Sexism in Religious Texts

Through out the Torah (known as the old testiment to christians) and I believe the bible as well, god is referred to as he. Many of the people I know get quite upset over this as god is something greater than gender. God came before gender and cannot be categorized into either one. Therefore this is in a way sexism and the people I know think that the texts should not refer to god in either way. What are your thoughts on this? I know that much of Orthodox Judaism is still fairly sexist as they take the texts literally. What do you believe on the matter and as applies to christianity as not many people here are familiar with Judaism.

well for a start i think the main reason this is done is because when translating the old testament from hebrew it would have been a bit messed up to keep calling god "it" as apposed to he or she.

they couldn't realy use he cause god created "man" in his own image and eve to satisfy the needs of man. also you might want to consider that in those days to have a she-god would have been slightly scrwed up. just imagine "no body wanna worship that biatch"

I found this on the web as a great source on the topic. http:../../www.sos-sexisme.org/english/torah.htm

Do you think god really meant it this way?

The way everything else is presented in the Judeo-Christian religion of god's kindness and Jesus' loving all I cannot see god's writing to be intended in this fashion, but it definately goes beyond the translation.

[ArgonPlasma2000]

Your a fucking idiot. Does it really matter is God has nuts? So what if God is a male?

But if you actually read the Bible, Heaven doesnt have entities with a gender. They are all spirits.

If you bothered to read the Bible youd know that.

quote:Originally posted by ArgonPlasma2000:

Your a fucking idiot. Does it really matter is God has nuts? So what if God is a male?

But if you actually read the Bible, Heaven doesnt have entities with a gender. They are all spirits.

If you bothered to read the Bible youd know that.

If you bothered to read my post you'd know I'd written that god doesn't have gender. Then the religious texts do refer to god with gender and this upsets people like human people on our level.

All texts are sexist stupid. LOLOLOL!! pwned!!!! Evr heard of teh Bible??? Of course not!!!! You can't read111111

[ArgonPlasma2000]

quote:Originally posted by T-BagBikerStar:



If you bothered to read my post you'd know I'd written that god doesn't have gender. Then the religious texts do refer to god with gender and this upsets people like human people on our level.

Well the man is the head of the family. God is the head of all life, it just makes sense to say that he is a male too.

With reading all you have in the Jewish texts would it make more sense to call God a he or she. Thats why

If I were to take the Torah literally I would be orthodox and would have to say the direct texts are themselves sexist. But from my own perspective of very reform/athiest Judaism I have a lot more of human equality beliefs and believe that god would intend for the teachings to be less sexist, as do most reform Jews. If you are someone who takes the texts into your own hands and decides to interpret them yourself you could very well also come up with this conclusion.

quote:Originally posted by T-BagBikerStar:

If you bothered to read my post you'd know I'd written that god doesn't have gender. Then the religious texts do refer to god with gender and this upsets people like human people on our level.

Prove it. Your initial post on the subject simply states "...before gender" which means before gender as YOU know or recognise it, that is, human gender.

But I say to you, prove your assertion.

[Tyrant]

God doesn't say women are inferior... my fists do.

[Snoopy]

quote:Originally posted by Tyrant:

God doesn't say women are inferior... my fists do.

The Judge disagrees.

[Hexadecimal]

No, the Judge agrees. Hence it being a crime...the inferior will always want protection by law.

Misogyny is so deep in all the major religions that it might as well be a defining characteristic. http:../bbs/icons/icon13.gif

quote:Originally posted by T-BagBikerStar:

as not many people here are familiar with Judaism.

Apparently neither are you. I would think that even someone following a 'reform/athiest Judaism' would have heard of the Shekhina.

http:../../www.pantheon.org/articles/s/shekhina.html

quote:Originally posted by Sarith:

you might want to consider that in those days to have a she-god would have been slightly scrwed up.

History much?

Nice try, that site is crap. I read the article.

Associated with Judaism but not in the texts? What kind of association is this?

Monotheism still means one god, you can't just go pulling more out of a hat.

Even no matter how you believe in this Shiekvah thing it still does not effect how god is referred to as he even though god as no gender.

Oh just to continue on this site they committed one of the greatest atrocities possible to the Jewish religion. The said the patriarchal god was Yahweh. (firstly they are saying god is male(and implying more than one(all this in one sentence))) but to add on to this they try to pronounce god's actual name. The name was given to the Israelites in Hebrew as (Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey) in Hebrew characters. The vowels were lost and are unknown that go along with these characters. These sounds translate vaguely to Y-H-(V,O,or OO)-H, yet the vowels that go with them are still unknown so we don't say god's actual name ever. Instead we usually use Adonai which translates to our lord (also sexist as lord also implies male).

The Shekhina is not so much God, but a manifestation of God's goodness.

It is my understanding that Yahweh doesn't have a physical body, and therefore isn't male or female. However, because we don't have a pronoun to represent a person that is asexual or androgenous (I don't know if this is the case in Aramaic, Hebrew or Greek), and because the Torah and New Testament were most likely written completely by men, of course they would have used the masculine pronoun to represent God.

[This message has been edited by Christop (edited 05-13-2005).]

