Protestant prayers to become Christian are nearly no different from the Islamic Shahada and are in stark contrast to the traditional rites of Baptism and Confirmation.
>>18250549modern day christianity isn't christianity, its a suicide cult of jew worshiping noahides
>>18250549>>18250549It took me a few minutes to figure out why this felt different and alien when compared to Catholic prayersTurns out, it's because there's no sense of reverie, awe, and fear of the LordIn fact, it places the personal will of the person, over the acknowledgement of who he is talking to. Not to mention, the prayer is personal, individualistic, and closedi am not saying that this is badBut it doesn't feel right. It feels like a child's prayer
Here's to compareCatholic prayers for St. Valentine's intercessionit always begin with a recognition of who you are talking to, his glory, and how unworthy you are to beg for aid and guidance.Humility and respect is of outmost priority
>>18250614Isn't the Catholic and Orthodox saint worship a logical consequence of the concept of God as absolutely towering above the mortals?
>>18250614Personal relationship with God is how it should be - we are literally his children.
>>18250620>it always begin with a recognition of who you are talking to, his glory, and how unworthy you are to beg for aid and guidance.And in this case it's a dead man. It's sinful polytheism no different from Romans beseeching their dead Caesars in temples. Tell me anon, which person in the Bible ever prayed to a dead man this way? Who was the first Christian whose name we know who did so?The earliest church and nobody in the Bible engaged in this Catholic polytheism. And we know today scientifically that it isn't even possible. Your memories and personality are stored on your brain, not in an immaterial soul like Platonism posited. Solomon is right: the dead know nothing. And they won't until their brains are rebuilt in the resurrection.
>>18250620
>>18250689>Tell me anon, which person in the Bible ever prayed to a dead man this way?Didn't King Saul do it (and then get killed?)
>>18250549Nowhere in the bible is this given as the way conversions were practiced. We see Peter in Acts 2 tell the crowd to repent and be baptized. Would be nice of sola scripturas to actually read the bible instead of making up prayers found nowhere but in their heads and saying it's the key to salvation.
>>18250785He didn't even do what Catholics do, they're doing something even worse. He tried to use a medium to talk to Samuel from beyond the grave, like a seance. He didn't pray to and worship Samuel. Modern Catholics are sinning even worse than Saul himself did.
>>18250562High Rabbi Yachim Schlomo Mendelberg here. Christians* cannot be Noahides, they do Idol worship by saying a man was G-d and that G-d was 3.*With the exception of Jehovah's Witnesses, who ironically do qualify by accident.
>>18250797I'm not a huge fan of the prayer in the OP but repentance is a core part of it, didn't you read it? It then instructs them to tell a Christian, who would of course then have them join their church, and new church members are baptized.
>>18250620>it always begin with a recognition of who you are talking to, his glory, and how unworthy you are to beg for aid and guidance.Who you are talking to is a dead man, a creature, and not God. This is foul blasphemous idolatry and you just proved it.
>>18250689>And we know today scientifically that it isn't even possible. Your memories and personality are stored on your brain, not in an immaterial soul like Platonism posited. Now I preface this by clarifying I am not a Romanist, so that you can take away any prejudice. And you are not the first one to mount such an attack, since it is clear such an assertion amounts itself to a denial of purgatory and the cult of saints. But it also denies our blessed hope that when we are away from the body we will be at home with the Lord. Now, the scientist has no authority to abrogate the scripture, let alone the secularist who reaches such conclusions by virtue of the overwhelming compulsion of his naturalistic worldview which could not possibly tolerate any alternative which he is not even willing to consider. It is not to be granted but rejected as absurd that memories and personalities are "stored" in the brain as though they were physical things, nor that it would be possible by empirical observation alone to ever discover such a thing, though it is also undeniable the brain plays an essential role in the operation of the soul. The one who thought man had an immaterial soul was not Plato, but God, as it is found as a basic aspect of the Christian worldview from Genesis to Revelation, taken for granted. Man's body was empty until God breathed his spirit into him, and he became a living soul. What the experience of a disembodied soul is I cannot say, since unless body and soul are brought together man is not a living soul and can hardly be called a man at all, even though he continues to exist. Solomon's meaning was not that the dead cease to exist, which is imported to the text and irrelevant to his point, but to describe their utter detachment from the material world and disinterest in its happenings.
