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Immaculate birth of Jesus?

Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
loverofhumanity said:
We all make mistakes.

My greatest one was to be an atheist.

I once used to be stuck in atheism. It’s a stage I found one goes through on the way towards enlightenment and spiritual maturity. I was lucky in that I escaped from it and now enjoy a spiritual mind and conscience. The problem with atheism is it’s a passion that the person really thinks they are right and all religion is nonsense but once I realised how ignorant I was I’m so glad I never remained an atheist as I was dead wrong all along yet condescended and criticised everyone who believed in God or religion.

In that condition I was my own worst enemy listening to whatever my ego said. Although as an atheist I claimed not to believe in God yet I had constructed and made my ego into my own god to worship.
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It is very hard to believe these claims when you cannot make a rational argument for your beliefs. Yes, some people are happier when they embrace ignorance. Being happy does not make one right. It does make your opponent wrong. How do you deal with the rather massive flaws in Christianity? Do you merely ignore them?
 
loverofhumanity

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
Subduction Zone said:
It is very hard to believe these claims when you cannot make a rational argument for your beliefs. Yes, some people are happier when they embrace ignorance. Being happy does not make one right. It does make your opponent wrong. How do you deal with the rather massive flaws in Christianity? Do you merely ignore them?
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As to Christianity of course there are massive flaws in it called ‘priests, clergy, ministers’ who have misused and abused the teachings of Christ for their own ambitions for centuries.

But Christ taught love, forgiveness, justice, compassion and there’s no massive flaw in these things.

Teachings like love one another or forgive each are good things and it makes complete rational sense to save your money and enjoy life by respecting others instead of bombing each other out of existence and wasting billions on weapons that could be used to improve the quality of peoples lives. This is what God, religion and the Holy Books all teach but we prefer our wars don’t we?
 
Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
loverofhumanity said:
As to Christianity of course there are massive flaws in it called ‘priests, clergy, ministers’ who have misused and abused the teachings of Christ for their own ambitions for centuries.

But Christ taught love, forgiveness, justice, compassion and there’s no massive flaw in these things.

Teachings like love one another or forgive each are good things and it makes complete rational sense to save your money and enjoy life by respecting others instead of bombing each other out of existence and wasting billions on weapons that could be used to improve the quality of peoples lives. This is what God, religion and the Holy Books all teach but we prefer our wars don’t we?
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There is nothing wrong with love. But the Bible quite often does not teach love. In fact too often it teaches hate.
 
joelr

joelr

Well-Known Member
Saint Frankenstein said:
The "proof" is in the Gospels and the witness of the Church. You either accept it or don't. :shrug:

That blasphemy about Mary being raped is a smear that appears to have started with the 2nd century Greek philosopher, Celsus, in his anti-Christian polemics. It was repeated by Jews later with the Talmud and some other writings. The Talmud has a number of insults and blasphemies against Christ besides that. However, there's debate as to whether the Talmud is actually referring to the Jesus of Christianity or other people with the same name. So it depends on which Jews you're talking to there. I've come across Jewish people with either view. Either way, it's not taken seriously by scholars.

Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera - Wikipedia

Oh, and the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary's conception without original sin, not Jesus. I wish people would get that right.
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Yes that was a late invention.

Virgin births to world saviors was a myth in the Persian religion and the Israelites were exposed to it during the 2nd Temple Period, starting around 500 BCE. As did many of the NT stories and beliefs about God and satan.


"
Virgin born



An important theological development during the dark ages of 'the faith concerned the growth of beliefs about the Saoshyant or coming Saviour. Passages in the Gathas suggest that Zoroaster was filled with a sense that the end of the world was imminent, and that Ahura Mazda had entrusted him with revealed truth in order to rouse mankind for their vital part in the final struggle. Yet he must have realized that he would not himself live to see Frasho-kereti; and he seems to have taught that after him there would come 'the man who is better than a good man' (Y 43.3), the Saoshyant. The literal meaning of Saoshyant is 'one who will bring benefit' ; and it is he who will lead humanity in the last battle against evil. Zoroaster's followers, holding ardently to this expectation, came to believe that the Saoshyant will be born of the prophet's own seed, miraculously preserved in the depths of a lake (identified as Lake K;tsaoya). When the end of time approaches, it is said, a virgin will bathe in this lake and become with child by the prophet; and she will in due course bear a son, named Astvat-ereta, 'He who embodies righteousness' (after Zoroaster's own words: 'May righteousness be embodied' Y 43. r6). Despite his miraculous conception, the coming World Saviour will thus be a man, born of human parents, and so there is no betrayal, in this development of belief in the Saoshyant, of Zoroaster's own teachings about the part which mankind has to play in the great cosmic struggle. The Saoshyant is thought of as being accompanied, like kings and heroes, by Khvarenah, and it is in Yasht r 9 that the extant Avesta has most to tell of him. Khvarenah, it is said there (vv. 89, 92, 93), 'will accompany the victorious Saoshyant ... so that he may restore 9 existence .... When Astvat-ereta comes out from the Lake K;tsaoya, messenger of Mazda Ahura ... then he will drive the Drug out from the world of Asha.' This glorious moment was longed for by the faithful, and the hope of it was to be their strength and comfort in times of adversity.


