...Science and the Bible don't mix...

As the Christmas season rolls around (and EVERY RETAIL STORE IN THE WORLD breaks out the xmas music and systematically destroys the psyches of their employees one "jingle bells" replay at a time), I figured it was time for this blog to get into the spirit of the season. And if you don't already know the kind of shitshow this blog post is probably going to start, then you clearly don't know me very well.

Let me get one thing out of the way first and foremost. I am an atheist. I do not and will not believe in the existence of a supernatural power until I see it quantified in science. That said, (this is a disclaimer) I respect each and every person's right to practice their religion privately so long as it does not infringe on the rights of those around you to practice/believe whatever they wish to believe.

That said, I'm going to apply a little science to our favorite Christmas story, that is, the story of Jesus' birth.

So here's the Cliff's Notes version. Mary (mother of Jesus) got herself miraculously pregnant while still remaining a virgin (Teen Mom has got NOTHING on this), purportedly by the "holy ghost", one of the three main forms of God (those three being "God" "Jesus" and the "Holy Ghost"...Yes you're reading that right, God impregnated Mary with another form of himself to give birth to...himself...sorta...). They named this kid Jesus and he went on to perform miracles, heal a ton of people, piss off a government and get himself executed only to respawn three days later (that is some SHITTY lag).

Ok everybody with me so far? Good. I'm going to be focusing the majority of my blasphemy on the actual birth part. Lets ignore the whole "holy ghost" part for the time being (as that is supernatural and does not fall under the purview of science). And despite the fact that generally speaking, a woman MUST have certain....male contributions....in order to get pregnant, let's just assume that Mary was actually a virgin (She stuck to her story and everyone believed her...so why not us?). So if Mary was able to produce offspring without any male contributions and without sexual intercourse, that means she produced asexually (literally without sex). The closest from of asexual reproduction that mimics an actual birth is called Budding. If wikipedia is to be believed, budding is where the child organism spawns while attached to the parent organism. After developing to a state where it can support life on it's own, it detaches and becomes it's own separate organism (Theoretically speaking, the "bud" could have attached itself inside Mary's womb, so we are still within the realm of plausibility here).

Now here's where things get tricky. IF Mary was in fact a virgin and managed to asexually reproduce a child inside of her womb, that child would be A CLONE OF THE PARENT. In fact all asexual reproductions produce CLONES. Mary, being a female, would not possess the Y chromosome needed to produce a male child. SO there is one logical conclusion we can draw form this scenario, Jesus was ACTUALLY a woman.

There have of course been instances of women born with a Y Chromosome but still outwardly appeared female. This is called Swyer Syndrome and occurs when the development of a male child is halted due to a mutation in the SRY sex determining gene, blocking the further action of other substances required to make the default female fetus into a male. So based off of this genetic determination, if Mary were to have give "birth" to a clone of herself that resulted (after budding) in a male child, that means that Mary is actually a genetic male.

BUT, apply Occam's Razor to the whole mess and the case is clear....Mary lied about her being a virgin. Mary would have been a Maury Povich superstar!

...And that's what I learned today. (Props go to Beccah for the idea!)

SECOND DISCLAIMER: So by now you're probably horrifically offended, well don't be. I wrote this as a piece of humor not intending on hurting anyone's feelings regarding their favorite imaginary friend. I understand that to you, he's really really real and he's your best pal in the whole wide world. Just bear in mind that my best friends in the whole wide world are actually real and can do actual things with me like eat pizza and play Settlers of Catan. And if you're still feeling sore after all this, you can rest easy knowing that I'm going to hell and you're not. Have a wonderful day :)