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The Mary Cult
#1

The Mary Cult
I'm bored.  Let's take a look at human stupidity on steroids!

Fucking "Mary."


https://www.vision.org/rise-and-rise-queen-heaven-731

Quote:The Rise and Rise of the Queen of Heaven


It took centuries for the earliest xtian shitwits to decide they needed a "goddess" after all!

Quote:Stephen Benko specializes in early Christianity in its pagan environment. In The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology, he traces the development of the cult of Mary from Greek and Roman mythology through to recent times. Benko avoids anti-Catholic polemics and is sympathetic to the place of the “queen of heaven” in Christianity. That said, he unerringly traces Mary’s roots to the pagan, pre-Christian heavenly queens of Greece, Rome and the wider Mediterranean—those mutable goddesses whose ranks include Artemis, Astarte, Celeste, Ceres, Cybele, Demeter, Diana, Ishtar, Isis and Selene.

“Christianity,” he notes, “did not add a new element to religion when it introduced into its theology such concepts as ‘virgin’ and ‘mother’; rather, it sharpened and refined images that already existed in numerous forms in pagan mythology.”

The combining of beliefs from different traditions, called syncretism, was not new but a recurring theme in religions of the Mediterranean area. As with the transmission of pagan-to-pagan images and ideas, so pagan-to-Christian shifts began to occur in what Benko calls “functional equivalency.” The first centuries of the current era, during which the early Christian religion was embraced and modified by the cultures of the Hellenistic world, constituted a period of particularly rapid syncretism. The images of various distinct goddesses merged to become indistinguishable from each other.

But the cult with the greatest influence on early Christianity, according to Benko, was that of the Great Mother (Magna Mater). Known in western Asia Minor as Cybele, she was to become the model for Mariology.

The evolution of this bullshit cannot simply be laid at the feet of ancient primitives.

Quote:Long venerated as part of popular piety in the Eastern church, Mary began to gain an even wider audience in the Western church by the 12th century, thanks in part to Crusaders returning from the East. Increasing attention and debate surrounded her, culminating in 1854 when Pope Pius IX declared the mother of Christ to have been “immaculately conceived.”

Fairly modern primitives took a shot at it too!

Anyway, the book looks interesting.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#2

The Mary Cult
Supreme god without subordinate female just doesn't cut it.
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.


Socrates.
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#3

The Mary Cult
The title has a spelling error.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental. 
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#4

The Mary Cult
You're getting as bad as me.

Tongue
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#5

The Mary Cult
As a little girl, I discovered that I could whistle and I'd whistle a lot. My grandma told me that, when little girls whistle, Mother Mary cries in heaven. I just waited til I was out of Grandma's earshot and kept right on whistling. I suppose I didn't believe that stuff even then, although once I went to school I had a few years of religiousness. It never took, always thought it was fairy tales...
[Image: color%5D%5Bcolor=#333333%5D%5Bsize=small%5D%5Bfont=T...ans-Serif%5D]
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#6

The Mary Cult
Little known fact, Mary's female "roommate", whistled her pregnant.
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#7

The Mary Cult
As one of my old college profs once noted " it wasn't the finger of god that touched her! "
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#8

The Mary Cult
Some religious archeologists believe Mary paved the way for conversion from goddess religions to christianity.
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#9

The Mary Cult
Quote:Stephen Benko specializes in early Christianity in its pagan environment. In The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology, he traces the development of the cult of Mary from Greek and Roman mythology through to recent times. Benko avoids anti-Catholic polemics and is sympathetic to the place of the “queen of heaven” in Christianity. That said, he unerringly traces Mary’s roots to the pagan, pre-Christian heavenly queens of Greece, Rome and the wider Mediterranean—those mutable goddesses whose ranks include Artemis, Astarte, Celeste, Ceres, Cybele, Demeter, Diana, Ishtar, Isis and Selene.

