Sodom and Gomorrah

[blackribbon]

I don't take advantage, but that doesn't follow to me obeying your god except in an incidental fashion. I don't regard sex in such a flippant way, but that doesn't mean I have to regard it as a sacred act or invoking anything supernatural.

I am not sure how I misunderstood you. Spiritual and sacred are two different words?

 

[muichimotsu]

The lexicon is vague in general with spiritual being something akin to the supernatural, while sacred is something that is worshiped moreso than just acknowledged as supernatural. You could, for example, regard a demon as spiritual, but not sacred, while God could be spiritual and sacred at the same time, or at least have the overlap.

Sex is something that shouldn't be done casually, but it should be done responsibly in the basic sense, which is not necessarily going to fit into the whitebread monogamous perspective. I'm personally monogamous, but polyamory isn't antithetical to romance or sex in terms of the multifaceted purposes it has.

 

[CCHIPSS]

You conveniently glossed over the major issue I have: why should a woman not be able to be a minister or the like, though that varies by Protestant denominations anyway. The worst and repressive kinds of Xianity are splintered schisms that usually die out or only maintain existence by indoctrination, cult tactics and general numbers by excessive breeding. Ideally, one could hope that the general mainstream would realize that women are not incapable of having logical and reasoned out arguments and comprehension of the bible, same as men. Major problem is the bible's general lack of strong female role models, the rare ones slipping through the cracks compared to the scapegoats (Eve, the woman caught in adultery, etc, many not even getting a name in the narrative)

I have already talked about the fact that a female doctor is "better at being a doctor" than a male lawyer. Or a female chemists is better at being a chemist than a male biologist. Obviously when it comes to skills, a better person will be teaching the less experienced/skilled person. So I won't cover that again.

Now I will focus on your question, which is females teaching men about God. This is the only context in what I will be saying.

Firstly, women clearly taught men in the bible. So it cannot mean that women must never teach any men. The most clear example was Jesus directly told Mary Magdalene to teach/tell the Apostles about the resurrected Jesus. There were many others like the Judge Deborah, who both taught and led.

So when we look at verses like 1 Timothy 2:9-15, we have to be very careful to consider what it actually means. Clearly if a woman has a direct message from God, she must tell it to the church.

So what does it all mean? There are a few things in the message that is clear:

Verses

9-10) Women must focus on doing good work of God, instead of showing off her beauty.

Woman tend to be obsessed with beauty. God tells woman to focus instead on their heart. They must love God, love others and love themselves.

11-12) Woman must not come up with "new ideas" without clear support by the bible.

If a woman wants to learn, they must learn directly from the bible. They must not take things out of context to come up with new ideas. Instead they must focus on the clear and easy to understand verses of the bible.

(Fear not! I think 80% of the verses in the bible are clear and easy to understand.)

For example, loving God is clear. Loving others is clear. Loving themselves is clear. Telling the gospel to non-believers is clear. Mentoring other young women is clear.

And for the "hard to understand" verses, the interpretations must be taught from a man. Women are not allowed to come up with "weird" or "new" interpretations of these "hard to understand" verses.

If a woman should ever teach a man, they must quote easy and clear verses directly from the bible. This leaves very little room for misinterpretation. Alternatively the women's ideas must be taught by (or came from) a well respected male teachers/pastors/elders, as descried in 1 Timothy 3. These elders must be proven Godly, truly wanting to follow Jesus, by their actions, not merely words.

Of course even if such elders teach a woman something, that woman should go back to the bible to double check before buying into his ideas. Elders might also be teaching falsehood.

By teaching only the clear and easy verses directly from the bible, and relying on Godly male elders for the hard verses, a woman would have fulfilled what was written in verses 11 and 12. She wasn't teaching men. She was repeating what the bible said and referring to what Godly male elders said.

Please note that I am actually a supporter of gender equality. But that is only for the world. When it comes to the church, we must obey the word of God. And as much as I can tried to empower woman, the bible said what it said.

If you don't like it, I understand. But do you trust God? There is a difference between not liking a commend and not trusting God. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't have sex before marriage neither. Come on everyone else on earth is doing it. 90% of Christians had sex before marriage. So I might as well join that statistic right? But I trust God and obey him. My Jesus died for me because he loves me. Why wouldn't I obey him? I trust that his commends are for my own benefits.

13-14) A woman is more easily deceived by Satan than a man.

These verses explains the reasoning behind verses 11-12. Woman is more easily deceived by Satan than a man. It wasn't just random chance that Satan approached Eve instead of Adam. And Eve got "knowledge of good and evil" before Adam did. At one point Eve knows but Adam was still innocent. However she still choose to also led Adam to eat that same fruit, so he will also disobey God and die.

So this is not about if man is smarter or woman is smarter. Or which sex is better. Not at all. Because at one point in human history, woman was clearly smarter than man. However being smarter didn't help Eve to make things better didn't it? In fact in her "wisdom" she made it worst. Let Adam also eat so he can die with her! What a loving gesture.

