Christians believe (blindly) that Mary, mother of Jesus, was a virgin at the date of Jesus’ birth. Now any member of another religion (as well as atheists and agnostics) believe that Mary was one of the biggest liars of all time.
This lie is even more of a whopper in that Mary was married to Joseph all through the time of her pregnancy and birth. Joseph was almost supernaturally good to accept this lie and the lack of sex from Mary.
The claim of course was that virgins cannot get pregnant. So Mary blamed her condition on God himself who she claimed was the real father.
To this date the debate rages on. Liar! Not! It’s a rather tired refrain from both sides.
But I was unaware of the biological circumstance known as parthenogenesis which simply means “virgin birth” in Greek. The types of vertebrates that can do parthenogenesis are fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds. All these animals can have babies that have no father. The egg gets fertilized by just the female.
Why should mammals be left out of this female power play? Maybe Mary was an actual virgin whose marriage to Joseph hadn’t been consummated. Perhaps Mary somehow fertilized her egg the way that all non-mammal vertebrates do.
The birth of Jesus was then an example of parthenogenesis and not a miracle. In this scenario Jesus literally is not the son of God. He could, however, be the metaphorical son of God which saves the Christian religion.
Next time a Jehovah’s Witness comes a knocking, I’ll just tell them Jesus had no father because… parthenogenesis. They’ll have to call out their expert, then, who’ll say mammals can’t do that. I’ll yell “Prove it!” at the top of my lungs then I’ll slam the door and not let any Jehovah’s Witnesses back in. Ironically I won’t be giving my tormenters a chance to prove it.
Parthenogenesis is really a poor thing to hang your religion on.
