Happy Patriarchymas!

I'm not insinuating it. I'm saying it straight out. Which bit of what I said was unclear?

That's just another patriarchal mindfuck. "he is genderless"? Can't you see the total internal contradication in that statement. I bet your church never refers to god (not goddess) as she.

Women are just supposed to ignore all the gendering and pretend we're included too.

Christian fathers viewed women as inferior beings to the fully human men:

?Both nature and the law place the woman in a subordinate condition to the man? Irenaeus, Fragment no 32.

?It is the natural order among people that women serve their husbands and children their parents, because the justice of this lies in (the principle that) the lesser serves the greater . . . This is the natural justice that the weaker brain serve the stronger. This therefore is the evident justice in the relationships between slaves and their masters, that they who excel in reason, excel in power.? (Augustine, Questions on the Heptateuch, Book I, § 153.

?Nor can it be doubted, that it is more consonant with the order of nature that men should bear rule over women, than women over men. It is with this principle in view that the apostle says, "The head of the woman is the man;" and, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands." So also the Apostle Peter writes: "Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." Augustine, On Concupiscence, Book I, chap. 10.

?The Apostle wants women who are manifestly inferior, to be without fault, in order that the Church of God be pure? Ambrosiaster, On 1 Timothy 3,11.
?Who are there that teach such things apart from women? In very truth, women are a feeble race, untrustworthy and of mediocre intelligence. Once again we see that the Devil knows how to make women spew forth ridiculous teachings, as he has just succeeded in doing in the case of Quintilla, Maxima and Priscilla? Epiphanius, Panarion 79, §1.

Confirmation of the inferior status of women was often seen in the belief that only man, not woman, had been created in God's image:

?You (woman) destroyed so easily God's image, man.? Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum, book 1, chap. 1.
?How, then, would God have failed to make any such concession to men more (than to women), whether on the ground of nearer intimacy, as the male being in "His own image," or on the ground of harder toil? But if nothing (has been thus conceded) to the male, much less to the female.? Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins, chap. 10.

? Women must cover their heads because they are not the image of God . . . How can anyone maintain that woman is the likeness of God when she is demonstrably subject to the dominion of man and has no kind of authority? For she can neither teach nor be a witness in a court nor exercise citizenship nor be a judge-then certainly not exercise dominion? Ambrosiaster, On 1 Corinthians 14, 34.

?So the soil, that is the womb, accepts the human race, and she nourishes what is her own after receiving it , and while nourishing this body, and while giving it a body, distinguishes it into various members?. Jerome, Letter to Pammachius.

?They shut themselves up alone with women and justify their sinful embraces by quoting the lines: ?The almighty father takes the earth to wife; pouring upon her fertilizing rain, that from her womb new harvest he may reap.? Jerome, Letter 133. To Ctesiphon, §3.

Patriarchal religion was made and is made in the minds of misogynistic men's minds. It reflected what they did and what they wanted to do.

Men at that time raped young women and girls and got them pregnant and forced them into marriage. So that's what they got god to do, minus the marriage part. Of course they said Mary wanted it, but then rapists always say that about their victims.

To understand patriarchal religion you need to look at its symbols and myths and see what they are really representing. It's not good.

And yes, god is a man. God the father, remember?

Well looking at Wikipedia, and depending on how much you think you can trust them on chrsitian dogma, the concept of the virgin birth (using the same idea of virginity as we do) has been around since the second century:

"The virgin birth of Jesus is a tenet of Christianity and Islam which holds that Mary miraculously conceived Jesus while remaining a virgin. The term "virgin birth" is commonly used, rather than "virgin conception", due to the tradition that Joseph "knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn son".[1] This doctrine was a universally held belief in the Christian church by the 2nd century,[2] and is upheld by Roman Catholicism, the Church of the East, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Anglicanism. It is included in the two most widely used Christian creeds, which state that Jesus "was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary" (the Nicene Creed)[3] and was "born of the Virgin Mary" (Apostles' Creed),[4] and was not seriously challenged, except by some minor sects, before the Enlightenment theology of the 18th century.[2]
The canonical gospels of Matthew (Matthew 1:18)[1:18] and Luke[1:26-35] say that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. These gospels, later tradition and current doctrine present Jesus' conception as a miracle involving no natural father, no sexual intercourse, and no male seed in any form, but instead brought about by the Holy Spirit.[5][6][7][8] In Roman Catholic and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox usage, the term "virgin birth" means not only that Mary was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth, but also that she remained a virgin throughout her life, a belief attested since the 2nd century.[9] (See Perpetual virginity of Mary).
The general Christian doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus (i.e., Mary's virginal conception of Jesus) is not to be confused with the Roman Catholic doctrine of her Immaculate Conception, which concerns instead her mother's conception of Mary. This is thought to have occurred in the normal way, not miraculously. What the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception holds is that, when Mary herself was conceived, she came into existence without the "stain" (Latin, macula) of original sin.[10]
Mary's virginity at the conception of Jesus is also a tenet of Islam.[11][12] Muslims refer to Jesus with the matronymic Jesus son of Mary (Isa bin Maryam), a term repeatedly used in the Qur'an.[13]"

God impregnated her and she never had intercourse.

Our father who art in heaven.

God made man in his own image (including a penis I presume).

The thing about god impregnating Mary but her still remaining a virgin is just another of those patriarchal double-think mind-fucks. Like BrandyButterfly says, the context was the patriarchal rape of the goddess(es) which has old roots and was repeated in the nativity story.

Oh yeah, Zeus the rapist (amongst others). It's true that that's the context. It didn't spring out of nothing.

Mary was the rape victim who "consented".

I'm also a rape victim. The "this offends rape victims" claim gets old pretty quickly.

The analysis of Mary's rape by god is common knowledge in feminist circles and in feminist theology. It's not a new idea or limited to me saying it on this thread. I realise it's shocking, but something being shocking should stop feminists saying it. The sexual politics in the creator coming along and telling Mary that she's going to bear his child, are shocking. Do we think she could have said no? What would have god said if she had? What would have been the consequences? Remember this was the god of the old testament - Mary and Joseph were Jewish.

Patriarchal myth bolsters the patriarchy in a myriad of ways. I probably need to talk about this more fully. Will try tomorrow.