Satan would want you to view it as a problem of gender equality. But this is actually a matter of spiritual warfare, of women being more easily deceived than man. Satan will work extra hard against women. Spiritual warfare have no logic or reason, and wisdom without God doesn't help. This is unseen in this world.

That's why it will be impossible to prove in this world. That a woman can be smarter, better and more experienced yet be more easily deceived by Satan. We cannot logic or reason it. We must, in faith, to take the word of God as it is stated.

This doesn't mean women cannot teach men at all (as we seen in the cases of Mary Magdalene and Deborah). But the bible said what it said about woman being more easily deceived by Satan. Hence we have to be careful.

Mary Magdalene was told directly by Jesus himself to teach the Apostles. Deborah was also directly told by God to be a judge. Were you told directly by Jesus or by God what to do?

Don't be so certain of that voice in your head. Even if we played fair, it is 33% chance of being from God, 33% chance of being from your imagination and 33% chance of being from Satan. Do you feel lucky today? That's why we must refer back to the Bible in all things.

If any church doctrine was found by women (or heavily influenced by women), it cannot be legit church doctrine from God. And this was the case in Pentecostal church and the Charismatic movement, which were heavily influenced by female mystics trying to "feel" God. That's why I think these are falsehood. The bible said what it said.

That's why woman must focus on easy and clear verses. And for the hard verses, they must refer to male teachers/pastors/elders.

If a woman wants to teach man, they must work twice as hard to ensure they are not teaching falsehood.

Once again I am not trying to be sexist here. But the bible said what it said.

15) We know that woman are saved by believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior, not by bearing of children. So I am not sure what this verse actually means. It probably meant something in their history context.

 

[Cearbhall]

I have already talked about the fact that a female doctor is "better at being a doctor" than a male lawyer. Or a female chemists is better at being a chemist than a male biologist. Obviously when it comes to skills, a better person will be teaching the less experienced/skilled person. So I won't cover that again.

Right, but then you have this baseless idea that there's some inherent difference between men's and women's abilities when it comes to running a household...you accept that women can be just as capable in any other area, apparently, but for some reason you're holding out on this particular task.

Because at one point in human history, woman was clearly smarter than man. However being smarter didn't help Eve to make things better didn't it? In fact in her "wisdom" she made it worst. Let Adam also eat so he can die with her! What a loving gesture.

Satan would want you to view it as a problem of gender equality. But this is actually a matter of spiritual warfare, of women being more easily deceived than man. Satan will work extra hard against women. Spiritual warfare have no logic or reason, and wisdom without God doesn't help. This is unseen in this world.

That's why it will be impossible to prove in this world. That a woman can be smarter, better and more experienced yet be more easily deceived by Satan. We cannot logic or reason it.

If only that weren't complete crap, you might have an argument.

This sounds like desperation from a man who knows he would never be the head of household based on merit, so he has to make up some mumbo jumbo about vaginas having built-in spiritual corruption, following in the footsteps of the man who created the character of Eve in the first place as part of a similar agenda.

How convenient that it's impossible to prove. Funny how you seem to think that means we should just accept it as truth.

 

[CCHIPSS]

Right, but then you have this baseless idea that there's some inherent difference between men's and women's abilities when it comes to running a household...you accept that women can be just as capable in any other area, apparently, but for some reason you're holding out on this particular task.

If only that weren't complete crap, you might have an argument.

This sounds like desperation from a man who knows he would never be the head of household based on merit, so he has to make up some mumbo jumbo about vaginas having built-in spiritual corruption, following in the footsteps of the man who created the character of Eve in the first place as part of a similar agenda.

How convenient that it's impossible to prove. Funny how you seem to think that means we should just accept it as truth.

It is true that women can be just as capable as men in everyday life. Woman can be a good doctor as just well as a man can be a good doctor, for example.

The reason why I said men must be the main spiritual teacher is because that was written in the bible. I say once again that this has nothing to do with being capable or not. This is spiritual warfare, where woman are more easily deceived by Satan. Being wise, smart, stronger doesn't help at all in spiritual warfare. It is by obeying God and trusting in God that human win in spiritual warfare.

Why are you saying what I said was baseless? Feel free to give us your own interruption of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. What do you think it said and meant? Go ahead and show me why you think God commended women to teach and lead the church. I am all ears.

Or are you saying the whole bible is baseless? That the whole bible was man-made fiction? If this is what you are saying, you probably should start a new thread. That is a whole new can of worm and a totally different topic.

I will give you a hint: You do not need to believe and understand 100% of the bible to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. If you think women should lead the church, I disagree but you can go ahead. However this is not a reason to reject the death and resurrection of Jesus.

For example I do not understand how trinity actually works. God is the only God, but he is 3 persons in 1? God can be in heaven and have Jesus walking literally on earth? How does that actually work out logically? I do not know. But I do not need to. I trust and obey God.

 

[Cearbhall]

The reason why I said men must be the main spiritual teacher is because that was written in the bible. I say once again that this has nothing to do with being capable or not.

