questions and answers: is the bible sexist?
Q: Is the Bible aimed only at men?
A: No, Christians believe the Bible is a holy text of guidance, rules and moral instruction aimed at the whole of humanity.
Q: What percentage of books are about men and what percentage of books are about women?
A: There are 66 books in the Bible. Two of these books are about women. The rest are mainly about men or written by men.
Q: Does that mean the god God is more interested in men than women?
A: No, not in the slightest. The god God loves all of his creation equally. He can’t be held responsible for the cultural expression of his chosen people.
Q: You say ‘he’ for the god God. Is he male?
A: The god God is a father, not a mother, so he is therefore male. His son was male too. So yes, all the gods in the god God are male.
Q: Does that mean males are more important than female?
A: No, all people are equal in the eyes of the god God. It’s just that all the power figures are male.
Q: Why are there so many sexist passages in the Bible? For example:
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” (1 Timothy 2:12-15)
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16)
A: You’re taking these passages out of context and not applying the correct cultural lens.
Q: So the god God couldn’t make his desires clear?
A: He made his desires clear in this verse:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)
Q: I see. How do you know which verses to take seriously and which to discard?
A: It’s common sense really.
Q: So why do you bother reading the Bible?
“The god God loves all of his creation equally. He can’t be held responsible for the cultural expression of his chosen people.”
LOL
“A: The god God is a father, not a mother, so he is therefore male. His son was male too. So yes, all the gods in the god God are male.”
This reminded me of something Adam Lee wrote. He’s a contributing writer for Big Think. He writes:
“I often wondered, when I was a child, why the set of three contained Father, Son and Holy Ghost and not Father, Son and Mother. That seemed like the logical arrangement to me, but I did not grasp then, as I do now, that this doctrine was invented by an exclusively male and misogynist church hierarchy that sought to deny the female gender any role in creation or in the divine.” Source: Religions Harm To Women
The ‘virgin’ Mary was a mere host, as religious conservative Senator Stephen H. Martin (R) said about pregnant women.
So much for “common sense.”
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Yeah, I quite like the way Catholics have made Mary into a bit of a god too. But however much they pray to her, she’s not in the Holy Trinity and just doesn’t make the grade!
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BTW, beautiful header picture. I’m glad the image is enlarged in my reader, otherwise I would have missed the details and contrasts.
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Haha, keeping up the good work! 😀
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Since Ruth posted woodpeckers and Ark got a sunbird I’m feeling all bird-photo-competitive. I need to go through my archives and find the violet-tailed sylph …
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That I would love to see. What’s the name of the bird in your photo? The feathers are beautiful.
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Not sure, it’s a hummingbird in a cloud forest in Ecuador. Seemed like the generic kind at the time.
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Oh, OK. I thought it resembled a humming bird, but in the picture it looks quite large. I’m used to seeing itty bitty humming birds.
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“cloud forest in Ecuador”… were you there visiting the Na’vi?
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I had to google that. I’m going to do a post on it as soon as I can find my archived photos. A Best Place Ever in the World post. And you’re not allowed to ruin with tales of cocktails on a Caribbean beach ..
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Google is a our friend.
I’ve never been to the Caribbean, but i have been to Bora Bora. Cloud forests sound awfully like a rainforest, and that means mosquitoes.
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Cloud forests sound awfully like a rainforest, and that means mosquitoes.
Who knew I live in a cloud forest or a rain forest. We have mosquitoes here the size of 747’s!
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LOL — I can vouch for that.
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Now I feel better about you having resident woodpeckers! It’s the trade-off. 🙂
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They’re just a mild nuisance to me. They sting, they itch for a few minutes, and then they’re a memory.
They bite TheBrit and he welts up, they turn purple, and they itch for days and days. It’s not as bad now as when he first got here. He just had no immunity to them whatsoever. Unfortunately the only thing that keeps them at bay for him is a rather large dose of deet!
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“They bite TheBrit and he welts up, they turn purple, and they itch for days and days.” They do that to me, TheScot, as well. They itch for days and days then leave red welts for several weeks. EVIL creatures. The noise in my ear gives me mental-panic-reaction. 😀
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I know that kind well… we lost an entire family to one the other week. Carried away to some Mozhive where they play bad music and drink mudwater.
