Stumbled upon this

    "I was raised and schooled in the Roman Catholic Church. I have practiced my faith piously and devoutly for my entire life. I was a Marian devotee and wore a scapular for 35 years. Now, widowed at age 61, after having read through the entire Bible, for the first time I find myself feeling eerily different, even distant, about my religion.

    My most pious relatives and the devout among my Catholic friends are vitriolic and acrimonious in their scorn and rebuke since they discovered I have presumed to read and attempt to understand the Holy Scriptures without the aid of a priest or officially approved Roman Catholic literature.

    They often will scream and yell about Protestant misinterpretations of Christian beliefs established long ago by early church fathers, about the abandonment of Roman Catholic traditions or about numerous Protestant Bibles with flawed translations. They seem self-righteously proud they have avoided attempting to read the Bible for themselves. They tell me that I am a fool, while assuring me that they "KNOW" what they believe.

    I find I am embroiled in a holy war over the issue of my daily routine of studying in the Scofield Reference Bible while listening to a Protestant minister on the radio who sequentially reads through the entire Bible with commentary, explanation, word studies and personal reflections drawn from a lifetime of ministry.

    A small group of my relatives and Catholic friends have begun attempting to distract me during the time of these Bible study broadcasts. I have responded by avoiding them, making myself unavailable, and by discovering the different times other radio stations air the same Bible study in my area. I now tune-in on short-wave radio twice a day.

    Their attitudes and actions are driving me away from the Mother Church because when I attend Mass is when I suffer their unrelenting vocal attacks in public. It is most embarrassing when they bring our Monsignor into the fray, for he supports my detractor's opinions. It makes my attendance at weddings, funerals, etc., a difficult and uncomfortable situation.

    The buzz escalated to a howl when it was discovered I modestly support the organization of the radio minister and purchase bound copies of his commentaries comprising the broadcast material. Now, one close relative often brings nuns to my home to pray for me, three other relatives have made a donation to have mass said for my recovery, and several groups of friends claim to pray the rosary for me, that I might recover my senses and return to being a good Catholic once again.

    They are most upset over the fact that I am beginning to realize that the Roman Catholic faith is a sham, that it is a false religion fashioned around showy but powerless rituals and spectacular but worthless ceremonies rooted in pre-Christian religions. For having read through the whole Bible I now see clearly that the pre-Christian religious practices described in the Old Testament, which God commanded the Hebrews to avoid, are mostly the current religious practices of the Roman Catholic Church.

    I was quite startled to discover that Protestant Bibles contain a proscription in the Second Commandment against religiously associated idols of any kind, and against images of any living thing when the idols and images are for religious purposes. It is that since no human has ever seen God, no human can ever produce a replica or likeness of God that would be remotely accurate. Which would render every religiously associated idol and image the worthless status of being either a pathetic counterfeit of the Real God or of being an unholy substitute for the True God. And that this worthless and forbidden status applies to all religiously associated idols and images without exception.

    Not one officially approved Roman Catholic Bible I have examined contains the Second Commandment proscription against idols and images used in religious worship or involved in pious devotional practices. I get the impression that Roman Catholicism has altered some scriptures to suit its religious practices rather than adjusting its religious practices to fit God's Holy Scripture.

    I shudder to think I spent almost sixty years ignorantly engaging in idolatry, identified by and condemned by God in the Bible, simply because that is the way I was raised, that is the faith I was taught. It is scary to realize that I might have never discovered the truth and could have delusionally gone to my grave unsaved while falsely believing I was a saved Christian.

    My detractors are making my life a living hell. I am considering moving away from my family, my lifelong friends and my hometown just to have some peace and to regain a more normal and less contentious lifestyle.

    Is there really, as I feel the Bible clearly indicates, something terribly wrong with the Roman Catholic religion?

    Are my current feelings about the Roman Catholic faith justified?

                                                                                 Anonymous writer
                                                               Name and location withheld, by request.

thrash

kosovo has come here to post rubbish.

;d :d

Simple. Tell him to google "Catholic Church" and read up on it. Then he can make up his mind

And Roman Catholic idolatry feeds and bolsters humanity's pagan, heathen, spiritual inclination which conforms itself to the natural world so easily. A natural spiritual inclination that the Apostle Paul declares each new, individual, Christian convert must "put-off" (quit, repent-of) in order for God's Holy Spirit to transform one into an authentic Christian "believer" by the spiritual renewal of one's formerly idolatrous, pagan, heathen mind. (See: Romans 12: 1-3)


The Roman Catholic religious system has never had this obligatory experience of spiritual repentance and renewal.

It has never become either holy or sanctified in God's eyes.

Why haven't Roman Catholics noticed what God says?

NO IDOLS! NO IMAGES!

This means: AT ALL TIMES!, See More

No "RELIGIOUS" usage of statues or likenesses of anything!

NONE, WHATSOEVER!

What could be simpler or easier to comprehend?

Within both Judaism and "Authentic" Christianity, there are absolutely no circumstances where God finds idols or images acceptable. NONE, WHATSOEVER !



About "IDOLS": God declares that ALL idols are blind, dead, deaf, empty-of-life, forbidden, mute, religiously worthless, spiritually powerless, sinful. God calls the religious use of idols "Spiritual Adultery"! See: Lev.19:4 - Jer. Ch. 3


About "IMAGES": (Likenesses, Statues and Symbols) Forbidden, whether they are carved, cast, graven, molded or molten - See: Lev. 26:1 - Deu. 5:8 - Deu. 16:22 - Deu. 27:15 - Jer. 10:14

Generally, After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

@Kosovo

There are hundreds of die-hard catholic parish defenders that would rather die than accept the truth.I guess when lies have been repeated over and over again it becomes the "truth" and they find it hard to believe that what they have come to believe was the truth was all a scam!

98% of all their practices have no relation with the bible and their block heads still can't add one and two together.

Dummies

In between, i have a post concerning more Christian issues.You're views are welcome.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-372836.0.html

Interesting post!No idols?No images?

The fact is, as long as one subscribes to any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths, one is already an IDOL worshipper.
What is Yahweh?AN IDOL/IMAGE!
What is Jesus?An IDOL/IMAGE!
What is the judeo-christian triune deity concept?An IDOL/IMAGE!

So, you see there is no escaping the idol sin because all are committing it.

kosovo:

Why haven't Roman Catholics noticed what God says?

NO IDOLS! NO IMAGES!

This means: AT ALL TIMES!, See More

No "RELIGIOUS" usage of statues or likenesses of anything!

NONE, WHATSOEVER!

What could be simpler or easier to comprehend?

all the blame is always on the Catholic Church. this was the root of Christianity. if it is corrupt, then all the branches would be equally corrupt. deduct some books and conclude that the Bible is complete despite the extractions.

Kay 17:

all the blame is always on the Catholic Church. this was the root of Christianity. if it is corrupt, then all the branches would be equally corrupt. deduct some books and conclude that the Bible is complete despite the extractions.

You honestly have a point there

christian that condems the roman catholic have no sense. How can you condemn the mainstream institution of christiany for over 1,500 years. Are you saying all the xtians from the rise of roman catholism to the advent of protestanism were idolators?

the_seeker:

christian that condems the roman catholic have no sense. How can you condemn the mainstream institution of christiany for over 1,500 years. Are you saying all the xtians from the rise of roman catholism to the advent of protestanism were idolators?

Muslims who condemn the whole of Christianity are even far more idiotic. How can you condemn the Biblical faiths from which Islam draws heavily?

viaro:

Muslims who condemn the whole of Christianity are even far more idiotic. How can you condemn the Biblical faiths from which Islam draws heavily?