Why God chose a virgin to became flesh?

a reply to: OrphanApology

There is another possibility as well. The whole "virgin" birth thing was made up after the fact to shoehorn the Jesus narrative into fulfilling prophecy from the OT.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I would agree IF the Jesus narrative wasn't such a ripoff of older myths that already had the virgin birth aspect in the story.

So in that sense I don't think that the virgin thing was added just to make it work with the OT.

a reply to: Wifibrains

The Virgin Mary symbolizes Earth, Earth was a "virgin" when it brought forth the first life. There was no sexual intercourse involved in life being created on Earth. Mary Magdalene is said to be a prostitute or whore, is it just a coincidence that Mary and Mary share the same name? I don't think so.

Mother Mary represents Earth before the "fall", Mary Magdalene represents Earth after the "fall". What happened at the fall? Lucifer desired too much and dragged everyone down to hell with him. Lucifer means "light bearer", we as humans are bearers of light so Lucifer symbolizes those of us who desire wealth and fortune, those who run/ruin the world.

What happens every time a forest is cut down or oil is extracted and then fracked? Earth willingly gives herself up without a fight, hence Mother Mary being turned into Mary Magdalene or the "whore of Babylon", the one who gives herself up to the attackers without a fight.

Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene symbolize a dichotomy created by man. And yes, Jesus did have "children" with Mary Magdalene, they're called the church and all of its denominations, they are the spawn of the whore, a world that gives herself up willingly. The church it's a direct result of our "raping" of the Earth, they are the ones who allow it to happen. Why? Because this isn't heaven, heaven comes AFTER this life, so why worry about Mother nature?

originally posted by: Abednego

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: Abednego

Well, lots of "saviors" have been born from a virgin, Jesus wasn't the only one, only the latest.

In my opinion it symbolizes how life began. How is the first life form created without a father to fertilize an egg? How did the first life-form become the "first" without parents? Well, God's Spirit was "implanted" into a virgin body. Since this was the first life-form, it has no biological father, but it was "born" from the "virgin" Mother Earth. It's allegory for how life began.

It's all symbolism, not literal history.

Great answer. I love it.

What about the aspect of being a sinner? We are born sinners. How about God waited for thousand of years for the perfect human capable of withstanding His presence?

Two things to the above posts.
I also believe that the bible uses metaphors, it has to really otherwise there would still be miraculous miracles happen today. However I have met many christians that believe the words as literal, which brings up so many contradictions that I don't want to get into right now.

As to the sinner part, I have a crazy theory. It's just a thought game. I was thinking recently how I don't like kids very much. Some are cool but mostly I can't shake off the knowledge that any kid I see could grow up to be a wifebeater, a rapist or just a bad egg altogether or of course a scientist or just a regular person.
It's as if I have taken the red pill and can't unsee the adult in a kid.

Then I thought but kids are innocent, aren't they?

Well yes and no. They are certainly born innocent but some just have bad genes [I have a relative who grew up in a loving close family with her stepdad who she always loved and seen as her real father. Whilst her biological father was a loser in all senses of the word. Now she behaves just like him, for no other reason than genes.

I know that a lot of behaviour is learned but we all have a building plan that includes cells in the brain and how it will be constructed. Which influences the production of neuro chemicals, which influence our behaviour.

To cut a long story short. What if the original sin is our genetic material?

This also leads to the idea that a lot in the bible could be a metaphor for 'alien' [not necessarily ET, could even be first humanoids -- made in god's image!] insaminations [Mary], DNA extraction [Eve 'made' from Adam's rib] and whatever else you can come up with.

So yeah, what if original sin is our DNA?

Just a thought.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Oh my God! The Lord of the Rings said the ring would be destroyed, and it actually DID get destroyed in the same exact book! It must have been a prophecy from Iluvatar!

This is the same kind of logic used by Christians to verify the bibles legitimacy. Pretty illogical if you ask me.

Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke already had the material to work from, they created a story around the material already present.

originally posted by: Hecate666

originally posted by: Abednego

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: Abednego

Well, lots of "saviors" have been born from a virgin, Jesus wasn't the only one, only the latest.

In my opinion it symbolizes how life began. How is the first life form created without a father to fertilize an egg? How did the first life-form become the "first" without parents? Well, God's Spirit was "implanted" into a virgin body. Since this was the first life-form, it has no biological father, but it was "born" from the "virgin" Mother Earth. It's allegory for how life began.

It's all symbolism, not literal history.

Great answer. I love it.

