You know you might be right. Given the syncretism that is rampant in the RCC, particularly in the under-developed world, I probably made an overstatement.
Prayer to God is worship, prayer to fellow created beings like saints or guardian angels is not, and it does not take a great deal of discernment to be able to distinguish those two types of prayer.
Actually, to accept your argument requires a total lack of discernment. How is this not a case of the logical fallacy of special pleading?
Of course, God gave Mary a great honor - no Protestant denies that. No Protestant has anything but admiration for Mary since she was God's selected hand-maiden. However, praise and honor are due to her son, not Mary. Anything that diminishes or draws attention away from the accomplishments of Jesus Christ, God's chosen Messiah, in redeeming His People gets into the area of false worship.
You can claim over and over and over again that the Catholic Church teaches the worship of Mary, but that is simply not true (and you must know where Jesus said all untruths come from).
You apparently have me confused with someone else. I only posted two previous comments to this thread, one of which said nothing about Mary veneration. I generally avoid these Catholic-Protestant spitting matches. If I have stated it 'over and over and over,' maybe because it is that the typical Catholic response is 'no, we don't.' Your assertion proves nothing, no matter how many times you say it.
Your John 19 reference proves nothing other than Jesus was concerned about His mother's earthly welfare and responsibly assigned her a specific guardian. While you're looking up special pleadings, you might want to brush up on the definition of eisegesis - you just provided a great example with your John 19 reference.
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So, you think giving honor to Mary "diminishes or draws attention away from the accomplishments of Jesus Christ"?
If someone honors your mother, does that "diminish or draw attention away from the accomplishments of CommerceComet"?
In regards to my comment "Prayer to God is worship, prayer to fellow created beings like saints or guardian angels is not, and it does not take a great deal of discernment to be able to distinguish those two types of prayer.", you said "Actually, to accept your argument requires a total lack of discernment. How is this not a case of the logical fallacy of special pleading?" How in the world do you jump to that erroneous conclusion?
Do you not accept that prayer can be directed to God (and be a form of worship), and prayer can also be directed to saints (and NOT be a form of worship), the belief which is actually held by most Christians in the world (Catholics, Orthodox, many Anglicans, many Lutherans, and many other Christians)? (Do a quick Google search on "prayer to saints" if you don't believe me.)
It is the same with the verb "to talk". If you talk to God, that entails worship, while if you talk to another human being, that does NOT entail worship. They both involve talking, but they are two completely different forms of talking. That's just a plain, simple fact.
(By the sound of your post and your various logic references tossed around loosely in it, I'm guessing you are taking a Logic 101 course. Are you?)