[ArgonPlasma2000]

It goes like this. All through history up until this past century, there has always been sexism. When the writers of the Bible wrote it, it would be much more universally accepted if it had sexist undertones. Thats not to say the Bible is sexist (it is indeed not), its just to say it uses "he" because it appeals more to its readers, and for the above posters note of lack of pronoun.

because when men look at porn they would feel they would go to hell for violating gods gender

mgb

[Snoopy]

The fact is, women are the leaders, whether they be superior or not. I posted a long assed thread about this once in the S&A forum. The "civilizations" where the men were the leaders were and are all failures. Women are always victorious in the long run. Men can't even begin to understand what kind of effect women have on them. Oppress women into breaking that effect, and you're left limp dicked.

The sole reason why religions try to oppress women shows the woman's superior social standing. Men and man made religions fear the power of the "vixen". The slut, the hag that bleeds on the full moon, the dancer, mother, lover and sister. Jealousy, love, romance, feelings that fuel men to kill. Kill women and other. But that shit doesn't matter now. We're intelligent beings now. We've killed God and rid ourselves of pathetic man made religions. We don't have to live in the shadows and cry at natural elements we do not understand.

If you don't understand what I'm saying, you're a dumb fucking retard.

[quote]Originally posted by Snoopy:

[b]The fact is, women are the leaders, whether they be superior or not. I posted a long assed thread about this once in the S&A forum. The "civilizations" where the men were the leaders were and are all failures. Women are always victorious in the long run.

uhh, ma'am where i come from we got nothing but women primeministers and women presidents for like the past decade... and we got something in the fastest 20 shrinking economies in the world, 21 years of mal-fought civil wars, a sold out national airline, 1/3 of the worlds suicide bombings, the highest alchohol per person consumption rate in the world, one fo the worst educational systems you'll ever see, 30% of the parliment is made up of madam presidents communist friends, we've had two attempted racial genocides in the last 20 years and of course we harbour the terrorists who killed ghandi. i woudlnt' go so far as to say women are ALWAYS succesful in the long run

The idea of god came after gender, since it was created by human beings.

The earliest conceptions of god were of a earth/mother god, as a result of how human beings lived. At the time when humans developed the capacity for abstract thought we were still living in caves, but the social roles assigned to gender were responsible for how the concept of deity was formed. Men lived relatively solitary lives, spread out on the planes while they hunted. Women on the other hand lived in tight nit social groups in the caves while they cared for the children and washed the dishes.

Because they spent all their time in contact with each other, they spent more time communicating, and this setup is responsible for a great deal of the social behaviours found in each gender today (remember that evolution occurs over huge time periods, while the timeframe of social change has telescoped). Specifically it gave rise to the female gender being more communicative, and by neccessity they were the first ones to start thinking about the meaning of life, which lead to the idea of a deity force active in the universe. For a great length of time the view of god as female was dominant, a "fertility goddess" that reflected the land that they were dependent on.

The current dominant view of god as male is just a "phase" that took over when the "phase" of the goddess ended. The patriarchal Judeo-Christian god is male largely due to the fact that in its origins it derived from the Egyptian concept of divinity, where the pharoah was seen to be the highest god, the conception of deity found in the old testament is very similar to that of ancient Egypt.

Either way it's just a phase, we'll grow out of it eventually.

[Aphelion Corona]

There is no neutral gender in Hebrew, but God is referred to as both male and female.

For example "Adonai" is male and "Shechinah" is female.

[Snoopy]

quote:Originally posted by Sarith:

uhh, ma'am where i come from we got nothing but women primeministers and women presidents for like the past decade... and we got something in the fastest 20 shrinking economies in the world, 21 years of mal-fought civil wars, a sold out national airline, 1/3 of the worlds suicide bombings, the highest alchohol per person consumption rate in the world, one fo the worst educational systems you'll ever see, 30% of the parliment is made up of madam presidents communist friends, we've had two attempted racial genocides in the last 20 years and of course we harbour the terrorists who killed ghandi. i woudlnt' go so far as to say women are ALWAYS succesful in the long run

A female president doesn't mean a woman is in charge. Nor does a male president mean a man is in charge. I'm talking about the whole social structure of a society. A leader is just an icon. It doesn't matter if they're male, female or artificial.

[ArgonPlasma2000]

quote:Originally posted by Snoopy:

The fact is, women are the leaders, whether they be superior or not. I posted a long assed thread about this once in the S&A forum. The "civilizations" where the men were the leaders were and are all failures. Women are always victorious in the long run. Men can't even begin to understand what kind of effect women have on them. Oppress women into breaking that effect, and you're left limp dicked.

The sole reason why religions try to oppress women shows the woman's superior social standing. Men and man made religions fear the power of the "vixen". The slut, the hag that bleeds on the full moon, the dancer, mother, lover and sister. Jealousy, love, romance, feelings that fuel men to kill. Kill women and other. But that shit doesn't matter now. We're intelligent beings now. We've killed God and rid ourselves of pathetic man made religions. We don't have to live in the shadows and cry at natural elements we do not understand.

If you don't understand what I'm saying, you're a dumb fucking retard.

Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia are doing quite well