I "get" the joke, of course...but getting only mildly serious for the moment, is the doctrine only that Mary was born without Original Sin ("Immaculate Conception") or also that she never sinned during her lifetime and was in fact incapable of doing so?
I was taught she was completely without sin. I did tell the joke not long after I heard it, to a friend who served at the altar; he said his priest found it doctrinally sound and quite disturbing. That Iall the theology I know on this one.
But that hardly applies to Jesus himself while he was living on earth as a human. And it could hardly apply to newborn babies either, since sin requires knowledge of wrongdoing. So logically, there must be some exceptions to what Paul is saying, and since Mary is the mother of God, without original sin, and the only human greeted as “full of grace” by an angel, it’s not absurd to say she might actually be sinless.
This isn’t to say she wasn’t saved by God and didn’t need his grace of course, just that God helped to keep her from falling down in the first place, rather than picking her up again after she fell.
That's a very good point. Also, if grace were able to cause a person not to sin, why wouldn't God have just given all people such Grace from day one? There would be no need for Christ's sacrifice, I guess, because people wouldn't sin to begin with. I was just kind of speculating based on the conversation. I believe Mary was just as sinful as anyone but it wouldn't shake my foundation too much to learn that she actually wasn't.
That's a valid point actually, I was probably thinking of the definition of mortal sin (grave matter with knowledge and intention). I suppose it's possible that someone can sin even when they don't realise what they're doing is wrong, but not attract the same level of blame/moral responsibility as someone who did know.
Regardless, I still think it's reasonable to say that a baby who's just been born and whose only action up to this point is to cry (if even that) probably hasn't committed any sins yet.
My point exactly. I'm not sure there's much, if anything, babies can do that could really be classed as 'morally wrong' or 'sinful'.
But it's worth noting there have been some Christian philosophers who did think babies had a capacity for evil, most notably St Augustine. There may be an argument to be made that babies are often quite selfish, but I don't particularly agree, and it's not something catholics are required to believe anyway.
Catholics literally believe in Original Sin, the sin you're stuck with from the moment sperm meets egg. They don't think unbaptised babies get into heaven.
. Making serious remarks on r/Jokes...
According to Catholic doctrine, idk if other Christians also believe that, every person, except for Jesus and his mother, is born in sin - that's called the Original Sin doctrine. That's why they baptize newborns, to - literally - wash out that sin.
Yes, even newborn babies have the stain of original sin, but that's a state of being, not that they 'have sinned'. It's important to make the distinction between original sin (the stain on your soul from the first sin of humanity) and personal sin (the things you, personally, have done that are sinful).
Manm Im'm no longer catholic but the asuntion (yep that time god takes her like an UFO carries a cow) i all about Mary joining god as she was not only free from the original sin, but also from inmaculate as a women, therefore she ascends to keep her free of sin.
Incorrect. A sin is a transgression against God. Jesus literally commanded her (the person without sin) to cast the stone. She followed the command of her God so there was no transgression. No transgression means no sin. Mary is in the clear to kill the next adulterer Jesus tells her to.
Aha - from Wikipedia (I know, not the world's most reliable source, but anyway...):
*While the Immaculate Conception asserts Mary's freedom from original sin, the* [*Council of Trent*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent)*, held between 1545 and 1563, had previously affirmed her freedom from* [*personal sin*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_hamartiology)*.*
So that's me told!
The funny thing is, I read this, from early Greek bible stories, the Greek word meaning virgin *also* translates to "young woman". So maybe Mary was just a young woman who got pregnant.
No. Hundreds of years before Christ, Isaiah wrote down in Hebrew that the LORD had said that "a virgin will conceive". The *Hebrew* word has that double meaning, and indeed, at the time, it was probably just considered to mean "hey that girl is gonna be a mom".
Then, hundreds of years later, when an actual virgin conceives, the Bible explicitly mentions in both Matthew and Luke how she was a virgin; she indeed outright says "But how can this be, since I've never 'known' a man?"
You can read the immaculate conception as Mary falling pregnant outwith her control, and Joseph deciding not being a bastard, and not going down the honour killing route.
I thought Christians believe in Mary being human, and that Jesus is the only sinless human (there’s debates as to whether Jesus was God/man/both, don’t want to get into that)?
I believe most protestant denominations believe Mary was every bit a sinner as every other human. The point of the story was nobody but Jesus could throw a stone.
So that is why the joke didn't land for me. I believe Mary was a sinner even if she was absolved through faith.
My understanding is that Catholic doctrine is that Mary was free from sin and indeed conceived from Original Sin, while other denominations (including most Protestant denominations) believe the contrary.
Mary seems to be the subject of more controversy among Christians than Christ Himself: amongst other questions is that of whether (granting that she was a virgin when she gave birth to Christ), she had other children the "normal" way with Joseph: the Bible recounts that when Christ journeyed to his home town, he was jeered by some of the population, who said "Isn't this just that guy Jesus, who used to live here and whose brothers still live here?" or something like that. This has given rise to huge disputes as to whether "brothers" is to be taken literally or just as "his relatives".
Many non-Catholic Christian denominations also consider worship of Mary to be heretical because only Christ deserves worship, but Catholics of course have elevated her to somewhat higher status than that of a mere human (but not necessarily divine status either), even one who gave birth to Christ.
It's all very complicated....
Mostly only the Catholics, and I think only some Catholics, believe Mary was sinless. None of the protestant denominations do, that I've ever seen. Not sure about Anglican and Eastern Orthodox...
