When
the popes led their faithful to war, they didn't do it by changing
human nature to suit their purpose. Warlike behavior satisfies the human
need to prove ourselves superior to others.
A totally unsupported and probably false assumption. Nothing in human
evolution indicates warlike behavior. See aforementioned fragile
skull. Humans evolved by cunning not force. Selecting agricultural
crops so they were not dependent on dangerous foraging, domesticating
food animals rather than hunting dangerous game, coopting follower
wolves for predator warnings, (not exclusive to humans by the way)
breeding aggressive "sheepdogs" to protect the herds and domesticated
small feline predators to control small rodents that domesticated
themselves.
The only
significant predators were anti-social exploitive humans who raped,
pillaged and burned those who had a sustainable agricultural society.
Even those sustainable societies used aggressive war as a last resort
preferring to expend extensive resources on defensive structures to
protect their cultures. See the Great Wall of China, and Castles atop
sheer cliffs. A few defenders with projectile weapons spears, rocks and
fireworks (another cunning invention to avoid proving ones tribe
superior.) could hold off invading hordes almost indefinitely.
It took Abram, the God he created in his own image, and baby factories to make war and pillage a viable cultural strategy.
beliefnet
The hard part for theists is admitting they have become the moral
source they wanted to worship. In fact, they are now in a position to
condemn their god as immoral based on secular principles of human
rights. Kwinters
lt is not
hard at all. I know some Catholics and many Jews that for all intents
and purposes are atheists. It was a good Catholic that told me that the
"Thy God" of the First Great Commandment is whatever you want Herm to
be. She describes her God as an inner voice that she can converse with
as a friend to help her decide what to do in difficult situations. It
is easier to call it "Mary" than Raggedy Ann, because Raggedy Ann
actually has a form. (I did ask.) Her indoctrination makes Mary the
mother of all good things, and as a mother it is easy to transfer that
voice inside her head from mom to Mary.
For
many of the Jews I know, (a biased sample) God is an ancient guide no
longer relavent to the modern world, and is nothing but a word in a
prayer. Comfort food for inner peace. The Shema, commonly the
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, is a centering ritual where G-d and "God's Kingdom"
is whatever you want to make of your life.
I have sung the Shema and Ave Marias,
reverently as is mandatory to convey the meaning to believers, and
using the interpretation of God from my friends I have no problem as an
atheist attaching my own personal meaning to the word. Mostly
Pantheist, APOD is my worship focus, although in the Sierra, the "Range
of Light" dominates. If this makes me a believer, so be it. I am in
good company.
beliefnet
Lets not draw cave men BS conclusions
from a Christian BS study. Women's taste in male appearance changes
like hemlines. If Putz was really interested in evolution he would look
at cross cultural traits rather than the misogynist Penn State
Christian/football violent culture. Probably at least half the men in
the world do not have big muscles, heavy facial hair, square jaws, teeth
that clench to take facial violence, (he forgot that one) deep voices,
and a propensity to violence.
East
Asians, South Asians, Africans, and what we know of indigenous people
all lack most of those features, and women and men are generally the
same size and shape. Lithe, flexible, versitile muscles good for other
things than wielding clubs. Dexterity in both genders. A generally
small face to make room for a bigger brain, in short a body and face
designed by evolution for versatility, adaptability and cooperation.
Their fighting style (when forced to fight) is not strength but
adaptability and expending as many men as necessary to overwhelm the
enemy and not incidentally protect the women and children. A few planes
with Kamikaze pilots can destroy a battleship and a whole bunch of
square jawed, heavily muscled, violence loving men.
Three
millennia of war and violence in the Middle East and Europe have
changed not so much women's preferences, but which man got the harems,
and ownership of the baby factories to make more men with big muscles,
heavy facial hair, square jaws and teeth that clench to mitigate blows
to the face (the only exposed area for armored men) and a propensity to
violence. The fact that they are an evolutionary minority speaks
volumes about the propensity to violence in spite of their high birth
rate.
beliefnet
I certainly can deny our warlike
nature. All evidence is that before Abram came along and invented God,
humans were agricultural - herding communities or hunter - gatherers
where the ecology permitted it. Their gods (if any) were generally
earth/fertility oriented and community sustainability was an important
moral imperative.
