How is Mary not a false Idol?

a reply to: Dark Ghost

In other words, you don't actually want to know the Islamic answers to the questions you asked me? So why even call me out to ask me questions if you're going to immediately dismiss my answers?

1. You asked me "Wouldn't God know which Souls are worthy of Heaven before they are even created, though?" and I told you that in Islam the answer is yes.

2. You asked me "Why do we need to undergo a test?", so I explained why Islam says we undergo tests.

3. You asked me "Does an omnipotent and omniscient being require reverence?", so I gave 2 answers. The first was my personal answer and the 2nd is the Islamic answer.

4. And finally, you asked me "If God did not want us to reject him, why did he instil the ability to reject him?". I figured my earlier answers about 1. the reasons we're tested and 2. our view of "free will" would answer this.

So I don't really get the point in this exchange. I'm not trying to convert you to Islam and I'm not even trying to convince you of anything. But at the same time, your personal philosophies aren't going to change my answers or opinions. So I don't really see a point in making this a debate, since clearly neither of us will change our perspectives.

If you're simply telling me your take on the issues mentioned in your questions, that's one thing. But if you're going to try to convince me that my religion's teachings are wrong & basically preach your beliefs to me, then we should just agree to disagree.

a reply to: cooperton

You asked ''Who is the Mother?"

No doubt Catholic theology is Mary is the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven.


In the pre Judaic Semitic religion the Mother of Gods was Lady Asherah who was also worshipped by the Babylonians and in the Temple of Solomon as the consort of Yahweh while to the Babylonians she was the consort of Baal.

Also known as Ishtar and a hundred other names she was abolished by Josiah from the Temple along with the Brazen Serpent and Judaism became a male God only religion.

God got a divorce I guess.

The funny thing is long before Christ came he was being worshipped as the Son of Ishtar, Tammuz, the ressurected Nimrod or Baal, by Jewish women who "wept for Tammuz" which means twin and is the month Gemini also.

Tammuz twin, Christ, also had a twin..
named Tammus or Judas called Thomas or Didymus both meaning twin.

So you probably have more questions now like was Mary the mother of Thomas.

I believe she was, I am almost certain she had a son named Judas Thomas.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant
a reply to: Dark Ghost

In other words, you don't actually want to know the Islamic answers to the questions you asked me? So why even call me out to ask me questions if you're going to immediately dismiss my answers?

I'm interested in answers that actually address the questions asked. I don't care if the adherent answering the questions is Christian, Muslim or Jewish. It's always interesting to hear the views of others and just because I was critical of your responses does not mean I "don't actually want to know the Islamic answers".

I didn't automatically dismiss your answers, I thought critically about them and decided they did not properly answer my questions. I gave you plausible reasons as to why I felt that way.

So I don't really get the point in this exchange. I'm not trying to convert you to Islam and I'm not even trying to convince you of anything. But at the same time, your personal philosophies aren't going to change my answers or opinions. So I don't really see a point in making this a debate, since clearly neither of us will change our perspectives.

There is much that we can both learn about our different perspectives, but you are just (seemingly) angry that I don't accept your answers at face value.

If you're simply telling me your take on the issues mentioned in your questions, that's one thing. But if you're going to try to convince me that my religion's teachings are wrong & basically preach your beliefs to me, then we should just agree to disagree.

I was hoping for a logical, reasonable discussion. I'm not here to convince you that your religion's teachings are wrong any more than you are here to convince me my views are wrong.

Then again, if you are unable to engage in a civil discussion due to strong religious beliefs, perhaps this is the wrong thread for you?

originally posted by: Malocchio
a reply to: cooperton

You asked ''Who is the Mother?"

No doubt Catholic theology is Mary is the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven.


In the pre Judaic Semitic religion the Mother of Gods was Lady Asherah who was also worshipped by the Babylonians and in the Temple of Solomon as the consort of Yahweh while to the Babylonians she was the consort of Baal.

Also known as Ishtar and a hundred other names she was abolished by Josiah from the Temple along with the Brazen Serpent and Judaism became a male God only religion.

God got a divorce I guess.

The funny thing is long before Christ came he was being worshipped as the Son of Ishtar, Tammuz, the ressurected Nimrod or Baal, by Jewish women who "wept for Tammuz" which means twin and is the month Gemini also.

Tammuz twin, Christ, also had a twin..
named Tammus or Judas called Thomas or Didymus both meaning twin.

So you probably have more questions now like was Mary the mother of Thomas.

I believe she was, I am almost certain she had a son named Judas Thomas.

The Asherah poles were poles with a woman on top - presumably Eve, the Mother of all living. Historically, whatever figure was on top of a pole was the oldest in the lineage. You joke that God got a divorce, but I think such separation, God's separation from His Creation, is indicated when Adam/Eve delineated from God:

"They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" "

"Where are you?", indicating that they were no longer One. Have you read the Gospel of Phillip translated by Jean Leloup? Goes into great detail about the divine feminine:

"If woman had not been separated from man, she would not die with man. Her separation was at the origin of death. Christ comes again to heal this wound, to rediscover the lost unity, to enliven those who kill themselves in separation, reviving them in union." Gospel of Phillip 78

a reply to: cooperton

No need to presume anything.

