By iconoclasts i mean those who follow true religion of God.That is the continous and growing chain of God's/christ's church or in our present terminology non feminist protestantism for the last 2000 years despite severe persecutions from antichristians led by catholics.Catholicis was born in 4th century AD,when constantine gave christianity a special status in his empire.At that time most of his empire was pagans,neverthless they wanted state benefits and so they converted to christianity without any real repentence.Since they couldn't forgo their old idolatry,they changed the names of old idols to christian names and continued to use them in prayer and worship and this eventually came to be called as intercession/veneration of saints,similarly other religious traditions of pagan rome were transmuted to church like solar mass of dec.25th,virgin heirarchial priesthood,and nun system with monastic lifestyle of ancient pagan rome,fertility goddess ishtar festival to easter.True christians in contrast to catholic antichristians were, 1.apostolic church aka messianic judaism:existed from1-4th century in middle east,despite severe persecution from pagans 2.celtic & gothic arian christians,donatist:existed from 3-8th century in n.africa,europe.-they were stereotyped,downplayed and massacred by antichristian heretics aka catholics 3.manichaens:followers of apostle mani of persia,existed from 2nd-15th century AD in iran,central asia,china etc.They were stereotyped,downplayed and massacred 1st by catholics and then by the religion catholics created to do this dirty work,that is islam. 4.paulicians and bogomils-existed in turkey,balkans etc. Between 7th and 12th century,they were behind the 1st iconoclastic movement of 8th century AD,they were branded as heretics by catholics and were massacred by 12th century crusaders enroute to Jerusalem by a secret directive from the,then Pope Urban.Perhaps this was the real objective of crusades,since this massacre of paulicians and bogomils by heretic antichristians aka catholics was so complete. 5.cathars,strigolnikis,waldensians-cathars existed in france from 12th-14th century before getting completely massacred by catholic crusaders in cathar/albunesian crusades.strigolnikis existed in russia in the same period,and similarly killed by eastern orthodoxy aka the docile antichristian campanion of catholicism.Waldensians exists in Italy from the 12th century AD till present day,despite severe persecution from catholics. 6.protestants-existed from 15th century AD till present,oversaw the declining power of vatican 7.messianic judaism-1967 AD to present-full restoration and expansion of God's church so that all people living on earth shall be it's members.They will oversee destruction of all false religions including catholicism and rebuilding of Jerusalem temple in the coming WW3 and after that all people living on earth will be messianic jews aka God's church then, the end of church age will occur with the coming of Christ aka rapture in which believers-both living and dead will be taken to heaven and hypocrites left behind to face the real face of antichrist,and severest tribulation in the history of mankind for a period of 3.5 years. @jurgen-you asked how can God leave such an 'enormous' task to the 'weak'? Who do you say is weak,is it communist?christian? Who?...throughout history God used the weak/feeble/insignificant/outcasts in this world to do his magnificient works.You say the work is enormous,but did you know Jesus is alive at this present moment and he is building his church now as he was for nearly last 2000 years.The church Jesus is building is not over Peter's(petros-a small movable stone in original greek new testament) dead body as vatican claims,but over the petra-a large mass of imovable rock,which is Jesus himself.When Jesus said-peter you are a rock(a small stone) and on this rock( petra -a large immovable piece of rock,Jesus pointing at himself) i shall build my church".to know more about our past,present and future visit worldharvest.blogspot.com @jurgen-besides God wouldn't allow christians to destroy vatican but non christian communist atheist gog magog(sino russian) military in WW3 to destroy all false religions,and when they come to destroy the true religion thinking it's also false in the mountains of israel,they will be defeated as detailed in ezekiel 38,39 chapters,so that all world will understand that God of Israel is the only true living God and he is the God of every nation through Jesus Christ,his son just as he is Israel,for revealing his salvation plan,through Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection. @elts-you lack the courage,to accept the fact that catholics have corrupted the true history of church,by branding true christians as heretics believing in strange things and massacring them,and after that justifying and covering up their idolatry,killings by calling up councils,with their political/military power like those of nicea,thessalonikki,trent etc.You are making yourself a useful idiot for the vanity of antichristianity,when you fail to hear what God,says through me. @elts-i have no hatred for catholics.in fact my best Friends are catholics.But i don't agree with doctrines of catholicism that we are allowed to pray to so called 'saints' in heaven and also use images/statues in prayer and worship.my humble opinion is that all this amounts to idolatry ,in the eyes of the living God,who fulfills his words.Coming to your opinion,that new testament was originally written in aramaic(hebrew mix) rather than greek,is refuted by most scholars who have studied the matter scientifically.Further it amazes me how your brainwashed mind ,reacts with blunt logic,to see things which i have not written-That is petra(greek feminine) cannot refer to peter as he is male.Yes that is exactly what i said,although you failed to grasp it in your emotion..Greek words petra-is female noun of rock,whose male counterpart is petros.These 2 words also differ in meaning,petra-means a large mass of rock,immovable,while petros means a small movable stone.So in these words Jesus is t @elts(continuation)-So in these words Jesus is telling peter-"you are petros(a small movable stone),and i shall build my church on this petra(a large mass of immovable rock,which jesus said pointing at himself)".This is contrary to catholic teaching,that church is built on peter's dead body under vatican-figurative usage of real implications of vatican's claim of peter's dead body being under vatican.If you have any doubts you are free to verify open source documents,without logical contradictions to the relevant matter under consideration
Religion & Spirituality - 5 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
TOO MUCH TEXT.