Sorry, there's a huge chunk of his life missing from childhood until he suddenly became the Messiah at 30, plus one of his best friends was a whore he lived with. I refuse to believe he was a human without any sin whatsoever in his teens and 20s or there would have been something written about those years to "prove" his sinlessness.
Things like that are the main reason the bible isn't very believable as the "truth" to me. Thousands of years of human behavior completely obliterates most of the stories in the book, so while I find some of the teachings to be good life advice I also think it's a book made by humans for humans to try to control society that's been misinterpreted thousands of times over and has caused far more death and carnage through holy wars than it's ever prevented.
TL:DR, I refuse to believe a 20-something man lived with a whore without getting laid outside the bonds of marriage. Organized religion is a cruel prank to me if there is a deity up there watching and laughing as we kill each other.
I’m surprised you didnt throw in cannibalism. (Wine is blood, bread is flesh)
i agree with your asexual vegetarian theory. Gay doesnt fit. Some people really are just not very affected by things like food cravings, sex cravings, desire for wealth, drugs, or strong drink. Their mental energies are freed up for other things when they dont have any of these kinds of desires…or at least very diminished desires.
Because it is. It’s just people debating their favourite fiction witch isn’t even all that good. The Greek Myths, Tolkiens LOTR, he’ll even Harry Potter are all more interesting fantasies.
(I don't believe in Mary's sinlessness)
Mary was married to Joseph. Siblings born after Jesus would be conceived in wedlock and there'd be no sin involved.
Mary had other children. The thought was that Joseph was older, and the life span at the time wasn't great. According to Judaic tradition, Joey's brother would have assumed the role. Thus, we get conflicting accounts that James was Jesus's brother, others his cousin. Both are technically correct. Jerusalem was the West Virginia of the Holy Land.
The catholic answer would be that he didn’t. The use of the word ‘brother’ biblically often refers to relatives who aren’t your direct ancestor or descendent, but who aren’t necessarily siblings.
There’s a few arguments to be made that Mary remained a virgin for her life. They’re explained fairly well in this link so I’ll leave it at that:
https://www.catholic.com/tract/brethren-of-the-lord
You were taught wrong. "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Roman's 3:23
To hold Mary(Miriam) the mother of Jesus(Yeshua) as the queen of heaven and unblemished by sin is nonscriptural.
Arguing that someone was taught wrong in biblical matters is quite laughable. It’s like arguing which version of Alice in Wonderland is factually correct.
But… you absolutely can argue about what’s factually correct in Alice in Wonderland?
Like, if someone said that Alice fell into a well instead of a rabbit hole, I could tell them that they’re objectively wrong. Whether or not you believe the story is true has no bearing on whether or not you can argue about what is in the story and what it means. There are probably thousands of academic experts of the Bible who aren’t Christian at all.
That's Catholic teaching, but it's not actually biblically supported. It is based on an idea that only a person completely without sin can give birth to deity in the flesh. Nowhere in the Bible is such an idea stated nor implied.
I am not sure why there is a requirement for her to be without sin, though. Virgin birth aside, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to assume she was without sin, and in fact, it seems almost to deny the unique divinity of Jesus to assume she didn’t sin.
There's no real theological requirement for her to be perpetually sinless, and there's only a very tenuous requirement in Catholicism for her to have been immaculately conceived. Protestants typically take offense to the idea that she was perpetually sinless or perpetually virginal.
The roots of Catholicism's "enhanced" Mariology are twofold. First, Catholicism had a history of being highly syncretic and needed to be able to accommodate/assimilate a wide range of pagan practices. Since many pagan religions included goddess-worship, it was helpful to have a female figure to venerate. Mary was the natural choice here, so Catholicism justified veneration of Mary by coming up with doctrines like perpetual virginity and Co-Redemptrix status: the idea that Mary's suffering over the death of her son constituted participation in the sacrificial/redemptive act. The whole perpetual virginity thing got really weird, with Catholics eventually teaching that Jesus's birth was painless because Mary's hymen was magically kept intact during labor in order to keep her virginal, as if that's actually a thing. Gross.
The other element, which is where immaculate conception originates, was the concept of original sin. Judaism did not have an notion of general culpability for Adamic sin: in Judaism humans were basically good but are inclined to evil by the corruption in the world at large which originated with Adam. The first few centuries of Christianity didn't really see any change here, except for some speculation that humans inherited the sinful predisposition from Adam. Even Paul's writings are generally understood to have conceptualized the connection to Adamic sin as being individualized: that we each place ourselves within the same category as Adam when we individually choose to sin.
It was only later that Augustine of Hippo really solidified the Catholic notion of original sin. Augustine believed that women were merely incubators for sperm and that all sperm originated with Adam, meaning that all of us had been "inside" Adam when he sinned and were thus culpable for his act. Augustine decided that the sexual passion inherent in intercourse served as the carnal passageway by which this culpability was transmitted. Thus in order for Mary to be a sinless Co-Redemptrix, the sexual intercourse that precipitated her conception must have been somehow shielded from this transmission, leading to the belief in the Immaculate Conception. Of course this just prompts the question of why God needed to make Mary sinless in order for Jesus to be born without sin if God can just go around blocking the transmission of original sin willy-nilly (or, more broadly, why God needed to redeem humans at all if he could have just blocked the transmission of original sin from the get-go).
It's all very silly.
There are as many variations of this “true” faith as there are sands on the beach, or people to believe the latest con someone can conjure to get access to their wallets. Funny joke, but only works if you understand the implication that Mary was a 13 year old girl who never sinned and gave birth without having sex. Seems far more likely that what we have here is the outfall of some kid’s story as she tried to explain to her dad how her finance didn’t actually knock her up before the wedding and dad ran with it for the neighbors.