You know you can just choose one type of emphasis or the other, right?

This is spiritual warfare, where woman are more easily deceived by Satan.

I'm sure you know I don't believe in Satan and wouldn't agree with this either way, but let's say for a moment that I do believe in God and Satan. Why do you take that author's story as God's word?

 

[CCHIPSS]

You know you can just choose one type of emphasis or the other, right?

I'm sure you know I don't believe in Satan and wouldn't agree with this either way, but let's say for a moment that I do believe in God and Satan. Why do you take that author's story as God's word?

There are many proves. But let's start with sexism, since that's where we are.

Back in the Jesus days, woman cannot be witnesses in court at all. All of their testimony are considered false, made-up and unreliable. If you want to talk about sexist, welcome to ancient Israel and Roman.

So if we assume these are all made up fictional stories, answer this question:

Why did the author wrote that it was women who discovered the empty tomb?

If it is all fake anyways, why not say men discovered the empty tomb to give it more legitimacy?

Every single word in the bible was written by men. But we believe every word in there were God inspired. So the word of God was written by God through men.

If God is not able to keep his words, the bible, from corruption then God is not all that powerful after all.

And so I take the author, Apostle Paul, writing as the word of God.

 

[Goodbook]

haha I posted can anyone show me ten righteous people in Las Vegas and then I come across this book about the xxxchurch in Las Vegas.

Sorry Lord..I guess you don't want to smite Las Vegas after all. There are people there doing your work.

 

[muichimotsu]

I have already talked about the fact that a female doctor is "better at being a doctor" than a male lawyer. Or a female chemists is better at being a chemist than a male biologist. Obviously when it comes to skills, a better person will be teaching the less experienced/skilled person. So I won't cover that again.

Now I will focus on your question, which is females teaching men about God. This is the only context in what I will be saying.

Firstly, women clearly taught men in the bible. So it cannot mean that women must never teach any men. The most clear example was Jesus directly told Mary Magdalene to teach/tell the Apostles about the resurrected Jesus. There were many others like the Judge Deborah, who both taught and led.

So when we look at verses like 1 Timothy 2:9-15, we have to be very careful to consider what it actually means. Clearly if a woman has a direct message from God, she must tell it to the church.

So what does it all mean? There are a few things in the message that is clear:

Verses

9-10) Women must focus on doing good work of God, instead of showing off her beauty.

Woman tend to be obsessed with beauty. God tells woman to focus instead on their heart. They must love God, love others and love themselves.

11-12) Woman must not come up with "new ideas" without clear support by the bible.

If a woman wants to learn, they must learn directly from the bible. They must not take things out of context to come up with new ideas. Instead they must focus on the clear and easy to understand verses of the bible.

(Fear not! I think 80% of the verses in the bible are clear and easy to understand.)

For example, loving God is clear. Loving others is clear. Loving themselves is clear. Telling the gospel to non-believers is clear. Mentoring other young women is clear.

And for the "hard to understand" verses, the interpretations must be taught from a man. Women are not allowed to come up with "weird" or "new" interpretations of these "hard to understand" verses.

If a woman should ever teach a man, they must quote easy and clear verses directly from the bible. This leaves very little room for misinterpretation. Alternatively the women's ideas must be taught by (or came from) a well respected male teachers/pastors/elders, as descried in 1 Timothy 3. These elders must be proven Godly, truly wanting to follow Jesus, by their actions, not merely words.

Of course even if such elders teach a woman something, that woman should go back to the bible to double check before buying into his ideas. Elders might also be teaching falsehood.

By teaching only the clear and easy verses directly from the bible, and relying on Godly male elders for the hard verses, a woman would have fulfilled what was written in verses 11 and 12. She wasn't teaching men. She was repeating what the bible said and referring to what Godly male elders said.

Please note that I am actually a supporter of gender equality. But that is only for the world. When it comes to the church, we must obey the word of God. And as much as I can tried to empower woman, the bible said what it said.

If you don't like it, I understand. But do you trust God? There is a difference between not liking a commend and not trusting God. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't have sex before marriage neither. Come on everyone else on earth is doing it. 90% of Christians had sex before marriage. So I might as well join that statistic right? But I trust God and obey him. My Jesus died for me because he loves me. Why wouldn't I obey him? I trust that his commends are for my own benefits.

13-14) A woman is more easily deceived by Satan than a man.

These verses explains the reasoning behind verses 11-12. Woman is more easily deceived by Satan than a man. It wasn't just random chance that Satan approached Eve instead of Adam. And Eve got "knowledge of good and evil" before Adam did. At one point Eve knows but Adam was still innocent. However she still choose to also led Adam to eat that same fruit, so he will also disobey God and die.

So this is not about if man is smarter or woman is smarter. Or which sex is better. Not at all. Because at one point in human history, woman was clearly smarter than man. However being smarter didn't help Eve to make things better didn't it? In fact in her "wisdom" she made it worst. Let Adam also eat so he can die with her! What a loving gesture.

