evidence for and against miracle claims

[atheist buddy]

That Jesus was born of a virgin, that 9 months before he was born, one of Mary's eggs was NOT fertilized by a human sperm cell, is not a nebulous metaphysical claim. It's an empirical claim about the physical world.

As such, it is, or should be, subject to the same level of evidence-based scrutiny as any other empirical claim.

If the empirical evidence for it is found to be nill or close to nil, highly unreliable and very dubious, whereas the evidence against it is found to be plentiful, reliable, testable, falsifiable, and convergent from multiple independent spheres of knowledge, then it must be concluded that the claim that Jesus was born of a virgin is not credible, and thus belief in it is not justified.

So, I will write below all the evidence I can think of for and against the claim that Jesus was born of a virgin, and let's see what we come up with.

Evidence against Jesus being born of a virgin:

Biological evidence - where babies come from
Human reproductive biology is fully understood. Our understanding of the subject is so profound, that just by taking a cheek swab of any two individuals, we are able to predict with complete accuracy whether their child will or will not have Achondroplasia, Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, Antiphospholipid Syndrome, Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease, Charcot-Marie-Tooth, Cri du chat, Crohn's Disease, Cystic fibrosis, just to stay witin a partial list of the diseases within the first 3 letters of the alphabet. In courts of law, we are able to determine with 99.99% certainty the paternity of a child. We are able to perform cloning, invitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and more. We understand the mechanics of procreation to a degree that can be fairly described as complete. All of the material empirical evidence, which we understand completely, points to the fact that for a mammal to become pregnant and give birth to fertile offspring without the intervention of a male member of her same species, is biologically impossible. The same biologists and doctors who's expertise has been demonstrated by centuries of tangible results predicated on the correctness of their opinions, all agree on this.

Chemical evidence - the chemistry of fertilization.
The same chemical expertise that allows us to develop life saving medicine, and which is also part and parcel with the biology that allows us to understand DNA, tells us with no shadow of a doubt that the spontaneous materialization of a complete set of 23 human chromosomes inside a human egg, is chemically impossible.

Physical evidence - the physics of DNA
We are able to split the atom and send men on the moon. We are able to accelerate subatomic particles to almost the speed of light and take photos of them crashing into each other, and to land unmanned vehicles on mars. We can predict eclypses with to-the-second accuracy, and we can tell the chemical composition of a star trillions of miles away based on its light spectrum. The very understanding of physics that allows your phone to work and your pacemaker to work, and your GPS to work, and the internet to work, shines a light as powerful as the sun itself on this simple fact: Inside our universe, it's physically impossible for matter to come into existence from nothing. The chemical components of a human being that would ordinarily come from a sperm, simply cannot appear in the absence of a sperm. It's physically impossible.

Historical/anthropological evidence
There are countless stories of virgin births throughout history, many predating the story of Jesus. It seems evident that ancient tribes found it necessary to claim their favorite folk heroes were born of virgins to lend them an aura of exceptionality. Much like in modern times for a starlet to end up on the tabloids it seems necessary that she either has a sex video or a public emotional breakdown, or a DUI, it seems that in the bronze age, for someone to become a celebrity, his mother needed to be a virgin. In any case, the fact that humans at the time seemed to have a propensity for making up stories about virgin births, fatally undermines the proposition that on one particular instance, they happened to be telling the truth.

Historical/literary evidence
It is an irrefutable fact that whoever wrote that Mary was a virgin, was not monitoring Mary's sex life 9 months before Jesus's birth. Historians agree that the first statements about Mary's virginity were made long after Jesus's and Mary's death. Furthermore, the earliest available copies of those texts are copies of copies of copies of dubious originals written by anonymous authors, each copy also being made by anonymous authors with dubious agendas informed by the sociopolitical realities of the time, and the necessity to consolidate political power through a unified religion. Mary could have made the story up. The guy who claims Mary told him the story could have made it up. The guy who claims the guy who Mary told the story to, could have made it up. The first guy to write it down could have made it up. The first guy to make a copy of that original text could have added it and thus made it up. The guy who made the copy of that copy could have made it up. Any ONE of these people could have made it up for any number of reasons ranging from avoiding being stoned to death for adultery, to consolidating power of the priesthood by tieing in the popular mythical theme of virgin birth to the figurehead of a rising religion, and their fabrication would be no less consistant with the evidence we have today than an alleged true claim would be.