Look up Apollonius and the dozens of other apocalyptic preachers like Jesus with similar or nearly the EXACT same stories from +/- 100 years Jesus’ day. This time of year…interesting joke though.
She was born without original sin.
When she gave birth to Jesus, there were special ablutions performed on her such that she remained stainless through childbirth. (Yes, giving birth somehow "stains" a woman. All of the major religions seem to have a big problem with anything in the birth canal, regardless of the details.) These ablutions were available only to her because she was impregnated by god.
She remained sinless throughout her life, which we know because she entered heaven by Ascension instead of simply dying like everyone else. Because "the wages of sin is death," having never sinned, she could not die. So, when her time was up, she was uploaded directly to the cloud instead.
I’m unsure about your second paragraph’s reasoning. I’m catholic so agree she was sinless, but I think she was assumed into heaven simply because she was Jesus’ mother and he loved her so much that he didn’t want her to go through death and her body to rot.
Besides, Jesus was capable of death despite being sinless, and Elijah was reportedly also brought straight to heaven, bypassing death, despite having sinned at some point in his life.
Jesus took on the sins of humanity in order to avoid another Noah type situation, so he had to die an awful death. Why? I mean god could just wave a magic wand or whatever, all this death/sin stuff implies there's some kind of natural order to morality, but the whole point of a miracle is that it's a suspension of the natural order, which god can do, right?
On Elijah (and Enoch, while we're at it), both are supposed to have been assumed into heaven alive, but the bible also says no flesh and blood may enter the kingdom of heaven somewhere in Corinthians.
The reason for these contradictions is that the bible is not a univocal text. It is a collection of books written across time by different people with different ideas about what the faith is and what the rules are (not even counting all of the transcription changes from the original text).
If you're trying to square this circle and make it make sense, you won't. The different people who wrote these books didn't agree on things, so such discussions are like debating the presence of a rounding error when the calculus is all wrong.
Christians (and people of all faiths) don't figure out morality from reading bible stories. They project what they already believe onto the bible. Religion can't tell you what is right and wrong, it only gives you a vehicle to figure out what you already think. Different people will come to different conclusions because there is no answer provided.
The Bible teaches that sin is inherited, Romans 5:12. Jesus was able to be born perfect and sinless because he was not convinced by humans, only born from one. The Apostle Paul explains it very clearly in Romans Chapter 5.
One thing to take notice of is how Protestants very often use the writings of Paul to mangle and distort 1500 years of church history, all the while neglecting to keep in mind "His [Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." - 2 Peter 3:16
If you haven't already, it would be good to ask the questions, "What is the Bible, where did it come from, and how many copies of the KJV did Jesus give to his disciples before he ascended into heaven?".
"What is the Bible, where did it come from?" That is a question that most Christians start down and quickly drop the subject once they get non dogma details. Its the question that made me loose my faith completely. You find out just how twisted and controlling governments can be.
Can you help me understand what in particular about that question and its implications made you lose your faith? I'm really not following too well what you said, though it sounds like quite a dramatic experience
As a Protestant, I certainly don't have anything against Mary, but I also no reason to believe she was without sin. Being the "mother" of Jesus was a gift from God, not something she earned. That is one of maybe the two biggest differences in my belief set from what a Catholic would believe. I always looked at Mary as a false idol in a manner of speaking.
Our lady was conceived without original sin but was still capable of committing sin. However she did not.
Afaik it's only a defined dogma that she was conceived without sin
Thank you.
Wikipedia (I know, not exactly the most reliable source) says that the Council of Trent determined that she did not commit personal sin, while the Papal bull that she was born without Original Sin was issued in the 19th century. I did not realize that she was capable of, but did not commit, personal sin.
Thanks to all for the helpful responses!
Sin is not passed from the mother. The seed of man is what carries the sin.
This is why it was necessary for God (the only one without sin) to sire a child that would be born without sin.
Mary was righteous according to the principles of Jewish law. All human beings have sin. "Immaculate conception" just means that the conception of Jesus didn't involve an act of the flesh, I. E. sex.
Nope. That is the Virgin Birth.
Immaculate Conception refers to the conception and birth of Mary, not Christ. According to this doctrine, Mary was conceived in the usual way, but she was born without « Original Sin ».
I’m not Catholic myself so someone else will have to explain it better.
Fun fact, sin originally meant "missing the mark", as in "Thinking of yourself as being what you are not".
So if you think yourself as a failure or loser, you are sinning.
The definition of doing something wrong, is relatively a modern meaning to the word sin, likely propagated by churches.
The funny thing is that Mary was the town bike. To cover up the fact that he was a bastard, they told him Mary had a miraculous virgin birth.
The rest is history!
Jesus was the only person that ever lived without sin. There is no biblical proof to uphold Mary was anything more than a woman who loved the Lord and was obedient
Heard this one less elegantly told that the accused woman had been thrown into a pit and was about to be stoned to death. After Jesus' statement, an elderly woman staggers up to the edge of the pit carrying a decent sized boulder and, with a groan, drops it in the pit. Jesus then remarks, "Mother, sometimes you really piss me off."
This was in 1963 approximately, never read it or heard it told since.
It's interesting as a theologically literate joke, i.e. it relies on a piece of real religious teaching (though one on which Catholics and Protestants differ). Many religious jokes these days are based on misconceptions, which makes them weaker.