What about the aspect of being a sinner? We are born sinners. How about God waited for thousand of years for the perfect human capable of withstanding His presence?

Two things to the above posts.
I also believe that the bible uses metaphors, it has to really otherwise there would still be miraculous miracles happen today. However I have met many christians that believe the words as literal, which brings up so many contradictions that I don't want to get into right now.

As to the sinner part, I have a crazy theory. It's just a thought game. I was thinking recently how I don't like kids very much. Some are cool but mostly I can't shake off the knowledge that any kid I see could grow up to be a wifebeater, a rapist or just a bad egg altogether or of course a scientist or just a regular person.
It's as if I have taken the red pill and can't unsee the adult in a kid.

Then I thought but kids are innocent, aren't they?

Well yes and no. They are certainly born innocent but some just have bad genes [I have a relative who grew up in a loving close family with her stepdad who she always loved and seen as her real father. Whilst her biological father was a loser in all senses of the word. Now she behaves just like him, for no other reason than genes.

I know that a lot of behaviour is learned but we all have a building plan that includes cells in the brain and how it will be constructed. Which influences the production of neuro chemicals, which influence our behaviour.

To cut a long story short. What if the original sin is our genetic material?

This also leads to the idea that a lot in the bible could be a metaphor for 'alien' [not necessarily ET, could even be first humanoids -- made in god's image!] insaminations [Mary], DNA extraction [Eve 'made' from Adam's rib] and whatever else you can come up with.

So yeah, what if original sin is our DNA?

Just a thought.

Interesting reasoning.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Lucifer means "light bearer", we as humans are bearers of light so Lucifer symbolizes those of us who desire wealth and fortune, those who run/ruin the world.

The church it's a direct result of our "raping" of the Earth, they are the ones who allow it to happen. Why? Because this isn't heaven, heaven comes AFTER this life, so why worry about Mother nature?

**GRAPHIC LANGUAGE and METAPHOR**

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Abednego

If you are not going to contribute or saying anything of value that could add to the debate, please leave. Thank you.

Exactly my point. You want to divide people up."Please leave'" just bears that out. This isn't your thread by the way, its a thread you started on ATS.

If you read all the posts on this thread, you will notice that nobody is trolling against the bible, or religion, they are not even making any dividing comments.
They are posting in a very respectful manner.

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

I always thought Virgin was actually translated as "Pure"...

Actually its a purposeful mistranslation...

It means Young lady, or maiden... but can also be translated as virgin...

the question is which is more likely to be the truth

a reply to: OrphanApology

That may be the case, but there really IS a prophecy in the OT that the chosen one will be born of a virgin (depends on how you interpret that verse really). It's not like the writers of the gospels got that from somewhere else.

Keep in mind that the whole Jesus birth account is only in two of the four gospels (Matthew and Luke). Also, it should be noted that all the gospels were written decades after Jesus was already born and most likely after he was already dead.

Matthew: 37 to 100 ad/ce
Mark: 40 to 73 ad/ce
Luke: 50 to 100 ad/ce
John: 65 to 100 ad/ce

Many reasons have been given for these dates, from one end of the spectrum to the other, the earliest dates being based on the events recounted in the gospels themselves. The later dates are based also on this timeframe, but the difference is that they account for the mention of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, which occurred in 70 ad/ce. According to this scholarship, the gospels must have been written after the devastation because they refer to it. However, conservative believers maintain the early dates and assert that the destruction of the temple and Judea mentioned in the gospels constitutes "prophecy," demonstrating Jesus's divine powers. The substantiation for this early, first-century range of dates, both conservative and liberal, is internal only, as there is no external evidence, whether historical or archaeological, for the existence of any gospels at that time. Nevertheless, fundamentalist Christian apologists such as Norman Geisler make misleading assertions such as that "many of the original manuscripts date from within twenty to thirty years of the events in Jesus' life, that is, from contemporaries and eyewitnesses."[2] Scrutinizing the evidence forensically, however, it is impossible honestly to make such a conclusion.

It should also be noted that NONE of Jesus' disciples were present at his birth. So the whole birth story is a secondhand account from either Jesus, Mary, or both (it may even be a collaboration between Luke and Matthew and they invented the story themselves, but that may be unlikely since there are some glaring contradictions between the two birth accounts). If Jesus told the story, there is no way he could have substantiated the claim that Mary was a virgin during the birth (since Jesus was being born at the time and could not have witnessed the conception). This means that the gospel accounts could even be THIRD hand accounts of the story. The only person who would know for sure is Mary, the mother, but she didn't write a gospel.

