What is the deal with Mary, the mother of Jesus, with Catholics.

[Kidlicious]

best to abandon the fairy tales altogether






pro-tip... you can still live your life by the teachings of christ without the nonsense

The easy ones?

[Proteus_MST]

I expect we are not far from the state, and Child Protective Services trying to take children away if there's evidence of them receiving Christian religious training.

For some kinds of "christian training", taking the kids away from their parents seems to be justified ...
for example if parents put their kids in some of these religious boot camps, just because the kids have come out as gay/lesbian (or even just because the parents believe them to be)

[Ben Kenobi]

If we consider Pauline christianity to be in competition with other early forms of christianity during the first centuries (for example gnosticism, jewish christianity and so on), then, because the church fathers had an agenda ... i.e. they chose those scripta that reflected their own theological standpoint ... and disregarded others who didn´t or were used by other forms of christianity.

You're making the assumption that the Christianity as taught by the Apostles is contrary to the Gospels, and inserting two forms of Christianity that you like better instead. There's no evidence for this breach in the common tradition. Substantial evidence exists that there was a difference between Arianism and Christianity, which is borne out by the Councils of Nicaea, etc. The ruling by the bishops at the time confirmed Nicene Christianity, and not these other 'forms' which is another way to put heretical teachings.

Which comes back to the question - if there's continuity in the Church of Paul and the Church of St. Athanasius, then it stands to reason that what Athanasius teaches is in conformity with Paul and the Apostles.

The gospel of Thomas for example, is missing all the miracle stories and rather shows Jesus as teacher

Which is evidence of it's rather late origin in the 4th century. It's exclusion from the canon is additional evidence that at the time, it was not believed to be an authentic gospel written by the Apostle Thomas. Quite the opposite.

those gospel which later became the synoptic gospels

Which we've found in pretty much the same consistent form in multiple manuscripts of the Gospels predating Nag Hammedi by about a century or so. The purported Gospel of Thomas is ancient, but it's not apostolic, and that's why it's not regarded on par with the others.

Well, in this case I would expect a varying amount of detail in the stories, depending on whether the eye witness would be present at the scene or just would quote from hearsay. Considering that the gospels even give fully detailed stories about things like the youth of Jesus and his birth (where surely no disciple was present), IMHO rather make them more unbelievable than just quotations of sayings duringJesus active time as teacher/prophet.

Why is it unbelievable when Apostle Paul cites in Corinthians that there were 500 who were alive who witnessed the Risen Christ? Yes, you're right that none of the Apostles witnessed what occurred in the early part of Luke, but you're forgetting something. Back in the 50s, Mary was alive as well, and she could confirm what occurred in the beginning part of Luke. Heck, Jesus would only have been in his early thirties at the crucifixion, meaning that Mary would have been in her 60s by then. That's hardly out of the question.

[Ben Kenobi]

For some kinds of "christian training", taking the kids away from their parents seems to be justified ...
for example if parents put their kids in some of these religious boot camps, just because the kids have come out as gay/lesbian (or even just because the parents believe them to be)

Is it still legal to inject your child with hormones to prevent them from achieving puberty in Germany?

[Kidlicious]

Aye, that is true. The turmoil of the rebellions as well as christian inter-faith battles (not to forget the history afterwards with crusades and other wars in the territory) may make it extremly difficult to still find something useful surviving about early jewish christianity

For me personally something like the Gospel of Thomas seems to point nearer to a historical Jesus, than the synoptic gospels do.
Why?
For one, because it doesn´t contain any miracle stories, virgin births and crucifixations (all without confirmation by secular sources ... and all things which IMHO were added by pauline christianity, to make christian faith competitive with all the other gods in the roman empire).
For the other because it doesn´t contain full fleshed stories, but rather is a collections of sayings by Jesus ... actually something I would expect more, as a transcript of oral tradition, than the full fleshed stories found in the synoptic gospels (which, on the other hand, might have been builz upon such transcriptions and just woven stories around them ... added a miracle here and there, and so on).
(which is why I would expect story collections like the synoptic gospels to be more removed from the original source than pure collections of sayings)

But this is, of course, just my opinion

There's s big difference between believing in Jesus and believing in his sayings.

[Kidlicious]

For some kinds of "christian training", taking the kids away from their parents seems to be justified ...
for example if parents put their kids in some of these religious boot camps, just because the kids have come out as gay/lesbian (or even just because the parents believe them to be)

Really?! You don't believe in parental rights much, do you?

