Does it haunt everyone who's had an abortion, or just Christians? If she's so devistated that she killed a living being, then she should get knocked up again and make a new one! And while she's at it, stop eating meat. And veggies. And everything.
I didn't say she was a Christian. And she's had two children since then. And there is no comparison between killing a cow and killing a child. Fool.
The world is not black and white.
Imagine you're a fetus. Imagine that you as a fetus can form cognizant thoughts and observe your surroundings. On one hand, your dad's an incestuous child abusing son of a bitch, and on the other hand, your mother is a hurt, confused, and scared teenager. Now you're going to die over it. So, for you, the world would be pretty black and white.
I mean if you have beings as angels, then you have a God who needs help in some way. The analysis of patients who have damnaged subconsciouses analyzed through therapy reveal that the soul can transubstantiate. Also, through God, isn't anything possible, or else what is omnipotence?
Ah, the old "can God create a rock too big for Him to lift?" posit
Angels are described as ministering spirits. If I were supreme over all things, I'd like to get somebody else to do the things that need doing around the place, even though I could do it myself. And I'm struggling to see what you're talking about with "souls that transubstantiate" line.
The diffrence in the 'Pagan' symbol and the cult of Mary is that again, you're point that the people worshiping her are worshiping her as a God, the one who performs the miracle, etc. She isn't, she is channeling God's powet, as an Angel or an intermediary would. This is similar to Satan's powet as the adversary, since Mary would relfect the positive and Satan would reflect the negative. Both are agents of God, or maybe just powerful beings nonetheless. Belief in Satan is a similar form of this, so if you can't believe in Mary having powet, than neither does Satan.
Where'd the idea come from? It certainly isn't the Bible or the records of the early Church. By all indications, it's a distinctly Roman innovation based on "tradition", and the only precedent is found in the familiar mother/son god twofer found in a lot of pagan religions.
According to what is actually known and not left up to said tradition, Mary has nothing to do with the dispensation of grace (or channeling God's powet). Satan is not analogous, as he is not an agent of God (though he can be used by Him, as in the case of Job). Also, Satan is an active agent in the world, whereas Mary hasn't been since sometime in the first century.
The Bible clearly states that Jesus is the only intermediary for mankind, and if tradition conflicts with what it says, then I consider it a no-brainer.
While there is no real proof to Mary having Kids, I also believe in it. Otherwise to your other point about Mary not having any powet. The thing, God hears the prayers, and can represent himself through Mary as a maternal figure, which the imagery of Jesus can represent a different things. Her choice by God to sire Jesus (who I don't believe is God reborn, rather just an aspect of God, like Mary, Satan, Angels, even us) makes her special in the fact that for his view on what it was to be human and to reveal something to humanity makes her intrumental in the mythology of it. Praying to a state of Mary or of Jesus is both invoking the same onimoptent powet, just like praying to Vishnu, Buddha, Allah, etc.
Rama ably addressed the subject of Mary's later children, so I won't.
If God hears these prayers, then why go through Mary at all? And why would God need to express Himself through a maternal figure? Where do you get this? It's not in the Bible or early Church history. And for an "aspect of God", then Jesus sure made some outrageous claims to deity and equality with His Father in heaven. If you have issues with the concept of the Trinity, that's one thing, but nothing makes sense, much less Christianity, to one who subscribes to a universalist, pantheistic theology, as you apparently do.
And if I were God, I'd be pissed when people keep calling me by the names they prefer rather than what I prefer. If your girlfriend were named Susan and you kept calling her Tameka, would you blame her for being upset? If God was an unseen, impersonal force (as in St*r WarzzZZ), He would never have had a need for avatars such as those you mentioned, now would He (or, in this case, It)?
The accounts of Jesus were written after his time, which the Muslims see as retarded that we take it as word. The laws of Moses were even worse, written well before their time. The Koran isn't any better either. The commandents were set to a time where there were rampant cults, etc, that the Jews didn't like, so they attributed commandments to God based on common forms of natural and cultural law. The appearence of Jesus negates any prior teachings by nature, since if the laws worked, his appearence would not have been neccessary.
Some believe a book of His sayings was recorded in Aramaic soon after He made them, which was used in the composition of the book of Matthew. This is just based on textual criticism of the manuscripts, which used Aramaic and coarse Greek in it's recording. But in any case, the book of Mark is believed to have been written somewhere between 35 and 55 AD, which is still pretty soon for an autobiography. The only one written late enough to have not included eyewitnesses or critics of the account is John, and the words and doctrine of the other three were found to have been accepted quite early on in the Church. So that's not really a viable argument.