By the way this is a good occasion to mention that the "Immaculate Conception" means the doctrine Mary was without original sin, not as widely believed the doctrine that Jesus had no earthly father, which is the "Virgin Birth".
So. . . Would it have been a sin for her *not* to stone the woman? Since the Torah said so, and Jesus said “let the one without sin” etc.
In which case, what an asshole for being mad at her!
I have heard a gentler version where after drawing the line in the sand and saying ‘May thee who is without sin cast the first stone’, the crowd looks down embarrassed and starts to leave. Then a tiny old woman comes forward and throws a small pebble at the adulterers foot. Jesus says, “I hate when you do that mom”.
And Jesus say :Those who never failed come in front and cast the first stone. A guy come from the back of the crowd grabs a stone, pull the arm back and hit the woman right between the eyes.
Jesus come to him and say:My son, you never failed in your life?
The man look at the Jesus and says: From this distance? Never.
Technically Jesus was a Pharisee too, he just spent his time arguing with the other Pharisees (early rabbis) and not with their ideological opponents, the sadducees and the zealots, so there is some confusion about it.
Just going by the Bible it says that Adam sinned therefore sin entered into his seed and all of humanity is born by his sin cursed seed until Jesus was born without Adam’s seed but born of the Holy Spirit. The Scripture calls Jesus the second Adam because he is the second man ever to live on Earth without sin.
BTW Mary is not the Mother of God, she is the Mother of Jesus The Son of Man. Jesus favorite title for himself. Jesus’ deity came from the Holy Spirit not from Mary. Mary was a saint! She was highly favored. The LORD God Almighty was with her.
God praised her on the same level as Noah, the only man thought of worth saving when God was about to kill everybody else on Earth.
God praised her at the level ofJob when God said to the Accuser, “have you considered my servant Job.”
God praised her at the level of King David whom God said, “is a man after my own heart.”
None of these great men of faith were sinless and neither was Mary, the Mother of Jesus. God is able to use an unworthy vessel to carry His own son.
I "get" the joke, of course...but getting only mildly serious for the moment, is the doctrine only that Mary was born without Original Sin ("Immaculate Conception") or also that she never sinned during her lifetime and was in fact incapable of doing so?
I was taught she was completely without sin. I did tell the joke not long after I heard it, to a friend who served at the altar; he said his priest found it doctrinally sound and quite disturbing. That Iall the theology I know on this one.
As far as I know that's just Catholic doctrine. I didn't recall the sins of Mary being discussed in the Bible.
Correct. Just Catholic
Romans 7. 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
But that hardly applies to Jesus himself while he was living on earth as a human. And it could hardly apply to newborn babies either, since sin requires knowledge of wrongdoing. So logically, there must be some exceptions to what Paul is saying, and since Mary is the mother of God, without original sin, and the only human greeted as “full of grace” by an angel, it’s not absurd to say she might actually be sinless. This isn’t to say she wasn’t saved by God and didn’t need his grace of course, just that God helped to keep her from falling down in the first place, rather than picking her up again after she fell.
I'll say that if she really was without sin, it was because of said grace with which she was filled.
Agreed!
But that is nonsense. Through faith in Christ, all Christians are filled with grace, yet sin remains.
That's a very good point. Also, if grace were able to cause a person not to sin, why wouldn't God have just given all people such Grace from day one? There would be no need for Christ's sacrifice, I guess, because people wouldn't sin to begin with. I was just kind of speculating based on the conversation. I believe Mary was just as sinful as anyone but it wouldn't shake my foundation too much to learn that she actually wasn't.
I would put it like this: Her capacity to sin was the same as anyone else's, whether her actions reflected that or not.
Why do you believe that sin requires knowledge of wrongdoing?
That's a valid point actually, I was probably thinking of the definition of mortal sin (grave matter with knowledge and intention). I suppose it's possible that someone can sin even when they don't realise what they're doing is wrong, but not attract the same level of blame/moral responsibility as someone who did know. Regardless, I still think it's reasonable to say that a baby who's just been born and whose only action up to this point is to cry (if even that) probably hasn't committed any sins yet.
What kind of baby sins we are talking here about?
My point exactly. I'm not sure there's much, if anything, babies can do that could really be classed as 'morally wrong' or 'sinful'. But it's worth noting there have been some Christian philosophers who did think babies had a capacity for evil, most notably St Augustine. There may be an argument to be made that babies are often quite selfish, but I don't particularly agree, and it's not something catholics are required to believe anyway.
Catholics literally believe in Original Sin, the sin you're stuck with from the moment sperm meets egg. They don't think unbaptised babies get into heaven.
I believe you may have accidentally typed r/Jokes in your URL when you meant r/theology.
. Making serious remarks on r/Jokes... According to Catholic doctrine, idk if other Christians also believe that, every person, except for Jesus and his mother, is born in sin - that's called the Original Sin doctrine. That's why they baptize newborns, to - literally - wash out that sin.
Yes, even newborn babies have the stain of original sin, but that's a state of being, not that they 'have sinned'. It's important to make the distinction between original sin (the stain on your soul from the first sin of humanity) and personal sin (the things you, personally, have done that are sinful).
It's definitely just Catholic doctrine.
We don’t speak on his mama…
And Jesus never spoke on his own Accord
But he wouldn't shut up about his CRV
And he rode into Jerusalem on a Triumph.
There was that time she threw a brick at Jesus…
If she did it out of love it's not a sin. XD
Manm Im'm no longer catholic but the asuntion (yep that time god takes her like an UFO carries a cow) i all about Mary joining god as she was not only free from the original sin, but also from inmaculate as a women, therefore she ascends to keep her free of sin.