>>18250689>>18250691>>18250970 They have already found evidence of the intercession of saints as early as 230 ADThis has preceded the Catholic churchin fact, the transfiguration made it blatantly clear that the saints AREN'T dead. They are all alive - much more alive than we are. And could therefore pray for us
>>18251034>But it also denies our blessed hope that when we are away from the body we will be at home with the LordYou're referring to 2 Corinthians 5 which has Paul outright saying they don't want to be disembodied but to receive their resurrected body. Notice people always vaguely refer to this passage or paraphrase it but almost never quote it when trying to make this point.The Bible's message has always been that when you die you're with the Lord, but that the experience of this is sleep and unconscious, hence Paul saying disembodiment is undesirable in 2 Corinthians 5:4.Look at what Ecclesiastes says in 12:7 - "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it". Yes, absent from the body, present with the Lord. But what's the experience of that like?The book told us earlier in chapter 9: "the dead know nothing...their love, and their hate, and their envy have perished...there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, where you are going". This is stuff the Bible already explained in detail.>It is not to be granted but rejected as absurd that memories and personalities are "stored" in the brain as though they were physical thingsThis is objectively true. They are physical things. When you remember something you are accessing brain structures. Are you denying the existence of memory structures in the brain?>The one who thought man had an immaterial soulAnd it doesn't store memories or personality. Suppose your brain works by sending information to a spirit and that spirit sends back instructions. How then would you explain split-brain cases where the brain halves act as if they cannot act in light of information the other half of the brain has access to? If your model is correct, physically splitting brain structures shouldn't do this since the information is all being sent to a spirit and then the spirit is sending information back.
>>18250814they worship the jew god while giving thanks to jews for everything and identifying jews as those chosen by god to inherit the earth... they are everything any jew could ever hope for a noahide to be
>>18251071What you mean is "superstitious Roman Pagans brought their supersitions with them when they became Christian in a lot of cases". You'll appeal to folk-examples. I asked a specific question: who is the first Christian whose name we know who did so? Tell me the answer anon. I suspect you may already know and declined to answer directly because it shatters your notion.>the transfiguration made it blatantly clear that the saints AREN'T deadOf all the Catholic arguments this is definitely the worst. It's like saying "the first law of thermodynamics was already clearly refuted by Jesus feeding the 5000". The whole point of a miracle is that something unusual happens that couldn't happen without God.>They are all alive - much more alive than we areAnon if you split someone's brain in half, one half can't even use the information that the other half has. Structures on the right can operate with information only from structures on the right, including choices like answering questions, and the same is true for the left. Split-brain patients completely refute the Catholic Platonic model of how a soul operates.
>>18251092Revelations tell you that the Saints are aliveDavid even frequently "called upon" the angels and God never said that it was wrongSaint's intercession has existed since the very start. There were even cults for St. Stephen - the first martyr, as early as 100 ADNo one had a problem with this - not even Martin LutherNo one saw a problem with this, until American Protestants were founded 200 years ago.American Protestants are less about worshipping God, and more about being anti-Catholic
>>18251071>They have already found evidence of the intercession of saints as early as 230 ADIdolatry is much older than just that>the transfiguration made it blatantly clear that the saints AREN'T dead.Firstly, how it being permissible to worship the saints follows from them being alive, I do not know. Secondly, when we call them dead we mean not that they are spiritually dead, but that they are physically dead. Now, whether the saints have already been delivered from physical death, let the reader decide. Nor does it follow that if they are spiritually alive they can hear us, since Christians on the other side of the world are not only spiritually alive but physically, and yet they cannot hear us. >>18251080>Notice people always vaguely refer to this passage or paraphrase it but almost never quote it when trying to make this point.No, I don't notice that, nor do I see a response other than this hand-wave dismissal. Your reasoning in dismissing this text appears to be "it is better to be resurrected than disembodied, therefore the soul ceases to exist" which is a very strange argument I cannot apprehend.(cont.)
