I love this caption, too: God, seen here smacking his bitch up.
So I have a little bit of airport time to write a post today, and I can’t help but link this article that PZ linked to about how feminism and religion are at odds. Like PZ, I’m drawing a little short at the way the author defines “religion” pretty much as Christianity, and I would add that “you can’t be a feminist” is an unfair thing to say. “You can’t be a perfect feminist,” maybe, but that’s true of any compromise women make to get by in patriarchies, from lipstick-wearing to marriage.
But getting out of the better-feminist-than-thou contest, I have to agree with the underlying argument here about religion and irrationality in politics. One reason that religion has to be separate from church is that religion deliberately peddles in the irrational and that which is argued on faith. Therefore, it’s the hands-down perfect vehicle for making anti-female arguments. Some people try with “science”, but it’s science for choads, of course. Scratch a “womenz is inferior ‘cause science sez so” argument and you’ll usually find it’s hokum dressed up in science clothes and can’t withstand actual scientific scrutiny.
Not so with religious arguments supporting misogyny. The assertion that god thinks women are inferior is appealing because the only argument against it is, “Nuh-uh, my imaginary creator thinks that god is all for the ladies,” and then you’re at a standstill that can only be resolved by violence, which I do believe traditionally favors male domination. The patriarchy really needs religion to exist, which is why the term “people of faith” has become synonymous with “fans of an old-fashioned patriarchy” in the media. The motivator of the Bible-thumpers is not so much love of some 2,000-year-old Jewish carpenter living under Roman rule, but the need to have the bitches at home under the thumb, and religion, because of the inarguable irrationality aspect, is the perfect disguise. And it always will be. The high hopes of those who hopefully work towards a world where religion is more a force of good than a force of evil forget this much—good is generally arguable on its own terms, but evil needs some extra oomph, something to quiet the conscience and desire for peace. Religion will always be perfect for the job of arguing that evil is actually good, and as such, it’s going to be a tempting tool forevermore. oBeing a feminist led me to being an atheist in a fairly straightforward way, and this is basically why.
Anyway, the article doesn’t dwell on these aspects as much, but points out that the Bible and Koran can’t be treated like egalitarian documents without a heaping dose of lying to yourself. Worth reading for that, as well as the illustration.
This is gonna be fun.
I’m not quite sure that I agree with your accusation that the author “defines ‘religion’ pretty much as Christianity”. Christianity seems to be the dominant focus of the piece, but I think that’s justifiable: Christianity is the dominant religion in the cultural context she’s speaking of. Nonetheless, she also points to the misogynistic tendencies of Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, which is important, seeing as though there is a tendency among more cosmopolitan folks in the West to whitewash them in an attempt to contrast them with the indigenous traditions. (It’s also worth mentioning that Hindus and Buddhists in the cultures to which they are indigenous also share the homophobic and secularophobic tendencies of our own religious nuts, and find plenty of scriptural justification for it.)
There is an argument to be had over whether religion is really salvageable in these respects. It’s certainly become more humanistic over the past few centuries. But I think the generally progressive nature of cultures that have had their indigenous religious traditions weakened (e.g., Western Europe and Scandinavia) attests to value of doing such a thing being done.
I generally favor synergistic approaches. Some can work toward weakening cultural religion while other work toward humanizing and liberalizing it’s vestiges. It’s much the same way with marriage: some abandon it altogether while others work to make it a more egalitarian institution.
There’s always the egalitarian Wicca, whose ancient traditions date back as far as 1970.
I think religion has become more egalitarian under threat from rationalism. It’s a basic economic tendency—when you’re competing with someone whose got an upper hand, you become more like them in order to survive. Think Coke/Pepsi, Republicans/Democrats, etc. Mainstream religion has to embrace some rationality lest it get rejected altogether.
Does this make me an okay feminist because I rejected religion a while back and do have feminist identifying moments. Or am I kicked out because I am a spiritualist and do believe in a creator?
I’m never sure on these points. Guess that means I just have to define it for myself. Crazy me.
While belief in a generic creator is still irrational (I do not mean this to be offensive; it just is), at least it does not include the creation story central to Christianity/Judaism. I think the belief that “god” created Adam and then, as an afterthought, Eve, has led to much of our cultural misogyny. That’s saying nothing of other world religions.
Or am I kicked out because I am a spiritualist and do believe in a creator?
Well, if you pick something like Judaism, people will cool the snotty remarks a bit because they don’t want to seem anti-Semitic, and if it’s an Eastern religion you might be able to squeeze in through the diversity thing, But otherwise, pretty much.
Well, I do honestly think that Christianity (hell, all the Abrahamic religions) are pretty much inherently patriarchal and misogynistic.
Does that preclude someone from being, say, Christian, AND a Feminist? Nope. I mean, sure, it’ll involve some bending and contortions, but I think it is possible.
However, does this mean I think ALL religions are inherently patriarchal and misogynistic? No, I don’t. I do know some religions that are quite egalitarian.
Course, this doesn’t preclude all religions from being silly and nonsensical. Because they are; religious beliefs inherently are irrational. Just because one is a rational enough person to be feminist, doesn’t preclude one from irrational enough to be religious.
But just because religion by its very nature is nonsensical doesn’t mean it will then automatically be misogynistic and patriarchal.
*shrugs* Works differently for everyone, I guess.
Being a Christian is what made me a liberal and probably contributed to me becoming a feminist. (I decided I was a feminist when I was 8 but I no longer remember how I decided that.)
I studied the bible in school (a progressive, feminist Catholic school where we called God “our father and our mother”) so I already knew what it says. I know the history behind most of the passages, the likely authors and the various ways to interpret them. The article didn’t impart anything new and struck me as a tad sophomoric in tone. Surprisingly enough, not everyone who considers themselves religious and a feminist is ignorant of the facts.
Nothing to do with the post, everything to do with the picture:
I think the intersection of class, race, and depictions of domestic violence is under-explored. The very nicknaming of the sleeveless white undershirt, associated with poor (usually, though not always, white) men as a “wife beater” testifies to how deeply these things are intertwined. They’re all there in that picture - the Bud cans, the “wife beater,” the tattoos - all these markers. I might argue that the “trailer trash” image has been more pervasively associated with domestic violence than even the SCARY MISOGYNIST HIP HOP ZOMG. My thoughts aren’t all that well formed on this topic, but I’d like to see it explored further. Does it serve to further marginalize poor whites? I have friends who grew up in a trailer park, who would make self-deprecating jokes about being “trailer trash” all the time - and not in a good way. It was insidious. Does it serve to obscure the non-poor families that experience domestic violence?
*shrugs* Works differently for everyone, I guess.
Being a Christian is what made me a liberal and probably contributed to me becoming a feminist. (I decided I was a feminist when I was 8 but I no longer remember how I decided that.)
I studied the bible in school (a progressive, feminist Catholic school where we called God “our father and our mother”) so I already knew what it says. I know the history behind most of the passages, the likely authors and the various ways they could be interpreted. The article didn’t impart anything new and struck me as a tad sophomoric. Surprisingly enough, not everyone who considers themselves religious and a feminist is ignorant of the facts.
*shrugs* Works differently for everyone, I guess.
Being a Christian is what made me a liberal and probably contributed to me becoming a feminist. (I decided I was a feminist when I was 8 so I no longer remember how I got there.)
