i do realize that. but it's not true. anything and everything can be distorted. it doesn't change its true nature. it just takes freaks like me to stand up.
But what exactly is being distorted? Woman was allegedly created later and from a rib of man, if I remember correctly. So states the WORD OF GOD. Such a proclamation is inherently sexist, regardless of whether you take it literally or figuratively. Since you fail to succumb to such a dated way of thinking, MadMax, wouldn't it be more likely that credit belongs to the culture you're immersed in, to your upbringing - and to you? Not so much your faith, and certainly not the Bible?
No, it wouldn't. Because Christ treated women with respect. He engaged them in discussion. Early church leaders were women. Paul says that God shows no favoritism among men and women. Why is it a necessary conclusion that if the Genesis narrative happened literally that women are to be subservient to men? I just don't understand how one looks at that and goes, "yeah..that's the logical leap."
I don't know, it could have something to do with being created from a spare rib?? Doesn't sound like a very important bone to me I'm not saying that statement necessitates subservience - no. But it certainly implies something. A secondary nature. Inferiority, even. If God had said he created the first human from a pile of dung, I don't think we (or at least people who believed in this) would have such a fantastic opinion of ourselves as a species today
wow...i don't see that at all. i don't read anything in to that like that at all. i'd have to ignore Christ to get there. i just don't see it. you should know that this stuff highlighted in this article is not typical. it's why a story about a sunday school teacher made the news.
It does imply something- concerning the unity of a husband and a wife. And I would have to say that the 'fantastic opinion' we as a species have of one another is a result of treating one another like 'a pile of dung' which is what God calls sin.
Yeah, I know.. sexism occurs everywhere anyway. I'm just saying religion contributes. I think there was some pretty explicit stuff in 1 Corinthians that would be considered extremely chauvinistic by today's standards, too. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though - I'm no Bible expert
Actually, if God had said we were created from a pile of dung, we'd probably be worshipping dung as well. I think the human mind is 90% ego - we know absolutely no shame. Look at me, I'm the most intelligent species on the third rock from the sun! I must be alone in the universe! I must have been made in the Creator's image! The Earth is mine to abuse and defile!
...and deny a teenage boy his first sexual experience? That's just wrong... In fact, I say get rid of all female high school teachers over the age of 50, and require all prospective female high school teachers pass the "hotness test" put forth by a panel of male students.
Uh oh, we are getting into an interesting tangent. Is it distortion when roughly 90% of a population (in this case religious) believe it to be that way? Again, for thousands of years passages from the OT were understood to have placed men above women. This is a fact. Then the NT writings come along and certain perceptions are shifted. Christ was seen as often very liberating for women and this was better appreciated within the context of late antiquity. Then before the NT gets codified interpretation shifts again and women are put back down a notch. The NT gets codified, and we have greater than a thousand years of the vast majority of Christendom believing that the Bible puts women in a subordinate role. That majority lasts until, what, the 1950s? So if 90% (obviously this is rough) of historical interpretation (regardless of how wrong) on this subject has been one way does that make it a distortion or is our more modern understanding and looking back to how Christ was descrobed a distortion? In my world a similar example is Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watchmen". The scene was actually a day scene but because of varnish darkening the majority of its history has interpreted it as a night scene, thus the title. Only in the last ten years has its true nature been known. To many it will always be a night scene. Has history changed which is the true nature? Obviously this is a much sillier example but I was just bringing it up to clarify any potential cloudiness over the interpretation of my previous paragraph.
If you want to see some TILF's, go to the nearest elementary school. That's where all the hot ones teach. Trust me on this.
My wife teaches Sunday School. And no I am not her equal, she is by far the better person and has more power than I do.
My own grandmother taught Sunday school at a Houston Baptist church for over 50 years. Fancy that. I guess she was a sinner the whole time. (insert roll-eyes here) That a man could do something like this based on a woman's sex is despicable. Keep D&D Civil.
that Christ shifts our view of God is not surprising to me. he did that very thing. the "majority" believed in all sorts of things at that time. temple worship, for example. from estimates i've read, about 1/3 of the Jews of that day became what was part of the early church...that caused a radical shift in what people thought of the temple. yeah...the church jacked up who Christ was. they got it wrong. they suggested to the poor, uneducated populace that what Christ really wanted was for them to spill the blood of Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land. that what he really wanted them to do was to mire themselves in the same legalism Christ taught was misleading....that the prophet Isaiah called out about 1000 years before. the church became a political entity that used bits and pieces of scripture to justify all sorts of horrendous things at the expense of the beautiful redemptive story that's told from cover to cover.
look at all these sinners. seems like a good time to post this again: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8304756378019746541&q=jesus+video+vintage21
rimbaud -- one more thing. God is truth. that's what i believe. all truth belongs to God. i know my wife. my wife teaches sunday school to little kids. she's amazing a relating God's love to them. that's truth. i can't deny it. that truth is God's.