Comparing Catholic Beliefs with the Teachings of Jesus in Scripture

[Cooky]

In reading the entire chapter, we see that everything Solomon did in building the temple, was at God's explicit instructions. The exact measurements were given, the materials to be used, and what was to be included. None of what he asked Solomon to make was idolatrous. The walls were decorated with palm trees and flowers along with the cherubs. The picture you provided with the Catholic version of a cherub is somewhat ridiculous. Why is it feminine? Do you imagine cherubs to be like weak wimpy women? Cherubs are powerful spirit beings who have no physical form unless they materialise. They have a high rank among God's angelic servants and are pictured in guardianship positions. So the cherubs in the Most Holy compartment of the temple must have been made at God's instruction.....they were never seen by anyone but the high priest. Decorations on the walls were just that.....not part of Israel's worship. Israel fell to idolatry on several occasions, and God punished them for it. For some reason, humans need to see some physical representation of God to facilitate their worship....but in Israel, God never permitted it.

@Deeje, two things:

1. scriptures (1 Kings 6:29) seem to suggest that the cherubs were carved "within and without" the temple. Regardless, they were seen by human eyes, and in a place of worship none the less.
2. There will be no Male / female in heaven... No masculine / feminine... No sex... As such there is no need for worldly sexual differentiation.

 

[Deeje]

@Deeje, two things:

1. scriptures seem to suggest that the cherubs were carved "within and without" the temple. Regardless, they were seen by human eyes.

The decorations were not part of worship. They were decorations not idols. The ones in the Most Holy compartment were three dimensional but they were screened off, which your illustrations do not show. The Most Holy where the Ark was kept was not visible to anyone because it was behind a very solid ornately woven curtain. (Exodus 40:21)

There will be no Male / female in heaven... No masculine / feminine... As there is no need for worldly sexual differentiation.

Angels were always masculine when they materialised. Spirit beings have no need of gender since they do not procreate. But in the family arrangement, God created males to be the head of the family as well as leaders and teachers in the congregations of his people. Israel's priests were never females, but women had their own role in God's arrangement. It was always a complementary one. Eve was created to be a complement of Adam, meaning that they were always meant to operate as a team. The headship arrangement was never intended to be a dictatorship, but once sin entered into the picture, everything got bent out of shape. When we humans venture outside of our intended role, conflict is not far away.

When you mention no male/female in heaven, it was alluding to those chosen to rule with Christ in heaven. These are humans who will give up any gender identification in the spirit realm because it will no longer be relevant to their role as kings and priests. (Revelation 20:6) Human females could never have become priests or rulers in Israel. But as spirit beings, God chose them for their faithfulness, not their gender.

 

[Cooky]

The decorations were not part of worship. They were decorations not idols. The ones in the Most Holy compartment were three dimensional but they were screened off, which your illustrations do not show. The Most Holy where the Ark was kept was not visible to anyone because it was behind a very solid ornately woven curtain. (Exodus 40:21)

As such, the Catholic Church condemns the idolatry of statue worship.

Angels were always masculine when they materialised. Spirit beings have no need of gender since they do not procreate. But in the family arrangement, God created males to be the head of the family as well as leaders and teachers in the congregations of his people. Israel's priests were never females, but women had their own role in God's arrangement. It was always a complementary one. Eve was created to be a complement of Adam, meaning that they were always meant to operate as a team. The headship arrangement was never intended to be a dictatorship, but once sin entered into the picture, everything got bent out of shape. When we humans venture outside of our intended role, conflict is not far away.

When you mention no male/female in heaven, it was alluding to those chosen to rule with Christ in heaven. These are humans who will give up any gender identification in the spirit realm because it will no longer be relevant to their role as kings and priests. (Revelation 20:6) Human females could never have become priests or rulers in Israel. But as spirit beings, God chose them for their faithfulness, not their gender.

We agree.

 

[The Anointed]

No, the letters written by Peter, Paul, John and others were not "circulated among the congregations"... Please stop making things up.

...The letters were locked up along with all the other letters that the Roman Church discarded and rejected from including in the scriptures. Please get your facts straight.