>>18251114>Revelations tell you that the Saints are aliveThis is like saying "Revelation tells you that the sea has multi-headed dragons that can come out and rule the world". Saying we should take the visions in Revelation literally is perhaps the worst possible Biblical argument.>David even frequently "called upon" the angelsWhat passage are you referring to?>Saint's intercession has existed since the very startAnswer my question anon. Who is the first person whose name we know that made a prayer like >>18250620? Are you going to answer, or do you need me to?>No one had a problem with thisSee >>18250691
>>18251080>The Bible's message has always been that when you die you're with the Lord, but that the experience of this is sleep and unconsciousThis is a direct contradiction in terms, since to "be with the Lord" means to be with Him consciously, and not as though the soul was stored next to Him or something which would neither mean much, nor be possible in concept since both the Lord and the soul are immaterial and thus do not occupy spatial location to begin with.>hence Paul saying disembodiment is undesirable in 2 Corinthians 5:4He is not in fact saying that, but referring to earthly life in a sinful body.>But what's the experience of that like?I said I do not know, nor do I think I could imagine it, but I am certain it is some kind of experience, and not no experience at all.>This is objectively true. They are physical thingsIt is objectively untrue and internally incoherent. To remember is to have a subjective experience, now I ask what do subjective experiences look like? What is their shape or their color? How much mass is in an experience? >Are you denying the existence of memory structures in the brain?I am not denying the existence of the brain, I am denying the mind is reducible to the brain. A physical object is not reading this. >Suppose your brain works by sending information to a spirit and that spirit sends back instructionsI can't suppose this because you're talking about a spirit like it's a material object. This is a category error.>How then would you explain split-brainThis is resolved by saying as I did that the brain is essential to the operations of the soul, not by denying the existence of the soul. I mean essential in the Aristotelian sense. So the experience of the disembodied soul is very different, not null.
>>18251124>nor do I see a response other than this hand-wave dismissalAnon I gave a long, detailed response. Did you read all of my post before replying? Paul says nothing there that Solomon didn't say in Ecclesiastes long before.>therefore the soul ceases to existWhen did I say that? They don't cease to exist. Like a corpse, they're inert and do and experience nothing until the resurrection.
>>18250691>>18251126My dear, the Church fathers are saints who valued tradition and magisterium, proven by how they got their authority through Apostolic successiondon't twist their words for your 200 year old denomination
>>18251130>Anon I gave a long, detailed responseNot to 2 Corinthians 5>When did I say that?There is no difference between what you're saying, and saying the soul is destroyed and then re-created
>>18251127>since to "be with the Lord" means to be with Him consciouslyDoes God stop being with you at night when you go to sleep? If you go into a coma, or slip and get knocked out, is God no longer with you?Paul constantly calls death sleep. He does it over and over, just like the rest of the Bible. >which would neither mean muchIt doesn't. That's why it's barely spoken about and you have to take a vague allusion Paul makes to it and try to run with that.>He is not in fact saying that, but referring to earthly lifeHe's already talked about "our dwelling that is from heaven earnestly desiring to clothe ourselves" and "our earthly house". Here clothes are metaphors for bodies. Hence being unclothed would be disembodiment.>It is objectively untrueAlright anon. Walk me through the process of how memory works. Say you want to remember which key opens a door. Include the role you assign to your spirit. Then we'll see how this fits with our actual data.>the brain is essential to the operations of the soulHence, as the Bible clearly told you, all of those operations: knowing, thinking, planning, loving, hating - none of them operate when your brain stops working and you are dead.
