Christmas survey

PJ Denyer

Paul Johnson, neither your lack of imagination nor the fact you find a myth appealing is evidence of it's veracity and insulting those who don't believe it adds nothing to the debate. Your supossed argument is doubly redundant as it is known that many other religions had gods and demi gods with similar origin myths. Were they all true or do other people have better imaginations than you?

C Newell

It's depressing to see so many otherwise intelligent people claiming the truth of an obvious myth. They all know that the virgin birth was never mentioned in the earliest gospel and was a latter addendum. Even if you can find some plausible excuse for this omission you still have to explain how on earth the gospel writers knew!

Godfrey Zone

Someone once said that if you stop believing in God you believe in anything. I find the reverse to be true - if you belive in God you are also prone to believe all manner of strange things, such as Cherie Blairs belif in healing crystals etc..

Alan Crowe

It's truly frightening that educated (?) adults, some of them with political power, would admit to a belief in the virgin birth. I think they should look first for some evidence that the guy even existed, before deciding how he might have been conceived. You would think, if some guy is going round performing miracles and healing the sick, somebody would have written down something at the time, the Romans were meticulous record keepers, but no there is nothing written about him until decades after his supposed existence. Mithras! anybody?

Mark Allen

I have to say that I'm absolutley gobsmacked that people in public life, all supposedly educated, some of whom even rely on our votes, are prepared to admit to such infantile beliefs in the 21st century.

Kenneth Perry

I agree with James Delingpole."The Preface" & "Concerning the Service of the Church" in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer provides my Religion. Anglican Clergy should proclaim their tenets & forget their metaphysics trying to prove a God made manifest.

CR

Its frightening that supposedly intelligent people can twist logic to the exent that they believe in virgin birth. Where did Jesus's DNA come from or didn't he have any? Or maybe it is too awkward to think about it from a scientific view point and use the old lazy excuse of 'it's faith'.

John Rouse

Excluding Hitchens' cntribution, what a load of tripe!

Herbert Thornton

If I were asked which of the responents I'd like to share Christmas dinner with, my first two choices would be James Delingpole and Christopher Hitchens.

If told I had to make it three, I'd add Paul Johnson - so long as he and Christopher Hitchens promised not to get into a fist fight.

And if a fourth had to be added it'd certainly be The Revd Nicky Gumbel.

Kenneth Wolman

My God, Hitchens, I don't care a hoot in Hell what you believe, you just sound like the most moronic drunk in the bar. Is that an accident?

Linda

Right on, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor!

Alma Q

Seems I am a brute then but I think that's a bit harsh. There are many impossible things to believe in - fairy stories, the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the writings of Ron L Hubbard, the Da Vinci Code, Winne the Pooh, the manifesto of the Labour Party and many, many other things, better or worse. take your pick.

Gerald P. McOsker

Well- someone else said it- No virgin birth - no divine incarnation- and Jesus is just another holy good guy. It's an integral part of the Christian message- even more important -in my view- than the Resurrrection.

John Williams

I now have a list of "public figures" to avoid, and am grateful to the Spec for providing it. Save of course Christopher Hitchens whose opinion and comments I have always respected. Stourton, Oborne and Fraser Nelson in particular deserve wider research based on their answers meeting the Sense and Sensibility requirements. Now Galloway....aaah Galloway. Hopefully he has bequeathed his mortal remains to science. A whole PhD could be focused on the DNA/lifeform/origin of this individual.

James Jeffrey Paul

There is just as much proof of Jesus's divinity as there is of the veracity of secular religions like Marxism and Freudianism--more, actually. But if there is any concrete proof of Jesus's divinity, I hope that it's never made public. Then we would need no faith in order to believe, and faith, not belief, is a wonderful and special thing. Whether the person who has faith is "educated" or not.

Robert Lee

If you are a Darwinista, you almost assuredly believe in life from non-life,,,if you are a Christian,,,you also believe in Life from Non Life,,,,The Holy Mother and Virgin Birth. Somebody as seemingly smart as mr Hitchens should surely realize that.

