[reiner]

She birthed Jesus. It's pretty simple. I'll break out the Catholic Math.

Mary = Jesus Mom
God = Jesus
Mary = God Mom

She didn't create anything in the situation. She was simply host to a miracle.

This post has been edited by reiner: 13 April 2008 - 05:04 PM

[TruJade]

Ok I get that she is the mother of God
the whole born without original sin/immaculate conception
and the pagan thing makes some kind of sense

but still why or rather who would have been

staring at the sun for so long as to say
"Wow that looks like Holy Mary! I gotta tell the world
just as soon as i get my sight back"

[Supes]

It's kind of like that optical illusion where you stare and an ink blot for about 60 seconds and then close your eyes. The image you see is the sillouette of Jesus. But this one it on a huge scale and you get the sillouette for the rest of your life!

People will always prove entertaining!

[Slade]

*squints* It's a sailboat! Don't lie to the forumers, Supes.

And hooray, Supes is back! Stick around, good sir!

[reiner]

*squints* It's a sailboat! Don't lie to the forumers, Supes.

And hooray, Supes is back! Stick around, good sir!

Have to second this sentiment!

[Supes]

Yes, but if you cast your glance to the left of the sail boat you will see Jesus walking on the water...

[TruJade]

What!?!??
Where is this tomfoolery and poppycock coming from?
All of this is ridiculous, people only see what they want to see
this isn't some optical illusion where it has to be one thing or the other.


Ink Blots???
The Sun?????
SUBJECTIVE!
All of it!! A practical joke or someone is trying to make a quick buck

[SimeSublime]

Firstly and most importantly, people blinding themselves looking at the sun: It seems to me the creationists are proving Darwinism.
As to the side topic, as somebody who went to a Catholic school: Mary was the only person to be born without the taint of original sin. Hence she is more pure then regular people, and closer to God. Thus, like Civ2 said, she is asked to pray to God for sinners. She is not worshipped herself.
Out of curiosity, where did this idea that Catholics worship Mary come from? I've only ever heard it when I was reading Whitethorn (a good book by Bryce Courtney), but the characters that held that view were basically rednecks who didn't understand much of anything. Thus I'm surprised to find that it's actually more commonly held.

[Spoon Poetic]

Because people think
pray to = worship
revere = worship
etc. And don't bother to do any research.

[TruJade]

As to the side topic, as somebody who went to a Catholic school: Mary was the only person to be born without the taint of original sin. Hence she is more pure then regular people, and closer to God. Thus, like Civ2 said, she is asked to pray to God for sinners. She is not worshipped herself.
Out of curiosity, where did this idea that Catholics worship Mary come from? I've only ever heard it when I was reading Whitethorn (a good book by Bryce Courtney), but the characters that held that view were basically rednecks who didn't understand much of anything. Thus I'm surprised to find that it's actually more commonly held.

I also went to a Catholic school and its just they never clarified the difference.
We were suppose to pray in the direction of the Cross wherever it was in the classroom.
It just so happened that there were many more effigies to Mary thus we were told to pray to her.
I do understand that she is "more pure than others" but we were taught to model ourselves after her because of her sinlessness and ask her for guidance.

My argument is if you believe in God and everything why would you pray at all to anyone/thing else?
What makes a Catholics Christian is their belief in Jesus Christ's divinity.
Not on the holiness of his mother. The Bible clearly states that Jesus is the light of the world
and we as people cannot enter the kingdom of heaven execpt through him a.k.a God.
Not Mary, try bring that up in Religion class and still getting an 'A'

[civilian_number_two]

If Mary appears to people all over the world, and is at the centre of a lot of miracles, then why not assume her role is more than the few lines she gets in the Bible? See, the difference between Catholics and most other Christians is that they believe that the business of divine revelation and spiritual visitation didn't end in Classical times. They believe that Mary appears to people all the time. Jesus huimself never appears to anybody, and God is no more than a concept. So Catholics pray to Mary to intercede with God on their behalf. I don't think it's any weirder than anything else people believe.

[Jordan]

What makes it weird is that the bible tells you who to pray to and how. If a guy came to Jesus in the Book of Matthew and said "christ, your mother came to me in a vision" HOnestly, what do you think his reaction would be? Probably not a positive one since he himself kind of said his own parents were irrelevant in his ministry.

[civilian_number_two]

What makes the Bible account weird is that it's the book of Acts that is the first mention of skipping out on the Hebrew diet in favour of making the cult more Roman. So ... stuff outside the direct teachings of Jesus is already accepted in the man-written canon of Christianity.

And what am I getting at with that? Well, this. After Jesus was gone, folks all the way up to the John of Revelation were still writing stuff and Christians were accepting it as canon. Weirdly though, the canon was sealed right after, and no new visitations or divine inspirations or anything of the sort were ever to be accepted again, except for the non-canonical idea of publishing a New Testament with Proverbs and Psalms, and skipping the rest of the Old Testament.

Face it. Catholicism is making shit up well after the days of antiquity, sure, but Protestantism is its own kind of weird.