Religions have succeeded

[ProfessorDavey]

The only documentation we have on this is the New Testament.

And all I am using here is the words from the new testament and applying them to the well established principles of consent which require, capacity to consent, sufficient information and voluntariness. And you put the two together and the text in the new testament clearly fails as evidence for consent, certainly due to the voluntariness, but also (although we don't have that evidence directly from the text) probably on capacity to consent.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What a non-sense statement - the whole point about atheism is that you don't believe that god exists and therefore god isn't god but something that doesn't exist.

So this God who you can make disappear just like that is the same God you say that can force himself of anybody in an abusive disparity of power?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And all I am using here is the words from the new testament and applying them to the well established principles of consent which require, capacity to consent, sufficient information and voluntariness. And you put the two together and the text in the new testament clearly fails as evidence for consent, certainly due to the voluntariness, but also (although we don't have that evidence directly from the text) probably on capacity to consent.

No, what you are doing is heavy endogesis which completely ignores Mary's awareness of the personal, theological and Global implications and knows as exactly what she is doing in her theological, spiritual, personal and global maturity and then consents with her Let it be and later magnificat. This is what elevates her above the apostles and popes and Billy Grahams and Justin Welbys. There is not only no evidence for your version of Mary, the record is contradictory to it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I'm sorry but my reading is out of the New testament where as you are reading things in and editing out. What we get from verse 38 is someone who is a committed follower of God who here in the magnificat later shows she is conversant with God's plan, consents to it in her Let it Be and someone who is fully aware of the personal, theological and global implications of what she is welcoming. This is a switched on person of spiritual ,intellectual and personal  maturity. We know that people at this level of access to God's mission can and do deviate from God's plan vis Jonah, but there is none of that from Mary who faces her mission with enthusiasm.

Abusive power relationships, minority, zero consent, victimhood are all themes you are reading in.

Of course this argument you make is not an atheistic argument but an antitheistic one. I see in your posts evidence of you having to remind yourself at intervals that you are in fact an atheist.

Fun as it is watching twist in the wind as you attempt to defend the indefensible, either you’ll address the difference between acquiescence and consent or you won’t. Throwing irrelevancies like “atheistic’/”antitheistic” around as an ad hom instead doesn’t get you off that hook. Mary (according to the myth) may have acquiesced, but there’s no reading from the texts that I can see to suggest consent in any meaningful sense.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Fun as it is watching twist in the wind as you attempt to defend the indefensible, either you’ll address the difference between acquiescence and consent or you won’t. Throwing irrelevancies like “atheistic’/”antitheistic” around as an ad hom instead doesn’t get you off that hook. Mary (according to the myth) may have acquiesced, but there’s no reading from the texts that I can see to suggest consent in any meaningful sense.

Not half as much fun as you editing out verse 38 and getting found out and then proceeding as if we can dispense with the let it be. No mere acquiescence Hillside a resounding  and enthusiastic Let it be and highly mature spiritual and intellectual,personal and  understanding of God's future plan.
mary also makes a statement that in her previous commitment to God this is what she has consented to. Double consent if you wish.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

I think that only works if religions can exist without people. Guns can exist even if all the people in the world die. Religions can't.

Just out of interest, why do you think that? Religions exist in their artefacts as well as in their practices, just as art and music and literature do. Say you washed up on a desert island as a child to find the Bible, the Mona Lisa, a CD of the late Beethoven quartets and the collected poems of Emily Dickinson. Why would you any less affected by the first of these (perhaps in your ethical behaviour) than you would by the others?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Not half as much fun as you editing out verse 38 and getting found out and then proceeding as if we can dispense with the let it be.

Lying about that isn’t helping you here.

No mere acquiescence Hillside a resounding  and enthusiastic Let it be and highly mature spiritual and intellectual,personal and  understanding of God's future plan.

Oh dear. Now who’s just making shit up eh? Anyway, you miss the point: “…resounding  and enthusiastic” or not, consent has certain characteristics that cannot have applied for an underage servant girl being told by the envoy of an all-powerful, universe-creating god that she “will” be impregnated by Him.

