The very foundation of Christianity must be a surrogate pregnancy, am I correct?

[CTyankee]

I am not religious, but it seems to me that the Virgin Mary was a surrogate mother. It is celebrated in some of the greatest art of the Western world.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-annunciation-143845-fra-angelico-2027376.html

[walkingman]

1. Waiting to see the answers to this....should be interesting.

[Ocelot II]

2. It's OK when God does it.

But was she a surrogate (just carrying the fetus but not biologically related) or was it an instance of artificial insemination - her egg and God's sperm? Jesus was supposed to be human as well as divine, after all. They never told us in Sunday School.

[CTyankee]

3. Oh, not in Sunday school!

The Protestants go light on the Virgin Mary while I guess subscribing to the "born of a Virgin" teaching of Christianity. It was one of foundational tenets of the Protestant Reformation.

[Talitha]

5. "It's OK when God does it."

He must be a Republican.

[wishstar]

4. Yes and child was implanted purposely to be killed as sacrifice to atone for human sins

according to the doctrine because god was so generous and loving he sent his only son as a surrogate to not only influence humans to turn away from sin but also for his son to bear pain and suffering so that humans would not have to face wrath and punishment from this same angry god who would be appeased with the sacrifice and show mercy on mankind.

[StarryNite]

8. If one chooses to believe in the god of that bible

they would either have to believe god is not all powerful or not all loving and certainly not all that intelligent based on all the mistakes he made.

[Marthe48]

12. Satan was also supposed to be God's son

Satan, the Evening Star, Jesus, the Morning Star (Job)

Whatever religion teaches, it is not government and it is a rotten shame that religious freaks are being allowed this kind of voice and influence in our government.

[Kennah]

6. Surrogate mother or rape victim?

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. Yes, the alternative is the Mormon belief

that God has a physical body and had sex with Mary.

[Karadeniz]

9. Mark didnt think the nativity was worth mentioning. John thought the heavenly

origin deserved mention, but not the nativity. Luke and Matthew offer very different nativity accounts, years apart. The virgin births are in evidence 50% of the time, but they don't support each other.

I may see evidence that Jesus practiced merkaba, practicing astral projection at will, his soul leaving his body. If Jesus is on a mountain, he's not. Raising the dead...students learning this ability. Barabbas, the son of the father or soul, is presented as a separate entity and the soul is indeed separate. The point is that Jesus' soul exited his body. The Docetists believed that Jesus was actually a soul with an appearance of a human, so he never suffered on the cross.

There were so many sects originally, clues to their beliefs as lost as their writings. What we have are the writings chosen by a group of literalist old men who couldn't do literary analysis to dig beneath the surface narrative to save their souls. What I do is see the superficial narrative as one layer of the writers' real purpose which was to hide the spiritual truths of the soul and the God System from those who would pervert Truth...think what selfish evangelicals do. They choose what they want to bolster their laziness and selfishness. Once the Jews were kicked out of Jerusalem for 2000 years, those who possessed the knowledge of how to use the gospels as a teaching tool to expand consciousness rather than as ends of themselves was lost. Literalism took over, the result of the politically correct blessing a limited canon, destroying all other views. The result of this has been a church that has historically wallowed in materialism, cultivated dependence by followers due to their illiteracy and scripture not being in their own language, intolerance of others leading to violence and wars against them. Scripture contains so much truth, but one would never know it!

[CTyankee]

10. But, as I see it, wallowing in materialism is what enabled the Italian Renaissance in art.

Because the folk were illiterate, artists could interpret church teachings in glorious imaginings. Just the very imagining of angels (in particular, I think, how they imagined their wings), became glorious works of art and artists got work from the Vatican, it paid pretty well and now we have inherited it.

[Karadeniz]

13. There is that! Bottom line, though, all that gold, marble, etc. Impressed people

and helped them feel that the church must indeed be powerful and probably blessed. I'd rather have truth than PR ! Also, we had the Renaissance of the classics following the dark ages overseen by the church. What might things have been like if the dark ages hadn't hamstrung culture? Thanks for reading my musings!

[CTyankee]

14. There is a school of thought that says the plague produced the Renaissance by reducing the population such that fewer

people had more and lived better lives and better lives meant more time to develop/appreciate art. It's hard to disprove but I really don't care about that. However, the discussion is interesting.

[Karadeniz]

15. Thanks for more input !!

[John Farmer]

11. I never really thought of it that way but

the bible is absolutely clear; that's what happened.