Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: floo on February 05, 2016, 11:34:52 AM
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Why do Catholics make Mary into some sort of saint, they even pray to her?
There is very little in the Bible about the woman apart from her getting in the family way before she married, when she was probably below the age of consent today. Jesus doesn't seem to have had much time or respect for her, and the rest of his family, and was quite dismissive of them, it would appear.
In my opinion Catholics spouting their hail Mary mantra is a posher version of 'touching wood' to ward off bad luck.
I suppose they think she was special in some way ... you could hardly expect "God" to plant the seed of his son where some mere mortal had been poking about, could you?
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I suppose they think she was special in some way ... you could hardly expect "God" to plant the seed of his son where some mere mortal had been poking about, could you?
;D
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You really need an RC to answer this, but Mary is not a Saint, she is the Mother of God. FYI there is an apocryphal Gospel of Mary, the problem is that the only place that it could be placed in the New Testament is at the beginning, which would make Mary seem more important than Jesus.
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By her "fiat" she had a special part to play in our salvation. She bore God in the flesh in her womb, natured him as a babe in arms and stood by him as our Lord hung on the cross. A very special woman indeed, who has a relation with our Lord like no other human being. Worthy of veneration, I would say. It might vex some, such as Protestants, but then they are iconoclasts and embarrased by the Incarnation.
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You really need an RC to answer this, but Mary is not a Saint, she is the Mother of God. FYI there is an apocryphal Gospel of Mary, the problem is that the only place that it could be placed in the New Testament is at the beginning, which would make Mary seem more important than Jesus.
Mary was the mother of a son, who was no doubt conceived in the usual way by Joseph or another human male!
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By her "fiat" she had a special part to play in our salvation. She bore God in the flesh in her womb, natured him as a babe in arms and stood by him as our Lord hung on the cross. A very special woman indeed, who has a relation with our Lord like no other human being. Worthy of veneration, I would say. It might vex some, such as Protestants, but then they are iconoclasts and embarrased by the Incarnation.
That is all baloney and constructed by his followers to excuse the fact Mary was up the spout before Joseph had married her!
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That is all baloney and constructed by his followers to excuse the fact Mary was up the spout before Joseph had married her!
In your view, which matters for naught.
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In your view, which matters for naught.
Like yours, then.
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Why do Catholics make Mary into some sort of saint, they even pray to her?
There is very little in the Bible about the woman apart from her getting in the family way before she married, when she was probably below the age of consent today. Jesus doesn't seem to have had much time or respect for her, and the rest of his family, and was quite dismissive of them, it would appear.
In my opinion Catholics spouting their hail Mary mantra is a posher version of 'touching wood' to ward off bad luck.
She was used to replace the female deities of the Pagans, pagans who were not happy with the patriachal facet of the Christianity that was forcibly replacing their religion.
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Dear Floo,
Every day is a school day, Mary the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran, she has a whole chapter dedicated to her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_in_Islam
Gonnagle.
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Dear Floo,
Every day is a school day, Mary the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran, she has a whole chapter dedicated to her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_in_Islam
Gonnagle.
BIG DEAL, it still doesn't make her anything special!
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Dear Floo,
Thank you, that brought a smile to my face ;D
BIG DEAL EH!! well I'll see you at four o'clock when the bell rings and bring yer mates you will need them ::)
Gonnagle.
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Dear Floo,
Thank you, that brought a smile to my face ;D
BIG DEAL EH!! well I'll see you at four o'clock when the bell rings and bring yer mates you will need them ::)
Gonnagle.
OOOOOOO! Goody! Handbags at fifty paces - winner gets Justin Bieber for a week - loser gets him for a month!
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OOOOOOO! Goody! Handbags at fifty paces - winner gets Justin Bieber for a week - loser gets him for a month!
Now that would be a fate worse than death! ;D
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Now that would be a fate worse than death! ;D
Too true
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So floo, you are on a rampage about Mary. Can I ask what you would think of a lady that would erect a shrine out front of her place, so pilgrims can pray to Mary?
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By her "fiat" she had a special part to play in our salvation. She bore God in the flesh in her womb, natured him as a babe in arms and stood by him as our Lord hung on the cross. A very special woman indeed, who has a relation with our Lord like no other human being. Worthy of veneration, I would say. It might vex some, such as Protestants, but then they are iconoclasts and embarrased by the Incarnation.
