I think that is not about language, but about level of reasoning --or, perhaps, how deeply you want to think about it. Your take on Christianity seems too shallow and simplistic (no offense meant). As such it does not ring true with me.
You see what Religion creates? arguments, pointless threads debating some stupid book that was written a long time ago when nothing could be disproved. It's ridiculous. George Carlin explains it nicely.
No, its just I am no good at trying to explain how I think about this stuff or whatever so it doesnt give a proper image of how I believe. I've never questioned what I believe anyways and I dont think I need to. But im not just some sheep following the others. If that makes sense.......
To those that say Mary was not a virgin, what then? It was not immaculate conception? Is Jesus not the son of God? So who is his daddy? Relix? Or did God come down and pay Mary a visit? Someone else perhaps? Joeseph? So is Jesus just meant to be a symbol? What's the friggen story? And on what verse of the bible would we find this information? Reference please? Hopefully these questions aren't too "simple", i could crack out theasaurus.com and rephrase the questions using words with as many syllables as i can find and even throw in a few unheard of ones in there, but i cbf doing that so tough.
Those questions could be remarkably simple to answer; They probably never existed in the first place. I am norwegian, and we've got plenty of myths that follow pretty much the same basic layout as christendom (though perhaps with a bit more fornication thrown into the mix). We have our gods, our virgins (that are not really virgins), magical goats and great banquets for armies of vikings made from the meat of one pig (and one horn of mead). Immaculate conception (virgin birth) is an impossibility - it can not be achieved by way of extremely high amounts of mitochlorids (or however you spell that), nor is it possible by being magically tele-impregnated by a non-existent god. Taking a book that was written two thousand years ago by middle-eastern goat-herders and trying to apply it to the modern world is nothing less than absurd! Yes, jesus probably was just intended to be a symbol, invented by the christian underground whilst trying to get a leg up on the romans, the jews, the muslims or whoever. As far as I can see the bible disproves itself quite effectively more or less continuously throughout the entire collection of books. - rabbits chewing cud - insects having four legs - bats being birds - snakes eating dust - god making several promises (and quite a few threats) but not keeping them - the impossiblity of stuffing all the worlds animals onto a single boat, with enough provisions to keep them all satisfied for 40 days. Not to mention enough room to move around, exercise (and probably a few extra specimen of the herbivores so that the carnivores could have at them whilst still hopefully have two individuals of either sex at journey's end). - Noah living for 950 years (or was that 930? ... ah, no matter; what's 20 years after all?). - ... and so on. I could go on, but I think I'll finish with this: it's all just ... ridiculous.
Also much like your mythology Roman and Greek have similar patterns to Christianity or rather Christianity follows their patters both are much older since the bible wasn't written till years after his death.
Jouorneyer covered some of the bases, particularly the remarkable similarities between the story of Jesus and various other legends around the world (the Norse ones, as he points out, featuring human sacrifice to the father-god Odin by being hung from a tree and subsequent resurrection). Archetypes are like that... There are however plenty of independent historical records to suggest that a prophet called Jesus did indeed exist. At the time of his birth, people being people, it was not uncommon for young naive girls to fall pregnant --so common in fact that the Jews developed the pragmatic view that the Jewish blood-line went throuhg the mother. Pregnancy out of wedlock would be quite an embarrassment to the family honour and the standard custom was to marry them off as quickly as possible, either to the (suspected) father, or to a suitable candidate who would find it hard to find a wife otherwise. It is postulated that by the time Joseph was hooked up with Mary, he was already getting on a bit and unlikely to find a youthful wife otherwise. Would a young girl, suddenly confronted with the shame of being caught pregnant make up a story of how an angel visited her to announce she was to give birth to the Messias? It would have been a risky (not to say crazy) strategy, with, as it turns out, far-reaching consequences for her son. What little we know of Mary suggests that she was a sensible (if long-suffering) mother not given to such extremes. More likely, the story was like this: Mary is caught pregnant, as young girls sometimes are. To spare her family the embarrassment she is married off to a distant older cousin, a dependable craftsman who never married (possibly a bit lacking in social skills). She gives birth to Jesus, a boy who turns out to be uncommonly bright and inquisitive in matters of philosophy and who challenges the clergy at the temples in debate from a early age (at that young age, it was still regarded as cute. They should not have encouraged him). As he grew from teenage into early adulthood he saw more and more things wrong with society, and the religious dogma under which it lived. Perhaps there was something personal in there, about his mother's stigma of being pregnant out of wedlock, and he himself being regarded as a ******* child, not really his father's. We don't know what relationship Jesus had with Joseph --I suspect he was a mother's child. Jesus becomes a prophet. Again, not too uncommon in his days, but as I said, he is a bright and insightful chap (and particularly emancipated for his time --again his mother's influence) and what he says resonates with the people. the rest is history. The miracles are just exaggeration: people hyping up their accounts to each other. But that doesn't matter anyway: Jesus himself would be the first to say not to pay attention to the miracles, but to his message.
