Protestant converts: How did you deal with the Church's Marian doctrines?

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setarcos said:
Queen Ishtar told the people that Tammuz was now ascended to his father, Baal, and that the two of them would be with the worshipers in the sacred candle or lamp flame as Father, Son and Spirit. Ishtar, who was now worshiped as the “Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven”,
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Ah yes, Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons. Even Wiki states ‘he believed’, ‘he thought’, "he taught’. . .and not, “sources show” or "credible evidence indicates’.

So exactly what are your sources for this screed except, “This is a nearly 200 year old expanded pamphlet from somebody who gives no proofs but dreamed this up himself?”
 
Mental gymnastics? I don’t know if this is meant to be an insult or a compliment? I can only assume compliment since surely the epitome of mental gymnastics concerning God would be that applied by St. Thomas.
The problem with your analogy is in linguistic application. You being a Forum Master is a mode you take on. Being Forum Master does not define your being. Your Mother is truly mother only of your being her offspring not of her offspring’s various modes. Your title merely states the mode you may be known by some as. Your mother did not give birth to your title. Your title may very well change. Gods title however defines his being. To give birth to God IS to give birth to his title as God and all that that entails.
Your first sentence states the incomprehensible problem.
Linguistically the sentence may be true. Logically the sentence is contradictory and therefore false as concerns God. The whole premise falls upon the concept of what a mother is and what a mother can do or be. There are two relational positions a Mother may have to him who is considered her son.
  1. Biological
  2. Situational
    In the case of biological the mother is the progenitor of her offspring, the Fathers contribution not withstanding. Without the mother the offspring she would have had will not exist.
    In the case of being situational the mother performs the role of a mother in caring for the male offspring of another. A step mother for instance or surrogate mother.
    Sticking with definition 1. since this is the one I believe we are dealing with concerning Mary we may rightly conclude that Mary can be called the Mother of Jesus…her only begotten son. Sticking with the same definition however as applies to God we see that Mary could not possibly be Gods progenitor since we can definitively conclude that no matter what the hypostasis of Jesus humanity with his divinity Mary cannot be the originator of God nor Jesus’s divinity. God predates creation and the creatures that inhabit it. No Mary, no Jesus. No Mary, no God? This statement belies its contradictory nature and thus its falsehood. God cannot originate contradiction. Mary cannot be the Mother of God in a biological sense, the same way she is with Jesus, unless one ignores the contradiction and embraces the lie.
    On a side note…insisting on calling Mary the Queen of Heaven to Jesus’s Kingship is tantamount to saying Jesus wedded his own mother, something clearly condemned from scripture.
 
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I don’t get it, especially since it doesn’t really have a whole lot to do with the conversation…
 
Most of us do. I’m sorry that you believe I have said nothing. Seems those that have felt compelled to respond to me think otherwise since why respond with rebuttal if there is nothing to refute? If you would care to read some of my assertions I would love to hear your take on the truth of the matter.
God’s blessings be upon you
 
Greetings Thom18, God be with you.
You’ve made a fundamental misconception in your application of your terms.
George Washington isn’t his presidency. They are not equated to each other. Being president is a mode a human may have. God fundamentally has no modes, according to Christian theologians.
His mother did not give birth to his presidency simply because she was not the originator of his being president. He could just as well have been a police man. In giving birth to God however you necessarily give birth to his “being” God not to a being who holds the title and position of Godhood. The title of being president is not defined by being George Washington. The title of being God however is.
 
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Seeing the responses, at this point, if I hadn’t gone to look at the title I’d be confused at what the topic is.
 
Yes, I can see how that may happen. The responses are at least in keeping with a Marian theme. One thought leads to another and another and so it goes. In asking how does one deal with Marian doctrines as a convert all kinds of discussion about Mary opens. Like how does one believe in something one does not understand? Why is one asked to believe something not necessary to salvation in order to become a convert? In dealing with something you find controversial are you finding truth or merely accepting opinion and does it matter? The title of this thread itself shows that appearances can be misleading and sometimes the truths we accept as truth are not discovered to be true by us but accepted to be the truths others have discovered for us. This is a dangerous path to follow and as scripture states, this may lead us straight to death. Is it truly the worship of God we are attracted to or are we attracted to the rituals we do in our worshipping and is there a difference?
May we all find the truth in wisdom and wisdom from the truth.
 
