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Deification of men




Salamun 'Alaykum,
Peace be unto you,



[9:31]
They have set up their religious leaders and scholars as lords, instead of GOD.
Others deified the Messiah, son of Mary.
They were all commanded to worship only one god. There is no god except He. Be He glorified, high above having any partners.


These are some quotes from various news sources, at the funeral of Pope John Paul II:
"He'll be missed but he'll be watching and he'll be guiding from above,"

"Our whole world will be different now,"

"We're going to need a clone,"

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger : "We can be sure that our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the Father's house, that he sees us and blesses us.


FairfaxDigital
April 9, 2005
Only time will tell if the saint maker joins elite group

A poll for the Jesuit Le Moyne College in New York this week found that more than two-thirds of US Catholics think John Paul should be made a saint,

Already some people are calling John Paul by the acclamation "the Great," which requires no formal process.

Canonisation - the declaration by a pope that a person is a saint - is the last step in a three-tier process that usually takes years. It involves extensive investigation of the candidate's life, writings and teachings and proof that his or her intercession has resulted in two miracles, such as healings, that are verified by a medical panel - except in the case of martyrs, for whom only one miracle is required.

Even if he does not become a saint, John Paul will be remembered as a saint maker. In addition to the 450 saints he canonised he beatified more than 1300 - many of them awaiting proof of a miracle for canonisation. Previously, only about 300 Catholic saints had been canonised since the 16th century.

The above quotes may sound very normal to some people, specially those who grew up in strict religious families, the Catholics for example may have no problem with the above quotes.

let's study what  "Sainthood" is all about, here is an excerpt from the "New advent encyclopedia".

Beatification and Canonization
Catholic Encycopedia

According to some writers the origin of beatification and canonization in the Catholic Church is to be traced back to the ancient pagan apotheosis.

Apotheosis
(Gr. apotheosis, from, and theos, deify).

"Deification, the exaltation of men to the rank of gods.
Closely connected with the universal worship of
 the dead in the history of all primitive peoples
was the consecration as deities of heroes or rulers,
as a reward for bravery or other great services.
 "In the same manner every city worshipped
the one who founded it"
"the great majority of the Roman rulers and many
members of the imperial family, among whom
were some women, were enrolled among the gods."

The true origin of canonization and beatification must be sought in the Catholic doctrine of the worship (cultus), invocation, and intercession of the saints. As was taught by St. Augustine, Catholics, while giving to God alone adoration strictly so-called, honour the saints because of the Divine supernatural gifts which have earned them eternal life, and through which they reign with God in the heavenly fatherland as His chosen friends and faithful servants.

The Church erects her altars to God alone, though in honour and memory of the saints and martyrs.

And if St. Paul beseeches the brethren to help him by their prayers for him to God, we must with even greater reason maintain that we can be helped by the prayers of the saints, and ask their intercession with humility. If we may beseech those who still live on earth, why not those who live in heaven?

It is objected that the invocation of saints is opposed to the unique mediatorship of Christ Jesus. There is indeed "one mediator of God and man, the man Christ Jesus". But He is our mediator in His quality of our common Redeemer; He is not our sole intercessor nor advocate, nor our sole mediator by way of supplication.

This phenomena of "Sainthood" is by no means limited to Christianity, the Muslim "Sufi" orders have multitude of saints also, almost all religions have saints!. Why?

As you can read above, the deification of men was a persistent practice among all the primitive cultures, this evolved into the deification of emprors and leaders (to this day people around the world venerate their dictators, the last direct worship was that of emperor Hirohito of Japan that ended 1945), later the phenomena polluted the message of God, Satan succeeded in driving many to idolize their prophets.

The same prophets who were specifically sent to warn us against idolizing anyone/anything but God.

 Deuteronomy 6
 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

Mark 10
18“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone.

Quran
[3:51] (Jesus said):"GOD is my Lord and your Lord; you shall worship Him alone. This is the right path."


Why do some people idolize other "people" ?

As you may know, Satan wants to be a partner with God in His kingship, Satan is too proud of his God-given powers to realize that only God can be god, and that his own power is from that one god.

Satan has messengers among us, they are the "Jinn-beings", invisible creatures who propagate Satan's blasphemy, the main idea of Satan is that the creatures have powers on their own, Satan says that when a saint or a prophet do a miracle, the saint or prophet is the only source of it!

For example, God granted Jesus awesome miracles, as proofs for the faithfull that his message is truly from God, yet Satan duped the people into believing that the miracles were from the human being, Jesus himself.

Satan's ultimate goal is to distract us from God and His message, he uses the creatures to overshadow the truth. As explained elsewhere in this website, satan uses the Extreme emotions, in this case he uses the emotion of love to develope a bond between the people and their idol, so that they end up totally distracted from God.

The biggest scheme of Satan is to make us worship a dead person instead of God, he induces a trauma to control the minds of the people, in the case of the martyrs, he uses their martyrdom to induce this trauma/bond, in the case of Jesus, he used the crucifixion (Quran confirms that Jesus's soul was raised before the torture began) to induce this trauma and to create the bond of slavery to him.

Thus a combination of miracles + trauma disctracted millions away from the Creator, towards the creatures.

Can they impart blessings?

Another trick by Satan is the idea of "they are purer than us, they can bring us closer to God", this idea is totally blasphemous, because it assumes that these creatures have independent power to grant benefits to their followers, can we attribute a nice letter we recieved to the postman instead of the sender?

In Submission, the religion of strict monotheism, there are no intercessors, no mediators between us and God, God is nearer to us than our jugular veins, everybody can contact God on his own, the test is based on the individual responsbility, nobody can carry the sins of another, and nobody can intercede/change God's judgment, God is the only judge.

And through our beliefs/wroks we can redeem ourselves by ourselves if God so wills.

[39:3] Absolutely, the religion shall be devoted to GOD alone. Those who set up idols beside Him say, "We idolize them only to bring us closer to GOD; for they are in a better position!" GOD will judge them regarding their disputes. GOD does not guide such liars, disbelievers.

WARNING:

[46:27] We have annihilated many communities around you, after we had explained the proofs, that they might repent.
[46:28] Why then did the idols they set up to bring them closer to GOD fail to help them? Instead, they abandoned them. Such were the false gods they idolized; such were the innovations they fabricated.


The Submitters along the history of mankind recognized the ultimate truth that "All power belongs to God alone", thus the miracles Jesus performed, the knowledge of the saints ...etc are not to be attributed to these human beings, but to God alone.

[2:165] Yet, some people set up idols to rival GOD, and love them as if they are GOD. Those who believe love GOD the most. If only the transgressors could see themselves when they see the retribution! They will realize then that all power belongs to GOD alone, and that GOD's retribution is awesome.



The death of the pope in the year 2005 is a clear sign that the fulfilment of the prophecy is approaching, you shall take heed and abandon your idols before it's too late.

The Great Prophecy

[48:28] He is the One who sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, to make it prevail over all other religions. GOD suffices as a witness.

 



John Paul II, A new idol