I can’t resist a little bit of fun with two Christian responses to psychologist Eric Sprankle’s ribbing of the Virgin Mary story:
“The virgin birth story is about an all-knowing, all-powerful deity impregnating a human teen. There is no definition of consent that would include that scenario. Happy Holidays.”
He added: “The biblical god regularly punished disobedience. The power difference (deity vs mortal) and the potential for violence for saying ‘no’ negates her ‘yes.’ To put someone in this position is an unethical abuse of power at best and grossly predatory at worst.”
Jim West is the first to come to the defence of God and add the power of a Church and Academic authority against Mary:
But what the imbecile ignores is that Mary does in fact give consent to the operation of the Holy Spirit:
Mary said, ‘You see before you the Lord’s servant, let it happen to me as you have said.’ And the angel left her. (Lk. 1:38)
Then Holly Scheer marshals the altright media against Mary:
First, this is ridiculously offensive for anyone who has ever actually picked up a Bible and read the accounts of the angel telling Mary about Jesus and His birth. She knew, okay?
If people bother to look over Luke 1:30-33 in the Bible, they’d see that Mary was told about God’s plans for her, and she agreed to them: “And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.’”
Sprankle misses the following, extremely important verse. Mary understands the words of the angel, and, moreover, agrees to his plan: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
This isn’t some weird, spiritual rape, but one of the greatest honors recorded in the Christian Bible. Mary is chosen, from all women, in all time, across all nations, and all centuries to bear God himself in her own body. This wasn’t a punishment, an act of power or pain, but an honor, a blessing, and something that Mary rejoiced in.
So there! It’s as simple as that. If the victim is so overawed by the power of the man that she gives her verbal assent in the turmoil of the moment then that’s a secure defence and the man is given a free pass. The church will try to console Mary by reassuring her that every right-thinking teenage girl in the world would give her consent to such a famous rock star or powerful ceo or president, or even god himself.
Neil Godfrey
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It’s funny how few people simply acknowledged that the whole story is made up and never happened at all.
There is much that is not understood in this story. Those who wrote this story changed it completely from the original knowledge of how Mary was to conceive an advanced soul, telling a story about a god who impregnated a teenager via his Holy Spirit instead. They wanted to have their own white savior, not the African man who was the healer and messenger for his people whose name was Yahya Yohanna (John the Baptist). So, they changed John’s name to Jesus. John was a savior soul according to the Nazarite understanding. He was not the only savior soul. Thousands of savior souls come and go on this planet. They help people to understand a more advanced life. They are older souls. John was born into the Nazarite tribe. The Nazarites were diviners. They knew John was coming, they knew his past lifetimes on this world, they knew what he would accomplish in his lifetime, they knew that he would not be successful in his lifetime but that it was a preparatory lifetime for a future time. They knew that he wasn’t immaculately conceived by a god, but that he came through the womb just like other child born into this world — a man and woman get together and have sex! The Nazarites believed in reincarnation. They knew that we don’t live one life like the Church wants us to believe. Of course Mary would consent to this knowledge brought to her by an angel (it was really knowledge given to her by a diviner). She was thrilled that she could help this soul reincarnate. But it wasn’t “God” that made this happen. Souls continually come and go on this world. They are born into a physical body that lives, learns, dies and pass over to the spirit side, called holy. Nobody really dies. Nothing dies. We are already eternal. We don’t have to be believers or have faith to be eternal. That’s just life.
You really should read ‘Ancient Egypt Light of the World’ by Gerald Massey published 1907. You may have seen the 4 scenes in Solomon’s Temple in Luxor known usually as The Birth Scenes, but each scene is known as The Annunciation, The Conception, The Birth, and The Adoration.
The accompanying hieroglyphs have been translated and related in Massey’s book as follows:
The first scene on the left hand shows the god Taht, as divine word or logos, in the act of hailing the virgin queen and announcing to her that she is to give birth to the coming son. (That is, to bring forth the royal Repa in the character of Horus or Aten, the divine heir.)
In the second scene the ram-headed god Kneph, in conjunction with Hathor, gives life to her. This is the Holy Ghost or spirit that causes conception, Neph being the spirit by nature and by name. Impregnation and conception are apparent in the virgin’s fuller form.
Next, the mother is seated on the midwife’s stool, and the child is supported in the hands of one of the nurses.
The fourth scene is that of the Adoration. Here the infant is enthroned, receiving homage from the gods and gifts from men. Behind the deity, who represents the holy spirit, on the right three men are kneeling offering gifts with the right hand, and life with the left.
The Bible doesn’t actually say that there were 3 Wise men, that figure is assumed from the gifts, whilst the Luxor Temple scenes actually show 3 figures each one raising an arm with an offering.
Hathor was another name for the Goddess Ahst-MERI (Beloved of Ahst – Greek Isis).
The passage does not have to be understood in a literal sense.
If people bother to look over Luke 1:30-33 in the Bible,…… you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, …….. will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,……… ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.’”
In context there is no intercourse. Mary later conceived just like women have been doing since forever.
I dunno — I’d have another look at what that Holy Spirit is doing there. “Will come upon you….” mmm
The Holy Spirit will “come upon you..”……That must have been quite a load…😊
This is a wrong type of “attack” over those books. It is similar to : people evolved from apes, the earth is round and etc. Those are sayings by antitheists and not sayings that turned people to atheism.
Religious people will turn to priests for interpretations and they will get the answer, that you cannot think about god in human terms. Meaning that there is no intercourse, there is only one body in play. That’s why she is called virgin by the way.
What antitheists forget, is that the book of revelation is talking about them and it is used by priest to enforce the faith of the religious.
In the end, they are enforcing the church along with their prestige among antitheists.
Atheists do not give a … and many of them are celebrating Christmas cause they have fun with their kids.
This happened before Mary was married to Joseph. In the Jewish tradition of the time, a girl was engaged at age 12 and married on her 13th birthday. Thus Mary was impregnated at an age that she was unable by the laws of most countries today to give her consent. Since Gloria Allred, the leader of the lesbian-feminist movement has demanded that all statutes of limitations on sex crimes be abolished so she can make more money, I think that God should be charged and arrested for his crime. We live in the United States of Lesbianism now, and a heterosexual male God cannot get away with rape no matter how powerful he may claim to be. Arrest the Christian God and all Christians as rape enablers.
Gloria should go on national television and offer $100 million dollars to all women who are willing to testify that they were raped by God. This is what she did with Bill Cosby, and she got some 50 new clients that way.