Are religions unfair to women?

Post Reply New Topic

Oh, almost forgot…

I feel much the same way about music. The ironic thing is discordant music communicates to me more so than conventional harmonies, so I spend a lot of time composing that kind of music. I'm taking more of a spectral approach with my own compositions, i.e. textural/timbral considerations take a higher priority than melody/harmony/rhythm. Each individual large-scale work I'm doing seems to be lasting around 2 hours, and it's intended to be more of a meditative activity than anything else.

I'm too uncomfortable in my own skin to dance. But music…yeah…

Well, drinking blood isn't exactly consistent with keeping kosher.

Anyway, Paul experienced some sort of a fantastic vision involving Jesus, and was convinced that Jesus was going to come back at any moment, to cart his followers off to Heaven, or some such thing. Paul saw it as his responsibility to persuade as many people as possible that they should join him and Jesus in Heaven. So, he probably didn't see much point in quibbling too much over trivialities.

As Jesus said



I don't know about the Samaritan mountain, but Jews did stop worshipping in Jerusalem, and their worship services were never the same. No more barbecues. Some Christians might take this to signify that God wants to be worshipped in their churches now. But, Paul pointed out



There is no need for any church, or any set of beliefs. No church can save anybody. Church is just for chasing after wind. Your own body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Your destiny is entirely up to you and no-one else.

Well..i too was very uncomfortable in my own skin..particularly when i was tied down to a desk job..and when i was completely disabled and could hardly raise my arms without almost passing out...

I really think a practice of spiraling reverse walking could help many autistic folks with their difficulties with motor skills..and generally speaking feeling comfortable in their own..skin...

This is truly the first time in my life at 53..that i have ever felt completely free and comfortable in my own skin...

And yes..i do enjoy discordant musicK at times too..the dark is often motivation for the light for me..

And in general that is how i view the negative in any type of dark leaning life experiences.....simply as fuel to reach higher positive light..:)..

in the longest runs of life..light..and LOVE..altogether as
ONE..:)

Well.. that '1 Corinthians 6' sounds very much like the whole concept of the Whole of the Law is True Will Under LOVE for doing as thou Wilt..\ by Aleister Crowley..the 'evil beast dude'....in his short internet available and easily accessible 'The Book of the Law'..'visionary' paper..'Horus' inspired as such...

http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/engccxx.htm

So i guess the Apples don't fall far from
the snake...;)or Egyptian 'SON GOD'...as such:)

Paul was the one who did it, so it might have been a fetish thing. You know what they say about confirmed bachelors

I wonder if Timothy really had to show his dick to people? This isn't the only place in the New Testament where this issue comes up. So, these people did spend a lot of time thinking about dicks.

Imagine showing up to preach, and everyone says "Hold on! We want to see your dick, first." First century Christians seem to have had a lot less shame about that sort of thing.

I'm not particularly preoccupied with penises that don't belong to me. I'd rather a certain someone would be more preoccupied with mine, but that's beside the point… I think if there are cultural reasons you want to practice that within your own family, that's your business, not anyone else's. I think it's unfortunate that there were people who were preoccupied with the state of Timothy's pecker, but apparently Timothy saw it as a worthy cause. If I'd been circumcised as an adult or had been confronted with it, I'm not so sure I'd take it so easy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ6gGmj6R_k[/youtube]

Circumcising only the males does seem to be quite unfair to the guys. But, the Feminists are probably thinking "yeah, so what? If they want to cut off their foreskins, then they can bloody well go ahead an cut off their foreskins. It's no skin off my nose." So, let's move to the Old Testament, and look at a passage that involves both circumcision and rape, shall we? Not much on rape in the New Testament.

This was obviously unfair to the Hivites. The men were all murdered when they were still sore from the circumcision, even though it was only Shechem who had "treated their sister like a common whore." And, all of the Hivite women and children saw their husbands and fathers murdered, their property stolen, and themselves reduced to slavery.

And, this was quite unfair to Dinah. She had a chance to marry a prince. Now, she would have no chance of getting a decent husband at all. In fact, she is on the list of family members who moved to Egypt

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=GNT

But, no husband.

http://www.bsw.org/project/biblica/bibl ... 6Ani04.pdf



Good point. And, who in blazes are Jacob's kids supposed to marry, anyway? Are they all supposed to go back to Mesopotamia to find cousins to marry? Shechem would have been a very good catch. He obviously loved her, too.

Not to get too far off topic..but with my ability to imagine tactile sensory issues..
the thought and FEELING of a fully adult male going through the process of circumcision back in them days..
of no drugs and all of that to ease pain..and no antibiotics..to cease the possibility of infection and yes..even more pain...