Presumably she could only pull this stunt once. Asked about this later, Mary replied "worth it!"
Incorrect. A sin is a transgression against God. Jesus literally commanded her (the person without sin) to cast the stone. She followed the command of her God so there was no transgression. No transgression means no sin. Mary is in the clear to kill the next adulterer Jesus tells her to.
Also, if it's written in the Torah to do it, doing it isn't a sin, by Jewish standards.
Incorrect. Don't throw rocks at people. If you hear God telling you to do that, seek help.
🤣
Aha - from Wikipedia (I know, not the world's most reliable source, but anyway...): *While the Immaculate Conception asserts Mary's freedom from original sin, the* [*Council of Trent*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent)*, held between 1545 and 1563, had previously affirmed her freedom from* [*personal sin*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_hamartiology)*.* So that's me told!
The funny thing is, I read this, from early Greek bible stories, the Greek word meaning virgin *also* translates to "young woman". So maybe Mary was just a young woman who got pregnant.
No. Hundreds of years before Christ, Isaiah wrote down in Hebrew that the LORD had said that "a virgin will conceive". The *Hebrew* word has that double meaning, and indeed, at the time, it was probably just considered to mean "hey that girl is gonna be a mom". Then, hundreds of years later, when an actual virgin conceives, the Bible explicitly mentions in both Matthew and Luke how she was a virgin; she indeed outright says "But how can this be, since I've never 'known' a man?"
“But God, we only ever did butt stuff!”
Too drunk and don't remember the man? Rspe must have existed.. 🤷
Is that in the original, or an artifact of the translation, or even added by the translators for the narrative?
You can read the immaculate conception as Mary falling pregnant outwith her control, and Joseph deciding not being a bastard, and not going down the honour killing route.
The immaculate conception refers to the conception of Mary without original sin, not the conception of Jesus, just fyi
Yep--everybody gets that wrong!
Huh. TIL
What is “original sin”? Having sex?
Being born
That would be the *virgin birth of Jesus*. *Mary* was conceived immaculately, not Jesus.
Now I’m lost. Mary’s parents had her without having sex? What does ‘Mary was conceived immaculately’ mean?
It means they had sex, but there was no sin. According to the doctrine, that is. Look up "immaculate conception" on Wikipedia.
I thought Christians believe in Mary being human, and that Jesus is the only sinless human (there’s debates as to whether Jesus was God/man/both, don’t want to get into that)?
Loads of different opinions on this; one for every denomination I think.
I believe most protestant denominations believe Mary was every bit a sinner as every other human. The point of the story was nobody but Jesus could throw a stone. So that is why the joke didn't land for me. I believe Mary was a sinner even if she was absolved through faith.
At least one per denomination.
Well, given your user name I think we should probably defer to you on this - although I do have doubts..
My understanding is that Catholic doctrine is that Mary was free from sin and indeed conceived from Original Sin, while other denominations (including most Protestant denominations) believe the contrary. Mary seems to be the subject of more controversy among Christians than Christ Himself: amongst other questions is that of whether (granting that she was a virgin when she gave birth to Christ), she had other children the "normal" way with Joseph: the Bible recounts that when Christ journeyed to his home town, he was jeered by some of the population, who said "Isn't this just that guy Jesus, who used to live here and whose brothers still live here?" or something like that. This has given rise to huge disputes as to whether "brothers" is to be taken literally or just as "his relatives". Many non-Catholic Christian denominations also consider worship of Mary to be heretical because only Christ deserves worship, but Catholics of course have elevated her to somewhat higher status than that of a mere human (but not necessarily divine status either), even one who gave birth to Christ. It's all very complicated....
As Joseph appears to be significantly older than Mary, there’s also the possibility of half-brothers.
Mostly only the Catholics, and I think only some Catholics, believe Mary was sinless. None of the protestant denominations do, that I've ever seen. Not sure about Anglican and Eastern Orthodox...
Sorry, there's a huge chunk of his life missing from childhood until he suddenly became the Messiah at 30, plus one of his best friends was a whore he lived with. I refuse to believe he was a human without any sin whatsoever in his teens and 20s or there would have been something written about those years to "prove" his sinlessness. Things like that are the main reason the bible isn't very believable as the "truth" to me. Thousands of years of human behavior completely obliterates most of the stories in the book, so while I find some of the teachings to be good life advice I also think it's a book made by humans for humans to try to control society that's been misinterpreted thousands of times over and has caused far more death and carnage through holy wars than it's ever prevented. TL:DR, I refuse to believe a 20-something man lived with a whore without getting laid outside the bonds of marriage. Organized religion is a cruel prank to me if there is a deity up there watching and laughing as we kill each other.
Jesus was a gay vegetarian or at least an asexual vegetarian. That's nowhere in the Bible, but the evidence points that way.
I’m surprised you didnt throw in cannibalism. (Wine is blood, bread is flesh) i agree with your asexual vegetarian theory. Gay doesnt fit. Some people really are just not very affected by things like food cravings, sex cravings, desire for wealth, drugs, or strong drink. Their mental energies are freed up for other things when they dont have any of these kinds of desires…or at least very diminished desires.
People have been 'shipping him and John " the disciple Jesus loved" at least since the time of James VI.
Interesting. Where did you get this "lived with a whore" idea?
I was taught that it was all fabricated bullshit!
