Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
I agree. Ridicule the ideas that religion specifically promotes. The straw man to which I was referring was that concocted by DuffMan, which DOES NOT actually reflect Christian doctrine—at least not in the sense that Christians believe it and teach it.
There are more sophisticated ways by which Christians have bypassed and argued around more primitive expressions of the faith, such as the virgin birth. In other words, there are Christians (I was one such for a long time) who do not believe that God magically impregnated the virgin Mary, but rather hold to this is part of a larger expression of Christ's being and his work of salvation—it's part of the myth. Making juvenile jabs about " God impregnat[ing] a virgin, from space, with himself" does not help to move the conversation about God, religion, or modern theological scaffolding in Christianity forward.
|
interesting. my genuine followup question to this is(and please correct me if I'm mistaken, I know very little about the meat and potatoes of christianity outside of what can be absorbed via osmosis from living in a western nation and am curious) - it's my understanding the core belief of christianity is that jesus was quite literally the son of god, his teachings and belief that he died for everyone else's sins is predicated that he was a divine being in a human body whos goal was to tell humans the rules of how to live virtuously(paraphrasing). if he wasn't immaculately conceived, and just a regular guy...doesnt that kind of make the entire thing moot as a religious activity?