I know it’s a little off topic, but since original sin came up, how in the world is an all good God and punishment for, “original sin” congruent with one another?
How could an all good God send a person to hell for eternity for original sin/ wrong that the person is being punished for may have no knowledge of, and had no involvement in?
It makes for a malicious God, I think Aquinas might have a problem with this.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
To be clear, in Catholicism, once a point is set as dogma not even a future pope can change it. This sets the stage for some rather creative interpretations of both history and dogma itself as many centuries of what I firmly believe is human invention, is bent and contorted in a never ending and futile quest for an unachievable harmony. THIS is the inevitable disaster of attempting a single monolithic earthly organizational ekklesia. Despite my VERY sincere personal wishes that it could be so, such a thing (among many others) was unhitched and left behind when the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. (Matthew 27)
Modern Catholicism (last 200 years) has recognized this escalating problem of increasing difficulty with harmonization and is hence hesitant to tighten things up any more than they already have. In fact, no matter what my Catholic friends tell me, I am compelled to believe that Vatican II was an (unsuccessful) attempt to loosen that noose and push the wiggle walls out a bit. That’s why if one goes here: forums.catholic.com/ they will discover the truth about so called Roman Catholic “unity”.
Nowhere on the web will one find more confused controversy and diversity of theological opinion. There are just as many substantive incompatible camps inside Rome as there are protestant denominations. The difference is, we don’t attempt to impose an artificial unity upon the “visible” church and we recognize our differences while clinging to Christ Himself and His perfect knowledge as the unity in the true body of Christ consisting of all those authentic converts who are actually regenerate in Him.
That’s all we mean by the “visible” and “invisible” church. The visible church is everybody who claims to be a Christian. The invisible church is everybody who actually is. The invisible church is visible too, except only God knows infallibly who her members are. [/quote]
What’s really the difference between dogma, belief, or even laws when the result ended up ruining peoples lives? Like how Pope V dealt with Galileo, not knowing how to deal with the evidence, then being so self important that he ruined Galileo’s life because he felt he was mocked.
As for the inquisition, and all the intellectuals killed as a result… I just wonder how people seem to think things are morally static within the church, when clearly, clearly, CLEARLY they NEVER have been and have continuously evolved.
I wonder how the Church justifies the killing of Catharists and Gnostics? Supposedly books were destroyed that didn’t agree with Church doctrine at the time… For all we know, those could have been the right books… Just saying…
[quote]Severiano wrote:<<< What’s really the difference between dogma, belief, >>>[/quote]Dogma (in Catholicism) is basically theology that has been declared or come to be assumed as divinely authoritative and hence binding on the consciences of men. Enforcement of compliance is almost literally nonexistent today. Even among the clergy there is plenty of diversity and division. That’s why different Catholics hope for either a “conservative” or “progressive” pope. There CAN be either even though they’re all supposed to be theologically the same.
John Francis Dearden was a notorious liberal and drew the ire of many within the RCC including JP2 despite being our archbishop here in Detroit for 22 years. They will say that these controversies do not actually concern dogma, but only those areas where freedom of opinion is allowed. Even if that’s true, what difference does it make? It’s still division, even while claiming to have volumes of divine dogma. Don’t even get me started on canon law and canon lawyers, God help us, which are both actually existing Catholic entities.
Some of the other stuff you mention is not as simple as we’ve been led to believe, to be fair to them, and has been addressed many times here. Sometimes accurately by our Catholic friends themselves. Galileo is one.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
[quote]Pat wrote:
And of those you mentioned, who was asked to bare and raise Christ himself? Who of whom you mentioned did Christ honor and obey?
[/quote]
Again, this is highly circular reasoning - you presuppose the sinlessness and spiritual authority of Mary and then read the text through that lens. Once again, SOMEONE had to be asked to bare Christ if he was truly to be a human being descended along the Messianic lines. And secondly, Jesus also dishonored (in the truest, i.e., most contextually sensitive, use of the word) his mother (as well as his brothers) with his claim that his real family consisted of those who obeyed the will of God (Mark 3:31-35). And in any case, she WAS his mother; why is it that surprising that he would occasionally do something she asked him to do? Once again, that is only fitting; it doesn’t imply anything special about their relationship or about Mary’s authority than the fact that she was Jesus’ mother.
