Believers: do you find your religion to be a sexist institution?

Men are the head of the household. What’s the problem? You can’t shave a dogs butt and teach it to walk backwards just because you don’t like its face.

hooray for bigotry

It must suck going through life thinking the world owes you something because you were born.

hooray for minority atheists.

MOAR

I’m agniostic really, but I was raised Episcopal and my mother is an episcopal priest. I think that, of all the christian churches, the episcopal church is quite good about gender equality. I’ve never seen or felt any sexism in their practices (or even that much heterosexism, which is a real feat for a church in my eyes!). I don’t know the technical stance of the episcopal church on such things, but I do know that my mother wouldn’t be a part of a sexist institution, she’s a total feminist hippy. Aren’t you happy I actually answered your question? ;)

@sap82 WOW. Just wow. Your comments don’t make any sense, and are yet extremely offensive… Must you?

I was super excited when I read that article to my boyfriend and his roommate last night. I’m just so proud that a man of his station is willing make a stand against his religious institution over something so important. Of course some of what he said was a bit fanciful about his own religion I think.

So how do you live in a world that has no rules. Or is it just rules that allow women and minoirties to do what they want. We would live in a peaceful world if you would just quit pointing out these differences you know. Racism only survives when somebody insists on pointing it out. Sexism continues only because the feminazis still havent grown peni.

keep it coming, don’t stop now.

@sap82 Whoa. What is it about this question that is making you so angry? Sexism and racism don’t exist because those being treated unfairly allow it to happen. That’s ludicrous. I’m done here. Peace.

@sap82: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28.

What part of that is so fucking hard to understand?

The Church of Kevbo is definitely sexiest.

@sap82 do trolls exist only when you call them out on it? methinks not

Good for Jimmy Carter! I already loved him, but this just increases his esteem in my eyes.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir, I hope you don’t mind a bit of a tangential response. Is the Catholic Church (my birth religion) sexist? I think that answer is obvious, albeit differently from evangelical sects.

Regarding the article, I have small skeptical reactions. The timing of this initiative seems convenient to the current agenda to destabilize Islam. One can’t help but wonder a little bit why Carter took sixty years to come to this realization, but I suppose we are all allowed our own timelines for epiphanies.

On the whole, though, it is encouraging that these are not the usual cast of characters who skim (or worse) off third world aid while preying on the guilt of the western world. This group’s messaging and focus seems to be people-powered, which is highly encouraging and their positions seem agreeable to anyone who truly cares about humanity.

I don’t follow a religion but a set of beliefs I guess.
I don’t believe that these are sexist (mine) and I do the best I can to stay true to them, although I am not very good at it. kinda like a christian who tries to be a “good christian” but is flawed and is aware of the flaws and mistakes.
if that makes any sense.

Christian, and no. Definitely not sexist, but there are people out there not following the guide book.

My religion is to live and let live, whether you squat to piss or not.

My belief is that husbands and wives should “leave” their families and cleave unto one another. They each should be responsible for different roles.

The male role should be one of leadership… and by that I don’t mean a tyrannical slave driver hell bent on winning first place for bigotry. It’s a balance of give and take.. but as I see it.. the man is ultimately responsible for his family and how they are cared for.

Granted there are men out there without enough…intestinal fortitude to lead a family. In those cases perhaps the woman will take charge. It’s a case by case basis.

I happen to believe that this very traditional family arrangement works quite well. But it’s really a moot point. You have to reach an agreement with your own partner .. what difference does it make what everyone else thinks? If the arrangement works for both of you and everyone is truly happy… here’s a cookie! Bravo! Hooray! Everybody wins.

Do I think my religion is a sexist institution? Absolutely not .

@kevbo i wish i could lurve your answer multiple times. lol4rl

@sap82 Men don’t HAVE to be heads of household…I am the head of my household, according to the conventional definition and my husband and our dogs and their shaved butts simply find walking backwards just marvelous..thanks for playing though

@sap82 feminazi? woo hoo, I haven’t been called that almost in like a month…would you like to see my clearly lesbian and unshaven legs now? well you can’t, because I’m too busy walking them all over my pussy-whipped emasculated male of a partner…let me go put him back in his cage

@kevbo hm, definitely a good point

Sadly, too many religions still are. The German Lutheran Church has hundreds of female ministers, even a few bishops. Here’s one example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Jepsen

the first female bishop worldwide. Are there female bishops in the US or Canada? I tried to google it without success though. Hey, that’s an interesting new Fluther question.

