Posts by phimegaphi

Original Post by pavlovcat:

 God is perfect.  Humans aren't. 

I've never understood this. How could a perfect thing create imperfect things? Our imperfection undermines God's purported perfection.

But let's ignore this for now. And let's assume God is perfect (and that he exists).

You claim: "The Bible spans millennia.  The relationship between God and mankind evolved tremendously during that time."

But it makes no sense that a perfect God would have an evolving relationship with these imperfect things. God is perfect! There can't be any evolving on his end! This is why God is usually described as immutable. If God changed at all, then there must have been a property that God lacked and now has, or a property he had and now lacks. But perfect things don't lack anything (except imperfection). So God cannot change, hence God cannot evolve.

Now maybe you think the evolving was on our part, not God's. But the original point was that society has been historically sexist and demeaning to women, and that even according to the Bible, in numerous instances, God's response to our imperfect, unequal, sexist and demeaning society was to set up rules that further encouraged these inequalities. A perfect being simply would not do that.

You also say, "To take a portion of the Bible and base your entire judgement of Christianity or God on your feelings about that portion doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

This would be a fair claim if Christianity in general did not have as its basis the very book in question. But the Bible is supposed to be the basis for Christianity. And because of this, it by all means "makes a whole lot of sense" for dissenters to point out portions of the Bible that they find morally offensive as justification for their dissent.

Putting the claim that God is perfect together with many of the passages in the Bible that encourage or display gender inequality presents a version of the Problem of Evil. A being that is supposedly perfect and gives unjust laws that the Bible says he does--even admitting that such laws are created "in response to a particular failing" of mankind--nonetheless undermines God's (supposed) perfection.

Going back to the broader point, this isn't to say that I don't think that it's impossible to be a feminist and a Christian. Rather, I merely wanted to defend moonikins and trustwomen against the charge that their criticisms were too general to have effect. On the contrary, if pointing to passages in the Bible where women are demeaned or degraded is a form of the Problem of Evil, then it applies to anyone who thinks that (i) God is perfect and (ii) that any of the passages in the Bible that are demeaning to woman are true.  

Now, you can either (a) deny God exists, (b) deny God is perfect, or (c) deny that the morally offensive passages in the Bible are true. That's it; these are logically exhaustive. And none of them looks good for Christianity, no matter which flavor you have in mind.

helionix: some of that is due to the fact that we don't have any gender neutral pronouns that also convey personableness. "It" for example, is only said of non-sentient beings, so that wouldn't do. So it was either 'he' or 'she' for god. Given the history of patriarchy in western society, it is no wonder that 'he' won out.

Still, it is not clear that 'she' would have been any better; it would have been a favoring of one gender over the other either way. That's why my suggestion at the very beginning to focus on souls or spirits. I could imagine a revised feminist Christianity that dealt with genderless souls that are essentially moral--not gendered--beings. God included.

Of course, it would be hard to talk about ourselves individually because of the pronoun difficulty mentioned above.

Maybe we should get over our consciousness-is-so-awesome bias and get used to pronoun-ing each other 'it'. :) 

Original Post by octo-luv:

Original Post by phimegaphi:

wow, hembroffd. throwing in the founding fathers and your veteran status is a complete red herring.

just sayin.

that was a bit distracting.

that was my point. either azirra's claims are true or false, but the founding fathers and veterans are irrelevant to whether they are one or the other.

I should clarify: I mean no disrespect to founding fathers or veterans. I'm just trying to keep the discussion relevant. Azirra's claims can be challenged directly, without having to imply in an ad hominem way that she is unpatriotic or doesn't support our troops just because she holds them. 

Original Post by merylwhite1:

Original Post by phimegaphi:

p.s. I'm niether a Christian nor a feminist. (Well, maybe a post-feminist.)

Sadly we haven't got to the point in society where anyone could be post-feminist... To me that implies the work that feminists strive for is already complete.

I think we have! That's the very point!

I know many would disagree.

But all I can report is my own experience. I have not felt a single slight or disadvantage due to my gender. On the contrary, I've been given many considerations where men with my qualifications might have been overlooked (simply because they were men, and I a woman). This isn't to say I didn't deserve what men with comparable backgrounds didn't get. But still...I think it's progress that I, a woman, feel like it has been more to my advantage than to my disadvantage that I've been a woman in this day and age...

I know this isn't universal. And for that, my hesitation.

But, still.

It's hard for me to get all rah rah rah behind feminism when the inequality that motivates it is nothing that I can experience in my daily life (thank goodness!).

Hence, post-feminism.