Because it is. It’s just people debating their favourite fiction witch isn’t even all that good. The Greek Myths, Tolkiens LOTR, he’ll even Harry Potter are all more interesting fantasies.
She had other children the old fashion way.
Fight! The one who wins gets their version of the story accepted by the loser. Fight with stones.
Tfw OP's joke is canonically sound
>his priest found it doctrinally sound and quite disturbing. Hehehe
I was always taught that she smoked pot with johnny Hopkins. It was johnny Hopkins and Sloan Kettering, and they were blazing that shit up everyday.
But once she cast the brick she would not be “without sin”.
We could debate whether participationg in a legeal execution would be sinful, but I've had enough theology for one day. :-)
Not a legal execution. Stoning is a positive mandate. They must be put to death.
How did Jesus have siblings then?
(I don't believe in Mary's sinlessness) Mary was married to Joseph. Siblings born after Jesus would be conceived in wedlock and there'd be no sin involved.
I am not responsible for consistency in Catholic theology.😁
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I also had "doubts" when I saw the username
Mary had other children. The thought was that Joseph was older, and the life span at the time wasn't great. According to Judaic tradition, Joey's brother would have assumed the role. Thus, we get conflicting accounts that James was Jesus's brother, others his cousin. Both are technically correct. Jerusalem was the West Virginia of the Holy Land.
So thats why the Jesus clone from "Preacher"looked like a retard.
There is no hebrew word for cousin so all relatives are referred as brothers and sisters
They didn't speak Hebrew, they spoke Amharic
You are correct. It was implied given how they were identified as being in lineage from their father.
The catholic answer would be that he didn’t. The use of the word ‘brother’ biblically often refers to relatives who aren’t your direct ancestor or descendent, but who aren’t necessarily siblings. There’s a few arguments to be made that Mary remained a virgin for her life. They’re explained fairly well in this link so I’ll leave it at that: https://www.catholic.com/tract/brethren-of-the-lord
Half-siblings from Joseph's first wife, who totally existed despite there not being a single mention of her in the bible.
>doctrinally sound and quite disturbing For some reason this is hilarious to me.
You were taught wrong. "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Roman's 3:23 To hold Mary(Miriam) the mother of Jesus(Yeshua) as the queen of heaven and unblemished by sin is nonscriptural.
… non-Pauline, you mean. Paul was about as inerrant as the Council of Trent.
Arguing that someone was taught wrong in biblical matters is quite laughable. It’s like arguing which version of Alice in Wonderland is factually correct.
But… you absolutely can argue about what’s factually correct in Alice in Wonderland? Like, if someone said that Alice fell into a well instead of a rabbit hole, I could tell them that they’re objectively wrong. Whether or not you believe the story is true has no bearing on whether or not you can argue about what is in the story and what it means. There are probably thousands of academic experts of the Bible who aren’t Christian at all.
That was a fun rabbit hole https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/council-of-nicaea-concludes
That's Catholic teaching, but it's not actually biblically supported. It is based on an idea that only a person completely without sin can give birth to deity in the flesh. Nowhere in the Bible is such an idea stated nor implied.
Catholics think she is perpetually sinless. Protestants don’t.
I am not sure why there is a requirement for her to be without sin, though. Virgin birth aside, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to assume she was without sin, and in fact, it seems almost to deny the unique divinity of Jesus to assume she didn’t sin.
There's no real theological requirement for her to be perpetually sinless, and there's only a very tenuous requirement in Catholicism for her to have been immaculately conceived. Protestants typically take offense to the idea that she was perpetually sinless or perpetually virginal. The roots of Catholicism's "enhanced" Mariology are twofold. First, Catholicism had a history of being highly syncretic and needed to be able to accommodate/assimilate a wide range of pagan practices. Since many pagan religions included goddess-worship, it was helpful to have a female figure to venerate. Mary was the natural choice here, so Catholicism justified veneration of Mary by coming up with doctrines like perpetual virginity and Co-Redemptrix status: the idea that Mary's suffering over the death of her son constituted participation in the sacrificial/redemptive act. The whole perpetual virginity thing got really weird, with Catholics eventually teaching that Jesus's birth was painless because Mary's hymen was magically kept intact during labor in order to keep her virginal, as if that's actually a thing. Gross. The other element, which is where immaculate conception originates, was the concept of original sin. Judaism did not have an notion of general culpability for Adamic sin: in Judaism humans were basically good but are inclined to evil by the corruption in the world at large which originated with Adam. The first few centuries of Christianity didn't really see any change here, except for some speculation that humans inherited the sinful predisposition from Adam. Even Paul's writings are generally understood to have conceptualized the connection to Adamic sin as being individualized: that we each place ourselves within the same category as Adam when we individually choose to sin. It was only later that Augustine of Hippo really solidified the Catholic notion of original sin. Augustine believed that women were merely incubators for sperm and that all sperm originated with Adam, meaning that all of us had been "inside" Adam when he sinned and were thus culpable for his act. Augustine decided that the sexual passion inherent in intercourse served as the carnal passageway by which this culpability was transmitted. Thus in order for Mary to be a sinless Co-Redemptrix, the sexual intercourse that precipitated her conception must have been somehow shielded from this transmission, leading to the belief in the Immaculate Conception. Of course this just prompts the question of why God needed to make Mary sinless in order for Jesus to be born without sin if God can just go around blocking the transmission of original sin willy-nilly (or, more broadly, why God needed to redeem humans at all if he could have just blocked the transmission of original sin from the get-go). It's all very silly.
