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More hair-splitting if you think there's an appreciable difference between bowing down to someone and bowing down before someone. It doesn't take a post-graduate degree to understand when you bow down BEFORE Mary you are bowing down TO Mary and not to the 'exit' sign or the offering box.

"O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker." -- Psalm 95:6

No need for reason, thought, charity, or care -- just pure feeling.

Yet not so surprisingly, it's you, MD, who exalts feeling over reason, like in your post 4,751 --

"...Fortunately, when I first heard it sung I really could "feel the love.""

Take a step back and realize the smell of the incense, the wooden icons and statues, the bloody wounds, the crown of thorns, the mystical pretension of the mass, all of which you witness and partake every time you enter your church, are the stuff of tactile, emotion-laden, sensory experiences.

"Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.
He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:
And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.
They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?
He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" -- Isaiah 44:15-20

Take a step back and realize the smell of the incense, the wooden icons and statues, the bloody wounds, the crown of thorns, the mystical pretension of the mass, all of which you witness and partake every time you enter your church, are the stuff of tactile, emotion-laden, sensory experiences

Gee, and reading a book, made out of wood, written by men and mystically believed to be the word of God is not?

The incense and the liturgical service come straight from Judaism. I suppose, Judaism, too, is a mystical pretension in your book. You are outdoing yourself.

Have a nice day.