I studied the bible in school (a progressive, feminist Catholic school where we called God “our father and our mother”) so I already knew what it says. I know the history behind most of the passages, the likely authors and the various ways they could be interpreted. The article didn’t impart anything new and struck me as a tad sophomoric. Surprisingly enough, not everyone who considers themselves religious and a feminist is ignorant of the facts.
… besides, everyone knows that god drinks High Life.
Just to add a personal comment, but misogyny in Christianity did drive me away. Admittedly, I grew up with fundamentalist Christianity, but I was never able to reconcile the text of the Bible with feminist values. So, after considering various textual constructions I eventually just moved away from it altogether. And beyond the text, I had tired of being treated as a second-tier human.
… besides, everyone knows that god drinks High Life.
Nuh-uh. Grain Belt.
The motivator of the Bible-thumpers is not so much love of some 2,000-year-old Jewish carpenter living under Roman rule, but the need to have the bitches at home under the thumb,
Not just the bitches, but other guys, too. There’s a bunch of stuff in the bible about being a good servant and being loyal to your master, where being subservient to a father or employer is portrayed as a parallel to the relationship between you and God. There’s even a business fad called Servant Leadership that builds on this idea.
If you’re already on top, there’s a lot of nice stuff in that book designed to keep everyone below you pacified.
It reminds me of that David Cross routine about what happens after we build a biosphere on the moon, and the earth is a smoking husk of a planet.
“No, no, you see, the meek inherit the Earth.”
SarahMC, There are many theologians, including myself, who would argue that the creation myth is not central to either Christianity or Judaism.
Recent scholarship would argue (can scholarship argue?) that the central story and pivotal event of the Hebrew Scriptures is the sixth century B.C.E Babylonian exile. Virtually all of the Old Testament is formed around that event, either in an attempt to explain why it happened or to help those who are exiled believe that what is happening to them today is not the final word for the future.
Similarly, the New Testament is written in and for a community that is either in exile or under the oppressive heel of foreign occupiers.
In it’s basic literature, Christianity is, or should be, about the oppressed and the powerless, giving them hope for the future and speaking against the powers that oppress them.
Unfortunately, for 1700 years, the most visible faces of Christianity have been caught up in what one author terms “Constantinianism;” Where Christianity and the current societal power structure are tied together and it is to the benefit of each to support the other.
As one of my professors put it in his most recent book:
Is it possible to be a Christian and a Feminist? Yes, in fact I would say that it is required to be a Feminist in order to be a Christian. The problem is that I don’t think it is possible to be a Feminist and a Constantinian Christian, and unfortunately very few of the loudest voices and most visible faces of Christianity are unwilling to give up their power and centrality to the culture in order to take up the mantel of being Exilic Christians, standing with and speaking a new word to the oppressed.
Meghan,
I just realized that I used the term “central” incorrectly. I realize that the creation story is not the central story/theme in the bible.
I meant the story “specific to” Christianity/Judaism.
Sorry!
1) Did the peeps here see that monster dk thread dairied by Shannika? It was so cool to read a shitstorm that happens when you get white people’s backs up about racism–I’m usually the one starting the bar fights…
2) One thing that I really think is very interesting about Islam is that it was so much more aggressively egalitarian than other religeons in its early days (for instance, I tend to think that a particularly irrascible german philosopher is correct about Christianity, as a religeon, being a slave religeon, and much of their egalitarianism is a response to the class struggles of the day). However, what was *more* interesting was how more intense patriarchism was reintroduced back into Islam, via some bad faith hadiths…
To me, this leads to the central facet of religeon’s role in society. Because an organization has assets, the meeting place, the religeous tools, the services, and the organized members themselves, a religeon can always be coerced into the preferences of the lowest common denominator in human groupings. The threat of violence is always the most utilized by those of the least enlightened, so that goes without saying.
So indeedy-diddely-do! God will smack his bitches up from time to time, and a bitch of his is anyone you call a cunt!
thank you Meghan, of course feminism and Religion is difficult to square, but, that does not mean that a religion that has at its root liberation from oppression (exile, f.e.) does not also speak up for woman - apart from the appalling quotes delivered in that piece, there are many characters in the Bible that are feminists in a very modern sense.
bashing people with quotes has never convinced anyone in any direction - trying to understand human life, interaction, joys and sadness — the bible provides an invaluable number of truly inspiring characters. There is no reason, why they would have to hide behind any of the moral statements, after all, they are equally in the same book suffering from the same bastards, modern woman suffer as well.
hmmm, reading the article, it *is* pretty ignorant of islam and uses language typical of anti-arab bigots when they feeling like appealing towards the “gentle sex” or whatever…
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/26/blogging-the-qur’an-sura-4-“women”-verses-17-34/
has some more context…In any event, at the time, the theological legalism was vastly more liberal, and more enforced in its liberal spirit (at least until Abu Bakr died) than anyplace else in Western Asia, and one can argue, in the world at the time…It was certainly liberal enough to cause several conservative counter-revolutions, which succeeded by corrupting the message, and then removing from the culture any kind of extrapolation…
No religion will be permitted to be revolutionary for too long…
If you’re going to cherry pick from the “sacred texts” then how do you know what is genuinely sacred and what’s bullshit?
Save yourself a lot hassle, it’s all bullshit.
There are many theologians, including myself, who would argue that the creation myth is not central to either Christianity or Judaism. - Meghan
While I agree with your point about the centrality of the exile in Judaism (one could argue that Judaism, per se, began with the exile … indeed, “Jew” essentially come into use even in the internal chronology of the Hebrew Bible around that time), you could very well argue that the creation story still plays an important role.
For Jews, the role is the establishment of the Shabbos(*). For more Orthodox Christians, it is the Original Sin. The problem for fundamentalists (of the sort who reject the notion of Original Sin) is for what purpose is the Creation story? Emphasizing scripture as they do, they cannot de-emphasize scripture’s opening passages. OTOH, it has no lesson for them. So it’s only role is history, which is why they are so keen to take it literally.
Of course, this is all OT. FWIW, in Jewish lore, there is the same tale as was presented in Plato’s Symposium: that the first human was neither a man nor a women, but rather both — and when “Eve” was removed from Adam, that not only produced the first woman but also the first man.
(*which is also linked, in our Friday night Kiddush, to the Exodus from Egypt, the emphasis of which no doubt picked up steam in pre-exilic times as the “Prophets” tried to disuade Judah from a self-destructive and futile alliance with Egypt against Assyria … btw, the depoliticization of the Prophets is one of my pet-peeves about certain religious strains which would reduce them to soothsayers predicting some odd events in the far future rather than keen geo-political analysists from whom we can learn much).
Save yourself a lot hassle, it’s all bullshit. - Pablo
My undergrad research advisor (z”l) once was waxing philosophical in his number theory class (which I was taking). All of the sudden, he followed up his naval gazing with “of course, you realize that all of what I just said is complete and udder bullshit”. He then paused and said “but … it is sublime bullshit” (to get the full effect, read this aloud with a well-modulated but somewhat gravelly voice and maybe more than a trace of a Yiddish accent … of the kind that makes you sound almost like a Shakespearean actor of a certain generation).
Nu? Maybe it is bullshit? Nu? But maybe it is sublime bullshit?
Am I missing something here? Sounds to me that when you say
“being a feminist led me to being an atheist in a fairly straightforward way”
it actually supports to some degree Pat Robertson’s infamous claim that feminism is a
“socialist, anitifamily political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians” (and apparently atheists).
Politics does make strange bedfellows, it seems… (ew; sorry for that image)
I didn’t know God smote women with his fists… he better make it his best shot; my right cross to the chin has put grown men in the dirt before!