>>18251135There was no such thing as a magisterium in the patristic period and the traditions of the fathers are not the traditions of the modern church of Rome>don't twist their wordsThis is what you're doing right now in telling us these ancient men didn't mean what they said because Pope Leo says so. Popery is the cessation of thinking, you are the slave of cruel masters. Why do you not justify everything and anything this way? Say the earth is flat because the pope says so, who are you to disagree with the pope. This outright nullification of the fathers on the grounds it is not what the church says betrays the fact Rome's standard is not the church, scripture and tradition but the church alone.
>>18251137>Not to 2 Corinthians 5Why would I need to respond to 2 Corinthians 5? I agree with every word in that entire chapter. I gave a detailed response to you saying it means the Bible is wrong about what death is like.>There is no difference between what you're saying, and saying the soul is destroyed and then re-createdIt's still somewhere, but dead and inert, much as your body is. You're right that this barely means anything. Hence why resurrection is what the Bible tells us is our hope, not this fictional state of golden disembodied joy that does not exist.
>>18251144Being a Church Father means that you are part of the magistrateMagisterium means authorized leadership of the Church.If you do not recognize the magistrate, then no interpretation of the scripture could ever be wrong
>>18251143>Does God stop being with you at night when you go to sleep? If you go into a coma, or slip and get knocked out, is God no longer with you?Firstly, this is irrelevant because Paul refers to being at home with the Lord in a sense which is not experienced in this life, as explicitly to be at home with the body is to be away from the Lord. Secondly, I do not cease to be when I sleep, but my mind is active there.>That's why it's barely spoken about and you have to take a vague allusion Paul makes to it and try to run with that.It is spoken about from Genesis to Revelation, and what we are talking about in Paul is not a vague allusion but a direct explicit statement which you happen to disagree with. >Hence being unclothed would be disembodiment.That is an incredible conclusion which is precisely the opposite of what Paul is saying. This is the full statement>For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. We are "unclothed" in this "earthly tent" and "clothed" in our "dwelling from heaven". It is inferior to be disembodied than to be resurrected, but this has exactly nothing to do with what Paul is saying right here. >Walk me through the process of how memory works An image is conjured before your mind's eye of the past event, which may not even be correct>none of them operateIt does not follow, since the soul is not merely material. To be sure, my thoughts will be in a very different manner, but I will still think, as also God loves, but God does not have a brain.
>>18251147>I agree with every word in that entire chapterClearly not>It's still somewhereActually, your soul is never "anywhere" because it does not exist in space. You are trapped by this materialistic thinking.>Hence why resurrection is what the Bible tells us is our hopeThe resurrection is our hope because disembodiment is incomplete, and a man is not himself without his body, not because we have no hope to be at home with the Lord.>>18251149>Being a Church Father means that you are part of the magistrateAnd so it is particularly damning that you deny their teaching and dismiss their authority, not that we really are to believe according to men's opinions, but because you contradict your own system. >Magisterium means authorized leadership of the Church.This is such a broad definition as to make it applicable to Protestantism. >If you do not recognize the magistrate, then no interpretation of the scripture could ever be wrongThis is a complete non sequitur, "either there is a man with domineering authority to nullify scripture at his whim, or the laws of thought cease to be true".