Just as belief in the coming Saviour developed its element of the miraculous, so, naturally, the person of the prophet himself came to be magnified as the centuries passed. Thus in the Younger Avesta, although never divinized, Zoroaster is exalted as 'the first priest, the first warrior, the first herdsman ... master and judge of the world' (Yt 13. 89, 9 1), one at whose birth 'the waters and plants ... and all the creatures of the Good Creation rejoiced' (Y t 13.99). Angra Mainyu, it is said, fled at that moment from the earth (Yt 17. 19); but he returned to tempt the prophet in vain, with a promise of earthly power, to abjure the faith of Ahura Mazda (Vd 19 .6)


Mary Boyce, Zoroastrianism, It's Beliefs and Practices
 
Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
muhammad_isa said:
..but what and who is ignorant?
We can all be ignorant .. believer and disbeliever alike.

Our lives in a spiritual sense are a journey, and no one person can be right all the time. :D
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We are all ignorant about various topics. We cannot but help to be. The problem arises when one embraces ignorance in an important belief to one.
 
Dogknox20

Dogknox20

Well-Known Member
wellwisher said:
If a modern virgin was artificially inseminated using arthroscopic surgery would she still be a virgin?
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wellwisher I hope all is well...

I reply: she would NOT be a virgin. Also Mary remained a Virgin all her life!
Origen
“The Book [the Protoevangelium] of James [records] that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word . . . might not know intercourse with a man after the Holy Spirit came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first fruit among men of the purity which consists in [perpetual] chastity, and Mary was among women. For it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first fruit of virginity” (Commentary on Matthew 2:17 [A.D. 248]).

Hilary of Poitiers
“If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ [John 19:26–27), as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate” (Commentary on Matthew 1:4 [A.D.
 
Dogknox20

Dogknox20

Well-Known Member
GardenLady said:
This is a non-sequitur. One assertion does not follow from the other. There is no basis to conclude from the absence of a word for "cousin" that people referred to as Jesus' siblings were cousins. This argument is made to support the non-scriptural "ever-virgin" assertion that Mary never had normal marital relations with her husband.

Because the Catholic church could never venerate (excessively) a normal, sexual adult woman.
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Origen
“The Book [the Protoevangelium] of James [records] that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word . . . might not know intercourse with a man after the Holy Spirit came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first fruit among men of the purity which consists in [perpetual] chastity, and Mary was among women. For it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first fruit of virginity” (Commentary on Matthew 2:17 [A.D. 248]).

Hilary of Poitiers
“If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ [John 19:26–27), as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate” (Commentary on Matthew 1:4 [A.D.
 
muhammad_isa

muhammad_isa

Veteran Member
Subduction Zone said:
The hate in the Bible is too often against people or nations. The God of the Bible often advocates hate for poor reasons.
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I assume that you refer to the OT.
I don't assume that the OT is accurate to the letter, but overall,
it does not teach believers to be pacifists.

Almighty God does not wish believers to be overwhelmed by evil .. so that evil spreads throughout the earth.
..of course, it is, as we are approaching armageddon.

..but neither does Almighty God wish us to be of ignorant behaviour .. hence turning the other cheek .. being patient and avoiding confrontation with others where at all possible.
 
Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
muhammad_isa said:
I assume that you refer to the OT.
I don't assume that the OT is accurate to the letter, but overall,
it does not teach believers to be pacifists.

Almighty God does not wish believers to be overwhelmed by evil .. so that evil spreads throughout the earth.
..of course, it is, as we are approaching armageddon.

..but neither does Almighty God wish us to be of ignorant behaviour .. hence turning the other cheek .. being patient and avoiding confrontation with others where at all possible.
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There is hate in the New Testament as well.

They clearly are the work of men and not of a God. Or if it is the work of a God that is a very incompetent one.
 
muhammad_isa

muhammad_isa

Veteran Member
Subduction Zone said:
Where do you get your God from? There are all sorts of Gods out there.. Many people think that they worship or believe in the only one.
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"Many people" believe all sorts of things. :)

I believe that there is only One God, who created the universe and maintains it constantly. [ responsible for natural laws etc. ]

It is not that there is more than one God, it is that people believe different things about Him [ neither male or female .. no physical form ]
 
Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
muhammad_isa said:
"Many people" believe all sorts of things. :)

I believe that there is only One God, who created the universe and maintains it constantly. [ responsible for natural laws etc. ]

It is not that there is more than one God, it is that people believe different things about Him [ neither male or female .. no physical form ]
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And that is just semantics. What makes you think that you believe in the one right version? We are far afield from the topic of this thread, but I am just curious.
 
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