Would “divine intervention” be a referee?
No, reading that whole article…no…That is one very ignorant post.
Lots of reasons to bash religions, and there are tons of stupid shit in all of the religious texts that refer to women’s subservience. Throwing together a few smattered and out of context phrases from books most people don’t read does not make it an enlightening read.
Like with Islam, if the author knew anything about it, she would have gone after the hadith (some of which is explicitly anti-women) rather than the Koran itself (even though the Koran certainly has objectionable content, when viewed in context…). Using phrases from a notoriously authortarian version of budhism also discredits her analysis.
She certainly couldn’t be bothered to go much outside of Leviticus to find interesting antiwomen statements. And woah, nothing from the New Testament…I wonder why…
That is *such* a libertarian “a little knowlege is a dangerous thing” rant…
Looked at the photo again… I don’t think that’s God; looks more like Bad Santa.
I’ll “ho-ho-ho” YOU, Bee-atch!
All pissed off because it’s the off-season and he can’t come for another year.
No one has done a feminist reinterpretation of the faith of the Disco Ball yet, perhaps it is not needed.
pablo: Most varieties of Wicca are heavily infested with gender essentialism, dressed up as goddess worship. As one of my high school history teachers put it: “Why do men like to put women up on a pedestal? So they can’t move!”
good is generally arguable on its own terms
Well, sort of. But when evil is deeply entrenched in the whole society–slavery, institutional racism, institutional misogyny, etc.–vanquishing it butts up against the perceived good of preserving peace and harmony in society. Very, very few people want to condemn their whole society as evil–that’s where they live, that’s where their family and friends live, and most people think “good” consists of going on, living their lives and providing for the people they’re close to the best they can. Attempting to upend societal institutions upends people’s lives, often in bad ways, and not only for the oppressors.
It takes hugely powerful convictions for most people to get past a tendency to keep what peace there is and make the best of things under the status quo, and big dose of irrationality–like, for example, being able to declare, “I am CERTAIN that, no matter what else happens, fighting for social justice is the right thing to do because God tells me it is”–can really help them have the courage of their convictions. Deeply religious people have been at the forefront of all kinds of social-justice movements, and their irrational religious faith wasn’t coincidental for them. Irrationality gets people moving.
Now, I personally am not religious, nor do I rabidly subscribe to some non-religious philosophy to take religion’s place. But I would also have a hard time being a radical activist.
Karalora, that drives me nuts too.
It really irritates me when Christians mock Scientologists for having “made up” beliefs that haven’t been around that long. As though Christianity wasn’t also new at one point. Not to mention “made up.”
Do beliefs become more legitimate the older they get?
Do beliefs become more legitimate the older they get?
Tradition!!!
shah8,
Forgive me for noticing, but you’ve made no attempt to deal with the “context” of the statements. I’d specifically like an explanation of which “context” the proscriptions point out by the article are okay.
Your posts look much like a garden variey case of the “Courtier’s Reply“.
In defense of religionists who identify as feminist, most of those religionists worship a deity, not the book about the deity. They would state that the books are products of their time and not a perfect reflection of deity.
Do beliefs become more legitimate the older they get?
I have no idea what happened….let’s try it again:
Tradition!!
(Amanda, can you delete the immediate previous post by me that contains the non-link, please…kthnx)
NancyP, why would anyone who acknowledges the imperfection or archaic nature of the book upon which the deity is based still believe in the deity?
Many Christians claim to take the bible figuratively. It’s not literal; it’s fables and metaphors.
Then why do you call yourself ‘Christian?’ The stories in the bible are “just stories” - except for the one about Jesus Christ being god made flesh?
“One reason that religion has to be separate from church
Ah, Amanda . . .
(Although one could argue that religion in a certain idealistic sense often has nothing to do with churches (etc), but I assume that we’re going for a more secular point here . . .)
“The motivator of the Bible-thumpers is not so much love of some 2,000-year-old Jewish carpenter living under Roman rule, but the need to have the bitches at home under the thumb, and religion, because of the inarguable irrationality aspect, is the perfect disguise. ”
There was an >a href =
‘http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/weekinreview/06johnson.html?_r=1″>end-of-ideology drooler in the New York Times today about how “From capital punishment to global warming to homosexuality to abortion, many of the social issues that divide us are shifting and evolving — perhaps even in some instances into a new consensus, or at least, and no less profoundly, toward a reframing of the old debates . . . Many of the great debates, in short, have become a bit passé“. While that’s not exactly wrong, it really misses what’s behind so many of these constantly reborn “old debates” - what, for example, exactly links gay marriage and HPV vaccinations.
“The problem for fundamentalists (of the sort who reject the notion of Original Sin)
DAS - I didn’t know there were such folks - who are they, denominationally speaking?
Karalora: I’d thought that comment was mostly because of that particularly obnoxious strain of Wiccan who likes to insist that Wicca is ancient, and that the swipe is at them, not at the newness of Wicca.
For myself, I find the insistence that nonsensical superstition that’s less than 1,000 years old is bad, but nonsensical superstition older than that is good to be preposterous in the extreme.
But then, as an atheist I find it all to be equally absurd. I was once talking with a Mormon who was expounding on the sillyness of Scientology, and he was quite put out when I suggested that from the outside Mormonism was just as silly.
As for religion and feminism, I’d argue that the basic thesis is mostly correct. Of the established and generally accepted religions, I can’t think of any that aren’t misogynist to the core. All the Abrhamic religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Confucianism [1], even Sikhism has its misogynist elements and its probably the best of the lot.
[1] Especially Confucianism. Of all the religions on the planet, I think Confucianism is the one I dislike the most.
I’m not sure patriarchy requires religion as it’s normally understood to survive. Any dogmatic faith will do, including bogus ev psych or social darwinism. To me it makes more sense the other way around: patriarchy generates a certain kind of religious doctrine or other dogmatic faith. (Not original with me; I’m pretty much parroting Dinerstein with a side order of Balbus, who coined the incredibly blindered phrase “mother-dominated child-rearing”. )
Religion is misogynistic because men are misogynistic and men make the rules.
Men make the rules because, in general, men are bigger and physically stronger than women.
Religious/philosophical/scientific arguments are just window dressing for the simple truth that men are still physically able to smack their bitches up at the end of the day.
Tyler, you miss the point.
I’m not saying that one has to be an expert in religion to decry it. The context that I was referring is pretty complex for me to spell out, namely how Mahommed was trying to reform what was a very harsh and exploitative society and recast it in terms that members of a very harsh and exploitative society would accept.
In any event, my objection was that the author was plainly cribbing her “research” from jingoistic (White Baby Jesus Is The Best Thing Evah!) sources. To accept that article as a basis for conversations about the validity of feminism in religion spreads the bullshit around.
The Courtesian’s Reply is a passive version of the Chewbacca Defense. I’m not attempting to avoid debate, I’m attempting impeach the basic source for debate. I don’t think arguing over bullshit is productive, or if we do, we should go from the premise that it was more a xenophobic tract rather than pro-feminist tract.
Throughout history, jingoistic sentiments have always focused on the sentiments that it’s legal and right for us native guys to rape women, but them furringers will do worse (with plenty of slander against said furringers). I’m all for slamming religions, and I have about as much fun as the next athiest, but the classist and bigoted elements really takes a bit of fun out of it…
“Religion is misogynistic because men are misogynistic and men make the rules.”
