Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
Darth Wong wrote:They probably told them that their daughter died in a "state of grace" because she was so young and innocent, and they can join her in Heaven if they accept Jesus.Howedar wrote:No, the churches tell the parents that they themselves can be saved through worship bla bla bla. Telling them that they can retroactively save their daughter is something I've never heard, and I think that's what SotS was referring to.
Plekhanov wrote:Do you know much about Catholicism? Buying indulgences and praying to get your deceased loved ones out of purgatory quicker was a major part of the religion for several centuries. As far as I’m aware the sale of indulgences ended a long time ago but praying for the deceased and paying others to do the same is still a well established and common part of the religion.Howedar wrote:No, the churches tell the parents that they themselves can be saved through worship bla bla bla. Telling them that they can retroactively save their daughter is something I've never heard, and I think that's what SotS was referring to.
Elfdart wrote:
Stephen King of all people had an interesting theory about why certain Jesus-Christers were so fervently against contraception, abortion, suicide and even voluntary euthanasia. Eggs, sperm and fetuses that don't come to term can't be baptised or raised to be good little Christians. Elderly people and those who are terminally ill and others who decide to check out of this world early can't be given last rites or other blessings. In all these cases, the church feels cheated of followers or donors or both.
Your knee-jerk apologism is pathetic. The point still remains that they are constantly accompanied by church personnel who didn't even know the family at all before this tragedy.Son of the Suns wrote:It says nothing about the family, just one friend.
Yeah right, I'm sure they never spent a day praying for her safe returnI meant if the church had told them that the daughter would be found safely if they joined.Since all churches tell people that only through joining the church can they find salvation yadda yadda yadda, this is a foregone conclusion.
So you figure they told her that her daughter was burning in Hell?Son of the Suns wrote:How do you know that?Darth Wong wrote:They probably told them that their daughter died in a "state of grace" because she was so young and innocent, and they can join her in Heaven if they accept Jesus.Howedar wrote:No, the churches tell the parents that they themselves can be saved through worship bla bla bla. Telling them that they can retroactively save their daughter is something I've never heard, and I think that's what SotS was referring to.
RedImperator wrote:Since he is Catholic, I imagine he would. Since the demoniation this couple joined is evangelical Baptist, which does NOT believe in Purgatory, I don't see how this is remotely relevant. For that matter, even if they did become Catholics, your kids can't join the church retroactively after they're dead if you convert, which means, at best, they're going to Limbo. You can pray until the sun goes cold and they're never getting out.Plekhanov wrote:Do you know much about Catholicism? Buying indulgences and praying to get your deceased loved ones out of purgatory quicker was a major part of the religion for several centuries. As far as I’m aware the sale of indulgences ended a long time ago but praying for the deceased and paying others to do the same is still a well established and common part of the religion.Howedar wrote:No, the churches tell the parents that they themselves can be saved through worship bla bla bla. Telling them that they can retroactively save their daughter is something I've never heard, and I think that's what SotS was referring to.
This has developed into a fairly widely ranging discussion upon religious types preying upon the bereaved and is far from confined to the particular church in the OP. Howedar said that he’d never heard of “churches” that tell people they can retroactively help the deceased. I gave an example of a church that has been doing just that for a very long time.Son of the Suns wrote:The Christian and Missionary Alliance is not catholic.
I'm not referring to the regular Christians who oppose abortion and voluntary euthanasia because GOD says so -even though I disagree with them. I was referring to the ghouls and jackals (no disrepect intended toward Canis aureus) who commit the religious version of ambulance chasing.Son of the Suns wrote:Elfdart wrote:
Stephen King of all people had an interesting theory about why certain Jesus-Christers were so fervently against contraception, abortion, suicide and even voluntary euthanasia. Eggs, sperm and fetuses that don't come to term can't be baptised or raised to be good little Christians. Elderly people and those who are terminally ill and others who decide to check out of this world early can't be given last rites or other blessings. In all these cases, the church feels cheated of followers or donors or both.
Or you could ask virtually any christian and they could tell you the real reason that most christians that are against abortion, that being that many christians believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is therefore murder, and the reason they oppose suicide and voluntary euthanasia being that killing oneself is murder.
Your analogy still isn't applicable because praying for the dead in Purgatory only applies if the deceased are Catholic; further, Catholics lived their lives expecting that after they died their friends and relatives would pray for them, and they in turn would intercede on behalf of their living relatives once they reached Heaven. It's not "ghoulish" or "preying on the bereaved" for the Catholic Church to encourage living Catholics to pray for dead ones, because it's what all Catholics expect. Further, the Church wouldn't--or shouldn't, anyway--encourage grieving non-Catholics to convert in order to help dead relatives, because that's contrary to church docterine. If you die unbaptized, the best you can hope for is Limbo. And finally, even if the Church did try to gain members by converting grieving relatives, it wouldn't be terribly effective, because the process of conversion is lengthy (a year, IIRC). Catholics don't just dunk your head in the bathtub and proclaim you saved: you have to demonstrate you actually want to belong and aren't converting on a whim.Plekhanov wrote:This has developed into a fairly widely ranging discussion upon religious types preying upon the bereaved and is far from confined to the particular church in the OP. Howedar said that he’d never heard of “churches” that tell people they can retroactively help the deceased. I gave an example of a church that has been doing just that for a very long time.