David J Forbes

How did the Speccie put this sample together? Why overweight the views of religious careerists, who are highly unlikely to respond in the negative - at least in public? I think the heavy preponderance of "yes" votes obtained, in favour of a notion that is perfectly absurd, would be difficult to replicate in the general intelligentsia. I do not know a single person, educated to postgraduate level, who believes in this tripe.

Colin Tomlinson

Does Colin Wilson believe in anything?

Alfred Cook

Objectively speaking, I wasn't there to bear witness to the truth or falsehood of the Virgin Birth. I must take it on faith that, with God, all things are possible.

Martin Hughes

Well, I've never seen so much wriggling, ducking and diving. Most of these people are prepared to suppress years of knowledge, experience and skill to come up with reasoning like this. It is very worrying that so-called elders in public life are prepared to lie through their teeth over what can only be described as basic procreation. The way some drivelled on suggested that they were railling more against modern trends than answering the simple question. Effusiveness is always a good ploy.

What is even more stupid is the fact it doesn't matter if virgin births are common or rare. If they are common there is nothing special and if they are rare (presumably only one in 2000 years) then it is more likely a myth.

Thank you Spectator for asking these people. As you can guess, all bar a few plummet in my estimation.

Peter Hickling

A Christian is by definition one who believes that Jesus Christ was Almighty God incarnate. If you believe this, on the basis of the Biblical record (which is the only ground on which you could believe it), why should you quibble about part of that record which is entirely consistent with the basic belief? The prejudices of people who say 'how can any intelligent person...' etc. without supporting reasoning are not worth considering.

Allan Strang

As an enlightened Scot currently undertaking his 3rd university degree, I am happy to say that I can make my way through life without carting around with me any of this superstitious religious baggage. However, what interested me most about this article was who was NOT asked their opinion. For a UK-wide publication, it would appear that the views of Scotland's clerics - in particular that of the Moderator of the Church of Scotland (the UK's other national Protestant church, we have two remember as the CoE's sphere of influence stops at the Scottish border) - was not sought.

Ralph Williams

Isn't asking Christopher Hitchens about the Virgin Birth a little like bear baiting? You know beforehand what's going to happen: His systolic blood pressure reading is going to shoot up 30 points, his face will turn purple, various subcutaneous blood vessels will throb visibly, and he will splutter out a vituperative rant that will sound almost identical to all his previous rants. It's really rather cruel, don't you think? You know how easily roused he is. If people insist on treating the poor, harmless fellow this way, I will have no choice but to begin praying for him.

Matthew Ward

So all beliefs must have logic behind them? No one told that to the Harvard scientists who chased Larry Summers out of town for proferring the idea that there may be innate differences between the scientific abilities of men and women. If you want logic, look at the scientific literature for why Summers was right. Not that that matters to the supposed "logic above all else" crowd. And tell the generations of intellectuals who believed in the viability of true communism against all logic and common sense. The larger point, though, is not the selective championing of logic by too many of our intellectuals. It's that any form of religious belief is always based on faith rather than logic. That's as true for Marxism as it is for Christianity.

Ray

Of course, the Virgin Birth is central to Christian belief because God became flesh and made Himself vulnerable to humanity - not least the sinful nature that being human confers. So was Jesus capable of sin? Absolutely. Yet did he ever sin? Categorically not. So what gave Him the supreme willpower to resist that is so absent in the rest of us? Quite simply, one word - LOVE; a love for fallen mankind that is so passionate that it kept his thoughts totally focussed on the Cross ahead of Him. If He had once flinched in His love for us (and goodness know, we don't deserve such love), then sin would have entered in and God's rescue plan for the human race would have been scuppered for all time. Instead Jesus successfully saw His mission through to completion. Alleluya, what a Saviour!

John Bull

Do I believe ? Absolutely - Yes ! Do I feel a need to "justify" my belief ? Not at all ! A very Happy Christmas to all - of every Faith.

David Hughes

Why do we humans seek to limit the power of God? He is more powerful than anything that our mere human minds can conceive. We judge God by our own puny efforts and say that the whole universe which he created happened "by accident".
Another thing we forget is that Matthew, Mark and Luke wrote their gospels for people who knew Jesus. Some had lived in the same village; many had heard him preach and perform miracles. You can't kid people who remember the things you are writing about. The fact that Jesus had been born of the Virgin Mary was known to many thousands of his contemporaries.

