In Cecil’s Aphids Born Pregnant, he makes a brief reference to humanity’s “one known case” of virgin birth. It seems a safe bet to say he was talking about one Jesus of Nazareth. A safe bet, that is, from a Christian point of view; don’t some other religions have a holy personage born to a virgin? http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_223.html
In 1968, when I was a foolish and naive university student, I took a first level philosophy course. Our prof zipped through a fast-paced tour of a passle of the world’s religions, laying out the tenets and casts of characters faster than I could write them down. At the end of all that, he told us of Zoroastrianism and Taoism, which he said were more or less atheistic religions.
Somewhere in that breakneck tour, I seem to remember there were at least a couple (other than Christianity) where the hero was born to a virgin. I think he said there was even one born to a virgin cow. :eek: That must have been a shock to some long-ago rancher.
Can anyone fill in the details I forgot in 1968? Thanks.
Perseus was conceived by a “shower of gold,” and many individuals interpret the story being that of a virgin birth (saying Danae was a virgin when she was locked up). I don’t know that it’s explicitly stated anywhere, though.
There’s this list on Wikipedia, but I’m a little shaky on my world mythology, so I can’t verify any of it.
Virgin births were fairly common in pre-Christian pagan traditions. Horus was born to the virgin Isis. Perseus and Dionysus were conceived in virgins by Zeus through non-sexual means (by a lightning bolt and a “golden shower” respectively). Buddha and Krishna had virgin birth legends. The similarities between Christian and pagan mythical motifs are ofetn overplayed but the motif of a god conceiving a child with a virgin was commonplace.
Taoism is a nontheistic religion but Zoroastrianism definitely is not. Zoroastrian theology is all about a battle between a “good” god (Ahura Mazda) and a sort of evil anti-god (or “evil spirit” similar to Satan). It is technically monotheistic, though, since only Ahura Mazda is “God.” Zoroastrianism was extremely influential on Judaism and Christianity. It introduced the eschatological concepts of a cosmic battle between good and evil, an “endtime” and final judgement, immortal souls, a resurrection of the dead and heaven and hell. These ideas entered Judaism during the Babylonian exile and subsequently infomed Christianity.
Many thanks to all of you, so far. When I was in high school, there were rumors of a girl in my school having been ruled by her doctor to have been a virgin, and by a court to have been impregnated by sperm in the water of a public pool. There seemed to be a lot of holes in the story, as well as (supposedly) the young lady’s hymen. All I know for sure is, I never boinked her.
The rumors at the time were just about balanced between the pool story and the one that said she was humping everyone she dated.
At the time, there was one public pool in the area that wasn’t chlorinated. It was built in the bed of Fall Creek, and the creek ran through it. The flowing water would have made the “conception in a pool” nearly as unlikely as in a chlorinated pool. To some folks, though, it’s just about as likely that a young virgin was impregnated by God. Is there a Snopes entry on that one?
Or maybe both stories are true: Being impregnated in a public pool is not inconsistent with the possibility that she happened to be humping someone at that moment.
I think the idea was that it was clay from the Nile - symbol of life and fertility - and imbued with Osiris’s “essense” as Isis did bring him back to life (or at least an erection) for the deed.
So it’s sorta questionable. But I think she and Osiris were mated before that, so even if Horus wasn’t the result of DNA exchange (and really, when you’re a God, who is?), Isis wasn’t a virgin. She’s usually depicted as a very mothery goddess.
And Osiris is definitely depicted as Horus’s father, until later on when Horus becomes a reincarnation of Osiris.
Wouldn’t virgin births be possible with artificial insemniation? Even then. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to get the semen in the vagina without inserting tab a into slot b.
I don’t know when you were in high school. This drama played out circa 1966 in Anderson, Indiana, which was not exactly a wild, cosmopolitan place in those days. The creek-fed pool was down the road at Pendleton. Fall Creek is now too polluted to swim in, so the pool was closed years ago.
I apologize for not tending my own thread, but I’ve been on vacation for a week.
It depends on the definition of virgin birth, and of virginity. If it means “no penis in vagina contact,” then you’re right. We’ve seen in several threads that a lot of people say you can have oral, anal, or mutual manual sex without “having sex.” All of those delights have the chance of semen going astray, resulting in conception. Artificial insemination surely fits into that category; a syringe is not a penis.
