2 ms·
The idea is that saints, or for what it's worth Mary, cannot really do anything on their own, but they have a direct channel to God to relay your prayers. So it
by bonzini 8y ago
The idea is that saints, or for what it's worth Mary, cannot really do anything on their own, but they have a direct channel to God to relay your prayers. So it's still monotheistic, the trinity is where things get weird, but it still gives people something they feel "closer to them" than a single omnipotent divinity.
- int_19h 8y agoIt's not much different from many polytheistic religions though - the idea that there's some kind of supreme proto-deity, from which other more specialized gods derive their powers (or even of which they're facets), is quite common. And I don't think it's a stretch to assume that this is where the Christian cult of the saints derives from. Especially when you look at some of those saints, and see how they have effectively overlapped with some pagan deity from older times. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah#Pagan_associations_and_mountaintops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah#Pagan_associations_and_...