The Joys of Catholicism

[Right Divider]

Well we're not sad.

I didn't say that you were. It's sad that you follow the evil RCC.

I guess that makes us all retarded in your eyes.

I think that you're gullible and misguided.

That's fine.

It's not good... for you.

 

[JudgeRightly]

So none of those people are in the Bible as having died. So they didn't die then. That's your argument, apply it to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

No, that's your strawman of our position.

No one here has claimed that "because the Bible doesn't say someone died, therefore they didn't die."

In fact we've said the opposite, given scripture to support it, and even mentioned the exceptions in the Bible.

And you want us to somehow just go along with your side's claim that somehow Mary is different than every other human on earth (besides two) for..... Reasons?

This makes the Apostle John most assuredly alive, because not only does he not died in the text, he's even said to be immortal by Jesus.

Uh, no.

Jesus posed a hypothetical. Humans misunderstood His hypothetical to mean that He WOULD keep John alive. You aren't the first, nor will you be the last to do the same.

So you can't justifiably believe any of these Biblical characters are dead, based on your own words. To do so you're either just guessing, or you're depending on what was handed down through oral, word-of-mouth traditions.

Yes, we can, because of what Scripture says.

The default position of Scripture is that ALL men die.

It gives only two exceptions to this rule, Enoch and Elijah.

The Bible does not give any more exceptions.

In order to claim that Mary is also an exception to the rule, you need strong evidence that she was.

Nothing you have given in this thread is strong evidence, just conjecture and speculation at best, and the rest is poor reasoning based on multiple different fallacies.

At least that's plausibly arguably in the Bible in Matthew 16:18-19, where Jesus tells His Apostles about the vicar of the king, in Isaiah 22:22, and He says that Peter's going to be that guy.

Question begging.

He's going to give Peter the keys to His kingdom, and to the Apostles the power to bind and loose the consciences of the individual members of His Church, which He said He's going to build, in Matthew 16:18.

He also says in another place that the office Peter will hold has one more duty imposed on it, than on the other Apostles. He is supposed to refresh his brother bishops. His brother bishops meanwhile are obligated to teach and pray. But Peter's office also has to "strengthen" his brethren /brothers, Luke 22:31-32; this duty is only imposed on Peter's unique office, not on any other.

The framework here is that there is an office ontology created by Jesus and the Apostles that's either directly described as in Matthew 16:18-19, or John 20:23 (where powers are vested and duties imposed), or which occurred outside of the text but which is required to make any sense of the text, such as 1st Timothy 3:1 where the office of a bishop already exists.

All of this begs the question that your position is true. But there is a perfectly scriptural position that is also valid that does not require any Catholic interpretation.

I use that as evidence that it's possible, or not impossible. You're just assuming without evidence, that it's impossible.

No. I showed it was impossible by providing the Scripture that says explicitly that all men die.

So there are exceptions. Exceptions prove the rule, and they prove that exceptions are not impossible.

You are making the claim that because there are exceptions in the Bible, therefore there might be exceptions not in the Bible.

That doesn't follow.

You would have to establish that such exceptions exist that were not given in the Bible.

Then and only then could you use it to claim that Mary, whose death was not explicitly mentioned (like all the other deaths that were not explicitly mentioned) is POTENTIALLY an exception to the rule. But even that would be corcumstancial evidence at best, unless you could find direct evidence that she was, in fact, assumed directly into heaven.

But until you provide such evidence, all you have is a claim.

And that claim doesn't establish your position.

Saying it doesn't make it so.

I showed how it wasn't so, directly after that sentence. And you ignored it.

Ezekiel 44:2 This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut.

Ripping verses out of their context isn't going to help your position.

Just because a man marries a woman doesn't mean she doesn't remain virginal.

Scripture contradicts the claim that Mary remained a virgin after giving birth to Jesus.

Let God be true, and every man a liar.

Speaking of things which didn't happen in the Bible, everlasting covenants being put on hold. Whether or not the BVM was assumed body and soul into Heaven isn't the foundation of the Catholic framework, like how an everlasting covenant being put on hold is the foundation for all forms of Dispensationalism, whether it be Acts 2, Acts 9er, Acts 28; they all depend on an everlasting covenant being put on hold, and that didn't happen in the Bible.