So you believe!
ippy
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So you believe!
ippy
Iconoclasts are an historical fact, they were most prominent during the reign of God King Hal (one twonk boasted of destroying one of the stained glass windows in Canterbury Cathedral "I have brought down Becket's glass bones", and his immediate heir the boy king Edward VI (it was during his reign that a blind woman was burned at the stake for having the bible read to her, Bloody Mary was innocent of this one).
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It's probably all about role models and someone to relate to in the same way kids look up to the same sex parent.
The political classes keep going on about females being in politics and science etc. to encourage girls to take up careers in fields that are dominated by the male species, so that they see them as role models. It's all psychological.
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Mary was the mother of a son, who was no doubt conceived in the usual way by Joseph or another human male!
The story goes she was raped by a soldier in some raid by the Romans on her town or region.
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So floo, you are on a rampage about Mary. Can I ask what you would think of a lady that would erect a shrine out front of her place, so pilgrims can pray to Mary?
She would do far better to spend the money on helping the poor.
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Iconoclasts are an historical fact, they were most prominent during the reign of God King Hal (one twonk boasted of destroying one of the stained glass windows in Canterbury Cathedral "I have brought down Becket's glass bones", and his immediate heir the boy king Edward VI (it was during his reign that a blind woman was burned at the stake for having the bible read to her, Bloody Mary was innocent of this one).
It's not against the law to believe anything you like, I suppose it's a bit much damaging those 700 year old windows like the ones on the cathedral there, I wouldn't do that.
ippy
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So who can we blame for the "immaculate conception" shite?
Ye Olde orthodoxy/catholic types and their dumbass "original sin" doctrine: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm
After creating this whole Son of God malarky, within a few generations, they stumbled onto a paradox: You see the doctrine of original sin states that we, being descendants from that manky fruit-eater Adam, all gush straight out of the womb on a crimson waterslide of immorality.
If that is correct then how could the very human Mary in the gospels, who was veritably dripping with sin, be the mother of Jesus?
They tried to find the answer in the gospels.. they tried to find it in the Hebrew Bible.~
~They failed, so they banked on the fact that the illiterate would accept any shite story their best "Theologians" at the time could come up with - so the story that they manufactured was that God retconned its own love life.
It visited Mary at the precise moment of her conception to scrub the original sin right out of her to accommodate their future sons purity..
A story not found in either old or new testaments - but when did that ever matter?
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The story goes she was raped by a soldier in some raid by the Romans on her town or region.
One Tiberius Pantera, I think ( Ihave read the story but it was yonks ago).
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One Tiberius Pantera, I think ( Ihave read the story but it was yonks ago).
Blimey Humph - Yonks - there's an expression I haven't heard for yonks!
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Floo, you once believed the Virgin Mary appeared to people in a field adjacent to your house, or if you didn't believe it you encouraged others to do so. What with that and strange ghostly monks making their presence felt, ''touching wood'' seems quite mild by comparison.
Calm down dear, mithering about religion it isn't worth the bother (I should know, I've done enough of it!).
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From the viewpoint of being brought up Catholic, I found the whole emphasis on Mary quite appealing. In part because of the context of being in the West of Scotland, there is a quite a lot of misogyny in the rhetoric of the more shouty varieties of Protestantism, so a bit of Maridolatry (or even Marydollatry if you are Rab C), is at least a recognition that women aren't all evil.
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I'd never thought of it like that before, Nearly Sane. I am a Catholic, albeit somewhat lapsed, and always found the veneration of Mary a bit embarrassing so am glad to have your point of view.
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Just echoing NS here, I knew quite a lot of New Age types who found Mary appealing, as representing the feminine, or even the goddess, and of course, she seemed to relieve the patriarchal attitudes of much Christianity.
Interesting book: Marina Warner, 'Alone of all her Sex: the Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary', as Warner is a very good writer.
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I think it's wrong to think of religions as monoliths, and my view of Christianity is deeply affected by the circumstances of what I saw growing up. I have posted elsewhere on here about the theoretical move between being a Catholic atheist and a Protestant one when I went into St Peter's in Rome. Both Protestant and Catholic churches were in my experience hugely misogynistic in the WoS, but that's because they reflect their local society and vice versa. The things I found embarrassing about Catholicism when I was being brought up Catholic, now seem like more inclusive than the cold austerity and almost OCD clarity of the Protestant churches I saw. The Little Child of Prague is laughable but more endearing than the removal of Mary from the Pieta.
