Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Does it matter if we use religion to oppress women?

Ann, the way you talk about Paul and what he said implies that he was writing his own thoughts and personal opinions on religion. Now, you may have that viewpoint, but I would at least like to make known that some Christians, if not many, believe that the Bible is not man's words, but God's words written down by men and that our God would not allow something to be included in the Bible that he did not want. There were many books written under similar circumstances to some of those in the Bible, but when the Bible was put together, some books were put in and others weren't. Some of those ended up included in the Catholic Bible, because the Catholic Church decided they wanted to include them.

So please don't think that just because a man was the one to actually write down the text in the Bible, that male chauvinists got together to write a holy book that would suppress women, or anything like that.

Which makes me think of a debate my sister has brought up at times. The whole thing of a woman taking on the man's last name when they marry. There are some who believe that the woman should keep her own last name. I've seen that here on Lois and Clark, and I have nothing against individuals doing it, but what about groups? Should the man take on ther woman's name?

Being a man, I struggle to understand exactly why there are so many things that feminism seeks to change.

Woody, this is what Paul actually says:

and

Either it is Paul himself who says this, because he is a man and would like it to be that way. Or else it is God who actually says it. But either way, it means that woman is secondary to man according to the New Testament and Christianity.

Ann

I've been interested especially in the American responses in this thread because I've been following the American Pres-Nom Play-offs.

Capes wrote about the prevalence of sexist attitudes:
I know that the number of responses here are too few to form a statistically reliable sample, so how pervasive are sexist attitudes in the States? Here in Canada, they're still an issue - is it the same in the US?

c.

Just throwing a thought out there: how literally should we take the Bible? While I honestly can't tell you right now what the official teachings are on some of Paul's writings, I can tell you that no Catholic bishop is going to pick up Paul and take everything he says at face value, just speaking for my own church.

JD

I don't think there's a way to say "yes" or "no" to that.

It's a big country, with a lot of cultures, sub-cultures, sub-sub-cultures, etc.

I live in a very liberal area, not too far from NYC. In New York, in general, sexism is considered very backwards. At best. But, quietly, there are still glass ceilings and lower wages and sexist individuals. Less and less, I think, but they're still there.

More to the point, there are communities within New York. There's a little bit of everything in NYC, and it's all packed so tightly together that, in most places, if you walk a few blocks, you'll find yourself in a whole other neighborhood.

I know of at least three different Jewish subcultures with strong communities in the city which hold to the idea that a woman's place is at home, raising mobs of children.

And within those communities, you'll find varying degrees of commitment to that idea.

I'm sure the same is more or less true anywhere else. In some areas of the country, you'll find sexism to be the norm. But within those areas, you'll find exceptions. Pockets where it isn't. Individuals defying the norm. Etc etc.

We're a country of immigrants. Except for the people whose families have been here for thousands of years. There isn't very much you can say about us that fits everyone.

Can we assume that one and the same religion will create the same kind of society whenever it is implemented? Will, for example, all Christian societies follow the same rules and develop the same traditions, since they are all built around the same religion?

No! I'm sure that that is not the case at all. There is a bewildering multitude of beliefs and customs that are or have been "justified" in the name of Chrisitianity. I will not go into any details, just post a few pictures to give you an idea of what I mean.




























This is an illustration of how Dante Alighieri pictured hell around the year 1300. Please note that Dante would have sentenced you to hell - with no chance of ever getting out of there - if you had more than a passing interest in food or money, for example.



My point is that it is not possible to foresee how a society will evolve just because all or most of its members belong to a certain religion.

If we could replay history, and let the last two thousand years unfold all over again, I am personally convinced that history would have turned out differently. There are a million little things that might have changed - an important thinker who got pneumonia and died before he had had time to formulate his thoughts, a rebel who got away instead of getting hanged, a ship that sank, a peace that was negotiated differently - a million little things, as I said, and the world that we now take for granted would never have happened.



And if Christianity had become dominant in that world, too, its rules and traditions would have been different.

The point I'm trying to make is that even though the Christian parts of the world today are generally less sexist than other parts of the world, I don't think it is at all inevitable that Christianity will always produce good living conditions for women. I think you can easily imagine Christian societies that are extremely sexist - indeed, many such societies have existed in the past, and some such societies are still to be found in the world today.

Does that mean that Christianity and the Bible have done nothing at all for women? Is there nothing in the Bible that paves the way for a relatively non-sexist society?

Yes, there is. It is not correct to conclude that Christianity has not contributed at all to the freedom of women in the west today. There are things in the Bible that can help women fight oppression. I think it is a toss-up whether or not these non-sexist aspects of the Bible will win out over the sexist parts. I will later post a comparison between the Bible and the Koran, where I'll try to point out some important differences between these two holy books, which can explain some of the differences between Christian and Muslim societies.

And yet, when all is said and done, it could well be that the differences between our societies are mostly caused by sheer historical coincidences.

Ann

Nuns are the "Brides" of Christ - hand maidens so to speak, and take three vows: poverty, chasity, and obidence. Not all priest societies take all three vows. Nuns can not perform a Mass, one of the most important roles of a priest.A nun's soul is not marked forever with "nunhoodness" once she makes final vows. A priest's soul on the other hand, is marked forever- once a priest always a priest- even if he's defrocked. So he could go to hell in the collar. The question is would a man want to be called a hand maiden?Or godforbid, a bride? I dont think so.
Monks and cloistered nuns, as a rule, are retired from society and forgo community outreach.So I quess their "ranking" is about equal.By the same token, Brothers and non-cloistered nuns do communty and missionay work. But I might give the prestige award to the monks, though. Both Gregor Mendel and Martin Luther were monks, and you know what happened next.Besides, what is New Year without champagne?

and a little Benedictine with your coffee.