Immaculate Conception

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PeaceLikeaRiver said:
Respectfully, I think that when one approaches Christianity for the first time it's quite necessary to look at the historical aspects of it.
How things were at the beginning, what was believed and practiced, and how they changed.

If one wants to become a Catholic, or a Lutheran, or one of the major branches of Christianity, you don't just walk in and sign a sheet. You have to go to classes. You take the time and learn and study and see what it's all about. So you don't see people one day announce "Hey I became a Lutheran today." My perspective is that you DO, however, just announce one day that you're born again. There's no long term study associated with it, it's made to be a very simple thing - just give yourself to Christ, publicly read a few words and you're in, you're a saved Child of God.

I don't mean to make one sound better or more appealing than the other, but those are very different approaches to take to Christianity. And this is ME speaking from my own experience now, I personally want to know all the history, what was believed, what was changed, what was discarded, etc. before making up my own mind which path I'm going to take.

So how this all ties in with your post - when you say it's hard to you to accept anything outside of the Bible, you most likely have not looked at historical Christianity when there was a time when there was MORE than just the Bible to consider.
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I understand. oy, this is going to be a lot of research on my part. Still, I believe the bible was inspired by God. Yeah I know there are more books than the books of the bible, but I think God chose those books because we would need them for guidance. So, anything outside them must be prayed over and validated by the Holy Spirit.
 
Patricia Dalmadge said:
I understand. oy, this is going to be a lot of research on my part. Still, I believe the bible was inspired by God. Yeah I know there are more books than the books of the bible, but I think God chose those books because we would need them for guidance. So, anything outside them must be prayed over and validated by the Holy Spirit.
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The nice thing is that no one, not one person here, disputes that the Bible was inspired by God. That's universal to us all.
 
PeaceLikeaRiver said:
And this is ME speaking from my own experience now, I personally want to know all the history, what was believed, what was changed, what was discarded, etc. before making up my own mind which path I'm going to take.
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just curious, first: is that possible" "know all the history...."?

second: how you consider yourself: halfway there in making up you own mind what path to take?
 
aha said:
just curious, first: is that possible" "know all the history...."?

second: how you consider yourself: halfway there in making up you own mind what path to take?
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Knowing all the history - no, I think that would be a tall order. But getting a grounding it at least would make sense to me. Just as I wouldn't go out and buy a car without researching its reliability, affordability, safety, etc., neither would I just attach myself to the first Christian branch that presented itself to me. And even after researching I suppose it's possible you'd make a poor choice, but there probably has to be a certain amount of trial and error before you find a good fit for yourself.
 
PeaceLikeaRiver said:
Knowing all the history - no, I think that would be a tall order. But getting a grounding it at least would make sense to me. Just as I wouldn't go out and buy a car without researching its reliability, affordability, safety, etc., neither would I just attach myself to the first Christian branch that presented itself to me. And even after researching I suppose it's possible you'd make a poor choice, but there probably has to be a certain amount of trial and error before you find a good fit for yourself.
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Thanks for the answer, to be fair, I’ve spent much time as well…to the point that I gave up : )

I visit both churches, btw...
 
calvin said:
Well no I do not. based on my limited knowledge of such things, the flesh of an embryo and that of the mother are not, or at least are not always compatible. The blood of the Mother is not, or at least not always compatible with that of the baby she is carrying.... blood type, rh factor. So it seems to me that the baby Jesus was nourished by nutrients supplied from Mary's blood but those nutrients were neither steeped in sin or not.... they were just nutrients.
Besides, sin is a spiritual thing not in itself corporeal, it only finds expression in the physical.
I for one will not buy into the idea that Mary had to be sinless in order to carry the baby Jesus.
The Old Testament teaches and Paul affirms that everything is to be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Can you produce two or three (independent) witnesses that say Mary was conceived immaculately and that she was without sin and that she was assumed? Get back to me with your satisfactory evidence and then I will believe your idea.
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And I am just as committed as you are about this my brother!

But you see calvin, the Catholic believers MUST believe this as they are teaching that Mary is the co-redeemer of man. To be that she had to be sinless!
 
calvin said:
Further, being born in the likeness of men (plural) shows that the intent of the passage is that He, Jesus was born in the same way as men, not had the singular been used ie. in the likeness of a man.
So since Jesus was born in the same way as men are born, His gestation and birth were like any other. Only the manner of His conception was unique.
Php 2:7. but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
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TalkJesus said:
If she had not sinned, then Mary would not need God as her Saviour, but she did in her song of praise.

Luke 1:46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, 47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

If Mary having inheritted the original sin is still a problem, then you have to contend with how she can be born without sin? Following that line of thinking, her mother would have to be without sin, and then her grandmother, and so on down the line to Eve and that is just plain unBiblical.

And then there is that consequence for sin which is death.

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Mary has died. She is not around nor alive today on earth. As big a deal that the RCC has made her out to be, she is not residing at the Vatican.

So Mary does not need to be without sin to carry the baby Jesus to birth.
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Yep.......that sounds very simple doesn't it. Wonder how it gets so convoluted?
 
TalkJesus said:
If she had not sinned, then Mary would not need God as her Saviour, but she did in her song of praise.

Luke 1:46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, 47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
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TJ, I mean no disrespect, AND BY NO MEANS, I AM NOT TRYING TO CHANGE YOUR MIND HERE, but Catholics believe 1,000% that Mary needed a savior. Any Catholic that says that Mary did not need a savior is going against Christian belief.

You do not need to agree with Catholics. You can be anti-Catholic. But all I am doing is correct that Catholics agree with you that Mary required a savior. She made it clear that God is her savior. And only a savior could make a human like Mary free from original sin.

