Virgin birth of Jesus

[Kharakov]

Religions strive to control the sexual urge because it is so powerful.

'Creative (not sexual) urge might need a little restraint at times.' HiGGs field is forever, don't confuse a strawberry with a Chuck Berry, know need to bury someone in bullshit so they grow.

 

[jimrich]

Original texts

How is one to understand the virgin birth of Jesus?

Before I would dive into this question, I'd want to learn how to study and translate the original writings about this virgin birth and many other biblical stories that perplex me. What little I now know about foreign languages and writings is that, unless I can actually read and translate the material to my own satisfaction, I am left with trusting and consuming the work and opinions of complete strangers. Who's to say that any of them did correct interpretations or did not have a hidden agenda for the so-called scholarly work they did? I am willing to "consider" these stories but, if they don't hold up to my current level of reason, I refuse to swallow any of them. What I would do is try to understand and see the allegorical, mystical or esoteric, inner meaning of such stories. IMO, most scriptures from any nation or time period are metaphors and fairy tales designed to "hint" at deeper truths which cannot be openly presented to the "masses".
Perhaps the "virgin birth" has something to do with certain spiritual or mystical elements of life that most of us cannot understand at our current level of consciousness. Perhaps these mystical/magical stories are pointing towards something way more subtle than most of us encounter in our lives. Kind of how nuclear science is way above the heads of average, street people yet totally comprehended by educated scientists or how the everyday devices of the Pilgrims and frontier's men astonished and mystified the local natives.
IMO, just believing things some so-called authority figure dumps on you is both ignorant and very dangerous - depending on the authority figure's intentions - which quite often are NOT positive.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Religions strive to control the sexual urge because it is so powerful. If you can convince people that sex is something that the priest should control, then there's nothing the priest shouldn't control. Bizarre beliefs about the nature of sex grow out of this control, and are tools of the control. The ideal situation is to convince a person that sex is bad, unless specifically allowed by the priest. Hence marriage and the idea that sex is solely for reproduction. The belief that sex is bad gives rise to the belief that reproduction without sex is holy.

Sounds to me like religion and the sexual drive are the same thing in lots of people. That might explain things quite nicely.

 

[ZiprHead]

"What, I can be stoned to death for having sex without being married?!? Shit! Okay, okay, get this. God did it and I never had sex. Really, God did it. I swear."

 

[Malintent]

What would have happened if Mary admitted to having sex with Joseph that resulted in the conception of the Jesus bastard-child?
Was there motive to make up a magical story to protect either of them (or the child)?

If so, I would strongly consider that justification as being the source of the (extremely tall) tale.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Well Mary was like 13 at the time, but that was normal for nascent Islamo-Judeo-Christianity. The thing to get in trouble about is that she had an affair or someone impregnated her outside the marriage.

 

[Eric H]

What would have happened if Mary admitted to having sex with Joseph that resulted in the conception of the Jesus bastard-child?
Was there motive to make up a magical story to protect either of them (or the child)?

If so, I would strongly consider that justification as being the source of the (extremely tall) tale.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth, he also created Adam from no parents. The virgin birth is not a great challenge by comparison.

 

[Keith&Co.]

In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth, he also created Adam from no parents. The virgin birth is not a great challenge by comparison.

I would have to disagree.

I've got this marble maze set, about 400+ pieces. it's one thing to sit down and put a marble run together from scratch, but once it's completed, it's a whole different sort of problem to add anything to it.
Scratching up a body out of component parts is not comparable.

There's an already-existing system in operation, there. The womanly oven waiting for the manly seed. It's not just kit-bashing to insert just the right amount of material, in the right place, at the right time, with no excess hormones, proteins, or fairy dust that might cause complications, just at the right time to fertilize an egg, that has to be compatible with the egg...

I think it's an order of magnitude more difficult.

 

[Eric H]

In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth, he also created Adam from no parents. The virgin birth is not a great challenge by comparison.

I would have to disagree.

I've got this marble maze set, about 400+ pieces. it's one thing to sit down and put a marble run together from scratch, but once it's completed, it's a whole different sort of problem to add anything to it.
Scratching up a body out of component parts is not comparable.

There's an already-existing system in operation, there. The womanly oven waiting for the manly seed. It's not just kit-bashing to insert just the right amount of material, in the right place, at the right time, with no excess hormones, proteins, or fairy dust that might cause complications, just at the right time to fertilize an egg, that has to be compatible with the egg...

I think it's an order of magnitude more difficult.

So when you say, there's an already-existing system in operation, there. The womanly oven waiting for the manly seed. There was no life four billion years ago. I think it's an order of magnitude, more difficult for life to start without God, and for evolution to happen without God.

 

[Keith&Co.]

There was no life four billion years ago. I think it's an order of magnitude, more difficult for life to start without God, and for evolution to happen without God.

Okay, noted.
But still, once he got the system up and running, balanced and all that, it's harder to disrupt the system JUST ENOUGH to fix a change than it would be to start from scratch.

 

[iolo]

Virgin birth of Jesus

I'd guess that all that is said about Jesus before he started his Ministry was myth or reference to 'prophecy' meant to bring in Jewish believers, and creates only pointless arguments.

 

[Eric H]

There was no life four billion years ago. I think it's an order of magnitude, more difficult for life to start without God, and for evolution to happen without God.

Okay, noted.
But still, once he got the system up and running, balanced and all that, it's harder to disrupt the system JUST ENOUGH to fix a change than it would be to start from scratch.

