You shall make no idols to yourselves; and you shall not set up for yourselves graven images, or a memorial pillar. And you shall not set up any image of stone in your land in order to bow down to it. For I am Jehovah your God.
He went pretty ape shit about the golden cow—as believable any part of that story goes. Catholics seem to be all about idoloc knick-knacks and getting all stabby and controlling over them… Like, the opposite of what a Christian is meant to do.
That’s one of the fundamental disagreements between Catholics and Protestants.
A Catholic would argue that veneration of saints isn’t worship, it’s showing respect for someone who exemplified Christian ideals, or died as a martyr. Canonization is basically the religious version of the Medal of Honor.
A Protestant would argue that the distinction between veneration and worship is arbitrary, and veneration of a saint essentially amounts to idolatry anyway.
As an apostate, I don’t really see a difference, but it feels inconsistent to see people praying to a specific Saint all the time. Are they supposed to be the middle man between you and God? Didn’t Jesus die specifically for that?
Are they supposed to be the middle man between you and God?
Yes
Didn’t Jesus die specifically for that?
Uhh, not exactly. I think catholic god sealed heaven off after Adam and eve did the thing. Jesus came down and died to fix everything and open heaven back up. I assume the waiting room was getting full. He also died for all sins ever, but you are still born with original sin and have to go to confession etc.
Asking saints to intercede is just asking for personal bullshit. Different saints were known for different things, so being experts on those things they would be the best to hand your prayer based on that thing to God.
If I die and find out the universe really works this way, I will renounce all of existence and opt out. I rather an eternity not existing over living in a stupid children’s book universe of weird arbitrary rules about who gets to do what and go where through these systems of hierarchy.
The alleged skull of Mary Magdalene.
I like Martin Luther’s polemic about relics: “How many pieces of the true cross are there in the world? How many thorns from Christ’s crown of thorns? How many nails from the crucifixion? There are enough nails to shoe all the horses in Saxony. And if all the relics of the saints were gathered together, there would be enough bones to build a ship and enough wood to boil all the water in the sea.”
In that sense it’s one of Mary Magdalene’s many heads.
That’s a really good quote.
Martin Luther had an extremely finite of fucks to give. Despite not sharing his beliefs, I respect the man for upturning 1500yr of status quo.
Sure it is. Let’s just pretend there is no monetary incentive for a region to have a holy relic which brings them a bunch of tourism. Ain’t nothing holy under capitalism.
Every single consecrated Catholic altar contains a relic of a saint. Usually they’re pretty small, maybe a piece of a fingerbone or something. You’re right that a good one like this would bring in lots of pilgrims (tourist dollars,) but it’s a tradition that way predates capitalism.
I’m not in the business of defending the Catholic Church or capitalism, just wanted to clarify.