War
was rare although not non-existent, as there were tribal leaders that
for one reason or another usually outgrowing their resource base could
try to take what they wanted by warfare. Usually settled communities
could defend themselves and the marauders failed usually when the
dysfunctional leader was killed.
Abram's
genius was inventing a leader that couldn't be killed because it didn't
really exist, and who divided all the world simply into us and them.
Them just didn't count. This was a successful concept, as poor young
men could be convinced that it was "their" fault they were poor and
horny and run off to battle for plunder, and women.
As
for the people who created the mythology, whether or not they were
inspired by God is moot, as they believed in God, and codified the
mythology based on that assumption. My belief or lack thereof in God
has nothing to do with what others believe. I also do not think that
50+% of the population that believe in Christianity and Islam and at
least pretend to read and abide by Scripture is "only a fraction."
beliefnet
Since
Torah establishes the moral context of the relationship of husband,
mainly in Deuteronomy 24 but throughout the Pentateuch we can clearly
state that Kristi's statement is logically airtight with respect to the
Bible which claims most of Torah as Scripture.
When
talking about the Bible, Torah, or Qur'an as Scripture it is necessary
to assume God exists, as all clearly state that He does. Whether or not
the men who wrote scripture were divinely inspired (another possibly
false assumption: one author may have been a woman documenting the God
inspired Hebrew culture but probably not directly inspired by God.) The
culture documented in Scripture was dominated by God's laws, morals,
mores, and whims. Therefore the people documenting the culture whether
inspired by God or not were reflecting one God's Culture. Other
cultures may have had entirely different laws, morals, mores and even
different Gods. There are other Gods mentioned in Scripture.
From
Scripture we only know about one culture, which was dominated by God.
We have no documentation of negative attitudes about women in any
culture which preceded or co-existed with the culture of Scripture.
Data from aboriginal cultures and agricultural cultures generally show
that women were at least equal if not specially respected and protected for their
ability to perpetuate the species.
beliefnet
Yes
this is what I think about. And you can go further than 'culture'.
Science says men evolved to be violent. And our closest relatives in the
trees are in male dominant hierarchy. So religion didn't create these
things. Biology did. Curious
Neither premise is clearly supported by "Science." See Bonobos which are our closest simian relatives.
If
Homo Sapiens evolved to be violent we would look more like Neanderthals
and Klingons. The human skull is evolved to avoid violence. The brain
is easily concussed and if violence is anticipated some sort of a
helmet is needed to avoid damage to the fragile skull. Note that the
Neanderthals were bigger, stronger, smarter and had a protected brain
but still lost out to Sapiens, they could rape Sapiens women, but we
couldn't rape theirs. (No Neanderthal mDNA in humans,)
beliefnet
Perhaps
some modern versions of Christian, Muslim and Jewish have reinterpreted
the "us vs. them" teachings of their God, but historically particularly
their earliest traditions they have that teaching as an integral part.
You look at the parts of the world where Christianity and Islam are
dominant and the fate of the indigenous religions (they are essentially
destroyed) the truth of the above assertion is obvious.
That
they learned it from the stories of Moses is also undeniable. God led
the Hebrews out of out of Egypt, to the promised land of Canaan where
God "delivered up to them" the indigenous people, destroyed the
indigenous religions and gave the Israelites their promised land. At
least for a while.
The
Hebrews apparently originated in the the fertile agricultural community
of Ur which they left for unknown reasons for Haram in Turkey another
agricultural community. Their original leader Abraham (Abram) was led
by God to Canaan, another agricultural community which God promised to
Abraham and all his seed, Why the Hebrews left Ur, and Haram for Canaan
is not clear, but from what little we know about Abraham, he was not a
particularly nice person although rich and exploitive. There is no
accounting for the taste of Gods.
beliefnet
Your thesis then, is "the very existence of religion is an affront to womens' progress", correct? IronLDS
Talk
about misinterpreting a post and fighting a strawman! But to respond to
the strawman, religious influence in Western society is
an affront to women's progress, as it is the source of the property
status of women and the concept that women should STFU and stay home.
