format_quote Originally Posted by
MustafaMc
What puzzles me about Jesus' (as) parentage according to the Bible is Luke 3:23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli The American Standard version has "being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph" If the Bible is the inspired Word of God, how can there be any supposition in the parentage of Jesus (as) particularly when it disagrees with the doctrine of the virgin birth?What do you think the visions or apparitions were manifestations of? Could they have been jinn?It was only recently that I learned that the "Immaculate Conception" applied to Mary meaning that she was born without Original Sin so that she could be the Mother of God, else the sin of Adam would pass down to God. It seems that church doctrine has evolved to allow for a lot of things that do not make sense, neither are they supported by the Bible.That is the first time I ever read or heard about Mary being the Queen of Heaven. I had thought as a protestant that having statues of the Madonna (Mary) and crucifix (Jesus (as) on the cross) were idolatry. I had a great aunt that was married to a Catholic and in their home was the only place I ever saw these two figures. I also see praying to Mary even in the role of intercessor is an act of worship reserved for Allah (swt). So your final point is that for all practical purposes the Catholics worship Jesus, Mary and the Father (in that order), but then again for their confessional they also take their priest as a god when they say in their confessional, "Father, forgive me for I have sinned..."
Here you are seeing first hand how Catholocism evolves with new dogma involving reverse engineering to make the past fit the present. When I was a kid the words in the confessional began with "I confess to almighty God and to you Father that I have sinned. It has been (Time length) since my last confession and I have --------Categorize what you have done, how often and sometimes even include the dates, times)" Later it became "Bless me Father for I have sinned, I confess to almighty God that I have etc, etc) I believe that the words "Father, forgive me for I have sinned....) began being the most accepted and most common form sometime in the late 1950s.
As for the visions at Lourdes and Fatima. I am convinced some of the people actually did see something and it was not all mass hysteria although for most that was probably the case. Now what was seen? In the case of Lourdes it seems possible when Bernadette first saw the woman, it could be there was actually a woman living in the cave, the woman may have been a somewhat deranged person who actually believed she was Mary. Later after it is possible the woman no longer there but Bernadette in her anticipation began entering into a fantasy world. Later when people began following Bernadette it was probably some self deception of people who could not accept the idea of a child seeing what they were not seeing. A bit of confabulation on the part of some and it soon became politically correct to be among those who saw a woman.
The 3 children at Fatima. It is more likely that the huge crowds actually saw something. Several possibilities exist a deliberate fraud perpetrated by the local government to sway the populace away from the newly forming Communist movement, a deranged person believing she was Mary, Jinn etc. Who knows. but there is no physical verification that it was Mary who was seen. This was during the era when cameras had been invented, the events had caught the attention of the media and the media was present at many of the sighting, yet none caught any pictures of Mary. It seems the reporters would have been trying hard to get photographic evidence. As far as the "Miracle of the Sun" reported. (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun) Try staring at the bright sun for a few minutes
(Don't try this at home kids, it will ruin your eyes) after 5-10 minutes you will see the sun doing all kinds of strange things. Plus your now burned retinas are going to see lots of strange things for a long time afterwords.