The "True" Religion?

Originally posted by RBHILL
The live relative is right there with you or on the phone.

A dead relative is in Heaven or Hell. Just as Luke 16 says.

Asking a dead saint to intercede on your behalf requires spiritual technology of the sort Sprint has not yet commercialized.

Originally posted by Darfius
Uhh, it's clearly saying the angels rejoice, or are you alleging that the Bible says dead people are rejoicing among the angels?

Why would it add angels if it wasn't discussing them? Cmon, you're getting desperate.

There is rejoicing, by whom is not stated; but clearly angels are not the subject of the sentence, as they are the direct object of the preposition--the prepositional phrase clarifying the location of the rejoicing.

Nemesio's point about the grammar was on the point.

Perhaps your beliefs are extra-biblical, as you might put it. Perhaps, as many Western Christians, most of what you believe regarding angels stems from medieval art and mythology, rather than biblical knowledge.

Originally posted by Darfius
I'm wondering why you are projecting modern day English on ancient Hebrew.

Do you read Hebrew?

If so, give us a more accurate translation so as to correct the errors those of us who can read English will be prone to.

Originally posted by Darfius
You are forgetting that God is three forms. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Tell me why I should believe the Father is rejoicing with saved dead people rather than with the other parts of Himself.

Without the authority of tradition, your appeal to Trinitarian notions falls flat. The concept is difficult to sustain on Martin Luther's principle of sola Scriptura. However, Harold O.J. Brown, an evangelical scholar makes a good case in Heresies:
Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church for the importance the traditional Church Councils in the process of clarifying how Christians understand Biblical doctrine. The concept mat be in the Bible, as Brown maintains that it is, but it requires a community of believers--an interpretive community--to assure that folks will be able to see it.

This need for an interpretive community, and this reliance upon such, is a evangelical practice just as much as it is a Roman Catholic one. The problem with literalist interpretations is not that it eschews such traditions, but that its traditions are mired in too many ahistorical assumptions and hermeneutical inconsistencies.

Sola Scriptura is naive, at best. Once you understand that, your dismissal of those who have maintained orthodox traditions against heretics longer than any one else cannot be dismissed as easily as have several of the fundies here.