As you say, it might be harder to disrupt the system, but that should not make it impossible for God. I guess we just have to agree to disagree. From a believers perception, if God can create the universe and life, then all other miracles like virgin births, talking snakes and raising the dead, should be easy by comparison. We could ask why these things should be a part of God's plan, and I do not really know.

 

[Keith&Co.]

From a believers perception, if God can create the universe and life, then all other miracles like virgin births, talking snakes and raising the dead, should be easy by comparison.

But that's just it. From actual experience with operating systems, tweaks have so many unanticipated consequences and side effects, then creating miracles should, by comparison, be harder than standing up the system in the first place.
That's probably why there are so few miracles these days, we'd detect all the ripples of alterations running through the universe.

 

[fromderinside]

Have we got material from an asteroid yet? If we do then man has touched about 1 ten trillion-trillionth of the 'known' universe. The point of this observation is that not only have we access to essentially nothing of the world but we cant wrap our minds around what we have observed empirically. If you think our observations of, as you so quaintly write, " ... all the ripples running through the universe" is meaningful then hooray for you.

However if you think operating system 'unexpected consequences and side effects' are actually unexpected or unexplainable than you need to up your game. I used to prove systems after IBM's 370 catastrophe and, even then, we were confident we could wring out errors in most any ones and zeros system. Unanticipated in such a system is either of in one's lack of trying or experience. You choose.

As for the person to whom you were responding on the dark side, talking snakes and raising the dead are not simple things in a deterministic universe. They're f***ing unbelievable. So I'm actually on your side on this one.

As for virgin birth I'm going with either "she lied" or "her parents lied". I think they needed the goats Joseph brought to the table.

 

[rousseau]

This thread has me fondly remember when I used to post on another forum when I was 19-20ish. I wasn't religious, but on any topic of the day I thought I had figured out the world and simply *did not listen* to the hordes of thoughtful people who tried to set me straight.

I was always on the defensive, trying to figure out my next argument, rather than carefully considering the responses I was receiving. I suspect that's a big part of the problem when talking with believers. To any non-believer, the arguments being put forth by secular members are so overwhelmingly obvious that we just take them for granted, but to believers they aren't even being seriously considered because they simply *can't be right*. The response believers give is actually about keeping the solidity of their own world-view, rather than rational argument.

 

[Eric H]

To any non-believer, the arguments being put forth by secular members are so overwhelmingly obvious that we just take them for granted,

The creation of the universe and life is history, and all you seem to have is arguments as to how this came to be. Where is the science? If you had the science, you would not need the clever arguments.

but to believers they aren't even being seriously considered because they simply *can't be right*. The response believers give is actually about keeping the solidity of their own world-view, rather than rational argument.

If there is no God, then just give us the science as to how the universe and life came to be.

 

[Learner]

Virgin birth wouldn't be so difficult to believe if mere mortals claiming they too can or are getting close to doing this.

Well it seems todays scientists claiming humans can have babies without one of the parents, depending on the group who are experimenting without the mother or another group experimenting without the father having any involvement.

There have been quite a few claims and the recent one of these claims is below. Artificial sperm ".

Radical: Chinese scientists claim the discovery could provide hope for infertile men

Scientists in the UK praised the "mammoth" achievement of their Chinese colleagues but said there were still many obstacles to be overcome before sperm-like cells grown in the laboratory could be of use to infertile men.

Professor Richard Sharpe, from the Medical Research Council Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh, said safety was a major issue.

"Bear in mind that if germ cells do not format their DNA correctly, it may not only affect the resulting individual but might also affect the next generation," he pointed out.

In spite of these encouraging results, we are still some way from immediately applying this technique as a potential cure for human male infertility," he continued. (What a great idea !? )

"It remains to be seen if this technique could be applied in humans to create sperm-like cells that might be usable in IVF."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/scientists-claim-can-create-babies-7441572

" like the days of Noah" more or less.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If there is no God, then just give us the science as to how the universe and life came to be.

These discussions predictably always come down to that. I could just as easily reverse a couple words and ask, "If there is no universe, just give us the science as to how the gods and life came to be." And of course I think that is the much better question. The answer of course is the same as always, "magic." Why? Because magic is easy, nothing to explain or confront, no uncertainty, nothing new to learn. You can have it anytime you want and it can be anything you want it to be. We just keep being very young children.

Clearly the reason people think about gods is because they think about the universe first. People want knowledge and the way to have it is to invent a god that has it all. If anyone can explain to me how the universe or any of it's tiniest constituent parts is not perfect, I'm listening. If someone can explain to me what a god is made of, I'm listening. If someone can show me a god, I'm watching. What does your god sound like? Again, I'm listening.

I can show you my universe. If you can't show me your god it's because you don't really have one. You're pretending to have one the same as when you were a child and pretended to make your baby doll talk, or flew around the room pretending to be an airplane. It actually seems to me that you're mad at the universe and so pretend to have another one that you can make be whatever you want it to be, and you call it a god. It's just another baby toy, a substitute for the universe you cannot understand but long to get to know.

Not so strange behavior actually.

 

[James Brown]

 

[Eric H]

I can show you my universe.

If it is your universe, then please can you explain in detail, how it came to be?

If you can't show me your god it's because you don't really have one. You're pretending to have one the same as when you were a child and pretended to make your baby doll talk, or flew around the room pretending to be an airplane. It actually seems to me that you're mad at the universe and so pretend to have another one that you can make be whatever you want it to be, and you call it a god. It's just another baby toy, a substitute for the universe you cannot understand but long to get to know.

Not so strange behavior actually.

Please enlighten me, so that I do not have to pretend anymore. Some science would help.