What follows is a test for you the reader to choose which one or more of the following acts WE can do for ourselves to merit and qualify us for we ourselves [without Jesus, Mary, and the pope] completely cancelling the penalty of ALL our past sins by ourselves and making us perfect for entrance into Heaven:
a. nibbling and sipping wafers and grape juice as we kneel before pigging out at a restaurant
b. nibbling and sipping the eucharistic appetizers without gorging ourselves shortly thereafter
c. calling the eucharistic appetizers the chromosome/DNA body and blood of Christ
d. meditating on, worshipping, and adoring the eucharistic appetizers with or without ingesting them
e. worshipping, and adoring the fancy flask the eucharistic appetizers have possibly been placed into
f. fingering the beads of the rosary as one [blasphemously] prays to Mary as Divinity - repeatedly mouthing the Hail-Mary/Holy-Mary mantra
g. calling the modest attire of old-order nuns a 'habit' of tradition with no Scriptural basis of defining what 'modest attire' is - thus claiming such clothing a costume rather than a uniform
h. professing that one will go to hell if one does not bow, curtsey, and cross their heart in church
i. claiming that hellfire is the destiny of those who don't eat fish on Fridays during Lent.
j. praying for the righteous dead so their surviving relatives don't get insulted thus withholding offering-plate contributions and tithes.
k. not doing internet porn sites
l. doing internet porn sites
m. condoning Old-Testament-like polygamy for men only
n. not robbing banks, shooting the President, or shoplifting at the convenience store
o. not ever getting a traffic ticket
p. getting numerous traffic tickets but always paying them on time
The answer is: NONE OF THE ABOVE.
If, then since, it is NONE OF THE ABOVE.....what IS it?
CHRIST's OWN SACRIFICIAL DEATH OF HIMSELF BY HIMSELF ONE TIME ON HIS CROSS is the only phenomenon which completely cancels the penalty of all our sins.....before we die, during death, and after death.
As with OTHER catholic heresies (like praying to Mary and other dead human saints or pseudo-saints, the supposed infallibility of the pope, the alleged Christ-identical sinlessness of Mary and her presumed bodily ascension into Heaven, the supposed canonicity of the apocrypha like the book of Ecclesiasticus, etc.)....the problem is that the catholic heretics espousing such falsities are PEOPLE-centered and not CHRIST-centered.
In view of this, why is purgatory declared to exist by belligerant catholicliars and what is wrong with the presumption of purgatory? Well....
1. The concept of purgatory takes away from the all-sufficient suffering of Christ on His cross. Sure, Paul stated that he himself completes in his own body the sufferings of Christ. What the 'ELL does THAT mean? Paul also said that you all are dead and your life is hid with Christ. Oh yeah? When did the medical examiner declare you dead, in what casket did you lie motionless in a funeral home, and what cemetery are you buried in? Christ's sufferings ALONE were QUITE sufficient to atone for WHATEVER sin or sins a human can, did, does, or will commit [except blaspheming the Holy Spirit].
2. If human perfect-saints-to-become are purified in purgatory, why Christ's gospel of atonement by His crucifixion at all? If WE in works righteousness can suffer enough to save ourselves, make up for first-to-28th-degrees and types of sins (whatever the duce they are), and make us perfect to God and able then to get into Heaven, what use was Christ's thing? An ADDITIVE....and INSUFFICIENTLY INADEQUATE one at that?
3. As angels and demons (occasionally residing in human, serpent, and swine bodies) have ALREADY made ONE choice which is ETERNALLY IRREVOCABLE pertaining to their continuing everlasting destinies, so humans (who frequently and temporarily disinhabit their bodies at the moment God determines they are physically dead and not to be resurrected until the future time of His choice) have already made ONE choice which is ETERNALLY IRREVOCABLE pertaining to their continuing everlasting destinies.
4. According to Luke 16:19-31, the rich man in Hades who did not feed Lazarus in his mortal life wanted relief for himself and prayed to someone other than God for some relatives other than himself....received neither - being in Hades and eternally confined to conscious anguish in flames of torture. Judas Iscariot "repented" (a wrong now-different-from-archaic-meaning word to use) that he had betrayed innocent blood, but had sealed his fate and is now similarly burning in Hades (a CORRECT word to use instead of "repented" is regretted). A great chasm has been fixed between heaven and hell so that there is no travel from one to the other...except once by The Qualified One (Jesus Christ).