>>18250614>Not to mention, the prayer is personal, individualistic, and closedOh kinda like this?>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.>And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.>Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
>>18250614>But it doesn't feel right. It feels like a child's prayerI thought that was a good thing? Be like children as Jesus said
>>18251161>this is irrelevant because Paul refers to being at home with the Lord in a sense which is not experienced in this lifeHe says absolutely no such thing. You are reading this into the passage. But Paul's own words here say nothing like this.>Secondly, I do not cease to be when I sleep, but my mind is active there.You keep setting up this strawman argument. No one is saying the dead cease to exist. They're simply unconscious. Like you would expect: if I hit you hard in the head, you lose consciousness for minutes. If I hit you very hard in the head, you lose consciousness for days. If I hit you extremely hard in the head, you lose consciousness until it's fixed.>It is spoken about from Genesis to RevelationShow me some other places it promises some golden land of joy after death but prior to the resurrection. >That is an incredible conclusion which is precisely the opposite of what Paul is sayingAn "incredible conclusion" which is one of the main manners in which scholars interpret this? Look at the article at https://theo-logos.pl/server/api/core/bitstreams/074cda4f-269f-48b0-83f3-579508ac269b/content. Like it says, one of the main interpretations is "Conversely, others argue that Paul takes a stand here against the Platonic and Gnostic views according to which a soul without a body enters the kingdom of heaven, and reminds the Corinthians that an existence without a body is not the object of Christian hope". Clearly it is not an "incredible conclusion" if it's a major position among Biblical scholars. And in general, give this article a read. Every bit of this passage in 2 Corinthians has scholars slightly puzzled to some extent. It's rich, but rather opaque and challenging to understand. It's telling that your argument has to rely solely on such an ambiguous passage: because this is one of the few places you can try to torture the Bible into supporting a Platonic heaven myth.
Catholics defer to Revelation to show martyr's praying for justice, which means they can pray for other people, but I always saw it as these martyrs being the ones from the end times, so naturally they would pray for retribution after being killed for Christ. After all, it's depicted the Whore of Babylon getting "drunk off the blood of saints". Revelation isn't conclusive for saint intercession, is what I'm trying to say. It's only natural that the recently departed would be the ones most adamant to pray for justice.
>>18251161>An image is conjured before your mind's eye of the past eventRight - walk me through the steps of how this works under your model. Mechanically. What does the brain do, and what do you posit the spirit does?>It does not followIt absolutely must follow, that isn't my conclusion, the Bible itself directly says it! Remember the passage we looked at? Now you're arguing with the Bible itself to defend this idea. We saw it explicitly say that you don't know, think, love - none of it - when you are dead.>>18251178>Actually, your soul is never "anywhere" Wouldn't this mean that "going to heaven" is impossible, then, since your spirit can't go to a place? You would need a body - right?>because it does not exist in spaceDemons and angels certainly seem to be spirits and they have specific locations in space.>is our hope because disembodiment is incomplete, and a man is not himself without his bodyExactly! And we saw Ecclesiastes 9 explicitly state that without your body, when you're dead, you don't know or love or hate or think anything. At absolute best if you were adamantly insistent there was some sort of consciousness, it couldn't be anything but the vaguest shade of phantom awareness.That's actually the opposite of hope in a way. Spending thousands - maybe millions - of years like that, instead of a sleeplike fast-forward right to the resurrection. The latter is much more hopeful, to me. Like anesthesia, or the sleep God put Adam into to take his rib: some experiences are better skipped.
>>18251135Would you care to actually demonstrate how anything is being twisted?
>>18251336Being a child in terms of innocence, not intelligenceTreating God like he is just a casual friend is not a bad thing. But it is lacking. There is much space to be filled
So are Catholics not allowed to pray directly to God or Christ or something like that?
>>18251712>>18251712The point of intercession is to "ask someone to pray for you"It is right in the scripture:"Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective"The more righteous you are, the more likely God will answer your prayerSaints are the most righteous of menMary is the most righteous of all the saintsAnd all of them are alive in Heaven right now, aware of what we are suffering and praying incessantly for our wellbeing
>>18251712No, they'd rather have imaginary relationships with other people before even thinking about deepening their relationship with Christ. They're looking for best friends in Heaven, not any personal approaching of Jesus.
>He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” So he said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, may your name be revered as holy./ May your kingdom come./ Give us each day our daily bread./ And forgive us our sins,/ for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us./ And do not bring us to the time of trial.”Do you see anything here hinting about praying to anyone else in Heaven besides God?
>>18251722>"Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective"Where does it say that they can not be alive.
>>18252087Jesus promised eternal life; therefore, they are alive
>>18250628The Old Testament God was not someone who'd be approachable by a simple layman. Even the priests and prophets feared His presence.
>>18251705Being a child like a selfish, immature, illiterate and violent little shit like they are is certainly something.