I've always wanted to see a Jesus Miracle blooper reel or something. Blows a guys kidney though his back or something like that. It'd make my day to know that, even with all the stories, he isn't as perfect as people like to think.
I've heard stories such as what you wrote a few posts up Nexxo, which is basically the more logical & believable version of events, but this story isn't christianity. I would like to see someone dare to walk into a christian church, get up on the altar, and tell the clergy how Mary was not a virgin So what religion is this story?
Sounds more like a skeptic's version of Occam's Razor. The simple statement I will interject here, is that we are not dealing with centuries before the NT was set down. Thirty years to 60 years, which means that at the publication of many of these texts, people would have still been alive that would have been witness to the events, and any fabrication would have been discredited. Remember the oral traditions of the time... The accounts that have the "out of character" actions of Jesus as the four Gospels present are often 100, 150, or more years extant. Well long enough for things to develop. But if you write a falsehood, and someone steps up and says, "I worked with Joseph, I knew his boy-that's not true!" that's gonna be a stoning. Possibly quite literally. What I find from many in this thread is good old atheist dogmatism-there's simply no god out there, or no God, as it were, and I can't let you persist in believing there are. Then they list atrocities perpetrated by religion (while effectively avoiding subjects as the the atheist Hitler and Mao) and point the finger at the least educated and denounce all as religious extremists. Nexxo is a great voice of reason, but I think even he is kinda playing to that side. Fair enough, as those are his beliefs. I expect nothing less, and I'm not offended in any way that it shades his statements, because that is his belief. We are working in a realm of intangibles, you know. I will never be able to do a repeatable test that says that Mary was a virgin (though believe me, that statement back then was a lot more serious than it is now) or that Jesus walked on water. What I can do is examine the evidence based on accredited archaeological principles, as well as using medical testimony (Luke was a physician), corroborated testimony (Josephus and others) and say that something unique happened, and the story was set down fast enough that myth really didn't have a chance to set in. Do I believe it could have happened just as I said it? Sure I do. I know enough of quantum physics to know the rules just aren't rules. They're guidelines. Pretty strict ones, but there are exceptions for almost everything. And if all we can call some things are "quantum instabilities" or "quantum improbabilities", that leaves me enough room for the thumbprint of a smirking, mirthful God, dropping a wink and saying "It's our little secret..." I can debate all day if I didn't have to work, and I can start addressing things if people really want me to (that theology degree isn't for just show...) but I think that's not really what people want. I think some people just want to poke fun at the Christians, some want to poke the atheists back, and everybody's kicking each other with knee-jerk statements. And remember, the unexamined faith is not worth having.
Occam's Razor always is. I'm not playing to any side but my own. I believe that religion is an inevitable emergent product of human thinking and that you can't (or should) "ban" it any more than you can ban our thoughts and feelings. I believe that spirituality and philosophy are important to our existence. I believe that you can't go around dictating to people what they should and should not believe --even when you're a scientist (especially when you're a scientist). It makes you no better than the fundies you rail against. I believe that what Jesus said and how he lived is much, much more important than whether or not he performed miracles. The medium is not the message. I also believe that religion, in the end, makes no difference to whether we are good or bad people. In that regard, I consider the score chart of Evil Deeds between the religious and atheist teams well and truly even. I certainly don't subscribe to simplistic reasoning that acknowledging God is more important than how you treat your fellow human. In forum discussions the tone of a thread inevitably swings back and forth as different people, well, contribute at different levels. But feel free to chip in and keep it balanced.
How does one gather archaeological evidence that Mary's hymen wasnt broken, or that some guys feet didn't break the surface of water? Do you really think both Josephus and Luke would have most definitely written unbiased, objective accounts of what they'd seen? Thats like saying if two supporters of a football team agree that one of their players wasn't offside then it must be true. So jesus could manipulate matter on the sub-atomic scale, much like that guy from heroes who went nuclear? wtf?