Satan would want you to view it as a problem of gender equality. But this is actually a matter of spiritual warfare, of women being more easily deceived than man. Satan will work extra hard against women. Spiritual warfare have no logic or reason, and wisdom without God doesn't help. This is unseen in this world.

That's why it will be impossible to prove in this world. That a woman can be smarter, better and more experienced yet be more easily deceived by Satan. We cannot logic or reason it. We must, in faith, to take the word of God as it is stated.

This doesn't mean women cannot teach men at all (as we seen in the cases of Mary Magdalene and Deborah). But the bible said what it said about woman being more easily deceived by Satan. Hence we have to be careful.

Mary Magdalene was told directly by Jesus himself to teach the Apostles. Deborah was also directly told by God to be a judge. Were you told directly by Jesus or by God what to do?

Don't be so certain of that voice in your head. Even if we played fair, it is 33% chance of being from God, 33% chance of being from your imagination and 33% chance of being from Satan. Do you feel lucky today? That's why we must refer back to the Bible in all things.

If any church doctrine was found by women (or heavily influenced by women), it cannot be legit church doctrine from God. And this was the case in Pentecostal church and the Charismatic movement, which were heavily influenced by female mystics trying to "feel" God. That's why I think these are falsehood. The bible said what it said.

That's why woman must focus on easy and clear verses. And for the hard verses, they must refer to male teachers/pastors/elders.

If a woman wants to teach man, they must work twice as hard to ensure they are not teaching falsehood.

Once again I am not trying to be sexist here. But the bible said what it said.

15) We know that woman are saved by believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior, not by bearing of children. So I am not sure what this verse actually means. It probably meant something in their history context.

Honestly your whole spiel doesn't vindicate you in terms of your claims of not being sexist: you have no basis for this claim besides invoking stuff that isn't necessarily meant to be taken literally, not to mention was written in a time when women had very few rights.

You can't say you accept some things of the world, like women being able to divorce their husbands and be their own people and then also say you want things to be run by the bible, where women were property and chattel , barely getting any recognition apart from being childbearers and the like, the exceptions being women who were either considered morally questionable like Rahab or women who would be considered butch or the like these days, not proper women.

Also, you try to have it both ways with women "teaching" about things, but not being trusted to have any capacity to use critical thought, because apparently that's only for men, which I call horse apples on, because men are equally as fallible as women in regards to such things. To say otherwise is disingenuous. Men were the ones to create schisms, not women, mostly because women were repressed to the point that it's only been in the last 100 years tops that female theologians and their thought are being recognized from hundreds of years ago, like Julian of Norwich or the like.

Do you really think God created women to be the scapegoats and those that are just considered borderline mentally challenged in regards to such things, rather than being distinct in some ways, but not incapable of the same things that men can achieve, particularly in regards to things of intellectual capacity and critical thought? And you'd better think hard about that, because what you say can just as easily reflect your own bias as any sort of supposed objectivity

The Bible was written entirely by male authors: you can't say the bible was being completely fair minded in giving the minimum amount of recognition they did to females. Men had their ideas about women back then and that was reflected in what they wrote and what they thought God revealed to them, through a very fuzzy lens of cultural bias.

Don't give me this nonsense about tradition always being for our benefit: such ideas are not always rooted in such things as much as they could just be to maintain a status quo or just discourage people from questioning anything, because that would just be too much of a change in the culture they're comfortable with. But should we have just stopped women from protesting about injustice for how they're treated? Or any minority, for that matter? No, especially when it's clear as day that the situation is not equitable in the slightest, favoring the majority over the minority and ignoring basic rule of law. This OP was not about premarital sex or such norms or whether they're justified, it was a nonsensical idea that there's some kind of modern Sodom and Gomorrah or the like.

Somehow we've gotten derailed to this point, but at least there's been some degree of focus. We don't need to get derailed further with obfuscation on topics that aren't really relevant to the topic at hand, since that's a question of sexual morality, not gender norms and roles.

 

[muichimotsu]

There are many proves. But let's start with sexism, since that's where we are.

Back in the Jesus days, woman cannot be witnesses in court at all. All of their testimony are considered false, made-up and unreliable. If you want to talk about sexist, welcome to ancient Israel and Roman.

So if we assume these are all made up fictional stories, answer this question:

Why did the author wrote that it was women who discovered the empty tomb?

If it is all fake anyways, why not say men discovered the empty tomb to give it more legitimacy?

Every single word in the bible was written by men. But we believe every word in there were God inspired. So the word of God was written by God through men.

If God is not able to keep his words, the bible, from corruption then God is not all that powerful after all.

And so I take the author, Apostle Paul, writing as the word of God.

Paul didn't write the gospels, first off, I'm pretty sure that's universally accepted. He wrote a good chunk of the Epistles at best, which to my knowledge were at least 30-50 years after Jesus died, and that's in oral terms more than being written yet, same with the gospels.