All the talk of separate but equal roles is just more religious BS to
justify keeping women barefoot, uneducated and pregnant.
As noted earlier humanist
men support women in all roles totally ignoring their haughty status as
made in the image of God. I even know of humanist men who assume the
role of househusband to provide their children with proper nurturing
while their wives work full+ time at their economic comparative advantage role
in society. She may well be a better mom than he is but her overall
worth to society is higher as a medical professional e.g. than his as
contract laborer. More commonly they share both roles usually to the
detriment of their careers, more so for the woman, due to the fact that
she is working above her station, but both chose children and careers,
rather than not having children. Which by the way is a common choice
for humanists as their service to their society as full+ time
professionals may be more important to them than raising cannon fodder.
Their legacy is their social service rather than another mouth for the
world to feed.
beliefnet
But
until we have good evidence of their existence, they don't exist for
us. The best an example can be is in the 'probably real' subset of the
set of 'imaginary things'.
Thus for any specific candidate,
like a real Donald Duck, a real teapot in orbit beyond Mars, a real
Higgs boson or (if only we knew what a god is) a real god, it doesn't
exist until we have good evidence of its existence. Blü
I would as usual include in the existence category any imaginary thing
that is consistently describable by any rational human who has been
exposed to the imaginary concept. Donald Duck is an imaginary thing
that is a charicature of a duck, which wears a naval themed vest and hat
and speaks aphorisms of determinable levels of satirical, ironic, and
metaphorical truth. Therefore, Donald Duck objectively exists. The
teapot was not adequately described even by Russell to be consistently
describable by any rational human and therefore remains in the set of
imaginary things with no real existence.
A
real God may exist for a group of people but generally the description
is about as defined as Russell's teapot so that for the rational human
must remain in the category of imaginary thing. As an example Zeus may
be considered a real God for the ancient Greeks. Uniformly describable
as a charicature of a human man, wielding lightning bolts as a weapon,
and speaking aphorisms of determinable levels of satirical, ironic, and
metaphorical truth. He was even clearly described enough to be made
into statues recognizable by any rational Greek as Zeus.
The
problem with God in the thread title, is that all believers describe
Herm differently if they describe Herm at all in recognizable terms, and
therefore the rational human has no consistent evidence to determine
any sort of existence even as an imaginary thing.
beliefnet
(And I'm leery of that word 'transcending' - it's too often an attempt to smuggle nonsense into conversations.) Blü
I find transcendence to be a perfectly good word for the natural
ability of the mind to focus on a single task. Normally physical,
athletes and musicians call it the zone, but can be purely mental. The
mental state is harder to achieve but can be trained just as the
physical state is trained. The problem is that it can be focused just
as well on imaginary things as real ones, so it is important to
recognize explicitly the focus of the transcendent state. The Transcendentalists focused
it inward, to discover what it is to live meaningfully as a human, and
atheists should acknowledge our debt to their efforts.
The fear of death and loss are enough to turn some people's brains off
and stop them from questioning the pure nonsense that religion spouts.
If from birth it is drummed into your brain that nothing you can do in
this life is important to God: that everything you do including those
things that are natural and necessary for the survival of the species is
sinful and must be expiated by a vuvuzela; and that even after death
you will be judged not by what you have done but what you have done that
is forgiven; it is little wonder that people are "tired of living, and
feared of dying."
