> I wrote...
> God has a penis? Then why does he need the holy ghost?
>
> Jon wrote
> To go "Boo!" and frighten all the little kids.
>
> Actually, I was thinking more along the lines that it's the holy ghost
> that impregnates Mary...
>
> ....right? Any catholics out there?
Yes, I understood your point, but this stuff is all so ridiculous that it's hard to discuss it with a straight face.
The whole "virgin birth" thing got started, if I recall correctly, when the translators of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, used "parthenos" for a Hebrew word in Isaiah which meant "young woman." "Parthenos,"though, is ambiguous -- it could mean either "young woman" or "virgin." Since the Isaiah passage was used by the early Christians as a "prophesy" about Jesus -- it said something about a young woman bearing a child -- and those Christians used the Septuagint to read Isaiah, they took it that Jesus' mother had to be a virgin. Besides, that made him look all the more miraculous.
Anyway, the short answer to your question is, of course, that the Holy Ghost is God's spiritual penis. Don't ask me what God's spiritual orgasm feels like; my theological competence only goes so far. Let's just say it's "heavenly."
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax