Mary is the most important figure in Christianity

[outhouse]

I'd like to state, here and now, that I believe that Jesus is the most important figure in Christianity. That's true, even for Catholics, I would assume, since without Jesus, Mary would not have been noticed as the "Mother of God".

True enough.

And a little side note: Christianity was started by Paul,

Not true.

The form of christianity you know, started in Hellenistic communities in the empire.

Paul was hired to stop these people by hunting down its leaders.

This movement was lready in existance, Paul started nothing.

Once he converted to the new movement, he addressed problems he viewed as problems and his COMMUNITY not him personally, addressed many of these percieved errors.

Pauls community was one of many, and factually started nothing new.

not by Jesus or the Apostles.

very true

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'd like to state, here and now, that I believe that Jesus is the most important figure in Christianity. That's true, even for Catholics, I would assume, since without Jesus, Mary would not have been noticed as the "Mother of God".

Yes. Mary is the second important person in Christianity.

And a little side note: Christianity was started by Paul, not by Jesus or the Apostles.

No, it wasn't and that makes no sense. Paul was probably the first major theologian of Christianity but he didn't start it. Jesus started it with His following.

 

[sojourner]

Ignorance doesn't excuse.
Caiaphas didn't certainly go to Heaven. He is in Hell now.
Because he probably sentenced to death lots of innocent people.
Caiaphas thought that he was doing God's will.
Even Mafiosi think that they do God's will when they kill people.
But that doesn't save them from hell

Are you so sure about Caiaphas? God loved him just as much as God loves Jesus. Are you saying that God's love and God's salvific power is not universally efficacious -- that, in the end, God won't have God's way of reconciling all humanity to God's Self?

What a sad, scary world yours must be...

 

[ChristineES]

Yes. Mary is the second important person in Christianity.



No, it wasn't and that makes no sense. Paul was probably the first major theologian of Christianity but he didn't start it. Jesus started it with His following.

I disagree. Jesus did not stop being a Jew, the Apostles never stopped being Jews: It wasn't a separate religion at that point. Paul (and his followers) was the one who started preaching to gentiles about Jesus. Jesus was and is the point of Christianity but that doesn't mean he started it, except indirectly by saying "tell everyone about me", as is written in the gospels. Acts is the first book in the Bible mentions the word "Christian".

 

[paarsurrey]

We Catholics are often accused of worshiping Mary as a divinity.
Mary was not a divinity: she was the daughter of two normal people. So she was human. But she is the protagonist of Christianity because it was her (Mary) who erased sin from human nature, that is, in her heart.
She "challenged" God because she wanted to show him that a human being can be sinless and pure. And she was sinless and pure.

But not because God had made her sinless (impossible, there is the free will)
She, with her free will decided to be sinless. Because she conceived sin as incompatible with human nature. That's how she was able to incarnate God. (Immaculate conception)

Because God and her became one only thing.

This woman saw Mary when she was seven and she told her all these things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAqP4sNbwE

it was her (Mary) who erased sin from human nature

Mary was born of parents who were as per the Christian doctrine, of the original sin being hereditary, were sinful, I take refuge with G-d, so as per the Christian doctrine Mary must be sinful. (I don't think as per Quran she or her parents were sinful, they must be very innocent people).

So the poster is totally wrong in this assertion.

Regards

 

[Estro Felino]

Are you so sure about Caiaphas? God loved him just as much as God loves Jesus. Are you saying that God's love and God's salvific power is not universally efficacious -- that, in the end, God won't have God's way of reconciling all humanity to God's Self?

What a sad, scary world yours must be...

What about yours? A world where justice doesn't exist and where murderers can go to Heaven.
In your vision a saint has the same value as a murderer

God loved Caiaphas? ha ha....that's the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. Love and Caiaphas are two incompatible words. Caiaphas was a person filled with hatred, envy and selfishness. And he will be trapped in the prison of his own hate for eternity. I can't see how God has something to do with his doom. There is free will

 

[outhouse]

I disagree. Jesus did not stop being a Jew, the Apostles never stopped being Jews: It wasn't a separate religion at that point. .

Correct.

Paul (and his followers) was the one who started preaching to gentiles about Jesus.

False.

Paul flat tells you there were other teachers, and his communities were correcting other communities.


Paul only hunted in the Empire, he was not hunting traditional born and raise Jews or the real apostles.

He was hunting the Hellenist and gentile leaders already in place.

 

[ChristineES]

Mary was born of parents who were as per the Christian doctrine, of the original sin being hereditary, were sinful, I take refuge with G-d, so as per the Christian doctrine Mary must be sinful. (I don't think as per Quran she or her parents were sinful, they must be very innocent people).

So the poster is totally wrong in this assertion.

Regards

Mary, the way I see it, must have sinned. Jesus wasn't sent, in my faith, to "erase" sin but to "pay" the penalty for our sins. That is the whole basis of the Christianity that I have been taught. Virtually all the denominations I've listened to believe that to be true. But I have never studied Catholicism too closely, so I am not sure what they believe. I am not going to say that they are wrong, but they certainly do have a difference of opinion on this if they believe Mary to have been sinless.

 

[sojourner]

What about yours? A world where justice doesn't exist and where murderers can go to Heaven.
In your vision a saint has the same value as a murderer

God loved Caiaphas? ha ha....that's the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. Love and Caiaphas are tow incompatible words. Caiaphas was a person filled with hatred, envy and selfishness. And he will be trapped in the prison of his own hate for eternity. I can't see how God has something to do with his doom.