If
from birth it is drummed into your brain that your mission in life is to
improve the lives of your neighbors and the environment in which they
live so that all children can look forward to better lives; and that you
only get one shot at doing so; it is easy to "live a life worth dying
for" (Forrest Church). Some do a little, others do a lot, but what you
do is more important than how much: A little girl, Alex Scott, was a
victim of childhood cancer. She decided to do what she could to help
other victims of childhood cancer. She couldn't do much, but at 4 years
old she convinced her family to help her set up a lemonade stand and
donated the proceeds to her hospital "for research." Sure a few bucks
wouldn't do much research, but others noticed her determination and set
up their own Alex's Lemonade stand,
By the time she died at 8 she and her friends had raised millions. You
might still see an Alex's Lemonade Stand, if you do stop and cool off
and remember a little girl whose life was worth dying for.
beliefnet
It might be helpful to some of us if you could illustrate what you mean by 'really supporting women'.....JewOne
Christine probably has met only one, as such men are extremely rare in
any society and practically non-existent in Western Religions. First
and most important such a man will view all women as potential partners
in making society better for all people. This means using his male
privilege to help them achieve whatever goals they choose to aspire to.
If he is better at STEM
e.g. he will spend his educational years helping women who aspire to
STEM success learn his skills rather than merely honing his own skills
for a better chance at success for himself. (This is not entirely
selfless as mentoring is one of the best skill honing techniques known.)
At work he will use his male privilege to mentor and promote women and other minorities to their Peter Principle level in
the organization, even at the expense of his own advancement. (It will
affect his advancement as most organizations are paternalistic and
"Privilege hath its Rank.")
He
will choose a wife based on her potential to make a better society
rather than her ability to improve his own position in society, and will
sacrifice his career goals if necessary to give her the opportunity to
achieve hers. This means changing diapers, doing housework, cooking
more than his share of the meals, taking the kids to piano lessons,
doctors, and emergency rooms even if it means leaving a board meeting,
even managing the middle of the night feeding, (when the kid cries he
gets up, brings the kid to mom, hangs herm on the teat (mom won't really
wake up), changes the diaper and sings herm back to sleep.)
NB
this does not necessarily mean choosing a business career woman. Many
of the opportunities especially for women to make a better society are
volunteer activities, but done properly take as much time as a full time
job.
Just the tip of the iceberg for a man really supporting women. Some will guess the rest.
Most won't give a damn.
beliefnet
So,
let's discuss. How does a woman's biological makeup contribute to the
actual physical requirements placed upon them?
In other words, there are two fountains in a
village. Both men and women are free to drink from either fountain. One
fountain is easily accessible and within the village center. The other
fountain is at some distance away, though the walk is pleasant and
scenic. In practice, most of people drink from the nearer fountain but
more men than women travel to the far fountain, though both men and
women drink from both. Jewsha
Biological differences from a to z women
gestate and nurture children. Women will do this no matter what their
social status is. It is called survival of the species. Rape dolls or
rich man's arm and bed candy children are born and raised.
Raising
children is a time and labor intensive activity. If women's social
status is that they not only raise the children but feed and clean up
after the men tracking mud in from the beautiful, inspiring distant
fountain, chances are good that they will choose the nearby less
inspiring fountain. And if the men need lots of man-children to defend
the inspiring distant fountain from the heathen, spacing children
naturally will be a forgotten dream from an earlier age. She will
pleasure her man once a week when fertile whether she feels up to the
next child or not. This is of course a free choice like the nearby
fountain as the option is being the rape doll. If he is a real Mensch
he will say please.
beliefnet
I find it ironic that feminism is supposed to be about women being able to choose their lives, yet so many actual feminists get mad when women make choices that the feminists don't like.IronLDS
I
suppose it would be ironic if that is what they did. While there are
probably extremists who will personify their attack on the system that
supports this choice and indeed forces it on many women. But they are
really mad about the system that in some influential religions
conditions women from birth into the brood mare role, and justifies
higher pay for men because "they have to support their brood mare."
These
days being a brood mare for a "financially secure man" is a cushy job
at least until he is unable or unwilling to support his family, or
decides that a more attractive brood mare will advance his career.