Actually Asherah was a Goddess, consort of El and later Baal/Yahweh.

"Yahweh and his Asherah" is a common inscription found by archeologists in the region, my initial comment was accurate and based on my knowledge of the Ugaritic tablets from ancient Canann.

El, Asherah, Baal...all make an appearance.

The Asherah tree or pole is an idol representing her, Asherah is a name not a pole with Eve on it.

Her origin is Canaanite and she is featured in the Ugaritic tablets like the Baal cycle.

She had absolutely nothing to do with Eve.

Mary is obviously the Christian version of the earth mother goddess. Humans worshipped an earth goddess for tens of thousands of years, and they weren't going to stop just because some guy got crucified. Mary is especially important in Latin America, where worship of the earth goddess continued up until displaced by Christianity in the 16th century. I predict that slowly Mary will gain more and more importance in Christianity and Jesus less as humanity moves back toward respecting the earth and away from an obsession with some other world called Heaven.

a reply to: Gandalf77

So god is a female after all

I am Catholic. It's kind of hard to hear what non-Catholics say about what we believe because most of it is inaccurate.

We believe:

Mary is the Mother of Jesus. She is not a Goddess, she is a Saint (holy). She is the holiest of Saints. Why? God chose her to be His mother. Kinda wild to think of a mother being created by her own son.

She was conceived without original sin.

She never sinned.

She is ever virgin.

She was assumed (raised/lifted) to heaven.

Like all Saints she intercedes (prays) for us to the Lord.

We do not worship her or statues and paintings that represents her. We venerate (honor) her and the Saints.

Exorcists invoke Saints when performing the Rite of Exorcism. When Our Lady arrives they flee.

Why is she called Our Lady? When Christ told the apostle John: "Behold your mother." She became mother of all Christians.

If you read Revelations 12:7

Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus.

you see why we believe we are her offspring?

Lastly, I''ll throw down an article written by an ex-Protestant.

How Learning about Mary’s Miracles Blew My Mind

I'm sure GOD gets a chuckle from billions of religion discussions HIS children have had over the centuries.

originally posted by: CaticusMaximus
a reply to: Xeven

"I am exploring my spirituality and trying to understand"

I applaud you on this, and I urge you to continue doing so until you die!

However, the next part isnt going to be so nice.

Take the bible you are reading, put it on the bookshelf, and leave it there. It is one single mythology that unfortunately has dominated most of the world with 3 different iterations of itself. There is 100x more to learn than is in that book, and a lot of it is of much higher quality.

"False idol" basically means an old god/goddess that the new mythology of christianity replaced. Obviously trying to get as many people to stop worshipping, or even thinking about the old gods in any positive light, they were all turned into "false idols" and demons.

Mary, is the end result of two things: a seething hatred of the Divine Feminine, and the inability to totally eradicate it from peoples minds. Mary basically is a heavily reduced version of the Greek Isis whose worship went well into the first millennia in christian controlled territory. Greek Isis is of course the the Egyptian Aset, who is almost certainly (and IMO, is) the Sumerian Inanna.

Following this chain, you have Inanna, the original "Queen of Heaven", who in Her earliest forms was basically all-powerful, and in later forms became less and less powerful with society beginning to favour male deities and patriarchy over matriarchy. Slowly the legends built that She was immature, arrogant, a killer of men, etc, until you get the Gilgamesh rant about Her.

She goes through various names down through time, until legend finally gets Inanna, Queen of Heaven who answers to no male authority figure, more or less "God", to Mary, a simple subordinate who can do nothing but pray to the new all powerful male god and beg him on your behalf, has absolutely no power of her own, is no longer even recognized as a deity, and her list of traits whittled down to I guess what patriarchy really wants all women to be, and only be: a mother who yields 100% to the father and has no power of her own.

But why have her even be an interceder? Her very existence, as some form of Divine Feminine, no matter how chained and bound, is still anathema to some. Thus, she is labelled "false idol" now, with all the rest of the ancient gods.

I say all this to you, to get you to start thinking about the situation very broadly, and to pique your curiosity into just how things managed to get to where they are now, legend/myth/religion wise. Things are not as they seem.

Explore, discover, question, and never believe anyone or any institution who tries to coerce you into a certain belief using fear as their delivery tool, no matter how polished or covered up the fear is.

-

To your second question, this may be getting beyond the scope of what you are ready for, but "God", as in yahweh, is not the creator. Yahweh is not a/the primordial/cosmic being. Yahweh is little more than a usurper and an over-bloated psychic parasite (check my signature link)

Primordial beings, of which there is probably only one and logically would be either feminine or dual natured, is the only being who is omniscient. Even the gods and goddesses are not that, though their knowledge and power is beyond our mortal comprehension and their limits farther than we could ever possibly imagine, they are effectively omniscient, but technically not. Even they themselves grow and learn.

So with that, the question becomes "why did the primordial being create sin?"