The fact that Muslims see it as foolish is meaningless, particularly when they follow the contradictory teachings received over the adult lifetime of an illiterate man recorded years following his death and never followed any sort of standard and on which not all Muslims today agree are true. You know that in one place the Qur'an states that the Bible is true in all accounts and to treat Jews and Christians as brethren, but later declares it to have been corrupted and the corruptors thereof should be mistreated? Which is it? You got the description of the Qur'an right, but not because it compares favorably in any way to the Bible.
The veracity of Old Testament writings gained a increased respect following the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Something like 95% of the available texts for comparison came out to be matching the Masoretic text, with the discrepancies coming in the form of obvious copy errors and physical damage to the scrolls themselves. While not quite as precise in comparison with the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT of which no extant documents remain but was compiled around the same time as the DDSs), no doctrines or stories or prophecies were altered in a manner that would cause conflict. Given that the text was practically unchanged within the five hundred or so years between the DDSs and the earliest manuscripts we have available elsewhere, chances are they hadn't changed significantly in the previous thousand years. And why would they have, anyway? There are many other ways of verifying OT texts, but that's one of the major ones.
I don't think you understand how OT doctrine relates to the coming of Christ, because if you did, you'd realize that saying Christ's arrival negated anything can't be more wrong. In fact, the coming of Christ
verified the testimony of the Hebrew scriptures, whether you look at the order and purpose of Jewish temple worship, the many prophecies of the expected Messiah, or the very purpose of establishing the Jewish people. From the very beginning, well before Moses ever even lived, there was the promise of a Savior, and that the institutions of Judaism were founded to point towards that day. And on the day foretold, Christ came to do the work required to bring this about.
The Islamic Religion regards itself as the sucessive and final form of the religion of Abraham, which Moses and Jesus both preached about. The supposed 'perfection' of the Koran was marred by the Chaos after the expansion stopped, and a plethera of Korans appeared.
If it were truly what it claimed, then every synagogue and church should close its doors, recite the Islamic creed of conversion, and start praying towards Mecca. But it's so wrong on so many levels that it's impossible for any discerning person to take those claims seriously. Everything from Ishmael being the father of the Arabian nation, Abraham erecting the Ka'aba, and its statements concerning Jesus are easily refuted and proven inaccurate.
The world is a complicated place, and the vast representations of God throughout our culture share common grounds when you remove cultural and societal factors. Religion is a tricky thing, but it's mostly mythology. Are you a theology student, because you bring up some interesting arguments, but are tainted with protestant beliefs on Catholicism.
God said in Jeremiah 29:13 that "ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." But God also said He'd already revealed himself to mankind (Romans 1-2, which explains why the whole world is declared sinful before God), so it's not surprising that they'd have some semblance of morality and conscience. I agree that religion is mostly myth, which is precisely why no other system of belief or theology can compare to the Judeo-Christian faith, despite the occasional parallel (natural, given that He's revealed Himself). Everything else misses the point: we need a way back to God, and there is no other way on our own, save for the One provided for us. And nothing else can stand up to investigation and scrutiny very long...something that no other system has been able to withstand.
I am not a theology student in the formal sense, but I do take seriously the injunctions of I Peter 3:15 and Jude 3, which state, respectively: "...be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear..." "...ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." So I read and study for myself, and I try to find out what others are saying, chell up on them, and address them in some meaningful way. If I'm wrong, and the Bible is a lie or untrustworthy, I might as well say to hell with it all. But I have yet to find anything that stands up to it.
As for my "tainted" views on Catholicism, I don't see myself as the one who's tainted here. Biblically speaking, I am correct...there's no way to honestly defend some of the craziness rampant in that system. A quick and easy (if a little loaded) way to illustrate this is tracing all the ills of the world typically ascribed to Christianity...who was the group actually these things? And who were the ones most often subjected to the horrors of the medieval period? Check up on it. And if I make a good point, does the fact that you discount my views on one topic negate everything else?
It was to promote celibacy in the clergy.
Which is funny, in that a celibate priesthood was not a characteristic of Biblical history. Neither Jewish priests nor Christians (called a "priesthood of believers" by the writer of the book of Hebrews) were commanded to be unmarried...Paul elected to be unmarried because it freed up his schedule, not because of any command.
Celibacy within the priesthood was and is a hallmark of pagan temple worship. It can be readily found in Greek, Babylonian, and Egyptian religious systems. So I assume that was part of Constantine's merging of state religion and Christianity during the fourth century.
