It's religion. It's not supposed to make sense.
Virgin birth questions/problems
- Thread starter Dinosaur
- Start date
It's religion. It's not supposed to make sense.
Apparently so!
And God is a mammal? And Jesus was a mammal?
And you know this for a fact?
Freelance Policeman
Registered Member
Some people here seem to have trouble with the concept of a 'miracle...'
A miracle is an event in which one or more laws of nature cease to apply to the universe.
A miracle is an event in which one or more laws of nature cease to apply to the universe.
He is not magic but asked to clip a part of the chromosome X and it become a Y chromosome
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I have no problem with the concept of a miracle as you described it. I have a problem with the assumption that Universal Laws can be broken, even by a god.
The problem is that once a god created Universal laws by which things work, even He cannot break them. It would be like breaking with yourself and that cannot happen in a perfect being.
Of all the positive things one can say about the value of assuming a "higher authority", performing miracles (breaking Natural Laws) is the least likely of all scenarios.
Wynn: You asked the following:
God is described as a mystical entity & it does not seem correct to classify him as any type of creature. I never claimed that the god of Christianity was a mammal.
Mary (mother of Jesus) was surely a mammal. The Bible & much other Christian literature claims that both Mary & Jesus are human beings, which classifies them as mammals. One would expect the progeny of a human being (Mary) to be a human being & hence a mammal.
Jesus is also described as having divine characteristics and/or as being a god incarnated as a man.
I suppose that some Christians would not describe Jesus as a human being. However, I do not remember any literature which claimed that he was not a human being.
Being an atheist, I am on shakey ground here, but I am sure that I have a better knowledge of Christianity than many who profess to be Christians.
God is described as a mystical entity & it does not seem correct to classify him as any type of creature. I never claimed that the god of Christianity was a mammal.
Mary (mother of Jesus) was surely a mammal. The Bible & much other Christian literature claims that both Mary & Jesus are human beings, which classifies them as mammals. One would expect the progeny of a human being (Mary) to be a human being & hence a mammal.
Jesus is also described as having divine characteristics and/or as being a god incarnated as a man.
I suppose that some Christians would not describe Jesus as a human being. However, I do not remember any literature which claimed that he was not a human being.
IfIonlyhadabrain
Registered Member
I'll see if I can help, but I wouldn't classify myself as an expert.
I do believe that Krishna, one of the avatars of Vishnu, the second person of the Hindu trinity, came to Earth to enter the whole of human experience. Christian theology is quite different. The reason that Jesus came was quite different. In Jewish thought, humanity had fallen from paradise through disobedience. Throughout their history, it was shown that even their greatest prophets and kings eventually fell into disobedience, and along with their fall, the Jewish nation also fell.
At the first fall, God promised an offspring that would crush the head of the serpent. The serpent was the source of the deception that lead to their disobedience. So how would this promised offspring accomplish this crushing?
Christian thought is that Jesus accomplished this through perfect obedience to the will of the Father, the will of God. At the outset of Jesus' public ministry, he spends forty days in the desert, and he is tempted by the devil (who is said to be the serpent). He is tested in three ways. He is tempted to eat, by changing stone to bread, to satisfy his hunger (or to address a fear of death). He is tempted with power, to rule over all the kingdoms of the earth. He is tempted with putting God to the test by leaping from a great height, with the expectation that God would save him. These temptations did not stop throughout the course of his ministry.
Jesus was believed to be the messiah, and the vast majority of Jews expected that messiah to be a revolutionist, and leader who would free them from Roman rule. He was repeatedly pressured to show himself to be this kind of king. Herod asked during his interrogation if he was a king. The inscription posted on the cross over his head at his crucifixion read "Jesus, the Nazarene, King of the Jews." It was a taunt. The serpent had offered him rulership over the world, Jesus refused, and right to his death it was thrown in his face. An insult, but always a subtle offer, so as to say, "remember what I offered, submit to me and I can still grant it."
During Jesus public ministry, his teachings were constantly put to the test by the Jewish leaders. It wasn't just an attack for him to prove himself, though. In Jewish history, prophets were always given messages from God to give to his people. False prophets held messages from false gods, or demons. This public testing was to put the source of Jesus' message to the test, "make your god prove himself." Even to his death, Jesus was asked to prove. While he was hanging on the cross, people taunted him saying that he had saved others but couldn't save himself.
The bread symbolism was used throughout Jesus' ministry. He often spoke of "true bread," meaning bread that fed the spirit, and not just the body. It was the bread that "gives life," meaning life to the spirit, rather than simply bodily life. And when Jesus bodily life was put to the deepest risk, he held fast to the tenet that spiritual life, which is found in obedience to the will of God, is more important, greater than bodily life. He died bodily in order to hold to his spiritual integrity, in obedience to the Father.
Jesus' mission was to redeem mankind, and the temptations of Christ were designed to lead him from that mission. Since the fall came through disobedience, the redemption came through obedience. Since the consequence of sin was suffering and death, the acceptance of these consequences to their fullest extents was the method of the offense repayment. Thus the temptations consist in this: Christ came to defeat (spiritual) death and give (spiritual) life back to mankind, so Satan tempted him with (bodily) food; Christ came to return mankind to God's kingdom (family), so Satan offered him all the kingdoms of the earth; Christ came to prove humanity to God, so Satan tempted him to prove God to man.
And for any of this to have meaning to humanity, Jesus had to be human.
Perhaps an invisible man got some spermatazoa on his hands and then touched a womans womb.