I’m all broke up! Women, please leave these idiotic male-dominant cults in droves NOW!!! They are manmade, FALSE and destroying the world.
‘Legitimate rape’ remark fuels women’s increasing skepticism about religion
A roar has erupted over the now-famous phrase “legitimate rape,” Rep. Todd Akin’s clumsy attempt to justify fundamentalists’ justification of strict anti-abortion measures. Echoing President Obama’s assessment that rape is rape, the Washington Post editorial board suggested that a code is in play, that “the remarks are not the first, nor are they likely to be the last, in a long-running effort to downplay the horror of rape as a way to restrict access to abortion” and what anti-abortion politicians suggest is “that not all rape victims are victims.”
I’d go a step further. The code from fundamentalists sends a message that good women are not raped.
Yet women, particularly the most vulnerable, have difficulty abandoning religion. They’re less likely to become nonbelievers, because the church, mosque, synagogue and other religious communities promise security that their families might not provide….
Yet that safety factor could be in decline. Women can’t help but be skeptical about religious communities that resist women’s opinions on responsible family planning, education aspirations, career ambitions, and parenting goals – let alone parse the definition of rape. In competing for hearts and minds, religious leaders become strident, judgmental and exclusive, imposing rigid standards for good standing, not to mention a demand for financial support of such judgments.
The struggle to find security and religious perfection in a world of 7 billion people is leading to fragmentation and hyperdifferentation, suggest the editors of the Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology. The most powerful tend to benefit from the fragmentation, repeatedly convincing many of the overwhelmed, women and men, to act against their own best interests.
Feminism tends toward inclusiveness, community and communication. The Internet, cellphones, air travel as instruments of modern globalization ensure that every community must confront constant, rapid change….
If the world’s women truly knew what they had lost in female-oriented religion, mythology and spirituality because of violent usurpation by male-dominant cults, many would undoubtedly be VERY angry. The horrendous “witch burnings” and most other torments, tortures and slaughters – genderocide – of women has been the result of this degradation of ancient traditions.
Man made God
One book I highly recommend in this regard is Man Made God by Barbara Walker, which I edited and published – this book provides much of the remedy for the male-dominant religious abuse!
In this remarkable collection, Walker turns a critical eye towards:
• Religion as big business
• Religion’s effects on children
• The Bible as a “moral guide” and “history”
• Biblical infallibility
• The doctrine of “original sin”
• The biblical attitude towards sexuality
• God as “Father”
• Church doctrine regarding women
• Church history vis-à-vis the Dark Ages, Inquisition, and book- and witch-burning
• Christian afterlife traditions
• Traditional Christian origins
• And much more…
From the “Foreword” to Man Made God:
We sing the hymn, “Morning Has Broken,” which speaks of the Garden of Eden “fresh from God’s Word,” and of God’s literal footstep on the first grass. We may think of it as a nice poetic metaphor, though the writer of the lyric obviously thought of it as the truth. But the story of Eden is not a nice poetic metaphor; nor is it true. It is a lie born out of ignorance, and what’s more, it is a pernicious lie that has caused an unimaginably huge amount of unnecessary human suffering over the centuries. It is the source of the doctrines of original sin, female inferiority and the damnation of disbelievers. The evils rooted in this myth still continue. There are still millions of people willing to kill or to die for Old Testament lies. There are millions of people who despise scientific enlightenment, who forbid real education for their children, who hate their neighbors if they disagree with Bible mythology. Battles are still fought, and will go on being fought, over religious nonsense. This is one of the greatest of human follies: Perhaps this is even what might be called the real original sin….
Today’s more informed Bible scholars and theologians know perfectly well that Jesus was never an identifiable single person, but rather a composite figure drawn from numerous savior-god traditions. They know that there never was a single coherent philosophy that could be called Christian, dating from the early years of our era. But today’s theologians seldom dare to make this knowledge clear to the general public. Why not?
The answer is money. If the real truth of “gospel truth” should become widely revealed, the financial loss would be devastating.
Further Reading