@mattbrowne I know there are in the Episcopal church.

I found this list on wikipedia but it’s definitely not all-encompassing…

@fireinthepriory – Many thanks, there are more interesting links here

http://www.fluther.com/disc/50028/are-there-female-bishops-in-the-us-or-canada/

If one believes in God, and accepts that God is to be obeyed, then it doesn’t matter if we disagree with God’s arrangement. Humans are fickle creatures, the current philosophies and trends change with the seasons. The only reason this particular question is being asked at the moment is because we are going through a current fixation on equality. The other problem is that the religious views of woman have been grossly distorted. According to Christian scripture, women are to be respected and taken care of, not dominated in cruel ways.

If it were not for religion, there would be no foundation upon which to base our morals. For example, why are there laws against adult males marrying a four year-old girl? Because that is immoral. Why is it immoral? There is nothing innate within the physical construction of the universe which suggests this. The reason it is immoral and we find it disgusting is because of religion.

Our religious scripture is here to instruct us, to inform us, to train our minds to distinguish between right and wrong. But who defines right and wrong? Again, there is nothing intrinsic in the universe’s physicality to imply right and wrong. They are merely psychological constructions. So where do they come from? Religion.

My point is that for us within religion, who have faith in holy scripture, it is not for us to pass judgement on the correctness of laws contained within those scriptures relative to current social trends. That would be completely ridiculous.

@ralfe no, the reason why it is immoral for a an adult male to be marrying a 4 year old girl is because there is a difference in power and a grossly unequal one – a 4 year old girl is a child and can not truly consent, no matter how you slice it. religion, if at all, has given us examples of stories when marriages were allowed between young girls and men and all kinds of craziness…and is the reason why it’s still taking serious legal fights to make sure that in certain parts of the world a man can’t marry a 10 year old…

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: “Difference in power”. Yet again, this reasoning is based on the current fixation on equality. You must realise that so much of what we take for granted is as a result of religion. For example, did you know that our modern judiciary system is based on the Mosaic Law? Also, many laws found in scripture would not have made sense when it was first read, as people back then had no idea about things such as bacteria, microbiology etc… Yet we find explicit laws detailing proper hygene practices beyond wisedom or knowledge possible back then. They could have easily had an opinion similar to many today and simply said “this seems crazy” and ignored it. It is very narrow minded to compare religious laws and principals to human understanding or knowledge. Just because something – such as ‘the man is the head of the household’ – is in-congruent to society’s attitudes and opinions, does not mean that those religious principals are incorrect.

@ralfe obviously our collective history influences our society and religion has always been a big part of our ideas – however I came to these conclusions using philosophy even if those philosophers were influenced by religions makes no difference to me…a person not knowing god or scripture or whatever can still decide it’s immoral…and not only because of equality but also because of the simple ‘i don’t want to be harmed so i will not harm another’ idea – you seem to think that religious ideas are somehow outside society, as if societal ideas come and go and religion just was – I don’t believe it ever just was – I believe it is ONLY one part of what society comes up with to keep going on with themselves

@Simone_De_Beauvoir : Obviously, if one does not believe that religion is received from God, then religion has to be an artifact of society. There is no merit in debating this, as whether or not religion is a part of society, or is separate from society, is a matter of belief. In the context of this discussion, I am simply saying that for those who believe that religious scripture is from God, then that scripture is of more importance than human reasoning.

@ralfe I understand

@ralfe

Society had morality before organized religion, societies without religion have morals, many religious societies are largely immoral. You are correct that there is no intrinsic source of objective morality, but that does not mean that we, as humans, cannot develop morality from a source other than religion.

@Ivan : I am not talking about organized religion. I am talking about ‘religion’ in terms of a belief system, not in terms of membership. You say that there are societies without religion. Which societies would these be? It is a well documented fact that all studied cultures have some form of religion or mythology. Which is interesting, as it would imply that we have a genetic predisposition towards the metaphysical and existential.

I suppose one could argue that morality evolved due to environmental pressures involved with living in a complex social group. However, that is perhaps a topic for another thread, and is not relevant to the question of “do you find your religion to be a sexist institution?”

“it would imply that we have a genetic predisposition towards the metaphysical and existential.”

It would imply that we have a genetic predisposition towards explaining the universe and that we know very little about it.