₦airaland Forum

You pentecostal. My lady was pentecostal but they kicked her out of leading a church prayer group when they found out I was catholic. You put so much barriers. Some pentecostal churches in LONDON even stop other peaple from different pentecostal churches. But some here are telling me not all are like that.

We do read the bible. The difference is that our approach is different

But we also see in Scripture that not all sins are mortal. As we are in a covenant relation with the Father, as adopted sons, we do not get cast out of grace if we sin in a lesser fashion. For example, we can see this in several passages where there is a difference in treatment by God of those who commit small sins, as opposed to mortal sins. One example is Hebrews 12:5-17:

And have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons? --"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him. 6 For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." 7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one fail to obtain the grace of God; that no "root of bitterness" spring up and cause trouble, and by it the many become defiled; 16 that no one be immoral or irreligious like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

Now, according to Jesus himself, some of those who are good, still will have to give an account even for their idle words (which can be bad). Second, Paul says that we will have to give an account for all the deeds that we do, either good or bad. Thus, it shows that even those who are in Christ will be judged for their sins. Third, in the Book of Revelation, there is a great white throne judgment, when all will be judged. All will be judged according to their works. Those who have bad works, and are not written in the Book of Life will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15). However, all will be judged on all their works. Finally, we see in 1 Peter 1, that the Father judges each one, according to his deeds. Thus, for believers, it is not just that we get judged for good deeds, but we get judged for all our deeds. These passages do not give us any idea that since we have an imputed righteousness of Christ, we won’t be judged for the bad works, which are sins. On the contrary, even believers will be judged for sins we commit. This destroys the theory of imputed righteousness of Christ as serving as the basis for the idea of there being no need for purgatory.

But hey, it is not shame being a catholic you know.

Well, Jesus talked in parables, and yet his disciples did not understand. Being able to do rationalizations is what being in the image of God is all about.

We will be judged for all of our actions. Those who are saved, as well as those who are not, will be so judged. All have to give an account for everything that we do. For a sampling, four different Bible authors assert this:

Mt. 12:31-36: 31: Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32: And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. 33: "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. 34: You brood of vipers! how can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35: The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36: I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter.

2 Cor. 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.

Revelation 20:12-13 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done.

1 Peter 1:15-1715 but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." 17 And if you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

While it is true that Jesus accomplished everything on the cross that He was sent to do, that does not mean that the fruits of what he did on the cross need not be applied to our life. You are making the claim that that is the reason that purgatory is not necessary, but that it is in Scripture about judgment. God will overlook the sins of believers, because one gets an imputed alien righteousness of Christ, and that serves as the basis for both their justification and ultimate salvation. In fact, there are no scriptures that teach that. In fact, nowhere is that taught.

Nothing unclean will enter the kingdom of heaven. The need for purgatory is given by the following Scripture, Rev. 21:27:

But nothing unclean shall enter it, nor any one who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

The context in Revelation 21, is about entering the gates of heaven. The New Jerusalem is described. The nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light (Rev. 21:24). Immediately after this passage it speaks about approaching the throne of God and the Lamb (Rev. 22:1).

Now, when we approach the throne of God and the Lamb, nothing unclean shall enter heaven. Although this does not directly teach purgatory, it shows the need for it. Why? Because we know that we are sinners. God calls us to complete holiness (Mt. 5:48), and it is possible for us to do so, but we know that we are sinners, and in most cases, we will not fully be cleansed from our sins by the time of our death. If we are not fully cleansed at the time of our death, Revelation 21:27 shows that there is a need for such cleansing. That is what purgatory does.

Oh yes there is basis

I meant that catholics are not lazy. Someone made a comment that we are lazy christians. Definately not true.

I agree with you, seems more like a big entertainment thing

So I suppose, that does not go well with your pentecostal church then

That's just what you think. Consider this.

When I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an experiment that went something like this--it had been found by others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A. She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to Y, they would still do A. So her proposal was to do the experiment under circumstances Y and see if they still did A.

I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her laboratory the experiment of the other person--to do it under condition X to see if she could also get result A, and then change to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know the the real difference was the thing she thought she had under control.

She was very delighted with this new idea, and went to her professor. And his reply was, no, you cannot do that, because the experiment has already been done and you would be wasting time.

For example, there have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and so on--with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from wherever he started them off.
No. The rats went immediately to the door where the food had been the time before.

The question was, how did the rats know, because the corridor was so beautifully built and so uniform, that this was the same door as before? Obviously there was something about the door that was different from the other doors. So he painted the doors very carefully, arranging the textures on the faces of the doors exactly the same. Still the rats could tell. Then he thought maybe the rats were smelling the food, so he used chemicals to change the smell after each run. Still the rats could tell. Then he realized the rats might be able to tell by seeing the lights and the arrangement in the laboratory like any commonsense person. So he covered the corridor, and still the rats could tell.