[Kidlicious]

For some kinds of "christian training", taking the kids away from their parents seems to be justified ...
for example if parents put their kids in some of these religious boot camps, just because the kids have come out as gay/lesbian (or even just because the parents believe them to be)

Really?! You don't believe in parental rights much, do you?

[Proteus_MST]

You're making the assumption that the Christianity as taught by the Apostles is contrary to the Gospels, and inserting two forms of Christianity that you like better instead. There's no evidence for this breach in the common tradition. Substantial evidence exists that there was a difference between Arianism and Christianity, which is borne out by the Councils of Nicaea, etc. The ruling by the bishops at the time confirmed Nicene Christianity, and not these other 'forms' which is another way to put heretical teachings.

Which comes back to the question - if there's continuity in the Church of Paul and the Church of St. Athanasius, then it stands to reason that what Athanasius teaches is in conformity with Paul and the Apostles.

Paul never met Jesus ... therefore I would definitely not equate Paul with the 12 apostles.
Considering that Paul did away with some of the Mosaic laws in order to make it easier for gentiles to become christians, especially with the law of circumcision and that gentiles have to become full jews (in contrast to jesus sayings in the bible "I have not come to abolish the law") I would put Paul in stark contrast to Jesus (and in conflict with jewish christianity)

Which is evidence of it's rather late origin in the 4th century. It's exclusion from the canon is additional evidence that at the time, it was not believed to be an authentic gospel written by the Apostle Thomas. Quite the opposite.

And the Gospel of Matthews wasn´t written by the Apostel Matthews, the gospel of Mark wasn´t written by Mark, the Gospel of Luke wasn´t written by the Luke and the gospel of John wasn´t written by the Apostle John ... those attributions were only made centuries later.
Not only this, but also the earliest gospel (Mark, from which the other gospels drew much material) is said to be written in Rome ... which rather sounds to me like it was some theological propaganda writing to further the goals of pauline christianity (i.e. to easier spread the pauline christian faith in the roman empire) than some genuine account based on interviews with eye witnesses

Which we've found in pretty much the same consistent form in multiple manuscripts of the Gospels predating Nag Hammedi by about a century or so. The purported Gospel of Thomas is ancient, but it's not apostolic, and that's why it's not regarded on par with the others.

Why is it unbelievable when Apostle Paul cites in Corinthians that there were 500 who were alive who witnessed the Risen Christ? Yes, you're right that none of the Apostles witnessed what occurred in the early part of Luke, but you're forgetting something. Back in the 50s, Mary was alive as well, and she could confirm what occurred in the beginning part of Luke. Heck, Jesus would only have been in his early thirties at the crucifixion, meaning that Mary would have been in her 60s by then. That's hardly out of the question.

Why then the huge differences and omissions if they were written according to eye witness accounts by Mary?
According to Matthews the family went to egypt in order to escape children murdering Herod.
According to Luke, they obviously stayed in Galilee and visited Jerusalem once a year ... and even went to Jerusalem shortly after his birth in order to let Jesus be circumcised
According to Matthew, Mary and Joseph were visited by the 3 wise men from the orient ... according to Luke they were just visited by a couple of shepherds.

Just to point out a tiny fraction of the differences

[Proteus_MST]

Is it still legal to inject your child with hormones to prevent them from achieving puberty in Germany?

When was it ever legal in germany to inject children with hormones in order to prevent puberty?
I never heard of such a thing

[giblets]

It's legal to delay puberty in some circumstances, I don't think anyone is actually prevented from going through puberty.

[Ben Kenobi]

When was it ever legal in germany to inject children with hormones in order to prevent puberty?
I never heard of such a thing

It's very sad. Parents are abusing their children.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8454002/Puberty-blocker-for-children-considering-sex-change.html

I don't think anyone is actually prevented from going through puberty.

Unfortunately it's being abused now to do precisely that.

[Ben Kenobi]

Paul never met Jesus ... therefore I would definitely not equate Paul with the 12 apostles.

That's not what Acts says, and Paul managed to convince the other Apostles that he had seen the Risen Christ.

Considering that Paul did away with some of the Mosaic laws in order to make it easier for gentiles to become christians, especially with the law of circumcision and that gentiles have to become full jews (in contrast to jesus sayings in the bible "I have not come to abolish the law") I would put Paul in stark contrast to Jesus (and in conflict with jewish christianity)

Couple of points here. Paul did nothing of the sort with circumcision. He did not abolish circumcision. Nor did he bar Christians from circumcising their children. What he did bar was the requirement of circumcision.