Again, no need to try and talk me out of believing in Mary's immaculate conception. No need to accept that Mary was sinless. But you must accept the facts that Catholics believe that Mary needed a savior.

That is all.
 
Patricia Dalmadge said:
What are these sacred traditions? Or can you post a link for me to study them?
And I believe the only sacred traditions are in the bible. It's hard for me to accept anything outside the bible. But I want understand your beliefs.
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Thank you for being so polite. To be fair I'm not currently an adherent to Catholicism or Orthodoxy, but I have a tremendous respect for them.

The first seven ecumenical councils are highly respected by the Orthodox. Other important traditionals include transubstantiation and the seven sacraments which are considered part of a holistic (another word for catholic) church. The Catholics havea catechism that details all of their beliefs but the Orthodox prefer to maintain a degree of mystery to their faith, their focus is on how close you can get to God instead of the Western approach of how close you can get to hell.

The problem with sola scriptura that I often have is that it assumes the Bible was used the form the church, but in fact the church existed before the Bible. In fact some of Paul's letters were written before the Gospels. Meaning that the gospels were part of a tradition.

http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine/sources-of-christian-doctrine
http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith
 
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MMurphy said:
Thank you for being so polite. To be fair I'm not currently an adherent to Catholicism or Orthodoxy, but I have a tremendous respect for them.

The first seven ecumenical councils are highly respected by the Orthodox. Other important traditionals include transubstantiation and the seven sacraments which are considered part of a holistic (another word for catholic) church. The Catholics havea catechism that details all of their beliefs but the Orthodox prefer to maintain a degree of mystery to their faith, their focus is on how close you can get to God instead of the Western approach of how close you can get to hell.

The problem with sola scriptura that I often have is that it assumes the Bible was used the form the church, but in fact the church existed before the Bible. In fact some of Paul's letters were written before the Gospels. Meaning that the gospels were part of a tradition.

http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine/sources-of-christian-doctrine
http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith
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Thanks.
 
MMurphy said:
The Catholics havea catechism that details all of their beliefs but the Orthodox prefer to maintain a degree of mystery to their faith, their focus is on how close you can get to God instead of the Western approach of how close you can get to hell.
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You have an amusing, if terribly inaccurate, way of putting that.

I'll agree that with the Orthodox (the spiritually oriented ones anyway) the main effort is "theosis", but the Western church is hardly
focused on "just avoiding Hell". Western spirituality (from what I've seen) seems to have more of a focus on acceptance of trials and suffering.
Padre Pio being a very good example of this.
 
Glomung said:
You have an amusing, if terribly inaccurate, way of putting that.

I'll agree that with the Orthodox (the spiritually oriented ones anyway) the main effort is "theosis", but the Western church is hardly
focused on "just avoiding Hell". Western spirituality (from what I've seen) seems to have more of a focus on acceptance of trials and suffering.
Padre Pio being a very good example of this.
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I have an Eastern bias. Though to be fair, I wasn't referring only to Catholicism but most western off-shoots as well. Evangelical theology is based almost exclusively on how one avoids hell.
 
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MMurphy said:
Thank you for being so polite. To be fair I'm not currently an adherent to Catholicism or Orthodoxy, but I have a tremendous respect for them.

The first seven ecumenical councils are highly respected by the Orthodox. Other important traditionals include transubstantiation and the seven sacraments which are considered part of a holistic (another word for catholic) church. The Catholics havea catechism that details all of their beliefs but the Orthodox prefer to maintain a degree of mystery to their faith, their focus is on how close you can get to God instead of the Western approach of how close you can get to hell.

The problem with sola scriptura that I often have is that it assumes the Bible was used the form the church, but in fact the church existed before the Bible. In fact some of Paul's letters were written before the Gospels. Meaning that the gospels were part of a tradition.

http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine/sources-of-christian-doctrine
http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith
Click to expand...

Whenever somebody says oral tradition, I want to say, "Could you show it to me? I know you can't show me oral tradition, but can you show it to me some way in the text, or at least, in the lifestyle of somebody who would have cared about it?"
Otherwise we have a free-floating oral tradition that has become kind of meaningless and even exaggerated..
 
MMurphy said:
I have an Eastern bias. Though to be fair, I wasn't referring only to Catholicism but most western off-shoots as well. Evangelical theology is based almost exclusively on how one avoids hell.
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That is very true. Hell is discussed far more than heaven, and I never quite understand that.
 
MMurphy said:
I have an Eastern bias. Though to be fair, I wasn't referring only to Catholicism but most western off-shoots as well. Evangelical theology is based almost exclusively on how one avoids hell.
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How about peace, joy, love, compassion, understanding and patience that Christ gives the believer.
 
Major said:
Whenever somebody says oral tradition, I want to say, "Could you show it to me? I know you can't show me oral tradition, but can you show it to me some way in the text, or at least, in the lifestyle of somebody who would have cared about it?"
Otherwise we have a free-floating oral tradition that has become kind of meaningless and even exaggerated..
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Eventually, they wrote the Gospels down, and the four canonical gospels are used exclusively, which was the whole point. The early Church fathers did so in order to lay down an orthodox faith and especially to stamp out gnosticism.

The canons of the Seven Ecumenical Councils are all written down. Particularly the Nicene Creed. Most of them were assembled to address heresies, notably Arianism. They were all modeled after the Council of Jerusalem, and the title "Ecumenical" which means World-wide or general was applied after the Church-at-large accepted it as such.
 
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