The Council of Toulouse was a local council set up to deal with the Albigensian/Manichean heresy in southern France where re-scripted bibles, produced by Muslim Moors, with defective translations contained false information. All bibles were ordered to be turned in and were burned to protect the integrity of the scriptures.

Later on, a similar scenario occurred, where the integrity of the bible was once again being compromised by unqualified people re-translating, and re-printing the bible... Again, the bibles were taken and protected for integrity purposes.

...Honestly, you have a lot to thank the Catholic Church for. If not for the Church doing what she did, there would me multitudes of bibles circulating, and nobody wod know the true word. It was never to "control an ignorant population" as you falsely claim.



Yes, thanks to the Catholic Church, you do have a bible that is authentically accurate. As far as teaching the opposite, you just don't interpret the bible correctly, which is why you are mistaken.



If Christendom is a mirror image of the Pharisees, then you can show us how.



This is a prime example of why you do not understand the bible properly. Because if what you say is true, then why did GOD Himself command idolatry by giving instructions on making graven cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant, just to give one example?

...Did God contradict himself? Or does JW not understand?

View attachment 26266



Then why does scripture say that it was a cross? Do you reject certain scriptures but not others?
What Does the Bible Say About Cross?



We honor the sacrifice of Christ. I'm sorry that JW's are proud and not humble.



Says the JW's who refuse even life saving medical treatments based on radical literal interpretations of scripture.



Clearly JW cannot understand the concept of Prudential judgement. Also, science and education must also be evil, in your opinion, since they did not come from scripture.



Again, this shows the JW inability to interpret scriptures. For you are not Jesus Christ, the only son of God the Father.




Yes, but only based on the JW's faulty interpretations of Holy Scriptures.



Spoken as the JW Church molests THOUSANDS of children... According to your own standards, the Jehovah's Witness Church is itself an abomination filled with disgrace, and will be held accountable.

Jehovah's Witnesses Church 'did not report more than 1,000 allegations of child sex abuse'
Church 'did not report more than 1,000 allegations of child sex abuse'

I see in your chosen image of the ark of the covenant, you have the cherubs depicted as angelic human like beings, whereas the bible reveals that the Cherubim, which are representations of the chariot of God, are depicted as winged bulls.

 

[2ndpillar]

As such, the Catholic Church condemns the idolatry of statue worship.

What is the Catholic position of praying to the dead, and using graven images to help in that pursuit?

 

[Cooky]

You're probably right, but there's no way to really describe exactly what the cherubs looked like on the walls of the temple. The Catholic encyclopedia does seem to suggest they resembled winged bulls.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Cherubim

 

[2ndpillar]

Angels were always masculine when they materialised. Spirit beings have no need of gender since they do not procreate.

As the "sons of God took wives and had offspring (Genesis 6:2-4), I am thinking angels/Cherubim/Seraphim could procreate, but were not supposed to. According to Enoch, the "heavenly watchers took wives, which might have been the seraphim. There is some thought that one pair of the 6 wings was to cover the genitals of the Seraphim. Not proof, but interesting. Seraphim, Cherubim & The Four Living Creatures -- whyangels?com

 

[Cooky]

What is the Catholic position of praying to the dead, and using graven images to help in that pursuit?

We don't really have a position, that I'm aware of, involving praying to the dead. We do believe that some people ener heaven immediately after death, (saints), and that others spend time in upper hades (purgatory) depending on how they lived their lives...

But as far as communicating with the saints in heaven - It is permitted. However using "graven images" to do so, I don't know anything about that.

 

[The Anointed]

You're probably right, but there's no way to really describe exactly what the cherubs looked like on the walls of the temple. The Catholic encyclopedia does seem to suggest they resembled winged bulls.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Cherubim

Not really interested in what the lying Roman Church of Emperor Constantine has to say on the subject. I believe the Holy Scriptures, which reveal that the Cherubs, which are representations of God's chariot, are depicted in the form of Golden Winged Bulls.

The two greater cherubs in the Holy of Holies, whose wings overshadowed the two lesser cherubs on the lid of the covenant box, were taken by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar and stripped of their gold, but the covenant box had already been taken by Jeremiah and hidden in a cave on the mountain that Moses had climbed in order to gaze upon the promised land, before dying at the command of God, where it remains to this day.