Let's just say..
makes me wanna cross my legs..

and stay away from clippers...

What a harsh and barbaric practice that was..just to keep the humans looking different..from the other animals with protective foreskins from the 'elements'...like cold and all that...and in general..just friggin protection from potential injury..that 'GOD' provides..

and 'man taketh' away...;)

AND still NOW..for the luxury now of cleanliness now since we have protective manmade underwear and pants to cover 'it' ..anyway...NOW

But hell what about the nudists..they need that dam foreskin...sometimes..it would seem..for obvious reasons...:)i guess.. they got the short end of the stick..without much potential critical input..as a baby.. on the issue...per that 20% discount..shortly after birth...;(

That's a good reason why polygamy is a practical arrangement.

Otherwise, if you feel trapped into the Christian model of monogamy, you could read 1 Corinthians 7 to her



Paul says that you're not supposed to stop shagging unless you're taking some time off for prayer. A Jewish woman would be excused during menses. But, a Christian woman, apparently not.

This is true, but there are too many problems with polygamy to make it worthwhile. For one, I don't believe that polygamy was the original intention of the marriage institution. I think monogamy was. Biology seems to affirm this as an ideal condition, the reason being that sex ratios, even within polygamous populations, ultimately even out as per Fisher's principle. Human beings can be conscious of that on some level and work to ensure that there is an equal opportunity for each person to find a mate, and the current Western model does this without explicitly stating this or making it a purposeful objective.

Fisher's principle is especially interesting when you allow for exclusive homosexual relationships. It certainly mitigates any supposed "alpha male" tendencies. Suppose you have a situation in which there are more human males than females. Males who engage in exclusive relationships with other males in essence take themselves out of the dating/mating/gene pool, thus producing an equilibrium among straights. Obviously for the sake of simplicity I'm leaving out a lot of factors that would prove problematic and this is only one possible scenario, but you could expect to see similar effects when taking more factors into account and apply to more scenarios.

Polygamy is generally understood as exclusive relationships between multiples of one sex and a single of the other. The expectation is that multiple partners will express fidelity and that the single person they're devoted to will only form relationships with new partners who will likewise be loyal to that one person.

If we assume in the usual application of polygamy that fidelity is expressed and disease isn't introduced into the, um, "clan" or "tribe," you have a situation in which there are multiple males born with a roughly equal number of females born. This isn't a problem until you place a polygamous group into a larger society. So let's say society accepts polygamy. If males are taking multiple female partners, you're going to have a "lost boys" effect when you run out of girls for everyone. Male babies will have to be culled periodically to maintain an acceptable ratio, and I doubt that many women or other people are really up for institutionalized baby-killing (don't get me started on abortion). Since you're ultimately confronted with either killing babies or pushing unwanted males to the fringes of society, you'll create a situation in which, one way or the other, the fringe males will ultimately get sick of the system and work to destroy it. FLDS is able to keep their communities relatively closed from outside threats, but there's really only just so far you can go with that.

It's simply just not workable.

I suppose you could take the "exclusive" condition out of it so that you get something approaching polyamory. But, then again, you've got an elevated risk of contracting diseases that way, and I'd think a polyamorous situation, while more workable in practical terms, runs too many other risks.

Monogamy delivers on safety for as long as the partners remain in an exclusive relationship. You also get around uneven sex ratios. The tradeoff is, as it always is, you're dealing with fallible human beings and not EVERYTHING is going to go perfectly as expected. I have a pretty intense sex drive for someone of 30+ years coupled with way too much free time. If my wife were to read every exchange between me and LKL, I think she'd tell me that LKL and I just need to get this over with so I'd leave her (my wife) alone. But, believe it or not, I do feel that there are more important things than sex in a relationship. It's intimacy on a deeper level than physical urges alone that make our marriage go.

Heh…I value my life, so I'm going to pass on that!

I think I had a similar conversation with a Jewish woman once…from what I understand, it's traditionally the woman who initiates intercourse. It makes more sense that way, in my opinion. Men usually don't need as much stimulation as women do, whereas if a woman is already in that kind of mood, he can pleasure her (and her him) without going to a lot of effort that may prove fruitless. I don't enjoy intimacy if my partner isn't in the mood and doesn't climax. I've been told that it's not necessary if I just want to work out some tension, but I don't get any real satisfaction out of it. It just feels too much like masturbation, and I don't need a woman for that. I just end up feeling "dirty" and not a whole lot better than when I started. No, I don't enjoy waiting for it, but the payoff is worth it.

