Pardon me. I've been told by Christians that Mary represents the Holy Spirit or that she is the Holy Spirit. The many denominations of Christianity seem to
view the Trinity differently which furthers the confusion of this outsider looking in. Many place images of her in their homes & cars which reinforces my notion that she is deified by many Christians.
That's very peculiar. Mary is certainly not the Holy Spirit in any sense. I have never heard of any group ever believing that she is. The orthodox view is that Mary was a perfectly ordinary and non-divine human being upon whom the Holy Spirit descended (whatever that means), miraculously giving her the ability to conceive in non-fun fashion. Any Christian telling you that Mary is the Holy Spirit is either incredibly confused or fascinatingly heretical.
Catholics believe a number of other things about Mary, specifically that she remained a virgin all her life; that she even retained "virginity in parturition", meaning that giving birth to Jesus caused her no physical damage; and that instead of dying she ascended bodily to heaven. They also believe that Mary's own birth was miraculous, involving no transmission of original sin (this is the "Immaculate Conception", often wrongly thought to refer to Jesus' conception), that she never sinned at all, and that she can be regarded as "co-redemptrix" with Jesus. However, they would never call her divine or identify her with the Holy Spirit. Mary remains sinless only because the merits of Christ are retroactively applied to her, not because of any divine ability on her part.
I know that many Muslims believe that the Christian Trinity consists of the Father, the Son, and Mary, but this is wildly wrong. It's amazing that such profound ignorance of other religions can not only survive for centuries but remain vigorous throughout that time.
It just seems to me that some denominations of Christianity are monotheistic & other aren't. For a long time, I thought that saint worship was further proof of Christian polytheism. Then it was explained to me that people are lighting candles for & praying to saints asking them to pray to G-d on their behalf.
The use of images of Mary and other saints doesn't mean she's deified; Christianity has always drawn a sharp distinction between
worship and
veneration. From a psychological point of view, of course, Catholic saints fulfil much the same role as different gods in a pantheon, but it doesn't follow from that that they are deified. Now many Protestants would regard this sort of thing as basically idolatry and polytheism, but I think that's fairly extreme.
Another good example. Thanks. I've never seen the Jewish or Christian concepts of angels as deviating from monotheism. In both religions, angels seem to be agents of G-d, not deities to be worshiped.
Right - but you can say exactly the same thing of Mary and saints.
That's not how it works, really. The songs and dances are a staple of Bollywood films. When there is any sexual activity, it's obvious, but not explicit shown.
I know - it's just what I tell myself to try to make sense of it all!
. Could you please clarify?
Please tell me first what makes an 18th century intellectual?