The Catholic Church does not even know who Azazel is. In the margins of the Good News Bible Catholic Study Edition, it is written that the Hebrew word 'AZAZEL' is unknown and may be the name of some desert demon, whereas the Holy Scriptures reveal that Azazel was one of the sons of God who came down to earth as observers, or watchers as Enoch calls them, and it was Azazel to whom all sin is to be ascribed.

That is why Moses gave to his brother Aaron the religious regulation, to choose a scape goat and lay his hands upon its head thereby symbolically transferring the sins of Israel unto the goat which was sent out into the wilderness to Azazel.

 

[Deeje]

Sorry, I got interrupted.....where were we...?

As such, the Catholic Church condemns the idolatry of statue worship.

Yes, I have had that told to me many times by Catholic people...but the fact remains that no images were to be used in worship that were not prescribed in every detail by God. When you make images of people that you have no idea what they looked like, you run the risk of the devil taking advantage of your disobedience. I mean, would you like someone to flash a picture of Donald Trump and then tell everyone that it was you?

I once had a very devout Catholic lady show me a picture of the Virgin Mary in the clouds. She was so adoring of that picture but when I mentioned that it was a picture of a statue and not a human, and asked why Mary would not appear in person, she was at a loss to explain. Isn't it easy to have a lend of someone who has been trained from childhood to see images as real people....? Performing worship before an image is idolatry, pure and simple.

God's law forbade the "making" of "any" images....period. (Exodus 20:4-5) That includes two dimensional ones like icons. If they are used in worship as these pictures clearly indicate, then the camera is not lying...the church is. The cross is an image too.

What do you consider an act of worship to be?

We agree.

Awesome!...a point of agreement.

 

[Cooky]

Not really interested in what the lying Roman Church of Emperor Constantine has to say on the subject. I believe the Holy Scriptures, which reveal that the Cherubs, which are representations of God's chariot, are depicted in the form of Golden Winged Bulls.

The two greater cherubs in the Holy of Holies, whose wings overshadowed the two lesser cherubs on the lid of the covenant box, were taken by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar and stripped of their gold, but the covenant box had already been taken by Jeremiah and hidden in a cave on the mountain that Moses had climbed in order to gaze upon the promised land, before dying at the command of God, where it remains to this day.

The Catholic Church does not even know who Azazel is. In the margins of the Good News Bible Catholic Study Edition, it is written that the Hebrew word 'AZAZEL' is unknown and may be the name of some desert demon, whereas the Holy Scriptures reveal that Azazel was one of the sons of God who came down to earth as observers, or watchers as Enoch calls them, and it was Azazel to whom all sin is to be ascribed.

That is why Moses gave to his brother Aaron the religious regulation, to choose a scape goat and lay his hands upon its head thereby symbolically transferring the sins of Israel unto the goat which was sent out into the wilderness to Azazel.

Not sure why you call it the Church of Emperer Constantine, when Constantine was merely a convert to Christianity, and not a clergyman. Would you rather him have remained Pagan?

 

[Cooky]

Sorry, I got interrupted.....where were we...?



Yes, I have had that told to me many times by Catholic people...but the fact remains that no images were to be used in worship that were not prescribed in every detail by God. When you make images of people that you have no idea what they looked like, you run the risk of the devil taking advantage of your disobedience. I mean, would you like someone to flash a picture of Donald Trump and then tell everyone that it was you?

I once had a very devout Catholic lady show me a picture of the Virgin Mary in the clouds. She was so adoring of that picture but when I mentioned that it was a picture of a statue and not a human, and asked why Mary would not appear in person, she was at a loss to explain. Isn't it easy to have a lend of someone who has been trained from childhood to see images as real people....? Performing worship before an image is idolatry, pure and simple.

God's law forbade the "making" of "any" images....period. (Exodus 20:4-5) That includes two dimensional ones like icons. If they are used in worship as these pictures clearly indicate, then the camera is not lying...the church is. The cross is an image too.

What do you consider an act of worship to be?



Awesome!...a point of agreement.

@Deeje, you're mistaken...