5. The good works one does [especially the most important one of believing Christ's gospel] during one's mortal life [by which we are justified or saved, according to James 2:24] are the gold and silver [First Corinthians 3:1-15] which will last in the refining fires not of purgatory but rather the books of remembrance (including the Book of Life) by which the righteous and wicked TOGETHER will be judged by the Holy Father (NOT the pope!) on the Last Day [Matthew 25:31-46, Romans 2:15-16, Romans 14:10-12, and Revelation 20:11-15]. The chaff of both mundane and wicked works done under duress or in ignorance by the saints will perish.....not in some make-believe mythical purgatory....but by the Universal Fire Saint Peter spoke of in his Biblical second epistle, when the present heavens and earth with melt and vanish with cataclysmic fervent heat. We must always remember Christ's own words of 'If you love Me, you will keep My commandments (John 14:15) and do what I tell you.' Therefore, it ALMOST 'goes without saying' that if we do not do everything He has ordered us to do, we do NOT love Him and consequently will burn in hell forever.
6. The concoction of purgatory is wayward escapism, denial, a desire to retain and continue to practice pet sins, to fear man (especially relatives, extortionists, and others who pay one's bills), a nonwillingness to expose favorite skeletons in closets of pride, lust, greed, jealousy, defiant rebellion, disbelief, arrogance, and whatever. Purgatory is a hideous and despicable diversion against looking God straight in the face of His Creator Son, being completely honest and forthright with Him, and be in TOTALLY-complete submission and obedience to the Almighty Person of 'His Holiness' and 'Divine Majesty.'
7. The imposition of purgatory is related [admittedly or non-admittedly] to latent chagrined jealousy of angry-elder-brother types who want retaliation, retribution, revenge, and partiality against prodigals who waste most of their lives with harlots and wild living (or presumed to)......while the elder-brother-type priests, nuns, and mass-frequenting others have to stay cloistered in confining and boring monasteries, churches, etc. - burdened with incessant and repetitive, dull and monotonous, slow-moving religious rituals. It all is a repeat occurrence of the early-hired workers who complained that they labored long hours during the heat of the day - only to get the same denarius wage as those hired near day's end. 'All such latecomers must suffer some time in purgatory to make up for it, to be fair' - the jealous ones infer.
'Praying for the dead' requiem-style is not a petition to God to give a somewhat-imperfect saint a chance in purgatory to purify themselves by themselves in the name of their own or our diligent pomp and persistent ego as a retaliatory punishment of God's wrathful grace, but instead a rightful request to the Lord to have mercy on 'the spirits of just men made perfect' (Hebrews) of one who already made that one crucial choice before death to be FOR God rather than AGAINST Him.....to fully accomodate to Him instead of defiantly sticking up a 'I-neither-need-nor-like-You-God' third finger of reviling and cursing, nonrelenting impenitence and impious rebellion.
Pertaining to the Christmas nativity of Jesus Christ, several points need to be made:
a. The INFANT Jesus was a HE-WHO and not an IT-THAT nor an IT-WHICH. [Sorry, all you it-object abortionists!]
b. Jesus was Mary's FIRST-born, not her only-born, child (according to Luke 2:7).
c. Mary was not a 'girl,' nor a 'minor' (whatever the F&%$#&$%#K that means), but instead was a YOUNG WOMAN of childbearing age.
d. The entirety of 66-book-Bible Scripture NEVER explicitly states nor even implies NOR infers that foster-father Joseph died nor committed apostasy nor was arrested during the earthly life of Jesus.
e. In SPITE(!) of the prejudiced hardhead brainless who don't honestly delve into the details of precise Hebrew-word meaning, translation, and comparative word analysis pertaining to Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 7:14 specified that a YOUNG WOMAN (not a virgin) would conceive and bear a son. On the other hand, with the phrase "spoken by THE PROPHET" non-defined, Matthew 1:23 specified that a VIRGIN (not young woman) would conceive and bear a son. Therefore, it is clear to anyone with understanding above the idiot/imbecile/moron range and honest enough to tell you the approximate time of day that the source for the word 'virgin' of Matthew 1:23 is not known, but it sure ain't Isaiah 7:14! Such lack of Old-Testament verification is typical in other New-Testament passages, such as the 'sawn-asunder' one of Hebrews 11:37 and the Michael disputing against (not 'with') the devil about the body of Moses one of Jude 1:8-9.