None of this proves that Mary was inherently special; it only attests to her position as Jesus’ mother.[/quote]
Circular reasoning? You know that means that the conclusion is a factor of itself. So I don’t know where you are getting circular, much less ‘highly circular’.[/quote]
I see it as circular because you are starting from the assumption that Mary had to be inherently special for God to choose her as Jesus’ mother, then reading that assumption back into the text, when the meaning of the text is precisely what’s at question. Perhaps that doesn’t seem circular to you? Or maybe you don’t think that’s an accurate portrayal of your claims, in which case it’s my mistake and I’m more than open to a rebuttal.
[/quote]
I wasn’t reading that back in to the text. If you are going to read what I wrote to dmaddox and comment about it, at least do me the dignity of reading all I had to say on the topic. I never made this claim, at all. I sourced where the dogma of the ‘Immaculate Conception’ came from. I never claimed it was a purely scriptural dogma. It was 'here is where the Immaculate Conception came from, and here is what scripture says about Mary.
I didn’t claim it determined her as sinless. I said that God thought her special enough to carry and raise the Christ. His salvation for the world. A job he would not just bestow on anybody.
Now you and I apparently disagree on the significance of that for not only Jesus, but Mary. I do not believe under any circumstance, that it was just an arbitrary choice that anybody could have done. I do believe it to be a significant choice by God. If you don’t think that significant, I certainly can’t change your mind.
I would never claim that “Jesus is God; thus whatever he does is by definition righteous.” That’s not what I’m saying at all. As I specifically said, I’m talking “contextually,” i.e., in terms of the 1st century context. My point was that that biblical evidence is not unequivocal - while we have one example from John where Jesus did obey his mother, we have other examples where Jesus denied the “specialness” of his mother’s position.
You and I are in agreement that Jesus honored his mother in the sense entailed by the commandment. Consequently, I don’t understand why Jesus obeying his MOTHER on occasion is surprising - she’s his MOTHER. It doesn’t imply anything more significant about her credentials than the fact that she is his mother, a position of authority in his life.
[/quote]
My contesting is the ‘occasionally’ meaning in that, that he would disobey her on other occasions?? That just makes no sense.
I missed your point? Now that’s rich. I never made that argument at all, period. You read into something on a partial reading of something I said to somebody else.
This is another occasion where you are counter arguing something I never said or alluded to.
You know I don’t mind being disagreed with, but I detest being misrepresented. It’s one thing to discuss disagreements, but to misrepresent what I said and then counter attack that; well quite frankly I don’t understand the tactic. It’s not the first time. Most of the time I find myself trying to correct your understanding or interpretation about what I said rather than discussing actual points. It’s tiresome, because you write a wall of words and make many many counter points, save for the fact the your countering something I didn’t even say. Why? I may not be the best writer, but I seldom have to correct misunderstanding this much. I just don’t understand what the end is?? What’s the goal?
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
I didn’t say that they nearly deify her; I said that was a QUESTION that is worth discussing. [/quote]
THOSE WERE YOUR EXACT WORDS! And it’s patently false and ignorant. It’s not a question worth discussing because it’s not even a question. That may be your point of view, that may be your opinion, but it has NO BASIS IN FACT. NONE. ZERO. NADA. NIET.
If you want to discuss our ‘dearly held beliefs’, do us the dignity using real, actual beliefs. I am not going to argue fiction. It’s a waste of my time.
I have a lot of problems with what you are doing here. Like I said its one thing to disagree, but you are misrepresenting; which I feel is an total impediment to honest discussion. I find the tactic highly objectionable. I really don’t know how to get you to stop doing it.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
LOL!!! Capable, but chose not to, even though the Holy Scripture said that she did.[/quote]
Where does it say this???[/quote]
Are you blind, I already posted it, but I will repost so you can look it up yourself. Mathew 1:24-25 read it.
You are now just playing the fool.
Pat is at least willing to discuss. You on the other hand just put your hands in your ears and blah, blah, blah and then stick your head in the sand.
[/quote]
Yes, say that I’m not willing to discuss after you making statements without arguments. No where in Matthew 1:24-25 does it say that they consummated their marriage.[/quote]
Lets look at this again.
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Look at verse 25. He, that is Joseph, did not consummate their marriage, that is the marriage between Joseph and Mary, UNTIL she gave birth to a son, Jesus. So they did not consummate their marriage until Jesus was born. So, they had sex after Jesus was born.
