Women Priests

[Karatema]

I've just been having a Twitter argument with a man who believes women should not be Priests!

He's added me to his list of "bores", which is fine by me, because I think people like him belong in the past. AIBU?

I'm sure MNers will tell me if I am.

Women priests? By the Virgin Mary, what is wrong with this world?

@Birdsandbeez

I don't think it is the case that the religious are afraid of death but they fall for a promise of an afterlife as a reward for being good in this life, yet there is no evidence of an afterlife.

Why would anyone base their acts on this life on what they think may happen after their death - there isn't anything to suggest you will survive your own death.

Telling people they will fester in hell for eternity if they don't follow religious doctrine is little more than blackmail and seeks to control people.

It's not particularly the case that only the religious believe in an afterlife. Usually questions around it in philosophy are based around the idea of mind, rationality, consciousness, and things like that. For anyone that does believe in some kind of permanence to mind, it doesn't seem that odd that it's nature after the body is gone could depend on the types of things the mind thought and did while the body was living. And that could have implications around any sort of union with Mind in the larger sense.

Lots of people are not hard positivists and do not believe that only that which can be materially evidenced is real. In fact it's pretty difficult to show that is true evidentially, so not only is it as "faith-based" as any other thoughts system, it's one that contains a logical contradiction at it's heart.

[quote Maireas]**@Moonmelodies* - Hitler was not* a Catholic. He was a Teutonic Pagan. The Nazis loathed Christianity and aimed to replace it with the Nazi religion which was pagan. Look at the work of Alfred Rosenberg.[/quote]
Was he not baptised and confirmed into the Catholic church?

Yes, but he didn't practice. His aim was to destroy Christianity in Germany. So he wasn't a Christian, and despised it as a religion (for obvious reasons).

Was he not baptised and confirmed into the Catholic church?

By that measure, I'm a Church of Scotland Protestant, yet I deny utterly the existence of deities, have never willingly set foot in a church in my life, and believe that all religion is ultimately far more of a negative influence on the planet than positive.

Just because someone's parents choose to immerse an infant with no agency of their own into their chosen religion does not make that infant 'a Catholic', or any other denomination.

Personally I find the notion of a 'Christian child', 'Muslim child' etc deeply offensive and regard it as a from of abuse.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

Was he not baptised and confirmed into the Catholic church?

By that measure, I'm a Church of Scotland Protestant, yet I deny utterly the existence of deities, have never willingly set foot in a church in my life, and believe that all religion is ultimately far more of a negative influence on the planet than positive.

Just because someone's parents choose to immerse an infant with no agency of their own into their chosen religion does not make that infant 'a Catholic', or any other denomination.

Personally I find the notion of a 'Christian child', 'Muslim child' etc deeply offensive and regard it as a from of abuse.

I agree (sort of- I respectfully disagree it's a form of abuse). I don't believe you should claim to be a member of a religion until you fully understand what it is and, with complete free will, choose to follow that religion. Therefore, I don't believe a baby or child can be or should be a member of any religion.

I don't believe children under the age of at least 13 should be baptised or any other equivalent (and that's a low average- more like 16 would be better).

Personally I find the notion of a 'Christian child', 'Muslim child' etc deeply offensive and regard it as a from of abuse

agree, i prefer the Baptist way where you have to be at least 16 (I think) before you enter the religion officially (being baptised)

Also a religion that doesn't entertain the idea of people leaving the religion isn't something i can agree with.

Personally I find the notion of a 'Christian child', 'Muslim child' etc deeply offensive and regard it as a from of abuse

Doesn't that rather depend on the age of the child? I grew up in an atheist family and attended a secular school but converted around the age of 10. Where did the abuse come from?

Doesn't that rather depend on the age of the child? I grew up in an atheist family and attended a secular school but converted around the age of 10. Where did the abuse come from?

Of course.

There's a clear gap in agency between a new born that is considered 'culturally' Christian etc, and subjected to observance and such with no say whatsoever, and a 10 year old with your background

I'm still not comfortable with it though, because I don't believe that 10 year olds would be capable of fully understanding the philosophical aspects, and it's highly unlikely they could make a choice entirely free of situational bias in any case.

The debate will rage on. Meanwhile in the real world people become less and less engaged with Christianity for exactly this kind of misogynist old-fashioned bullshit.

Why single out Christianity? Not many female imans or Khalifs either...

I grew up in an atheist family and attended a secular school but converted around the age of 10. Where did the abuse come from?

the abuse - and some of it wouldn't really be considered abuse - comes from teaching a small child that if they die before they're baptised they don't get to heaven. Hence why they are baptised (christened, whatever) so early on and locked into the religion.
Telling them that certain "crimes" will land them in hell - and that's where the abuse is on a spectrum, sometimes it's a matter of "you were rude to your dad, you sinner" and BANG! the child thinks they're going to hell. And so on and so forth. (I'm not familiar with other religions, and not overfamiliar with christianity, but that's how i understand it from my staunchly catholic in-laws)

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle has a whole thing about the children being very upset that one of their baby sisters had died before being christened and would end up in purgatory so that they wouldn't be reunited in heaven. It's quite heartbreaking, actually.

Why single out Christianity? Not many female imams or Khalifs either...

FWIW i am equally incensed by all of it (in mildly annoyed because I'm an atheist) but the conversation is about women priests. Any religion that treats people differently based on characteristics of birth can do one as far as I'm concerned. Frankly I'm more cross about Bishops and other religious leaders being in the House of Lords but that's a whole other conversation.

I'm still not comfortable with it though, because I don't believe that 10 year olds would be capable of fully understanding the philosophical aspects, and it's highly unlikely they could make a choice entirely free of situational bias in any case.

I could have unmade that choice at any time. In fact, it takes more hard work staying in the faith for someone not surrounded by deeply religious family than to quietly drop out. If any pressure came, it was the other way, to pretend I did not have any faith, because I knew the people I loved and admired wouldn't like to be reminded of it.

And for me, it was never about the afterlife or fear of punishment, it was about the sense of presence, the transcendental experience. I did leave Christianity for a while in my early 20s but I never had any doubts about the existence of God. I came back because I missed Him. Like I might have missed a relative that I had fallen out with.

Think what I'm trying to say is, people are all different, their reasons for what they do are different.

This issue is only important if you follow a particular religion.

However, I believe women are called to the Priesthood and what is more, they generally make a jolly good job of it.