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Haven't read the Warner book, wigginhall. Thank you for the recommendation, will add to the huge virtual pile.
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Yes, all the statues of Mary and other images are often child-like and naive. For example, in the London Oratory there is a statue of her with a sort of organza skirt on, naff or what. But it's quite appealing, I think. It's a bit like roadside shrines, which are naff, but it's the naffness which I like. More interesting than theology in a way.
Also, I saw some of the Black Madonnas in France, some of them look ancient and full of power, and sort of pre-Christian.
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It is strange that what I once considered naff is what I now like. It relates back to the stuff on the music thread I am posting about guilty pleasures. I like the mess of stuff I am not supposed to like, I like the smell of oddity rather than the chill of conformity. The whole Mary stuff feels smuggled in, a way of recognizing that women are important too and despite the whole papal approval almost subversive.
I return to the Pieta, Michelangelo's, a mother with her boy, dead, killed by others, a victim but loved, so powerfully loved, not as a god but just a son.
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Floo, you once believed the Virgin Mary appeared to people in a field adjacent to your house, or if you didn't believe it you encouraged others to do so. What with that and strange ghostly monks making their presence felt, ''touching wood'' seems quite mild by comparison.
Calm down dear, mithering about religion it isn't worth the bother (I should know, I've done enough of it!).
Oh for crying out loud! ::) How many times do I have to state that whilst I saw something for a second or two which resembled the picture book image of that woman, I thought my mind was seeing what it wanted to see!
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Fair enough floo, no offence meant. I thought people came to visit your field but obviously I was mistaken.
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It is strange that what I once considered naff is what I now like. It relates back to the stuff on the music thread I am posting about guilty pleasures. I like the mess of stuff I am not supposed to like, I like the smell of oddity rather than the chill of conformity. The whole Mary stuff feels smuggled in, a way of recognizing that women are important too and despite the whole papal approval almost subversive.
I return to the Pieta, Michelangelo's, a mother with her boy, dead, killed by others, a victim but loved, so powerfully loved, not as a god but just a son.
I'm the same with naffness. I think Protestantism is very harsh and cold, whereas Catholicism is populist and naff, and has some great images.
I sometimes look at the Cartoon of Mary and Anne (National Gallery, I think), quite an amazing image of female fecundity, as one woman seems to be in the lap of the other. Also of course, phenomenal draughtsmanship.
All completely non-realist, of course, and in the best possible taste!
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One Tiberius Pantera, I think ( Ihave read the story but it was yonks ago).
Not Nautius Maximus then?
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Not Nautius Maximus then?
I have a fwend in Wome
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I have a fwend in Wome
called Biggus Diccus.
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called Biggus Diccus.
No, Junius Woss
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Well, she was there when the baby Jesus performed his first miracle.
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From the viewpoint of being brought up Catholic, I found the whole emphasis on Mary quite appealing. In part because of the context of being in the West of Scotland, there is a quite a lot of misogyny in the rhetoric of the more shouty varieties of Protestantism, so a bit of Maridolatry (or even Marydollatry if you are Rab C), is at least a recognition that women aren't all evil.
This is true, NS. The psychological importance of Mary for believers is important (as Jung realised). However, in the Catholic version she does represent an unattainable perfection as a representative of womanhood, so it may be that as much is lost as is gained in this respect.
Biblically, of course, as has been pointed out, the gospels are completely contradictory as regards her nature. She, who was apparently visited by the angel Gabriel announcing the divine pregnancy to her, had already seemingly forgotten about Jesus' true significance by the time he was presented in the Temple, and Jesus rebuffed both her and Joseph. Elsewhere Jesus is recorded as being rather less than complimentary to her, dismissively referring to her as "Woman". She in turn, along with some of his other relatives, appears to have considered him deranged at one point.
All the above reaffirms the idea that the less complimentary impressions reflect something of historical truth, whilst the stories of the Annunciation and the Birth narratives were simply add-ons, developed as Christ came to be regarded as divine in the minds of the early believers.
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No, Junius Woss
What?
You're supposed to go to: he has a wife you know...