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.
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.