At
that point his brood mare becomes a "welfare queen" as she tries to
support his kids with no help from him, and no educational tools to
support anything but minimum wage service jobs which in most states are
inadequate to support a family without government assistance and in any
event do not give her the time necessary to raise her kids to be
anything besides cannon fodder in one war or another: the war on drugs
or a foreign war if she has the connections to get her kids into the
military.
It is the system that is broken, not the women who are brought up to exploit it if they are fortunate.
To
the extent that it stays within the church culture and the church
culture takes care of its own failures I have no real issue with the
system. It is just another business model. Mormons and to a lesser
extent Jews and Catholics are business cultures more than churches, and
as such have the right to compete in the larger society just like any
other group. I think eliminating half their population from productive
work in a technological society is a losing business model, but that is a
testable hypothesis which may or may not prove to be true.
beliefnet
I
could suggest that such feelings of moral outrage offer survival value,
which is why we have them; in which case they offer no insight into
"the value of the human." My point, which was about the inconsistency
between an evolutionary point of view and ascribing worth to humans,
remains unanswered.Thoughtfultheist
Apologies
for missing that. The evolutionary point of view is ultimately the
survival of the species. Blather about selfish genes and selfishness
notwithstanding. For social animals like humans the welfare and worth
of the group is paramount. A group that breaks up leaving the weak
(unworthy) to predators soon has no one left to defend the group. In
evolutionary terms extinction. In human terms "First they came for the
unbelieving humans. No one spoke up. Then they came for idolatrous
humans. No one spoke up. Then they came for believing humans. No one
spoke up." What is the worth of humans?
beliefnet
People have hypothesized that perhaps the issue wasn't the offerings of Cain and Abel themselves so much as the conditions thereof and the intent behind them. IronLDS
The
Yahwistic view of God is clearly the stories of marauders in the desert
subsisting on their sheep that they move from one fertile area to
another after destroying the earlier ones by overgrazing.
The Elohim created a beautiful productive earth for humans, men and
women created in the image of the Gods. Yahweh didn't like this place it
was too nice and easy to live in, and most important men and women had
an equal place in it. A place where men and women worked together to
maintain and sustain this paradise. Note that childbirth was a natural
and painless process something else that Yahweh didn't like.
So Yahweh trumped up some BS about women knowing too much and kicked His Chosen People people out of this agricultural paradise into a hostile environment where life would be difficult, childbirth painful, and agriculture nearly impossible.
Just to make His intentions clear, He rejected Cain's hard won
agricultural offering, and blessed Abel's exploitive herding. Cain
wandered off to join his farming brethren and was never heard of again.
Adam and Eve's other
children learned the lesson well, and gave up agriculture entirely as
they could count on Yahweh to deliver unto them agricultural communities
for plunder, rape and pillage, the plunder being the stored food and
seed grain needed for a sustainable community in an arable space.
Oops, my bad, it wasn't rape it was the provision of wives for the
conquerors to replace the poor young men lost in the battle. Not for
the poor young men on the front lines, they were all killed for the
glory of Yahweh. Just for the harems of the blessed leaders that
directed the war from behind the lines.
Although the conquered women tried to introduce sustainability into the
culture by introducing agriculture timing holidays into the Yahwistic
culture, they never really succeeded in creating one. Speculation on
why will be left to the reader.
This plunder, rape and pillage life style proved to be quite successful, and religions based on the Yahwistic traditions have continued with varying levels of success to this day.
I don't blame the Yahwist for this life style. She tried to show in every case what an asshole this God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel was, but apparantly men like assholes that let, yea demand, that they plunder, rape and pillage since it is easier than trying to do something useful for the good of the society.
Most studies of aboriginal tribes
give lie to this assertion. Women have equal value in agricultural
settlements which predated the Hebrews by 6 or 7 millennia. The men did
the muscle work of preparing the land (breeding season for the herds or
prey animals), the women planted, tended the crops and harvested, while
the men provided the meat either by herding or hunting.
beliefnet
No,
it does not. Only the most superficial and facile reading ( and one
which leaves out most of the narrative) would support your contention. rocketJew
Because
you are used to, as are all believers, a heavily interpreted reading
variously known as Apologetics, Commentary, Bible Study, or Lessons.
