Are Catholics and Protestants that different?

So did God hit on her because she was hot?

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So Mary may well have gone on to become a sinner and may be in Hell now?

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So why is there a thing called Prostestant doctrine?

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It sounds like God chose Mary for reasons of His own which you consider to be no big deal--it could have been any other nice Jewish girl, right?Were all the men in the Bible "normal men humanly speaking"?It sounds to me that you and NJ prefer your faith to be an All Guy Thingy, and once Eve takes the Fall for original sin, the female role is done.Not that there's anything wrong with that .It's typical of much Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinking.

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Let me clarify my point, Buz. If Mary enjoyed no special status, then even if she was reverential toward her son at one time, she could have fallen from grace and now be among the damned. Is there something wrong with my Christian logic there? People do fall from grace, or so I hear.Now, if I had mildly rebuked my mother at age 12, my father might not have thought it was a sin (though the Commandment seems to suggest it would be), but it would certainly be a demerit worth a big fat slap in the mouth. If Christ was fully human, how could he rebuke his mother without violating that commandment? If it was not a sin because he was the Christ, then how could he have been fully human?Anyway, that's not my primary puzzle here. A guy wouldn't let his mother go to hell if he could help it, but you seem to be saying that Mary could have fallen from grace and done just that, like any other mortal woman. If not, then she was not just like every other mortal woman in that regard.You see my dilemma.

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Because she wasn't a man who chose God but rather the mother of God chosen by God? So you agree with me that she may be roasting in hell.AbE: God called her a taxi?Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

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So John was just a vessel--the glory passed through him and then out and it was over. Any other man would have served as well. But no man could have given birth to God.Though I don't share anyone's religious faith, any God there may be clearly chose to share the power to birth humans (and, according to many myths, Gods) with women, not men. There is, in fact, not parity between the example of the man who preaches God's coming and the woman who births God--except from a male privileging perspective.I don't think the Jesus who made wine for the wedding would let his Ma go to Hell.I don't think the Christ who overturned the cameras in the evangelical studio...oops, the money changers' tables in the Temple...would allow even the possibility of his Mom going to hell.I think doctrine is a pernicious thing. It didn't take long before Christ's teaching of direct communion with God was overtaken by hierarchies--Catholic, Protestant, whatever--who serve their own interests: gender, class, political, national, etc. Within 300 years it was official, and the struggles since have all been over whose hands are on the levers: the Reformation was a top-down struggle for power, not a spiritual rebirth.

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Buz, I, too, had a mother visited with many trials (including six children, most prominent trial-wise probably being me ), and who showed great strength and fortitude. I tip my hat to your mother; my mother, too, put her faith in God. I have no intention of disrespecting good Christian women.I didn't share her beliefs, and I don't share yours, though I was raised in Baptist churches, mostly, with a little Methodist thrown in the stew.It still sounds odd to hear a man say that there was nothing special about Mary beyond any other God-fearing woman, as though she might have just been the millionth customer in the door that day and won the Big Prize.We generally see large roles in spiritual stories played by people who worked to get closer to God--you make it sound as though He took her where He found her; perhaps she strove harder to get close to God than any other woman. I have to wonder why you would want to rule that possibility out.Even granting that Jesus was the Son of God and not God, one would think there must be something about the woman that God actually picks for that role that made her stand out. So I find myself wondering why a Christian would insist so strongly that there was absolutely nothing special about Mary. How would you know?It also sounds like there is as much difference in belief between various Protestant congregations and individuals as there is between Catholics and Protestants, regarding both Mary and Christ.How can there be fatal doctrinal differences between Protestants and Catholics if various Protestants aren't even on the same page?

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Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at any time, madam, is all that distinguishes us from the other animals.-Pierre De Beaumarchais (1732-1799) Save lives! Click here!
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