The Virgin Birth (1)
One day you're walking down your street when a good friend spots you. He waves, runs over to you and gives you some news.
His daughter, a 14-year old high school student, is pregnant. You know that she is a lovely girl, intelligent and kind. So this news of a teenage pregnancy surprises you. But not as much as the next piece of news....
Your friend announces calmly that his daughter has never had sex in her life. She does have a boyfriend, but they have never slept together and she has never slept with anyone else either. Your friend believes this and wants you to believe the story too.
So you ask "Can I talk to her about it?" He smiles and says "No. Take my word for it."
What would your reaction be?
I think you would be rightly skeptical. You would probably go home and tell your family that your friend was deluding himself - and being deceived by his daughter. You aren't even sure that she is actually claiming this for herself. Maybe you would suggest to your friend that he undertake some medical tests to check DNA. There is also a very slight chance that his daughter has been secretly involved in a surrogate pregnancy or even some human cloning trials! But, deep down, you will suspect that she is lying to her father, or her father is lying to you.
What is the point of this story? My point is this: you would be very skeptical even if your own friend told you this story today - in the 21st century. You would still be very skeptical even if you spoke to the girl concerned and she seemed sincere. You would still demand medical tests before considering other possibilities. If she told you that an invisible being had made her pregnant, you would probably call for a mental health specialist.
Now consider the Christian case. We are asked to believe an Iron Age story. The girl concerned never wrote a thing. We have no record that she even claimed anything like this for herself. If she had claimed it, we would only have hearsay evidence. As it is, we only have hearsay upon hearsay. The girl's son, Jesus, never claimed it either. Two of his biographers never claimed it, even though they wanted him to be seen as divine. The chief author of Christianity, Paul, never mentioned or claimed it. We also have good evidence that the story was added later to certain books - and we know the motive, why this was done.
The above story (if you are a Christian) should tell you something about your own mind. Because you have been brought up around parents, or other authority figures, who believed the story and taught you it as fact - it is very difficult for you to be skeptical about it. It is easy for you to be skeptical about Islam and its stories of magical winged horses; it is very difficult for you to be skeptical about magical myths from your own religion. Be aware of this problem as we move on.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Carl Sagan
The myth of the Virgin Birth is one of the weakest aspects of Christianity. It is dismissed by most Biblical scholars as simply untrue. Yet it is taught as fact to children around the world, in churches and holiday clubs, and we let it continue. In what other field of human knowledge would this be allowed? I have no objection to the tale itself being told - it is a charming tall story. But relating it as fact to young minds is abuse, akin to teaching children in geography classes that the Earth is flat.
What follows is a step by step explanation of why the myth of the Virgin Birth is clearly false.
Geoff Mather 2007
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