I don’t believe in Immaculate Conception. It was a needful selling point for organized religions for the times. Every claimant to Godliness, or God-hood, claimed the same thing: Conceived by a God. Alexander the Great, Caesar, Caligula, and John the Baptist are just four historical figures for whom the claim for Immaculate Conception was made. I have read that there were many, many more. It was a requirement, like a rock singer's long hair. It was needed then. It is not needed now. It sounds like a selling point thought up a couple of centuries later when the gospels were being written. Today we are more aware than we’d like to be about the reality of poor, teenaged, unwed mothers and their problems. Mary's pregnancy via an action of God, immaculate conception, pregnancy without sexual congress, requires God's active intervention in human affairs. God doesn't do this. God does not actively interfere in human affairs. Forcing a young, virgin girl to bear a child without her informed prior consent doesn't sound like a warm, concerned, fatherly God. It sounds like an inconsiderate mortal man's belief that women are cattle, good only for bearing children. Pregnancy without loss of virginity is possible, more difficult, but possible. It only takes one vigorous sperm, a slight perforation, and the right time of the month. This idea is simply much more realistic. Poor Mary, unable to tell the truth, or tell a story that anyone would believe. There are many real world possibilities, innocence, force, teenage fooling around, and threats. Her father was likely running around the village looking for the SOB that got her pregnant. She was subject to being scorned by social custom. She was likely frightened and scared, subject to a law that would call for her death by public stoning. Her mother had to have been distraught. Mary was likely quickly and quietly forced into an arranged marriage. This, before her pregnancy showed. An arranged marriage with a poor man via a dowry large enough to save her life. Then there was morning sickness, accommodating a new husband: Joseph may have been a nice guy. Joseph may have been slow on the uptake. Joseph may have been satisfied by her dowry. However, I’ll bet he didn’t give up the joys of the early marriage bed. Later, Mary was required to travel a long distance on poor roads on a donkey. This while nine month’s pregnant. Next because crowding at the destination had filled all the hotel rooms her husband could afford, she had to go through labor in a stable. So much for fairness and good sanitation, cleanliness and Godliness. Essential questions remain: What would cause God to decide that an action in human affairs was necessary? What was so compelling about the way things were in the world that would cause God to act to send us Jesus? The Romans pretty well had things in hand. The world was civilized. The Romans had developed a government that worked. The Romans had a military that was successful. The Romans built road systems and huge civil engineering water and sewer systems. Roman law was constant. People were proud to be called Romans. The Mediterranean was a Roman Sea. Whole countries volunteered to join the Roman Empire to get the benefits of Roman civilization. Why would God decide to interact for the sake of the world in an out of the way backwater place of the Empire like Judea? The Hebrew religion was safe, even protected by Roman law. Rome was the center of the civilized world. If the sins of man were the problem, go where the people are, in the big cities, not out in the country, a thousand miles from anyplace important. There were other large population centers scattered around the world in China, North America, and India. Why not act there, instead, or as well? Despite that all things are possible to God, He is noninterventionist. He does not interfere. Despite the fact that God is hardly aware of the passage of time, His decisions are instantaneous. When He decided to "get" Paul, He "got" Paul, now, immediately, as Paul was walking along a road. Ka-zamo! A lightning bolt slammed into Paul. Immediate results with Paul on the half-shell. Why wait for a birth after a nine month pregnancy? Why claim what had been often claimed before? A virgin birth without intervention is as much of a miracle as with intervention. Of course, the result would be female. What would be wrong with that? Could God have inseminated Mary's egg with a "Y" chromosome? Yes, all things are possible to God, but why wait thirty years to begin the action of Jesus' ministry? God need only say, "Be", and He would have Been. It does not fit. Add to this the necessary follow up interventions with Joseph, and perhaps to a lesser degree with Mary's parents. They do not fit. The earliest copies of the Gospels were written in Greek and Coptic, during and after A. D. 70, when Titus, the Roman general invaded Israel, and they have some curious missing items: among them are the resurrection and the virgin birth. God is elegant. God is direct. God does not delay His decisions. The story smells of rationalization and embellishment. Rationalization, embellishment, and falsehood are human behaviors. God does not rationalize His behavior. God does not make excuses for His behavior. The story smells of being written long after the fact. The story smells of being written with lots of politically necessary public relations and propaganda values tacked on. The story smells of being written to sell Christianity. Selling was necessary, not truth.
(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com
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