I really thought you could read, but maybe you are just wanting to turn a blind eye to the facts. I guess when you question the RCC’s traditions and then called a heretic you are not willing to take on the RCC because the church means more to some than the Love of God, and the Sacrifice of Jesus for our sins. The Theology of Mary by the RCC really does not amount to a hill of beans to the Gospel. Mary being “Eternally Virgin” or “Sinless” does not water down the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is number 1 and there is no number 2.
You have mentioned that the Bible is part of the Traditions of the Church. If the traditions go against the Bible would that not be a contradiction of the RCC Traditions? What is the truth in the RCC if they contradict the Bible?
Jesus did have brothers and sisters as well, didn’t he?
And Yes I’ve heard the argument that brothers and sisters actually meant “cousins”
and there was no clear cut way to distinguish the interpretation…but what does the text really say? Is the OT really that nebulous and inconclusive as to the issue whether Jesus had direct siblings from the same Mother or not?
[quote]Karado wrote:
Jesus did have brothers and sisters as well, didn’t he?
And Yes I’ve heard the argument that brothers and sisters actually meant “cousins”
and there was no clear cut way to distinguish the interpretation…but what does the text really say? Is the OT really that nebulous and inconclusive as to the issue whether Jesus had direct siblings from the same Mother or not?
[/quote]
Please help me out if I get this wrong, Pat and Brother Chris. The RCC believes they are children from a previous marriage of Joseph.
Whether Joseph was a Widower or a Divorcee is still in question. If a widower why weren’t the children mentioned in the trip to Bethleham? If a divorcee why would God had allowed Mary to marry him and be the human father of God? Divorce is bad in the RCC. Maybe Joseph had an annulment?
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Severiano wrote:<<< What’s really the difference between dogma, belief, >>>[/quote]Dogma (in Catholicism) is basically theology that has been declared or come to be assumed as divinely authoritative and hence binding on the consciences of men. Enforcement of compliance is almost literally nonexistent today. Even among the clergy there is plenty of diversity and division. That’s why different Catholics hope for either a “conservative” or “progressive” pope. There CAN be either even though they’re all supposed to be theologically the same.
John Francis Dearden was a notorious liberal and drew the ire of many within the RCC including JP2 despite being our archbishop here in Detroit for 22 years. They will say that these controversies do not actually concern dogma, but only those areas where freedom of opinion is allowed. Even if that’s true, what difference does it make? It’s still division, even while claiming to have volumes of divine dogma. Don’t even get me started on canon law and canon lawyers, God help us, which are both actually existing Catholic entities.
Some of the other stuff you mention is not as simple as we’ve been led to believe, to be fair to them, and has been addressed many times here. Sometimes accurately by our Catholic friends themselves. Galileo is one.
[/quote]
Accuracy is an issue for me, being that the victor tends to write history. From what I’ve learned, the Catholics had many inquisitions which basically involved taking control of the hegemony of belief, and killing (burning to death) or imprisoning anyone who didn’t follow. Supposedly a good amount of Catholics stood bye and fought against other Catholics alongside Catharists. I’ve read that while dualism is a major difference, there was a more political/ religious difference which disallowed marrying twice, which Catholics were doing back then which Catharists thought was a major sin.
People of power, who were married twice probably had a hand in the pulling of those vile strings. Would have been nice to at least be able to have a stronger understanding of what the Catharists were about.
[quote]pat wrote:
I didn’t claim it determined her as sinless. I said that God thought her special enough to carry and raise the Christ. His salvation for the world. A job he would not just bestow on anybody.
Now you and I apparently disagree on the significance of that for not only Jesus, but Mary. I do not believe under any circumstance, that it was just an arbitrary choice that anybody could have done. I do believe it to be a significant choice by God. If you don’t think that significant, I certainly can’t change your mind.
[/quote]
Here is verbatim what you said to Karado earlier in this discussion…
[quote]Pat wrote:
No where in the scriptures does it say she was a sinner, nor does it make any mention of her ‘sins’. The scriptures do say ‘Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you!’, and ‘…you have found favor with God.’ ← These aren’t the marks of a sinner.
For the Holy Spirit to come into her to deliver the Savior of man, she had to be pretty special in God’s eyes.
