I couldn't overlook this little piece
in the news today, its about a billboard that went up outside a church in Auckland New Zealand, within hours of its unveiling it was defaced with brown paint. Apparently the image was chosen in order to provoke "thought", well it's certainly done that, with some saying they love it and some that it is incredibly offensive. I think it's quite funny, a human perspective, I might even nick it for a Christmas card :)
Clearly the image pokes fun at a literal interpretation of the Bible stories, and so it should, although
parthenogenesis is theoretically possible in humans (it already occurs in some other animal species) it can only lead to female offspring. Strangely we don't hear much about the "female" attributes of Jesus from his more literal fans, perhaps I'm not looking hard enough...
4 comments:
Oh I got that one going up later too! Or before Christmas anyway so...the usual, pretend you didn't already post it yourself.
E, nudge, nudge, wink, wink...
Hi Steve
(a) You're not trying hard enough! http://www.marykassian.com/archives/362
(b) There's no scientific or attempted-scientific explanation for the Virgin birth. You're right, parthenogenesis could only produce a female. So a purely scientific explanation would require parthenogenesis followed by the expression of male rather than female sexual characteristics. Seems pretty unlikely. Probably less likely than a miracle...
(c) It's also a miracle that actually doesn't make much difference one way or another to the rest of the story. A lot of Christians regard the Virgin Birth story as symbolic rather than historical narrative. I don't, but I can't get too excited over it.
(d) Nobody, as in nobody, believes God actually had sex with Mary. After all, making one human egg think it's been fertilized by one sperm is a pretty tiny miracle in the great scheme of things. And although there's potential for plenty of dodgy puns, I don't think this is the time or the place...
(e) The advert seems to have been intended by a group of liberal Christians with the main intention of upsetting a group of less-liberal Christians. Which calls a certain amount of question on the concept of "liberal", and also begs the question why they're not busier trying to share the good news of God with Us, rather than just annoying their Christian neighbours. Still, I spend a lot of my time upsetting fundamentalists so I can't complain too much.
Happy Christmas!
Gary
G, thanks for the link, I can always rely on you to fill the gaps in my knowledge! :)
I find it amazing sometimes what people actually turn out to believe (or not); for a lot of people it seems so much easier to be "fundamentalist" in the sense of literalism than actually stop and think about it; it cuts both ways, "Daily Mail" style science reporting is followed and regurgitated by so many people (I had this debate with someone in the office the other day) - anything other than a superficial understanding of practically anything seems to be the pervasive state of mind these days. I guess it's an attribute of modern (sound bite) life, but now I'm starting to sound like a pedantic old git so I'll change the subject..
Happy Christmas to you to.
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