If I approach you wearing a balaclava late at night down a dark alley, stick a knife in your chest and demand your wallet in exchange for your life you may well acquiesce. You may even do it “resoundingly and enthusiastically” if you thought it would save your life.

Let’s say too that I was caught, and my defence in court was “but Vlad consented to giving me his wallet”.     

Would you agree? Why not?
 

mary also makes a statement that in her previous commitment to God this is what she has consented to. Double consent if you wish.

Not even close – consent and coercive control are not the same thing (see above).

[Outrider]

No, what you are doing is heavy endogesis which completely ignores Mary's awareness of the personal, theological and Global implications and knows as exactly what she is doing in her theological, spiritual, personal and global maturity and then consents with her Let it be and later magnificat.

She is, at best, what 16 when she has Jesus? There are damned few 16 year olds with the insight to have a clear understanding of their own personal circumstances. No-one can nail down the slippery 'theological implications' of pretty much anything, let alone a relatively poor girl with little formal education. Global implications? At best she might have had an understanding of regional impications, the Roman Empire of which the Holy Land was a part at the time had limited understanding of the Far East, no appreciation of the Americas at all. Mary's global perspectives is right up there alongside 'Theology' as empty sets.

This is what elevates her above the apostles and popes and Billy Grahams and Justin Welbys. There is not only no evidence for your version of Mary, the record is contradictory to it.

There is little evidence for any Mary, and the evidence we do have has to be considered at best questionable given the multiple subsequent edits that still manage to leave us with nonsense like 'a virgin birth'.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

She is, at best, what 16 when she has Jesus? There are damned few 16 year olds with the insight to have a clear understanding of their own personal circumstances. No-one can nail down the slippery 'theological implications' of pretty much anything, let alone a relatively poor girl with little formal education. Global implications? At best she might have had an understanding of regional impications, the Roman Empire of which the Holy Land was a part at the time had limited understanding of the Far East, no appreciation of the Americas at all. Mary's global perspectives is right up there alongside 'Theology' as empty sets.

There is little evidence for any Mary, and the evidence we do have has to be considered at best questionable given the multiple subsequent edits that still manage to leave us with nonsense like 'a virgin birth'.

O.

Evidence?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Lying about that isn’t helping you here.

Oh dear. Now who’s just making shit up eh? Anyway, you miss the point: “…resounding  and enthusiastic” or not, consent has certain characteristics that cannot have applied for an underage servant girl being told by the envoy of an all-powerful, universe-creating god that she “will” be impregnated by Him.

If I approach you wearing a balaclava late at night down a dark alley, stick a knife in your chest and demand your wallet in exchange for your life you may well acquiesce. You may even do it “resoundingly and enthusiastically” if you thought it would save your life.

Let’s say too that I was caught, and my defence in court was “but Vlad consented to giving me his wallet”.     

Would you agree? Why not?
 
Not even close – consent and coercive control are not the same thing (see above).

Not only did you remove verse 38 even though you said you'd listed ....but with no verse numbers.

You have made pisspoor analogies....knives, alleys, stabbings?
What are you thinking of?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Not only did you remove verse 38 even though you said you'd listed ....but with no verse numbers.

As I told you, I just copied and pasted from a US website. It doesn't matter either way though - when you introduced the later bits, that fell apart like a cheap suit too.

You have made pisspoor analogies....knives, alleys, stabbings?
What are you thinking of?

Just calling something “pisspoor” doesn’t make it so. I was just explaining to you (forgetting that you struggle with the concept of analogies) that sometimes people do things non-consensually – but they acquiesce to them for a variety of reasons nonetheless. The virgin birth story as set out in the texts is one such case. It’s not that an underage servant girl being told by an “Angel of the Lord” that she “will” be impregnated by “Him” and give birth to “the Son of the Most High” did not give consent; she could not have given consent in a meaningful sense.   

[Outrider]

Evidence?

Yes, exactly. You don't have any.

Mary's age is a presumption from the generally accepted Jewish claims of how long Mary lived after the purported execution of Jesus and the typical age at death of women in that era.