This is why I feel like Luke and Matthew were trying to retroactively create a story that Jesus fulfills prophecy so their claim that he is the chosen one makes more sense. Keep in mind, this prophecy appears in Isaiah 7:14 an Old Testament book. Isaiah is really three books, but this prophecy is located in the first book, and that was written in the 8th century BCE. I think it is more likely that Isaiah was stealing religious concepts from other religions to create his idea of the "chosen one" than Luke or Matthew doing it.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The only person who would know for sure is Mary, the mother, but she didn't write a gospel.

Well...

it is actually thought by a good portion of the Christian world that Luke was mostly the words of mary...

a reply to: Akragon

First I've heard of this. Source? And as an ex-Catholic I'm pretty sure that THEY don't believe this seeing how Catholics treat women and all.

a reply to: Akragon

That might explain why Luke's gospel mentions more women than all other gospels combined.

I personally believe that Luke was an enlightened (Luke means light) individual who was forced to write and lie about Jesus, which is why (in my opinion) he left clues in his work that point toward corruption. He was only a pawn in Rome's chess game.

Plutarch's Parable

This link was VERY enlightening to me personally. It's a long read but well worth it. It presents a pretty convincing case that Luke was actually the Roman historian Plutarch.

Plutarch's Roman name was Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus. Lucius is the Latin equivalent of Luke and they each share many similarities in their works.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Interesting.

I will have to think about this post for a bit and come back.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Akragon

First I've heard of this. Source? And as an ex-Catholic I'm pretty sure that THEY don't believe this seeing how Catholics treat women and all.

Well I don't have a source... Its just obvious really, though im sure if you did a quick google search you could find a source or two... I know they teach it at seminary in many places...

Luke 1
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,

2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;

Luke interviews as many people as he could to get the story about Jesus... he wasn't an eyewitness to his life... and the most obvious person to interview would have been the person who knew him best... His mother, and his companions...

a reply to: Akragon

That is a little different than what you originally claimed. Your original claim comes across that Luke was really a pseudonym for Mary; though I could have read your words wrong if that isn't what you meant. I'm not against the idea that Luke interviewed Mary when writing his gospel, but the gospel certainly isn't her direct words (except for the few quotes interspersed therein).

Keep in mind, that this being the case still doesn't discount the hypothesis that I set forth that Luke and Matthew were retroactively having Jesus fulfill prophecy from the OT. Heck, Mary could have been in on it.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Akragon

That is a little different than what you originally claimed. Your original claim comes across that Luke was really a pseudonym for Mary; though I could have read your words wrong if that isn't what you meant. I'm not against the idea that Luke interviewed Mary when writing his gospel, but the gospel certainly isn't her direct words (except for the few quotes interspersed therein).

Keep in mind, that this being the case still doesn't discount the hypothesis that I set forth that Luke and Matthew were retroactively having Jesus fulfill prophecy from the OT. Heck, Mary could have been in on it.

I didn't say Luke was a pseudonym for mary... I said Luke interviewed mary...

Most of the Christian world believes Luke's gospel mostly came from mary because she was the person who knew him best... Her and the followers of Jesus that remained when luke came into the picture

Keep in mind, that this being the case still doesn't discount the hypothesis that I set forth that Luke and Matthew were retroactively having Jesus fulfill prophecy from the OT. Heck, Mary could have been in on it.

Actually I have no issue with that theory at all... I completely believe the writers of the gospels were trying to give their own "proofs" that Jesus was messiah... and made every attempt to tie him into prophecy...

John even goes so far as to change the date of this execution to suit prophecy, making him the jewish "sacrificial lamb" of Passover

There are a lot of stories in the Bible that could be related to virgin birth or "miracle" conception.
1. Sara (Abraham's wife) - She conceived of old age.
2. Moses - The Pharaoh's daughter, took Moses as her son. (try to explain that to the people)
3. Rebekah - Isaac's wife. She had twins, Jacob and Esau.
John the Baptist and Jesus are the latest ones.

a reply to: Akragon

Yeah then it was probably just a reading error on my part. I was just saying that was how I read it is all.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

What happens every time a forest is cut down or oil is extracted and then fracked? Earth willingly gives herself up without a fight, hence Mother Mary being turned into Mary Magdalene or the "whore of Babylon", the one who gives herself up to the attackers without a fight.

That is a bit harsh, maybe as mother she is capable of unconditional love?

Even when that love is not mutual.



Most would be innocent unwitting participants if what you say is the case, but none the less, they still help those that do know to accomplish their means. Whatever that may be.