Donald C Bindon

Ideas about Jesus evolved from 'Why callest thou me good, there is none good but God' (Mt 19:17, Mk 10:18, Lk 18:19) 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' (Mk 15:34, Mt 27:46) to 'He was in the world, and the world was made by him ...' (Jn 1:10) Jesus seems to have thought of himself as Messiah, rather than as God incarnate. If Jesus had just a human mother, he would have had the same 23 pairs of chromosomes as her, as if he was cloned, so where did his Y-chromosome to make him male, come from?

James O'Shea

The A of C knows he has to start with 'Yes'. But he can't leave it there, can he? I defy anyone to make any sense of the lines of totally meaningless drivel that follow. The 'absolute freedom of God to break the chains of cause and effect' eh? What does this actually mean?

William Perez

The opinion of all these self-important people deriding the divinity of Christ is just one more proof that a postgraduate education may teach you a great many things, but absolutely fails in furthering one's intelligence and imagination. And by what standards do we decide that a post graduate degree is necessary before a person can emit a valid opinion on faith and belief in God? What arrogance!

Mike Tranter

I am educated and I believe in the Virgin Birth and other Christian dogma. Who is Colin Wilson? I am Christian and not afraid to state that fact.

Kirt Pavitt

I always thought the Virgin Birth referred to Mary's birth, by her mother, a virgin. Therefore conceived of a virgin, she was of the purity necessary to be the Mother of Jesus. Can someone clear all this up for me??

Richard Smith

The problem with religion is that it divides us. Each believer believes that his or her faith is the one true faith and that everybody else's is false. This makes non-believers in the one's chosen faith the enemy. The more ridiculous the belief, the more faith is required to believe it and therefore, somehow, this reassures the believer that it is true. The sooner the world drops all these divisive, childish superstitions the happier the world will be.

Graham Clarke

Well if I were asked I would suggest that phantom pregnancies are rare but real, just the same as nutters make wild statements not based in reality. However eloquent the response, it is, they are still talking a load of 'b****cks.

Philip Walker

No sceptic has explained why Luke, who didn't quote Isaiah as if to prove something, made far more of Mary's virginity than did Matthew.

chris dowling

Paul Johnson is correct.Hitchins and his fellow travelers, like Dawkins, want to distroy society by stealth, and replace religion, with their secularist agenda.They now controle Oxford, and will slowly remove orthodox theologians, and replace them with athiests.Belief in the Virgin Birth is becoming very dangerous, and no one is challanging these self appointed Gauleiters. Happy Christmas!

Gervase Webb

There seems to be a degree of hedging and wilful obfuscation by some of the respondents. Understandably, of course - in the UK matters of faith are still held to be be private and their public profession regarded as on a par with breaking wind in front of strangers and al fresco onanism. All of which is as it should be. I would far prefer those who govern to be ruled by reason and a concern for the common good rather than by a superstition. So, mark me down as a brute. (Interesting, apropos not a lot, that those who have no need for imaginary friends are better spellers...)

