Ask a Catholic?

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This is what I was getting at earlier. It's pretty clear in the commandments that there should be no worship of other gods and no worship of false idols, yet the holy trinity, especially the part with mary, goes directly against this. Any thoughts?

(And that's just the tip of the iceberg, as you put it. When you get into the idea of the pope and a whole hierarchy of religious figures that are being worshipped, in a sense, things get even muddier.)

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The Pope, saints, Mary, etc. aren't worshipped by Catholics they are venerated. We understand their special place in developing the Church, but they aren't worshipped. There is one God we worship.

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Ok, look at the excerpt below:

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Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus - Cite This Source
Main Entry: worship
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: honor
Synonyms: admire, adore, adulate, bow down, canonize, celebrate, chant, deify, dote on, esteem, exalt, extol, glorify, idolize, laud, love, magnify, praise, pray to, respect, revere, reverence, sanctify, sing, venerate
Antonyms: dishonor, disrespect, hate
Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2007 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.


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What we have is the epitome of a semantic debate, and surely you can see why some might find the catholic church even blasphemous?

I'm not making this claim. Like I said earlier in the thread, i'm an unbiased atheist. I have admiration for and interest in the philosophy of christ but no emotional attachment to the religious aspect.