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Yes, it’s a rather monotonous buzzy tune. With all the extra rain we’ve had water standing everywhere. Lots and lots of mudwater for them to host their prey and play their horrid music.
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Ah, now that’s where you’re wrong! They’re up in the mountains, above the altitude that mosquitoes can reach. That’s one of the things that makes it the Best Place Ever in the World. 😀
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Mosquitoes are in space, my naive friend. That’s where they came from.
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Just googled it and think it’s the ‘fawn breasted brilliant’:
http://www.oiseaux.net/birds/photos/fawn-breasted.brilliant.html
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A tad like the Ruby Throated, only a different beak and just a spot of ruby.
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That is a fabulous photo!
D’oh! What is common sense to one is “inspiration” to another.
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Cherry picked inspiration – there’s nothing like it! I should have added this this post was inspired by Brandon.
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(Thanks for the photo praise, much appreciated!)
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Margaret Daphne Hampson, a former Christian who earned a doctorate in modern history at Oxford, and a doctorate in theology at Harvard, stated:
“I began to see that the very raison d’etre of the Christian myth was to support men as superior over women, that it served to legitimize how men see themselves in the world. It is a brilliant, subtle, elaborate, male cultural projection, calculated to legitimize a patriarchal world and to enable men to find their way within it. We need to see it for what it is. The circumstances of that past age are propelled into the present, influencing people, not least, at a subconscious level.”
She also stated that teachings of submission and obedience are immoral, and believes the overcoming of patriarchal religion to be fundamental to human emancipation. Source: A Faith That Crucifies Women
I think this image pretty much image nails it, if you will excuse the pun.
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Oooh, I don’t think Brandon will agree with you. There’s a gaggle of like-minded men over at Fide’s place that don’t step over the threshold. I should direct Brandon there so he can feel cosy and safe.
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LOL. I believe Brandon is sincere when he states he believes that women are not inferior to men. I do, however, believe he’s out of his mind for believing that the bible is female friendly.
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Agreed!
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Oh, but maybe he can make some headway on that front. People have been believing stuff that isn’t true for thousands of years. Maybe, since this is nicer, he might be able to get a following with it.
It doesn’t have to be true. People just have to believe that it’s true.
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Exactly, Ruth. Sounds like what Kissinger said and lately, what Justice Roberts said regarding the Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme Court, where they are claiming that FDA approved contraceptives are abortifacients, even when the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated: “None of the FDA-approved contraceptives covered by the ACA are abortifacients. What was Justice Roberts response? “The mere belief that something is an abortion is enough to trigger an religious exemption to federal law.
Is that not effed up or what?
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Maybe that’s what we’re doing wrong, worrying with truth and whatnot. Perhaps we should just try to add some nuance to the nonsense so that people can still believe crap but just not mean crap. Let’s make it nicer!
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At this stage of human evolution, I tend to agree. Religion is not going to go away. Religion doesn’t have to be so toxic. But most of it is. So if people are in such a need of a placebo and and unable to face their mortality (death anxiety), then I do believe that is probably the best route to go.
However, the only problem is that there is a rather high rate of psychosis related to religion, and therefore they will most likely continue to slip under the radar under the guise of religion, and not get the necessary medical treatment.
For example: as many as 60% of those with schizophrenia have religious grandiose delusions consisting of believing they are a saint, God, the devil, a prophet, Jesus, or some other important person. http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=1476850
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Oooh, that’s worth a post!
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Yep — go for it, Violet. What I always ask religious people I have discourse with is how do they know that these so called prophets and god figures, i.e., Jesus, didn’t have a neurological disorder? How do they discern? I’ll tell you have they discern — they go by ‘feelings’ and by their own personal religious experiences, just like Brandon. They are gullible and too trusting in their own feelings and the words of the religious teachers. This is evident when they are presented massive amounts of data showing the lack of credibility in religious books like the bible, and still reject the data.
