Mothers and Fathers...and Snails

An interesting thing happened at our house.  Some time ago I put a snail in our aquarium, but it died after a while.  Occasionally when I cleaned the tank, I'd find some tiny "rocks" stuck on the filter.  I could tell they were snail-shaped, but very, very tiny.  I threw them back into the water to see what would happen.

Yesterday, we were admiring our fish and noticed many snails.  Those tiny snail-shaped "rocks" were real snails that had grown and were now about the size of a pencil eraser.  They are the same color as the rocks and hard to see on the bottom of the tank, but when they are crawling on the aquarium walls, it's obvious that they are living snails.  You might think my family strange, but we adore our baby snails.  They are cute!

How did they all get there?  Snails can reproduce themselves without a partner.  They don't need a mother and a father to make babies.  One snail is both mother and father at the same time.

That brings me to one of the lines of thought the World Mission Society Church of God uses to show the existence of "God the Mother."  Here it is:

Families here on earth have a father, a mother, sisters and brothers.  Things on earth are copies and shadows of things in heaven.  We have a physical father, and we have a spiritual Father (God).  We have physical brothers and sisters, and we have spiritual brothers and sisters (fellow believers).  We have a physical mother, therefore we must have a spiritual mother also--"Heavenly Jerusalem Mother."

They talk about how all the creatures on earth come from a mother and a father.  They conclude that since all creatures must have a mother and a father to come into existence, then all creation testifies to the existence of a "Heavenly Mother."  If you ever read any member blogs, you might see posts about this accompanied by cute pictures of both human and animal babies and family groups.

The official church website's page about Heavenly Mother states,
"It is written that God's invisible qualities have been clearly seen and can be understood through what has been made (Rom. 1:20).  Is there any creature that is given life through only their father, alone, without a mother being present?...  Since it is written that God created all things by His will, a certain will of God was expressed when He created mothers on this earth.  As you know, all creatures have a mother figure.  There is not a single creature that can come into existence without a mother."

That is not true.  Our snail was what's called a simultaneous hermaphrodite.  There are also creatures that reproduce by parthenogenesis (some types of reptiles, insects, and fish).  There are a variety of creatures that can come into existence with only one parent.

Just thought you might find that interesting....