You can't make this argument and expect us to take it seriously in your claims that the bible isn't sexist, because it is unabashedly so at virtually every turn. Having one aspect that seems progressive doesn't make it progressive in the slightest, because all it does is show that you're desperate to stretch credibility in regards to a story you know sounds farfetched and ridiculous. The point still remains that they are believed partly because the male disciples see Jesus in the flesh, rather than just believing on faith, which was the virtue of the freaking story in regards to Thomas in particular.

It's doublethink of the highest degree: women are trustworthy only when it comes to simple things, because they apparently can't think very well otherwise. And I take offense to that not as a woman, because I'm not, but as someone who has interacted with many women who I regard as probably my equal or much more intelligent than I am. To say they aren't capable of critical thought or are more emotionally unstable and can't be expected to analyze complex texts or use their brains in intelligent matters is not only insulting, it's intellectually lazy.

 

[Goodbook]

i think it means, in regards to women saved by childbirth is that, if they not christians, having children may save them because it causes them to suffer and be less selfish...and also to show love to their children. Or maybe their children will be a joy to them and become christians.

I know several mothers that show the most selfish behaviour but they are kept alive by the fact that their children need them and are dependent on them. Its God giving them the opportunity to learn about what love is.

If you a mother you just CANNOT think about yourself all the time. Your baby will die if you don't look after it. And it will be your fault.

 

[CCHIPSS]

Honestly your whole spiel doesn't vindicate you in terms of your claims of not being sexist: you have no basis for this claim besides invoking stuff that isn't necessarily meant to be taken literally, not to mention was written in a time when women had very few rights.

You can't say you accept some things of the world, like women being able to divorce their husbands and be their own people and then also say you want things to be run by the bible, where women were property and chattel , barely getting any recognition apart from being childbearers and the like, the exceptions being women who were either considered morally questionable like Rahab or women who would be considered butch or the like these days, not proper women.

Also, you try to have it both ways with women "teaching" about things, but not being trusted to have any capacity to use critical thought, because apparently that's only for men, which I call horse apples on, because men are equally as fallible as women in regards to such things. To say otherwise is disingenuous. Men were the ones to create schisms, not women, mostly because women were repressed to the point that it's only been in the last 100 years tops that female theologians and their thought are being recognized from hundreds of years ago, like Julian of Norwich or the like.

Do you really think God created women to be the scapegoats and those that are just considered borderline mentally challenged in regards to such things, rather than being distinct in some ways, but not incapable of the same things that men can achieve, particularly in regards to things of intellectual capacity and critical thought? And you'd better think hard about that, because what you say can just as easily reflect your own bias as any sort of supposed objectivity

The Bible was written entirely by male authors: you can't say the bible was being completely fair minded in giving the minimum amount of recognition they did to females. Men had their ideas about women back then and that was reflected in what they wrote and what they thought God revealed to them, through a very fuzzy lens of cultural bias.

Don't give me this nonsense about tradition always being for our benefit: such ideas are not always rooted in such things as much as they could just be to maintain a status quo or just discourage people from questioning anything, because that would just be too much of a change in the culture they're comfortable with. But should we have just stopped women from protesting about injustice for how they're treated? Or any minority, for that matter? No, especially when it's clear as day that the situation is not equitable in the slightest, favoring the majority over the minority and ignoring basic rule of law. This OP was not about premarital sex or such norms or whether they're justified, it was a nonsensical idea that there's some kind of modern Sodom and Gomorrah or the like.

Somehow we've gotten derailed to this point, but at least there's been some degree of focus. We don't need to get derailed further with obfuscation on topics that aren't really relevant to the topic at hand, since that's a question of sexual morality, not gender norms and roles.

1) You said: "you try to have it both ways with women "teaching" about things, but not being trusted to have any capacity to use critical thought, because apparently that's only for men, which I call horse apples on, because men are equally as fallible as women in regards to such things. "

I told you, Satan would love to deceive you into thinking this is a sexism issue. I tried to make it clear to you that this has nothing to do with sexism. This is spiritual warfare, in a realm that none of us can see. This has nothing to do with critical thoughts, being smart, being bigger, having more experience, etc. In fact often times it is the smartest people that is the most deceived. Read up on Pharisee Saul before he became Apostle Paul.

Like I said if you believe in the bible, you are free to interpret 1 Timothy 2. I am all ears to your interpretation.

If you don't believe in the bible, then what I said doesn't apply to you. A non-believing woman can do whatever she wants. Why do you even care what the bible has to say anyways? You don't even believe it. To you it was just sexist fictional story written by sexist fictional men and copied by sexist superstitious men.

If you want to discuss of the death and resurrection of Jesus was real, we can start a new thread to discuss. However to me it is pointless for me to defend specific parts the bible against non-believers. Once again if you don't even believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, why do you care what it said about gender equality or bias?

2) You said: "The Bible was written entirely by male authors: you can't say the bible was being completely fair minded in giving the minimum amount of recognition they did to females. Men had their ideas about women back then and that was reflected in what they wrote and what they thought God revealed to them, through a very fuzzy lens of cultural bias."

