Xtian Assumptions

[Griffin NoName]

...there is an attempted vaginal inspection of Mary to check her virginity after the birth of Christ

?

After the birth?  There would be no "evidence" after the birth. Shutting the stable door comes to mind. If only the Magii had not turned up so late LoL.

[Swatopluk]

Well, the 'evidence' is that the hymen is still intact despite the birth having taken place.
I wonder, if the placenta too beamed out instead of going through the proper channel.
Or did fetus Jesus not need one? If so, why did he need Mary?
There are no less than 11 'genuine' foreskins of Jesus worshipped in different places. But where are the holy afterbirth and the holy umbilical cord?

[Opsa]

OMGE (O My Great Everything, as we Toadfish sometimes say here), don't get me started on the whole vaginal inspection thing, what with all this republican talk of having girls inspected before they can get an abortion. There's some really creepy carp going on right now here in the U.S. with this election.

I will say I admire Roland's comment:

""The same is true when dealing with loss and bereavement, especially of a child. They think they're saying something nice, such as "God will look after her in Heaven" or "God has a plan for us all" (does that last one negate free will?), when what they really mean is, "I have no idea what to say, so i'll use the same tired old platitudes in the hope that you agree with me". It may not be meant to offend, but it's definitely a "them and us" attitude."

I'm glad you're here.

I too read all I could about the gospel of Judas when it came out, and thought it was wonderful. I loved the stuff that implied that Jesus really hated prosthelytizing and would not have approved of any religion based on him.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There is no positive way to prove anything, you would require:

• Genetic tests to both mother and child to prove both are related.
• Documented (photographs/video) inspection pre and post partum of said virginity.
• Video evidence of live birth proving that the child came out of the mother.

The only plausible explanations of virginity before birth would be genital rubbing or more unlikely, in vitro fertilization. The only way to remain virgin after pregnancy would be a C section but at the time the likelihood of a) have the procedure done, and b) surviving it would be incredibly small.

[Griffin NoName]

The only plausible explanations of virginity before birth would be genital rubbing or more unlikely, in vitro fertilization. The only way to remain virgin after pregnancy would be a C section but at the time the likelihood of a) have the procedure done, and b) surviving it would be incredibly small.

Caesarian?  Um... Caesar.... Um Roman..... presume they worked ok and people survived them. No?

Perhaps Jesus came out of Mary's tummy button?

[Swatopluk]

You misunderstand. Baby Jesus turned into a ray of light, went out of Mary, and rematerialized.
That still does not answer the question about the placenta and umbilical cord. And what about the amnion? Did it stay intact too or did the whole package undergo the beaming process (and Jesus appeared in a bubble with attached life support system)? Btw, a baby born still covered by the amnion is considered a Lucky Kid.

Of course Jesus could have been the result of true parthenogenesis. This would only presume that he was a girl and kept it secret to the very end (so those that believe that the guy at the cross was actually someone else could be right). As for DNA testing, that has been debated fiercely. Depending on whom you ask, Jesus either had none, it was single-stranded, 100% Mary, 50% Mary 50% Joseph, 50% Mary 50% someone else, 50% Mary 50% King David, 100% non-Mary (she was only the vessel)....
And then there is that theory about 4 guys looking for the plot of a bestseller hiring a guy named Gabriel to rape that poor underage girl and blackmailing her geezer husband into silence in exchange for parts of the royalties.

[Bluenose]

Caesarian?  Um... Caesar.... Um Roman..... presume they worked ok and people survived them. No?

No.  If I remember my Roman history correctly Ceasar's mother actually died in childbirth and so Ceasar was then cut out of her belly with a sword.  Great for Ceasar, not so good for his mum...

[Swatopluk]

The most notorious Caesarean takes place off-stage (actually before the play) in Macbeth and that's Middle Ages. It is not said, whether the mother survived

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

According to wiki:

Caesarean section usually resulted in the death of the mother; the first recorded incidence of a woman surviving a Caesarean section was in the 1580s, in Siegershausen, Switzerland: Jakob Nufer, a pig gelder, is supposed to have performed the operation on his wife after a prolonged labour.[20] However, there is some basis for supposing that women regularly survived the operation in Roman times.[21] For most of the time since the sixteenth century, the procedure had a high mortality rate. However, it was long considered an extreme measure, performed only when the mother was already dead or considered to be beyond help. In Great Britain and Ireland the mortality rate in 1865 was 85%.

