Hi, I am Hully's DS. Hully said I could ask you a question!

We cannot perceive any religion except as it is rooted in cultural and social experience - so yes, all religion reflects its construction by humans.

I am dubious about the argument about goddesses.

I am sure that women in patriarchial societies have drawn great strength from goddess worship and the veneration of women saints. But the existence of goddess worship does not prove that a society was proto-feminist. Often, we know that societies that worshipped goddesses were stunningly misogynistic.

feminarchy perished in the sub-continent long before then though...

LRD, my last paragraph was actually me thinking aloud and not some kind of sly dig at you. I'm not that clever

Yes the original writing is in Aramic which is why I said it wasn't modern day Arabic, I was just too lazy to look up the proper word. I should know better when arguing a point on Mumsnet shouldn't I? I shall consider my wrist slapped

Santa - now you are getting onto the matter of faith which is probably best left to a different thread. However please don't use the age-old argument that those who believe are a few cheese slices short of a toastie. I'd like to think you had a little more respect for others than that. I personally don't believe in ghosts but I'd never insult a believer.

Besides, Skaktism is a type of Hindi religion that worships goddesses - was that created by man? And many of the ancient Amazon and Greek goddess ruled their particular religions. Not all religion is constructed by man as Hully kindly pointed out earlier. Women have centred in many religions throughout the ages and many goddesses are still worshipped in Hindu ceremonies. Women held the power of religion until the west stepped in....

ALL religion has been constructed by man.

fairly impossible to discuss these things with such a fundamental difference in rationality.

Um, I may need to do more research, as you so politely and un-patronizingly suggest, but at least I do know that the Bible was never written in Arabic!

I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you're talking about - are you confusing Arabic and Aramaic, or the Bible and the Koran?

LRD, religion as constructed by man is different to the faith it was meant to be. Right now it is as Edless says, a representation of a group of people that was instigated by men. However my point was that God was referred, in the bible as both he and she, dependant on the translation. Arabic can be multiple meaning so the arabic word for 'he' can also be used for 'she'. When the bible was interpreted it was assumed that all the references were male, but if you go back to the original arabic that was spoken at that time (not the modern day equivalent) you could end up with a very different translation of the bible that would blow every religion out of the water.

There is no one religion today that truly represents the origins of faith. I think this earlier version of the bible is very much represented in the last paragraph of EdlessAllanPoe's post.

The more research you do on the subject you more you realise that women were once very powerful and actually the dominant sex - as Hully says, womankind was worshipped. I can no longer think of a single religion where that happens.

Edless - I agree, good post.

i think religion is a red-herring for a different reason. religion is just a representation of the mores of a bunch of people - it reflects society as well as dictating-back to it.

had the Hebrews been a bunch of freedom-loving feminists their God would have reflected this.

My take: men are bigger. they can't make babies and don't have to go through the weakening aspects of pregnancy this gives them the motive and ability to control those who can have children (a child that is definitely theirs).

in earlier smaller groups family ties make feminarchy work - women are respected as the continuity and bonding elements of the tribal group. In some tribal groups, they are the ones that own land. the bigger society gets, the more turbulent inter-group relations are- the less family ties matter - your respect for your own mother does not extend to someone elses. there are traces of the earlier faiths on Abrahamic faiths, and of these societal notions (respect for breast feeding, 'honour thy father and thy mother', etc)

What do confusing Arabic terms have to do with the translation of the Bible, please?

Personally, I have come across an argument for seeing the Holy Spirit as feminine (not female - that makes no sense, since it is not embodied), and I found it to be sexist. Which you could pretty much tell from the word 'feminine'.

I think it is perfectly valid to say that the Bible was written in sexist times and bears the hallmark of those times ... I just don't quite get these particular arguments as being helpful ways to counter that.

Although he is probably sorry he asked, at this point, to be fair.

So, did your son write up his findings, Hully?

I would be interested to hear his thoughts now, and maybe even a thankyouverymuch for all the help he got?

Ooh, all sounds good. I might have to order a few of those. I love reading about women's role in the Bible, the more I delve into it the more I see of a huge cover-up.

Yes the catholics are blatantly sexist but there are many more women out there writing extremely good articles for the catholic journals that are now being published (there was one time an article like that would never get past the editor) and I can only think that's a good thing, because if nothing else it raises peoples awareness of these issues.

