Quote:
The Vigin Mary story puzzled me ever since I was young...
My answer to the virgin Mary story does not conform to the traditional religious doctrine...How can this be? My answer may make me look foolish and ignorant. . But first I would appreciate your imput.
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After the comments that you have already witnessed, how could you still worry that your answer would make you "look foolish and ignorant."
For centuries, the idea of a virgin birth has been ridiculed by an elite group thinking themselves wise. However, it takes a pretty ignorant person to believe that way in today's world. The ability of women to have children without a male sperm donor is now common knowledge.
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The technology to produce artificial sperm, or even create offspring from two females, is already in the pipeline;...A surprising number of animals can reproduce without male involvement if there is no other option. Sharks and lizards have demonstrated this ability in captivity. It was previously believed that the process was impossible in mammals such as humans because male sperm cells and female egg cells undergo a process called imprinting. In imprinting, sections of each cell’s genome are silenced to allow the set of genes from the other parent to be expressed, so that when the egg and sperm cells combine, the genes in the resulting embryo are not competing with each other.
It has now been discovered that it is possible to interrupt this process by deleting just two sections of genetic material on the genomes of female mice – animals very similar, for reproductive purposes, to humans. Immature egg cells that have not begun any of the rest of the imprinting process are fused with a mature egg from another mouse, and activated by an electric current to begin dividing. These new cells will produce a ball of cells just like a normal early embryo.
Elsewhere,
producing a child that is the genetic offspring of two females is becoming a real possibility – and the process is not nearly as difficult as was previously thought. Artificial sperm produced from bone-marrow cells has already led to pregnancies and live births in mice. Last summer a Japanese team announced that female mice had been made pregnant using cells from other females, and given birth to completely healthy babies. The success rate was about one in five, roughly the same as that achieved by human infertility clinics. The only drawback was that the baby mice grew into adults that were on average 20% smaller than normal mice, but the researchers expect to rectify this problem once the imprinting process is better understood. Their message is that there is nothing unique provided by the male in sexual reproduction – only properly imprinted chromosomes for the production of a new human baby.
Homo erectus extinctus - Times Online
In short, men are no longer needed in order for procreation to occur. Mary's virgin birth, it seems, was not all that incredible, after all.