The Immaculate Conception

We have to disagree, as before, as to what ‘Let it be done to me as you say’ means.

She was, in Luke. The Magnificat is her consent.

IANACatholic, Roman or otherwise, but wouldn’t that just remove Original Sin? I thought Jesus died for *all *our sins. So even if God made us all born without OS (and I agree with you that somethin’ ain’t kosher there), he’d still need to do the Jesus thing for all the sins we make later on.

Unless Original Sin is what gives us the inclination to do evil. Adam’s fault (the original sin) cast humans into an imperfect world where sin is an option.

I understood ‘borne by grace’, so as to remain sinless, and to be able to consent to the Incarnation.

When I’m not slamming my head into walls, I usually say, “Well, do you ask people to pray for you? Why? Can’t you just talk to God youself?”. That tends to lead to more reasonable conversation about Mary and the saints.

My best friend was at her parents’ (Baptist) church at Christmas, and the pastor showed slides of the celebration of the Immaculate Conception in Mexico- parades, icons and statues of Mary, and so forth, and said, “This just shows us how much evangelization still needs to be done! There’s no Christ is their Christmas!”

After the service they had a loud argument with him about Mary’s role, and whether Catholics are Christians.

That’s it. God in His infinite wisdom COULD take original sin away, and put us back in Paradise, but he has chosen to give us free will instead (and let’s not get back into THAT debate, Diogenes, but that is what Christians believe).

Probably.

IE7 is now a mandatory security update, so if you have auto-updates turned on - it should silently install. I have not seen this yet myself, so YMMV.

Si

I’ve watched it over and over again on film. God, that was awesome.
Franco never did let it touch the ground… and I’m not even a Steeler fan. One for the Ages.

Somewhat ironic, yes. My perception is that the Catholic church is willing to give Mary the veneration they feel she is due while somehow preventing her from having any wider relevance to the role women play in the Church. I think the ideas of the Immaculate Conception and her perpetual virginity (before and after the birth of Christ) assist in this – Mary is venerated, but she is not an examplar of or to other women, because she wasn’t like other women, she was different, born without sin and perpetually virginal.

But that’s still a heck of a lot more respect than she gets from fundamentalist Protestants, who in their zeal to not be big-C Catholic relegate Mary to a footnote, hardly worthy of attention, respect, or study. But of course they’re not allowing much formal participation in church life by women, either.

Wrong thread lieu?

No no no – that was the Immaculate Reception.
[sub]As you well know![/sub] :smiley:

She wasn’t asked for her consent. She was told what would happen and said “ok,” but there was nothing the angel said which implied she had an option to refuse. The angel wasn’t asking a question.

:smack: :smack: :smack:

I had no idea what the IC was (raised Lutheran). Just looked it up on Wiki.

Boy–you Catholics sure spent a lot of time thinking about all of this stuff! I just never would have even worried about something like that!

But that means Mary didn’t have free will.

Thanks for the info. They were calling him a dumbass for having it installed :rolleyes: when it’s not compatible with the Oracle apps going in. Well, that’s not widely known by our users, it hasn’t been a problem for him so far, and we are allowed to download software in addition to what it on our standard machines. “Dumbass” seemed excessive.

So Mary didn’t have free will?

If anything, the doctrine of original sin is at odds with free will. The doctrine states that because of OS, humans are incapable of overcoming their sinful natures even with free will. Basically it says that people are born bad and can’t save themselves, so that’s why there had to be a “savior.” But if God could make an exception for Mary, then he why can’t he make an exception for everybody else. The doctrine that Mary was born without a sinful nature is an ipso facto statement that the crucifixion wasn’t necessary.

Hey, just use the term correctly and I’m happy.

For example, if you’re a woman and someone says “could you be pregnant?”, don’t laugh and say, “only if it’s an immaculate conception!”

I just want to be clear that this is only a problem for Catholic theology. Non-Catholics don’t believe in the IC, so it’s not an issue for them.

Humans aren’t incapable of overcoming their sinful nature. It’s perfectly possible to live a sinless life. But because the world is imperfect and mortal and there is uncertainty and fear, it’s unlikely. But we always have the chance to rely on God rather than our own fear and have the grace to do the right thing.