Do you have any recommendations of Karen Armstrong literature Hully? I wouldn't mind reading some of her stuff.

Here is the evidence on women being present at the last supper. It was first published in a catholic mag, shame they didn't take it on board.

You are right Hully, there is now growing evidence that women played a much stronger role in the New Testament than the church will ever admit to. Their presence was always a strong one. There were women at the last supper, it was written that he had the supper with his disciples NOT apostles and with his disciples there were many women, doubtless Mary and Martha among them.

One of the reasons the catholic church says there can be no women priests is because they were not present at the Last Supper. But they were. Jesus washes the feet of the disciples, he shared food with the disciples. The religion we assume to be correct now is far from it.

i'm not ranting actually.

will leave you clutching at straws and doing mental gymnastics.

In fact there is a growing debate that the Holy Spirit is a female and in fact the word 'he' in Arabic is not always for a woman.

There is nothing to suggest that God cannot be female. Remember, the Bible was translated by men and there are many confusing arabic terms that could mean one gender or another. So when Jesus refers to his father, what's to say that he does not mean his mother? Or both?

Thanks for such a reasoned debate, always nice to chat with someone who respects your opinions. You see, if you are talking about respect in a thread, isn't it nice to deal some out too?

The creation is a story that did not come from the mouth of God but from the mouth of a prophet in the Old Testament. That story was not affirmed by Jesus and is largely regarded by those in religion (apart from the creationists of course) to be just a story.

Jesus preached equality and respect to all and showed by example. For instance he spent a long time chatting to Mary and Martha, even when questioned by his disciples about what he was doing wasting his time with two women. He had the utmost of respect for women. He refused to judge a woman about to be stoned to death for adultery and the woman to whom he revealed his true self was a woman who was herself an adulterer by her own admission.
There are many more examples of just how important women were in the Bible but these examples were taken out of the Bible and Gospels when the official book was put together by men.

You are ranting against a religion you have been taught by men. That is not how that religion started nor is it how it is meant to be taught.

or maybe the oppression of half of his creation wouldn't have seemed important enough to tackle head on?

the level of mental gymnastics required to convince oneself religion is not sexist is incredible and renders the persons rationality and integrity to a shred of what it could be.

the very creation story is sexist fgs. the identifying of god as male/a father is sexist and contrary to what the natural world would suggest.

realistically if god was real and disagreed with sexism he'd have been very, very explicit about it - you wouldn't have to go reading between the lines - there'd have been a commandment saying thou shalt stop raping and beating and oppressing and chopping up the genitals of and buying and selling and marrying against their will and etc etc etc against women. he'd have also made a big point of sending his supposed 'child' in female form.

or was he a bit thick?

sorry. tosh.

swallowedafly - I think you are looking too deeply into my post. I was explaining WHY men fear women, to them we ARE different. Me making that point does not mean that those are my views, far from it.

And the religion point I was making, well slug you just made it for me. You see men took over religion and relegated women to second class citizens. However if you go back to before men decided to wipe women out of the Bible altogether, you will find many women prophets - Ruth was just one of them. There is also strong evidence of a gospel written by Mary Magdalene which has been cast out by a church made up of men who denounced her as a prostitute without a shred of evidence. They did that in order to dismiss the important role she had in the New Testament.

Jesus didn't just talk to women, he revealed his true self to them. It was not to Peter or any of the disciplines that he first told of his parentage, it was to a woman. He confided in a woman that he was the son of God. That's pretty important and again, the church doesn't like to dwell on that. Not forgetting his mother herself of course, whom the church raised up on a pedestal and made her a virgin born without original sin - for which there is not one jot of evidence. Another example of how men try to oppress women's sexuality. There is every evidence however that Mary and Joseph had a normal healthy married relationship and that Jesus had siblings.

Religion itself is not sexist, it is the men who twist religion to serve their own needs which is. Just as religion does not condone violence, but rather it is men who use it to justify their own violent streaks. Religion is prone to manipulation just as much as anything, but if you go right back to before Constantine you'll find that women played an important part in the church as priests and temple leaders even. So when the catholic church harps on about not having women priests, just remind them that they did used to have women priests at the very beginnings of the church, before it was corrupted by man.