Linguistic evidence.
Ooof, I'm getting so bored. "Mary was a virgin" is actually a mistranslation of "Mary was a young woman". Nobody refutes this. The OT makes the prophecy that the Messiah would be born of a young woman, whoever wrote that Mary was a virgin mistranslated the passage in the OT, and therefore felt it necessary to say Mary was a virgin to match an OT prophecy that actually was never made. Look it up, and if you contest this, we can discuss.

Common sense
Let's say for the sake of argument that it is true that Mary never had sex with a man. Isn't it more likely that she had a bath in a tub where some guy had previously masturbated and got pregnant that way, than that everything we know about medicine, biology, chemistry, physics is wrong?


Evidence for the virgin birth
Some guy we don't know wrote it down. Period.



Conclusion: As expected, the evidence against the virgin birth is overwhelming, and the evidence for it is nil.

I look forward to responses.

[Fundagelico]

There is a word for someone who believes things which do not match with observed and observable reality in any way: Clinically insane.

Ha Ha!

It's two words, actually. But even without the totally hilarious yet respectful in-your-face rhetoric I think we get the basic idea you're promoting here: "no evidence, no belief." Does that sound about right?

If we give Christians license to believe in virgin births even though they don't match with reality, then we open the flood gates and are logically required to also give creedence to equally not-reality-based beliefs in bigfoot, goblins, tooth fairy, Spiderman, alien abductions, zeus, thor, Poseidon, Santa, voodoo, Juju monsters, the Boogieman, and the invisible dragon hiding in my basement.

Virgin births? No. One virgin birth. Kind of like one big bang, one origin-of-life event, or one Cambrian Explosion.

[atheist buddy]

There is a word for someone who believes things which do not match with observed and observable reality in any way: Clinically insane.

Ha Ha!

It's two words, actually.

Touche. Shouldan't have said there is a "word". Shoulda said there is a "term".

But even without the totally hilarious yet respectful in-your-face rhetoric I think we get the basic idea you're promoting here: "no evidence, no belief." Does that sound about right?

Of course. That's how we operate when making decisions about everything in our life, from the most mundane to the most critical. Why would we not use the same parameters of decision-making and opinion-forming for beliefs about Gods?

If we give Christians license to believe in virgin births even though they don't match with reality, then we open the flood gates and are logically required to also give creedence to equally not-reality-based beliefs in bigfoot, goblins, tooth fairy, Spiderman, alien abductions, zeus, thor, Poseidon, Santa, voodoo, Juju monsters, the Boogieman, and the invisible dragon hiding in my basement.

Virgin births? No. One virgin birth. Kind of like one big bang, one origin-of-life event, or one Cambrian Explosion.

Well, here's the thing:

Evidence for the big bang: Overwhelming
Evidence against the big bang: Nill

Evidence for the Cambrian Explosion: Overwhelming
Evidence against the Cambrian Explosion: Nill

Evidence for the virgin birth: Nill
Evidence against the virgin birth: Overwhelming


It doesn't matter if you believe that something which actually never happened in reality, happened only once (the virgin birth) or if you believe that something which actually never happened in reality, happens every day (Apollo carrying the sun across the sky on a charriot).

If the evidence points uncontrovertedly to the conclusion that something happened zero times, then believing that it happened any number of times other than zero, is equally unjustifiable.

[atheist buddy]

There is a word for someone who believes things which do not match with observed and observable reality in any way: Clinically insane.

Ha Ha!

It's two words, actually. But even without the totally hilarious yet respectful in-your-face rhetoric I think we get the basic idea you're promoting here: "no evidence, no belief." Does that sound about right?

If we give Christians license to believe in virgin births even though they don't match with reality, then we open the flood gates and are logically required to also give creedence to equally not-reality-based beliefs in bigfoot, goblins, tooth fairy, Spiderman, alien abductions, zeus, thor, Poseidon, Santa, voodoo, Juju monsters, the Boogieman, and the invisible dragon hiding in my basement.