Was this couple raised as atheists, or were they raised in the absence of (Christian) religion? Pretty big difference there, it seems. And simply being from Officially Atheistic Communist China doesn't mean they weren't raised with a traditional, quiet Chinese religion.Born and raised as atheists in Communist China, the couple embraced religion soon after their daughter's abduction. In April, after her funeral, they were baptized into an evangelical Christian denomination.
Actually I went to Alex's wedding, and part of the problem was finding someone who could deal with Catholics, Jews, Buddists, and Athiests without offending everyone.....LadyTevar wrote:At a pagan friend's funeral, her mother brought in a Church of (God/Christ/whatever) preacher to preside. He turned it into a 'if you don't know Christ you're going to hell' sermon. All of Dara's friends were appalled. Dara and her mother had parted religious views years before, and her mom *knew* she was pagan like many of her friends. But here was this preacher trying to turn Dara's funeral into an altar call. I didn't have the guts to walk out, but several did. Later Dara's father (divorced) came out and apologized for what his ex-wife had done.Superman wrote:As most of you know, I was a mortician's assistant for a few years in a funeral home. During many of the pentecostal type funerals, the preacher would often go into his recruitment spiel and then say how the deceased would want to the unsaved to become saved. It was fucking pathetic.
I remember one funeral took place in a small church in a smaller town near Chico. This particular dead dude had lots of friends, so the preacher found himself talking to 150 people rather than his usual 40 or so. He wasted no time in finding the people who were crying the most and offering the "salvation of Jesus" to them. "Religious vultures" is a great description of them.
The Mormon Church does it. That is why they baptise the dead--the ones who died as non-Mormons.Howedar wrote:No, the churches tell the parents that they themselves can be saved through worship bla bla bla. Telling them that they can retroactively save their daughter is something I've never heard, and I think that's what SotS was referring to.
This sort of behavior has a pedigree that goes all the way back to the very beginnings of the Christians church: isolate and indoctrinate.Darth Wong wrote:And smothering them, and removing them from their original family and friends ... this is standard cult behaviour, but when Christians do it, it's considered "helping". Not all Christians act like this, but the ones that do are vultures.Son of the Suns wrote:How exactly were they being vultures? These people could have simply been offering their support to a family that had experienced a loss in the best way they knew how.
And to stay away from people who would offer such argument:And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. - Colossians 2:4
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. - I Timothy 6:20-21
But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, - II Timothy 2:23-24
But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. - Titus 3:9
It's all beautifully designed to inculcate distrust and suspicion, if not outright hostility toward anyone who would tell you things that contradict "The Truth".Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. - Matthew 7:15
And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. - Matthew 24:11
For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. - Matthew 24:24
And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; - II Peter 2:13
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, - I Timothy 6:3-4
Mark 11:27-33 relates a story in which Jesus is asked, "By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things?" Jesus replies that if they will answer his question, he will answer theirs. His question is too difficult for them, so he closes by saying, "Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things." In other words, don't, you mere sinner, question Christ's authority; it's not your place, and he isn't obligated to reply.Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? - Romans 9:20
Contradictory evidence is portrayed as a test of the believer's faith. According to Scripture, any critic is to be shunned, and it is virtually impossible for him to be honest, sincere, and well-meaning. In the New Testament he is depicted as a cunning, deceitful trickster, a tool of Satan, leading unwary Christians to damnation. Faith (a.k.a. gullibility) is then exalted as the highest virtue, so the more outrageous and fantastic Christian claims become, the greater the test and the greater the virtue in passing it, and thus, the greater the ultimate reward. Doubt is demonized so that the believer is taught he will risk eternal torture in fire if he should give in to it. Isolate, indoctrinate, and assure both ultimate reward for remaining loyal, and ultimate horror for disobedience.Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. - I Corinthians 1:20-21
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; - I Corinthians 1:27
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. - I Corinthians 2:6-8
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. - I Corinthians 2:13-14
Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. - I Corinthians 3:18-20
That's why geaneology is so important to Mormons, too. Save all those ancestors.Bob the Gunslinger wrote:The Mormon Church does it. That is why they baptise the dead--the ones who died as non-Mormons.Howedar wrote:No, the churches tell the parents that they themselves can be saved through worship bla bla bla. Telling them that they can retroactively save their daughter is something I've never heard, and I think that's what SotS was referring to.
