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Old 02-27-2004, 06:09 AM   #30 (permalink)
Thagrastay
Crazy
 
Location: Handrail, Montana
No, sir, that is biblical. Purgatory is not found anywhere in the Bible, neither is any concept of purgatory. In fact, the entire concept of a purgatory runs contrary to what the Bible teaches. Research it yourself. Find any mention of anything like a purgatory, or anything like God changing His mind concerning where a person goes once they have died. God's judgement, according to the Bible, if final, and no amount of intervention by saints or candle-burning or praying will change that. Jesus flatly stated that "It is given to a man once to die and then the Judgement". That rules out any idea of reincarnation in a Christian paradigm as well. Understand this as well- Catholicism is not necessarily Christianity. There are many, many differences. So, according to the Catholic version of the hereafter, there may very well be a purgatory. But that idea cannot be substantiated by any idea gleened from the Judaic tenets from which Christianity comes. Ask any Rabbi if there is a Purgatory.
Now as for any idea of ghost activity driving one from Christianity- It is unlikely that it can. But there are no ghosts. Understand that. Why is that such a hard concept to grasp? If you are Christian, I would think that would be relatively easy to understand. The hard part of this comes in where there are non-christians involved-primarily people who are superstitious to begin with and easily swayed by such things. I'll give you an example: One of my clients lost her father and started hearing him speaking to her from the garage. This disembodied voice started telling her to make sure she observed the feast of Saint Joseph. In response to this, the woman went out an spent nearly everything she had and prepared a feast of enormous proportions in her living room, setting up statues of the sainted Joseph and making food and placing it all over her home and praying to this saint. Sound a little demonic? Does the Bible address this at all? To whom was she giving glory? This wasn't her dad she was hearing, it was a demonic spirit using her to receive her worship and making a fool of her and cauing her to blaspheme and sacrifice food to idols at the same time. A Trifecta! To this day that poor woman thinks her dead dad is talking to her from her garage and she continues to carry out her feasts. Except now she has expanded these feasts and such to include other days because more dead relatives have joined in on the fun. Who's it going to hurt? What kind of life does this poor woman have? What will become of her? No one in her parrish dares contradict her because they're all superstitious, too. These spirits are mean and petty and out to ruin people because they know their time is short. Take it for what it is. BUt before you discount my words, I dare you to prove me wrong with some real homework from the scriptures themselves.
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