RE: Should man rule over women for women’s own good?
August 26, 2014 at 4:36 pm
(August 26, 2014 at 3:53 pm)orangebox21 Wrote: Is your argument then (and please correct me where/if I'm wrong):
Pr. Biblical roles provide the possibility of abuse.
Pr. Women who are abused cannot divorce their husband
Therefore Biblical roles are wrong.
Well, if you want to talk about whether the biblical roles are factually correct or not then obviously I disagree with that because I don't believe in god and even if he did exist that doesn't necessarily give him the right to dictate roles to us. If you're talking about the moral case, then yes, I would suggest to you that a system which makes one class of people extremely susceptible to abuse and offers them no recourse to remove themselves from the situation, on the basis of an asserted "role" that they have no choice in from an authority of a suspect existential nature for whom that authority is not earned or demonstrated but simply demanded,
is immoral from the ground up.
Why would it not be? It opens up only the possibility of harm, is blind to nuance, forces people that are unsuited to certain roles into them merely because they have a certain set of genitalia, and so far the only support for this you've provided has nothing to do with whether things are actually
better under this system, but just "god says."
Quote:I'm going to need more clarification of your point here. We've been discussing the biblical roles of husbands and wives, no mention of women being akin to property has been discussed. Also, interpretation of what? The scriptures I'd previously posted?
The bible's treatment of women in general is pretty sucky. The so-called penalty for rape, the treatment of female slaves, even a number of biblical stories in which women are simply used as pawns in the agenda's of men (Lot and his daughters come to mind, not to mention Jeptha) abound, with no way out to redress that power imbalance. If you want to talk about the biblical roles of husbands and wives, you
cannot escape talking about how those women might, biblically, become wives. Namely, being sold to their rapists, given as chattel to male slaves, or being spoils of war. The foundation of this conversation itself is rife with examples of abuse, and if you want to pretend like the "subservient role" isn't necessarily abusive then we need to factor in how that relationship might be affected by how the bible permits a man to
obtain a wife. You can't take one scripture and ignore another, after all.
Except that's what I fully expect you to do, hence my reference to interpretation.
Quote:How does being submissive necessitate being property. I obeyed a traffic light on the way to work, does that mean that I'm the traffic light's property?
I was pretty clearly talking specifically in the context of the bible. At least
try to make your reductio ad absurdums appropriate, would you?
Quote:You're argument however is that because Biblically defined roles can lead to abusive situations they are wrong.
No, my argument is that biblically defined roles, even if they do not directly encourage abuse- which I would argue that they do, actually- offer easy justification for abuse, while furnishing
no positive effects at all. This is the problem inherent in huge, sweeping generalizations like the biblical roles: for those that they work for it's better that they slip into them of their own free will, and for those that they don't the entire situation is nothing but a trap. You've yet to really offer any benefits these roles provide, instead opting to argue against the clear negative effects.
But "it's not always bad," is not the same as "it's good."
Quote: This is a different argument from your above argument. Both arguments however are non-sequitur and you've agreed above. If said roles do not necessitate abuse then it is non-sequitur to conclude that the roles are inherently the cause of the abuse and therefore wrong.
If those roles offer a chance for abuse to occur that wouldn't be there if they didn't exist, and provide no benefits to offset that chance, then they are more harmful than anything else, and are therefore morally wrong.
Quote:I have not defined abuse as only physical.
So what say you of the fact that the bible just lets it all happen?
Quote:I was not intentionally dodging the question. Due to your response I felt clarification was required. The explanation given for the justification of roles is not biological. The explanation is tied to the created order (See 1 Timothy 2:13 and the doctrine of federal headship). Had women been created first and then men, women would have the roles men currently have. It is not an issue of biology it is an issue of the created order.
It is, however, defined by biology with no care as to the character of the people involved. A woman is bound to a woman's role
because she is a woman, under that system. Not because it actually befits her.
Quote:To clarify, women being paid less than men for being just as productive at the same job is wrong. I was not saying the statistic was wrong.
Oh, okay then. I misread that, my apologies.