[Scared to post] Serious misunderstanding about the Virgin Mary...

hmmm..i don't feel particularly persecuted. it's not china where distributing bibles lands you in prison for a few years. i think there's definitely some who think less of Christians...who think they're stupid. frankly, meowgi, i've heard you say things hear that certainly sound that way. but when i think of persecution i think of Christians in other countries, primarily...and the history of the faith.

the church's biggest enemy is itself...it's own complacency and distraction. more concerned about its own comfort than about truly following Christ. refreshing when i find a church that isn't in that spot.

 

Maybe.

My father would probably of voted yes n the gay marriage issue. He is in his '60s and has probably never met an openly gay person etc. He's just old school and homophobic. But he would never hate anyone. He is a very very kind person. He's just ignorant about this. In that way he is like the KKK. I have no problem saying that.

And he would also laugh at the notion that Christians are persecuted in America. Not being able to have your way about everything and not being able to control everyone doesn't make you persecuted.

 

So because I voted yes on the issue I'm ignorant now? Wow, I'm sure glad I don't have to put up with idiocy like this everyday, good thing I'm not persecuted for my beliefs by people like you everyday... riiiight. For your information, my boss, the guy I work with everyday and sit 10 feet from and go to lunch with several times a week is a homosexual and he knows my views and respects them. I also have a friend who is gay and two male cousins, one of which is my age and who I was best friends with all through childhood are both gay, so don't think you know where I am coming from. Once again, good thing you don't jump to any conclusions and know what I go through everyday as a Christian and the idiocy I have to put up with.

 

You are not persecuted. Even if I say you are ignorant it doesn't make you persecuted.

 

Svpernaut, don't take this the wrong way but it seems to me that your defensiveness belies some harbored doubts. christians are NOT persecuted in this country. your convictions should allow any criticisms or slights you feel directed at christianity to roll right off your back. nobody has said anything particularly harsh in this thread. relax.

 

Feel free to reread the definition of the word.

 

Nothing said here has "gotten" to me, it all rolls right off my back... this is simply for the sake of conversation. I just find it amazing that MR. MEOWGI and others like him preach "acceptance" of people who are different, yet they can't for one minute accept Christians or other religious people for who they are. It is all so ridiculous it is humorous.

 

You're views are ignorant because they are ignorant. Not because they are "Christian". In fact I will say they are not very Christian at all.

 

Once again, you are just helping me prove my point more and more... To show just how ignorant I am feel free to elaborate on how my views against proposition 2 are A, ignorant and B, un-Christian... or you can keep with the one liners if you'd like.

 

Why would I say otherwise?

 

Irony- Christians think they're persecuted because people complain or fight back when they try and impose their morality and religion on them through government.

Christians are not persecuted in this country. Get over yourself, Svpernaut. Stop clinging to your victim status when you just went to the polls to victimize millions of innocent people.

Your homosexual boss doesn't "respect your views." He tolerates your ignorance. That's what gays have to do to get by in this world.

 

Some ask: Where did Jesus get his DNA?

By Faye Flam

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/13039683.htm

Darwin's theory of evolution still stands out as the thorniest point of contention between science and religion, but other more recent scientific advances also raise new questions for believers.

How, for example, does the 20th century's biological revolution influence the Christian concept of virgin birth? Where did Jesus get his DNA? His Y chromosome?

A number of scientifically minded Christians have come forward during the Dover trial to say they accept that ordinary humans arose through purely natural processes, no intelligent design needed. But it's another thing to accept that the Lord and Savior was conceived through an act of sex.

For centuries it was understood that sex preceded pregnancy, but what exactly happened to create the baby was shrouded in mystery. Not until the 1600s, with the advent of the microscope, did scientists learn about the role of sperm in triggering development.

Sperm aren't always necessary, however. Some female lizards, fish, and other creatures can procreate through parthenogenesis (Greek for virgin birth). Cloning allows something similar in mammals.

But there's a problem with arguing that Jesus came about through cloning or parthenogenesis - he would have been born a girl. In the last few decades science revealed that to be male you need a Y chromosome and the only place you can get one is from a man.

"There's a big split over the Y chromosome issue," says Boston University theology professor Wesley Wildman. One thing Catholics and Protestants seem to agree on is that Jesus was fully human and male, so he must have carried the usual male quotient of DNA. It's not the Y chromosome he needed per se, but a gene called SRY normally carried on the Y.

Occasionally this male-making gene gets moved off the Y, giving rise to an infertile "XY" woman. In a few cases men are found to have two X chromosomes, but such "XX" males turn out to have this critical fragment of the Y stuck on one of the other chromosomes. That fragment of the Y has to come from a father.

Biology professor David Wilcox of Eastern University, a Christian college, said some aspects of reality may lie beyond the reach of science. "Of course Jesus had DNA and a Y chromosome - and the source for half of that DNA (and the Y chromosome) would presumably be a pure and simple miracle," he says.

Theology professor and ordained minister Ronald Cole-Turner said standard Christian thought attributes the virgin birth to God's intervention in the natural order, not a biological anomaly. "It's not God's sperm... but God created something like a sperm and caused it to fertilize Mary's egg," he says.

Wildman says it's not as big of a problem for Protestants like him to accept a non-virgin Mary as it is for Catholics who revere her. The Old Testament itself is ambiguous on the point, he says, since in the original Hebrew Mary is referred to as almah, a word that can mean virgin or young girl.

But a natural conception was problematic to early Christian thinkers, Wildman said, because St. Augustine and others believed original sin was passed on "through the male via the loss of control associated with the male orgasm."

That's why Catholic thinkers introduced the concept of immaculate conception, a term often misunderstood as the conception of Jesus, but which really refers to the conception of Mary herself. Her mother need not have been a virgin but somehow God blocked the passage of original sin.

