Atheist Debates - Mariology??

I debated some Catholics who proudly described themselves as Mariologists - experts in the study of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Given the paucity of information on her, what is there to study? Why is this a discipline, at all?

[ThEjOkErIsWiLd]

Mariology is the study of Nintendo's mascot, right? :P

[j.z.]

Visiting the museums of the Vatican as an atheist it blew my mind how much art is devoted to Mary. Having visited southern Europe you get a sense Mary is a big deal, but if you were an alien and the Vatican was the first place you visit, you would think the religion was Maryanity, a Mother Mary Cult

[nightshaydes]

i swear when i see the title of this video, i thought it was either a joke or that someone actually made a religion around mario and luigi. but as soon as i heard you mention catholicism, i realized it was about mary and was both relieved and somewhat disappointed.

[elainegoad]

There are so many people say they have visions of Mary or she speaks to them even today ! ? I left the Catholic church 50 years ago but remember all the holydays we celebrated for Mary and worship and praying to Mary etc... As a kid I believed what adults told me but in my early 20's I started thinking for myself.

[st.mephisto]

Matt Dillahunty proves even as an Atheist, he's still a Protestant at heart

[andreask.]

Oh wait! I got it completely wrong! If there is "Mariology" there also should be "Super Mariology", right? 😂

[KillerKarchesky]

I asked someone one day, they had a booth set up trying to get people to go to their church. I asked them if their daughter came to them and said she was pregnant but was still a virgin if they would believe her. They said no, I asked why they believe Mary than, they said I don't know. So I just got up and walked away.

[richp]

I was raised Catholic, but am no longer practicing. It could easily be the particular church I went to or even just me, most of what was discussed in this video was brand new to me but definitely interesting to hear you discuss.

[FrikInCasualMode]

The story of Mary is one of the main reason why Catholicism (and Christianity as a whole) did not take root in me, despite my grandmothers doing their best. You see - I've been a bookworm since the elementary school. And one of the books I've read was Greek Mythology. Granted, I've read it for cool stuff heroes did - slaying monsters, traveling all over the world and so on. Yet there were also numerous stories of queens and princesses "visited" by various gods (but mostly that horny goat Zeus LOL). When you read variation number 4312 of "Oh, dearest husband! Great Zeus honored me, and now I'm with his child! Rejoice!", and then next day you hear variation number 4313 from the priest teaching you about Jesus's conception and birth, well - it's hard to not see the similarities between both.

[MiniEquine]

So much of the Mary talk from back when I was a Catholic was not based on the Bible, rather from the many “visions” claimed by people around the world. There were some Bible stories of course, and I don’t know for sure the quantity but I recall her coming up relatively frequently so I think the particular Bible verses that make up the gospel readings were cherry picked to that end, somewhat

[freeaccount]

When you get right down to it, the magnitude of the theological apparatus - churches, seminaries, and "accredited" institutions and the like, all for the sake of mythology, is mind boggling.

[AquaPeet]

How about Theology, the study of the word "the" in the Bible?

[ienjoylife]

I think what excites the Catholic Church most about Mariology is the idea of God having non-consensual sex with a virgin. It’s kinda their #canwedoittoo? moment.

[richardsmusic]

You're awesome Matt. Thanks for everything you do and what you stand for. Much appreciated 🙂

[bigskypioneer]

It is also interesting to note how quickly the worship of Mary fell out of favor among those that were on the fringes of Catholicism around the time Luther's Protestantism really took off. I say it's interesting because Protestantism's success is directly linked to the printing press which made the scriptures more available to the commoner. There were other factions of Catholicism that rebelled against the canon but they never took root until regular people could read for themselves what was in the New Testament. They also duly noted how rare any mention in the gospels that there is to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

[elainegoad]

I think the "Goddess" mythologies were brought into Roman Catholicism. Emperor Constintine wanted to use "Christanity" and had to pull in all different pagan believers, Jews, and whatever else was out there and they threw in all kinds of mythologies into the Roman Catholic religion.

[TheYiffingAtheist]

Thanks for the course, Matt. I'll be sure to add my degree in Mariology to my resume now!

[ingridschmid]

Quite frankly to me mariology is no more no less ridiculous than any other points of christian doctrine . The narrowing of the cannon to a specific number of very dubious sources is in all cases purely arbitrary .
I very much doubt that Mary would have held a role of much importance in the earlier versions of the legend what would be interesting is history of mariology since it probably is way more documented than any of the early stuff .

[bigskypioneer]

Many cultures needed a substitute chief goddess to fill in for whatever goddess a culture worshipped. For example the goddess Hestia was extremely important to the average Roman citizen - the "womanly" virtues ascribed to Mary line up quite nicely with the Roman goddess of the Hearth, Home and Family. While their backstory is different - Mary still fills in quite nicely when you look at it from a cultural perspective. And let's face it Christianity would not have survived past the first or second generation of followers if it had not been "culturally adaptable." Having a female lead character was vital to the survival since most non-Jewish or Christian religions had companion male and female gods and goddesses.

[djb]

As a kid, the veneration of Mary seemed like idolatry which was confusing since it seemed like it goes against the first commandment.