This consists of taking a small bit of Scripture, at most a few verses,
studying the opinions of all that "explain" what it means and then
claiming to understand what it says. The verses are chosen carefully to
teach what the Rabbi, Priest, Pastor, or other vuvuzela wants to teach
about the religion.
One
of the many paths to rejecting the God of Scripture, quite common among
women, is to sneak a copy of one's Scripture "under the covers" and
read whole stories in context. Sometimes even, God forbid, the whole
thing. It is amusing to read the stories of the Yahwist in one sitting as a novelette about God.
I recommend Rosenberg's translation for English speakers. It is short,
but surprisingly contains most of the stories in the Bible that
everybody remembers. Whether or not as Bloom suggests in The Book of J the
Yahwist was a highly educated female courtesan, the misogyny of God is
laid on so thickly that only a man can believe it is actually the word
of God. But then again, for male believers "Too much is never enough."
Almost as good is
reading the 613 "commandments" straight up, no interpretation, in any
language in one sitting. Any woman who can make it through that, will
need intensive therepy by a Rabbi, Priest, Pastor, or other vuvuzela to
avoid running, kicking and screaming, from the God that spake them. It
is little wonder that women and girls were not permitted to even have
their own copy of their Scripture to read unsupervised and were never
permitted to study scripture without the associated "teachings" even
then only in tiny slices of the original.
beliefnet
Something
of great significance happened early on in the history the Middle East.
Some life altering event left an indelible mark on the world view of
the inhabitants as conditions went from very good to very bad. A
pessimistic, hostile, anti-women and anti-nature world view emerged.
Unlike any worldview the world has ever seen."
christine3
Archeological
climate studies suggest that a major drought in the Levant beginning
just before 2000 BCE with attendant famine, plagues, and cultural stress
especially in agricultural communities (and in other fertile areas at
different times) opened the way for marauding nomads to plunder the
surviving stressed farming communities. Hmmm, rivers turning to mud or
blood, locusts, death of first born and other children, frogs leaving
the wetlands.... sound familiar?
What
is a necessary resource for marauders? Lots and lots of poor young men
to die in battle. How do you get lots and lots of poor young men? Take
the women out of the economic production cycle of planting and reaping,
either by farming or gathering, and turn them into property as breeders
of warfare assets, that is poor young men.
If
you can get God to consider those dumb farmers as lesser beings to be
plundered, humanism that is treating all people, men, women and children
as worthy of respect is simply weakness.
Is
it just a story that God refused Cain's offering of produce? Cain who
then killed his herding brother and became an object of derision for all
time? I think not. Note that Cain used superior weaponry to kill the
herder. This is a fable for all time. The only way to deal with
marauders is with superior weapons. So much for peaceful coexistence.
beliefnet
Kristi,
it's interesting that you claim to be oh-so-rational - yet when I make a
simple comment disagreeing with your tactics, you come out with all the
emotional and exaggerated phrases.JewOne
Kristi does not pretend to be rational at least as I read her posts.
She is an advocate for women's rights in religion, and in combating
belief systems rationality is useless. The fact that you have to argue
about tactics is an indication that your strategic position is
precarious to say the least.
While
Judaism has arguably made more progress in women's rights historically
as well as currently, perhaps you will admit that rational arguments
carry no weight at all with the majority of Jewish men. They have to be
shamed and emotional arguments are the only way to get through to
them.
Believe it or
not, Kristi is working for you and Shusha and all Jewish women as well
as all victims of religious misogyny. I tend to agree with her that the
Abrahamic God is the problem for women in religions, and all the
commentary in the world may not be enough to salvage the God of Abraham
even for the Jews.
Paul
was no piker in reinforcing the message, but then again he was trying
to salvage his version of Judaism from the ravages of Jesus and perhaps
Hillel both of whom IMO essentially rejected the God of the Torah for a
more personal user friendly deity.