BINGO!! YAHTZEE!! To God, all are worth the same. I like this picture of heaven as the "eternal banquet." At that banquet, each of us is seated with the person who hurt us most to our left, and the person we hurt the most to our right. "All" is the only mode of human salvation that works. You gotta remember, even Charles Manson has a mother that loves him as dearly as yours loves you. And God loves us more.

In the end, all will be reconciled to God, because that's the way God wants it. God's justice is love -- not retribution or forsaking.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I disagree. Jesus did not stop being a Jew, the Apostles never stopped being Jews: It wasn't a separate religion at that point. Paul (and his followers) was the one who started preaching to gentiles about Jesus. Jesus was and is the point of Christianity but that doesn't mean he started it, except indirectly by saying "tell everyone about me", as is written in the gospels. Acts is the first book in the Bible mentions the word "Christian".

They must've been very interesting Jews since they didn't keep the Mosaic Laws (Jesus refuted some of them, if you recall) and they worshiped a man as God.

 

[sojourner]

Correct.




False.

Paul flat tells you there were other teachers, and his communities were correcting other communities.


Paul only hunted in the Empire, he was not hunting traditional born and raise Jews or the real apostles.

He was hunting the Hellenist and gentile leaders already in place.

There were Christians before Paul. Otherwise, who would he have been persecuting?

If you wanna talk about the birth of the church, it ostensibly happened at Pentecost, 50 days following the resurrection. It began as a separate movement when the Christian Jews were thrown out of the synagogues.

 

[Sleeppy]

Paul called himself blameless.. Righteousness, or blamelessness, really was something the Israelites were attributing to people for millennia before Jesus or Mary. It may or may not have referred to their condition throughout their entire lives, but during specific times.

 

[ChristineES]

There were Christians before Paul. Otherwise, who would he have been persecuting?

He was persecuting Jews who followed Jesus. That is what I have been taught from many people. Please don't say it is false, say that you disagree.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Mary, the way I see it, must have sinned. Jesus wasn't sent, in my faith, to "erase" sin but to "pay" the penalty for our sins. That is the whole basis of the Christianity that I have been taught. Virtually all the denominations I've listened to believe that to be true. But I have never studied Catholicism too closely, so I am not sure what they believe. I am not going to say that they are wrong, but they certainly do have a difference of opinion on this if they believe Mary to have been sinless.

The idea that Jesus came to pay the penalty for sin is a purely Protestant concept. Neither Catholics nor the Orthodox believe such a thing and neither did the early Christians and Church Fathers.

It is Catholic dogma that Mary was entirely sinless for her entire life. She was full of God's grace and saved from the stain of Original Sin.

 

[ChristineES]

They must've been very interesting Jews since they didn't keep the Mosaic Laws (Jesus refuted some of them, if you recall) and they worshiped a man as God.

I don't want to argue this anymore. This is what I was taught, not just in my Church but in other places as well. They may have been followers of Jesus, but they were NOT called Christians, at that point. That is what I have been trying to say. I know it's semantics, to you.

 

[Estro Felino]

BINGO!! YAHTZEE!! To God, all are worth the same. I like this picture of heaven as the "eternal banquet." At that banquet, each of us is seated with the person who hurt us most to our left, and the person we hurt the most to our right. "All" is the only mode of human salvation that works. You gotta remember, even Charles Manson has a mother that loves him as dearly as yours loves you. And God loves us more.

In the end, all will be reconciled to God, because that's the way God wants it. God's justice is love -- not retribution or forsaking.

In your vision, life has no sense. Because no matter what we do, we will always be forgiven
You probably think this just because nobody has ever hurt you in your life, and by hurting I mean provoking very very very grave damage. I empathize with any victim of the world. That's why I am thirsty for justice, and I am ready to die in this very instant if it was necessary, as long as the perpetrators of this world die and attain Hell

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I don't want to argue this anymore. This is what I was taught, not just in my Church but in other places as well. They may have been followers of Jesus, but they were NOT called Christians, at that point. That is what I have been trying to say. I know it's semantics, to you.

A Christian is just a person who follows Christ. Doesn't matter if they were called that specific word at that point. That's what they were - followers of Christ. Ergo, they were Christians.

 

[paarsurrey]

Mary, the way I see it, must have sinned. Jesus wasn't sent, in my faith, to "erase" sin but to "pay" the penalty for our sins. That is the whole basis of the Christianity that I have been taught. Virtually all the denominations I've listened to believe that to be true. But I have never studied Catholicism too closely, so I am not sure what they believe. I am not going to say that they are wrong, but they certainly do have a difference of opinion on this if they believe Mary to have been sinless.

Mary, the way I see it, must have sinned.

The OP's assertion is therefore totally wrong.

Thanks and regards

 

[outhouse]

He was persecuting Jews who followed Jesus. .

What were Galilean jews doing in the far reaches of the Roman Empire ?

Jesus avoided teaching in Hellenistic cities like Sepphoris and Tiberius, he is stated as staying in small Jewish villages and teaching to the poor and oppressed.

 

[ChristineES]

The idea that Jesus came to pay the penalty for sin is a purely Protestant concept. Neither Catholics nor the Orthodox believe such a thing and neither did the early Christians and Church Fathers.

It is Catholic dogma that Mary was entirely sinless for her entire life. She was full of God's grace and saved from the stain of Original Sin.

I disagree with that teaching, and I always have. I don't believe that Mary was sinless and I don't recall Jesus ever saying she was sinless. But I guess that is why I am not a Catholic.