The story is obv fiction, if it happened, I wouldn't blame Mary as thar would save her from stoning.

(March 17, 2020 at 1:26 pm)Drich Wrote:

(March 17, 2020 at 10:13 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: How do Christian denominations differ on this? From what I know, it is unthinkable for Catholics that Mary ever had sex with anyone, even her husband, and probably because Catholics are obsessed that their clergy is abstinent, so they see married couple not having sex as an inspiration.

Although "Matthew" is clear on this and says that they had sex, like in 1:25 "But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus."

Of course, he says "consummate" and not like vaginal or anal sex, so maybe Catholics interpret "consummate their marriage" as drinking tea from the same cup.

But how do other denominations stand on this? I gather that Mormons probably think they had plenty of sex, with lots of kids because they are big on family and polygamy.

They had sex as Jesus identifies james as a half brother.

James was a son of Mary and Joseph and therefore a half-brother to Jesus and brother to Joseph, Simon, Judas, and their sisters (Matthew 13:55). In the Gospels, James is mentioned a couple of times, but at that time he misunderstood Jesus’ ministry and was not a believer (John 7:2-5). James becomes one of the earliest witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection ().
gotquestions.org

Catholics explain this away by making the claim that Jesus’ half-siblings were Joseph’s children by his previous wife. This is necessary to maintain the Marian dogma of perpetual virginity.

There is absolutely no scriptural support for this idea, but when has THAT ever stopped Catholics?

Boru

(March 17, 2020 at 1:26 pm)Drich Wrote: They had sex as Jesus identifies james as a half brother.

James was a son of Mary and Joseph and therefore a half-brother to Jesus and brother to Joseph, Simon, Judas, and their sisters (Matthew 13:55). In the Gospels, James is mentioned a couple of times, but at that time he misunderstood Jesus’ ministry and was not a believer (John 7:2-5). James becomes one of the earliest witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection ().
gotquestions.org

You/they are assuming that Joseph is the father. Mary could be a big ole slut for god as far as you know.

(March 17, 2020 at 1:56 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I will have to add this to the list of things that keep me up at night like the question regarding 'did Adam and Eve have belly buttons'.  

The answer is simple; yes. After finishing Adam he stood his newly created action figure in front of him, poked him in the belly, and said, "You're done." That is the same thing he did after manifesting Eve from that rib.

(March 17, 2020 at 3:51 pm)Rhizomorph13 Wrote:

(March 17, 2020 at 1:56 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I will have to add this to the list of things that keep me up at night like the question regarding 'did Adam and Eve have belly buttons'.  

The answer is simple; yes. After finishing Adam he stood his newly created action figure in front of him, poked him in the belly, and said, "You're done." That is the same thing he did after manifesting Eve from that rib.

I get a vision of the Pillsbury poppin fresh doughboy.

https://i.imgur.com/ixMVobT.jpg

(March 17, 2020 at 2:34 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(March 17, 2020 at 1:26 pm)Drich Wrote: They had sex as Jesus identifies james as a half brother.

James was a son of Mary and Joseph and therefore a half-brother to Jesus and brother to Joseph, Simon, Judas, and their sisters (Matthew 13:55). In the Gospels, James is mentioned a couple of times, but at that time he misunderstood Jesus’ ministry and was not a believer (John 7:2-5). James becomes one of the earliest witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection ().
gotquestions.org

Catholics explain this away by making the claim that Jesus’ half-siblings were Joseph’s children by his previous wife. This is necessary to maintain the Marian dogma of perpetual virginity.

There is absolutely no scriptural support for this idea, but when has THAT ever stopped Catholics?

Boru

Dredging the memory banks, but didn't that whole notion start with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and gather legs from there? For Assumption, Mary had to be "pure". "pure" in this case defined as never having had sex? Does anyone actually know why this might be a virtue?

Of course, this was yes another reason for me to lose faith. In the RCC Mary is close to, if not actually, a co-deity. Just look at the rosary. I will never forget my devout RCC father's attempt to introduce a nightly recitation of the rosary. He gave up due to lack of attendance. I and my siblings always came up with somewhere else we had to be. On those rare occasions where some one of us could not escape, it instantly became a matter of sibling jest. Hahaha, you got caught in the trap.

That said, I will not have a harsh word for the long dead man. I always say out front that he was not a gentleman. He was a gentle man. He needed no religion for that. It was his nature.

