It might have symbolic meaning within our culture, it almost certainly has a lot of that, but it doesn’t point at anything in the real world.

Last edited Sun Mar 3, 2024, 07:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Without meaning to dive directly into Atheism (I myself identify as "spiritual, not religious" ) so much of what went on in the Bible could have been deifying and mythologizing natural occurrences and making extraordinary stories and life-lessons out of many humdrum things. Things like the great flood might have been localized. Like someone who lived in Pompeii, had they survived and wrote about it, likely beleived they were witnessing the end of the world.

Like Cain slew his brother and was exiled from the (parking lot around the?) Garden of Eden where he went on to marry a wife and have children. Um...where did all these new people come from? Either they've skipped a bunch of plot-relevant material, or the same deity or other deities (?) seeded multiple populations and he went and joined one of them? There's a leap of logic here that basically starts the foundation of racism.

Jesus "fed a starving multitude with two loaves and two fishes"? Over what timespan? The multitude might have been a village over years whom he taught how to fish and how to farm and process grain - still an awesome accomplishment, but how was this potentially embellished in the telling to make an impressive story. You know "give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for the rest of his life..."

Again, I do not mean in any way to trash religion directly and understand it's personally valuable and a great thing for many people. We just really need to get back to the GOVERNMENT being secular and not founded in any one specific religion's mythology.

The dominance of christianity was a 1000 year cultural setback and we periodically aren’t done with its regressive tendencies.

We need better imaginaries.

He was dry-humping her and he came in his pants. She got pregnant.

I get what you're saying, but I think that's an unfortunate conception rather than an immaculate conception.

It's kind of one of those edge hypotheticals, like a happily married, sexually-active lesbian who has never had penetrative sex with a man gets IVF to have a child. Is that an "immaculate conception" or more specifically a "virgin birth" if a penis was never in the same zip code as her uterus?

I might hypothesize that seminal (including male DNA) penetration would carry the same credentials as penile penetration in canceling out virginity - I'd venture for the Biblical "immaculate conception" a paternity test would have to come up "null" - no human sperm involved.

I'd say this might also fall into the category of placing too much mythical importance on the concept of "physically penetrative virginity" as a measure of a person's worth or a sign of their character as well.

I remember our health teacher once gave us the somewhat cryptic advice: "It doesn't matter so much if an employee makes it to work with everyone on the express train or has to climb up the outside of the building to get into the office; if the employee gets to work he gets to do his job...and you might have a baby."

I get what you're saying, but I think that's an unfortunate conception rather than an immaculate conception.

It's kind of one of those edge hypotheticals, like a happily married, sexually-active lesbian who has never had penetrative sex with a man gets IVF to have a child. Is that an "immaculate conception" or more specifically a "virgin birth" if a penis was never in the same zip code as her uterus?

I might hypothesize that seminal (including male DNA) penetration would carry the same credentials as penile penetration in canceling out virginity - I'd venture for the Biblical "immaculate conception" a paternity test would have to come up "null" - no human sperm involved.

I'd say this might also fall into the category of placing too much mythical importance on the concept of "physically penetrative virginity" as a measure of a person's worth or a sign of their character as well.

I remember our health teacher once gave us the somewhat cryptic advice: "It doesn't matter so much if an employee makes it to work with everyone on the express train or has to climb up the outside of the building to get into the office; if the employee gets to work he gets to do his job...and you might have a baby."