This statement seems a bit misandristic.
Mythago,
What I believe doesn’t follow any particular Judaic, eastern or western philosophy. I gave organized religions a pass a long time.
So I guess I just have to bear under snotty remarks. Heh.
SarahMC, I didn’t take it as offensive, but just as your viewpoint on the matter.
That’s interesting. I thought Wicca was predominantly female. Is that wrong or have they internalized this gender essentialism?
Bingo! But Karalora got the point too. Wicca’s newness doesn’t make it any more absurd than the absurdities of the 2000 year old religions.
shah,
Even if we agree with your interpretation of Mohammed as introducing reforms, that doesn’t seem to do much to revoke the polygamy and other exploitative practices rampant throughout the Koran, much of which was practiced by Mohammed himself.
“Throughout history, jingoistic sentiments have always focused on the sentiments that it’s legal and right for us native guys to rape women, but them furringers will do worse (with plenty of slander against said furringers). I’m all for slamming religions, and I have about as much fun as the next athiest, but the classist and bigoted elements really takes a bit of fun out of it…”
The problem is that I detect none of the latter in the piece. I’m sensitive to claims of anti-Arab racism, but that shouldn’t automatically be inferred as you seem to do. It becomes much like knee-jerk accusations of antisemitism whenever Israel is spoken of in a critica context.
I love this stuff because it gets hackles up, I must admit. It’s true that you either believe in the Bible (and therefore women are inferior, and the Bible very blatantly and repeatedly insists) or you are a feminist, but you can’t be both. You might be a “Christian” who doesn’t really believe the Bible if you’re a feminist, which is what I find fascinating. That area where people openly engage in irrational, illogical beliefs because it fills this long-standing need to belong.
Not all religious people or religions are against women.
Seriously, why does this need to be pointed out? Amanda, can you be bothered to do the most basic of scholarship?
Or are you going to hide behind the “If it doesn’t apply to you, just ignore the criticisms” shield again?
Not all religious people are against women. So… why are they religious? Because they pick and choose which parts of their religion they believe?
Again, why are liberal Christians who don’t interpret the bible literally Christians at all? If the stories about the burning bush and Jonah aren’t true, what makes you accept Jesus’ story?
Re: gender essentialism in Wicca
It varies between traditions and between covens. The older the tradition, the more likely the male-female duality is to be stressed, but what that means to the actual practice of the religion is highly unpredictable. Then you have traditions like Dianic Wicca where it is largely irrelevant, because the membership is all female. But whatever else you might say about it, Wicca is a religion wherein female clergy is the norm rather than an eyebrow-raising exception, and I think that counts for a lot.
Of course, I’m saying all this as a non-Wiccan, agnostic/pantheistic solitary Neopagan witch.
Petey, you must make a strong distinction between “religious people” and “religions”.
Obviously there are religious people who are not misogynists. All Allison Kilkenny and Amanda are pointing out is the fact that virtually all religions have strong streaks of misogynist “philosophy” in their DNA.
That is a fact, as the documented beliefs (bible, quran, etc.) clearly state.
If someone wishes to follow a certain religion, and step around the parts that are anti-women in order to be a feminist, great. But don’t pretend that they are fully following the teachings of that religion…
“…why are liberal Christians who don’t interpret the bible literally Christians at all?”
There are some more “fundamental” christians who wouldn’t consider them “true christians” at all - both for supporting women while ignoring certain parts of the bible, AND for being “liberal”…
Come on, Tyler.
Just focusing on the islam part, tho’ the sins are against pretty much every religion without thought…
Her comments about Mahommed’s mother was *really* absurd, especially given his early orphanhood, and his attitude about Halima, his milk-mother.
As far as Aisha goes, just google Mahommed and pedophilia, and you’ll get a huge torrent of right-wing slavering. Just a few facts…Aisha’s age was never truly verified, and we don’t know how old she was when she was promised to Mohammed, let alone when he consumated the marriage (the usual ages are 6 and 9, and other say after she began menstration in her teens). Second, there is absolutely every reason to believe that Mahommed had…sophisticated beliefs about polygamy. He had a long marriage with one older woman, with six children, with only Fatima (and Zainab maybe living long enough to maybe had another daughter) surviving to adulthood. He got all of his other wives because tribal political affiliations were sealed with family ties, and that involved marrying their women. He had one child from any of his later wives, and he died in infancy as well.
All of that is easily researchable, as well as the sloppiness regarding the other religions…
Not all religious people or religions are against women.
Interestingly, I have yet to hear this from anyone but those who belong to religions that are. I do believe you’re a Christian, right, Petey? So you and I both believe the teeny-tiny pro-woman pagan religions are wrong. Why are you defending them?
But you’re right. Some religious people abandon their religion to be pro-woman. So they are “of faith”, but not really believers any more.
Then let me re-phrase:
Why are people who consider themselves liberal Christians…?”
but here you’re imposing rationality on something that’s inherently irrational. No, it doesn’t make logical sense for them to bother being “Christians.” That’s a feature, not a bug, as far as religions are concerned.
And conservative Christians ignore most of what Christ is reputed to say in favor of Paul and parts of the Old Testament. Liberal Christians pick and choose no more than their conservative counterparts– and at least they have the explanation that “much of the Bible is metaphor” to explain *their* choosiness. The Fundies don’t have any excuse to ignore what they don’t like.
Hmm . . .
A lot of confusion here. “Irrational” beliefs can be defined by science and reason. “Arational” beliefs cannot be defined by science. (In philosophy this is the classic “what is unreasonable vs. what is beyond reason.”) Faith is based upon personal experience and is arational.
Amanda says that being a feminist caused her to be an atheist. That’s the equivalent to saying, “I don’t like X. Because I don’t like X it DOESN’T exist. That sounds kind of irrational.
Of course, it’s also easy simply to just blame Mohammed for being a man of his time and place, rather than a man of our times.
If you think I am being knee-jerk, when it comes to sensitivity, well, I kinda sorta care about truth, man, even if it goes against me. I’m not islamic, nor do I believe that Mahommed was divinely inspired.
However, I’ll smack the same stupid people around for saying Jews Are Bad Because They Killed Jesus. See, no israel anywhere around it (and I’m pretty anti-Israel, since I regard it as a Rhodesian project). It’s the same kind of rhetoric, a distortion of a key fact so one has an excuse to hate someone. Saying jews are jesus-killers is meant to exite antisemitism. Saying Mahommed was pedophillic is also meant to exite anti-semitism. Given that the rest of her column was no better in terms of accurate context, I’m inclined to disbelieve in her or her sources beneficence.
It’s all a matter of a talent for diatribes. Saying Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fucking a Bleeding Cunt! doesn’t mean it was funny because you were willing to say alot of dirty words. Writing some stupid sloppy essay full of red meat doesn’t mean it’s something meant to be consumed with a quality blusterfull aperitif! I don’t want rotten meat. I want KOBE STEAK, and damn the morality of feeding a cow all the beer she wants!
“…Why are people who consider themselves liberal Christians…?”
I think there are a lot of people who are “cultural” christians - who “believe” because they were raised to believe, who have christian doctrine transparently incorporated into their lives, often without realizing those things are doctrine. Being christian for them is like being American, or an Iowan, etc.
The shoe fits so well they can’t imagine living without it, when they think about it at all…
Okay, is there any actual argument there or do you just want to sputter, shah?