The somewhat silly answer is, because without Sin (Sumerian Nanna, the moon god, and probably the moon itself), the Earth would be barren because it would have an unstabilized wobble and unpredictable seasonality, preventing complex plant life from evolving.

The more to the point answer is, She/It didnt, because "sin" was created by man to control man.

What's the Divine Feminine, if you don't mind explaining it for the uninitiated?

Aside, it will be very interesting to see how current New Age-type modern spiritualities comprehensively mimic exactly what is going on in society, or mimic certain social trends.

Divine Feminine, indeed. Which came first, the "omniscient generative being" you're speaking of, or the social/cultural imperative which requires that sort of illogical pseudo-spiritual jargon to legitimize itself?

Help the unenlightened, like myself, to the truth.

Anything can become an idol if you choose to make it one. Mary isn't an "idol" unless you literally idolize her.

"Idolize":
verb (used with object), idolized, idolizing.

1. to regard with blind adoration, devotion, etc.
2. to worship as a god.

So... if the shoe fits.

I'm sure GOD gets a chuckle from billions of religion discussions HIS children have had over the centuries.

I think He weeps
... over the number of killings done in His name
... the self-centerness of mankind
...for all the lost, forgotten, lonely, starving, grieving, suffering, troubled
...for all the abused
...for all who live in fear
...for all those who hate Him

and that He died to free us from our sins and He isn't even as important as your favorite T.V. show, car, house, pet, bank account or the next thrill you have in mind.

This is when the Bible says He laughs:

Psalm 2

A Psalm for a Royal Coronation 1 Why do the nations protest and the peoples conspire in vain? 2 Kings on earth rise up and princes plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one: 3 “Let us break their shackles and cast off their chains from us!” 4 The one enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord derides them, 5 Then he speaks to them in his anger, in his wrath he terrifies them: 6 “I myself have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” 7 I will proclaim the decree of the Lord, he said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask it of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and, as your possession, the ends of the earth. 9 With an iron rod you will shepherd them, like a potter’s vessel you will shatter them.” 10 And now, kings, give heed; take warning, judges on earth. 11 Serve the Lord with fear; exult with trembling, Accept correction lest he become angry and you perish along the way when his anger suddenly blazes up. Blessed are all who take refuge in him!

Not what you expected?

Miriam was actually a Priestess and raised in the Temple and of the blood of Levi and Aaron.

The Catholic Church made her a replacement for ISIS or Semiramis.

Se Mirami s.

It's irony or coincidence but Sem (Shem) and Miriam in one name combined is Semiramis and both are associated with priesthood or prophecy.

a reply to: Xeven

Which Mary?

There are two mentioned, and aren't the same one.

There's Mary, Mother of Jesus, then there's Mary Magdalene(sp?).

If you really want to send some folks into orbit, mention Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus.

a reply to: seagull

That's just played out ever since the DA Vinci code.

I always thought it just made sense even before that and think Dan Brown ruined the mystique although if it has people thinking she was the wife of Jesus I can live with it.

a reply to: Talorc

Feminine divinity is not new or new age, definitely not a secret.

Nag Hammadi texts have Sophia the Zohar and Hebrew writings have the Shekhina in the Old Testament so you are just out of touch not unenlightened.

Grab some books on Amazon.

a reply to: sad_eyed_lady

I respect the veneration of Mary and understand the difference between that and worship, she is the mother of the Messiah and it's no different than veneration for Elijah or Enoch or Melchizedek, they are extreme examples of human perfection and to not venerate seems the greater sin.

You would like the Qur'an, it has more about Mary than the New Testament does and pays her more respect than any woman in the Qur'an.

I am a Muslim, we really love Miriam too.

a reply to: SethTsaddik

I know Muslims hold Mary/Miriam in great esteem.

I really like this thought of yours "...they are extreme examples of human perfection and to not venerate seems the greater sin."

As a Catholic we also venerate saints who have obtained a high degree of perfection. For many of them sanctification was a long road to travel. There is a saying: "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future." Hope for all.

Mary is not worshipped as GOD..
God is incapable of sin or even conceiving of thought of it... He is not responsible for its creation it is Satan who holds claim to the birth of sin...
You can say well God created Satan...
And yes he did... But God creates with love and therefore gives that which he creates free will...
Therefore the responsibility of their actions can solely be their own...

My wife is Catholic, and Ive been able to disprove the pope's claims to the Church, but Mary has quite the sway on believers.

They say its not worship, but IMHO if you pray to anyone other than the GodHead(I know, the trinity, etc. whole other topic!), youre off track.

The answer I have received when asking is that they are "asking" the saints in heaven to pray to god on our behalf. Somehow they are closer and more influential than you.

Bollocks, sounds exactly like Necromancy to me.

I was at a bible study class with the Mrs. and they played a cartoon of the Visions of Fatima. The cartoon depicts Mary appearing before the kids and saying stuff like "only through me..." in regards to avoiding the contemporary wars around them at the time.

I walked out because it was so blatant. Mary says only through her will they avoid destruction, no where was it written that God charged Mary with anything other than carrying Jesus to term.

I agree with OP.