The Revd Dr John Bunyan

1.Almost 80 years ago (1938), the official Report on Doctrine in the C.of E. noted that some in our Church interpreted the Virginal Conception literally, some symbolically or theologically. 2. Modern scientific knowledge rules out the first. Eg Anglican scientist, the late Arthur Peacock, notes that to be male, Jesus needed a Y chromosome (with genetic characteristics), normally derived from the sperm of a human father. If God miraculously created the genes, Jesus was not "truly human". (See Peacocke, DNA of our DNA, in George J.Brooke, "The Birth of Jesus" for the full, I think, unanswerable argument). 3. The earliest Christian Jews knew nothing of a virgin birth and much of early Jewish Christianity - which came to be replaced by Gentile Christianity, later disappearing from history, believed simply that Jesus their Messiah was the son of Joseph and Mary. 4. S.Matthew and S.Luke, c.80 years after the birth of Jesus, have two different stories of the birth. (Eg in S.Matthew the home of Jesus is in Bethlehem ; in S.Luke an unhistoric census brings Joseph and Mary there. S.Matthew has a story of wise men and of Jesus going thereafter to Egypt. In S.Luke, the holy family return almost immediately to Nazareth.) Some Christians came understandably to "discover" in the Jewish Scriptures details of the birth (and passion) of Jesus - so believed EG that he must have been born in Bethlehem, that some had come from the east with gifts to offer him, and (using their Greek version of Isaiah, not the Hebrew original) that he was born of a virgin. The latter led in turn to stories of a Mary pregnant before marriage &c and eventually to the present Matthean and Lucan tales. I think the great majority of Bible scholars would think that Jesus was born in Galilee, most probably in Nazareth, to the married couple Joseph and Mary -with his brothers and sisters also born there. The role of those brothers has been obscured in the "Pauline" Christianity which dominates the New Testament, not least the key role of Jacob (James), the brother of Jesus, as leader of the infant Christian Jewish "church" in Jerusalem . There are many good recent studies of S.James the brother of the Lord, eg the Australian work of John Painter. . 5. All Christians believe the Matthean and Lucan stories contain many wonderful and profound TRUTHS but scholars believe they are theological truths not historical. The telling of those stories in the incomparable words of the Authorised Version (such as are found in the Gospel passages of the Book of Common Prayer) help to emphasise the real character of these rich and profound stories. Some banal "modern" versions encourage instead a literal reading and hence, I think, lead some to dismiss them altogether.

Marķa -José de Ugarte

Of all the "important" persons of your survey and the ones 'commenting' I only know the the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of Westminster.The others are known only by a few (globally speaking). They all know God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Joseph. They deny their existance or prerrogatives. I ask myself - and they should as themselve too,WHY? Why are they so brutally (yes, 'brutally') against the Divine? There is one privilege mind of secular and theological knoledge, that proves that believing in God, in Jesus-God, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and her perpetual Virginity (before, during and after giving birth), is not for DAM people of no culture:Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. I am an ordinary person with no degrees. When the reality of life comes -DEATH -, we will see who was right.

Elawobeda

After the last comment, what else can anyone say? Such a brilliant piece of theology.

Rev Fr J McCallion cc

So Ed Stourton says that he cannot see this as a constant scource of inspiration? So much for Catholic education!!!!

Heresiarch

I once asked Professor Keith Ward if he believed in the virgin birth, based on something he'd written, and he told me that he did, because that was "the tradition" and he accepted it as part of the tradition; but that he didn't think it was absolutely necessary for being a Christian to believe it. "That surprises some people" he said. Obviously he's changed his mind.

David Lindsay

"I no more believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary than I believe that Krishna was born of the virgin Devaka, Horus was born of the virgin Isis, Mercury was born of the virgin Maia, or Romulus was born was born of the virgin Rhea Sylvia," Christopher Hitchens informs The Spectator. But no one has ever suggested that Devaka, Isis, Maia or Rhea Sylvia was a virgin. These are all cases of a very common mythological theme: the impregnation of women by gods, by means of sexual intercourse, so that the women were by definition not virgins when they became pregnant, even if they were right up until that act. Except in Mormonism, this has never been suggested with regard to Mary's conception of Jesus. Sexual intercourse is exactly what does not occur in this case, so that there is no parallel whatever with any other story, immensely numerous though such stories certainly are. A C Grayling also makes the point that it is not clear that the prophecy is Isaiah actually refers to a virgin. Well, it certainly does in the Septuagint, and, contrary to what used to be asserted, first century Palestine is now acknowledged to have been profoundly Hellenised. So either the Septuagint prophecy is indeed being fulfilled explicitly, or else there was no expectation that the Messiah would be virgin-born, and thus no reason to make up that Jesus had been. It is worth pointing out that absolutely no early opponent of Christianity, whether Jewish or pagan, ever suggested that Jesus was the son of Joseph. Instead, they claimed that he was illegitimate, a charge at which there are more than hints even in the Gospels themselves.