I can't really answer your last statement here, but I will concede that this IS a good example of atrocious behavior not just towards women (Dinah) but also atrocious behavior towards other groups of people as well. It is a shameful act committed by the patriarchs, and I don't think anyone would deny that. However, it should also be pointed out that the Bible does present this as something shameful. You even included Jacob's response here. He certainly wasn't in the business of making enemies. The sons were right in the sense that it was appropriate to seek justice for what happened. Circumcision was intended as a holy symbol of the covenant between God and the children of Abraham, and this little goof-up could have created an unduly negative association with circumcision (which is bad enough as it is without a powerful tribe making it a weapon. It would be impossible for anyone to trust the Israelites after an incident like that, and who could blame them?).

Not a big fan of so-called "Biblical criticism." Too many unnecessary assumptions.

Exactly my point! I dunno, I mean…given that ancient life for common folk was a lot rougher and tougher than it is in the present day, it's likely people were exposed to a lot of painful, laborious activity anyway. One would certainly need time to recover from circumcision, and given the elevated risk of infection back in that day, keeping still and keeping clean would have been even more important in the way of healing from the procedure. I've had my two boys circumcised as babies, and they healed completely in under two weeks. So even in that day and time, it wasn't THAT big a deal, nor has circumcision ever been exclusively an Israelite practice.

I'm not sure which I'd find worse: That, or pledging myself to a master for life. They literally nail you to the door!

We have another to discussion going on this topic.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt251204.html

Polygamy would seem to be advantageous if wars were taking off disproportionate numbers of men. As in the example of Dinah above. All of the Hivite men were killed, and suddenly, Jacobs sons got a lot of extra p****. The World Wars left big surpluses of spinsters in Europe.



Do you realize what you've become? A MALE FEMINIST!! !!

Female sexuality is taking precedence over male sexuality, EVERYWHERE!! !! !

This is all very unfair all right. TO MEN!! !! !

This woman makes good sense, starting at about 1:20

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fejo_m6pqc[/youtube]

Maybe that's an effort to protect your wife from horny angels. Genesis says some kind of beings slept with mortal women to create giants and such. The book of Enoch, which is not in the OT but popular, goes into more detail regarding this sexy time and how the angels were sorely tempted by pretty women. Later in Corinthians it says women should cover their hair "because of the angels". Sometimes interpreted to mean horny bad angels. This could all be part of an older oral tradition about angels.

Worship might be a time when your wife is more likely to attract an angel looking for some action and it's best to cover up else she gets laid and we get more giants. And as both the Old Testament and King Arthur's adventures established, giants can be really irritating.

Yes, it is, but for the most part it's not as inaccurate as religionists like to claim.

BS. If it had to do with leadership and not gender, it would specify leadership rather than gender.

Jesus effing Christ. Do you think a statement like that helps your case?!

Yes, wives should absolutely be supportive of their husbands... and the reciprocal is also true. Why is only one emphasized?

'agreed upon conflict-resolution strategy does not necessarily mean, 'the husband can always win, if he really wants to.' In general, feminism has been good for marriage and families:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/fashi ... YsuClN0avQ
quote:
"Over all, the evidence shows that the shifts within marriages — men taking on more housework and women earning more outside the home — have had a positive effect, contributing to lower divorce rates and happier unions."
http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/early/20 ... 3.abstract
quote: "Results show that wives and husbands who spend more hours in housework and paid work report more frequent sex."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/opini ... 60&ei=5087
quote: "...the divorce rate has been falling continuously over the past quarter-century, and is now at its lowest level since 1970. While marriage rates are also declining, those marriages that do occur are increasingly more stable."
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2 ... -families/
quote: "In other words, gender-egalitarian marriages and marriages where parenthood is planned tend to be stronger once kids are in the picture. And kids do better socially and academically in stable and happy marriages."
etc.
It doesn't matter even a little bit that you personally try not to be an a**hole in your own view, or that you don't do it in public; it matters that you think that you have the right to 'rule the roost' when the feathers fly: "What I WILL do, however, if I really feel that strongly about it, is tell my wife in private that the decision in question was the wrong decision and to never do that again." If she doesn't have the same right with you, and it sounds like she doesn't, that means that you're using your religion's teachings for an unfair advantage in the relationship.

Based on your own description, it sounds like the SAB is exactly correct in its interpretation.

Yes, we should... but why does the Bible only say one, and not the other? Why doesn't the bible say that it's wrong for men to be domineering and unfair to their wives?

*snort*

*snort*
More often, they're not even mentioned, much less named.

Again, BS.

If he had meant 'it's bad for either gender to use domineering behavior,' then he would have said so rather than specifying women. He was 'inspired by god,' right?

If he had meant, 'it's bad to spread false teachings,' he would have said so. 'Inspired by god,' right?