Via Boingboing, I read that one of David Copperfield's latest illusions is something called the "immaculate conception trick":
I saw Copperfield at the MGM in Vegas last fall, and he did the immaculate conception trick. Basically he picks a girl at random from the audience, and proceeds to play out a romantic tale, which includes a very funny way of serenading her. He then shows a sonogram of her tummy which reveals a baby inside. (BB reader Roger Braun adds that the baby in the womb "holds a card that another person from the audience has drawn on a paper and hidden.")
Only one problem here -- the Immaculate Conception does not refer to the supposed virgin birth of Jesus, but in fact the conception of his mother Mary, who in order to be able to birth the spawn of God had to have been born without the taint of Original Sin (which is customarily passed from mother to offspring upon birth). Of course both concept are silly, which is probably why the rest of Christianity ended up conflating them, but I always get bent out of shape nonetheless whenever the mistake is perpetuated in the information age.
At least Snopes gets it right.
My other favorite is when people use the expression "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" in a negative context. The source of the original quote was Matthew 6:3, in which Jesus suggests to his disciples that when they perform acts of charity, they should do so without any thought of reward or renown. But I guess the standard misinterpretation of this gnomic statement is better than one I just stumbled across that accuses Christ of being biased against left-handed people.
It's frightening when the resident atheist has to point these things out, however...
2 comments:
I've had the Immaculate Conception argument with lots of people, including my Catholic-school-educated husband. Eventually I end up pulling up a web site (such as Snopes) to prove the point.
Why do the athiests remember the details and not the faithful? Because the athiests are aware that the details often just don't add up.
atheists and religion scholars tend to like to correct stuff like the whole "immaculate conception" thing...but who listens to either of us ;-)
IMHO, however, Copperfield has sunk to a new, tasteless low. what's his point other then to prove what a massive jackass he is.
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