Again, context is everything. Muhammad was the one who laid down the law about four wives, max, and he was the one who said that you were only allowed a second wife if a) the first wife said yes and b) if you could emotionally and financially support a second wife. He also pushed for marriage of poor widows (which he practiced).
Back then, he was the first one to say that a woman had rights of her own, and that a marriage contract is about protecting her rights. In that time, it was common for rich men to have wagonloads of wives, or to sell off their daughters.
In fact, Muhammad’s first wife was his merchant boss. She was some ten years older than him, but she liked what she saw, and proposed to him. Throughout the marriage, while he was out being Prophet, she continued her rather successful merchant business.
I’m prepared to believe that religions are intrinsically anti-women, but I refuse to be convinced by that jingoistic nonsense that the article linked to contains. The author sounds like she stumbled into an operating room, screamed OMG blood! pain! suffering!, and ran out and wrote about how surgeons are anti-people and pro-suffering. If you display sloppy thinking in one part of your essay, it makes it harder for me to fight through that and concentrate on the over argument.
“Amanda says that being a feminist caused her to be an atheist. That’s the equivalent to saying, “I don’t like X. Because I don’t like X it DOESN’T exist. That sounds kind of irrational.”
Except that I don’t see where Amanda ever made that argument. Strawmen are cheap.
Mezzo, you seem to be confused about the substance of the argument. Whether Mohammed was progressive when compared to his ancient peers over a thousand years ago has nothing to do with the intrinsically misogynistic content of the Koran, especially by today’s standards. By all means, sing praises of a bygone claimant of relevation. But there is no denying that the content is profoundly anti-woman.
And would you mind pointing out to me where this “jingoistic” content is? I didn’t detect it.
“…Why are people who consider themselves liberal Christians…?”
It could also be because they do believe in God and Jesus, yet jettison the man made opinions that were written in the New and Old Testament.
Thus it would make their belief more of someone up there who had a son down here. IE, there is a God that genuinely exists as did his son. The people who claimed to have been writing about them didn’t know jack shit. I quite often ponder that one when I read the Old Testament. Particularly concerning Job.
It’s just my imagery that sees a bunch of old guys standing around.
“What’s been happening to Job? He’s such a good man, and all these bad things happening to him.”
“He must have angered God somehow.”
“But how, he is holy than the holiest of us. If he has angered God, what hope do we have?”
“Ah, it must be God is testing him. Yes, that is it. There can be no other explanation.”
That could be one way of looking at it all.
Tyler-
Did you read Amanda’s post? She says, “Being a feminist led me to being an atheist in a fairly straightforward way, and this is basically why.”
I find this interesting, because my atheism came way, way, way before my feminism.
“She says, ‘Being a feminist led me to being an atheist in a fairly straightforward way, and this is basically why.’”
Yeah, but that doesn’t equate to this:
“That’s the equivalent to saying, ‘I don’t like X. Because I don’t like X it DOESN’T exist.’”
“Led me” to atheism doesn’t necessarily mean that your lack of belief is predicated only on that fact alone, it can also mean that it simply had an influence on your initial suspicions/doubts. This is especialy true when it comes to motivations of those peddling the beliefs.
“…doesn’t necessarily mean that your lack of belief is predicated only on that fact alone.”
From the Department of Redundancy Department.
Sleeeeeepy….
And you seem to be confused by what I’m saying - I do not deny, nor support that it is anti-women. I don’t pretend to have any great understanding of religon whatsoever.
I am saying that it’s a little odd to explain that Muhammad perpetuated misogynistic practices, (which is what you said), when he was famous for trying to put a stop to misogynistic practices. Islam had a heavy number of female converts because the women of the time liked what they say.
By all means, go ahead and call your version of Islam misogynistic. But you’re on a discussion board, so expect dissenting views, rather than a backup chorus.
but you knew that already. Right?
You mean apart from doing the whole song-and-dance about “look at Muhammad the child molester” bit? Or the whole “**gasp** no mention of Muhammad’s birth - it’s cos he hates Teh Vagina!” The article is jingoistic because it perpetuates some of the worst stereotypes of theists around, and is prepared to lie to perpetuate a point of view. Karen Armstrong would be raising an eyebrow by now.
Um… why?
Christ didn’t write the Bible; the modern canon was determined by the early church, and they threw out a lot of stuff.
And I’m fairly uninformed about this part of history, but I don’t think the main criterion for putting a book in the bible was “It has to have a clear factual basis supported by copious evidence”.
Most of the decisions on what to include seem to me to have been philosophical, and pretty damn arguable.
Suppose you disagree with an argument for including a book in the bible, so you ignore it. How is what you’re doing any different then the way the bible was compiled in the first place, and what gave the early church the authority to define “Christianity” and why don’t you or I have that authority?
And this is true of, really, all religions, some of which have a much more… complicated situation when it comes to scripture.
It’s bullshit, it’s not based on facts, so one person’s view of what the religion is is as good as another’s.
If you really start excluding people who half-believe the bible from Christianity, you get a very weird sort of “no true Scottsman” thing going on, where you can say, “he’s not a Christian, he just believes Christ was the son of god and died for our sins”.
Things start to get really confusing when you go down that route.
I’m tired of hearing about how faith is not open to science. Look, the bible talks about actual things physically happening in the outside world.
It’s easy to imagine a universe in which the miracles of the bible (for example) ARE supported by fact, a universe where god’s existence is as clear and unambiguous as the existence of, I dunno, the moon.
I can’t see how such a universe would go against the central texts of any religion I’m familiar with, and, indeed, the texts I’ve read make no reference to the miracles they contain being somehow outside the realm of observation; they seem to think that miracles actually ARE verifiable by ordinary observational techniques.
Really, you get into very weird territory if you apply this belief to the Old Testament; God often does miraculous things in front of unbelievers. I can’t imagine how it could shake out that the walls of Jericho fell for the people who wanted them to, AND stayed up for the people that didn’t have faith.
Anyway, as far asI can tell this argument has only come up in light of the fact that observations do not match religion; if the observations DID match, I can’t fathom this idea being introduced at all.
The thing is, there was one group of theists that didn’t get slammed.
There are too many things in Paul’s letters that’s just as crazy to ignore ‘em…
Anyways, I just accept that Tyler is just being obtuse now…
I too, naturally rejected religion in much the same way as Amanda; I was a self-identified feminist from the age of, like, 7, and raised by secular humanists of WASP extraction. I lived in a semi-rural area, and sometimes got brought to church by boyfriends and friends (some in an overt chase to “save” me), but the more I sat there, and listened, and read, the more I thought, “Wow. This God doesn’t seem to like me and my kind much.” It seemed pretty straightforward.
I have moments where I give some credence to the Dan Brown Theory of Christianity (i.e. it wasn’t always ragingly misogynist, texts were edited/books not included that were more balanced, but then I read crap like this, and I have equally strong moments that all religion is horseshit.
Rainbow Girl recently did a post about this, which I find helpful to find a balanced perspective regarding religion and feminism:
Sometimes Christianity is useful to a patriarchal society as a tool to keep women down.
Sometimes Islam is useful to a patriarchal society as a tool to keep women down.
Sometimes science is useful to a patriarchal society as a tool to keep women down.
Sometimes medicine is useful to a patriarchal society as a tool to keep women down.
Sometimes psychology is useful to a patriarchal society as a tool to keep women down.
Sometimes law is useful to a patriarchal society as a tool to keep women down.
So what needs to change in order to render all these tools useless in keeping women down?