[/quote]
You wrote the above statements in response to Karado’s claim that Mary was a sinner like everyone else. The argument above, summarily stated, is, “Scripture does not give any indication that Mary sinned; on the contrary, the statements made to Mary do not befit a sinner.” Now since you claim I’m misrepresenting you, I’ll just assume, for the sake of argument, that you tagged on the last bit about “her specialness” without it really pertaining to the comments above it, even though putting that all together would certainly give one the idea that they were connected (i.e., that you were positing Mary’s sinlessness as the reason why God chose her). But even setting that final comment aside, what then is the point of your argument, except that you think her being called “favored one” implies Mary’s sinlessness?
And when I pointed out that this language is really nothing special - that it’s stock biblical language applicable to other sinful people in the Bible - you appealed to God’s choice of her as evidence that she was MORE special than they were. Given the context of our conversation, I could only assume (by your argument that, in her case, the language was unique because of her special role) that you thought her sinlessness was what set her apart.
IF I’m misrepresenting you, Pat, it’s only because I am trying to form some sort of coherent argument out of your various statements. I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, i.e., that you do indeed possess a coherent account for your belief that Mary was sinless.
And for the record, I never said it was an arbitrary choice. You are putting words in my mouth, now. I never once said the choice was arbitrary. My point was simply that God does not choose as we do; salvation-history as revealed throughout Scripture demonstrates this over and over again. So the fact that God chooses someone for a specific role does not mean that they possess traits that WE would think necessary qualifications for that role.
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
[quote]Pat wrote:
Why is it surprising that he would occasionally do something she asked Him to do? Are you being serious with this?
[/quote]
You and I are in agreement that Jesus honored his mother in the sense entailed by the commandment. Consequently, I don’t understand why Jesus obeying his MOTHER on occasion is surprising - she’s his MOTHER. It doesn’t imply anything more significant about her credentials than the fact that she is his mother, a position of authority in his life.
[/quote]
My contesting is the ‘occasionally’ meaning in that, that he would disobey her on other occasions?? That just makes no sense.
[/quote]
I’ll concede that I should have used a different word than “obey,” as it gives the wrong impression. When I said, “obey,” I meant, “submit to her requests.” If there was anyone on earth to whom Jesus would submit, it would be his mother. But he was led by and followed his Father first and foremost, and the biblical mandate to obey one’s parents is always qualified by the implicit, “unless they command you to do something against the Will of God.” Thus Jesus runs away to the temple without telling his parents and offers no apology once they finally found him. Thus also Jesus declares that anyone who loves parents more than him (and in context, the implication is to choose their will over Jesus’) is unworthy of him. The command to love the Lord your God trumps all others; deference must first be shown to him, which may mean ignoring a parent’s protests.
Now you could obviously retort that Mary wouldn’t tell Jesus to do anything against the will of God, but that’s entirely debatable and certainly not apparent from the biblical evidence.
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
Pat, you missed the point entirely. Your argument so far has been (A) God chose Mary to bear Jesus; (B) God would only choose someone who was sinless; (C) therefore, Mary must have been sinless. My point is that premise B is precisely what’s under question; you cannot simply assume it. God did have to choose a woman to bear Jesus if he was to be a human being; that’s a logical AND Scriptural necessity. But any other criteria, unless stated in Scripture, are pure speculation, including premise B above.
[/quote]
I missed your point? Now that’s rich. I never made that argument at all, period. You read into something on a partial reading of something I said to somebody else.
This is another occasion where you are counter arguing something I never said or alluded to.
[/quote]
As I said with your response to Karado above, your juxtaposition of statements certainly seemed to imply the above argument. You’re right though - a SUMMARY/PARAPHRASE of your argument so far has simply been, (A) God chose Mary to bear Jesus, (B) therefore, Mary must have been special. Given your linking of her “specialness” to the comments made to her, comments which you claim “are not the marks of a sinner,” I would of course assume that “specialness” implied “non-sinfulness,” that is, “sinlessness.”
This yields the argument, “God chose Mary to bear Jesus; therefore, Mary must have been special (sinless).” But to get from the premise to the conclusion, I have to supply a further premise, or the whole thing is merely conjecture. That further premise would have to be, “God would only choose someone who was special (sinless) to bear Jesus.” THAT’S how I arrived at the above, and if you don’t like it, then perhaps you could supply an actual argument instead of throwing out claims (like, Mary’s epithet does not befit a sinner) and rejoinders (like, the Bible doesn’t say anywhere that Mary sinned or had sex) without any underlying logic to them.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
I didn’t say that they nearly deify her; I said that was a QUESTION that is worth discussing. [/quote]
THOSE WERE YOUR EXACT WORDS! And it’s patently false and ignorant. It’s not a question worth discussing because it’s not even a question. That may be your point of view, that may be your opinion, but it has NO BASIS IN FACT. NONE. ZERO. NADA. NIET.
