Conversations 16

I had researched births, both miraculous and otherwise, and all claimants to the former had either lied, been unaware or just deeply misguided. There was a reason why mammals, and specifically humans, couldn't go through parthenogenesis, despite research done in the 1950s that said it was possible.

"The bible is the word of God, and as such is proof of the story of the virgin birth."

I shook my head. "If that's true, then Jesus would have to have been a girl."

"What?"

"It's the Y chromosome that decides if a baby is a boy – XY, taking the X chromosome from the mother and the Y from the father. If it was a virgin birth, with no human sperm involved, then the baby would be XX – a girl. Was Jesus a girl, do you think. Maybe she wore a false beard to travel around and preach the message of John the Baptist."

He smiled and nodded. "I know you think science explains everything, but there are mysteries that science can't explain."

"Yet."

"What?"

"That science can't explain yet," I expanded. "Two hundred years ago the fact that Jesus would have had to have had a human male father would have got people killed on sight. Now science can explain why, and we move on from there. I'm sure that you can bring up problems that science can't explain – but when you think about it, if science knew everything, why would research continue? It would just stop. But scientists know that they don't know everything, so they beaver away daily to try and find out. And they will, eventually."

"You say that with such confidence, my b... Geoff. But let's say that there is a god, just for the sake of this argument. If there is, then he can perform miracles. So why wouldn't he perform a miraculous way of creating life, as well as the miracle of his birth."

"Occam's Razor," I stated. Despite his self-indulgent and self-serving terms, I was enjoying the discussion to an extent, hoping that I could shake the bastard in his belief, albeit purely for my own reasons. "It's the principle that when faced with alternative arguments, the simpler one is probably correct."

"I know what Occam's Razor is," he snapped. "After all, it is attributed to a monk – a Christian monk, mind you!"

"It's just a tool," I said, shrugging. "If you apply it to this case, then my argument is probably correct."

"I disagree," he said. "How simple would it be to simply perform a miracle and make it happen?"

"Simpler than doing what men and women have been doing with each other for millennia?"

"A miracle is like God snapping his fingers."

"But all the ramifications of that are not simple at all," I countered. "He would have had to alter the DNA of Mary's cells to reflect that the baby would be born male, and do that without altering anything else in that sequence. Then he would have had to convince the egg to divide and keep dividing, without the genetic instructions that normally do it naturally. And he would have had to supply all the male characteristics to the DNA so that Jesus would be born normally and with all the attributes that Jewish men had two thousand years ago. I mean, if he'd been born looking like a Viking baby there'd be all sorts of questions. Even for a miracle-worker, that's quite a precise job.

"Or you could go with Occam's Razor, and simply accept that what probably happened was a young woman was persuaded to have sex, and took advantage of circumstances to deny it."

I shrugged again. "I'm not knocking women – I like women. My mum is a women. My new girlfriend is a women. But according to the history books, they've been doing that shit for an awfully long time."

"Well, I happen to believe Jane when she says she remained faithful to her husband – to you." He shifted forward in the seat and leaned towards me. "Do you think that Mary and Joseph didn't get asked awkward questions. But they knew the truth! They had the Son of God in their care – and that son went on to perform miracles of his own. Oh, you can sit there and look askance at that, but it's true.

"And if it was true then, why can't it be true now – that a new Messiah has been born – and born an Englishman."

I regret to say I laughed. Why would any god send his son to the English? We were polite, uptight, full of hidden, repressed anger and all too ready to vent that anger at the slightest provocation. To my understanding, Jesus spoke Aramaic like his contemporaries. Who would want a Jesus that went around with his pants halfway down his arse saying things like "Yo, wagwam fam? We is fuckin' banger bruv, innit? So we 'as got to forgive dose mandem, even if they is long!"

"You may laugh," he protested, "But I imagine the Jews laughed in the beginning."

"They weren't laughing at the end," I replied. "When they arranged to have him murdered."

"That's as may be," he continued, ignoring my point. "But think what it could mean to people throughout the world – that God's message is not redundant; that his love is everywhere, for those who accept him. He said he would return, and that time is surely now!"

"Why are you pressing so hard for me to believe this twaddle?"

"A. It's not twaddle – it's in the bible. And B. Mary had Joseph. Jane needs her Geoff."

Agh – the way he said my name was driving me nuts! I could practically hear it spelled with a 'G'.

"You know what, if you were so keen on the two of us being together, you could have helped to keep it that way."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, she admitted that she went to you and told you all about those urges to have a little extra-marital on the side, didn't she? And all you could offer was to send her home to pray, in the hope that she would come to the right decision. Well she did! She came to the right decision for her libido and the wrong one for our marriage! You didn't stress how the bible insists at the point of a rock that women remain faithful. You didn't insist that whores and harlots were either condemned to be stoned or demand the head of John the Baptist. You didn't remind her of the pits of hell put aside for adulterers. You didn't tell her not to do anything. You had all the confidence that she would do what her heart told her to do, by praying. She told everyone that her urges disappeared. I'm convinced that what she actually prayed for was me not to find out. You know how that ended up.

"You were her pastor, the man she looked to for guidance when I wasn't there. And you failed her. Even a friend would have given her better advice. Hell, even a barman would have done better!

"You're a useless pastor, an awful confessor and an oxygen thief of a man. Now get the fuck out of my house!"

He shot to his feet as if her feared violence – which was silly. With my knee, it took forever to get up from a seat.

He got his coat and turned back. "Geoff – just think of the ramifications if you were wrong in your certainty."

"You never saw the baby before it went for adoption, did you? You should have snooped. Now, I'm pretty sure that God didn't live next door to me, which is what snooping around and a genetic test told me. And as soon as my knee gets better, that bastard is going to get such a kicking, he'll never be the same again – although I'd appreciate it if you kept that under your hat – like something heard in a confessional, all right?"

"A DNA test?" he asked sadly, his dreams of being the religious authority at Christ's resurrection in tatters.

"Uh-huh!" I said. "But even without it, Christians would never ever have accepted the baby as the son of god."

"Why?"

"Well, firstly the baby is a girl, so it would never happen in this society. It doesn't treat women fairly. And secondly, even if people could accept that – Christians could never go with the other characteristic."

"Which is?" He looked as if there couldn't be anything more terrible than a girl claiming to be the daughter of god, which I thought was immensely stupid, and lowered my opinion of him even further. What is closer to being a deity than a mother?

"My neighbour is black, and she looks just like him.

"How many Christians would accept that?"