Xanthippa's Chamberpot

2 Responses to “Pat Condell: ‘Godless Christmas’”

1. GCBC Says:
   January 7, 2011 at 21:36

   I always enjoy Pat even if I don’t always agree with everything he says. Regarding your comment on BCF about Mary. Immaculate conception refers to Mary being born without sin and is not about Jesus. The angel (Gabriel) came to Mary and told her she had found favour with God and would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit. To which Mary replied,(paraphrase)”Let it be to done to me as you have said…” giving her consent before the fact. Therefore it was not rape, consent was given.

   Xanthippa says:

   Thank you.

   As for the BCF comment…. The doctrine of the Niceans regarding the whole corporeal incarnation of their God into Jesus was indeed heretical to the minds of many Christians: and many of them objected to it on the grounds I stated.

   Mary was informed by Gabriel that she is already with child.

   As in, no consultation prior to conception – so no opportunity for consent to be given.

   This is actually rather consistent with the tradition of the time/place/culture. Women had no control over their sexuality/reproduction – this was strictly a male perogative. We see this attitude reported on the Nicean Bible over and over, where in various instances, the terms ‘wife’ and ‘concubine’ and ‘slave’ are used interchangably.

   There is no mention of Mary having given consent to the conception of Jesus because to the Jews of the time and place, her consent would not have been considered.

   This, however, is not true of some of the early Christian groups which actually displayed incredibly un-misogynistic attitudes for their time and place. Most of these ‘equalist’ groups eventually developed into several specific gnostic Christian traditions, long before the Council of Nicea took place.

   Now, not all of these traditions were gnostic, but most were. And, even among the various gnostic groups, there was no consensus on who, or rather what, Jesus was. Opinions ranged from ‘a being of pure light’ without a corporeal body to a regular human being, son of Mary and her husband Joseph, who was not in any way supernatural but rather inspired.

   Following Nicea, the vast majority of Christian books and teachings were destroyed. We know from the early Roman Church fathers and their complaints about the things the ‘heretics’ are saying against ‘The Church’ that more than one sect of non-Nicean Christians regarded the whole ‘Mary-Gabriel-Jesus’ doctorine as the rape of Mary by God, so he himself could be born of her womb.

   It is not ‘just me’….

   Reply
2. Elena Says:
   January 31, 2012 at 11:32

   I’m a proud aignstoc who has a wishy-washy moral code. Does that make me less bad that Pullman?Personally, the most overtly religious books I’ve ever read were Atlas Shrugged and Anthem.

   Reply