It was my priviledge, before he passed, to sit down at a table and confront such matters. I am an atheist and he a devout catholic. We had a heart to heart, a meeting of minds, an acknowledgment of everyone's position on many matters. No faith in imaginary spooks will ever buy that.

One thing sticks in my mind. He considered himself a failure in life. Why? Because he raised four degreed children who all rejected god. He provided for us, funded our life, food, education, health and so on, so we are all happy out in productive employ. But he felt like a failure because we were all atheists.

That is what religion really does to people.

(March 17, 2020 at 5:15 pm)Abaddon_ire Wrote:

(March 17, 2020 at 2:34 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Catholics explain this away by making the claim that Jesus’ half-siblings were Joseph’s children by his previous wife. This is necessary to maintain the Marian dogma of perpetual virginity.

There is absolutely no scriptural support for this idea, but when has THAT ever stopped Catholics?

Boru

Dredging the memory banks, but didn't that whole notion start with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and gather legs from there? For Assumption, Mary had to be "pure". "pure" in this case defined as never having had sex? Does anyone actually know why this might be a virtue?

Of course, this was yes another reason for me to lose faith. In the RCC Mary is close to, if not actually, a co-deity. Just look at the rosary. I will never forget my devout RCC father's attempt to introduce a nightly recitation of the rosary. He gave up due to lack of attendance. I and my siblings always came up with somewhere else we had to be. On those rare occasions where some one of us could not escape, it instantly became a matter of sibling jest. Hahaha, you got caught in the trap.

That said, I will not have a harsh word for the long dead man. I always say out front that he was not a gentleman. He was a gentle man. He needed no religion for that. It was his nature.

It was my priviledge, before he passed, to sit down at a table and confront such matters. I am an atheist and he a devout catholic. We had a heart to heart, a meeting of minds, an acknowledgment of everyone's position on many matters. No faith in imaginary spooks will ever buy that.

One thing sticks in my mind. He considered himself a failure in life. Why? Because he raised four degreed children who all rejected god. He provided for us, funded our life, food, education, health and so on, so we are all happy out in productive employ. But he felt like a failure because we were all atheists.

That is what religion really does to people.

Growing up Catholic I certainly remember that Mary was often the go-to for prayer.  The church I attended for many years was a Basilica and there was nearly as much imagery of Mary as there was Jesus, God the Father, and the saints.  She even had her own section of the altar area.

Many were the homes that had grottos in their yards made from old bathtubs sunk halfway into the ground and decorated with all manner of rocks, glass bits, marbles, old jewelry, etc. and in those grottos stood a statue of the Virgin Mary.  They were such a common site as to barely be noticed...they were almost expected near farmhouses in the area.

First prayers - The Our Father and Hail Mary.

When people weren't praying to one or the other they were pleading with saints to help them find car keys.

One of the most popular roads near town to go parking was called BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) Road because at certain time if you parked facing east there appeared to be a pale blue silhouette of Mary in the distance.  That vision didn't seem to help with the saving of virginity among the teenagers.  Turns out it was how a light shone on the second floor of the barn on that farm - one of the few painted white and not red.

(March 17, 2020 at 5:15 pm)Abaddon_ire Wrote:

(March 17, 2020 at 2:34 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Catholics explain this away by making the claim that Jesus’ half-siblings were Joseph’s children by his previous wife. This is necessary to maintain the Marian dogma of perpetual virginity.

There is absolutely no scriptural support for this idea, but when has THAT ever stopped Catholics?

Boru

Dredging the memory banks, but didn't that whole notion start with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and gather legs from there? For Assumption, Mary had to be "pure". "pure" in this case defined as never having had sex? Does anyone actually know why this might be a virtue?

Of course, this was yes another reason for me to lose faith. In the RCC Mary is close to, if not actually, a co-deity. Just look at the rosary. I will never forget my devout RCC father's attempt to introduce a nightly recitation of the rosary. He gave up due to lack of attendance. I and my siblings always came up with somewhere else we had to be. On those rare occasions where some one of us could not escape, it instantly became a matter of sibling jest. Hahaha, you got caught in the trap.

That said, I will not have a harsh word for the long dead man. I always say out front that he was not a gentleman. He was a gentle man. He needed no religion for that. It was his nature.

It was my priviledge, before he passed, to sit down at a table and confront such matters. I am an atheist and he a devout catholic. We had a heart to heart, a meeting of minds, an acknowledgment of everyone's position on many matters. No faith in imaginary spooks will ever buy that.

