Rejecting Christian Beliefs

[KayHarker]

Don't quite know how to say this, but I guess I need to write it down and maybe get some moral support from someone.

I'm walking away from my Christian faith after about 20 years. I tried extreme patriarchy, and then I tried the more liberal versions, but all they seemed to be were weak attempts to fit a highly patriarchal religion into a cosy harmless box which didn't fit. I still consider myself to be a spiritual person, but I really just have to reject Christian belief because it's so anti-women, and the more I read about feminism, the more I want something different for my daughters.

"For me it is about accepting that God created an opposite of man, he created eve to complement adam. She wasn't less of a person, she was different. Womens strength is drawn from those differences.

."

QueenBath Feminists were the first to point out that women weren't created as opposites to men, that they should not be defined in relation to men. Society and patriarchal religions regard whatever men do in the positive, as absolute, the prototype human, and therefore whatever females do is (like it or not) seen as other, and even negative.
A great example of this is pregnancy. From an objective POV, pregnancy is the ultimate positive. It is the creation and nurturing of a new life. There is nothing more powerful and more positive.
ANd yet, in this fucked up world made by men, they have managed to create a frame of thought that places pregnancy in the negative, because it is the furthest from the male that is possible. Pregnancy is therefore devalued, seen as ugly, something women "do" .

just read to the end of the thread. I saw that I am echoing suchprospects post- that if anything, it's men that come from women.
In fact, in the past some tribes didn't make the connection between sex and reproduction. The notion of paternity wasn't discovered. They assumed that women did create life all by themselves.

QueenBathsheba wrote - "the church hunted down witches not because they were women. The church needed a way of ensuring that illiterate poor poeple had faith in their religion"

I reckon that the number of illiterate poor men and women would have been roughly equal. That suggests to me that an equal number of men and women should have been persecuted. That did not happen. I think the evidence suggests a gender bias towards the negative targeting of women.

". The church needed a way of ensuring that illiterate poor poeple had faith in their religion"

I didn't get this anyway. Why did the church need to ensure this?

Hello again!

Yes, Dittany, you're right, the book I mentioned isn't by Mary Daly.

I wasn't intending to put about 'religious propaganda' - I just wanted to say that I think it's poss to be a Christian feminist (although obv, as I said, some people would not accept that version of either feminism or Christianity). I haven't suggested once to KayHarker that she should change her mind, neither would I. Most views expressed, on any given subject on MN are challenged - wouldn't it be dull and bland if they weren't?

The whole starting point of the abrahamic bullshit religions (and make no mistake ALL religion is bullshit, it's nothing more than a crutch for the inadequate and a way for one group of people to define themselves as superior to others) was men's jealousy of women. Because women give birth and create life, all the time. Even some of the pantheistic religions, such as the ANcient Greek lot, had to make a big, big deal about how women were not in fact the source of life and would be nothing without men (complete lack of logic there).

While I wouldn't actually go on the superstition-chat threads and say @It's all bullshit' any more than I'd go onto the chicken-keeping threads and say 'WHy not just eat the fucking things instead of moaning about them' I am very keen on actively encouraging people to ditch religion. It's got a shitty track record, is harmful to women and above all it's a complete waste of your time. Shouldn't an adult have grown out of having an imaginary friend?

The church needed a way of ensuring that illiterate poor poeple had faith in their religion"

I didn't get this anyway. Why did the church need to ensure this?

The Normans had been converted to Christianity in France. William the Conquerer believed that he could repent for his sins through building churches and converting the pagans to Christianity. In turn the church was used to collect Tithes. Farmers were required to hand over 10% of their harvest, this left many people unable to support their families but there was no opt out. The money was no doubt used to pay taxes to Rome and build more churches and eventually to pay for the crusades.

To ensure peace the Normans believed they had to convert the Saxons to Christianity and suppress all other faiths. Not just women but all people who followed other faiths. It worked, by the time William?s son went to battle in Normandy some years later, the Saxons supported him and rode into battle.

I don't know why I'm giving a history lesson and I have no opinion about the Norman Conquest.

I'm not a christian but I am interested in the history of the church.

I do believe that the church has been a force for good one example would be that before state education came into being the church took up the cause. I am also very aware that the church has done many terrible things in the name of god.

"was men's jealousy of women. Because women give birth and create life, all the time. Even some of the pantheistic religions, such as the ANcient Greek lot, had to make a big, big deal about how women were not in fact the source of life and would be nothing without men (complete lack of logic there)"

Quite, I read once that this is why so many men qualify as gynaecologists and obstetricians.

I made this point earlier that men sought to control women because we hold the ace card in terms of reproduction. Wish I hadn't bothered to point out that this fundementally made us different to men. It seems that many women believe that to be equal is to be the same. Stranger so that some women believe this but also seem to hate men.

SGB I'm with you. Aside from convincing people to be happy with a shitty life I cannot think what good religion does for anyone. Catholic women against the ordination of women, Muslim women and Jewish women all make me want to pull my own tongue out....too much to say about the sexism, far too much.

the church spent centuries in a witchcraze persecuting and burning women

Dittany, you words not mine! not centuries

The Malleus Maleficarum (Latin for ?The Hammer of Witches?, or ?Hexenhammer? in German) is one of the most famous medieval treatises on witches.

From your link, please not medieval.

Indeed I do know that the witch craze went on well into the 17th century. If you believe it was simply about a church dominated by men, set up for the total anhilation of women, so fine do so. I don't and I made the point about the Normans "forcing" christianity onto the saxons not because they hated women but for many other reasons besides.

note centuries must check before posting.

SGB and at dryasdust

QBS, you still haven't explained why the church had to ensure the illiterate were converted. I understand why they thought they had to: because they were megalomaniacs, but I need it to be relevant today for it to make any sense. I need your defence of the witch-hunting to make sense to me.

It seems that many women believe that to be equal is to be the same.

I haven't seen that on this thread at all. People on here have objected to the way women are defined in relation to men by religion. That is itself intrinsically anti-woman.

they were really scared of women weren't they
madness, considering it has always been men doing the killing, that it's usually men who kill their spouse or ex-lover. that Malleus Maleficarum is trying to suggest the opposite. whoever wrote that was actually mad.

~feels a bit odd at the way this thread has developed~
I also feel somewhat inadequate to respond to the more academic pro-Christianity line - I'm coming from raw experience here, so I don't really have the clout to argue against it and feel a little cowed by it.