Andrew

The only person who knows is Mary - not Joseph and certainly not the Apostles - and she is not going to deny it considering the status it confers upon her (and the awkward business of who got her in the family way if it wasn't Himself).

Kevin

I am surprised at Christopher Hitchens' reply. After all, his philosophy appears to be predicated on the belief that the entire universe has no cause whatsoever. Parthenogenesis seems a relatively minor concept by comparison.

skidmore

if you believe that, you will believe anything......and often do

Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley

We will probably never know how many people, like me, believe in the virgin birth story. Therefore logically, people who dismiss our beliefs as "unaccountable" would also lack the capacity to understand how strong our belief is. Luckily all citizens here in the UK are at liberty to have faith in whatever belief they like, scientific or unscientific. Thus individual citizens have the practical capacity to avoid getting stuck in boring arguments about what we believe in and why. In addition we can reserve the right to keep our reasons "private".

M-J. U.

"Privacy" refers to the rigt that I have to say or not to say what I believe or not - or what I feel about all people who offend me in their comments about Our Lady: simply because She is my Mother and I love Her. What I belive has a repercussion in my behaviour towards others, therefore it is not "private". A Happy and Holy Christmas to all - including the unbelievers, for whom I will pray in front of the Manger. M-J.U.

Watcher

The angel that might have entered Mary might well have been an Issenic Priest, breaking he old cycle of destiny through the conventional mother and father, creating a new Holy Destiny for the child. God protected the chastity of Mary though ( with a white lie)

ikari plebanus civitate labacensis

naturally I believe? Is there something to doubt about?

Stephen Loch

Of course I believe, God's word says it's true - it's that simple - yet it's also a miracle.

HR Fehr

No Way man

Peter Reeve

I'm surprised that A.C. Grayling misunderstands the meaning of the phrase 'the Immaculate Conception'. Admittedly, most people get it wrong, but I expected better from him.

John Dean

Virgin birth does occur in nature, but very rarely. The explanation is that twins are formed in the mother's womb but for some unknown reason one developes and the other lodges in the developing female's fetus. At puberty the teen age mother quickens the latent fetus lodged within her and eventually gives birth to it. The child thus born has the parentage of its 'mother' but is fact its (delayed) twin. If this is what occurred then Jesus and his 'mother' Mary were in fact twins carrying their parent's genes and DNA. Whether or not this delayed twin assumes a divine status is something for the church fathers to argue about and excommunicate and persecute those in the minority as was their usual wont heretofore, (see Gibbon - Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.)

Geoff Richardson

Biologically speaking parthenogenesis in humans (i.e. reproduction without male genetic input) would produce female offspring only as the "Y" chromosome, required to produce male offspring, is present only in male sperm. To do otherwise would require a "Miracle".

John Thomas

Peter Oborne's daughter tells us that "modern liberal Biblical scholarship views the whole thing as a myth" - has it not moved on since when I did "modern liberal Biblical scholarship" at university (1969-72)? Perhaps, in 30 or so years' time, Ms. Oborne will have a more detached view of her studies, or the ideas of her teachers, etc., as I do. What I realised is that "critical" Biblical scholarship was never ever critical of itself or its processes and their motivations - never examined itself at all, that is (no "know thyself" there). I now see that it was driven by an agenda, and by specifically-materialist assumptions - and it seems they have remained un-criticised ever since (such "scholarship" is thus carried out in a kind of darkness, or (mentally) closed world). And - still talking about "myth"? Oh how passe! - such concepts were old hat before 1969, never mind now. By now I thought there must have been a reaction, but no. The whole enterprise simply reflects - panders to, more like - Western society's seemingly-incurable materialism. But it will change; nothing goes on forever.

greyfox

Religions can postulate any ideas they wish and then proceed to build some mystical truth around them. There is no limit as to what the imagination can bring forward in the mystical magical world of beliefs. Since religions require no scientific proof of anything, anything is fair game.
If you want to live in the religious wolrd of beliefs, then there surely was a "virgin" birth and Jesus Christ was the Divine outcome.
If, however, you live in the real world that operates on a scientific level then the "virgin" birth is not possible. So in the end it depends on which world one chooses to live in. It's up to you.