Virgin births? No. One virgin birth. Kind of like one big bang, one origin-of-life event, or one Cambrian Explosion.

By the way, I notice the phrase at the bottom of your post is "Extraordinary evidence requires extraordinary claims".

That's pretty clever.

So, that the virgin birth story of Jesus is true but the dozen other virgin birth stories are false, is an extraordinary claim.

Might I ask what the extraordinary evidence that requires you to make this extraordinary claim is?

[1213]

I don't think there's any way to make this poster change his mind. But if every time he expresses his ideas, everybody laughs at him, then he'll at least keep his ideas to himself, and avoid polluting the marketplace of ideas with his inane concepts.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi

1213, if something is impossible, it can happen ZERO times. It cannot happen three times, it cannot happen two times, it cannot happen one time.

I agree that if something is impossible, it will not occur ever. However I have no good reason to believe that you are correct about what is impossible.

[atheist buddy]

Why is nobody contesting either a) the content of my post, namely the validity of the evidence for and against the virgin birth, or b) the implicit premise that beliefs are only justifiable if supported by evidence?

Either my content is wrong, or the premise that gives weight to my content is wrong, or the virgin birth didn't happen and christianity is a lie.

It would seem that to a Christian who finds it worthwhile to spend time on a Christian debate site, proving me wrong would be their bread and butter.

So why is nobody contesting the heart of my post, and instead either ignoring my post entirely, or wasting time with peripheral (and easily disputed) arguments about zero being the same as one?

[atheist buddy]

I don't think there's any way to make this poster change his mind. But if every time he expresses his ideas, everybody laughs at him, then he'll at least keep his ideas to himself, and avoid polluting the marketplace of ideas with his inane concepts.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi

1213, if something is impossible, it can happen ZERO times. It cannot happen three times, it cannot happen two times, it cannot happen one time.

I agree that if something is impossible, it will not occur ever. However I have no good reason to believe that you are correct about what is impossible.

ok! Very good.

That is a debate we can have.

I believe, based on a pragmatic analysis of the empirical evidence, that our best estimation is that virgin births are impossible, therefore they cannot have happened 8 times, or 5 times or 2 times or 1 time. They can happen zero times.

You believe that virgin births are possible, they didn't happen the dozen documented times before or other than Jesus (Krishna, Karna, Buddha, Kabir, Zarathustra, Marduk, Horus, Perseus, Hercules, Pan, Helios, Mitra, Athena, Aphrodite, Ion, Romulus, Asclepius, Hellen, Houji, Lao-tse, Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, Momotar�, Kintar�,Kaguya-hime and many more), but it happened for Jesus.

Why do you believe that?

[1213]

... but it happened for Jesus.

Why do you believe that?

I believe it, because I have no reason to not believe it and because I think Bible is correct about greater things than that.

[atheist buddy]

... but it happened for Jesus.

Why do you believe that?

I believe it, because I have no reason to not believe it and because I think Bible is correct about greater things than that.

You have no reason to not believe it?

What?

How about the fact that we know it's medically impossible? How about the fact that we know it's biologically impossible? How about the fact that we know it's chemically impossible? How about the fact that we know it's physically impossible? How about the fact that Jesus's virgin birth is just one of many virgin birth stories, and that it's therefore a popular mythical narrative? How about the fact that we know that it's based on a mistranslation? How about the fact that it was written by an anonymous author that was born after Mary had alreayd died, and couldn't possibly know whether or not she had had sex?

No reason to not believe in the Virgin Birth?

Why debate at all if logic and common sense seem not to even remotely affect your positions?

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 27 by 1213]

While I understand your optimistic position. There simply is no evidence. So while you might have no reason not to believe it, there still is no reason to believe it.

[1213]

How about the fact that we know it's medically impossible? How about the fact that we know it's biologically impossible? How about the fact that we know it's chemically impossible? How about the fact that we know it's physically impossible?

You just don’t know how it could happen. Your lack of knowledge is no proof and does not make anything fact.