Apparently there was a cesarean like procedure in the Talmud sadly the article provides no details, but in the abstract of the source it mentions that it was regularly performed when the mother died. The wiki article also has this:

European travelers in the Great Lakes region of Africa during the 19th century observed Caesarean sections being performed on a regular basis.[22] The expectant mother was normally anesthetized with alcohol, and herbal mixtures were used to encourage healing. From the well-developed nature of the procedures employed, European observers concluded that they had been employed for some time.

Perhaps one of the magi came from the environs of lake Victoria?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Back to why the sad drug-book "Revelations of John" was included topic.

My current working theory is this-- Constantine needed a quick and dirty way to pacify the peasants of his empire.

If you study the traditional NT, there is scant mention of Jesus being the sole and exclusive method to heaven, in fact, there are a couple of implications that he's not--anyone walking the good walk, fighting the good fight would qualify (the old if they aren't against us, they are with us shtick).  

But along comes Revelations, with it's exclusively Jesus Only clause.   Justifying Constantine's later tactic of force-converting peasants to his newly minted religion.

So in it goes.

I'd say, without Contantine's little committee and his later pogrom of convert-or-die (many chose to die) 'christianity' would have dwindled to nothing like all the other cults of that day.

And modern society would still have access to the fantastic thoughts of the most ancient of philosophers--

-- we'd no doubt have had colonies on Mars for hundreds of years by now...

[pieces o nine]

I cannot remember which author, but somewhere on my bookshelf there is a passage where the writer starts musing on Revelation -- after having been to Patmos and waiting for the ferry to return to the mainland. Apparently, the mind-numbing boredom of the 'scenery' naturally lead to hallucinatory fantasies about getting away. Coupled with local 'herbal' and other fermented remedies, this led to the disjointed scribblings which were, alas, discovered by third parties, mistaken for Holy Writ, and preserved for posterity.

Here endeth the lesson.

[Griffin NoName]

Personally I am suspicious of the Magii bearing gifts, especially such strange ones. I posit they were illegal substances, everyone got stoned, and no one could work out where Jesus came from while they were all out it, so they opted for Mary as the only woman present. Jesus was probably dumped in the manger by some teenager prostitute getting rid of him. All makes much more sense.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Jesus was an adopted son of a wh....! That would make waaay more sense and would explain why he was so tolerant with working girls!

[Roland Deschain]

I'm glad you're here.

I too read all I could about the gospel of Judas when it came out, and thought it was wonderful. I loved the stuff that implied that Jesus really hated prosthelytizing and would not have approved of any religion based on him.

Thanks, Opsa. It's good to be here, even if I have been absent for a little while.

As opined above, the NT is a political statement, and not necessarily a wholly religious one. We can hypothesise all we like about what could have been if Christianity wasn't adopted, but the truth is, we will never truly know (I want my damn Holodeck!).

If John really was on mushrooms, that was one hell of a trip. I took some mushrooms years ago, and all I did was giggle for an hour. Considering that I was at a rock/metal festival at the time (Download), i'm glad I didn't see all that he did. It would have made being at the front for Machine Head, Slipknot, Slayer, Archenemy, and Cradle of Filth a bit of an eye-opener, that's for sure!

I remember a while ago reading about Manna, as allegedly eaten in the desert by the Jews in Exodus, actually being a type of hallucinogenic mushroom that grows on dew pockets, or some such. Can't remember where I read it now, as it was a long time ago, but it certainly seems as if hallucinogens are part and parcel of religious experience.

[Griffin NoName]

Caesarian?  Um... Caesar.... Um Roman..... presume they worked ok and people survived them. No?

No.  If I remember my Roman history correctly Ceasar's mother actually died in childbirth and so Ceasar was then cut out of her belly with a sword.  Great for Ceasar, not so good for his mum...

Oh!! I always thought Caesar moonlighted as a surgeon