Was prayerfully pondering such some more in the shower.
That sounds like an appeal to
It pretends that WORDS don't mean much.
God has a DIFFERENT perspective . . . not the tiniest punctuation of HIS WORD will pass away--as Christ emphatically asserted.
Where's the dictionary for metaphors?
Metaphors, even more than words, are quite vulnerable to influences from individual psychologies, childhood conditioning, weather, indigestion, reference group norms, context, trends, emotions, degrees of education etc.
So here you have millions of say Filipino's . . . or Calcutta slum families or Santiago working class or even middle class families or even elites dyed in the wool Roman Catholics.
The Ashteroth-Mary-Goddess-Queen-of-Heaven personage/meme has been intensely incorporated into their Roman Catholicism from birth.
They read such stuff or hear it verbalized from a priest or Bishop . . . what do they truly think or hear in their minds, hearts, spirits?
Do you HONESTLY THINK
that they say to themselves:
Self--that doesn't mean what it says--it's just a metaphor. Mary's NOT REALLY part of the Godhead. It's just flowery language. She's NOT REALLY the ONLY way to God--that's just flowery language.
If you REALLY BELIEVE THAT, then I'm skeptical any rational discourse with you is remotely possible.
The whole INSTITUTION of the Vatican at every level has been increasingly spewing such blasphemous idolatrous stuff for many decades, if not centuries. And if you think that has no effect on the rank and file--welllll--that's just incomprehensible.
If it has no influence on the rank and file, why is so much money, time, energy, wood pulp and media time UTTERLY INTENSELY DEVOTED TO SUCH BLASPHEMOUS DAMNABLE ASSERTIONS?
I'll tell you why--because the king of hell has a huge investment in making it so. And the RCC Magicsterical and other hierarchy find it lucrative and powerfully manipulative to go along with the horrific scheme.
Further, if you think that God Almighty, Son and Spirit find such to be harmless metaphors, then I don't think we know the same God by a long stretch.