f. Mary neither CREATED nor BEGOT Jesus; she instead CONCEIVED Him.As we say in the church creeds, Jesus was begotten of His FATHER [not of Mary]. Parents do not 'create' nor 'beget' their 'own' children; they instead CONCEIVE them - using life substances not of their own creation nor will to exist, and so not of THEIR doing.
g. Jesus (along with the Father plus the Holy Spirit and not 'ghost': BOO!) existed LONG before Mary, and HE created HER; Mary merely conceived and gave birth to Jesus from a human point of view. Thus Mary was NOT 'the Mother of God' [even though Jesus was indeed God], but instead the Mother of: Jesus. The Triune God was neither originated from nor birthed by a woman. Jesus as The Messiah, as The Christ, and as The Lord did NOT receive His divine nature from Mary, but received His human nature from Mary (which - again - Mary had no innate physical creative control over, but upon whom a Divine miracle was done apart from and beyond her normal physical capacities given by the Creator to all childbearing-capable women).
h. Mary was not sinless as Jesus was, and thus was mortal, and so never bodily ascended into heaven as Jesus did. Mary did not die on some cross as a Co-Savior, thus was not Divinity herself (with or without her partly-human FIRST-born son), and therefore not worthy to be prayed to nor petitioned as any kind of a mediator to cowardly catholics hiding behind her skirts.
One of the most striking proofs of the LORD's trinitarian nature, and irrefutable proof for the Trinity, is the nativity of Jesus. It is, of course, OBVIOUS ABSURDITY to presume that THE ONE ALMIGHTY GOD (irregardless of Christ's future titles of Mighty God, Everlasting Father, etc.), THE ETERNAL CREATOR and ALMIGHTY TOTALITY of INFINITE POWER Who runs the universe, the TIMELESS One who is OMNICIENT and OMNIPRESENT....was confined to a near-subconscious blob of fetal tissue, a naked crying baby emerging from some Jewish woman's bloody vagina, a non-speaking languageless infant sucking on mommy's beasts. Such a bizarre scenario BEGS for a Heavenly Father and Holy Spirit - not letting things run on autopilot when the senseless suckling matures, but protecting such a fragile and potentially quite destructible-in-human-form mini-jewlet lying helplessly in a Bethlehem cradle from above with the help of commissioned guardian angels.
Regarding anti-polytheistic Israelis who asserted that 'Our God is ONE God' but who differentiated between the LORD (all capital letters) and the Lord (with only the first letter capitalized), it was not foreign to Hebrew-Jewish doctrine and theology to comprehend and perceive the Trinitarian God. Israel already had MANY names for the Godhead: Yahweh [or whatever vowels you wish to use], I AM, El Shaddai, Adonai, Elohim, etc. Moreover, in the Pentateuch Scripture of GENESIS of the Old Testament, we find verses such as : 'Let US make humanity in OUR image' and 'Let US go down and confuse their language.' US? Many times throughout the Old Testament we encounter the phrase: 'And The Spirit came upon him...' So there already was Trinitarian DISTINCTION.
I am fully aware of the QUESTIONABLE (even DEMONIC?) present-day WORLDLY emphasis and occurrences of adoring cute babies; being aghast against child abuse, molestation, and abduction; human rights for children against parents; adoration, worship, praise and self-esteem and self-assertiveness plus respect and courtesy and politeness, and discrimination for women as battered, abused, and hindered minorities under cruel and inhumane patriarchal dictatorial authoritarian rule, regulation, restriction, and suppression......but let's not get carried away and go overboard with the 'MOTHER-board,' 'MOTHER-nature,' 'apple-pie-and-MOTHER' mentality approaching idolatrous and gender-skewed blasphemy of perpetual adoration of the eternal feminine in all things - including goddess Sophia. At the same time, why thwart and stifle singing Gesu Bambino around Christmas in church as some Nicolaitan-types have done?
The deviant incessantly attempt to put and promote Mary on some sacred pedestal as THE ultimate and perfect substitutionary icon of sexual purity......both a reaction of homosexuality-defaulting men bossed by mama and retaliating against pushy mouthy feminist sexist in authority who are expert at imposing irritating and confusion-causing harassment.......and an excuse for their deviant meanderings into playgirl-immodest women and the obnoxious results of their indecent lurid licentuousness and lasciviousness.
