Walking back what MARY plainly said?
Shameful!!
360: No walking back, just explaining what she said in the context of how medieval monks used scapulars and what Catholicism actually teaches about scapulars.
361: No, "proving a negative" is arguing for the non-existence of something based on an absence of evidence. I am not arguing from an absence of evidence, I am arguing from the positive evidence of Scripture: you can search it from Genesis to Revelation and there is no prohibition against asking for prayer requests from the deceased, and there are Scriptures that support it (Revelation 5:8), as well as the historical fact that Jews and Christians have been doing it since the time the church was founded and not seeing it as Biblically problematic, post-16th-century claims to the contrary.
362: Nothing fantastic about saying faithful Christians are with God, as we see them in Revelation (Revelation 5:8, 6:10, 14:13, 20:6).
363: No, last I checked, being a fan of Tolkien and Lewis was not required to be Catholic, though it often does help.
364: Some of Mary's roles in the Bible that Catholics emphasize: she obeys the will of God ("May it be done unto me according to your word"--Luke 1:38) out of humility (Luke 1:48) and because she believes God, in contrast to Zechariah who was skeptical (Luke 1:45; cf. 1:18f); her voice makes John the Baptist leap for joy and prompts Elizabeth to be "filled with the Holy Spirit" and to proclaim that Mary is "blessed among women", which Mary echoes when she prophecies that "From now on all generations will call me blessed" and that the Mighty One will extend mercy to future generations (Luke 1:39ff); she gives birth to Jesus in a manager, a symbol of God's compassion for the poor (Luke 2:7); she brings Jesus to the temple to be circumcized, fulfilling the law of Moses as she will train her son to do, initiating a path that will cause her son to cause a falling and rising of many in Israel and and to be a sign of contradiction, and causing her own soul to be pierced also (Luke 2:21ff); she searches for Jesus and finds him teaching, and treasures his words in her heart (Luke 2:44ff); she follows Jesus all the way to the Cross unlike the disciples who fled (John 19:25f); she witnesses the risen Jesus and the ascension and prays with the Apostles for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:1ff); she intercedes at Cana, prompting Jesus' first public miracle (John 2); she appears when the ark of the covenant is opened in heaven and protects the Messiah from the dragon by fleeing into the desert, enraging the dragon against her offspring (Revelation 11:19ff); but her offspring will crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Those are a few roles emphasized in the Rosary. There are numerous others based on meditations on other Scriptural passages.
365: Not what the original post meant by "failed".
367: "Blessed are you when people insult you. . .great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."--so thanks for increasing my reward in heaven.
368: The context is the same as the one Jesus was debating with the Sadducees, whose position on the dead in general was similar to the one you are taking on Mary; and no, Rome does not teach that every believer who has died is now in heaven, but you might want to compare the passages you quote on metaphoric "sleep" with Luke 16.
369: If you're that bored, I'll sign you up for my fan club. But I doubt I'll have much time to continue this discussion during the week, so I apologize in advance for any delayed or abbreviated response.
371: You can measure the infinite mathematically in terms of set theory, as Georg Cantor demonstrated, or physically and metaphysically in terms of the contrast between potential and actual infinity and space-time and eternity, as St. Thomas Aquinas did, developing Aristotle's definition of infinity. I'd explain the quotes by reading them in the context of the original authors instead of out of context on a polemical website. Without doing an exegesis of each author quoted, what they generally mean is that Mary's prayers to her Son are efficacious and that she prays to Him to distribute His graces to us and especially the grace to persevere in faith until death. Many Protestants who have taken the time to research this with an open mind have come to see there is no conflict between Rome's official teaching and Catholic lay practice regarding Mary. Catholics don't worship her either officially or unofficially. We worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to whom we pray when we join the angels in singing, "Gloria in excelsis Deo".