I'm going to start using the female as the default.

[CrispyQ]

18. For all my anti-religious experiences, I never linked my 'he out of she' ideas to religion. Yet,

now that you mention it, I see the creation story in a new light - as a way for men to take the "bringing forth life" attribute for themselves. Sure women bring forth human life, but through God, human life, man, was brought forth, first, into existence, & therefore placed higher in the hierarchy than woman. It makes perfect sense.

Throw in the whole bad woman/tramp who fell for the temptation of the serpent & I wonder how any woman can believe in this fabrication.

Wiki states first: "Before making the first woman, God tells the man that he may eat the fruit of any of the trees in the garden except that of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God then forms the first woman (named Eve)..." 1.

and on another page: "...Eve ate the fruit, against God's command to Adam and later so did Adam, ..." 2.

So Eve had not directly been commanded by God not to eat the fruit - only Adam had. But Eve ends up being the tramp that gets humans kicked out of the garden because she told Adam to eat the fruit & then, on her instruction, Adam ate the fruit! - in direct violation of God's command to him.

Hmmmmm, what does this remind me of? It reminds me of a culture that thinks that women who dress provocatively or women who work in strip clubs or women who work at night or women who walk alone, or women who on & on, deserve to be raped because God forbid we hold men to decent & civil standards of conduct!

I remember in confirmation class - I'm still not sure what that was about - I asked why do we refer to God as the masculine when we were taught in Sunday school that God has no gender? Why can't we create a special pronoun for God? We have God the father, God the son & God the holy spirit. Where are the women in this holy trinity? The answer was "that's just the way it is." In other words, don't ask questions.

But again, a way to put God in a masculine light. It could just as easily have been God the parent, God the child & God the guiding light.

Religion - just another way to manipulate women & the minorities of choice at the time. But always women. Always women.

My apologies if my comments sound disrespectful, but I think this is an appropriate topic for this forum. I believe there is a link between organized religion & the suppression of women & the sooner we start to see through these manipulations, the sooner we can get back to a culture where it is easier to raise decent human beings because relationships are based more on nurturing & cooperation than dominance & competition.

Just my 2¢ plus a few.


1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_the_knowledge_of_good_and_evil

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(biblical)