Dogma (Page 1 of 2)

Wow, I actually had no idea. I think everyone I know -- including ones who grew up Catholic -- understands it as referring to the fact that her eggo got preggo without sex. Frankly I think the Catholic Church should just roll with the popular definition because the real one makes no sense.

Yeah, I remember the nuns teaching us that at my Catholic elementary school. Mary's parents had original sin, but she was conceived without it because God wiped it away so it wouldn't be passed on to her. Thus she had no original sin to pass onto Jesus, so he was free of OS too. I think church doctrine says that John the Baptist was actually conceived with OS but had it wiped away by God sometime in the third trimester, so the guy who would baptize Jesus would be someone born without OS. OS gets passed on like genes. Sister Donna had a flow chart.

So Jesus was immaculately conceived without sin AND born of a virgin? Nobody would believe that!

However, note that some branches believe that Mary miraculously REMAINED a virgin her whole life.

Even the mainstream Roman Catholic Church seems to take that position, at least in countries where veneration of Mary is particularly strong. Some people obsess over this technicality and trying to tell them that she didn't remain a virgin can be hazardous to your safety (just like trying to explain to them that Mary and Jesus were Jewish). Sad, isn't it?

That's exactly the kind of people I was referring to in my previous post

OH MY GOD WHY DID I CLICK THAT

The siblings of Jesus are interesting. He had a number, according to the various books, including Thomas... his identical twin. The idea of the Virgin Birth was not universal A fun book to read is the Acts of Thomas, in which Jesus tells his twin to go to India to preach. Thomas says, no, not doing it, so Jesus sells him into slavery to force him to go. Once in India, much wackiness ensues as Jesus will do something to piss off the locals, after which Thomas will come by and be blamed.

The idea of an old Joseph with kids from a previous marriage, and a teen virgin Mary, comes from a non-biblical book which was popular with the people and thus sort of adopted by the Church. That's why you see that image all over.

One thing you might be interested in is a new web comic called The Gospel of Carol. The creator is taking as his source all those fun apocryphal books, and adding Mary having triplets with the girl being the actual messiah. Read as the woman checks to see if the new mother is still a virgin, and the Virgin Vagina bites her fingers off!

Last edited by Invid (2014-03-20 02:18:28)

I would like to point out that at the beginning, Matt and Ben are supposed to be in Wisconsin. While Milwaukee has a big airport, it isn't nearly big enough to have moving sidewalks.

There's a great book called "My Name Was Judas" by C.K. Stead that is an interesting retelling of the story of Jesus from Judas' perspective.

"We all know the story of Jesus told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but what about the version according to Judas?

In this witty, original and teasingly controversial account, some forty years after the death of Jesus, Judas finally tells the story as he remembers it. Looking back on his childhood and youth from an old age the gospel writers denied him, Judas recalls his friendship with Jesus; their schooling together; their families; the people who would go on to be disciples and followers; their journeys together and their dealings with the powers of Rome and the Temple.

His is a story of friendship and rivalry, of a time of uncertainty and enquiry, a testing of belief, endurance and loyalty."

From an Amazon review: "If Jesus were the Son of God and he appeared on earth to teach us the Way, and died on the cross to save us, why have the Christians since time immemorial condemned Judas as a foul traitor? It has always puzzled a detached individual that the apostle from Iscariot, who clearly was part of the proclaimed divine plan, should have been so vilified. What if, however, Judas was not a betrayer? What if he didn't hang himself on a fig tree in shame after the crucifixion of Christ? What if, indeed, he was Jesus' most faithful friend to the bitter end?"

That's essentially the idea that the book explores. Highly recommended reading.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Was-Judas … 003T0FMIS/

Listening to this episode, I was amused by how Zack and Miri Make a Porno seems to have completely disappeared from everyone's memory. Being my least favorite written and directed by Smith film, I kept waiting for it to pop up in the discussion about how his career didn't go where one might have hoped it would. In some ways, that's the movie that probably somewhat ruined Smith for me. He was so obviously trying to make an Apatow-like movie and him and Mosier sounded so confident on the Smodcast leading up to its release that it would be a huge success. The failure of it led directly to Smith being stoned ALL THE TIME and eventually deciding to do Cop Out. And we all know how that went...

I still haven't watched Red State though, so I can't speak for that one.