Not sure he talks about it, but also in the West, with the rise of "chivalry" in the Medieval period, and the pious stuff in the Roman Church, Mary became the cultural "feminine ideal", in the Arthurian legends, and the Grail Myth of Cretien de Troyes. I think a case can be made it's not even a religious thing by then, but a cultural even secular development.
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#10

The Mary Cult
The whole theotokos controversy far predates the age of chivalry.  The west was being overrun by Gothic barbarians who were still shitting in their pants because they hadn't invented toilet paper when the Eastern church was fighting over that bullshit.

Quote:Nestorianism became a distinct sect following the Nestorian Schism, beginning in the 430s. Nestorius had come under fire from Western theologians, most notably Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril had both theological and political reasons for attacking Nestorius; on top of feeling that Nestorianism was an error against true belief, he also wanted to denigrate the head of a competing patriarchate.[citation needed] Cyril and Nestorius asked Pope Celestine I to weigh in on the matter. Celestine found that the title Theotokos[9] was orthodox, and authorized Cyril to ask Nestorius to recant. Cyril, however, used the opportunity to further attack Nestorius, who pleaded with Emperor Theodosius II to call a council so that all grievances could be aired.[12]

In 431 Theodosius called the Council of Ephesus. However, the council ultimately sided with Cyril, who held that the Christ contained two natures in one divine person (hypostasis, unity of subsistence), and that the Virgin Mary, conceiving and bearing this divine person, is truly called the Mother of God (Theotokos, meaning, God-bearer). The council accused Nestorius of heresy, and deposed him as patriarch.[13] Upon returning to his monastery in 436, he was banished to Upper Egypt. Nestorianism was officially anathematized, a ruling reiterated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. However, a number of churches, particularly those associated with the School of Edessa, supported Nestorius – though not necessarily his doctrine – and broke with the churches of the West. Many of Nestorius' supporters relocated to the Sasanian Empire of Iran, home to a vibrant but persecuted Christian minority.


courtesy - Wiki
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#11

The Mary Cult
(03-21-2020, 04:00 PM)Minimalist Wrote: I'm bored.  Let's take a look at human stupidity on steroids!

Fucking "Mary."

https://www.vision.org/rise-and-rise-queen-heaven-731

On principle, I never bother to read sites published by the god-botherers, such as this site sponsored and
funded by the Church of God International, whose  goal is to re-establish the Bible as a credible [sic]  voice
in the discussion of ideas.  What makes Vision different, however, is that they examines topics through the
wisdom [sic]  of an ancient source—the Bible—while avoiding preconceived notions about what that source
says. Vision challenges many teachings of traditional Christianity, maintaining that its churches have lost
sight of much of Jesus Christ’s belief, practice and teaching. They believe that biblical principles are relevant
and can help solve [sic]  global, national and personal conflicts, but claim not [sic]  to proselytise.
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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#12

The Mary Cult
Ancient Rome and Greece had numerous female deities for those who wanted them. Isis, Cybele,Tyche and others. With the rise of Christianity and the destruction of pagan temples et al, it is probable that the Mary cult allowed women to turn their allegiance from such popular female deities to Mary, 'Mother of God'.
I am a sovereign citizen of the Multiverse, and I vote!


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#13

The Mary Cult
(03-22-2020, 03:02 AM)Minimalist Wrote: The whole theotokos controversy far predates the age of chivalry.  The west was being overrun by Gothic barbarians who were still shitting in their pants because they hadn't invented toilet paper when the Eastern church was fighting over that bullshit.

Agree about the timing, but the common currents supported each other.
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#14

The Mary Cult
I always found one of history's more amusing ironies to be that the Church declared Arianism a "heresy" and chased away any proponents.  One of those proponents, Ulfias, then completed the most successful missionary job in history by converting the Goths and Vandals and Ostrogoths to Arianism and then watched them overrun the whole fucking Western Roman Empire and reduce the pope to a petty princeling in a greatly diminished Rome.

And Syz,

"Vision challenges many teachings of traditional Christianity, maintaining that its churches have lost sight of much of Jesus Christ’s belief, practice and teaching."

It seems to me that every xtian sect thinks they are right and all the other assholes have gotten it wrong.  Par for the course with those bastards.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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