One thing sticks in my mind. He considered himself a failure in life. Why? Because he raised four degreed children who all rejected god. He provided for us, funded our life, food, education, health and so on, so we are all happy out in productive employ. But he felt like a failure because we were all atheists.

That is what religion really does to people.

More or less. The four Marian dogmas (that she is the mother of God, that she was immaculately conceived, that she was a perpetual virgin, and that she was bodily Assumed into heaven) basically co-evolved - if you take away one, the rest sort of crumble. If she wasn’t immaculately conceived, she wouldn’t be fit to give birth to God, and if she wasn’t both the mother of God and a virgin,  the Assumption couldn’t have happened.

Boru

(March 17, 2020 at 5:35 pm)arewethereyet Wrote:

(March 17, 2020 at 5:15 pm)Abaddon_ire Wrote: Dredging the memory banks, but didn't that whole notion start with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and gather legs from there? For Assumption, Mary had to be "pure". "pure" in this case defined as never having had sex? Does anyone actually know why this might be a virtue?

Of course, this was yes another reason for me to lose faith. In the RCC Mary is close to, if not actually, a co-deity. Just look at the rosary. I will never forget my devout RCC father's attempt to introduce a nightly recitation of the rosary. He gave up due to lack of attendance. I and my siblings always came up with somewhere else we had to be. On those rare occasions where some one of us could not escape, it instantly became a matter of sibling jest. Hahaha, you got caught in the trap.

That said, I will not have a harsh word for the long dead man. I always say out front that he was not a gentleman. He was a gentle man. He needed no religion for that. It was his nature.

It was my priviledge, before he passed, to sit down at a table and confront such matters. I am an atheist and he a devout catholic. We had a heart to heart, a meeting of minds, an acknowledgment of everyone's position on many matters. No faith in imaginary spooks will ever buy that.

One thing sticks in my mind. He considered himself a failure in life. Why? Because he raised four degreed children who all rejected god. He provided for us, funded our life, food, education, health and so on, so we are all happy out in productive employ. But he felt like a failure because we were all atheists.

That is what religion really does to people.

Growing up Catholic I certainly remember that Mary was often the go-to for prayer.  The church I attended for many years was a Basilica and there was nearly as much imagery of Mary as there was Jesus, God the Father, and the saints.  She even had her own section of the altar area.

That's technically idolatry, I suppose. Because art is evil. When my parents died years ago, there was an inevitable division of the property. Being civil folks, I and my siblings divided it up as we wished. There was no acrimony, rancor or any such.

Along the way, there was a picture on the wall of the "Sacred Heart of Jebus". When we came to that object there was a long silent pause. Nobody wanted it. A picture of a bloke in open heart surgery is not nice. And that is not where the heart is anyway, nor what it looks like.

Nevertheless, the conversation about how to dispose of it was revealing. Everyone was scared of it. Everyone recalled memories from childhood of being terrified of that image.

The rest of Bel's crap I can't be bothered to respond to.

(March 17, 2020 at 5:52 pm)Abaddon_ire Wrote:

(March 17, 2020 at 5:35 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: Growing up Catholic I certainly remember that Mary was often the go-to for prayer.  The church I attended for many years was a Basilica and there was nearly as much imagery of Mary as there was Jesus, God the Father, and the saints.  She even had her own section of the altar area.

That's technically idolatry, I suppose. Because art is evil. When my parents died years ago, there was an inevitable division of the property. Being civil folks, I and my siblings divided it up as we wished. There was no acrimony, rancor or any such.

Along the way, there was a picture on the wall of the "Sacred Heart of Jebus". When we came to that object there was a long silent pause. Nobody wanted it. A picture of a bloke in open heart surgery is not nice. And that is not where the heart is anyway, nor what it looks like.

Nevertheless, the conversation about how to dispose of it was revealing. Everyone was scared of it. Everyone recalled memories from childhood of being terrified of that image.

The rest of Bel's crap I can't be bothered to respond to.

The Church has a work-around for the idolatry issue, too. Technically, kneeling in front of a statue of Mary while fondling your beads and praying isn’t idolatry, because you’re still praying to God, you’re just asking Mary to intercede on your behalf (but the real reason it’s not idolatry was that the pope discovered he could get artists to decorate churches for bread, board, and pocket money).

It’s like the Church invented fine print and loopholes.

Boru