If you want to discuss our ‘dearly held beliefs’, do us the dignity using real, actual beliefs. I am not going to argue fiction. It’s a waste of my time.
I have a lot of problems with what you are doing here. Like I said its one thing to disagree, but you are misrepresenting; which I feel is an total impediment to honest discussion. I find the tactic highly objectionable. I really don’t know how to get you to stop doing it.
[/quote]
So you are actually going to claim that I said that Catholics nearly deify her? In other words, I asserted as a fact that Catholics nearly deify Mary?
Here, verbatim, is what I said (I’ll even throw in some context)…
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
No one’s goal is to take her down a notch, and saying that she had sex in no way dishonors her. That’s nonsense. The question is not whether Protestants dishonor her, but rather whether Catholics nearly deify her. That’s the real issue, and it requires some serious thought.
[/quote]
The word “whether” implies uncertainty, Pat, especially in the statement, “the question is whether Catholics nearly deify her.” I didn’t say for sure that they do; my point is that it is a worthwhile question, because the mere fact that Catholics don’t believe their petitions to various entities (including Mary) other than God constitute idolatry does NOT determine whether or not such petitions ARE idolatrous. That’s been the Protestant point all along - no Protestant (except for your atypical Fred Phelps, hyper-Baptist types) believes that you really think you are worshipping Mary! The question Protestants raise, however, is whether the practices of petitioning saints (even just for their prayers) is assigning them a place in the creational hierarchy that they do not deserve, and therein usurping the place of God.
Do I buy that Protestant argument? NOPE!!! Even though I don’t consider petitioning of saints to be effective or to represent an accurate depiction of either the creational hierarchy or the constitution of the heavenly realm, I would not call such petitioning idolatry.
How bout “Mother of God, who is able to obtain graces and eternal life for them” or “hope of my soul!” or “salvation of the world!” or “all-powerful” or “source of all our good,” or she who “delivers us from every evil” or “sovereign Lady” or who “alone art the one whom God has appointed to be my solace here below” or “the hope of my salvation!” or “my queen, my refuge, my love, my help, my hope, and my strength.” as I quoted from a doctor of the church on the previous page as well a link to the actual book so as to escape the charge of irresponsible sensationalistic hackery? A doctor of the church and still primary manual of Marion devotion to this day. I can pull out a few hundred more if need be. You feel that the God of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel does not regard such statements and the heart that would embrace them as idolatrous? Really? What then, if I may be so froward as to inquire, actually DOES constitute idolatry in your view? This kinda language along with the statues ain’t makin it? I think you know me well enough by now to know that I am not playing pummel the papists here. This is deadly serious and I am not having fun.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
How bout “Mother of God, who is able to obtain graces and eternal life for them” or “hope of my soul!” or “salvation of the world!” or “all-powerful” or “source of all our good,” or she who “delivers us from every evil” or “sovereign Lady” or who “alone art the one whom God has appointed to be my solace here below” or “the hope of my salvation!” or “my queen, my refuge, my love, my help, my hope, and my strength.” as I quoted from a doctor of the church on the previous page as well a link to the actual book so as to escape the charge of irresponsible sensationalistic hackery? A doctor of the church and still primary manual of Marion devotion to this day. I can pull out a few hundred more if need be. You feel that the God of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel does not regard such statements and the heart that would embrace them as idolatrous? Really? What then, if I may be so froward as to inquire, actually DOES constitute idolatry in your view? This kinda language along with the statues ain’t makin it? I think you know me well enough by now to know that I am not playing pummel the papists here. This is deadly serious and I am not having fun.
[/quote]
I was talking about the act of petitioning itself. Within a particular view of the creational hierarchy, petitioning makes sense. I am not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that I would consider the use of such epithets as you have discussed legitimate. I also continue to maintain that the entire practice is a vestige of the early Gentile Christians’ polytheistic heritage.
That’s mighty diplomatic and charitable of you my dear brother. I think I mean that as a sideways compliment so don’t take it the wrong way. I want to take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge the hurtful and immature way I’ve handled my opposition to Catholicism in the past around here. I did not take the time to REALLY remember that there were people on the other end of my vitriol whose lives and families were defined by Catholicism maybe for generations.