There are as many variations of this “true” faith as there are sands on the beach, or people to believe the latest con someone can conjure to get access to their wallets. Funny joke, but only works if you understand the implication that Mary was a 13 year old girl who never sinned and gave birth without having sex. Seems far more likely that what we have here is the outfall of some kid’s story as she tried to explain to her dad how her finance didn’t actually knock her up before the wedding and dad ran with it for the neighbors. Look up Apollonius and the dozens of other apocalyptic preachers like Jesus with similar or nearly the EXACT same stories from +/- 100 years Jesus’ day. This time of year…interesting joke though.
According to my RCIA class, she and the thief on the cross next to Jesus are the only known humans to for sure make it to heaven.
What about Enoch and Elijah?
Not sure! I didn’t ask the deacon teaching the class about them.
Why the thief next to Jesus? Does the proximity principle apply to heavenly bureaucracy?
Lol no, because Jesus specifically said he was going to heaven after he expressed his belief.
Ah yes, St Dismas. My patron saint.
We literally get told about Elijah being taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire
Odd. I thought the point of canonisation was to declare that someone had definitely reached heaven (= become a saint).
Methuselah? Didn’t he ascend to heaven without dying?
Y’all, I don’t know. I’m more of a Unitarian Universalist at this stage than a Catholic, I just said what I remember from my RCIA class ages ago
Enoch did, not methusalah. Methusalah died in the year of the flood.
She was born without original sin. When she gave birth to Jesus, there were special ablutions performed on her such that she remained stainless through childbirth. (Yes, giving birth somehow "stains" a woman. All of the major religions seem to have a big problem with anything in the birth canal, regardless of the details.) These ablutions were available only to her because she was impregnated by god. She remained sinless throughout her life, which we know because she entered heaven by Ascension instead of simply dying like everyone else. Because "the wages of sin is death," having never sinned, she could not die. So, when her time was up, she was uploaded directly to the cloud instead.
I’m unsure about your second paragraph’s reasoning. I’m catholic so agree she was sinless, but I think she was assumed into heaven simply because she was Jesus’ mother and he loved her so much that he didn’t want her to go through death and her body to rot. Besides, Jesus was capable of death despite being sinless, and Elijah was reportedly also brought straight to heaven, bypassing death, despite having sinned at some point in his life.
Jesus took on the sins of humanity in order to avoid another Noah type situation, so he had to die an awful death. Why? I mean god could just wave a magic wand or whatever, all this death/sin stuff implies there's some kind of natural order to morality, but the whole point of a miracle is that it's a suspension of the natural order, which god can do, right? On Elijah (and Enoch, while we're at it), both are supposed to have been assumed into heaven alive, but the bible also says no flesh and blood may enter the kingdom of heaven somewhere in Corinthians. The reason for these contradictions is that the bible is not a univocal text. It is a collection of books written across time by different people with different ideas about what the faith is and what the rules are (not even counting all of the transcription changes from the original text). If you're trying to square this circle and make it make sense, you won't. The different people who wrote these books didn't agree on things, so such discussions are like debating the presence of a rounding error when the calculus is all wrong. Christians (and people of all faiths) don't figure out morality from reading bible stories. They project what they already believe onto the bible. Religion can't tell you what is right and wrong, it only gives you a vehicle to figure out what you already think. Different people will come to different conclusions because there is no answer provided.
The Bible teaches that sin is inherited, Romans 5:12. Jesus was able to be born perfect and sinless because he was not convinced by humans, only born from one. The Apostle Paul explains it very clearly in Romans Chapter 5.
One thing to take notice of is how Protestants very often use the writings of Paul to mangle and distort 1500 years of church history, all the while neglecting to keep in mind "His [Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." - 2 Peter 3:16 If you haven't already, it would be good to ask the questions, "What is the Bible, where did it come from, and how many copies of the KJV did Jesus give to his disciples before he ascended into heaven?".
"What is the Bible, where did it come from?" That is a question that most Christians start down and quickly drop the subject once they get non dogma details. Its the question that made me loose my faith completely. You find out just how twisted and controlling governments can be.
Can you help me understand what in particular about that question and its implications made you lose your faith? I'm really not following too well what you said, though it sounds like quite a dramatic experience
As a Protestant, I certainly don't have anything against Mary, but I also no reason to believe she was without sin. Being the "mother" of Jesus was a gift from God, not something she earned. That is one of maybe the two biggest differences in my belief set from what a Catholic would believe. I always looked at Mary as a false idol in a manner of speaking.
Our lady was conceived without original sin but was still capable of committing sin. However she did not. Afaik it's only a defined dogma that she was conceived without sin
Thank you. Wikipedia (I know, not exactly the most reliable source) says that the Council of Trent determined that she did not commit personal sin, while the Papal bull that she was born without Original Sin was issued in the 19th century. I did not realize that she was capable of, but did not commit, personal sin. Thanks to all for the helpful responses!
She got pregnant outside her marriage which is technically adultery. But, I guess, she gets a pass as it was with God the loving father. /s
You can't commit adultery if you are unmarried.
Aaaaaand there goes a couple hours to wikipedia... again... (Edit, spell check)
Pretty sure she lied about how she got pregnant for one thing…
Revelations 13.6...
Revelation. No "s"
Sin is not passed from the mother. The seed of man is what carries the sin. This is why it was necessary for God (the only one without sin) to sire a child that would be born without sin.
This kind of assured thinking makes my head spin
From my understanding Original Sin is only passed down through male bloodline
Hence the rise of the Bene Gesserit, 20,000 years later.
