"Oh come on, stop your crying." "Be a man!"
This is an adult forum with adult people. I ask you questions and I ask you to be nice and considerate. If that is considered 'whining' in your book, then I am sorry. But for the sake of everybody here, we attempt to be fair and respect the person to whom we are speaking with. Please do not put me or anybody in these forums in a derogitory (sp?) way. I am asking this nicely. Is it wrong to ask for respect and politeness, even to your enemies? After all, that is a biblical concept. It was Jesus Himself who said, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?" However, if you still desire to put down the protestants and desire them hell, then I cannot and will not stop you. I will respect that of you and will speak of it no more. But I will do as Jesus commands and love everybody, whether they seem heavenbound or hellbound.
In the same way, I ask everybody to respect Leo. For in your eyes, he is lost and confused. Yet do not push him away or put him down. Love him and pray for him. For it is Christ's will that you do so.
And you seem to be very adimate about defending Mary. Can you not also be adimate (drat. can't find the correct spelling of that) about God or Jesus? Or is Mary your God? I did not ask that to insult you, or to disrespect Mary, but I'm trying to get you to understand what your words sound like. When all you speak about is Mary Mary Mary, the Queen Mary, the revelations of Mary, you sound like you are deifying her. Is that your intent? Is Mary above God? Of course it sounds offensive to many people because by your statements, you are implying Mary to be god herself, a god to be worshiped, prayed to, sought after, and glorified. Even the angels and apostles said not to worship them, but God himself.
I do not know anything about "Our Lady of Guadalupe" Please tell us more about this.
"but really need to decide whose side you are on."
I've always tried to side with God and with God's truth, and not with interpretation. (I admit the bible is interpretation of the original text, and the concepts we know are interpretation of that bible, but I try to go more by what comes from the bible as a cornerstone because I see it as a book of truth. So the interpretation I speak of as an example is this: if a person says something, and the bible says something different, then I am more inclined to go with the bible above what the person says) I do my very best to be like Joshua when he said, "But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD ." (I did not quote this scripture to imply that you are not serving the Lord. I just quoted it to say that like Joshua, I wish to seek to serve the Lord God in a world where there are many gods being followed.)
"As soon as I explained to you my point about the limitations of translation, didn't you instantly realize that I had caught you up."
Caught up with me? Is this a race? Is this a battle? Is this a contest? It is a sharing of ideas and the seeking of truth. From your post, I had implyed that you were claiming the translation to be untrustworthy. Nowhere did you say that translation is 'limited' because that I would have better understood. I simply raised the question because I wanted to understand your point of view better, not to put down what you had said or prove it wrong. I genuinely asked you that if it was true that you were saying that the translation was untrustworthy, then by what can we trust? Had you said something like, "translations aren't very precise because the words used to translate don't always fully correlate with the words its coming from," I would have fully agreed with that statement and left it alone. As such, I did not understand your point of view and was simply asking for more information.
"Everytime our slowness forces somebody to go over an explanation twice"
In these forums, the trick is not slowness, but sometimes miscommunication or misinterpretation. So yes, sometimes a second explaination is necessary in a reworded form so that the meaning intended to be conveyed can be understood.
"The Christian Religion has no power when Christ and His Teachings of Righteousness are removed from it."
I agree. After all, the Christian Religion is based on the teachings of Christ is it not? Yet even if we do remove Christ, do we not still have the love of God as presented in the old testament?
"Also, the Forces of Protestanism seem Invincible -- The Protestant Nations against the rest of the World. So this is the very reason for you to consider siding with the Forces of Righteousness"
I am not siding with anybody. I am siding with the bible and with God. And if it is truth that God has annointed and appointed Mary as helper and guide, then I shall follow that. And if it is truth that Jesus is the only way to the father, then I shall follow that. I trust in God and I follow God and whatever truth there is in God, I shall follow with all my heart and teach others to do the same. So don't think of me as a protestant, and don't think of me as an aspiring catholic. Think of me as a truth seeker, and a man passionate for God and for the work of God.
Bhagavad Gita? Never heard of it. But I shall look it up. It does sound quite interesting.
And I will keep my heart in prayer and my eyes on my dreams as you ask.
Thank you Leo, and for everybody here for your patience in me and your patience in each other. For we are here not to fight each other, or to hate each other, or to put down each other, but to bring to the table thoughts, ideas, and beliefs about concepts that we can share and examine and better understand. May the peace of God be with you all.