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In Exodus 20: it reads the following…
1-God spoke all these words saying:
2- I the Lord am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage:
3- You shall have no other gods beside Me.
4- You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or the waters under the earth.
5- You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the forth generations of those who reject Me.

My question to you is, if the Lord gave this commandment to us all, why do you fall on your knees and pray to saints?

2007-06-28 19:17:29 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

To Rosie and Morkie....

Thank you,
You understood the question I asked. Hope there are more like you out there to educate those like me out here.

2007-06-28 19:42:29 · update #1

5 answers

I see it's time for a run of Catholic bashing again.

I'm not a Catholic, but the answer is that the passage you cite bans making statues to either worship as deities themselves or to worship as symbols of other deities. Catholics do not make idols to any other gods. They may ask for the intercession of a saint or the Virgin, but only as part of worshipping the same God you do. They are not bowing down in reverence of the statue. They are not bowing down because they think the statue represents a competing god, they are worshipping your God and that's required, let alone allowed.

Now you could try some literalist reading to say they are wrong. But if you read the passage literally, you will note that point 4 stands on its own. It says not to make any image or likeness of anything- whether it's in heaven, earth or water. So literally you are not allowed to make any sculpture, any drawing, any photo. Read literally, point 4 is different from point 5 (and you can't bow down to them.) They would be one point if you could make them but not make them and bow down to them. Making them is specifically, in point 4, banned.
So if you are going to condemn them based on a simplistic literalist reading, you have to also condemn anyone who makes or owns an image of anything. do you? Thought not.

2007-06-28 19:27:15 · answer #1 · answered by thatguyjoe 5 · 1 0

The passage you quoted from Exodus is an injunction against idolatry, which is giving the worship that is due to God to some other object such as a carved image. But communicating with a saint through prayer is not bowing down to the saint, it is not serving the saint, and it is not worshipping the saint. It is a simple communication asking the saint to pray for us, much like you might ask a friend to pray for you. The advantage in asking a saint to pray for us is that the saint is standing in the presence of God and can therefore offer God a more perfect form of worship than we can achieve here on earth. St. Paul observes that the saints will judge the world (1 Corinthians 6:2), so obviously they are important parts of God's plan. You can ignore their intercessory powers if you want to, but devout Catholics know and respect the power of a saint who stands before the throne of God. Most blessed is St. Mary, who has interceded for millions and even appears on earth from time to time.

2007-06-29 02:37:50 · answer #2 · answered by morkie 4 · 1 0

Catholics do not worship statues, they pray to God and ask for the specialty of a particular person who has been sanctified and raised by god to a divine status.

If a person did great things, and god thinks they were holy enough to bless and endow with divinity, then why not ask for a particular person who has particular specialties in a particular area for some help? You woudn't seek a math teacher for help in zoology would you?

And if it is sinful to make an image of anything in the sky, sea or on the earth then toy makers, artists, and more all over the place are going to hell on a one-way ticket!

2007-06-29 02:31:04 · answer #3 · answered by Mike G 3 · 1 1

Before Jesus Christ died for our sins and opened the gates of heaven there were no saints in heaven. Therefore there are no Old Testament writings that would mention them.

Very few of the new Christians died before most of the New Testament was written. Therefore there is little in the Bible about asking saints to pray for us.

However the last book of the Bible does talk about the saints in heaven praying.

Revelation 5:8: Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones.

Revelation 8:3-4: He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne. The smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel.

The Holy Spirit guided the early Church in many things not explained in the Bible including how does the Body of Christ (believers) living on Earth relate to the Body of Christ (saints) living in heaven. We are still one Body.

Catholics share the belief in the Communion of Saints with many other Christians, including the Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Episcopal, and Methodist Churches.

The Communion of Saints is the belief where all saints are intimately related in the Body of Christ, a family. When you die and go to heaven, you do not leave this family.

Everyone in heaven or on their way to heaven are saints, you, me, my deceased grandmother, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II.

As part of this family, you may ask your family and friends living here on earth to pray for you. Or, you may also ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Andrew, or your deceased grandmother living in heaven to pray for you.

Prayer to saints in heaven is simple communication, not worship.

And prayer to the saints is optional not required.

With love in Christ.

2007-07-02 02:57:26 · answer #4 · answered by imacatholic2 7 · 0 0

I HAVEN'T BEEN IN CHURCH IN 20 YEARS , I THINK IT WAS BECAUSE WE HAD TO KINDA HAVESONETHING MORE TANGIBLE SOMETHING THAT WAS CLOSER TO US IN THE FLESH MOST SAINTS WERE ALIVE IN THE MORE MODERN TIMES WELL THAT'S THE BEST I CAN DO WELL DONE TOP CONTRIB........

2007-06-29 02:30:06 · answer #5 · answered by daiberino 2 · 0 0

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