Mezzo, you seem to be high on bluster and short on argument (much like shah above). See if you can spot the fallacy here:
“I am saying that it’s a little odd to explain that Muhammad perpetuated misogynistic practices, (which is what you said), when he was famous for trying to put a stop to misogynistic practices. Islam had a heavy number of female converts because the women of the time liked what they say.”
That’s right, false equivalence. “Comparatively less misogynistic” is not the same thing as “not misogynistic.” And it’s not “my version of Islam” (I don’t have a version of Islam), it’s what the texts say. You can argue that Mohammed was a wonderfully progressive guy when compared to his ancient peers, that doesn’t exonerate him of the charge of misogyny.
“You mean apart from doing the whole song-and-dance about “look at Muhammad the child molester” bit? Or the whole “**gasp** no mention of Muhammad’s birth - it’s cos he hates Teh Vagina!” The article is jingoistic because it perpetuates some of the worst stereotypes of theists around, and is prepared to lie to perpetuate a point of view. Karen Armstrong would be raising an eyebrow by now.”
“Stereotypes of theists” isn’t “jingoism”, even if we grant your premise. And where is the “lie” in the piece?
“Anyways, I just accept that Tyler is just being obtuse now…”
Translation: I have no counterargument to Tyler pointing out my sloppy reading of Amanda’s post, a snide remark will suffice in its place.
Nah, he just wants to win this one. Just let him, seriously. Anyway, speaking as a forum moderator, internetz arguments are about stamina, not reason.
I could keep this up all night, since I’m on the other side of the globe, but he probably wants to go to bed sometime soon.
If you can’t think of a counterargument, you can always concede the point, Mezzo.
And incase anyone has lost track thus far, I’m still waiting for either Mezzo or shah (likely the former’s sock puppet) to point out which context in which blatant claims of male superiority, arranged marriages, incarceration and death for “lewdness”, etc., are not misogynistic.
And I’m fairly uninformed about this part of history, but I don’t think the main criterion for putting a book in the bible was “It has to have a clear factual basis supported by copious evidence”.
Christopher, one of the main components of acceptance was that it jived with the current thought of those who were deciding what books to put in in the first place. There was a dog fight, as it were, between differen believers, and lo and behold one of them won.
I believe it’s the reason gnostic books where tossed out with the baby. They went off on a different tangent than what the deciders had decided should be truth.
And it is for that reason that many feel the bible is no more than a history of the Jewish people and some of Christ’s time and early Christianity. It isn’t the end all and be all of God or Christ’s word.
This is just a general explanation on why some put a different light on the bible other than that of complete literal truth. So it isn’t surprising that some believe in God and Christ, and still would consider themselves to be feminist.
Tyler-
Amanda doesn’t mention any other factor as leading her to atheism other than feminism. In a logical statement “led me” indicates primary causality.
Chris-
A rational belief can be proven to be not true. (EXAMPLE: I believe that light is a wave. I believe that waves refract. If you demonstrate to me that light does not refract I will reject my belief that light is a wave.)
An arational belief cannot be proven to be not true.
(EXAMPLE: There is no way that you can prove to me that morbier cheese is delicious. I think it smells like dirty socks and tastes vile. My belief that morbier tastes bad is arational. It is based on personal experience.)
Belief in God is arational and based on personal experience. Believing requires faith and “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
There is no Christian canon until at least the late fourth or early fifth century of the common era.
IMO, it is possible to be a Christian and reject this canon. One could appeal to validity of apocryphal texts and/or dispute validity of now-canonical texts.
I’ve never bothered, but I’ll bet one could cobble together a Christian book that includes no misogyny.
I just read the Beast article Amanda linked to, and I gotta say, it’s a giant example of the “no true scottsman” fallacy.
Honestly, you could almost put it in a textbook:
Allison Kilkenny: No real religion is supportive of gender equality
Some religious person: That’s not true, my god says gender equality is great!
Allison Kilkenny: Ah, but you don’t have a real religion.
Here’s a quote:
Really?
I just had a vision of god. God is the creator of all things, and is sentient, though genderless. God’s only commandment to us, is that all genders must be fully equal and coexist in peace, or our society is abominable in God’s sight.
There, I’m pretty sure I did something impossible in about 30 seconds.
It might be a blind spot, but I’m not sure that you can argue that my vision there is somehow more rational then any existing religions, and I’m also pretty sure that my new religion doesn’t go against all genders peacefully existing, since that’s the only commandment in the whole thing.
The quest for human freedom, of which feminism is merely a special case necessitated by various historical contengencies, cannot be advanced further than it has been without the near absolute obliteration of the Middle Eastern monotheistic religions. They are simply the enemy that must be destroyed. Sorry to those of you who consider yourselves Christians, Jews, or even Muslims; You have no place in the future. I hope that you will reconsider your positions and come to understand where your interests lie.
Most Suffragists and early feminists understood that the magic man in the sky had go. Consider their example and recognize they lived much more under the oppresive influence of the faiths you defend. They lived under that oppresion and by supporting these faiths you may make things even rougher for your grandchildren.
The big G has got to go. Nietzsche said we had killed him. I think we just hurt him real bad. It’s kinda like those horror movies where the bad guy comes back after you think he’s dead. The 19th century dealt the magic man a grevious blow, but he bounced back. It’s up to us to finish the job. We need to stab, slash, shoot, and burn until there’s no trace left.
“Amanda doesn’t mention any other factor as leading her to atheism other than feminism.”
That would probably be because it was the reason that was most pertinent to the topic at hand, she’s written other posts on her non-belief. Just click on the “religion” tag above to see more.
“In a logical statement “led me” indicates primary causality.”
And that’s not necessarily illegitimate. The point is that Amanda never made an argument to the effect of “I don’t like god, therefore he doesn’t exist.” Saying that feminism “led you” to atheism isn’t the same thing.
Following up on my previous thought, atheists do ourselves a disservice when we [i]don’t[/i] shove the apocryphal texts in the modern Christian’s face. The existence of these widely disparate accounts, which magnify the contradictions exponentially, is further evidence for the ahistoricity of the whole story. For instance, the Gospel of Peter has Jesus being executed by Herod. How could this “mistake” have been recorded, if this was a recent historical event?
Or it’s called agreeing to disagree. The world isn’t a binary, you know.
I think we both have, but I don’t think we’re on the same page as you, Tyler. Actually, would you please stop the personal attacks as well? So far you’ve told me that I bluster, that I’m confused, and now you’re telling me that I don’t exist, since I’m a “sock puppet”.
I’m sure that you have an absolutely fantastic point that you feel needs to be made, but I’m afraid that I am unsure if I am supposed to believe it, since you’ve just said that I’m a non-existent being, and I’m not sure that non-existent beings can, well, believe in things.
So how about agreeing to disagree? You’ll get to bed on time, pride intact, and I get to avoid trying to prove that I’m not a sock puppet, and we all win.
I really don’t see the point in playing this internet battle of “the spoils go to the one with the most stamina”. I’ve said my piece, you’ve said yours, would you honestly feel better if you’ve managed to convince me how utterly wrong I am?
bacopa,
But what do we do with those who believe in something outside ourselves who created all of this?
You can, theoretically eliminate religions, which I would love to see myself. But it may not be so easy to get rid of those who believe something that others don’t.
I’m talking about people’s internal thinking, not the currently established doctrine, theory of those with physical churches and great monetary stake in having as many followers as possible.