I cannot retract the substance of what I said, but the careless and even at times cruel manner in which I often said it was dishonoring to Jesus and insensitive to those I was claiming to love. It actually hurts me to write these posts now. I mean that with all my heart. To the Catholics here: I cannot but speak what I see as the truth, but I will do my best to be more godly in my presentation.
Is there anybody else who is Catholic here that can give it their strongest case on the Mary issues
being discussed?
The best argument? The best case that can virtually ‘blow us away’ because
it seems that, with all due respect to pat and his beliefs, if this is the very best, elite, crème de
la crème case that anybody can make for the 100% sinless Mary…MAN, I mean, I still remain open minded to a point here, but even a regular ‘salt of the earth’ dude like me can see right through the best arguments on the Catholic side, and I’m sorry, but they seem pretty weak so far.
Yes with God all things are possible, but that doesn’t give license for humans to pull stories
out of thin air and add or delete what Scripture says.
I actually can imagine the possibility that Mary ascended, I mean why would Yeshua leave Mary behind right?
But in Acts 1, if that happened the Scriptures would have definitely detailed that without omission.
Maybe Jesus caught the morning ascension, and Mary caught the afternoon ascension?
I’m really not trying to be funny on that one, but maybe it happened, maybe she ascended, who the fuck knows for sure? Nobody, that’s who, it’s the CERTAINTY that people are locked and loaded on that’s bothersome from both sides…I’m an asshole sometimes I know, but at least I’m an open asshole.
Wait…that didn’t come out right.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
I didn’t say that they nearly deify her; I said that was a QUESTION that is worth discussing. [/quote]
THOSE WERE YOUR EXACT WORDS! And it’s patently false and ignorant. It’s not a question worth discussing because it’s not even a question. That may be your point of view, that may be your opinion, but it has NO BASIS IN FACT. NONE. ZERO. NADA. NIET.
If you want to discuss our ‘dearly held beliefs’, do us the dignity using real, actual beliefs. I am not going to argue fiction. It’s a waste of my time.
I have a lot of problems with what you are doing here. Like I said its one thing to disagree, but you are misrepresenting; which I feel is an total impediment to honest discussion. I find the tactic highly objectionable. I really don’t know how to get you to stop doing it.
[/quote]
So you are actually going to claim that I said that Catholics nearly deify her? In other words, I asserted as a fact that Catholics nearly deify Mary?
Here, verbatim, is what I said (I’ll even throw in some context)…
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
No one’s goal is to take her down a notch, and saying that she had sex in no way dishonors her. That’s nonsense. The question is not whether Protestants dishonor her, but rather whether Catholics nearly deify her. That’s the real issue, and it requires some serious thought.
[/quote]
The word “whether” implies uncertainty, Pat, especially in the statement, “the question is whether Catholics nearly deify her.” I didn’t say for sure that they do; my point is that it is a worthwhile question, because the mere fact that Catholics don’t believe their petitions to various entities (including Mary) other than God constitute idolatry does NOT determine whether or not such petitions ARE idolatrous. That’s been the Protestant point all along - no Protestant (except for your atypical Fred Phelps, hyper-Baptist types) believes that you really think you are worshipping Mary! The question Protestants raise, however, is whether the practices of petitioning saints (even just for their prayers) is assigning them a place in the creational hierarchy that they do not deserve, and therein usurping the place of God.
Do I buy that Protestant argument? NOPE!!! Even though I don’t consider petitioning of saints to be effective or to represent an accurate depiction of either the creational hierarchy or the constitution of the heavenly realm, I would not call such petitioning idolatry. [/quote]
Some protestants play with snakes. And this technically is known as Red Herring, and not pertinent to the discussion at hand.
Second, it does not nullify the fact that you either misread or deliberately misrepresented what I said in order to make a counter argument against something I did not say or imply. I do not mind discussions, but I am not going to suffer through reams and reams of text if they are going to deal actually with the actual points I made in a discussion.
If you want to discuss the stance of the Church on various issues, please refer to the Catechism. It’s on-line for all to see and it is the official stance of the church on all things. CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, Fox News, Wall Street Journal or what ever else you can use as sources out side the Catechism does not speak for the church and does not in anyway represent the official doctrines.
Go to the source.
