It is a good and holy act for Christians to honor Mary and ask her intercession

ROUND 3 Rebuttal. "For this round, I will first address my case (which went mainly unaddressed by my opponent) and then follow up by addressing his reasons that he thinks Catholics worship Mary." Please see Round 3 for Round 2 rebuttal. "Intercession - prayers made by one person to God for the benefit of another" The Biblical distinction between intercessory prayer and the Heavenly Person of Intercessor is that intercessory prayer is made between mortals here on earth and that The Intercessor is in Heaven making intercession between man and God. *Please note that my opponent has provided NO scriptural evidence for praying to Mary or any other Saint ONCE they have gone into Heaven. "Worship -homagerendered to God which itis sinful (idolatry) to render to any createdbeing(Ex.34:14;Isa.2:8).Such worship was refused by Peter (Acts 10:25,26) and by an angel (Rev.22:8,9). http://dictionary.reference.com...... (Easton's1897BibleDictionary)" Calling Mary 'blessed by all generations' and 'full of grace' honours God as He alone makes a person blessed or full of grace. So to imbue Mary with Grace and blessings of her OWN is idolatrous and so sinful worship. "Mary as Intercessor My opponent's main argument her was that to honor Mary with the title 'Intercessor' is to put her in the place Christ (God) rightfully has. However, we merely have a confusion of terms here. When my opponent says that Christ is our Intercessor, he means that it is through His sacrifice that we receive God's forgiving grace (as his bible verses say). When Catholics call Mary intercessor (as you can see by the above definition I presented in Round 1) we merely mean a person who prays to God for us. Thus, a proper understanding of Mary's title as 'intercessor' reveals that Catholics do not give her any sort of 'worship' that is due to Christ." My opponent simply fails to address the distinction between mortals on earth praying for one another and a Heavenly Intercessor betwixt man and God, which the Bible clearly teaches is Jesus Christ alone. *Please note that my opponent has provided NO scriptural evidence for praying to Mary or any other Saint ONCE they have gone into Heaven. "Woman (sic) and Authority My opponent is arguing that since women should not have authority over men, we should not pretend that Mary has an authority of intercession. While his interpretation of the bible verse he uses is questionable, I will leave it be for now since there is a larger fallacy in this argument. One of my opponent's most important premises is that for Mary to help us, she must have some sort of authority over us. This is not the case. Mary helps us through intercession (i.e. prayer) just as any other person can help us through prayer. If a person needs authority over another to pray for them, then it would be wrong for any man to ask a woman to pray for them. Since I cannot possibly see Christ (or Paul) forbidding my mother or sister to pray for me, I see no problem with asking Mary to pray for me. Thus, we can see that Mary does not need any authority over us to intercede for us (of course assuming a proper definition of intercession)." My opponent simply fails to address the distinction between mortals on earth praying for one another and a Heavenly Intercessor betwixt man and God, which the Bible clearly teaches is Jesus Christ alone. *Please note that my opponent has avoided my scriptural evidence for women and Authority. "Virginity of Mary My opponent is arguing here that to call Mary a virgin proves that Catholics worship her since he believes that the bible teaches otherwise. While I do personally believe that Mary was a virgin and that my opponent has misinterpreted the bible verses he presented, to argue this would be to step outside the bounds of our resolution. The simpler issue with this argument is that for Catholics to call Mary a virgin does not mean that we worship her. If there were a modern girl who may or may not have had sex with her boyfriend, no one would say I was worshiping her if I decided to believe that she was still a virgin. Just so, Catholics have a different interpretation of Scripture (whether it is the correct interpretation or not is irrelevant to this argument) in which we believe that Mary was a virgin. Even if we are wrong (which I obviously don't believe) we still cannot be charged with worshipping her because of this. " Here my opponent has avoided my argument by no longer talking about honouring but switching to worship; My (unaddressed) argument, is that by not honouring the facts of ANYONE'S life as they are simply presented we do not honour them and their truth: Hence, when we willfully ignore facts in order to exult someone THEN this is idolatrous worship. *Please note that my opponent has avoided addressing my scriptural evidence for Mary's lack of virginity. "Thus, we can see that neither of these three arguments show that Catholics worship Mary. My opponent had one final argument concerning the two following two bible verses which was rather vaguely made:" Luke 11:27-28 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it." "Here my opponent seems to think that Christ is specifically saying that Mary is not 'blessed'. However, that is not Christ's point. Christ is merely using this as a chance to make the point that genealogy is not nearly as important as obeying God's commands. We know that this is the case because Mary herself fulfills the requirements Christ here sets up to be considered 'blessed'. When she heard the word of God through Gabriel asking her be God's mother, she replied 'Let it be done according to your word' (i.e. she obeyed God's command)." I challenge all viewers of this debate to view the above scripture in it's simple, childlike and literal sense: That the woman is falsely exulting His Mother and Jesus is CORRECTING her. Matthew 12:47-49 Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. "I assume my opponent is trying to show that Christ did not want us to honor Mary. However, once again Christ is merely using this statement as an opportunity to making a point. If Christ intended this to reflect badly on Mary, then it is phrased in a way which is akin to disowning her as his mother. This would be a deliberate violation of the 4th commandment and a sin. Since God cannot sin, we know this isn't the case. Christ is merely making the point that he wants to have an intimate relationship (such as the relationships within families) with all of us. He knows that Mary is his true mother and he loves her with the perfect love of a perfect son." I challenge all viewers of this debate to view the above scripture in it's simple, childlike and literal sense: That Jesus is showing those around Him WHO is important to Him. SUMMARY. Apart from the last two, my opponent has singularly failed to address any of the scriptures I provided for my three arguments. In his opening paragraph he stated; 'In this debate, since we are both Christians, the Bible will be considered the Word of God.' Also, he has failed to provide scripture for his own assertions; primarily that the roles of 'earthly intercession between mortals' and that of 'Heavenly Intercessor' are interchangeable theologies.