High Demand Religions?

[Judas Maccabeus]

Look, I don’t see how anyone can take anyone who dresses in Orthodox clerical costumes seriously. I mean, a cross on top of your head? Really?

[ken_sylvania]

How do you know you can trust those were guided by the Holy Spirit when your sect arrived at their various conclusions? They certainly were not all on the same page from the start. Splits from the very beginning, Amish, Mennonite, Hutterite should be an obvious indication this was not the Holy Spirit but "reaction" & everyone doing what was right in their own eyes.

It's actually kind of impressive how despite differences in administration the Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites have in general been able to appreciate each other. Compare that with all the splits in the RC and EO churches where the different factions would try to kill one another and think that in doing so they are in God's will.

[Valerie]

Here's something since you require written instructions from Bible regarding baptism:
Please supply Scripture telling to baptize by puring or sprinkling?

[Valerie]

Look, I don’t see how anyone can take anyone who dresses in Orthodox clerical costumes seriously. I mean, a cross on top of your head? Really?

God has ALWAYS made use of symbols. Like head coverings. If you don't really understand that is fine, it's your opinion.

Perhaps identical straw hats, or identical black hats, or strings on white head coverings or no strings, "requirements" are symbolic of true faith

[Soloist]

Here's something since you require written instructions from Bible regarding baptism:
Please supply Scripture telling to baptize by puring or sprinkling?

Please supply Scripture telling us why the exact method of water application matters? No one is arguing about that here. maybe if you want to argue baptism modes which also has been done quite a lot... maybe start a new thread.

[Soloist]

Look, I don’t see how anyone can take anyone who dresses in Orthodox clerical costumes seriously. I mean, a cross on top of your head? Really?

God has ALWAYS made use of symbols. Like head coverings. If you don't really understand that is fine, it's your opinion.

Perhaps identical straw hats, or identical black hats, or strings on white head coverings or no strings, "requirements" are symbolic of true faith

I don't think anyone would hold those as symbolic of true faith.

[MaxPC]

If you are constructing a world in which the church and state are one, and the expectation is that everyone is Christian because Europe is "Christendom" then infant baptism makes perfect sense. Of course every citizen of medieval France or Italy will be Catholic because there is nothing else but heresy. So you baptize infants. Catholics don't follow the doctrine of infant baptism because they gave an honest reading of Luke 18 and reached that conclusion. Rather, they do infant baptism because of 2000 years of church history, during much of which the church and state were inextricably intertwined and Catholicism was the only faith allowed.

PSA for Ken: In the first 400 years of Christianity, Catholics were persecuted with death sentences by the state. The Early Church Fathers also baptised infants during those centuries as noted in their writings and readings of Scripture (see the link). As a persecuted minority, this was not a political theocratic maneuver to perpetuate a theocracy as Christians had no political power. Rather it was a matter of belief in the graces imparted by the Sacrament of Baptism and an acknowledgement that due to the persecutions and high infant mortality rates, their children may not live to see the age of reason.

Nonsense. For the first 400 years of Christianity there were no Catholics in their current form. There were only Christians who held a wide variety of conflicting views and doctrines. At best, the Roman Catholic church in its current organization form and doctrine draws its origins to the 5th Century.

As for infant baptism? Christianity was still debating infant baptism at the time of Augustine in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. Augustine was an advocate of infant baptism because of his doctrine of original sin. But at that time he was still writing under the presumption that it was not yet settled and universal church doctrine.

The facts in the Early Church Fathers’ writings also disagree with your opinion. If you have an open and scholarly mind, I recommend you do a thorough reading of the writings of the Early Church Fathers. Both Catholic and Orthodox view these early apostles from the first 400 years as authoritative.

If you are not interested in the scholarship of the Early Church Fathers, so be it. This topic has been hashed to death and the ‘us vs them’ mentality is so firmly entrenched that discussion of the documented evidence is no longer productive. Therefore we shall agree to disagree. Done and dusted.

[Josh]

Look, I don’t see how anyone can take anyone who dresses in Orthodox clerical costumes seriously. I mean, a cross on top of your head? Really?

I really don't know either, particularly with the gold and jewels all over their crowns or whatever they call those hats.

[Josh]

The facts in the Early Church Fathers’ writings also disagree with your opinion. If you have an open and scholarly mind, I recommend you do a thorough reading of the writings of the Early Church Fathers. Both Catholic and Orthodox view these early apostles from the first 400 years as authoritative.

If you are not interested in the scholarship of the Early Church Fathers, so be it. This topic has been hashed to death and the ‘us vs them’ mentality is so firmly entrenched that discussion of the documented evidence is no longer productive. Therefore we shall agree to disagree. Done and dusted.

(I am using bold as well in order to assist anyone who is visually impaired.)

The early church fathers do not, actually, support infant baptism; this was a false doctrine that appears a bit later, around 300, but the real reason for its necessity was Augustine's bizarre doctrines that infants are born with "original sin" because he believed marital relations were inherently sinful, and would imbue sin on a child. I have no idea where he came up with such nonsense ideas.

We will continue to discuss and debate it as long as people decide to come onto an Anabaptist forum and promote false doctrines, such as baptising infants, serving communion to infants, baptising donkeys, serving communion to horses, or the idea that a newborn baby is sinful and will go to hell.

[Josh]

Perhaps identical straw hats, or identical black hats, or strings on white head coverings or no strings, "requirements" are symbolic of true faith

I sure hope not, particularly since it never says so in the Bible. The Bible teaches us to wear clothes. It doesn't say exactly what those clothes should look like. Likewise, we are to pray and to sing songs of worship but it doesn't say exactly what prayers must be said or what songs to sing.