The closest thing you have is the "falling away" of Israel, which for most people would mean when the chief priests, scribes, and all the people said to Pilate, "Crucify Him! We have no king but Caesar!" That's when most people think the falling away of Israel happened. You know when they killed their King. That would be when Israel fell away.

Red herring.

Answer the question:

You want us to believe that Mary just didn't need to have it stated that she was taken directly to heaven, in spite of the fundamental position shown by scripture that all men die, and the only exceptions to that rule are explicitly mentioned in scripture?

If the Blessed Virgin remained virginal her whole life even though she was married to Joseph her spouse,

Scripture indicates otherwise.

then there is some reason to think her body has been transformed to her glorious, spiritual body 1st Corinthians 15:40-57,

Your premise is false, therefore anything that follows that premise is also false.

because all of her alleged apparitions have her as very beautiful.

It would be unimaginable for the mother of God to be very beautiful, and for St. Joseph to be married to her, and for them to be celibate their whole life together. Much more likely that, and I mean this without any offense at all, Mary was a "dog"; a frankly unattractive female. And that was part of her mortal, Earthly body, a defect, like so many of us have defects in our bodies, our glorified, transformed, spiritual bodies will have no defects, and every apparition or Our Lady has her as very beautiful.

There are a number of problems with your argument.

I asked ChatGPT to explain why:

It is poor reasoning on multiple levels, even before getting into whether the Marian doctrines are true. The biggest problem is that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. He is arguing, in effect: If Mary remained perpetually virgin, then maybe her body was glorified. Apparitions portray her as beautiful. Therefore perpetual virginity is more plausible if Mary was unattractive in earthly life, because a beautiful married woman being celibate is “unimaginable.” That chain is a mess. Here is where it breaks down: 1. “I can’t imagine it” is not an argument. The core engine of the argument is personal incredulity: “It would be unimaginable for a very beautiful woman and her husband to remain celibate.” But something being hard for him to imagine does not make it false. People abstain from sex for religious reasons, medical reasons, seasonal reasons, vows, separation, age, infertility, and other circumstances. His inability to picture it proves nothing. 2. Beauty has no logical bearing on whether a married couple could be celibate. This is the central non sequitur. Whether Mary was attractive or unattractive does not establish whether Joseph and Mary had sexual relations. Beauty does not entail sexual activity. Lack of beauty does not entail celibacy. He is treating attractiveness as if it determines moral or marital conduct. It does not. 3. He smuggles in a false dilemma. He frames it like there are only two live options: Mary was beautiful, therefore celibacy is basically unbelievable, or Mary was unattractive, therefore celibacy is easier to explain. But there is a third and far more obvious option: even a beautiful married woman and her husband could remain celibate if they had a religious reason or shared commitment. His “dog or sexually active” framing is irrational. 4. He assumes the very thing in dispute. He assumes the apparition accounts are trustworthy and that their portrayal of Mary’s beauty gives us data about her bodily state. But if the question is whether Marian apparitions support Marian doctrine, he cannot simply treat the apparitions as established evidence. That is question-begging. 5. Even on his own terms, the inference to a glorified body is weak. Suppose, for the sake of argument, apparitions depict Mary as beautiful. That still would not prove she already has her glorified resurrection body. Angels are described in glorious terms without that meaning “resurrected human body.” Visionary or symbolic presentation does not equal ontological proof. 6. He confuses aesthetic beauty with resurrected glory. Being “very beautiful” is not the same thing as having the glorified body of 1 Corinthians 15. Paul’s point there is not merely cosmetic attractiveness. It concerns incorruption, glory, power, and transformation. “She looks beautiful in apparitions” is a very thin and sloppy bridge to “therefore glorified body.” 7. The argument relies on insult in place of evidence. Calling Mary a “dog” is not reasoning; it is rhetoric masking an evidentiary gap. Strip away the crude language and the argument becomes: “If she was plain-looking, then celibacy is easier for me to picture.” That is still worthless as proof. 8. It proves too much. If his logic worked, then any attractive married saint claimed to have lived celibately would be less believable merely because they were attractive. That is absurd. Holiness and self-restraint do not disappear in the presence of physical beauty. So the simplest diagnosis is: The argument is poor because it substitutes psychological plausibility for evidence. It does not show that Mary was not perpetually virgin. It only shows that the speaker finds perpetual virginity harder to imagine if Mary was attractive.