The Joys of Catholicism

JudgeRightly

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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 position. "Mary's death isn't recorded, therefore it's possible she didn't die but was instead assumed into heaven."

No one here besides you 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.

 

Nick M

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So none of those people are in the Bible as having died.
They are all dead. According to the Bible.
So you can't justifiably believe any of these Biblical characters are dead
You seem lost. In the post I told you Peter and James have bone boxes. They are dead. And Peter's is in Jerusalem at the Mount of Olives. He is not in Rome.
You must have added the second part of this post immediately after originally posting the first part, because I only responded to the first part.
That is entirely possible. Editing is allowed, as it should be. I copy and paste, and the forum software allows it without clicking on the quote or reply button.
If the Blessed Virgin remained virginal
We have covered this. In Greek there are separate words for cousin compared to brother and sister. The gospel calls his relatives "brother" and "sister" explicitly. You have been told a lie and try to fit the evidence to support it. And the biggest irony is the evidence is the argument from silence. Joseph and Mary had other children. Mary is a sinner just like you and me.

In fact, simple logic dictates it without even looking up the translation. Is that not the carpenter's son? Mary and Joseph, his parents are mentioned. And the children are then mentioned as they don't understand his claims of deity when they know he has parents and siblings.
 

Idolater

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[No, that's your position. "Mary's death isn't recorded, therefore it's possible she didn't die but was instead assumed into heaven."
No one here besides you 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?]

That's not my position. My position is that the Blessed Virgin was assumed into Heaven. I don't know if she died or not before being assumed. And I didn't mention the Scripture at all. Nick brought up the Scripture, as if it were some sort of defeater against her being assumed into Heaven.

[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.]

And John didn't say that Jesus wasn't being literal. He just pointed out literally what He did say.
I don't think He meant John wouldn't die. I'm only saying the argument can be plausibly made that one ought not expect John to die.
You disagree with that, and I do disagree with it, but you can't authoritatively foreclose that interpretation, without proving much more than I think you're comfortable trying to argue. I mean in trying to defeat Catholicism, you're opening yourself up to seeing yourself as having powers that not even Catholicism believes is vested in the whole magisterium. That's an awful lot to give away to win an argument.

[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.]

It's fundamentally based on her being in some sense the ark of the New Covenant, which is taken from either a remarkable parallel, or a rank coincidence, between how the ark of the Old Covenant is talked about in the Old Testament, and how Our Lady is talked about in the Gospels.

You can totally disagree with this take, but what you cannot do, not without committing a transgression against hermeneutics that's even more grievous than what Catholics do (according to you), is dismiss the Catholic position out of hand. You don't wield that kind of interpretive power, because you claim to disbelieve that it exists at all, so why would it be vested in you? It's a self-defeat to act like you exercise that kind of power over the correct interpretation of the Bible.

Question begging.

Probably; but how? exactly? Do you doubt the parallel between Isaiah 22:22 and Matthew 16:18-19?

$$ Isa 22:22
And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

$$ Mt 16:18
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
$$ Mt 16:19
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Or is it something else?

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.

This isn't the Catholic interpretation, it's just the impartial, objective interpretation. It just so happens the Catholic Church endorses the impartial, objective interpretation, and everybody else just has an axe to grind. That's not my fault, nor am I obligated to surrender [to] your prior. Just because the Catholic Church holds to a view doesn't automatically mean it's a partisan view. Nothing rules out, except for prejudice, that the Catholic view or interpretation, just is the correct view or interpretation.

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

And then you showed two exceptions literally within the Scripture. That was actually making my case, not yours.

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

Nope. Therefore there might be exceptions, period. In or not in the Bible, had nothing to do with it. I'm just talking about reality. Whether or not some facet of reality is recorded in the Bible has no bearing on whether it is real, it is only refuted if it's literally logically inconsistent with what the Bible records. And the Blessed Virgin Mary's perpetual virginity, immaculate conception, and assumption into Heaven, isn't refuted by anything in the Bible. It's also not recorded in the Bible. See above.

[That doesn't follow.
You would have to establish that such exceptions exist that were not given in the Bible.]

THAT doesn't follow. In the Bible there are exceptions. How am I supposed to prove outside the Bible, in the Bible, that something outside the Bible happened, using the Bible? How is that supposed to work in your mind?

[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 circumstantial 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.]

We don't have direct evidence of Christ's Resurrection, just testimony. Again in your mission to destroy Catholicism, you're leaving yourself open to devastating criticisms of your own view of yourself.

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

Because it didn't make any sense:

“ And we know it didn't happen because the Bible doesn't say she was, even though men who were arguably less important than her, at least according to your position, were stated to have been taken up into heaven, and in fact says that "all men" die once. ”

For one thing, this happened very late, Our Lady outlived all the Apostles except John, is the story. So that John didn't record it, can't be a strong reason to disbelieve it.

The whole argument therefore remains c. ""all men" die once", which is already answered by the two exceptions to the rule in the Bible, which you yourself have already provided, Enoch and Elijah.

So I would say, No, you didn't show it. Saying it doesn't make it so.

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

Scripture contradicts the claim that Mary remained a virgin after giving birth to Jesus.
Let God be true, and every man a liar.

No it doesn't.

Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, His "brothers" are James, Joses, Simon, and Juda(s).

Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40, the mother of James and Joses is named Mary.

Mark 16:1, Luke 24:10, the mother of James is named Mary.

This Mary is wife of Clopas or Cleophas, who is Joseph's brother.

The only time His brothers are actually named, so that we can inspect what "brother" means directly, is in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3. These "brothers" are traced to "the other Mary" of Matthew 28:1, who is the wife of Clopas (John 19:25). They are His cousins.

[Scripture indicates otherwise.
Your premise is false, therefore anything that follows that premise is also false.]

What premise? You broke right into the middle of a premise, and now you're talking about a premise; which one are you talking about?

[There are a number of problems with your argument.
I asked ChatGPT to explain why:]

OK.
 
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Right Divider

Body part
The Catholic Church is receiving 100,000 converts this Saturday, worldwide. Over 600 in Boston alone.
Appeal to popularity is a fallacy. After all these years on TOL, you should know that all too well.

If you really "believed in the numbers", you'd become a Sunni Muslim (1.5 billion VS 1.3 Catholics).
What's the difference between being gullible and misguided and being retarded.
For you, not much.
There are many Joys of Catholicism.
Joys now, sorrows for all eternity.
 
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