I started by Reading the book: ”Mary in the Bible and in our lifes” by Wilfred Stinissen. While I was Reading I felt the Holy Spirit right Beside me helping me to understand and so gently reminding me of scriptures in the Bible. Then I did my first talk to Mary, starting with saying to God: ”This feels a little strange and I hope I don’t Offend you by trying to talk to Mary. IF this is wrong let me know and formgiven me. And then I talked to Mary from my hesrt and I felt that she became my mum! I also felt like Jesus Said with a smile: ”I indulge you my mum”. And that he was so happy for me finaly getting to know his beloved mother Mary! Later I also read ”Mary Queen of heaven” by Scott Hahn. To start to pray the Rosary was hard thoug for me. Took many months and many struggling atemts before I really started to feel comfortable in that pray. But now 1,5 yrs later I absolutely LOVE the Rosary! I pray it every day and I get such confort from the Lord in it and it’s also such a powerfull Intersession pray.
 
On Revelation 12, obtain a copy of Scott Hahn’s study on that book, The End. Best treatment on the subject. Ever.

As for the Hail, Holy Queen, sorry, I cannot help there. As I recall this never bothered me.
 
To start with, I just put it in the too hard basket, and joined the Church anyway. Then as time went by, I gradually started reading up on the topic (and others). I don’t get involved enough in Marian devotion (note - not ‘worship’), but I will be moving towards it more and more.

I suppose I had a bit of a head start even before I became a Catholic. I had a rather wise old Protestant pastor who made a few comments about Mary and Marian Devotion -
  1. “I think we’ve lost something” (ie. Protestants in regard to Mary).
  2. “I think they’re (approved Marian apparitions) a judgement against a divided church”.
  3. “They (approved Marian apparitions) line up with Scripture.”
So I didn’t come into the Catholic Church with a hostile attitude. I suppose my attitude was more a case of “Well, let’s wait and see. I’ll join the church first, and then see what happens from there.” I mean, as far as that goes, it took me a little while to get around to genuflecting (crossing myself) at masses and the like - old habits die hard you know.

Then there was the benighted issue of church language. Early on I said to some other Catholics, “Well, I’ve got to go down to the Manse”.

They said “What? Manse? What’s that?”

I replied “Oh, you know, the house where the priest lives.”

They nodded and said, “Oh, you mean the Presbytery?”

I hadn’t long come out of a Presbyterian Church, and I said “What?”
 
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In the OT, the King’ s mother was referred to as Queen (she was the Queen Mother.) Scott Hahn’s book Hail, Holy Queen addresses this. I am relying on the Magisterium, scripture, and asking Christ to show me how to love His mother. It’s coming slowly but surely.
 
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Scripture, Scott Hahn, History, Byzantine Poeticness, the validity of the Sacraments and the truth of Catholicism proving I could trust the Catholic Church. Byzantine Theology of Theosis. I pray to Christ in His Humanity… the elevation of our humanity ended up making sense as being a basic Christian doctrine.

And knowing the Theology behind Mariology… just proves how central Mary is in Salvation History. And then there’s Revelation and all of the other parallels and typologies throughout Scripture…
 
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In actuality she was always addressed as the Queen mother, not simply the queen. The female with the unqualified title of Queen would have been the Kings wife not mother. The title of Queen was rarely formally used simply because in these cultures it was common for the King to take many wives, hence no one wife could claim the title of Queen in the singular sense. However there would have been only one mother of the King hence her holding the title with the qualifying attached as Queen mother. To speak of the Queen of heaven as Mary in relation to Jesus’s Kingship would put Mary, conceptionally, in the abominable position of being at once Jesus’s mother and wife which would have been a condemned practice in Jewish culture.
 
that’s how i feel too. When I started saying the rosary and having devotion to Mary, there was this feeling of motherly warmth.
I have had difficulties as well with some of the Church’s Marian doctrines but what I did was to pray to Mary to help me to believe and to love her. And she did help me.
 
I wouldn’t bother with these forums if I haven’t thought of becoming Catholic. Seems most on here spout the thinking of others as their reasons for becoming Catholic without actually understanding what their reasons mean. Some on here have made an impression on my thinking but none have made convincing arguments as to God solely embracing the Roman Catholic church and those in communion with her as the truth, the way, and the life. Which leaves me to wonder what is a man to do who has to rely on others reasoning, which he himself doesn’t understand, in order to be saved? What if his eyes observe sinning but the sinners tell the man that their way is the only way and they present reasoning the man isn’t capable of refuting, not because it is irrefutable, but because he hasn’t the reasoning ability or the access to the proper documents of refutation? What if such a man can only give himself up to faith in God to show him the way but the way that is shown departs from those that say they have the truth? Is the man at fault somehow? Has God heard his pleas only to deny him salvation? Are we, like Job’s friends, to assume the man has failed to hear God’s calling?
 
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