Here you go:
Let me know when you get to the deification of Mary.
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]Karado wrote:
Jesus did have brothers and sisters as well, didn’t he?
And Yes I’ve heard the argument that brothers and sisters actually meant “cousins”
and there was no clear cut way to distinguish the interpretation…but what does the text really say? Is the OT really that nebulous and inconclusive as to the issue whether Jesus had direct siblings from the same Mother or not?
[/quote]
Please help me out if I get this wrong, Pat and Brother Chris. The RCC believes they are children from a previous marriage of Joseph.
Whether Joseph was a Widower or a Divorcee is still in question. If a widower why weren’t the children mentioned in the trip to Bethleham? If a divorcee why would God had allowed Mary to marry him and be the human father of God? Divorce is bad in the RCC. Maybe Joseph had an annulment?[/quote]
The theories abound, but issue of ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ is used rather loosely. The word ‘adelphoi’ was used rather loosely and in many contexts not clearly differentiating those of the same womb, from those of extended family from those spiritually connected. This ambiguity therefore, does not make it clear whether the ‘brothers and sisters’ of Christ were flesh and blood siblings or those of his extended family or potentially step siblings. The church’s stance is that they are not of Mary’s womb.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
I didn’t claim it determined her as sinless. I said that God thought her special enough to carry and raise the Christ. His salvation for the world. A job he would not just bestow on anybody.
Now you and I apparently disagree on the significance of that for not only Jesus, but Mary. I do not believe under any circumstance, that it was just an arbitrary choice that anybody could have done. I do believe it to be a significant choice by God. If you don’t think that significant, I certainly can’t change your mind.
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Here is verbatim what you said to Karado earlier in this discussion…
[quote]Pat wrote:
No where in the scriptures does it say she was a sinner, nor does it make any mention of her ‘sins’. The scriptures do say ‘Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you!’, and ‘…you have found favor with God.’ ← These aren’t the marks of a sinner.
For the Holy Spirit to come into her to deliver the Savior of man, she had to be pretty special in God’s eyes.
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You wrote the above statements in response to Karado’s claim that Mary was a sinner like everyone else. The argument above, summarily stated, is, “Scripture does not give any indication that Mary sinned; on the contrary, the statements made to Mary do not befit a sinner.” Now since you claim I’m misrepresenting you, I’ll just assume, for the sake of argument, that you tagged on the last bit about “her specialness” without it really pertaining to the comments above it, even though putting that all together would certainly give one the idea that they were connected (i.e., that you were positing Mary’s sinlessness as the reason why God chose her). But even setting that final comment aside, what then is the point of your argument, except that you think her being called “favored one” implies Mary’s sinlessness?
And when I pointed out that this language is really nothing special - that it’s stock biblical language applicable to other sinful people in the Bible - you appealed to God’s choice of her as evidence that she was MORE special than they were. Given the context of our conversation, I could only assume (by your argument that, in her case, the language was unique because of her special role) that you thought her sinlessness was what set her apart.
IF I’m misrepresenting you, Pat, it’s only because I am trying to form some sort of coherent argument out of your various statements. I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, i.e., that you do indeed possess a coherent account for your belief that Mary was sinless.
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The detailed discussion I had about this was with dmaddox, not karrado. I clearly stated that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was not derived from scripture. What I was using scripture for was to point out that Mary was particularly significant in the course of salvation history and despite whether one believes in the Immaculate Conception or not, she was honored and held in high regard by Jesus himself and that is no small thing.
You and I are in agreement that Jesus honored his mother in the sense entailed by the commandment. Consequently, I don’t understand why Jesus obeying his MOTHER on occasion is surprising - she’s his MOTHER. It doesn’t imply anything more significant about her credentials than the fact that she is his mother, a position of authority in his life.
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My contesting is the ‘occasionally’ meaning in that, that he would disobey her on other occasions?? That just makes no sense.
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I’ll concede that I should have used a different word than “obey,” as it gives the wrong impression. When I said, “obey,” I meant, “submit to her requests.” If there was anyone on earth to whom Jesus would submit, it would be his mother. But he was led by and followed his Father first and foremost, and the biblical mandate to obey one’s parents is always qualified by the implicit, “unless they command you to do something against the Will of God.” Thus Jesus runs away to the temple without telling his parents and offers no apology once they finally found him. Thus also Jesus declares that anyone who loves parents more than him (and in context, the implication is to choose their will over Jesus’) is unworthy of him. The command to love the Lord your God trumps all others; deference must first be shown to him, which may mean ignoring a parent’s protests.
