Woah, easy, I was quoting Ric but for some reason the tags got removed and I apparently can’t go back and edit it, the edit button is not there. My replies are in bold only. Trust me, I’m a faithful Roman Catholic.
I don’t base my beliefs on factual evidence—if I did that, I’d be an atheist. But on the other hand, I try not to have beliefs that go against what is factually known, such as young-earth creationism. Original Sin is another one of those beliefs that are in defiance of the facts—not just unproved (like my beliefs about the Gods are) but disproved.
Ric, Of what faith are you? And how is your relationship with your wife regarding religion?
mrS4nta,
I’d have to agree. After all, his statements are not Catholic doctrine.One thought from this catholic, St. Alphonsus is wrong. Pretty simple.
How has Original Sin been disproved?
Yes, Chris, you are misreading the statement. In both my post and mrS4ntA’s post, we state that Mary is not divine and that she is not God and that salvation is through Christ. We are merely recognizing and being thankful for what Mary did when she, through her own free will, agreed to be His mother and accept all the joys and agonies that came with that.
That statement was popularised by the greatest advocate of Marian devotion himself, St. Louis deMontfort. Here’s his explanation:
.
Mary and mrS4nta,
I really appreciate your patience, 'cause I know I’m kind of beating a dead horse here. And I do acknowledge that you don’t consider Mary to be divine. Also, mrS4nta, the above quotes that you just provided make a lot of sense. I’ll save them to read again if I have any questons about the “through Mary” deal. That said, let me just toss in one more little tidbit, and then I promise I’ll leave the subject alone
While I understand your explanations about Mary and pretty much agree with them from a theological perspective (especially the most recent ones), here are two more quotes that I find irksome:
“Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone.”
St. John Chrysostom
“No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain.”
St. Bonaventure
You say that we don’t HAVE to pray to Mary to get to Christ, and I completely agree. But these guys (saints of the Church) don’t seem to think so. As UnworthySoul pointed out, I know that these quotes are not official Catholic teachings, but they can still be very misleading from an outsider’s perspective. Again, I don’t mean to drag out the subject, but any thoughts you or anyone else can give on the above are greatly appreciated!
Grateful,
Chris
If you really want a biblically grounded discussion, then listen to what Catholics have to say.
What do you mean by… “big cross”?
We’re not descended from just one man and one woman, that’s how.
“Modern thinkers may claim that evolution disproves original sin, even though evolution is still only a theory. Even if evolution were proven to be fact, fossils can tell us little about our first parents and their spiritual souls. Also recent research in human mitochondrial DNA tends to indicate that the human race descended from a single woman - perhaps scientific evidence for Eve. (Mitochondrial DNA is genetic material inherited only from the mother and not from the father, unlike nuclear DNA.) Now evolution does not disprove original sin, but on the contrary - sin seems to disprove evolution. Evolution does not explain man’s sinful setback. If man evolved from animals, then man also shares a common digression missing among animals.”
