If, hundreds of years from now, people around the world worship some sort of demigod from Indonesia, you heard about it here first.
In strikingly similar fashion to the Bible’s (and the Qu’ran’s) account of Mary’s immaculate conception, a 19-year-old girl named Utje Ramadani from a village in the South Sulawesi province of Indonesia claimed that she recently gave birth to a child – even though she’s a virgin.
What’s different in this story is that her family described the child as a ‘magical baby’ as Utje was supposedly pregnant for only three hours and the baby uttered “Assalamualaikum” (an Islamic greeting) right after birth.
“My uncle, who is also the baby’s grandfather, said that after birth, the baby said Assalamualaikum three times,” Utje’s cousin, Erwin, told Tribun on June 30.
However, unlike Jesus, who was showered with gifts after being born under similar circumstances, Utje’s baby is instead being showered with skepticism after the story attracted the attention of locals, and eventually, the national media.
“I doubt such a thing is true. Ever since the world existed, there has only been one baby born without (being conceived by) a father, Mary’s baby,” said the area’s regent Muslimin Bando, as quoted by Tribun on Monday.
The local government and non-profit organizations are calling on the authorities to investigate Utje and her family’s claims about the baby in order to debunk them so they don’t deceive the public.
But debunking the claims has expectedly proven to be difficult as the family has so far refused anyone from seeing the baby. Furthermore, Utje is supposedly always unavailable due to being “possessed” by a spirit any time a team of medical professionals wanted to examine her.
“I think the family is hiding something, especially since we’re not allowed to see the baby or look at the mother’s tummy,” said Sawaliah Baharuddin, head of the local Female Empowerment and Child Protection Agency, as quoted by Tribun.
Furthermore, the grandfather seems to be adamant that the baby is magical that he has refused for it to be vaccinated.
Magical baby or not, we hope the family will come to their senses and realize that the virtues of vaccines are not a myth.
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