Stealth Moose
Umbrella Elite
Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
I'm not trying to twist anything.
Just strawmanning and using semantics to avoid directly answering my posts.
Sigh.
You know what I think of people who have to visibly sigh on a message board?
Golden rule for the umpteenth time is not a Christian concept.Man made up that terminology.
Man dubbed what Jesus said "the golden rule".
Hence, man (myself) can ignore that unbiblical description.
I demonstrated that the term "Golden Rule" is irrelevant because as you yourself once admitted (but seem to avoid applying consistently) that labels themselves do not change the things which they describe. The English term Golden Rule does not mean anything in ancient Babylonia, in ancient Persia, or in ancient India; I would be an utter fool to assume that because the term itself was not used, it has no precursor or equivalent in these times, especially when history has proven that this is the case.
You can ignore whatever doesn't fit your worldview, but that doesn't make it go away.
Nonetheless, your claim is that the practice--based on the term under discussion--was co-opted.
Seemingly. If I had to add a word to avoid a binding, absolute judgment, that would be my only addition; seemingly co-opted. It seems likely, given that the idea existed in many world religions prior. And I doubt Jesus lived in a bubble without exposure.
I didn't know that common sense needed predating, and/or co-opting (this is the point that you are not grasping).That's like saying that since I think people should not vomit on other people because it's disgusting and messy, that somehow I co-opted that opinion from someone else.
No, that's just plain old common sense Stealth Moose.
I don't care how many people believed the same as me with regard to not vomiting on people, or how many centuries said opinion is predated, that doesn't mean that I co-opted it--because it's common sense.
This is some sophistry you have going on here. You've arbitrarily claimed that Jesus just taught 'common sense' or sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts and that the Golden Rule (or again, if you have to be obstinate about it, whatever the term was in Language X, Y, or Z) simply mirrored it without connection or it's simply this evident thing all people should do and Jesus correctly told them to you know, do it.
No, Catholics follow a whole lot of things that do not accord with the Bible.
But this has absolutely nothing to do with their identities as followers and believers of Christ. Again, people who adhere to works outside of the King James Bible can be correctly termed Christians. This includes Catholics, Gnostics, or Martians who happened upon a Christian Bible in space. Whether or not they embellish or interpret it the same way as your faith is irrelevant.
For example, Christians DO NOT venerate Mary,
I don't know why not. She was clearly pure enough to have God's son in her womb and was with him in the end.
we do not believe that she is still a virgin,
She gave birth to natural children after Jesus, so yeah, I'd hope not or she has the world's most ridiculous conception system going on.
we do not pray to Mary, we do not pray to dead saints, worship statues, confess our sins to priests, pray The Rosary, believe the Eucharist becomes the literal body of Jesus Christ, practice penance in the Catholic sense (but we do confess our sins to God according to 1 John 1:9, and our trespasses to one another according to James 5:16 if we sin against someone), we do not recognize the Apocrypha as the Word of God, we do not believe in Purgatory, etc.These are just some of the differences between Christianity and Catholicism.
Those are practice differences and traditions in the Bible, I agree. But you stated that the Catholics "completely contradict the Bible" (your words). Stating things they do besides read the Bible and integrate it into their lives doesn't prove your point, since you didn't demonstrate how these things contradict the Bible. Most of it looks like interpreted belief in Christ and his teachings, and Mary is certainly worthy of respect given her role in the NT.
Regarding Apocrypha, seriously lol. The Bible is a selective gathering of the gospels that appealed to people most during Christian persecution and was organized by and for men. God did not bring us a binder full of works to then copy for his glory. Anything that was too esoteric or too strange/inconsistent to be included in the acceptable definition of the Bible according to some people (who believed only non-Gnostic bishops had a monpoly on the truth, like Irenaeus) were omitted. I find the idea that anyone dismisses alternatives out of hand because they "aren't in the OT/NT" needs to read more about the development of the Bible. In particular, Protestants wholesale wiped out books, so their approach is rather heavyhanded.
Regarding Purgatory, this is perhaps related to the Judaic concept of Gehenna, and you might be dimly aware that Jesus and his disciples were once Jews before they created their own faith. Therefore, a lot of Jewish traditions and influence is understandably intertwined with early Christian doctrine and remains in many places. This shouldn't surprise anyone, since the first five books of the OT are pretty much the Torah, and this remains true across all major sects of Christianity.