Alright. I think this entry will be short but it should be fun anyway. Today’s issue to sexism: are men and women equal in the eyes of God? At the same time, I might as well talk about racism as well.
I will begin with my personal answer: yes.
This article will tie in some themes from my Socratic Argument using Christianity as an advocate of gay rights.
We can start there I guess. So let’s review: The Gospels state that God is loving, caring compassionate, understanding, etc. Therefore, neither gender would be mores susceptible to evil or weaker than the other would. In addition, neither sex would be greater. It is clear, biologically, that men and women are different physiologically. I don’t’ think I need to go into specifics. It is also been established that women’s pain threshold is higher than that of men which suggests, if anything, that women are in fact stronger than men. Both sexes have pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses. It is true there are many things women can do that men cannot and men can do that women cannot…or better yet, there are many things women are better at than men are, and many things that men are better at than women are. So either sex can do anything the other one can (well almost anything i.e. childbirth), they just might not excel at it.
I want to go on a bit of a tangent and talk about genders as in masculine and feminine traits. This is relative to this blog but it might do better in a psych blog or social blog. I have a theory from many hours of observations in many different setting and in many different group dynamics as well as taking several courses that discuss gender traits and this is what I have come up with: Mentally: men and women are not all that different. Most of the “traits” are societal and/or culturally constructed. For millennia, those in charge have told everyone else than men and women are different and listed with great detail those differences. Now not every culture has done this and not every culture puts men higher than women. Some put them as equal while others put women above men. However, in the end, the genders are far more similar than we are lead to believe. Of course men and women are different mentally but not to the extent that we think. For example, men have just as many emotions as women but do not express them for fear of rejection and humiliation of other men even though those other men have those feelings as well. It annoys me that we keep saying things are masculine and feminine when they are just mental aspects in themselves not exclusive to either gender. Both genders can be violent and cruel, both genders can be irrational, both genders can shoot the shit and talk about nothing all day, both genders feel sad, depressed, angry, fearful, embarrassed, etc. the only real difference is how we respond to our feelings and act on them. We are all capable of being kind, caring and supportive when we are needed to be but we can also be protective and aggressive when we need to be. Society tells us men cannot cry and men are tough, while women are more emotional and more delicate. This is frankly bullshit. If I watch a movie that makes me want to cry, I will cry. But not in front of everyone. See? Now I wish I could but there are men out there who also would want to cry but won’t and will want to agree with the one crying, in fact all the men present will agree assuming the movie is relative to all of their lives but none of them will cry because they are afraid of all the others not crying. This is a self-perpetuating infinite circle of misunderstanding. I have also noticed that men are more intolerant of men acting “unmanly” than women are intolerant of women acting “unwomanly”.
Now that that is out of the way, back to the Bible.
The main critic is Lilith. For those of you that do not know that story of Lilith I will sum it up. Genesis 1 was written by a different person than the one who wrote Genesis 2, 3. They were both written a couple hundred years apart and were not put together for another hundred years or so (I cannot remember the exact dates) someone thought they were compatible. However, there are great differences between them. One is Adam and Eve. In Gen 1, they are both created simultaneously and equal and were not given names. In Gen 2, Adam was created first then Eve was later created out of Adams rib making man weaker as a species and then as we, all know, thanks to a snake, Eve then tempted Adam with the fruit. The snake tempted Eve to tempt Adam rather than the other way around because apparently man is smarter than woman is.
There is a clear contradiction here. So how did the Jewish faith fix this problem? They created the story of Lilith. The story of Lilith is found in the Jewish mystic text of Kabbalah. There are several Jewish mystic texts that are not canon with the actual Pentateuch (meaning they are not real parts of the Bible or accepted as such). Furthermore, since the creation of these texts all of them are not accepted by almost every Jewish sect or person of Jewish faith, simply put, they retcond the mystic texts.
Lilith is technically the first woman ever created, with Eve as the second. Lilith is considered evil, the mother of all demons, a succubus. What did she do exactly? Well to begin with, she was way ahead of her day. She had radical ideas of equality between herself and Adam. She was unruly, would not listen to Adams orders, and wanted equal responsibility. Adam wanted nothing to do with this so he asked God to make another woman after Lilith, being pissed off for no none reason at Adam (just like a woman [joking]) and sick to the teeth of Adam asking her to make him sandwiches abandoned him. Now this all might not necessarily stop a woman from freethinking, in fact it might inspire her, so the Jewish community at the time needed to further explain how this behavior is evil. In the end, Lilith has sex with Cain and gives birth to the first demon. So speaking your mind is a bad idea.