The lack of education is based upon her likely social class and circumstance, again for a woman in that era. Her social class is interpreted from the clues in the story.

Is it possible there's more to the tale than we've been told? Yes, perhaps. If you want more definitive conclusions, I'm afraid you're going to have to find more, and more reliable, sources, I'm afraid.

O.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Actually it is all just a story - there is no a shred of credible evidence that it actually happened.
What a non-sense statement - the whole point about atheism is that you don't believe that god exists and therefore god isn't god but something that doesn't exist.
Not really relevant - we typically accept the notion of consent being important in terms of autonomous decision making by those who have the capacity to make such decisions - hence your comment about choosing to be born has no relevance. But it is perfectly reasonable to ask the hypothetical question that were we to believe what is written in that text to be what happened (it didn't - see above) then would Mary have given consent. And the answer to that hypothetical question is clearly, no she didn't give consent.

This is a nonsense argument. You can't apply the 21st century legal rules of evidence or consent to an ancient biblical story. Nor can you conclude anything based on the limited information available in this story and no opportunity to question any witnesses. Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Either you're maintaining the traditional view that Mary was a virgin at the time, in which case however it was achieved this was not a natural conception and is therefore artificial - supernatural, in this instance, rather than achieved by science. Or, you think that the virgin nonsense is just that, nonsense, in which case the Holy Spirit just indulged in extra-marital sex - now my understanding is that that's not technically forbidden in the Old Testament, but it does fly against the teachings of the sequel (or, at the very least, most of the adherents of the sequel).

If you think it's somehow neither natural insemination (i.e. sexual intercourse) or artificial insemination (i.e. not sexual intercourse) then I'm intrigued to know what the other options might be?

O.

Insemination involves the introduction of sperm. Is there evidence that in this Biblical story sperm was introduced into this conception?

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

This is a nonsense argument. You can't apply the 21st century legal rules of evidence or consent to an ancient biblical story. Nor can you conclude anything based on the limited information available in this story and no opportunity to question any witnesses. Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board.

No. Ordinarily I’d agree re the anachronistic use of moral codes, but you’ve forgotten here that in the story the impregnating was done by a morally perfect God. That means either that you think modern morality re informed consent is wrong, or that God (and his “angel”) behaved immorally.     

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

Insemination involves the introduction of sperm. Is there evidence that in this Biblical story sperm was introduced into this conception?

That's a subsidiary question. Impregnation occurred (according to the myth) so the debate is about whether Mary exercised (indeed, could have exercised) consent notwithstanding the method by which it happened. 

[ProfessorDavey]

This is a nonsense argument. You can't apply the 21st century legal rules of evidence or consent to an ancient biblical story. Nor can you conclude anything based on the limited information available in this story and no opportunity to question any witnesses. Let's hope you don't take this same nonsensical approach in the rest of your life outside this Message Board.

It isn't a non-sense argument at all.

Firstly let's recognise that it is Vlad claiming that the NT account provided evidence for consent - not 1stC consent, but consent. That is why we are discussing it - specifically whether the text in the NT is sufficient to support Vlad's claim that she gave consent - it clearly isn't and the 'power relationship' and servitude elements are red flags that indicate there was no consent (not of course that there is any evidence that what is claimed actually happened).

But actually I don't there has been any meaningful change in what we consider to be consent over the centuries. It is, and always has been a decision made by someone who has the capacity to consent, with knowledge of what that decision is and made voluntarily.

The issue isn't that consent was different centuries ago, but that we had a different view on the importance of consent. The historical shift is that in many cases we used not to give a damn about whether someone consented to a whole range on things, but now we do. We have moved from a position where it was common for decisions to be made on behalf of people (i.e. without consent) to ones where we expect the decision to be taken by the person themselves (i.e. with consent). But the notion of what consent is, is largely unchanged.

So had Vlad claimed that it was all OK because in the 1stC people were pretty relaxed about whether a woman consented to sex or not so why is the NT text any different, then perhaps he'd have a point. But that isn't his claim - his claim is that the NT text is sufficient to conclude that Mary consented - it isn't.

