The destructiveness of sexism

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section9+1

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Actually, not even the religion thinks that a non-Christian reading the Bible is like reading someone's mail. The religion wants people to read the Bible...under their supervision of course...so they will convert.

That is why so very many copies are given away.

I went down that road of being 'one of us' a very long time ago. I credit reading the Bible for breaking me out of that group. I also credit reading the Bible for my deeper and happier understanding of the power of Jesus' teachings once those teachings are divorced from the religion.

Raising one's spirituality is continual learning process.

Thank you. I find that to be a good thing.
 
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zephcom

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Thank you. I find that to be a good thing.
You're welcome. I found it a good thing also.

Once I realized it was the religion which was the problem and not God and Jesus, life became much better for me.
 
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section9+1

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It is for whoever wants to believe it and accept it as being true and honest and the instruction unto righteousness. That can include those who are honestly seeking the truth even though they might not be there yet. But nobody else. Anyone who reads the bible to refute it or oppose it is a servant of Satan.
 
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zephcom

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It is for whoever wants to believe it and accept it as being true and honest and the instruction unto righteousness. That can include those who are honestly seeking the truth even though they might not be there yet. But nobody else. Anyone who reads the bible to refute it or oppose it is a servant of Satan.

That is certainly a dogmatic position to take.

One could suggest that you may be raising the Bible to a level that it becomes an idol with its own Divinity.
 
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section9+1

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That is certainly a dogmatic position to take.

One could suggest that you may be raising the Bible to a level that it becomes an idol with its own Divinity.

It's true or it isn't. I agree we can experience God independently from the bible, but we cannot experience him in opposition to the bible. It isn't the source of all we know of him, but its truth cannot be deliberately refuted. It can be misunderstood and used wrongly, but it remains God's letter to those who believe it. And to use it as a book of wisdom, is missing its point. No one ever explained salvation to me, but one day as an adult I decided to read the gospels out of curiosity. I started with Matthew and by the time I got into John I was begging for forgiveness. I've never looked back. If I am dogmatic, I am right where I want to be, just like you are outside right where you want to be. No issue either way.
 
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Paidiske

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First of all, while I have little authority to speak for all men, I offer my sincere apologies for the men of the world who perpetrate and defend offences against women and for those men specifically who have offended and demeaned you personally.

With that said, I see two things operating in tandem here. The first is the personal behavior of men and the second is a systemic societal behavior which is the product of the patriarchal structure of society.

Men have a distorted view of the world and their place in it. Men -actually- do think that problems don't exist if they just pass a 'law' which is supposed to fix the problem. They appear to be functionally unable to grasp the concept that laws need enforcing in order for them to effectively change society for the better.

For instance, laws requiring equal pay for equal work depends on 1) everyone knowing what everyone else is paid, 2) job classifications being equally designed, and 3) protection against retribution for filing a complaint. Men just 'know' they fixed that problem by making it 'illegal' and therefore women -must- whining if they continue to complain.

That is how society (and in this case, men, because men have been the creators of society) is able to protect the discrimination.

As a blanket statement, men are incredibly poor with empathy. Their egos are so large that gets in the way of grasping the issues of others. That ego is constantly telling them how great they are, how smart they are, and how everyone else on the planet could succeed as easily as they did if they just applied themselves with the same purpose -I- did.

This is why men have such a difficult time with Jesus' Second Great Commandment. That Commandment requires empathy and men have very little of that.

What all this comes down to is that trying to change men one man at a time is just playing 'Whack a Mole'. The structure of society which men created has to change because it is that structure which perpetuates the male image as always being -correct-.

And, as most women already know, men will do almost anything when their egos are being stroked.

Zeph, while I appreciate the thoughtfulness and empathy of this post, I respectfully suggest that making this all the fault of men is probably a bit simplistic. Women participate in, benefit from and enforce the status quo as well. (Some women?) To me, this is about broken social systems, not about scapegoating particular people or groups of people.

Businesses are their to make a profit not fulfill political goals

So businesses should be allowed to be exploitative and inequitable, to the detriment of the social good? I disagree. People matter more than profits.

As to the question of whether women in the workforce have driven down wages, I was reading a fascinating article a day or so ago (which unfortunately I can't find now) which was arguing the opposite; that because women bring different strengths to the workforce, mixed-sex teams actually become more effective and wages tend to rise for everyone. Food for thought, perhaps?
 
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zephcom

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It's true or it isn't. I agree we can experience God independently from the bible, but we cannot experience him in opposition to the bible. It isn't the source of all we know of him, but its truth cannot be deliberately refuted. It can be misunderstood and used wrongly, but it remains God's letter to those who believe it. And to use it as a book of wisdom, is missing its point. No one ever explained salvation to me, but one day as an adult I decided to read the gospels out of curiosity. I started with Matthew and by the time I got into John I was begging for forgiveness. I've never looked back. If I am dogmatic, I am right where I want to be, just like you are outside right where you want to be. No issue either way.

I don't doubt your conversion. I don't doubt the role the Bible played in it.

I'm only cautioning you about giving the Bible more due than it deserves. It is, IMMHO, absolutely imperative to not confuse the Bible with God or the teachings of Jesus.

If C.S. Lewis or any other human being, had written the story of Jesus and included His teachings, I would have found them to be as important and profound as I find them in the Bible. It is not -because- of the Bible I find those teachings important. I find them important because they speak to a part of my very soul.

