Hmm…well they have a lot of graven images of Mary which are prayed to, and there is great excitement around the world when a piece of mould or burnt toast looks vaguely Mary-like.
The Second Commandment:
You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
The revering of Mary in breach of this commandment was one (of many) reasons Protestantism arose.
Edit: I can’t believe I’ve been drawn into a theological debate…
Catholic believe in Purgatory which has the same physical punishment as hell just for a limited time. When others on Earth pray for the dead they are lessening their time in Purgatory. There is also a very complex system of indulgences where you can “bank up” credits against your sufferings in Purgatory when you kick the bucket.
I am not Catholic, but I happen to know that a Catholic would be considered commiting Idolatry if they put Mary, or any saint, on the same level as God or a god. It is no different than if you ask a lawyer to answer a legal question for you. They just believe that the saints are in a better position to approach God then they are or any regular human is.
This is a silly as saying Catholics aren’t Christian. Even though the people who use the Writings that the early Roman and Catholic Bishops decided was the word of God claim they aren’t!!
Catholics do not pray to a statue or an image of any one..not even Jesus, the object is used to help them keep their mind on the goodness of the person, any more than having a Photo of a famous person or statue in a park is used for adoration. Protestant religion arose over Luther disagreeing with the use of indulegences. And probably of wanting an excuse to marry a nun!
All sects of Christianity seem to have chosen a different passage in the Bible to start their own religion, they all intrepret it to their own satisifaction. Hence, the many, many, sects of Christianity. Thr RCC church uses the passage that Jesus made Peter( who was called Simon) head of His church and gave him and his successors power to bind on earth and it would be bound in heaven. I personally don’t believe this, but I can well understand their use of it as as authority for the Pope to make or change rules.
Catholics, like most Christians, do not believe people are dead, but live on in Heaven with God. Just as they don’t believe Jesus is dead. Even some non -Christains believe they can talk to the dead and the dead talks to them. Some even on this board think they have direct contact with God!
I do not personaly believe that, but I can understand their thinking.
Since they(The saints) believe that a Supreme being hears prayers ,and wants all people to join Him in heaven it could be the pleasure, not a chore to speak to God for their friends or family!
Or as I might say: “To believe that this Jesus fellow means anything more than any other dead Middle Eastern dude is to spoil your life by chasing nonsense.”
Catholics believe Mary was a virgin because they are taught that. Inculcation is a powerful tool.
The reasoning behind it of course ,is how can the son of god be perfect if he came from the seed of a mortal man. It presented a problem they had to solve. That was the solution they came up with. They had to find a way to avoid answering the question of a man /god halfbreed. How could they proclaim him the son of god, if Joe was his human father?
Yes, as all religions find a way to justify their claims,that is why religions are faith based. I see nothing wrong with people believing something as long as they don’t use their religious beliefs to force others, or for harm. I believe most people use their beliefs to help them get through life, there are the extremeists in all religions that seem to have the need to have everyone believe the same as they do.
I also think they wanted Mary to be a virgin because God needed a perfect vessel in which to come to earth, so Mary was excluded from orignal sin, that was her Immaculate Conception.
I think that’s the reason behind the IC and perhaps perpetual virginity. But the idea that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived is found in a (possibly mistranslated) scripture in Isaiah, which predates Christianity by at least a few centuries.
Isaiah says nothing whatever about Mary or Jesus. As I explained above, Matthew took a passage from Isaiah which had nothing to do with the Messiah and chose to interpret it as a prophecy of Jesus. That passage contained a a Hebrew word almah which had been mistranslated as parthenon (“virgin”) in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible that he used.
It is quite possible that the translaters used things after the fact, to apply things about Jesus, we have no way of knowing the intent,but if one wanted to use a prophecy they could, just as some use the writings of Nostredomus to fit events! It seems to be a matter of intrepretation.
I agree. It’s amazing how religious folks want to parse out the relative believability of unsubstantiated miracles.
I recall reading some arguments against Deuterocanonical “Old Testament” books, including Tobit. At least some of the arguments, if not most, made a certain amount of sense. Then they had to go and make mention of unbelievable happenings. You know, “miracles” in the real Bible. Of course there was no explanation of why the “Apocrypha” miracles were either harder to believe, or, for that matter, inconsistent with the miracles in the more widely-accepted books.
IMO, they should have stuck with arguing from historical contradictions in the disputed books. We all know that when you leave those dubious books out, you have have a Bible free of contradictions.