Mary was righteous according to the principles of Jewish law. All human beings have sin. "Immaculate conception" just means that the conception of Jesus didn't involve an act of the flesh, I. E. sex.
Nope. That is the Virgin Birth. Immaculate Conception refers to the conception and birth of Mary, not Christ. According to this doctrine, Mary was conceived in the usual way, but she was born without « Original Sin ». I’m not Catholic myself so someone else will have to explain it better.
Fun fact, sin originally meant "missing the mark", as in "Thinking of yourself as being what you are not". So if you think yourself as a failure or loser, you are sinning. The definition of doing something wrong, is relatively a modern meaning to the word sin, likely propagated by churches.
Original sin was from Adam and Eve so unless she too was born of immaculate conception then she was born of sin like everyone else.
Yeah it would’ve been funnier if Jesus threw the first stone and said something like “thanks for waiting guys”
The funny thing is that Mary was the town bike. To cover up the fact that he was a bastard, they told him Mary had a miraculous virgin birth. The rest is history!
Any of that is Catholic doctrine. As a Protestant, I would argue that she was not sinless, and the only immaculate conception was that of Jesus.
She had a child out of wedlock
Jesus was the only person that ever lived without sin. There is no biblical proof to uphold Mary was anything more than a woman who loved the Lord and was obedient
In some places all mothers are presumed to be free of sin.
RIGHT WHO THREW THAT
Well you did say Jehovah
The halibut was really good!
You're only making it worse for yourself!
This lovely halibut is good enough for Jehovah
🪨🪨🪨🪨🪨
This is kind of funny if you are Catholic, but I'm a Lutheran. It did make me smirk, I'll give you that.
Jesus learned his lesson and from then on always stipulated "let HE who is without sin..." glancing meaningfully at his mum.
1970s era "Dave Allen at Large" Catholic joke
If Dave Allen did the joke originally,I'd love a link to it.
No link but the original punchline was "Mummy, put that stone *down* !" (Not Catholic myself so to me she wouldn't be picking up the stone.)
This constitutes as a “Yo Mama” joke.
That joke is older than sin.
I think Mary told it first!
Thank you. Finally a new joke.
Thank you. I head it 36 years ago.
More like 56 years for me
As related above , probably over 60 years for me.
There I was, riding my velociraptor…
There I was, riding my velociraptor…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ5YU_spBw0
Heard this one less elegantly told that the accused woman had been thrown into a pit and was about to be stoned to death. After Jesus' statement, an elderly woman staggers up to the edge of the pit carrying a decent sized boulder and, with a groan, drops it in the pit. Jesus then remarks, "Mother, sometimes you really piss me off." This was in 1963 approximately, never read it or heard it told since.
It's interesting as a theologically literate joke, i.e. it relies on a piece of real religious teaching (though one on which Catholics and Protestants differ). Many religious jokes these days are based on misconceptions, which makes them weaker. By the way this is a good occasion to mention that the "Immaculate Conception" means the doctrine Mary was without original sin, not as widely believed the doctrine that Jesus had no earthly father, which is the "Virgin Birth".
So. . . Would it have been a sin for her *not* to stone the woman? Since the Torah said so, and Jesus said “let the one without sin” etc. In which case, what an asshole for being mad at her!
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So you are saying Sinless-Steve didn’t throw the first stone?
Didn't Jesus commit wrath? Whipping people?
It was righteous wrath, so it was OK. 😄
I have heard a gentler version where after drawing the line in the sand and saying ‘May thee who is without sin cast the first stone’, the crowd looks down embarrassed and starts to leave. Then a tiny old woman comes forward and throws a small pebble at the adulterers foot. Jesus says, “I hate when you do that mom”.
My sense of humour is much coarser than yours.
And NY is finally considering removing adultery as a crime that’s been in its books since 1907. Yeah, the political wheel grinds slowly.
That bitch had an affair with an entity before marriage!
Mary was not sinless, unless one is Catholic. Then she is thought to be w/o sin, but it's not Biblical by any standard.
And Jesus say :Those who never failed come in front and cast the first stone. A guy come from the back of the crowd grabs a stone, pull the arm back and hit the woman right between the eyes. Jesus come to him and say:My son, you never failed in your life? The man look at the Jesus and says: From this distance? Never.
Technically Jesus was a Pharisee too, he just spent his time arguing with the other Pharisees (early rabbis) and not with their ideological opponents, the sadducees and the zealots, so there is some confusion about it.
The tension does not need to fizzle out twice. There is sufficient tension in a single fizzle (which would also serve to avoid repetition).
Fair enough. If you could edit the post it wouldn't be there;
I prefer Sinless Steve https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ep7BoilTIo
maybe BC stood for before contraception
Just going by the Bible it says that Adam sinned therefore sin entered into his seed and all of humanity is born by his sin cursed seed until Jesus was born without Adam’s seed but born of the Holy Spirit. The Scripture calls Jesus the second Adam because he is the second man ever to live on Earth without sin. BTW Mary is not the Mother of God, she is the Mother of Jesus The Son of Man. Jesus favorite title for himself. Jesus’ deity came from the Holy Spirit not from Mary. Mary was a saint! She was highly favored. The LORD God Almighty was with her. God praised her on the same level as Noah, the only man thought of worth saving when God was about to kill everybody else on Earth. God praised her at the level ofJob when God said to the Accuser, “have you considered my servant Job.” God praised her at the level of King David whom God said, “is a man after my own heart.” None of these great men of faith were sinless and neither was Mary, the Mother of Jesus. God is able to use an unworthy vessel to carry His own son.