ScentOfViolets: Yes, the Greeks mistranslated “young woman” to “virgin” in the Septuagint. Standard story.
LemmusLemmus: I was never a Christian, so I don’t bear the same deep abiding grudge that I do against Judaism for alienating my family from me.
But why should I be more fond of religion than of any other massively self-destructive folly?
And if you’re shocked by my blaspheming the Virgin Mary, you may have some traces of reverence left that you need to get rid of. I mean seriously, think about the storyline here. Alleged virgin. Pregnant. “God did it.”
The way this post got started was that I was talking to a friend recently who had been exposed to an attempted conversion by Scientology, and he was shaking his head in wonder. And then he said, “I don’t understand how Scientology converts anyone, it’s so ridiculous. At least the Christian religion has a powerful story. You can see how people would be converted by that.”
I said to him, “I don’t see that one story is any less ridiculous than the other. You’re an atheist now, but you were raised as a Christian, right? You grew up being told about Christian beliefs, but not Scientologist beliefs. You may not realize how the Christian story sounds if you’re not raised thinking it’s normal. I mean, consider the Virgin Mary—”
ScentOfViolets: Yes, the Greeks mistranslated “young woman” to “virgin” in the Septuagint. Standard story.
LemmusLemmus: I was never a Christian, so I don’t bear the same deep abiding grudge that I do against Judaism for alienating my family from me.
But why should I be more fond of religion than of any other massively self-destructive folly?
And if you’re shocked by my blaspheming the Virgin Mary, you may have some traces of reverence left that you need to get rid of. I mean seriously, think about the storyline here. Alleged virgin. Pregnant. “God did it.”
The way this post got started was that I was talking to a friend recently who had been exposed to an attempted conversion by Scientology, and he was shaking his head in wonder. And then he said, “I don’t understand how Scientology converts anyone, it’s so ridiculous. At least the Christian religion has a powerful story. You can see how people would be converted by that.”
I said to him, “I don’t see that one story is any less ridiculous than the other. You’re an atheist now, but you were raised as a Christian, right? You grew up being told about Christian beliefs, but not Scientologist beliefs. You may not realize how the Christian story sounds if you’re not raised thinking it’s normal. I mean, consider the Virgin Mary—”
This explains the post well.