Women have also been the targets of witch-hunts with religion leading the way. Most times the real witches were left alone and the women who were accused of being witches did nothing expect express themselves—or they were blamed for the problems of men. If a man was impudent or infertile it was the woman’s fault, if a woman was attractive and a man hit on her and she denied him, she was a witch for tricking him. For further curiosity about all this, I suggest Witches Hammer, the book on witch hunting. The point is that men feared women so naturally with all fears, in order to conquer them you make your fears afraid of you; take away all their power and freedom.
Now, these days, we know all that to be utterly ridiculous. There are other passages in the Bible that advocate the beating of one’s wife but those are few and far between and have no bearing on today. Religion, like all other things must adapt, grow, and change with the times or else be left in the dark. For example, in Christianity, mass was always said in Latin, but most people do not speak Latin so nowadays most churches conduct the mass in the language of the community.
Now, since I am on this topic I might as well talk about racism ideals in the Bible. Now I have never come across any passages myself that are racist. Probably because the Catholic church I grew up attending understood them to be stupid (if there are any racism passages). The few that I know of are not racist but against other belief systems. The passages talk about people from other nations as inferior for having savage pagan beliefs that contradict the God of the Bible. I disagree with that also but I am talking about racism right now. Thinking one race is superior to another is ridiculous. The only reason it started was really classism. Other races had superior technological advances and it was not because they were smarter, it was because of trade, think about it. All of Europe and Asia are connected, each land that had a new idea or invention, that idea or invention would spread and be sold and traded until everyone knew about it and even perfected it. Meanwhile, North and South America were separated from the rest of the world and were only connected to each other with the thin strip of land that is Middle America. Africa likewise is not very connected to Europe, the same goes for Australia. All these ideas never reached these “savage cultures”. Had the land mass never split into seven continents, I am positive the aboriginals of Africa, the Americas, and Australia, would have advanced right alongside the rest of the world, in fact, trade may have excelled even further, and we may have been way more advanced by this point in the game.
If you would like to read more on Racists, I have a paper on them (http://storywrite.com/story/8056155-Philosohpy_of_Racism-by-Jake_Wesley). Right now, I am talking about the concept as used with the Bible. Race is not even the right word since we are all part of the human race (as any anthropologist will tell you). The reason people of different parts of the world have different skin color is to absorb Vitamin D from the sun and to not be sunburned. That is why people who live by the equator have very dark skin while people who live by the poles practically glow in the dark they are so whit. It has nothing to do with superiority or anything like that.
Again, God is all about love, not hate. God does not want us to murder or cause pain, God wants us to love our enemies and our persecutors like out neighbors—to love all people, and to not pass judgment upon them. Therefore, people who like to have lynch mobs, burn crosses, etc, they are more likely to go to Hell than people who are not white who never hurt anyone. That is something to think about if you are a member of the Nazi Party of Ku Klux Klan.
The Bible dictates that God created ALL of US as EQUAL. God created the human race. And just for fun facts that most people know, Adam and Eve, were almost certainly black since almost all anthropologists, genealogists, biologists, and geologists agree that the “Cradle of Life” is somewhere in Africa. Jesus also was not white. Jesus was a Hebrew living in Israel. His skin tone would have been the same as ever other Middle Eastern person’s skin.
In addition, I might as well touch on what to make of other religious beliefs. Now as a Christian, I am all about love, peace, and “good works” Almost every religion I have come across wants that as well. They all want to pray and be nice to each other, and all these great qualities. Most religions have the same end just different means, and even their means aren’t that different: be good to people, pray, reflect on life, try to make a difference, help out when you can, give to charities, eat right, etc. In fact, the end of Monty Python’s Meaning of Life sums that up great. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBArMmngVH4)
I was also just about to talk about Clas sism but since I have already touched on so much and I could write a lot on that, especially if I bring in Marx, I will save that for the next entry in the Church of Sense and Reason. Tune in next week!
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