Now you could obviously retort that Mary wouldn’t tell Jesus to do anything against the will of God, but that’s entirely debatable and certainly not apparent from the biblical evidence.
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
Pat, you missed the point entirely. Your argument so far has been (A) God chose Mary to bear Jesus; (B) God would only choose someone who was sinless; (C) therefore, Mary must have been sinless. My point is that premise B is precisely what’s under question; you cannot simply assume it. God did have to choose a woman to bear Jesus if he was to be a human being; that’s a logical AND Scriptural necessity. But any other criteria, unless stated in Scripture, are pure speculation, including premise B above.
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I missed your point? Now that’s rich. I never made that argument at all, period. You read into something on a partial reading of something I said to somebody else.
This is another occasion where you are counter arguing something I never said or alluded to.
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As I said with your response to Karado above, your juxtaposition of statements certainly seemed to imply the above argument. You’re right though - a SUMMARY/PARAPHRASE of your argument so far has simply been, (A) God chose Mary to bear Jesus, (B) therefore, Mary must have been special. Given your linking of her “specialness” to the comments made to her, comments which you claim “are not the marks of a sinner,” I would of course assume that “specialness” implied “non-sinfulness,” that is, “sinlessness.”
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Again I didn’t make that claim. I wasn’t juxtapositioning the Immaculate Conception into scripture. I was making the example that Mary was a significant person in the course of salvation history. That the bible does not give any examples that would contradict the dogma by stating at any point that she was a sinner. I never implicitly or explicitly stated that the bible was the source nor that it could be derived scripturally.
Nor did I make the claim that by the fact alone that Mary was chosen to bare and raise the Son of God alone the basis for her ‘specialness’ The precious few things said about Mary in the Bible are all significant and those things are what signify her blessedness in scripture. Certainly though, I believe that being chosen to bring God as man in to the world, to be charged with the baring, raising and protecting the Son of the Most High, is no small matter in itself. Without Mary, there would have been no Jesus.
[quote]pat wrote:<<< The precious few things said about Mary in the Bible >>>[/quote] And herein lies the problem Pat. You simply must go back and look at the pagan (“gentile” is KingKai’s word) concepts of female deities and worship all over the non judeo-Christian world in those days and going much further back than that. The parallels are impossible to miss. This stuff was smuggled into the church early on and along with the authority structure forming at the same time, the two, along with a bunch of other now Catholic doctrines, were cemented into ChristenDOM going forward. Sifting through the so called church fathers is an exercise in discernment and without scripture actually written by the true fathers of the church as the final guide, literally ANYTHING is possible. There were differing views on EVERYTHING for centuries. Other than some generally elevated language there wasn’t even uniformity on Mary.
I’m not trying to be a jackass like I was before. I knew we were gonna wind up here, I just didn’t know it would be this soon.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:<<< The precious few things said about Mary in the Bible >>>[/quote] And herein lies the problem Pat. You simply must go back and look at the pagan (“gentile” is KingKai’s word) concepts of female deities and worship all over the non judeo-Christian world in those days and going much further back than that. The parallels are impossible to miss. This stuff was smuggled into the church early on and along with the authority structure forming at the same time, the two, along with a bunch of other now Catholic doctrines, were cemented into ChristenDOM going forward. Sifting through the so called church fathers is an exercise in discernment and without scripture actually written by the true fathers of the church as the final guide, literally ANYTHING is possible. There were differing views on EVERYTHING for centuries. Other than some generally elevated language there wasn’t even uniformity on Mary.
I’m not trying to be a jackass like I was before. I knew we were gonna wind up here, I just didn’t know it would be this soon.
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Mary is not deified, period. She is not God, it’s blasphemy to make the claim and it’s simply not true. So there is nothing to discuss.
Looking for parallels to pagan rituals is a slippery slope in Christianity as you can make many parallels not just in Catholicism. A similarity, or an ‘almost’ is not the same as ‘is’. Mary is not God, not thought to be God in any respect, not taught as having any equivalence to God at any level. There is nothing to discuss on the topic as it is a made up fiction. I am not wasting my time with slaying phantom beliefs.
If you have to discredit Catholicism on the basis of things that don’t exist, you don’t have much to go on in reality.