On 3 Feb, 22:22, Alan Wostenberg <[email protected]> wrote: > ""As the level of education rises, the number of people who believe in > materially impossible tales such as... literal resurrection of the > dead; and the Virgin Birth diminishes. ". But since the dead shall > rise, and the Virgin Birth did happen, obviously these things are / > not/ impossible, and it is /not/ a mark of education to say they did > not, or cannot, happen. The "education rises" statement does show that > the schools are good at turning believers into atheists, but this is > only education if what it passes on is /true/. > > PS: why is a virgin birth "materially impossible"? I would think with > modern in-vitro fertilization and cesarian birth that biological > virgins giving birth is physically possible, and quite possibly > factual. >
Virgin Birth, i.e., parthenogenesis, is common amongst many species of insects and arthropods and even Komodo dragons. In humans, though, it's not the usual, shall we say. But, how anyone can say what, exactly, happened 2000 years ago (for or against) with Mary is going to come down to faith. There is no proof that it happened or that it didn't. We have accounts that it did. We have no accounts that it did not. One might think, from that, that all reports are for the event, then, and that any against are wishful thinking by those who refuse to believe that rare events can occur. Of course, those who wish to be known as 'faithless' will offer no explanation other than 'madness' or 'tales of the ancients'. But the faithless don't really care about things like that; they should be quite happy with the FACT that parthenogenesis is NOT an unheard of occurence in the animal kingdom and that, rare events occur. The truth? Find out when your account is taken up at the end of time. Until then, either have faith or don't; the risk is only your own... PS Apologies to Ian if he finds the above didactic. ;-) > On Feb 3, 11:29 am, Chris Jenkins <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > >http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/spirited_atheist/2010/02/a... > > > I thought this was a very interesting and informative read, which did a good > > job of dispelling some of the pervasive untruths and misperceptions > > regarding the faithless. Thoughts?- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en.
