Question:
What is it about the alleged virgin birth that has people so convinced in its authenticity?
Discussion:
A god who can create universes should have no trouble at all producing a fully-formed human being. Why go to the trouble of impregnating a virgin for the purpose? What is the point? Is it the fact that impregnating a virgin is just a "little" miracle that makes it believable? If Jesus really existed, I suggest he came into being by way of a normal birth. The virgin birth motif was just thrown into the story for sensational effect like every other miracle allegedly performed.
Further supposing on reasonable grounds that if Jesus existed, then he had a mother. This mother is always portrayed as young and beautiful or at least modestly pretty. Nothing wrong with that idea either except that the allegedly divine nature of Jesus makes people automatically think of the young virgin Mary as being pretty. For all we know, given the shortage of original photographs of her, she could have been a real bushpig but you would not get many religious-minded people accepting that. Chances are, Joseph would not have chosen a bushpig as his wife even though some people do. So, we can reasonably guess that Mary was something of a looker but we don't have any photographs of her or even portraits of her that are verifiably authentic. The best you have is artistic impressions.
Deducing from this that no-one can know what Mary looked like, why is it that whenever an image appears somewhere that seems to resemble a pretty female face, it is taken to be the Virgin Mary? Never mind the fact that she turns up in some pretty uncomplimentary places. The event that prompted this thread was the Virgin Mary on toast:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19270&item=5535890757&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW#ebayphotohostingThis woman says, "...when I took a bite out of it, I saw a face looking up at me, It was Virgin Mary starring[sic] back at me..."
Now, can somone please explain how this woman came to know that this face was Virgin Mary despite that fact that it looks more like Marilyn Monroe. Who qualified this woman as an expert on identifying a woman whose very existence is questionable? Sounds a lot like the people who claim God spoke to them when they could not identify the speaker.