It isn’t equivalent at all. They aren’t even the same class of statements. Let’s look at what she actually said:
We could paraphrase this in a way that obscures much depth, but is, I think, still a valid snapshot: “It is asserted that a benevolent deity exists, yet religion is used as a vector of violence, which a benevolent deity would not allow.”
This fits neatly into the class of arguments that derive from The Problem of Evil, probably the oldest and in my opinion still the best argument against the existence of a benevolent deity. I’m sure you’ve heard of it; it’s a bit more sophisticated than “I don’t like X.”
For the record though, I don’t like X either.
shah8 has a particular style of discourse (sometimes uniquely infuriating, though i mean no disrespect) which Mezzo9 does not seem to share. And neither person is a troll, so there’s no incentive to sockpuppet.
so let’s put that speculation to rest, please.
IMO, it is possible to be a Christian and reject this canon. One could appeal to validity of apocryphal texts and/or dispute validity of now-canonical texts.
Thanks Grammer RWA. It’s what I was trying to say in too many words. I have that bad habit.
I can’t be the only one who became a feminist because I was a Christian. When I realized that underneath anything else I had been taught about my religion was the simple “love one another”, I knew I had to be liberal and feminist and environmentalist. There are other religions (and nonreligious philosophies) that teach this, true–but I’m by no means the only one who sees the true version of my religion as being the one that’s all about freedom and justice. If it has only been recently that large numbers of my coreligionists have realized that this applies to women, too, I’d say that that’s them just finally coming to realize what it really means to be for freedom and justice.
There are a lot of misogynist Christians; there are also a lot of misogynist atheists. I don’t see how it’s fair to say that I have to choose between being Christian and being feminist. Believing in fairness for all will affect my view of both deity and other humans. If people writing in my religion’s scriptures wrote against women, they were wrong. I’m allowed to say that and still be a Christian because they were people, too, and were just as capable of getting things wrong as any other human. My faith says that everybody has to stand on their own two feet and believe as they see right–you don’t get to say to God on the day of accounting that, hey, you were mean to women because Paul or Leviticus said you could be.
(Or, what Samantha Vimes at 10:59 said.
)
I wouldn’t know where to begin, though. The Gospel of Thomas is out; it’s just revoltingly sexist.
By the way, Shayne, you should probably use html “i” or “blockquote” tags when you quote somebody else’s words. It wasn’t apparent to me earlier when you quoted Christopher that those weren’t your words, at least at first. It was a bit confusing.
Nenya, well, one could use the argument that because there are misogynist atheists therefore atheists can’t be feminist. And because there are misogynist Christians, Christians can’t be feminists.
It pars down the feminist field quite a bit, I’d say. It all works for me. Heh. Which is to say, I find it hard to take any arguments on this seriously. But it’s interesting to talk about.
Sorry, Grammar RWA, and for the typo on your name. And thanks for the tip. Will do from now on. Can I ask what the RWA stands for?
Nenya,
Since you’ve spoken up as a liberal Christian, I’d like to ask: can you tell me how you deal with Luke 12?
In that chapter, Jesus uses slavery (unambiguously; the word is “doulos”) as a metaphor for how humans should relate to the deity.
Implicitly, he condones slavery. He encourages people to be like slaves, and most importantly, he never, at any point in the Bible, says “oh by the way you should not keep slaves”. If Jesus was a real person, he was living in a society where slavery was rampant. Why did he never speak up against this aspect of the status quo? Why did he think it provided a useful and positive metaphor, with no moral conundrums to be resolved or even addressed?
Shayne,
It stands for Right-Wing Authoritarian; c.f. the work of Bob Altemeyer. It’s one of my lame jokes.
High Life? Pabst Blue Ribbon!!!!
Grammar, I just asked because as an author RWA is Romance Writers of America. An organization I have much trouble with.
So I was just curious as to the RWA. I like Right-Wing Authoritarian better.
Which Luke verse in 12?
The slavery trouble starts at verse 35 and continues through 48. There’s another sort of trouble from 49 to 53, not quite as bad as slavery but still revolting. This is a particularly nasty chapter. Paul’s writings are even more explicitly pro-slavery, but Nenya implied a low opinion of Paul, and no one should have to defend Paul against their better judgment. It’s redundant anyway; the pro-slavery stance is one issue where the Bible is never contradictory.
Hoo boy, I’m late to this post. Oh well. A lot of people seem to be in general agreement that one cannot simultaneously be a feminist and a Christian, and seem puzzled how so-called ‘liberal Christians’ manage the logical loops. I’m an atheist personally, but I grew up as the daughter of a Southern Baptist pastor and seminary history professor, so I know a thing or two (or three or eight billion) about Christianity. Here’s the formula as I understand it for being a Christian and a feminist at the same time:
Step 1: Discard the entire Old Testament. You’re a Christian, not a Jew, and Jesus both says and demonstrates that the old laws no longer apply. Jesus said it, QED.
Step 2: Do some reading about Christian history. Discover that the New Testament as a textual body was not finalized until 4th century AD, amidst a firestorm of intraChurch politics, and that a lot of these political arguments concerned the role of women (or lack thereof) in the Church. Investigate apocryphal and gnostic texts, and realize that canon interpretations of Paul are flawed: they leave out major parts of his ministry (including some that are very female-friendly; see also Thecla, a woman who traveled, preached, and baptized with Paul but is not mentioned in the conventional New Testament).
Step 3: Become disillusioned with the Church. Realize that all Church documents are necessarily political, the results of men doing what men do best. Resolve to depart from organized religion, and worship only Christ, not the mess that organized religion (including a group of men in the fourth and fifth century) made of his teachings.
Step 5: Discard all texts except Gospels, resolve to interpret words of Christ alone, and ignore the commentary inserted by Gospel writers or later scribes. Recognize that Christ is actually pretty progressive on the feminism matter: he consorts willingly with whores, includes women when he teaches and in his salon-like debates over Jewish laws, and speaks to them in inappropriate public places (like wells). Women were also pretty plainly among the group that followed Him from town to town, and He appeared first to women after being resurrected, by all accounts, possibly implying that they had more grace than male apostles.
Step 6: Latch on to key verses about the highest commandments: love the Lord with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. Realize that ‘neighbor’ is notably sexless: it could include widows, prostitutes, and other women who lived on their own at the time as well as male heads of houses. There aren’t any exceptions; clearly women were to be loved equally with men, and women were likewise to adhere to the commandment equally with men. Conclude that Jesus really didn’t care about sex, and cared more about religious affiliation. Read story of woman who touched Christ’s cloak, conclude that Christ didn’t care that women had vaginas (her problem was that she was bleeding ‘down there’, and He healed her even though social establishment considered her Untouchable).
Step 7: Rest content in Christ-centered Christianity that resembles none of the versions found in organized religions; declare oneself a ‘liberal Christian’ to reflect this non-identification.
This is pretty fool-proof; the only problem then lies in explaining how God let his holy texts be so mishandled in the ensuing two millennia since their original writing. I haven’t yet seen a satisfactory answer for that one…
Actually in reading over Luke 45, 46, and 47, I found something rather interesting.
It basically states a servant who mistreats others, will be cut into pieces and cast out.
One who knows the master’s will yet doesn’t follow it, will get many blows, one who doesn’t know the master’s will and misbehave will get fewer blows.
If this is indeed Christ talking about God and humans, it doesn’t at all follow with the fundamentalist version that all who misbehave or don’t believe will be cast out. It sounds like you might get your rear kicked a bit, but is by no means getting your ass cast into hell.
