(August 10, 2012 at 10:02 am)jonb Wrote: Sorry to rain on your parade, but as Swift points out in Gulliver's Travels in Brobdingnag a body 10 times the size produces 10 times the odour, maybe not quite the place you would want to insert yourself.

I happen to like pussy odour. I find it arousing.
Besides, a goddess could make it so that she doesn't produce any odour. A-hah!

There is no need to make the argument this complex...

God created man (in this context think "humans") in his own image... Right?
Only females can bring forth life.
Ergo... God is a female.
If there was a Christian god of the Bible as told by the book of Genesis.

Sorry. I have to disagree. I think you are making it more complicated by assuming that bringing forth life is the operative theme here. In the Bible, the only context we have for the Christian god, god is referred to as male. That is quite the end of the story. Like I've said before, we wouldn't just later call Gandalf a girl. Our entire concept of him must come from the book from which we know him. He is called a he in said book. If we want to change it up, we are then in the awkward position as atheists of presuming to know god beyond a book that we must as atheists believe is fiction, at least in respect to god.

I honestly don't mean any offense when I say this, but what is it with you and this females are the bringers of life thing? A. No human female could make a baby without there being a male and vice versa. It is a team effort. Sure, we do most of the work, but let's not pretend women can reproduce asexually, which brings me to B. There are plenty of creatures that can switch sexes, are both sexes or reproduce asexually. It is hubris to use only humans as our compass for how biology works. Again, no offense. It's just a little femicrazy, in my opinion.

I'm guessing you don't have kids. When anyone experiences that biological process there's no denying that the male is in the waiting room and the female is the one whose body has sustained and brought forth life, even if the male is there holding the female's hand (sorry fellas!). We are just highly evolved mammals, and females bear the young, men donate the sperm.

I don't see why, if we reject the bible's god, then why do we have to look at the bible's language to try to make some sense of it? It's rubbish and not to be trusted about anything. I don't mince the words of the bible in the same way I don't dissect the words of the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Aeneid. Sure, they're great classics of the Western tradition, but I'm not going to try eek out some clues about the universe from them.

Furthermore, there has been significant debate over the multiple translations of the bible, and these different languages' use of pronouns. Unlike English, some languages have gender neutral pronouns. Some argue that the "man" of the bible should be translated as human instead of specifically male. If we believe that the bible was divinely inspired, it was actually written by men. Males thousands of years ago, who viewed women as chattel to be ushered from their father's home to their husband's. I don't think men brought up in this cultural environment would interject a female into their writing, even if god ordered them to. Not saying all guys fall into this camp, quite the contrary in our day and age, however the cultural context of the time the bible was written should be taken into account when looking at the gender issue. Looking past the actual writing, the selection of the books contained in the bible was all done by men. They argued and edited and chose which books to include in the bible. This was the 7th century, again, not such a great time for women. The point of all this is that there were several points between "divine inspiration" and the bible we have today where, at best, the gender issue could have been mucked with by males raised in a culture with very strong gender biases. The whole thing is a wash and not to be considered a reliable source.

When arguing with Christians, I have found the god created man in his own image, ergo god is female argument to be quite effective. That's why I posted it.

(August 23, 2012 at 9:21 am)festive1 Wrote: I'm guessing you don't have kids.

Irrelevant. We're talking about facts, not my personal life.

Quote:When anyone experiences that biological process there's no denying that the male is in the waiting room and the female is the one whose body has sustained and brought forth life, even if the male is there holding the female's hand (sorry fellas!).

Well, I'm glad that your biological process totally trumped your knowledge of biology. When you can spontaneously conceive without a man, you'll have an argument.

Quote:We are just highly evolved mammals, and females bear the young, men donate the sperm.

By that logic, men provide half the DNA, you donate the egg, the other half and the uterus. I think you are seriously inflating your role in reproduction.

Quote:I don't see why, if we reject the bible's god, then why do we have to look at the bible's language to try to make some sense of it? It's rubbish and not to be trusted about anything.

What else would you do? If you don't believe in the Bible, then why would you believe enough in god to try to redetermine his sex. I think you just regard yourself as better for being female and so insist a god you do not believe in is female as well. I hope I'm wrong.

Quote:I don't mince the words of the bible in the same way I don't dissect the words of the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Aeneid. Sure, they're great classics of the Western tradition, but I'm not going to try eek out some clues about the universe from them.

Do you go around changing the sex of people in those books? Mincing words is exactly what you did. It says he and you assumed she.

Quote:If we believe that the bible was divinely inspired, it was actually written by men. Males thousands of years ago, who viewed women as chattel to be ushered from their father's home to their husband's. I don't think men brought up in this cultural environment would interject a female into their writing, even if god ordered them to.

We don't believe it was divinely inspired. We're atheists. The Bible was written by chest thumpers about a guy. A guy.

Quote:This was the 7th century, again, not such a great time for women.

Which explains why a work of fiction features a divine male. Male.

Quote: The whole thing is a wash and not to be considered a reliable source.

Are you sure you're an atheist? It is the only reliable source for the fictional character of god. If you're seeking god outside of the Bible, good for you, but if I ran around saying Liz Bennet was a male, people would laugh at me.

Quote:When arguing with Christians, I have found the god created man in his own image, ergo god is female argument to be quite effective. That's why I posted it.

Really? Somehow I doubt that Christians go all "Oh my god, you're right." when you whip that one out. Forgive my sarcasm. It's how I react to weirdness.

(August 23, 2012 at 12:37 pm)Shell B Wrote: It's how I react to weirdness.

Oh we know dear.

You would know how I react to weirdness, wouldn't you?

So if god made a woman out of a mans rib,that means that this was the first succesful cloning?

Haha, I guess so, Sapiens.

When you capitalize god, you are referring to the god of the Bible. God is clearly a he in that book.

1 - NO - when a muslim capitalizes the word god - it could care less about the bible. THE word does not apply to ANY particular god - however we are in the Xtian forum so we can assume that is the god in question.

AND Actually = IN THAT FAIRY TALE BOOK - there is NO reason to believe the god is either male or female.

There is only ONE god - and IT has a son
THERE is NO female god for IT to have sex with

So - "IT" therefore reproduces ASEXUALLY and male or female WOULD NOT APPLY