The bible was written by God through the hands of men. If you feel the bible is sexist, then God is sexist.

But I tell you this is again Satan trying to deceive you. It was Christianity who started the gender equality movement in the first place. Everywhere Christian spreads, there were a great increase in gender equality.

As you yourself said, woman were treated like garbage back in the ancient days. Men can pretty much buy and sell them.

Then Jesus told them that a man cannot divorce his wife for any reason, except sexual immortality. The disciples (e.g. those that likes Jesus) said "If a man cannot divorce his wife, it is better not to marry!" (Matthew 19: 3-12)

In other words: "Are you kidding me Jesus? You want me to be bonded to this woman who is pretty much a worthless slave in this culture? Do you know that I can go out now and buy myself a female sex slave without having to worry about marriage?"

Jesus: A woman is worth just as much as a man in God's eyes. I do not care about what the culture says.

In fact if you do not treat your wives, the weaker partner but join heir in heaven, in a considerate way your prayers will be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7) In other words God will be mad at you if you mistreat your wife. God is watching and he sees.

3) You said: "But should we have just stopped women from protesting about injustice for how they're treated? Or any minority, for that matter? No"

Funny. Since it was the Christians who first started the gender equality movement. The world is really turning upside down. Facts becomes fictions. Right becomes wrong. Now it is the Christians who are sexist.

I will briefly go over the problem with feminism. Feminism assumes that no woman requires any protection from any men. Now it is very true that some women doesn't need any protection from men. But to say all women? Really? Every single woman on earth does not need any protection from any men?

So here is what they think: If a guy can get drunk until 2am and fall asleep at a house party safely, so can a woman. The father of the woman is wrong to try to get her to come home by 9pm and to not drink in an unsafe environment. That limits her freedom! And if a woman does that and ends up getting raped, it further proves that all men are rapists.

See what is happening?

Feminist to good men: I don't need you. I don't need your protection. Get away from me and stop limiting my freedom.

Feminist to bad men: You just proved my point that all men are rapists. This furthers my point that there is no good men.

Feminism believes that no woman need any protection from men. So good men are not allowed to fulfill their role as protector, since that takes away the women's freedom. And bad men are used to generalize every single men on earth.

The whole point is to hate men. It might have started off as gender equality (which Christians also believe), but now feminism is all about hating men.

Feminism only helps those strong women. But feminism harms the weaker woman by taking away the protection.

God has a better way: Use good biblical discernment to identify good and Godly Christian men. Those that are learning to love just like how Jesus loved the church and gave himself up for it. Then submit to these Godly men just as you would submit to Jesus. Let them protect you, out of love, from all evil things in the world and deceptions from Satan.

A father loves his young daughter dearly. But he is against feminism. Feminism tell his daughter to leave and rebel against her father and protect herself. The father knows better that the young daughter is not strong enough and wise enough for self protection yet. Perhaps one day she will be. But not today.

 

[Goodbook]

..what are you guys arguing, whats this got to to with the topic of sodom and gomorrah. Give it a rest.

If an unbeliever doesnt want to take Gods word for anything, then let them be. Or pray for them.

Gods orginal plan for men and women...god created man first and woman from man. The woman is for the man, not the other way round.

In revelation it does say that the effeminite wont inherit the kingdom of God, or in other translations, homosexuals. This is because men arent meant to be women. And women arent meant to be as men. God didnt design them that way.

If your culture is that females take charge and the men just are looked after like babies, thats just not how it should be. Jesus came to redeem us from going astray...and put right who we are meant to be...by making us whole again.

 

[CCHIPSS]

Once again, whoever said anything against this? You're building up this straw man higher and higher. When you talk about the disrespect, you're describing a woman who has a bad attitude toward life in general. A person doesn't have to submit to be better than that.

Ok, and vice versa. He recognizes the same about her. He's in awe of her God-given power and submits to her accordingly as she makes some of the ultimate decisions of the home. Am I getting it now?

Yes she will be making some ultimate decisions. For example she cooks and he doesn't. So she will be deciding on what to eat at every single meal, unless he one day learns how to cook.

 

[CCHIPSS]

Paul didn't write the gospels, first off, I'm pretty sure that's universally accepted. He wrote a good chunk of the Epistles at best, which to my knowledge were at least 30-50 years after Jesus died, and that's in oral terms more than being written yet, same with the gospels.

You can't make this argument and expect us to take it seriously in your claims that the bible isn't sexist, because it is unabashedly so at virtually every turn. Having one aspect that seems progressive doesn't make it progressive in the slightest, because all it does is show that you're desperate to stretch credibility in regards to a story you know sounds farfetched and ridiculous. The point still remains that they are believed partly because the male disciples see Jesus in the flesh, rather than just believing on faith, which was the virtue of the freaking story in regards to Thomas in particular.

