The Catholics have the ideas about Mary wrong

""praying to someone other than God is like making them God." Please define prayer. As I stated earlier, Catholics do not believe prayer to be exclusively worship, but rather a form of communication. To worship is to make someone or something a god and Catholics believe that. "There"s no record of people in the Bible making prayers to Mary or Paul or Peter." There is not any place in the Bible where anyone make prayers to Mary, Paul, or Peter specifically. I will however discuss Revelations 5:8 which you mentioned because I do not think that your friend in the video justly analyzed the Catholic argument as for why prayers can be made "through" the saints. The argument is that multiple prayers were coming from multiple people, "God"s people", and that these prayers were given to Jesus the Lamb according to the literal translation of the verse. Protestants often quote 1 Timothy 2:5 which states that Jesus is the only mediator between God and man and claim that the Catholic teaching in intercessory prayer violates this commandment. The 4 creatures however are bringing the prayers of "God"s people" to Jesus in this verse demonstrating that creatures may bring forth prayers TO JESUS who then acts as the mediator to the Father. Catholics believe that Mary and the saints are indeed men and women, and creatures of God, but that they too may bring prayers before Jesus like the 4 creatures. Jesus still remains as the only mediator between earthly men and women, as well as those who are in heaven. The statement that there is no record in the Bible of anyone making prayers to Mary, Paul, or Peter is irrelevant, for neither does it ever make mention of anyone making prayers to the 4 creatures who somehow received them. Were the 4 creatures omnipotent or omniscient? Why didn"t Jesus already have all of the prayer if he alone could receive them? Why were the 4 creatures necessary? Catholics would argue that it is for the sake of the faithful that the 4 creatures brought their prayer before God, as do the saints and Mary. "No Bible verse supports that Mary is any holier than anyone else." Luke 1:28 - also, the phrase "full of grace" is translated from the Greek word "kecharitomene." This is a unique title given to Mary, and suggests a perfection of grace from a past event. Mary is not just "highly favored." She has been perfected in grace by God. "Full of grace" is only used to describe one other person - Jesus Christ in John 1:14 and in Sirach where it appears that Mary"s conception of Jesus is being prophesized. "Lo, is not a word better than a gift? but both are with a justified man." (The word in Greek for "justified man" is the same "kecharitomene.") While this does not point to Mary as being "holier" than anyone else by any act or doing of her own, but that she was chosen by God and preserved from sin. "Full of grace" or "justified man" can be used to communicate this because, while "justified man" as the selected English translation is used elsewhere in the Bible, the Greek word itself is used exclusively in Luke and in this one passage in Sirach, which speaks of God"s mercy and is a foreshadowing of Christ"s coming. "The idea of having icons of Mary and praying is easier to Mary than Jesus is worshiping her." "When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like angels in heaven." (Mark 12:26) Praying in front of icons or while looking at icons is like looking at the cross while praying to Jesus. Protestants are not worshipping the bible of the cross when they hold either one close to their chest or while they look upon either. Rather, they are appreciating and acknowledging the great work that God has done through, not these specific objects, but what they are images of. Icons of Mary or the saints are treated by Catholics in the same way in that they are used to acknowledge or appreciate the work of God through their images, but not their images specifically or even the saints or Mary themselves. They are prayer tools. Not idols. "That verse does contradict Mary being sinless. She was completely a woman and not divine." Catholics do not deny that she was completely a woman and that she lacked divinity. What Catholics believe is that she was a woman, preserved from sin, by the grace of God alone. She is no goddess. If the verse does contradict Mary being sinless, then it also must contradict Jesus being sinless. If all men are sinners than so is Christ, unless Christ was no man. Logic dictates that this is necessarily so if Paul"s statement is to be taken literally. "Also, Mary could not have been a virgin all her life because Jesus had siblings. They could not have been his cousins (the word in Greek usually means brother) and it couldn't have been Joseph's children from a previous marriage because they are not mentioned in their trips to Egypt." This argument is founded on the fact that the Greek word for brother is not the same as the word for cousin. However, there was no Hebrew word for "cousin". They used the word brother, and the Greeks translating much of the Hebrew were obliged to use the word that the Greek word for brother whenever they encountered it in order to have an accurate translation. So it is irrelevant if there is a Greek word for cousin, because the Hebrew is what was using the term "brother" synonymously with "cousin" or "someone related to you". In addition, I would beg the question, where in the bible does it state that brother ever means uterine brother or blood brother? "It says Joseph didn't "know" Mary until she gave birth to Jesus. The word "to know" in the Bible means to have sexual intercourse." The key word here is not "know", which Catholics recognize implies sexual intercourse, but "until". In Matthew 28:20 Jesus says that he will "be with you until the end of the age". Does this mean that Jesus will stop being with us after the end of the age? Again, in 2nd Peter 1:19 it says "We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." Is Peter suggesting that one should cease paying attention to the "reliable, prophetic message" once the day dawns? Obviously not. He is indicating a period of time during which an action is directed to occur, without suggesting any change later. "Until" can have two interpretations, it can be used to mean "change occurred after" or it can mean "before". In Matthew 28:20 and 2 Peter 1:19 the word "until" clearly means "before". Let us examine Matthew 1:24-25 more. "When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus." Matthew"s goal here is to show how Jesus" birth fulfilled the prophecy of the Old Testament, 1) that a virgin conceived and 2) that a virgin bore a son. Read the passage again, but replace some of the 25th verse with the literal translation that man Protestants suggest. It would read, "When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. He had intercourse with her after she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus." Clearly that one sentence jumps out as both irrelevant to the context of the passage and out of place. Why would Matthew even mention it? He is in the middle of describing how the prophecy is being fulfilled and his key points are the virginal conception and birth of Jesus. Therefore, it makes much more sense in the context of the passage that he make the point that Joseph did not "know" Mary at any time "before" she gave birth to Jesus. That is all that is being stated in the passage. It does not imply a change afterwards in the same way that 2 Peter 1:19 and Matthew 28:20 do not imply a change.