Do you deserve your high school diploma?

[leroyjenkens]

No, they're referring to Mary being conceived, not Mary's conception of Jesus. They had extended the idea of Jesus's perfection to the point where he couldn't even be conceived by someone who had been conceived the normal way.

So Mary had a virgin mother? I still think I'm not understanding this.

 

[turbo]

So Mary had a virgin mother? I still think I'm not understanding this.

No. The Roman Catholic dogma holds that Mary was born without the taint of "original sin", thus making her a suitably pure vessel for the birth of god's earthly son. The notion of original sin was a hold-over from the idea that humans are fallible and inherently sinful - even new-born infants. Adam and Eve's fall from grace seems to be the root of that idea.

 

[leroyjenkens]

No. The Roman Catholic dogma holds that Mary was born without the taint of "original sin", thus making her a suitably pure vessel for the birth of god's earthly son. The notion of original sin was a hold-over from the idea that humans are fallible and inherently sinful - even new-born infants. Adam and Eve's fall from grace seems to be the root of that idea.

Ok, so the "immaculate conception" wasn't the birth of Jesus, rather, it was the birth of Mary being born free from sin.
All these years I thought it was the birth of Jesus. No wonder I couldn't figure out why it was called immaculate conception.

 

[Tobias Funke]

So only Mary deserves a high school diploma and the rest of us deserve to burn in hell? I think I'm getting this.

I got 84%, which means nothing but the second somebody posts a lower score, you can bet I'll feel superior and validated.

 

[Proton Soup]

Ok, so the "immaculate conception" wasn't the birth of Jesus, rather, it was the birth of Mary being born free from sin.
All these years I thought it was the birth of Jesus. No wonder I couldn't figure out why it was called immaculate conception.

i believe the idea is that sin and perfection cannot coexist. so mary had to be perfect and sinless to be the vessel for jesus. the obvious logical fault, tho, is that this would require that mary's mother be perfect, and so on and so on, which at some point runs into the trouble of eve.

guess the author of this test was raised by monks or nuns.

art was also something that we didn't get in high school unless you were either in special ed or one of those few dedicated artists that ended up there as an elective instead of sciences.

 

[turbo]

Ok, so the "immaculate conception" wasn't the birth of Jesus, rather, it was the birth of Mary being born free from sin.
All these years I thought it was the birth of Jesus. No wonder I couldn't figure out why it was called immaculate conception.

The mystery of Jesus' birth was the notion of "virgin birth". At the time that the Bible was being translated into Latin, Rome was in the throes of a virgin mania. In fact (if you believe the Jesuits' Jerusalem Bible, and I lend them a lot of credence) the correct word was "maiden" from the Aramaic texts, and not "virgin".