Did Mary and Joseph ever have sex?

[Abaddon_ire]

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.