NOBODY kneels to statues or crosses. If you look closer at those propoganda pictures, it is what is inside the monstrace that they're kneeling and prostrating before. Also, many non-Catholics don't realize this, but in every church and chapel, you will see a lit candle that shows which direction the tabernacle is, which is a locked up box that contains the Body of Christ. Here is the tabernacle:

Look closer, at your own pictures, and you will likely see one of the following things that they kneeling or bowing before -which contains, at it's center, Christ Jesus' Body:

 

[The Anointed]

Sorry, I got interrupted.....where were we...?



Yes, I have had that told to me many times by Catholic people...but the fact remains that no images were to be used in worship that were not prescribed in every detail by God. When you make images of people that you have no idea what they looked like, you run the risk of the devil taking advantage of your disobedience. I mean, would you like someone to flash a picture of Donald Trump and then tell everyone that it was you?

I once had a very devout Catholic lady show me a picture of the Virgin Mary in the clouds. She was so adoring of that picture but when I mentioned that it was a picture of a statue and not a human, and asked why Mary would not appear in person, she was at a loss to explain. Isn't it easy to have a lend of someone who has been trained from childhood to see images as real people....? Performing worship before an image is idolatry, pure and simple.

God's law forbade the "making" of "any" images....period. (Exodus 20:4-5) That includes two dimensional ones like icons. If they are used in worship as these pictures clearly indicate, then the camera is not lying...the church is. The cross is an image too.

What do you consider an act of worship to be?



Awesome!...a point of agreement.

Jesus, the grandson of Alexander Helios=Heli was called God, the son of God, King of kings, etc, which was not unusual in those days. Originally, Cleopatra ruled with her father Ptolemy XII and later with her brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, whom she married as per Egyptian custom, but eventually she became sole ruler.

No children were born from her union with her two brothers, but she did bear a son [Caesarion] to Julius Caesar, who was later elevated to co-ruler in name only. It is also written, at the time the assassination of Caesar by Brutus and his companions, that Cleopatra was living in Rome in a villa of Caesars, who then, fearing for her life also, fled Rome and returned to Alexandria in Egypt.

Cicero was to later write a series of letters alluding to the fact that she was at that time pregnant with a second child by Julius Caesar. If Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and Clepoatra, who Augustus had murdered, had a full sister she would not have been seen as a threat to the new Caesar Augustus as Caesarion was, and would have been spared, as no woman could rule in Rome.

Cleopatra represented herself as the reincarnation of the Egyptian goddess ‘Isis’, and was given the title of “Queen of Kings” by Mark Anthony. Her son ‘Caesarion’ was also given many titles, including ‘god’, ‘Son of god’ and ‘King of Kings’ and was depicted as Horus the son of Isis. It was after the assassination of Caesar in 44 BC, that Cleopatra coupled up with Mark Anthony and in 40 BC she bore to him the twins Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios, and later on another son, Ptolemy Philadelphus.

In late 34 BC, at the Donations of Alexandria, shortly after Anthony had conquered Armenia, Cleopatra and Caesarion were crowned rulers of Egypt and Cyprus. Alexander Helios, their six-year-old son, was crowned ruler of Aemenia, Media and Parthia; Cleopatra Selene II, Heli’s six-year-old twin sister, was crowned ruler of Cyrenaica and Libya, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, the younger of their three children was crowned ruler of Phoenicia, Syria and Cilicia.

Isis was the most popular goddess from the time of Psamtik 1 (663-610 B.C) till the coming of Christianity, her cult appealed to the Greeks and Romans alike and when Egypt came under Roman rule, her cult spread through much of Europe. By the time of Jesus, the chief centre of her worship was in Rome. Isis is commonly depicted with Horus the child (Harpocrates) on her lap, and today, it is almost impossible to distinguish between the late pagan and 4th century Christian icons of the mother and child, [Isis and Horus---Mary and Jesus] it’s almost as though the old Pagan Queen was stripped of her mythical garments and clothed with the new covering of Christianity.

 

[Cooky]

...Sometimes, there may be a statue of Mary on the altar, which may look suspect in random pictures for those who are unaware, but behind that, there is either the monstrace or the box (tabernacle) which holds the Body of Christ. This, we kneel and bow our heads to.

...It is not even the cross that we're kneeling to.

Hilarious what non-Catholics think or "assume"!

