Are faith, God and love without deeds, dead?

[mediamogul]

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Christians do not believe that doing good things will get them into heaven, they understand the belief in Christ is the way. Doing for others is one way christians show God's love for others, christian churches do more for the poor and hurting than you will ever know. By the way why is it you think christians do not help others, is it because we do not believe in works for salvation. Surely you must know works for salvation would not work, tell me how much work would one need to do to get into heaven, who would set the standard of, enough works done, you get in. Works for salvation will lead to bragging and that is not a characteristic of christianity. Works have nothing to do with salvation, works show others who we are. Salvation is about forgiveness of sin, love, repentance and grace, works show we have received it.

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No. That is exactly what Catholics believe. Hence all the sin and absolution stuff. Hence Dante and the different levels of Hell corresponding to the sins, different levels of Heaven corresponding to the cardinal virtues , and Purgatory is where people go to be purged of their sin in order to be clean enough to enter heaven. Catholics believe people are saved through works.

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You're correct, that is what the Catholic Church promotes, I do not believe all Catholics believe what the Catholic Church sells, at least some of the Catholics I know do not buy into all the things the church sells.

Right. And the Protestant church sells salvation by faith alone. It all depends what you are in the market for. Either way salvation is an appeal to selfishness and seeking the reward of heaven and avoiding the punishments of hell. You bought faith others bought works. Neither have any ultimate truth and are just alternate interpretations of the same mythology.

You can be in the market for many things and by into it, this does not mean you haven't bought a forgery. The scriptures are clear that salvation comes by grace from God, meaning salvation is an unmerited gift, which by definition means one can not earn ie. work for their salvation. If one has to work for salvation then faith is dead, simple really. The Protestant Church does not sell salvation, selling means works and works denies faith, not selling, teaching the truth of scripture. Works are to accompany faith after salvation, salvation first then works in faith, simple really.

So how much did you pay for your version? Seems a lot cheaper. In Catholocism one is actually expected to do something. The Protestant version's focus is simply on "right belief" and the acceptance of the sacrifice of jesus for their sins. SO I would say you got the bargain. Both are certainly defective products but hey at least yours didn't cost you an arm and a leg!

Haha. Everybody can cite scripture to prove whatever it is they want to prove. You just picked Luther's cult as opposed to the Papal cult.