[Outrider]

Insemination involves the introduction of sperm. Is there evidence that in this Biblical story sperm was introduced into this conception?

Without sperm you don't get conception, you get menstruation, so I'd say if you take the core element of the story as being a pregnancy and a baby then, yes, you have evidence of insemination.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yes, exactly. You don't have any.

I have the text Outrider....You don't have evidence, merely speculation based on a 21st century humanistic reinterpretation of a divine situation and that is how it stands i'm afraid

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

Just out of interest, why do you think that? Religions exist in their artefacts as well as in their practices, just as art and music and literature do. Say you washed up on a desert island as a child to find the Bible, the Mona Lisa, a CD of the late Beethoven quartets and the collected poems of Emily Dickinson. Why would you any less affected by the first of these (perhaps in your ethical behaviour) than you would by the others?

I think that because your stated objection to religion is with the ideas they propagate that influence your ethical choices towards other people and within society. So to show that religion is the issue separate from people's nature/nurture from other environmental factors, you would have to find a way to show the child read the Bible and that their interpretations of moral values in the Bible were not caused by their nature or other environmental factors. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Without sperm you don't get conception, you get menstruation, so I'd say if you take the core element of the story as being a pregnancy and a baby then, yes, you have evidence of insemination.

O.

I think cloning engineers would take issue with you but before you say they didn't have that technology then God did.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

VG,

No. Ordinarily I’d agree re the anachronistic use of moral codes, but you’ve forgotten here that in the story the impregnating was done by a morally perfect God. That means either that you think modern morality re informed consent is wrong, or that God (and his “angel”) behaved immorally.     

You've yet to establish that there was no informed consent. Editing out verse 38 doesn't count. The text shows that Mary was very informed. It's good to see though that you've come round to absolute morality, or is this morality by date....and last of all, I would have thought that the underhand removal of verse 38 disqualified the perpetrator from this case(we are after all in the court of pseudo law) let alone pontificate about the morality of it.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

No. Ordinarily I’d agree re the anachronistic use of moral codes, but you’ve forgotten here that in the story the impregnating was done by a morally perfect God. That means either that you think modern morality re informed consent is wrong, or that God (and his “angel”) behaved immorally.     

It means neither actually. Informed consent is a legal term that means a person voluntarily consents to an action having full information available of the consequences and is a reflection of a modern cultural norm around personal autonomy. I think it's correct in relation to medical procedures related to pregnancy but I would not apply the legal test or the modern cultural norms about personal autonomy to a religious story about a supernatural non-sexual pregnancy that was written centuries ago in order to demonstrate supernatural phenomena or Mary's religious devotion. The whole premise of the story is that Mary is religiously devoted therefore the pregnancy and the birth of Jesus is a blessing. This story you are all quoting from is not presented in a way to be used as rebuttal against a legal charge of rape or a medical procedure without informed consent etc so this line of argument is complete nonsense. I'm amazed that supposedly intelligent people are wasting their time digging into a Biblical story for evidence of consent.   

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Without sperm you don't get conception, you get menstruation, so I'd say if you take the core element of the story as being a pregnancy and a baby then, yes, you have evidence of insemination.

O.

It's presented as a supernatural event. In a supernatural event why can't you have conception without insemination? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

I think that because your stated objection to religion is with the ideas they propagate that influence your ethical choices towards other people and within society. So to show that religion is the issue separate from people's nature/nurture from other environmental factors, you would have to find a way to show the child read the Bible and that their interpretations of moral values in the Bible were not caused by their nature or other environmental factors.

No you wouldn’t, but no problem in any case. Just change the thought experiment to 100 children on 100 islands with bibles, and a different 100 on other islands with no bibles. Come back in a bit and compare the morality of the two groups. You might also put two control groups on different islands, some with Beethoven recordings and some without and compare the results re music appreciation later on. 

The point here is that you (presumably) accept that parts of culture like art and music and literature can through their artefacts affect people without human intervention, but you exclude the part of culture that is religion doing the same thing with its artefacts (the Bible for example). I just wondered why.