I think that is a VERY important distinction. If those teachings don't speak directly to one's soul, it doesn't matter who wrote the Bible, the teachings will be totally ineffective.

And we see that effect throughout the religion.
 
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zephcom

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Zeph, while I appreciate the thoughtfulness and empathy of this post, I respectfully suggest that making this all the fault of men is probably a bit simplistic. Women participate in, benefit from and enforce the status quo as well. (Some women?) To me, this is about broken social systems, not about scapegoating particular people or groups of people.

Simplistic?? Perhaps. But one has to grasp the simplistic before delving into the complex.

This IS about broken social systems. However I think placing the blame for why it is broken where it honestly belongs is not scapegoating.

Finally, I'm not a real fan of blaming those who are oppressed for their part of the oppression. People HAVE to be able to survive and becoming an enabler is just another part of surviving.

Sometimes a person just has to do what a person needs to do to move on. Even you admitted to not taking people to court in an effort to fix things because you felt like you needed to just keep going.

Please, don't toss women under the bus just to appear neutral.
 
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section9+1

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We are not to confuse the bible with the teachings of Jesus? I get that you can have a God concept apart from the bible. But not Jesus! Where does information regarding him come from if not the bible? I don't see it carved into a mountain top or hanging in the air anywhere. Something speaking to your soul is worthless. I'm sure Allah was speaking to Bin Laden's soul when he destroyed the twin towers. You have to be able to accept some authority for the source of your values, not just something that feels good to you. Where is your credibility?
 
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zephcom

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We are not to confuse the bible with the teachings of Jesus? I get that you can have a God concept apart from the bible. But not Jesus! Where does information regarding him come from if not the bible? I don't see it carved into a mountain top or hanging in the air anywhere. Something speaking to your soul is worthless. I'm sure Allah was speaking to Bin Laden's soul when he destroyed the twin towers. You have to be able to accept some authority for the source of your values, not just something that feels good to you. Where is your credibility?
Understanding that requires understanding how we got the Bible and why we have the Bible. The short explanation is that the Catholics 'did' it. The longer explanation usually takes a book to cover it all.

For the purposes here, I will just say that when the Holy Roman Catholic Church came into existence in the Fourth Century, it was granted the authority of the Roman empire to collect and destroy any documents they desired so they could effect the role of the official Roman religion.

Barring anymore discoveries of documents about Jesus such as those found at Nag Hammadi we will only have the Bible. That is thanks to the those first Catholics and not God.

Actually, something speaking to my soul IS one of the most profound things one can have happen. Let me put it differently, how is the idea that people 'accept' without any evidence whatsoever that ONE book out of the billions which have been written since the beginning of written languages is the 'Word of God' any different than me feeling the power of Jesus' teachings without any other source to confirm it?

I'm not saying one shouldn't read the Bible. -I- read the Bible. I'm just cautioning about confusing it with the Divine One. God and the Bible are completely different things.
 
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DogmaHunter

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''taking into account time off for family or child care'', right so when a woman has a child and her work availability is compromised she is still as valuable as a man who can commit 100%? Let's get real here,a person who is disruptive to a business is a liability and absence from work is probably the biggest disrupter but when it's a woman who's pregnant or raising young kids it's the other way round and the employer is the difficult one for not providing all the needs to the mother,and her disruptive schedule.

This is why you need strong social policies from your government. They provide the income of the women in maternity leave. Just like they provide the income of people who are home sick. So that the employer doesn't have to pay.

Off course, there is still the long abscense. But unlike with a desease that lasts for months, you can actually plan for maternity leave, as you know it months before hand.

This does not need to be a problem, unless you make it a problem.


[qutoe]Businesses are their to make a profit not fulfill political goals[/quote]

Right, but I bet that as an american, you don't really care for government run universal health care and alike, which would actually cover this particular political goal. Amirite?

and if women can't keep pace with the competition thats their problem.

Wauw. This is irony squared.
"that's their problem"? What exactly is their problem? That they are women????
That's what you mean ultimately, isn't it? Because you're saying that they can't "keep pace with competition" while talking about being absent because of getting pregnant...
And that is "their problem". That they get pregnant. That they are women. And not males.

This is.... wauw.

:rolleyes:

Why exactly should people get the same rewards if they don't render the same level of service?

Please quote statistics showing that women are unable to render the same level of service as males while on the job.


In a sales company someone sells 100 units,the colleague sells 30, do they deserve the same pay? I wouldn't think so.

The point of this thread, is that when BOTH sales reps sell 50 units and have equal seniority and job description, then the one with the penis gets the highest pay.

Political and social pressure on businesses have gotten women a lot of the gains they have today.
That goes for ALL workers, not just women.
Not to mention minorities.

Some governments have even gone as far as legislating gender quotas against large companies to promote women to CEO positions.

And the fact that that is happening, shows that there is a problem.
Quota's aren't installed for fun or just to annoy. Quota's are there because there is a discrimination problem that won't solve by itself.

By principle I am against quota's though. I'm not sure if that's the way to solve the issue, even if only temporary just to get it going.

If these affirmative action cases don't make as much money as a REAL top CEO who's top of the game....another pay gap based on gender discrimination?

A "real" top CEO. In capital letters and italic. Good grief.
 
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DogmaHunter

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A Biblical 'slave' voluntarily entered into those arrangements and left after 7 years if those chose.

I think you talk non-sense.

That's only for Israeli's. non-hebrew slaves were slaves for life. And with Israeli's, there was also a loop hole to blackmail them into slavery for life.

But let's not do this here.
 
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