It's doublethink of the highest degree: women are trustworthy only when it comes to simple things, because they apparently can't think very well otherwise. And I take offense to that not as a woman, because I'm not, but as someone who has interacted with many women who I regard as probably my equal or much more intelligent than I am. To say they aren't capable of critical thought or are more emotionally unstable and can't be expected to analyze complex texts or use their brains in intelligent matters is not only insulting, it's intellectually lazy.

When I said author I was referring to the gospel authors. When I mention Paul I was referring to 1 Timothy 2.

You can call the bible sexist and unfair all you want. But it is the word of God. God doesn't have to write as per how you want it. God just tells us the truth in any way he sees fit.

If you think God is sexist and unfair, so be it. But this doesn't mean Jesus' death and resurrection didn't happen.

The reason why Christians obey the bible is because Jesus died, was buried, was raised and was finally seen by more than 500 eye witnesses. With this in mind we obey the bible no matter how sexist, unfair or even senseless it seems at times. We trust and obey God. We seek not our own understanding.

So I ask you again. In a world where woman are viewed as useless slaves and cannot testify at all in court, why would the gospel writers record that it was women who found the empty tomb? The women's testimony worth nothing. Their eyewitness accounts were meaningless in that culture.

 

[Goodbook]

The womans testimony meant everything to those who believed. That shows how much God values women.

It is only the jewish man made tradtions that distorted how women were valued in those times. Jesus clearly valued women....the ones that believed Him. And knowing him, as woman experiencing that kind of love, we cannot help but believe.

If you look in the bible it was more the men that had a hard time believing. Every woman that met Jesus was changed by him in some way. Even martha.

 

[Goodbook]

Pauls feference to women not speaking was just order in the church. Men are louder than women and older men ought to teach younger men, thats how it is...and the older women were meant to teach the younger women.

He was not being sexist he was just wanting a bit of order in the church cos everyone was speaking at once. Have to wait your turn.

 

[muichimotsu]

1) You said: "you try to have it both ways with women "teaching" about things, but not being trusted to have any capacity to use critical thought, because apparently that's only for men, which I call horse apples on, because men are equally as fallible as women in regards to such things. "

I told you, Satan would love to deceive you into thinking this is a sexism issue. I tried to make it clear to you that this has nothing to do with sexism. This is spiritual warfare, in a realm that none of us can see. This has nothing to do with critical thoughts, being smart, being bigger, having more experience, etc. In fact often times it is the smartest people that is the most deceived. Read up on Pharisee Saul before he became Apostle Paul.

Like I said if you believe in the bible, you are free to interpret 1 Timothy 2. I am all ears to your interpretation.

If you don't believe in the bible, then what I said doesn't apply to you. A non-believing woman can do whatever she wants. Why do you even care what the bible has to say anyways? You don't even believe it. To you it was just sexist fictional story written by sexist fictional men and copied by sexist superstitious men.

If you want to discuss of the death and resurrection of Jesus was real, we can start a new thread to discuss. However to me it is pointless for me to defend specific parts the bible against non-believers. Once again if you don't even believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, why do you care what it said about gender equality or bias?

2) You said: "The Bible was written entirely by male authors: you can't say the bible was being completely fair minded in giving the minimum amount of recognition they did to females. Men had their ideas about women back then and that was reflected in what they wrote and what they thought God revealed to them, through a very fuzzy lens of cultural bias."

The bible was written by God through the hands of men. If you feel the bible is sexist, then God is sexist.

But I tell you this is again Satan trying to deceive you. It was Christianity who started the gender equality movement in the first place. Everywhere Christian spreads, there were a great increase in gender equality.

As you yourself said, woman were treated like garbage back in the ancient days. Men can pretty much buy and sell them.

Then Jesus told them that a man cannot divorce his wife for any reason, except sexual immortality. The disciples (e.g. those that likes Jesus) said "If a man cannot divorce his wife, it is better not to marry!" (Matthew 19: 3-12)

In other words: "Are you kidding me Jesus? You want me to be bonded to this woman who is pretty much a worthless slave in this culture? Do you know that I can go out now and buy myself a female sex slave without having to worry about marriage?"

Jesus: A woman is worth just as much as a man in God's eyes. I do not care about what the culture says.

In fact if you do not treat your wives, the weaker partner but join heir in heaven, in a considerate way your prayers will be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7) In other words God will be mad at you if you mistreat your wife. God is watching and he sees.

3) You said: "But should we have just stopped women from protesting about injustice for how they're treated? Or any minority, for that matter? No"

Funny. Since it was the Christians who first started the gender equality movement. The world is really turning upside down. Facts becomes fictions. Right becomes wrong. Now it is the Christians who are sexist.

I will briefly go over the problem with feminism. Feminism assumes that no woman requires any protection from any men. Now it is very true that some women doesn't need any protection from men. But to say all women? Really? Every single woman on earth does not need any protection from any men?

So here is what they think: If a guy can get drunk until 2am and fall asleep at a house party safely, so can a woman. The father of the woman is wrong to try to get her to come home by 9pm and to not drink in an unsafe environment. That limits her freedom! And if a woman does that and ends up getting raped, it further proves that all men are rapists.

