular, is in keeping with the practice of the early Church, as mentioned in Acts 13:2-3, 14:23. Although the Latin rite of the Catholic Church currently chooses its bishops and priests from among those men who have voluntarily vowed to remain unmarried for the sake of the Kingdom of God, that they might be single-minded in their ministry (1 Corinthians 7:32-33), the Church actually expects most Catholics to marry and considers marriage one of the seven sacraments of the Church, one of the ways God bestows his grace.

7:isn’t it wrong to pray vain repititions? or…what?

The keyword is “vain,” not “repetitions.” It is useless to pray in a vain manner, insincerely, without attention and devotion. Repetitions are not the problem. In Psalm 136 , the phrase, “for his steadfast love endures for ever,” is repeated some 26 times.

8:where is there a reference in the bible that when we die we might go to purgatory?
In Matthew 5:26, Jesus Christ speaks of a prison, reminiscent of the spiritual prison mentioned by St. Peter in 1 Peter 3:19, which we will not get out of until the last penny is paid. In 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, St. Paul says that some having Jesus Christ as their foundation will suffer loss yet be saved but only as through fire.

 

[Todd_Easton]

9:it says in the bible that every man is a sinner…if that is true…then the pope must be a sinner also…and if not, then what if he sinned before he became the pope?..who forgives the popes sins? and if he truly is sinless, then he is claiming to be God right?..because the bible says…no man is sinless…and last time i knew…the pope is still a man…

Catholics have never claimed that the pope is sinless or divine. The pope is a man and a sinner like the rest of us and when he sins he confesses his sins to God and to a priest. By virtue of his office as successor of St. Peter and the leading bishop of Christ’s Church on earth, Catholics believe that the pope, under certain conditions, is protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching error in matters of Christian faith and morals, according to the promise Jesus Christ made to St. Peter in Luke 22:32, that his faith would not fail and that he strengthen the brethren.

Being sinless is not the same as being God. The good angels are sinless and they are not divine. Adam and Eve were created sinless and remained sinless up until the moment they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil land they were not divine.

10:why did the catholic church remove the 2nd commandment in the bible, about graven images?
Catholics did not remove the 2nd Commandment; they simply divide the various commands a little differently than you might be used to. In Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 numerous commands are given but the Bible text does not explicitly say how the various commands are to be grouped to make ten separate Commandments. What you are used to calling the 2nd Commandment, Catholics included as part of their 1st Commandment. What you are used to calling the 10th Commandment, Catholics divided into two separate Commandments, their 9th Commandment and their 10th Commandment.

11:why do we pray to a statue? and to images of mary and joeseph and Jesus? when the bible says we should not bow to graven images.
Just as someone may kneel and pray holding a Bible and not be kneeling and praying to that Bible, Catholics may kneel and pray near statues but they do not kneel and pray to the statues; the statues are inanimate objects that can neither see or hear. The statues are simply visual reminders of the faithful people they represent. Statues of Jesus Christ remind us of our Lord and Savior. Statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the other saints remind us of those man and women who loved our Lord and led exemplary Christian lives.

12:God says he is a jealous God, and we shouldn’t put any Gods before him, …even Jesus, acknowledges God as the great, then why do we pray to Mary more than Jesus? …if you think about it…our whole religion is based upon Mary…why?

Catholicism is a God-centered, a Christ-centered religion. The Blessed Virgin Mary plays an important role in the Catholic religion but it is a subordinate role that of Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ is divine, while the Blessed Virgin Mary is merely a creature. The official prayers of the Catholic Church (the Mass and the Liturgy of Hours) hardly mention the Blessed Virgin Mary at all. A personal devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is not required of Catholics, though many Catholics find having a personal devotion to such an exemplary Christian as the Blessed Virgin Mary helps them become better Christians themselves, helps them to grow in faith and hope and love of God and neighbor.

13:what did mary do that was so important that we build churches,statues and pray to 54 times to?

The Blessed Virgin Mary was an exemplary Christian, worthy of being remembered and imitated because of her faith and love of God. God could have chosen any number of ways for Jesus Christ to come into the world but God chose that our Redeemer should come into the world through the obedient, handmaid of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary. No mere human being cooperated more willingly and more intimately with God’s plan of redemption than the Blessed Virgin Mary.

14:why do we say “Bless you” when someone sneezes?

These are just my personal speculations…
This shortened form of the prayer, “May God bless you,” might have come about because people noticed that a sneeze is sometimes a sign of the onset of a serious illness and they desired that God might bless the sneezing person with a full and speedy recovery.

It may also have something to do with Genesis 2:7, where it says that ‘the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’ Sneezing may have been viewed as the loss of one’s “breath of life” and so the sneezing person might have been thought to be in need of God’s blessing.

15:if it is true that we should confes our sins to a preist, and he can forgive, then he must be claiming to be God, because as the pharisee’s said “who can forgive sin but God” and they were speaking to the true LORD…now im talking about the imperfect man…

No man can forgive sins on his own authority but those men can to whom God has given his authority to forgive sins. Priests do not claim to be God but they do claim to have the authority to forgive sins from God, passed on to them down through the ages from the apostles through the laying on of hands. See John 20:22-23, where Jesus Christ gave his apostles the authority to forgive or retain sins.

 

[Soutane]

Here we go again-your laundry list has been answered hundreds if not thousands of times.If you really want to learn please spend a little effort and search this website.If you just want to reprove and tell us what we really believe,PLEASE don’t bother,because you’ll get spanked pretty quickly.

 

[JED8643]

You say this thread is serious, although I personally doubt it, here’s what you need to do. Stop copying and pasting questions from some anti-Catholic website you have just “discovered” and seriously study the scriptures. Study church history and the writings of some of the early church fathers. See what they believed and why.
Take some time to understand some of the doctrines of the reformers, such as sola scriptura and sola fide and see if they line up with scripture. I think if you’re honest you will be quite surprised at what you find out.
If you are really interested in the questions you posted then let’s take them one at a time and start the discussion.
The Catholics on this forum are in no way intimidated by this approach and believe me your gonna get schooled.

Remember we are all on the same team. We all love Christ.

Welcome to the forums!

 

[Michael_Francis]

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