To think the Nativity story is more worrying in terms of consent issues than sleeping beauty etc?

[grobagsforever]

Inspired by the sleeping beauty discussion (but not a TAT). I agree that the message of men kissing women who can't consent is a damaging message for young girls but I'm baffled as to why more people aren't concerned about children being exposed to the nativity.

Mary is impregnated by a male God. In the biblical version she is 'asked' (although how she'd have the courageous to refuse I don't know) but in the children's Christmas version the line is usually something like 'The (male) angel appeared and told Mary she was to have a baby'

Then a mute Mary is transported by donkey at the request of another man, made to give birth in a stable and then visited postpartum by a series of men! All without her explicit consent or consultation.

Am I the only person who thinks this story should not be taught to young children??

Madhairday an Elephant! Woah that's impressive!

Maybe instead of a nativity play and the fighting over parts all the children could dress up in glitter and 80's costumes and perform something from the Abba collection?

Dancing Elephants also included.

Saga - the gospel writings are based on eyewitness accounts and so from Mary herself

I wonder what would happen in this century if we hadn't had Christianity - but then someone said that an angel had come to them and told them that they would carry the Son of God?

You have to ask why god crawed inside some young girls vagina only to pop back out again and say, "guess who". Why not just appear and leave the poor girl out of it?
Did he ever pay any child maintenance? Seems the mother was left picking up the tab for a controlling male again.

So who are the eye witnesses? Who was there at the annunciation besides Mary and the 'angel'? I thought the general opinion was that the evangelists themselves were not eye witnesses, so across these many years the idea that they are 'based on eye witness accounts' is a little hard to verify, since the eye witnesses themselves did not appear to keep a record of what they saw.

I think if you have a strong faith and naturally wish to pass this onto your children then you are free to do so but to expect that the whole of their peer group should have to follow suit is unreasonable at this time.

Your point about reasoning with them actually highlights the problem. You can't because it is not reasonable. It is a myth. Faith is based on the ability to believe without proof. Forcing this on society cannot be right.

If it was, as a pp said, the 10 commandments then I'd have more sympathy. There would be no relationship threads on here if the commandments were kept.

Are they eyewitness accounts when they were passed on orally for 300 years before being written down?

But what does that mean - it's a matter of faith? This of course explains why people (normally rational people) tie themselves up in knots to rationalise what cannot be rationalised.

I think the debate is interesting in terms of looking with fresh modern eyes at a myth most of us learned when very young, even if we didn't or don't believe it. If any version of this myth were created today, firstly, no one would believe it (because it is only 'a matter of faith' if it refers to something that happened many years ago) and, secondly, we would definitely be questioning the roles and intentions of the various characters in it, not least God.

The idea of ' Faith' is always trotted our to try and justify all the parts of religion which don't make sense. I find it frustrating because it's saying it's ok that events don't make sense just because so lump it. I can't think of another instance where 'because faith' would be seen as an acceptable explanation?

Mad, you have posted two people's opinions, it's not proof of facts or a majority. Both were clearly written to be controversial so sell and make money.
What you have Mad is faith, it can only be faith if you have no proof that the thing exists, or it is a fact, not faith.

A bit of a derail here but a question I have always wondered about if as you say Pengggwn
"that NOT to believe in God and accept him is to spend eternity in pain and punishment"
I wonder what do christians believe happen to people who were born before the advent of christianity. Do they by the lottery of birth have to spend eternity in pain and suffering just because they were born before they could be saved?

Where did you get 300 years from, Scaredy? The first of Paul's letters was written down incredibly early, less than 20 years after the events, and the first of the gospel 35-40 years. Nothing at all in comparison to other writings of antiquity - look at the dates on writings about the Buddha for eg or Alexander the Great, you'll find its centuries as opposed to a few decades. Historians say that the time between the events and the gospel accounts being written was much too short for myth and legend to be formed. And of course you need to take into account the oral histories tradition of the time where folk learned histories word for word, making the accounts highly likely to be very accurate to what the eyewitnesses said in the first place.

Bart Ehrman isn't contentious. He's one of the most well respected biblical scholars in the field and much quoted by many other scholars. Same with NT Wright. I posted this links as examples - I can post a load more if you like but it would get very tedious very quickly. The only contentious thinking when it comes to the Jesus as myth narrative is that of Richard Carrier and his ilk which is much refuted by the majority of historians and theological scholars. The fact remains that the majority opinion is that Jesus existed - a quick Google will show you that.

Yes, I do have faith, but firmly believe in the use of reason in addition to this. I question my faith all the time for it would be worth very little if it couldn't be grounded in knowledge and reason as well. I am convinced by the evidence we have that Jesus lived, died and was resurrected.

Eternity in pain and suffering is a medieval false telling of what scripture says. And wrt what happens to those before Christianity, nowhere does it say in the Bible that those people of faith would not be in eternity with God. Quite the opposite, actually. Abraham's faith would be credited to him as righteousness - so while salvation is by grace not works, God's grace extends through all time. Narrowing it to a certain time period and a certain group of people is narrowing God.

Mary did give her consent. She said. " I am the habdmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word"

Though of course even 20 or 30 years is long enough for eye witnesses to forget or embellish. I'm just reading Vincent Bugliosi's enormously long book on the JFK assassination which aims to take apart all the conspiracy theories and one very interesting fact is that many eye witnesses change their stories when re-interviewed 5, 10 or 20 years later. Sometimes they have simply forgotten, but in many cases their story has developed to include things they have since heard or now believe to be true.

Anyway, this is getting away from the primary topic of the thread which is whether the nativity story is an inappropriate story to teach children now that we no longer live in a (completely) patriarchal society and have very different views on the rights of women. It isn't entirely separate because, of course, the story is sanctified by 'faith' and therefore we are expected to treat it differently from Beauty and the Beast or Norse religious myths.

Yes ontop, but JFK wasn't assassinated in first century Palestine where there was an incredibly robust oral history tradition whereby people handed down their histories word for word and learned them word for word. In addition to this, there were stringent checks in place to ensure that the histories hadn't faltered or changed in any way which detracted from or altered the original retelling. The very opposite of Chinese whispers. If we're going to pick apart these things and try to get to the truth we can't simply apply a 21st C lens and say oh but that's how we'd see it now - we must study the cultural context and become familiar with the way these things were done in order to posit any balanced historical opinion from it. Or it becomes moot.

Madhairday
So If you go back to the bronze age when they were worshipping all sorts, or leap forwards to the romans or the greeks with all their gods and goddess did they all get into heaven?

I'm not a universalist. I just believe that God is just, and my careful study of scripture has led me to believe that God is a God who gives free choice to folk in their decision to believe or not. The Bible implies every person is given opportunity. God is love and thus longs for every single person to be reconciled with God. Some will choose not to. That's free choice. Wouldn't be a loving God if that aspect was taken away.

It’s generally accepted that there are different approaches to faith v reason - they may be compatible, incompatible, in conflict. Going back as far as Aquinas he thought you needed arguments for your belief in God as well as faith. It is too easy a dismissal of religious people to say they believe everything on faith. Many religious people want evidence for their beliefs - not proof mind you, but evidence . I suspect all of us believe many things without having absolute proof for them —my dcs aren’t aliens for example—

You are over thinking this.Id be surprised if any women have been affected by fairy tales or religious ones.Real life however yes