CATHOLIC BISHOPS THREATEN THE SOULS OF THOSE WHO VOTE CONTRARY TO CATHOLIC TEACHINGS
NOW I KNOW WHY I WOULD NEVER BE A CATHOLIC
CHRISTIANITY IS A RELIGION OF ENDLESS LOVE, UNADULTERATED FOREGIVENESS, AND UNQUALIFIED ACCEPTANCE NOT THREATS AND LAWS
ESPECIALLY WHEN THOSE LAWS WERE MADE BY MEN WHO FOLLOW THE TEACHINGS OF PAUL RATHER THAN THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
There are times when the modern Roman Catholic Church forgets that it is a Christian Church.
Ordering people to vote in a particular way is neither democratic nor Christian. It is totalitarianism!
The hierarchy of the church appointed a committee to decide what books would appear in both the Old and New Testament in the 4th century under the piercing eye of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor. Later as circumstance dictated new doctrine became part of the Papal law and thus imposed upon the congregates to obey. It was not the finger of God, It wasn’t even devoted scholars. It was a political decision, or if you will part of Constantine’s plan to unite his empire by establishing one state religion. It was a deep-seated religious conversion or even the shallow call to the altar. It was pure politics.
Some of these “rules” or canon did not emanate from the essence of the oral traditions which were the only teachings of Jesus that had unquestioned validity.
For example the concept of the virgin birth originated from the urgent need of the new church to appeal to the Jews who comprised the vast majority of the new congregations popping up around Jerusalem.
Paul disagreed and he moved his mission out into the vast countryside heading directly for Rome. He directed his message to both the Greeks and the Romans excluding Peter’s requisite of affiliation with the Jewish synagogue from his edition of the gospel..
As the membership in the Christian Church began to fade, the hierarchy of the church, to give additional credence to Jesus’ life and death, instituted the myth of the virgin birth to satisfy the need for Jesus to be born of a woman without sin so that he too could be sinless.
Because the new Messiah of Israel had to be born of a virgin, to be born outside the sin of human sexual intercourse, the Jerusalem church devised the concept of the virgin birth.. Since the word virgin has nine different meanings in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin versions of the story, while without great credence the cannon ordaining Jesus the son of a chaste woman without benefit of intercourse made Him a legitimate heir for Messiah-ship.
The first schism of Christianity arose with the conflict between Paul and Peter. Peter insisted that all members of the congregation must first be Jewish prior to becoming Christians. Paul held no such requisites. More importantly, this assemblage of new Christians was determined to settle the quarrel once and for all whether Jesus was of the substance or the nature of God. If he were born of a virgin, he was born sinless and therefore while packaged in the flesh of humans was in reality the substance of God
Paul in none of the twenty-six (26) books attributed to him or associated with him, even mentions the virgin birth, suggests in any way that Jesus was born of a virgin, in fact, Paul writes that Jesus was born like any other man.
Obviously, Paul puts Peters’ congregations in a bind having sworn to Jesus’ virgin birth as part of their determined effort to make Jesus the long awaited New Messiah and his birth the rightful appearance of God on earth.
While, the Churches in Jerusalem opened its doors to the Jews with a certifiable claim that Jesus was the “King of Kings, Lord of Lords,” and of course, the Messiah, Paul was focusing on the man Jesus and his gospel of love, acceptance and forgiveness.
In other words, the fourth century meeting was called to determine whether Jesus was of the substance, or the nature of God.
They met. They quarreled. They fought and after a prolong and violent debate, they voted that Jesus was, in fact, of the substance of God.
I make this point to simply point out that much of what we know about Jesus did not come from some divine revelation. The Bible in no way reflects the Word of God.
The books have been written, rewritten, translated and retranslated. In the end, what the Bible does is from time to time gives us the actual words of Jesus as delivered to us through oral tradition and then when we are lucky written down decades later in a form analogous to the words Jesus actually spoke. Thomas Jefferson agrees:
“The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."
“Jefferson was convinced that the authentic words of Jesus written in the New Testament had been contaminated. Early Christians, overly eager to make their religion appealing to the pagans, had obscured the words of Jesus with the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and the teachings of Plato. These "Platonists" had thoroughly muddled Jesus' original message.”
Jesus would roll over in his grave if he knew what the Roman Catholic Church and more than several hundred congregations, sects, etc that claim to be speaking for Him and acting in his name were doing with the simple message he devoted three years of his life to articulate.
When it comes to the d the Old Testament, my fifty years of study tells me is in no way related to Christianity. The Old Testament is precisely the law that came from the unclean hands and the rigid orthodoxy of the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus labeled hypocrites. He looked them straight in the eye and said: “[Matt 23:27-28] Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
The Roman Catholic Bishops are a small group of people who can rightly be called “scribes and Pharisees.” Further they are hypocrites of the highest order. Resorting again to Matthew 23:5, Jesus says, "But all their works they do to be seen by men." “Outward self righteousness is the inevitable product of Pharisaic legalism. Jesus revealed their true motives.”
Jesus demonstrated his belief in the separation of church and state when he urged his followers to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God those things that are God’s.
More emphatically, the founding fathers demanded that there be a separation of Church and State.
I think Thomas Jefferson said it more plainly than any other: “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
If there was ever a religious institution that practices “tyranny over the mind of men,” it is the Roman Catholic Church, the Fundamentalists, and the Pentecostal branches of the Protestant Churches.
He felt that any form of government control, not only of religion, but of individual mercantilism consisted of tyranny. He thought that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
Jefferson made the point in other ways, “Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
His concept of the separation of church and state is stated clearly in the following paragraph: “Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”
And again, addressing is a private matter between a man and his God, Jefferson wrote in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, in 1802: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
When preachers, or Bishops, or Pope’s attempt to force their power over those who are members of their flocks, they go far beyond anything Jesus said about the relationship between church and state and certainly go far beyond the boundaries of their authority. Can you imagine a group of men who themselves are sinners using their tainted authority to condemn the souls of their congregations to hell if they vote contrary to the political perspective of their churches. Jefferson again said it better than I: “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. -Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” (Letters of Thomas Jefferson)
“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
There are many who will not agree with my views on politics or religion. But we must be weary of Bishops or the leaders of any church or group of Christians who tell us how to vote and who threaten our souls to a long-term sentence in the lower strata of the universe.
First, there is no hell. Secondly, Jesus has already forgiven us for our wrong-doings. Third, there is no member of the clergy, no pope, bishop or any other persons who wears the robes of clergy who is sinless or else he or she would be the Messiah.
11:14:45 PM
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