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You may be correct in some assertions.But, how could God leave such an enormous task to the weak. Your No 3 assertions that Islam is a product of Catholics are mere parroting from others,this is sheer rubbish which Christians would like people to believe by shoving down the throat. But,the sack by Latin was monstrous reflecting the draconic character of their faith. God have his own way of doing thing which is beyond the wisdom of any human. In fact,it was Islam that destroyed the icons and the images that persisted in the Byzantine orthodox Empire. It was Islam who liberated the true believers of Christ and the Arabs from the tyranny rule of Byzantine(from the beast and the false prophet).
3 :
(had to delete some text because post was too long): I can understand your reasoning that praying to saints is the same as worshiping them. However, this is largely because of the fact that you only pray to God -- which makes your prayers synonymous to worship. However, in Catholicism, prayer does not always mean worship. We reserve worship for God. However, we pray to saints to ask them to intercede for us. If you look up 'pray' in the dictionary, one of the definitions is 'an earnest or urgent request'. A request is not the same as worship. Furthermore, God forbids the worship of statues, but not the religious use of statues. Even the ark of the covenant was adorned with images and statues of cherubim, at God's command. When a Catholic 'bows' to a statue, he/she is not worshiping the statue, but honoring the person that the statue represents. It is not the same as worship -- just as bowing to one another is a gesture of respect and not a gesture of worship. I did not say that the New Testament itself was written in Aramaic. I said that the book of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic. Scholars agree that most of the books in the New Testament were Greek, however they agree that the book of Matthew was originally Aramaic. I think you are misunderstanding what my point is. Jesus spoke Aramaic to his disciples. Thus, he said "You are CEPHAS, and on this CEPHAS I will build my church." In other words, "you are ROCK, and on this ROCK I will build my church." Aramaic has no distinction in gender, so the word for 'rock' and 'Peter' are the exact same. In many Bibles, Peter is even referred to as 'Cephas'. Therefore, 'petros' AND 'petra' are both equivalent to 'cephas'. The reason that we have petros-petra is because Peter is male and thus his name had to be rendered in the masculine form. Furthermore, You completely ignored one of my major points. Both petros and petra mean the EXACT SAME THING in Koine Greek. Koine Greek is the Greek in the Bible. In Koine Greek, the word for pebble is 'lithos', NOT 'petros'. Only in ATTIC Greek (and Modern Greek) does the distinction between petros and petra exist. So, petros and petra BOTH mean 'rock', and petros does NOT mean 'pebble'. Not only this, the word 'kai' is used to connect the two clauses together as a continuity of thought. If the translator had wanted to stress a distinction between Peter and 'the Rock', then the more appropriate word would be 'alla' or 'de'. But alas, it is 'kai', which means that the author is equating 'petra' to 'petros'. Your argument that they can't be referring to the same thing because one is masculine and the other is feminine is false, because this rule of gender agreement is only true of adjectives and not nouns. petra and petros are both nouns and therefore aren't subject to the rules of gender agreement that you have argued for. Finally, the demonstrative 'this' is a NEAR demonstrative, and so it cannot refer to Jesus Himself, but to one close by. If you still don't understand, I suggest you look at this site. It includes several quotes from Protestant/Evangelical scholars who agree that the sentence is referring to Peter as the Rock: http://catholicity.elcore.net/SimonIsTheRock.html So to recap: - Jesus spoke to his disciples in Aramaic. The most widely accepted view by scholars today is that the gospel of Matthew was written in Aramaic. - In Aramaic, the word for 'Peter' and 'ROCK' are the exact same -- Cephas. In Aramaic, there is absolutely no way that Jesus could have been referring to Himself, given the context of the sentence. If Aramaic had wanted Peter to be 'little pebble', it would be 'Evna', not 'Cephas'. Yet as we see, Peter is never referred to as Evna in the New Testament, but as Cephas. - In Koine Greek, the Greek used in the Bible, petros does not mean 'small movable rock', and petra does not mean 'large immovable rock'. They both mean 'rock'. Only in Attic Greek do they mean these things, and Attic Greek is NOT Biblical Greek. - The Greek should have been rendered as petra-petra, but this was impossible for the simple fact that Peter is a man, so it had to be rendered as petros-petra. The problem here is that Greek has gender, while Aramaic does not. - The fact that the two words are not the same does not matter, because the rule of gender agreement does not apply to nouns as they do to adjectives, in Koine Greek. - There is no evidence that Jesus 'pointed to Himself' You are arguing your point on the basis of Attic/Modern Greek and not Koine Greek, and dismissing the fact that Jesus spoke in Aramaic. Greek was only the lingua franca used in trade and business affairs. He did not speak it to His disciples. Therefore, REGARDLESS of what what the Greek rendition of Matthew might be, it does not change the fact that Jesus said cephas-cephas. Peter is the rock.
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5 :
this is ridiculous. You know nothing of the history of christianity