But for Jesus, a miraculous manufacture of genetic material would imply there's a sequence of genetic code designed by God himself - God's own approved DNA. That would have big implications for those who believe in the premise of The Da Vinci Code - that Jesus had children and his lineage continues to the present day.

"The bottom line for me: I think the virgin birth is a mistaken belief," Wildman says. "I also think that this need have no impact whatsoever on Mary's and Jesus' moral and spiritual importance."

A non-virgin birth, however, would seem to raise the spiritual capital of sex.

 

Kind of takes all the mystery out of it doesn't it.

 

did you get my email, by the way???

 

well said

 

LOL! Thanks for welcoming my views with open arms. I never said I was a victim, ever... I did say I had to continually see my beliefs be attacked, and that is true. So now I victimized millions of people at the polls because I voted for proposition 2? That is funny. If you'll notice proposition 2 does not ban people from being gay, it simply backs up the definition of the word marriage, which when I pick up my webster's dictionary it says "The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife."

As for your comments about my boss, how in the crap would you know what he feels? By boss does respect my views and opinon, and of the 4 homosexuals I know well all know my views and they all are fine with them. Many of the homosexuals that I've talked to since the whole "gay marriage" discussions have hit the forefront wishes it would have never come about in the first place... because before those rogue mayors went about allowing gay marriage certificates the gay community had made great strides to get rights for their civil unions.

Attacking the sanctity of the word marriage woke up all of the sleeping traditionalists who now are taking a hard-line on the issue. I live in friendswood, and when I went and voted last night I stood in line for nearly an hour to vote, there were HUNDREDS of people at the city hall all because of this one issue... if those rogue politicians wouldn't have raised their war banners it would have never been like that. Gays would have continued to make more ground each year with their civil union causes...

 

Yeah I got it; I've been slow to respond with annotations to be done for EMily Dickinson, Mortgages to service, pregnant wife to comfort....

 

Tortured theology follows ...

Some ask: Where did Jesus get his DNA?
...
"There's a big split over the Y chromosome issue," says Boston University theology professor Wesley Wildman.
...
Theology professor and ordained minister Ronald Cole-Turner said standard Christian thought attributes the virgin birth to God's intervention in the natural order, not a biological anomaly. "It's not God's sperm... but God created something like a sperm and caused it to fertilize Mary's egg," he says.
...
That's why Catholic thinkers introduced the concept of immaculate conception, a term often misunderstood as the conception of Jesus, but which really refers to the conception of Mary herself. Her mother need not have been a virgin but somehow God blocked the passage of original sin.
...


My vote is that the whole dang thing was a miracle. God implanted a fertilized egg in Mary's womb. No sex. No sperm. No Mary's egg.

Let's take a vote!!!

 

You're clinging to victim status by insisting that you are persecuted, which is silly. The dictionary definition of the word is an attempt to broaden it's meaning so you can fit under it. Many groups have a history of persecution in this country, and know what it really means. Christians are not one of those groups. Get over yourself.

Want to see persecuted people? Look at gays- you know, the ones you're persecuting.

You and other like-minded Texans have voted in government suppression of gays. Peope on this BBS and elsewhere criticize you for this because you are using government to oppress, suppress and persecute. It's hypocritical for you to claim persecution when others are reacting to your persecution.

The denial of marriage to gays is telling them that they and their relationships are not equal or worthy of consideration. Who they love and how they love may never be considered as good or as worthy as "straight" love. This is persecution.

Look, that's great that you've got yourself 4 gay friends and you're humane to their face, though you persecute them at the polls. Congrats.

I'm an opera singer, and I know and have worked with literally hundreds of gay men. I'm good friends with dozens. Gay people have to learn to get along in day to day life, especially if they are 'out'. Double especially if they are 'out' in Texas, where this disgusting proposal passed with 76%. They may 'respect' the fact that you're not beating them with a bat, or that you're not witnessing to them, or condescending to them or telling them that they are dirty and wrong. But they aren't 'fine' with you thinking of them and their relationships as essentially wrong (and voting that way.) If they take it with a smile and say "that's fine" it's because they're used to it, and don't see the point in arguing or don't have the energy.

So if your gay friends wish they could have at least kept the advances they made on civil unions, how do they feel about you going to the polls to make sure they can never be married?

Big fat rolleyes right here. Y'all are the attackers here.

Yep, there was and is a backlash. If only those nasty gays had stayed out of sight and out of mind with simple civil unions instead of disgustingly assaulting the very concept of marriage by proposing that their love is worthy of such, this backlash wouldn't have happened.

This time only is only one more notch in what is a civil rights movement. There are plenty of moderates out there who are 'okay' with gays but not gay marriage. Year by year that is changing as more gays come out and more people see that they aren't inherently evil.

The day will come when gays are accorded the same rights as other consenting adults, and history will look back on this as another civil rights struggle identical to other struggles led by other suppressed minorities, and people like you recognized as the bigots who fought to hold them back, for religious reasons or otherwise.

 

The definition of the word marriage states that it is a union between a man and a woman, that is ALL that was voted on. No one voted on banning gays from being together, but upholding the definition of the key cornerstone of our society. Simply because I don't think saying a gay couple could be "married" isn't persecuting them, it is upholding one of the oldest traditions of mankind, marriage.

No one is saying they can't have the same rights as everyone else, but the freaking definition of the word marriage, the one that is discussed thoroughly in the Bible and other holy books is a union between man and woman... and THAT is the point. If gays want to be together, then by all means go right ahead... but don't try and say the joining of two men or two women is "marriage" because by definition it isn't... simple as that.