Originally posted by daniel58
No.
Doing a little research for you but here's a little thing I found on line about the rosery beads from EHow and written by Will Carpenter as well as other sources:
Earliest Use
Religious scholars have long said that systems for counting the number of times a repetitive prayer was said began in India with the Hindus, about 900 B.C.E. Prayer sticks, strings of beads or carved rocks ensured that the correct sequence of prayers, and the correct number as well, were intoned. Over the centuries, as psalms and prayers were associated with each other in groups of 50, the "fifties" became the standard for both personal prayer and the prayers of the penitent, marking the five decades of the rosary. Beads have long been linked with the act of prayer. The English word bead is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words bidden ("to pray"😉 and bede ("prayer"😉. The use of beads in prayer appears to have originated with Hindu religious practices in India , possibly around the 8th century B.C.E. Buddhism, which developed from a sect of Hinduism, retained the use of prayer beads as it became established in China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet. It is thought that Islam adopted prayer beads through contact with Buddhism and Hinduism. Prayer beads, in the form of the Catholic rosary, were common throughout Europe by the late Middle Ages.
Hinduism, one of the oldest living religions, is the major religion of the Indian subcontinent. The two main branches of modern Hinduism—Shaivism and Vishnuism—employ different types of prayer beads, or mala. Shaivists, who are devotees of the god Siva, carry strings of 32 to 108 rudraksha beads made from the seeds of a tree unique to the island of Java in Indonesia. These rough seeds represent the difficult and rigid life required of the worshippers of Siva. Each seed is segmented into five sections, which represent the five faces and personalities of Siva. Vishnu mala consist of carved wooden beads from the sacred basil shrub, or tulsi, and are usually found in strands of 108.
Buddhist mala also typically consist of strands of 108 beads, reflecting the religion's historical connection to Hinduism. In Buddhism, the 108 beads represent the impurities or lies that one must overcome in order to reach Nirvana. Most monks wear 108 beads for use in counteracting their 108 impurities, whereas lay people tend to wear only 30 or 40 beads. The difference in the number of beads used is a result of the spiritual differences in what different people must overcome or how far they have come on the path to enlightenment. Buddhist prayer beads have traditionally been made from the wood or seeds of the sacred Bodhi tree. As Buddhism spread throughout China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet, it was influenced by the various cultures of those areas and a number of new materials such as bone, amber, and semi-precious stones began to be used for prayer beads.
So the point here is that the use of beads were not ever used by any early Christians. The Bible says not to repeat prayers. The use of beads are from pagan origins as is shown above and even the point that they were not even used by the early Catholic church should ring some very loud warnings as to the use by any Christians.
So would you agree or not that this is of pagan origin that the Catholic church uses?
Does God really care?
12 Aug '09 21:59
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