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I meant a post from you. I don’t want to wade into anything that requires facts. 🙂
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LOL
I’ve done many posts like this in the past on other forums. The fangs and claws came out and they, the believers, did everything in their power to discredit the data, including creating false rumors about me, in an attempt to undermine the research I posted. I received an email from a member on one such forum back in 2009 who read my posts. For the first time ever, I just recently posted her email publicly (with her permission) here —> http://selfawarepatterns.com/2014/05/12/the-mythology-that-circles-phineas-gage/?c=3864#comment-3864
So, I know what I’m up against. It seems safer for me to share the info in comments on blogs than actual posts.
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Oh, yikes! I did know that, but didn’t realize the percentage was that high. Why can’t they believe they’re Gandhi or the Dalai Lama or something?
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So true. My guess is that there’s not as much dopamine reward. The ventromedial dopaminergic systems are highly activated in hyper-religious patients.
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Christianity is the best religion ever for women. Christ showed great love for women and the bible is full of examples of this. Christians, although imperfect, tend to be very kind to women. Which leads me to a question, how come you people don’t mock and ridicule Islam or some of the other institutions that like, actually lop off women’s heads and stone them to death?
These constant attempts to ridicule Christians reminds me a bit of the hashtag, “first world problems.” Wahh, there’s too many male gendered pronouns in the bible! I’m so oppressed….hiding behind my keyboard enjoying free speech and the free time to exercise it.
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Sorry to rain on your parade here, Insanity, but Druids and Wiccans worship women, and women are usually at the apex of the religious authority.
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One of the worst abuses of women actually happens under the guise of worshipping them, but that’s a rather elaborate issue and would require a thesis.
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So instead you just make a statement without a single piece of elaboration….
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“how come you people don’t mock and ridicule Islam or some of the other institutions that like, actually lop off women’s heads and stone them to death?” Because I don’t live in an Islamic culture, I wasn’t brought up a Muslim with a detailed understanding of their faith, and I don’t know anyone personally who is affected by Islam. Lots of blogs I follow that come under your “you people” banner do find time to investigate the horrors that women face in some Islamic countries. Most recently The Arbourist:
http://deadwildroses.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/the-dwr-sunday-religious-disservice-extra-edition-the-freedom-to-believe-in-stupid-ideas-religion/
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@VW
Thanks for the plug. 🙂
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You are indeed at liberty to write about Islam. You can’t decide for us what to criticize.
In many instances, women are only named in the bible when they are breeding. Otherwise most times they are nameless.
And if you have a counterargument that the bible treats both sexes equally, we would like to hear you out
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I’ve blogged extensively about Christianity and women in the bible.
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@insanitybytes
Of course it is, lets just ask all the female clergy their opinions on the matter…. hmmm… Not so many outside the anglicans…
Or how about the women in the Christian patriarchy movement? Nope, we’ll have ask their husbands first so see if they have permission to speak…
The bible is full of examples where jebus is a misogynistic bag of douche, so what is your point?
We’re all over that (us “people”, that is). It’s just that we have to deal with the equally malignant, yet benign form of toxic religious stupidity here at home.
Why benign? Because secular society keeps much of the loopy religious features at bay and out of the mainstream (thank dog). Secular society is the bastion that holds reactionary theocracy at bay.
You’re welcome.
Criticizing toxic features of society is a benefit to all of society. Belief in magic and mythology is inherently retrograde, it is against logic, modernity and evidence based decision making.
Consider that you are actually rooting for theocracy – where they do indeed chop people into bits for their imaginary sky-friends – every time you come to defense of your religion and the so called ‘ethical values’ it supports.
So yah, its kinda of important we keep calling you on your bullshit, because theocratic society is a black hole of stupid that leaves no one unscathed.
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Christianity is the best religion ever for women.
Let’s see:
The Position of Women: The Teachings of the Theologians
http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/womenfathers.html
Christians, although imperfect, tend to be very kind to women.
See above. Plus this:
Twenty Vile Quotes Against Women By Church Leaders from St. Augustine to Pat Robertson
And this:
Captive Virgins, Polygamy, Sex Slaves: What Marriage Would Look Like if We Actually Followed the Bible
There is so much more evidence of systemic subjugation and dehumanization of women in Christianity, in the past and today, that one could open a separate blog to document and detail it. Thankfully, such blogs already exist — Valerie Tarico’s is a good start.