See what is happening?

Feminist to good men: I don't need you. I don't need your protection. Get away from me and stop limiting my freedom.

Feminist to bad men: You just proved my point that all men are rapists. This furthers my point that there is no good men.

Feminism believes that no woman need any protection from men. So good men are not allowed to fulfill their role as protector, since that takes away the women's freedom. And bad men are used to generalize every single men on earth.

The whole point is to hate men. It might have started off as gender equality (which Christians also believe), but now feminism is all about hating men.

Feminism only helps those strong women. But feminism harms the weaker woman by taking away the protection.

God has a better way: Use good biblical discernment to identify good and Godly Christian men. Those that are learning to love just like how Jesus loved the church and gave himself up for it. Then submit to these Godly men just as you would submit to Jesus. Let them protect you, out of love, from all evil things in the world and deceptions from Satan.

A father loves his young daughter dearly. But he is against feminism. Feminism tell his daughter to leave and rebel against her father and protect herself. The father knows better that the young daughter is not strong enough and wise enough for self protection yet. Perhaps one day she will be. But not today.

I care about what you think the bible says because it affects how you try to influence others and how you live your life in a way that isn't separate from others, but can and does affect them. You say this spiritual area can't be seen, so how can you really conclude it must exist except through purely subjective experience or special pleading?

You seem to think that all Christians share your views on gender roles and norms and yet that's clearly not the case. Again, the problem here is not your beliefs, but how they affect your behavior in a world that isn't populated by people who will agree with you.

Like I already said, trying to appear progressive in one way doesn't justify the regressive treatment women still get under the pretense of Christian egalitarianism through the divine creation model. Women are still considered secondary and submissive to men, not equals in the basic sense, which would entail they are not expected to be the weaker sex, merely differentiated in other ways.

You keep saying they started the gender equality movement, yet historically, I doubt this was entirely the case, especially if we're talking about the world at large. The idea of women being autonomous was not started with Christianity in the slightest, because they were still regarded as having some obligation to be submissive to men, as if men were still innately superior in some way because they were created first, as if primacy of existence means you're better than that which comes later, which it doesn't.

Your notions of feminism seem unrealistically skewed to be dismissive of them from the start. Also, a big strawman of women not needing protection from men, because that's quite the opposite in terms of how culture regards women as sex objects or otherwise something to be passive and not have active agency in the slightest, because that's not staying in her place as a woman, subject to men. The ideal is equality and equity, not superiority of either sex, because that's creating an unrealistic dynamic and relationship.

Feminism is saying that men are in a privileged state in many respects and should recognize that, not treating women callously or with disregard to their autonomy (abortion rights, etc). Women aren't saying they don't need men, they're saying that men need to realize that they need women as well, that people should have a communal structure where we are judged by aptitude, not purely superficial characteristics.

Also, this persistent idea that women who are feminists hate men or that feminism is rooting in misandry is absurd. This is a recent development at best, maybe 30 years or so. And that isn't indicative of feminism as a whole, merely the 3rd or 4th wave in its history, the 1st and 2nd being about voting rights and other basic considerations of equality, such as divorce, etc.

A woman being independent does not entail that they think men cannot and should not protect them, but there's a sense of humility that is being encouraged, as in maybe men shouldn't automatically assume they need to protect a woman or treat them like a fragile person, when that's usually quite the reverse in terms of general observations (who's the sex that carries the young and births them? Exactly)

What you describe is misandric feminism, not feminism in the sense of gender egalitarianism, which is a reasonable and equitable ideal for human society. Men and woman are not absolutely equal, but they should not be stratified as if men are superior in every way, shape and form to women or vice versa with women. We all have different capacities and our sex is not usually relevant or germane to that and assessment thereof.

 

[muichimotsu]

Pauls feference to women not speaking was just order in the church. Men are louder than women and older men ought to teach younger men, thats how it is...and the older women were meant to teach the younger women.

He was not being sexist he was just wanting a bit of order in the church cos everyone was speaking at once. Have to wait your turn.

Men are louder than women? Nice try. Men can be deeper in pitch, but women can be quite high in pitch and get the same communication capacity

If it was about order, there was no reason to target women here, but just emphasize that you need to respect a relative chain of command and such.

 

[muichimotsu]

The womans testimony meant everything to those who believed. That shows how much God values women.

It is only the jewish man made tradtions that distorted how women were valued in those times. Jesus clearly valued women....the ones that believed Him. And knowing him, as woman experiencing that kind of love, we cannot help but believe.

If you look in the bible it was more the men that had a hard time believing. Every woman that met Jesus was changed by him in some way. Even martha.

Let's be fair, though, most of the women changed by Jesus didn't even have a name. It was just "Syro Phoenician woman" or "woman caught in adultery" or "woman with some crippling illness". The fact that every male disciple gets named suggests there was some bias towards them as somehow more worthy and useful to Jesus than women in terms of the story.