I think so. Here's one way (I'm just making this up; I don't know if anyone actually holds this view): There is nowhere in the Bible where it says that our souls are gendered. In fact, very little is said about what souls are (mostly just what they are not). But there seems to be this assumption that souls are this un-bodied, aspatial, non-extended, Cartesian ego--the locus of our thoughts, psychology, memory, moral character, etc. But we do not typically think of souls as either male or female. Male and female are distinctions of the body, not of the soul (similarly, our souls are not fat or thin (thank goodness!), tall or short, blond or brunette, etc.). If that's right, however, then human beings, being essentially souls, would be essentially genderless. And if we're all essentially genderless, then we're all essentially equal (gender-wise anyway).

Such an understanding of persons could very easily be both (i) Christian and (ii) underlie a very respectable feminism.

Such a view may not, however, find much literal support in the Bible. But certainly it could get implied support from the vague ideas that are tossed around in the new testament. It seems like a nifty start for a view that is (i) and (ii), in any case.

Good job, guys! Any other takers today?

In my super optimistic moments, I imagine a uniting of CCers, all of us getting up from our office chairs all at once, heading to the water cooler, up a flight of stairs, around the building, out to the gym, out for a walk, volunteering to go run the mail up to someone's office, or to bring a package to the department over--all of us everywhere, getting up off our duffs and moving, in a grand synchronized moment of motivation.

*sigh*

A girl can dream...

My knee hurts, I got very little sleep last night, it's cold out, and spitting rain. But I got dressed and went out anyway and jogged for a half hour. And you know what? My knee still hurts, I'm still lacking sleep, it's still cold out and spitting rain. The difference is that NOW I feel like a total bad ass. Go me.

What a little moving around can do! Sloth to bad-ass in a little under 30 minutes. Woot!

Original Post by vejitarian:

I don't think anyone is advocating 'banning' the billboard. It is controversial and has gotten people talking, which is good, but I don't think PETA anticipated that what everyone is talking about is PETA's radical idiocy which completely detracts from the message they are supposedly trying to convey (um, anti-whaling was it?)

I didn't say people were asking to ban the billboard. I said that like banned books, controversial billboards are the mark of success. Banned books gets loads more publicity when they're banned than they did prior to the banning. Similarly, when people get all up in arms about a billboard, it's publicity (exponentionaly) multiplies--making it much more successful as an advertisement than it was prior to all the fuss. Before, this stupid ad was only reaching a few Floridians driving along a highway. Now, because so many people have blogged and bitched about it, going bananas over its offense, millions of people have seen it. That's called advertising success. 

And I wouldn't put it past PETA to have anticipated and hoped that this billboard would get all of the attention it is getting. Even if it is negative attention, it gets PETA's name out there. And it's not like they've minded negative publicity before--on the contrary, they seem to relish in it. In the ad world, no publicity is bad publicity, whereas negative publicity is success.

I mean, neither of us can be sure, put I wouldn't be surprised if some ad 'genius' working for PETA is now smiling ear to ear, getting champaign-toasts from his co-workers, and sleeping like a rock, stoked that his little 'baby' is getting so much attention.

Running. Reading. Affording myself guaranteed pleasures--like running, reading, thinking, sleeping, petting my cat, drawing, etc.--things where I hardly depend on anything else but myself to reap a positive emotional reward.

Actually, just taking my mind off of myself, in any capacity, seems to always lift my spirits. That's why reading is so freaking awesome .You get to concentrate on someone else's ideas, someone else's stories, you get to be empathetic rather than selfishly pathetic.

In other words, I find that I really have to get my head out of my own ass before I can be really happy. But that's just me.

p.s. I don't mean this at all to imply that thinking about yourself is your problem; this is just my own neuroses--I'm ridiculously vain and selfish. You just asked what makes us happy and I responded--typically self-centeredly--about what makes me happy. Sorry.

I don't see how 'particles per square inch' could possibly yield a fair measure of accountability. Your mention of thrown wind is just one concern. Forced posterior rips are another. I recall--living in a house of adolescent brothers--having been made to eat beans. Yes, beans! Beans! The musical fruit. I was made to eat them to ensure that I'd toot. How embarrassing! How unjust! I did not want the beans in the first place. And even if I did, I certainly did not want the accommodating cheese-cuttings.

So I move for a more just standard: hedons.

Hedons are the happy-points that many utilitarians think an individual's happiness level can be measured by. My guess is that the excreter of wind on any given occasion will have a noticeable bump in hedons, since the release of passed gas is (rumored to be) oh-so-pleasant to the breaker. Whilst the surrounding, olfactory sensitive population will have a significant decrease in hedons, since sudden, unpredicted foul stenches, not of their own making, seemingly causes everyone to (understandably) yak. 

This has the advantage of measuring intent, since someone who is (for example) forced to eat beans and then inadvertently breaks wind as a result will enjoy the passing of gas so much less than one who is maliciously inclined to make others suffer due to his back end emissions.

So, hedons? The ratio of breaker to non-breaker hedons? Discuss.