Ensign Steve

It's hard to say, specifically, as I don't know that much about it, but that's really why I find it interesting. I was raised only with knowledge of secular and Jewish traditions and customs, plus the amount of (non-catholic) Christian knowledge that comes with growing up in the USA. But Catholocism seems much more interesting to me than plain old "be saved and to go heaven" Christianity. Hmmmm, specifically: saints, rosaries, purgatory, the immaculate conception, communion (and that trans-thing, ick!), the pope, Lent, etc. I find it all especially intersting, as I know so little about its internal workings, rather than what I learned in world history.

Jen

Edited to add: Oops, I meant to mention my dad is Irish Catholic, but he hasn't been in my life, and my stepdad was Roman Catholic, but he deconverted before I was born.

Gemma Therese

Jennifer,

Try http://www.vatican.va

Gemma Therese

Amos

Hello Jen. The Catholic church is interesting and did you notice that we have a whole dictionary on Mary? You, as an individual, don't have to believe any of it and it is impossible for Catholics to know all of it. Judaism is interesting but I do not know much about Judaism.

I think Irish Catholics are Roman Catholics but maybe just a little bit more Catholic than some of the others.

Infidelettante

It allowed the adoration of Mary. The church made her sinless and sexless, a perpetual virgin. This was necessary because the church had placed the Father and Jesus in so exalted a position that they were cut off from the illiterate and unschooled masses the church sought to control. The church could not lower the status of the Father or Jesus so it raised Mary to near divine status and created an entirely new way to scam the poor souls they should have been helping.

JT

Gemma Therese

I am constantly amazed at the number of Protestant-flavored attacks on Catholicism I see on this board ... from atheists ... eh, Amos?



Gemma Therese

abe smith

Just about everybody including a fair number of good catholics= ("born Catholics" they'll be more than glad to tell you Outsiders who'll NEVER be able to measure-up; even tho all the first "christians" including the Mother of God & the Apostles were all converts) tend to get WRONG the difference between the "immaculate conception" of Mary (Her own allegedly having -been-conceived -(sexually., just like all the rest of us)... FREE from the stain of Original Sin = in order to have been worthy to have been "Theotokos" = the alleged Mother of God),

as distinguished from that whole-'nother Thang = the alleged NONsexual, = parthenogenetic pregnancy of the same Mary , with *Jesus* her human kid; WITHOUT ANY FERTILIZATION BY A HUMAN MALE (father)'s sperm cell. Call this the Virgin Conception/Virgin Birth = alleged, of their Lord, Jesus.

Everybody now got this stuff STRAIGHT for once? The Immaculate Conception is *NOT * the Virgin Birth. Mary at Lourdes is alleged to have said "I (sic) am the Immmaculate Conception." Remembering that allegation might help keep the difference straight.

And once again, I'd like to mention my short (one page) 1996 paper, __Congratulations He's a Girl___, which points out in plain biological terms that if that (it's in the Creed, frcrisesake!)
primary RC dogma WERE TRUE, then the inescapably-
cognitively-dissonant FACT has to be that
JESUS WAS A *FEMALE*. = no Y = Human MALE, chromosome.

And how 'bout it, Gemma Therese & Amos? Yous haven't
dealt w/ this yet. No Catholic has deigned to deal w/ this.

Writer@Large

How exactly are "Protestant-flavored" criticisms of Catholocism different from general criticisms of Catholocism? Is it because we're criticizing the Mary concept specifically? Of course we think the immaculate conception is silly. We think Jesus worship is silly, too, but this thread is about Mary.

--W@L

Ensign Steve

Because so much of the other stuff in this fairy tale is based on scientific fact. Seriously, do you have that paper online? Can you give us a link? I'd love to read it.

Jen

Godless Dave

Gemma there is not one single attack on Catholicism on this thread. If you disagree please quote the attack for me. All I see are questions and answers about Catholic beliefs. A discussion is not an attack. This persecution complex you seem to have is not endearing.

Gemma Therese

What a shame -- and I was trying so hard to be endearing!

Gemma Therese