 

[The Anointed]

Not sure why you call it the Church of Emperer Constantine, when Constantine was merely a convert to Christianity, and not a clergyman. Would you rather him have remained Pagan?

Emperor Constantine who founded his church in the fourth century, was only converted to that false religion while he lay on his death bed.

 

[2ndpillar]

We don't really have a position, that I'm aware of, involving praying to the dead. We do believe that some people ener heaven immediately after death, (saints), and that others spend time in upper hades (purgatory) depending on how they lived their lives...

But as far as communicating with the saints in heaven - It is permitted. However using "graven images" to do so, I don't know anything about that.

As far as I know, there is only one supposed "saint" in heaven, and that is Mary, by virtue of a ex cathedra in the 1950s, well after the graven images of Mary were positioned in front of many churches, in which the old ladies lighted candles, and said Hail Mary's in cadence to their rosery beads. Parishioners could buy Saint Christopher medals to give them a graven image to pray to, although the actual existence of the guy is unknown, but older Catholics seem to pray to him, although, if he didn't exist, it couldn't be called praying to the dead. On the other hand, most churches have people such as Joseph, who are dead, and have graven images, but who don't have the following of Mary. At one parish, the candle comes at a cost of $3.00, for which the parishioner is hoping to get a favor fulfilled. A good racket in the old days, but I think there are fewer and fewer old lady adherents.
Light a Candle

 

[2ndpillar]

...Sometimes, there may be a statue of Mary on the altar, which may look suspect in random pictures for those who are unaware, but behind that, there is either the monstrace or the box (tabernacle) which holds the Body of Christ. This, we kneel and bow our heads to.

...It is not even the cross that we're kneeling to.

Hilarious what non-Catholics think or "assume"!

I was raised a Roman Catholic, and went to a parochial school, and my family remains Roman Catholics. We had a statue of Mary on the far right of the front of the church, with candles and kneeling platform, and a statue of Joseph on the left side of the building with candles and kneeling platform. I can't remember anyone lighting a candle and praying to poor Joseph, but maybe I wasn't paying attention. The last time I went to that church, for a funeral, they had removed the statues. I think the hypocrisy might have been getting to them, but on second thought, it was a rich church, and they redid the whole church in a more modern motif, and who knows what they did with the statues.

 

[Cooky]

Emperor Constantine who founded his church in the fourth century, was only converted to that false religion while he lay on his death bed.

Which church is Constantine's Church? We Catholics don't acknowledge him, so I know it's not ours.

 

[Cooky]

I was raised a Roman Catholic, and went to a parochial school, and my family remains Roman Catholics. We had a statue of Mary on the far right of the front of the church, with candles and kneeling platform, and a statue of Joseph on the left side of the building with candles and kneeling platform. I can't remember anyone lighting a candle and praying to poor Joseph, but maybe I wasn't paying attention. The last time I went to that church, for a funeral, they had removed the statues. I think the hypocrisy might have been getting to them, but on second thought, it was a rich church, and they redid the whole church in a more modern motif, and who knows what they did with the statues.

They probably destroyed them and threw them away. Personally, I wouldn't be offended if people got on peoples cases who get carried away with the statues... They're certainly not meant to be worshipped, but there are stupid people in every Church, Lord have mercy.

 

[Cooky]

As far as I know, there is only one supposed "saint" in heaven, and that is Mary, by virtue of a ex cathedra in the 1950s, well after the graven images of Mary were positioned in front of many churches, in which the old ladies lighted candles, and said Hail Mary's in cadence to their rosery beads. Parishioners could buy Saint Christopher medals to give them a graven image to pray to, although the actual existence of the guy is unknown, but older Catholics seem to pray to him, although, if he didn't exist, it couldn't be called praying to the dead. On the other hand, most churches have people such as Joseph, who are dead, and have graven images, but who don't have the following of Mary. At one parish, the candle comes at a cost of $3.00, for which the parishioner is hoping to get a favor fulfilled. A good racket in the old days, but I think there are fewer and fewer old lady adherents.
Light a Candle

There are literally hundreds of Canonized Saints. Mother Teresa is one of the Most recent people who have been officially canonized.

...She is now St. Teresa.

She is with GOD in heaven. We can communicate to her through prayer. And she can hear us.