He finally found that they could tell by the way the floor sounded when they ran over it. And he could only fix that by putting his corridor in sand. So he covered one after another of all possible clues and finally was able to fool the rats so that they had to learn to go in the third door. If he relaxed any of his conditions, the rats could tell.

Now, from a scientific standpoint, that is an A-number-one experiment. That is the experiment that makes rat-running experiments sensible, because it uncovers that clues that the rat is really using-- not what you think it's using. And that is the experiment that tells exactly what conditions you have to use in order to be careful and control everything in an experiment with rat-running.

I looked up the subsequent history of this research. The next experiment, and the one after that, never referred to Mr. Young. They never used any of his criteria of putting the corridor on sand, or being very careful. They just went right on running the rats in the same old way, and paid no attention to the great discoveries of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to, because he didn't discover anything about the rats. In fact, he discovered all the things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not paying attention to experiments like that is a characteristic example of cargo cult science.

Another example is the ESP experiments of Mr. Rhine, and other people. As various people have made criticisms--and they themselves have made criticisms of their own experiements--they improve the techniques so that the effects are smaller, and smaller, and smaller until they gradually disappear. All the para-psychologists are looking for some experiment that can be repeated--that you can do again and get the same effect--statistically, even. They run a million rats--no, it's people this time--they do a lot of things are get a certain statistical effect. Next time they try it they don't get it any more. And now you find a man saying that is is an irrelevant demand to expect a repeatable experiment. This is science?

This man also speaks about a new institution, in a talk in which he was resigning as Director of the Institute of Parapsychology. And, in telling people what to do next, he says that one of things they have to do is be sure the only train students who have shown their ability to get PSI results to an acceptable extent--not to waste their time on those ambitious and interested students who get only chance results. It is very dangerous to have such a policy in teaching--to teach students only how to get certain results, rather than how to do an experiment with scientific integrity.

I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll leave those problems up to you and your priest/pastor/rabbi. I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of his work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing-- and if they don't support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision.

One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish BOTH kinds of results.

I say that's also important in giving certain types of government advice. Supposing someone asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in a particular place; and you decide it would be better in some other place. If you don't publish such a result, it seems to me you're not giving scientific advice. You're being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don't publish at all. That's not giving scientific advice.

In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another. That's only my opinion.

How is that?

So you find the same problem otokx?

You amaze me. That's why the pastor was talking of only one church. Actually it was his church. Don't know why they do that.

Scientific method, what scientific method. Is more like are really.

I began to think, what else is there that we believe? (And I thought then about the witch doctors, and how easy it would have been to check on them by noticing that nothing really worked.) So I found things that even more people believe, such as that we have some knowledge of how to educate. There are big schools of reading methods and mathematics methods, and so forth, but if you notice, you'll see the reading scores keep going down--or hardly going up--in spite of the fact that we continually use these same people to improve the methods. There's a witch doctor remedy that doesn't work. It ought to be looked into; how do they know that their method should work? Another example is how to treat criminals. We obviously have made no progress--lots of theory, but no progress--in decreasing the amount of crime by the method that we use to handle criminals.

Yet these things are said to be scientific. We study them. And I think ordinary people with commonsense ideas are intimidated by this pseudoscience. A teacher who has some good idea of how to teach her children to read is forced by the school system to do it some other way--or is even fooled by the school system into thinking that her method is not necessarily a good one. Or a parent of bad boys, after disciplining them in one way or another, feels guilty for the rest of her life because she didn't do "the right thing," according to the experts.

So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South American Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school--we never say explicitly what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

I experienced that in LONDON. My lady was pentecostal and they kicked her out of leading a church prayer group because I'm Catholic. Never happened in my church concerning her though. But some people here say pentecostal churches are not all the same.

Perhaps the idea of the poorest country according to the World Bank report is the one which gives her the most trouble getting as much money as she wants. So that makes it the poorer.

In LONDON pentecostals don't like catholics. Hope you got it now.

Concentration on Paul is only done in pentecostal churches. Everything is Paul for them

Much more than you think

Happiest: When I became catholic
Saddest: When my lady left me because I was catholic

And then to ruin everything, tell her you're catholic

It depends what happens when you marry. Who is going to control the family, your family, the church, or you and your spouse. Because if he comes last, leave him alone.

You don't like solemn worship? I mean if he feels closer to god like that sometimes, is it fruitful to stop him just to look right?

They don't worship Mary.

Depends why does he go to catholic church. What does he like about it?

Yeah, she is really very mature. She had a child when she was 15. Please