You also may be surprised to learn that Islam, problematic as it is, is more egalitarian and women-friendly, in its theology and theory (if not today’s practice in the Middle East and Asia) than Christianity:
The Prophet Mohammed, for example, was anxious to emancipate women and they were among his first converts. The Koran teaches that men and women have exactly the same responsibilities and duties, and gives women rights of inheritance and divorce that we would not enjoy in the west until the 19th century. There is nothing in the Koran about the veiling of all women or their confinement in harems. This practice came into Islam some three or four generations after the Prophet, under the influence of the Greek Christians of Byzantium, who had long covered and secluded their women in this way.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/15/gender.religion
It is just not true that “Christianity is the best religion ever for women.” The evidence does not support such a statement.
That women are somewhat less degraded and dehumanized in today’s Christian world is not because of the Christianity’s inherent respect for women (see above), but thanks to the influence of secular — yes, liberal — values on our society as well as church. The progress has forced the church to, ever so reluctantly and in a limited scope, re-evaluate its position on women, if only to keep women coming back and filling out its coffers. But Christianity is most decidedly not “the best” for women, as ideologies, even religious, are concerned.
Cults in general are not “the best” environments for women (or men).
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“So the god God couldn’t make his desires clear?”
I do so love this question. We hear Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, OmniEVERYTHING… except it couldn’t quite get its message (or the medium) straight.
Playing questions and answers with an evangelical girl i’m helping out here, I asked, If you were god, how would you present/deliver your message? You could hear the cogs and wheels and belt-drives crashing up against each other.
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In some respects the fundamentalists make most sense. Well, apart from the fact that the Bible’s so contradictory there’s no way to take everything literally …
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That’s where the magic decoder rings come in handy….
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Did you ever explain to Paarsurrey what a decoder ring is? I saw he had a special one on your blog.
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Victoria and I were discussing this just yesterday. We decided there is no getting anything through to him.
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It has taken you so long to realize that. I entertain simply because I think he is genuinely a nut case and at most because other than the bs he is usually polite.
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I’ll grant you that, he does like to sign off with “please” and “regards” 😉
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How can a person spend so much time on different atheist blogs and repeat the same nonsense? I don’t get it
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Noel, that’s the power of religious indoctrination a.k.a. mind control.
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He must be SOM’s jailmate 🙂
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I’m with Violet on this one. I’m not sure it’s jail. Though they may be in the same facility, whatever that might be. Padded rooms and jackets with long sleeves that open in the back spring to mind.
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“Facility”… that word says it all.
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Or som’s alter ego
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Whenever I have entered into an argument with someone and they raise the question of metaphor, I want to be told how one decides which is metaphor and which is literal and I want to the criteria. I think anyone who defers to such a response is being dishonest. They have do not want to face the reality that there are some verses, a lot, that can’t be explained away.
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I’ve asked Brandon for his method. I’m waiting for a response.
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Should you get one that has semblance of intelligence around it, be kind and let me know.
Ruth how can people who on the surface look intelligent rationilze such belief? I respect the guy who just believes because she has been told. Likes of Brandon I can’t find a word to describe how I see them
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“It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…” ~Winston Churchill
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So our three big cherry picking tactics are:
1. It’s a metaphor.
2. It’s in a specific cultural context.
3. I don’t like it so another verse takes precedence.
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I’ve never been cherry-picking. I do like cherries, though.
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Seems like it. There is a fourth one by sophisticated believers, the bible is written in layers and you are reading it wrong
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LOL Noel — and people who have the “holy spirit” a.k.a. special decoder ring, are in the know.
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I think I was lucky, I never had the use of such rings. At the point I started seeing bs, it was that way down.
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Count yourself fortunate, and that you didn’t have it beat into you, like I did. When I was in Catholic school, and asked the wrong questions I was hit with a ruler. My questions were considered defiant. I learned to not ask my parents these questions as they also told me to ask the “experts” — the priests and nuns — mostly the priests. Being raised a Catholic, we were told that only priests could interpret scriptures.
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Was brought up catholic, went to church a lot but I don’t remember asking so many questions or any but when I did start, religion was done for fortunately
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Violet, I really appreciate that you remember some of the things I have talked about. Let’s just say something simple: in the New Testament there is an egalitarian thread emerging from a highly patriarchal society. It goes against all odds! Here is a list copy and pasted from when I talked about the 1 Timothy passage:
(1) Women were the first witnesses of the resurrection, thus women were the very first apostles.