Secondly, where does Jesus state that circumcision is a requirement for the members of his Church? I see no evidence for this position. Jesus did say, he came to fulfill the law in that the Mosaic law is not the be all and end all, but a stepping stone. The important part as Paul goes on to state is spiritual circumcision.

those attributions were only made centuries later.

By whom? If you say that the attributions were made centuries later, then you should be able to state who made those attributions.

Not only this, but also the earliest gospel (Mark, from which the other gospels drew much material) is said to be written in Rome ... which rather sounds to me like it was some theological propaganda writing to further the goals of pauline christianity (i.e. to easier spread the pauline christian faith in the roman empire) than some genuine account based on interviews with eye witnesses

By whom? There's no indication whatsoever that Mark was written in Rome. None whatsoever. John likely wrote his gospel off the coast of Turkey. All the rest were written and the three synoptics in Jerusalem.

You do know they were written in Greek, not Latin, right?

Why then the huge differences and omissions if they were written according to eye witness accounts by Mary?

What omissions? The Gospels never claim to be a complete account of the life of Jesus.

According to Matthews the family went to egypt in order to escape children murdering Herod.
According to Luke, they obviously stayed in Galilee and visited Jerusalem once a year ... and even went to Jerusalem shortly after his birth in order to let Jesus be circumcised

From Matthew 2:

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod.

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth

Luke 2:

When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”[b]), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons

The answer's quite simple. Joseph and Mary left Galilee for Egypt, returned to Nazareth after Herod died and then took Christ to Jerusalem from Nazareth into the temple for Purification, and then back to Nazareth again.

According to Matthew, Mary and Joseph were visited by the 3 wise men from the orient ... according to Luke they were just visited by a couple of shepherds.

Uh, the shepherds are not the Magi.

[Proteus_MST]

It's very sad. Parents are abusing their children.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8454002/Puberty-blocker-for-children-considering-sex-change.html

...

Ah O.K.,
well, I would say it is a huge difference between:
-something that is administered with full consent of the child
(after all it isn´t the parents who putting pressure on their child to take the hormones, but rather the childs themselves who detect their transsexuality and then, with consent of thzemselves, their parents, as well as psychologists (in germany (in contrast to the USA) an intensive psychological examination is a prerequisite before you can undergo sexual reassignment treatment)

-and something into which parents pressure their children, usually without them really wanting to "get rid" of their homosexuality
(and I am certain that there are no doctors/psychologists who would be able to prescribe a religious indoctrination camp as a "cure" to homosexuality)

[Ben Kenobi]

well, I would say it is a huge difference between:
-something that is administered with full consent of the child

Children can't legally consent at 12. To anything.

(after all it isn´t the parents who putting pressure on their child to take the hormones, but rather the childs themselves who detect their transsexuality and then, with consent of thzemselves, their parents, as well as psychologists (in germany (in contrast to the USA) an intensive psychological examination is a prerequisite before you can undergo sexual reassignment treatment)

At 12? Looks remarkably like parents putting pressure on their children; their children conforming to this pressure and taking injections that serve no medical purpose and destroy healthy and normal functioning of their body.

I'm sorry, that's abuse. Parents have the obligation to protect their children, not abuse them.

-and something into which parents pressure their children, usually without them really wanting to "get rid" of their homosexuality

By your argument, couldn't a child at 12 consent to treatment? I don't see how you justify a child consenting to injections at 12 but not consenting to psychotherapy.

[Proteus_MST]

Children can't legally consent at 12. To anything.



At 12? Looks remarkably like parents putting pressure on their children; their children conforming to this pressure and taking injections that serve no medical purpose and destroy healthy and normal functioning of their body.

I'm sorry, that's abuse. Parents have the obligation to protect their children, not abuse them.

And this is why neither the children nor the parents cannot decide alone for themselves to undergo this hormone treatment.
It is require that they first undergo a lengthy treatment by a psychologist (or even psychiatrist) which then prescribes the hormone treatment if he has determined that it really is a case of sexual identity disorder and that a gender reassignment is the best treatment to it.
This also means that it is the psychologist/psychiatrist can be held responsible if he severely misdiagnosed the child
Without such a prescription it surely would be illegal in germany to give the kid hormones

By your argument, couldn't a child at 12 consent to treatment? I don't see how you justify a child consenting to injections at 12 but not consenting to psychotherapy.

Well, do you have a similar system in America, where a psychiatrist/posychologist has to give a prescription to a Jesuscamp as a treatment for homosexuality (and can be held accountable to it)

I doubt so