metmom: "Big deal. Lots of religions that have been around longer than the Catholic church teach a lot of things they call the truth.
Why does the church make up things about people which can't be Scripturally supported. but rather is directly contradicted by a plain reading of the Bible, and pass them off as truth?"
Just curious, are you an Arian?
"The Bible doesn't teach it and that's all that counts." That's not what the men who put together the canon of your bible believed. In fact, they measured the acceptability, the "canonicity" of various scriptures against what The Church believed, Holy Tradition and liturgical praxis among other things. They worshiped God in a fashion almost identical to the way Orthodox Christians do to this day. Where does your idea come from?
Lots of people believe in the Easter bunny, too. That's a tradition.
The Bible is quite clear about Mary and Joseph having sex and other children. I don't care what some guys who died a long time ago thought. They could have just made it up and passed it off as being true and here are millions of people believing something on their say so that is not even alluded to in the Bible.
There is ZERO Scriptural support for any of it. I don't care who they claimed to be or who the Catholic says they are, if they're contradicting written Scripture that the church fathers canonized as the infallible word of God, they're wrong.
There's no reason in the world to pass off this nonsense about the immaculate conception of Mary and her perpetual virginity. It plays no role in Christ's work of redemption on the cross. It's extraneous stuff that just gets people's eyes off Christ and God.
Jesus says....(John 14:6) Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Putting anything in the mix besides that is idolatry.