Looking up the Greek word I got the following possible meanings, slave, servant, devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interest.
http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=1401
Then again since Jewish at the time were regarded to be slaves of Rome, the term might have been used as something those around Jesus would have understand.
Please realize I’m throwing out thoughts here. I could be right or wrong. And I’m always the first to admit it. It is just my thoughts on what we are talking about.
I also can point out that the Jewish were the slaves/servants of Rome in Roman eyes. Jesus never said a word about it being right or wrong. At least not that I read. If anybody sees a verse that points out I’m wrong, feel free to run it by me.
I don’t know if it’s illuminating to say that the Palestinian Jews were slaves of the Romans. They were certainly conquered subjects, but they were afforded some amount of home rule in Palestine. Does that make them something other than slaves? Free Palestinian Jews were able to hold property; slaves under their system could not hold property. So I don’t think the analogy is precise.
You’re right to note that Jesus implies different punishments and different rewards besides a strict black and white, heaven or hell dichotomy. This happens many, many times throughout the books. (Though in this case, beating a slave with even a few blows for not knowing his master’s will is still downright cruel.) I’d agree that modern fundies would probably seem completely alien to early Christians, who held many different opinions about the afterlife, and at least in the beginning, did not kill each other even for major differences. There’s even bits like 1 Timothy 4:10 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, which have inspired new Universalist movements for nearly every century. The latest are … I shit you not … Fundie Universalists.
Other words besides “doulos” are used for “servant” and related ideas. Doulos is the least ambiguous; it means someone who is bound and owned, someone who cannot leave. When it’s used metaphorically in other contexts, it refers to the notion that believers’ souls have been bought and paid for by the Christ’s sacrifice: “Jesus paid for your sins so now he owns you as though you were his doulos.”
If you want a slightly more explicit case, there’s Matthew 10:24-25, where Jesus says that slaves can never rise above their masters, and they should strive to emulate their masters. I would argue that giving people advice on how best to be slaves is an implicit endorsement of slavery.
But that’s all a bit of a side-issue, to me. I don’t necessarily have a problem with slavery metaphors per se. The reason I’m calling Jesus out is because he fails to ever speak up and say, “yes, but all metaphors aside, you really have to stop keeping slaves.” At best, he’s silent, which is still inexcusable, given that if he really existed, he lived in a slave-owning culture.
I’d agree that modern fundies would probably seem completely alien to early Christians
Early Christians (Pre-Nicea) wouldn’t recognize a large amount of Christian Mythology, regardless of whether it is espoused by fundies.
If folks are still awake and interested, I’ve got a section of Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God posted over at my place.
I didn’t get that from Amanda as much as I got that from the article by Allison Kilkenny that she linked to.
I found the article to be sloppy and intellectually lazy myself. She takes a discreet number of religious views, discredits them, then declares that god does not exist. While there are progressive voices in these different religious traditions, she dismisses them as not “true” followers of the religion.
SarahMC:
Again, why are liberal Christians who don’t interpret the bible literally Christians at all? If the stories about the burning bush and Jonah aren’t true, what makes you accept Jesus’ story?
When I saw you asking this, I knew I had to answer. You’re always asking good questions ! I can’t answer for anyone but myself, of course.
I’m a liberal feminist and also a Christian. Specifically Lutheran (not the crazy synod, mine is the synod with female bishops), but I’ve attended a bunch of protestant affiliations through my life…. some offended me and I left, and others seemed too mild to truly accomplish anything. I do take the stories of Jonah and Moses as truth, but not as literal, “I expect this to happen tomorrow” truth. They’re poetically written metaphors for spiritual journeys. I believe in evolution, too. The Bible was written by human men centuries after all this happened, so I take it with the grain of necessary salt.
So why do I follow Jesus ? Because I see something of worth in his message. Despite all the damage done to it by fake “Christians” (right-wing reactionaries and the like) Jesus preached tolerance, equality (for women, too), care for the poor and needy and sick and persecuted, and peace. I do believe in the resurrection; but at the same time, even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t negate the wisdom of his words. I take those words literally- that I’m supposed to care for the sick and the poor I meet, that I’m supposed to stand up for peace and justice, that I’m supposed to treat people with tolerance and respect. And I’m supposed to do it right now, every day, everywhere, through my entire life. (Not just an abstract “I write a check for a church charity every year and the rest of the year I stomp on the little guy to make my stock rise.” Ugh, I could go on, but I won’t.)
Anyway, I’ll stop babbling. But yeah, I recognize the flaws in an ancient text, written by men in a patriarchal cult society (Christianity was once, essentially, a cult) and translated and re-translated through the centuries. But I found something of value in there, something that only enhances and deepens my feminism and my liberal values. I follow Jesus out of faith and also out of values; but I don’t think I’m better (or all that different) than somebody who wants to follow Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and just doesn’t call it religion.
Since the original post appeared on Jan 6, I take this opportunity to share my experiences preparing to teach a children’s “Religious Education” class in my UU congregation focused on El Dia de los Reyes aka “Three Kings Day” aka “Wiseman’s Day,” known in English or more officially as “Epiphany.” It’s a big deal Yuletide holiday in Latin America (according to my mother, in Italian culture as well–generically Latino apparently). For some reason or other the UU bigwigs decided an appropriate module for RE in the grade 3-5 age group would be “Holidays around the world” this past fall, and I had previously led teaching on Hogmanay (which is a Scottish Yuletide holiday invented specifically because the only people who ever actually held a War on Christmas, the Calvinists, did ban Christmas, and the Scotts quickly found they needed another excuse to party in mid-winter) and Eid ul-Fitr, the end of the fast of Ramadan in Islam. Well honestly I’d never heard of these celebrations before myself–but for Crum’s sake I was raised a conservative Catholic by a half-Sicilian mother, so it was weird that this:
http://www.drunkduck.com/PiLLI__ADVENTURE/index.php?p=133588
was my very first clue that this was a festive holiday (it’s a Catholic Holy Day of Obligation of course–when I mentioned that concept to the kids, and tried to explain it, they got kind of revolted, as well they should…)
Well, I figured I’d try to find out how the traditional elements of the story of the Three Wise Men came about, and turned to the Gospels, and found that Matthew (the only one who mentions the Magi) didn’t say a dang thing about them being kings, or coming from three separate kingdoms, or having the traditional names, or any of that stuff. He says, as the New American Bible (modern Catholic translation–it’s a Catholic holiday, so why not use the thing?) has it, that astrologers came from the East, and asked Herod directions, and it’s all wound up in the story of the Slaughter of the Innocents and all that. He has the bit about the three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and following the star till it came to rest over Bethlehem (whatever that means!) It doesn’t specifically say that they had travelled together from the same place, but that’s a reasonable and straighforward reading of what it does say. “Magi” after all would refer to Zoroasterian priests, so they’d all be from the Persian-ruled regions of Iran and Iraq, presumably.
But the Catholic Bible had footnotes, and I followed them, to some Psalm and something in Ezekiel or Isaiah or something like that, about kings coming to do reverence to the King of Israel, specifically from Tarshish (which I think is Tarsus, but in OT times would have vaguely referred to the Aegean as a whole), Arabia, and Sheba.
Hence, you see, the tradition that these Magi were also kings and from three separate, distant kingdoms, none of which was or is anywhere to the East of Judea, but rather due north and south. Because there are 3 kings bearing those particular gifts in a couple places way back in prophecy, nevermind the direct contradictions!
This is what I have come to call Bible Logic