The virgin birth thing is a parable that doesn't start with the Bible. Many cultures before and after use the same allegory, which IMO is used to describe a being of purity. Nothing is more pure than a virgin, after all.
Jesus said, "The Father and I are one". See Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism on "duality" to understand this, and the Holy Trinity. Early Christians didn't have the luxury of being able to consult the other religions of the world like we can today, so it would be easy to convince them of some degree of literalism, especially during the First Crusades when Christiandom really started to gain momentum.
It's really, really unfortunate that over time the message got corrupted and the metaphor became confused with actual form, to such an extent that people really believe there was one and only one true son of God. The metaphor is painfully obvious for anyone who steps outside of Christianity and learns more about the other religions of the world.
No matter what your brand of spirituality, if you take it to a high level then it's impossible to avoid confronting duality. Unfortunately, Christiandom has sanitized the reality by keeping God and humans separate so that we will always owe Him (a.k.a the Church) something, instead of realizing the simple truth that we came from Him, are part of Him now, and will go back to Him later.
Hell is duality and living in a state of denial and separation. When you feel separate, you suffer. When you remember you are always connected, ego steps aside and you don't suffer. The whole fire and brimstone thing came from Dante's Inferno in the Middle Ages and has nothing to do with the Old Testament. Hell is duality-consciousness. Paradise is Oneness consciousness. It's all right here, in this present moment.
If you just focus on the words of Jesus and toss out the rest, there's a lot more clarity. But even Jesus' words are second hand and recorded more than 50 years after he died, so who knows if the man ever existed.