(2) Women were in leadership positions including Phoebe who was a deaconess (Romans 16:1) and Junia who was an apostle (Romans 16:7).
(3) Women were expected to pray and prophesy in church (1 Corinthians 11).
(4) “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
(5) Jesus said it was better for Martha to be disciple than to do housework which was a huge deal, this was breaking all cultural rules. Being a disciple meant becoming a teacher in turn, so the importance of this story cannot be overstated. (Luke 10:38-42)
Let me add a bit now. Here are two questions copy/pasted from Touchstone Magazine’s interview with sociologist, Rodney Stark (I could not find their copyright policy, so I’m assuming it’s ok to copy it so long as I cite the source and link it).
Read more: http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=13-01-044-i#ixzz32EHYoRm6
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“in the New Testament there is an egalitarian thread”. Yes, a tiny thread in a vast tapestry of overt discrimination. The ‘it could be so much worse’ line of defence isn’t very impressive when you’re trying to sell the notion of a benevolent omnipotent creator and overseer.
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I couldn’t agree more, Violet. Besides that — egalitarians have more power over their leader(s) than the leader(s) have over them. Any egalitarian leader knows this. If the leader or leaders start getting to full of themselves, they just might find themselves nailed to a cross. Historically, it was not uncommon for egalitarian tribes to assassinate their leaders.
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Great post V and love the last question. 😆 Clearly no common sense was used in answering the questions. 😀
Great shot of that beautiful bird! Stunning colours! 😀
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Thanks Sonel! 😀
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Women’s Inferior Status
“The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position a wife occupied in the great countries round about… all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance… A husband could divorce his wife; women on the other hand could not ask for divorce… the wife called her husband Ba’al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave addressed his master or subject, his king.
The Decalogue includes a man’s wife among his possessions… all her life she remains a minor. The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had a right to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession.”
-Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest
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Fair enough, but Brandon can see an egalitarian thread, and as Insanity points out, people in the third world don’t have time to complain about things like this. So we must be wrong.
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What Brandon sees is prosocial behavior scattered about and hones in on it, but Jesus was nothing special. Given the fact that Brandon lived most of his life in a fundamental environment, I can see why he would put emphasis on the little bit of prosocial behavior he comes across in the NT. Fundamentalists are some of the meanest people on the planet, if not the meanest. They will pretend to love you so long as you play by all their rules. If you leave the fold, they will curse you and gossip about you.
Shortly after I left the fold, I experienced cyber fraud. It was one of the most painful and trying experiences in my life. They told me that God’s judgement had come upon me for leaving. Now, that’s not much different than what Jesus would have said, right? John 3:18 “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
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“So why do you bother reading the Bible?”
-Scream, bash head against floor, gnash teeth…
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Okay, I’ll just check your latest post for the answer to that question.
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Much of the Bible seems to be written by men for men. But I am not sure we need to take all of these descriptions of how life was as prescriptions for how life should be.
If you believe ALL of scripture is unified in purpose, then the most difficult passage for treating men and women equally would be the 1st Timothy one quoted. There are arguments that Paul was referring to the education disparity between men and women or that he was encouraging Timothy to “fit in” with the surrounding culture.
The best argument I could come up with is that Paul is stating a personal preference that women participate in salvation by educating the young while men participate in salvation by educating the old. And I add to this that, despite the Genesis quote (which is meant to justify his view, not persuade us of it), Paul’s preference here is not timeless and is rather an artifact of responding to his surrounding culture (ie. it was practical).
But, yes. The Bible was largely written by men, for men. And much of that is because men were largely the ones allowed to have the education enough to read it. Again, that is just how things were and does not mean it is how things should be.
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If Paul’s words are to be taken seriously, then it’s important to recognise the occasions that he states he is just giving his personal opinion and not the god God’s word. They seem to largely ignored by Christians, and it’s a useful ‘get out jail free’ card for anything Paul says, and a clear indication the Bible is just a hodgepodge of arrogant or insane men thinking they know the will of an invisible deity.
“I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.”
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Excellent post, Violent.
Damn, I’m too late to this party.
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