Why would any woman want to be Christian?

[Gooders1002]

Just think about it.

[jstrodel]

You can tell that this person has thoroughly wrestled with the vary challenging issues in Biblical interpretation. I bet if you looked at his shelf at home, he would have a representative commentary of each school of thought.

Actually, this person could not even read an intermediate level commentary of 1st Timothy, and doesn't care. He is not a teacher, he is a propagandist.

The Bible describes women who has prominent places such as Deborah. Jesus treating women with extra special care in his ministry. In the Christian church the issue of women being pastors is controversial, some denominations such as the United Methodist allow female pastor but others do not. Some theologians, such as Gordon Fee, see certain teachings of the New Testament as being cultural. There is a great deal of scripture that Christians do not necessary obey, but this is controversial.

If you get your answers about theology from this person, who is going to "tell it straight", meaning, regurgitate a bunch of anti-Christian propaganda, go right ahead, but don't call yourself a free thinker. This person has never studied Greek, he probably doesn't own a single commentary. He is using a hard right view of scripture to try and lead people away from the Bible, when really, there is a whole spectrum of views about the nature and authority of scripture.

The person who you posted probably does not know what a 'presupposition' is. He certainly has not tried to ground his presuppositions about the Bible in anything other than anti-theistic propaganda.

Don't expect a careful analysis of the real gender differences from this person either. He doesn't care. He is the Ann Coulter of atheism.

[CleanShavenJesus]

You can tell that this person has thoroughly wrestled with the vary challenging issues in Biblical interpretation. I bet if you looked at his shelf at home, he would have a representative commentary of each school of thought.

Actually, this person could not even read an intermediate level commentary of 1st Timothy, and doesn't care. He is not a teacher, he is a propagandist.

The Bible describes women who has prominent places such as Deborah. Jesus treating women with extra special care in his ministry. In the Christian church the issue of women being pastors is controversial, some denominations such as the United Methodist allow female pastor but others do not. Some theologians, such as Gordon Fee, see certain teachings of the New Testament as being cultural. There is a great deal of scripture that Christians do not necessary obey, but this is controversial.

If you get your answers about theology from this person, who is going to "tell it straight", meaning, regurgitate a bunch of anti-Christian propaganda, go right ahead, but don't call yourself a free thinker. This person has never studied Greek, he probably doesn't own a single commentary. He is using a hard right view of scripture to try and lead people away from the Bible, when really, there is a whole spectrum of views about the nature and authority of scripture.

The person who you posted probably does not know what a 'presupposition' is. He certainly has not tried to ground his presuppositions about the Bible in anything other than anti-theistic propaganda.

Don't expect a careful analysis of the real gender differences from this person either. He doesn't care. He is the Ann Coulter of atheism.

Nice counterargument, except for the part where you did not present any sort of counter to the video's argument.

You try to hold him to a bunch of stuff he says and the style in which he says it, but you never deny the validity of what he's saying. I don't care how you put it, the Bible puts women below men. And that's not right.

[Brian37]

Just discovered this guy today on David Mills Facebook site. AWESOME!

[jstrodel]

Nice counterargument, except for the part where you did not present any sort of counter to the video's argument.

You try to hold him to a bunch of stuff he says and the style in which he says it, but you never deny the validity of what he's saying. I don't care how you put it, the Bible puts women below men. And that's not right.

That is because I don't really know what the correct position is. I have thought about gender issues a good amount in the Bible. There are different positions people take. You mention "the Bible puts women below men" and you treat this as a self-evident assertion of the Bible's moral inferiority, yet you give no evidence. I think it is an interesting and perplexing aspect of scripture that men and women are repeatedly given different roles. It is true obviously that they have different roles biological, women are able to produce children while men are not.

Whether in fact men are to be given greater spiritual authority than women, I believe is very probable. I grew up in a feminist home in which my mother and father both had equal say in what happened. The result was chaos, they fought all the time, there was no peace, there was no sense of order. My dad bought into feminist values to a large degree and there was a sense that equality between genders was something that was stressed.

Was this the right way to run a family? Well, it created a lot of problems, as I said, there was a lot of chaos. Men and women are biologically different and there is biblical evidence for treating them as being different, although many Christians do not read the Bible the way that the man in the video said.

I really could not say what is the answer. I do not think that it is self evident the proposition "some passages of scripture teach male leadership as greater than female leadership" in any way entails the moral inferiority of scripture. Where do you deduce this from? From what assumption about human nature do you come to the conclusion which men and women, biologically very different should have the exact same roles. This is not self evident to me, I think it is likely false, but I don't know the exact form that should manifest.

Feminism is a very new movement, it has not been around for very long at all. To say that lack of agreement with feminist theory constitutes an absolute intrinsic evil, a standard that can be measured absolutely against the Bible is to fail to see that the standard originates in a human movement.

What is your basis for claiming that feminist values supersede the Bible?

And yet, even as I say this, scripture itself declares that husbands and wives should "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" and the Deborah was the prophetess who ruled over Israel and that there is "no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free but Christ is all and in all" Gal 3.

I do not know what to make of this issue, but frankly I know that the person who posted this video does not know enough to be taken seriously. If you consider what he is doing to be an authoritative work on the subject, that shows that you are not well read about issues in New Testament theology.

He assumes that a fundamentalist approach to scripture is the only one that is Christian. This is a typical atheist lie, that in order to be a Christian, you have to read the Bible and take every single thing literally, and not study the traditions and culture that informs the Word of God. Of course, the person on the video does not do this, he is more concerned with getting a laugh out of people than being accurate.

I actually saw this same person on YouTube smoking a bong and then talking about atheism. If this is who you want to learn about Biblical criticism from, that shows you aren't serious about it.

---

Nice counterargument, except for the part where you did not present any sort of counter to the video's argument.

You try to hold him to a bunch of stuff he says and the style in which he says it, but you never deny the validity of what he's saying. I don't care how you put it, the Bible puts women below men. And that's not right.

That is because I don't really know what the correct position is. I have thought about gender issues a good amount in the Bible. There are different positions people take. You mention "the Bible puts women below men" and you treat this as a self-evident assertion of the Bible's moral inferiority, yet you give no evidence. I think it is an interesting and perplexing aspect of scripture that men and women are repeatedly given different roles. It is true obviously that they have different roles biological, women are able to produce children while men are not.

Whether in fact men are to be given greater spiritual authority than women, I believe is very probable. I grew up in a feminist home in which my mother and father both had equal say in what happened. The result was chaos, they fought all the time, there was no peace, there was no sense of order. My dad bought into feminist values to a large degree and there was a sense that equality between genders was something that was stressed.

Was this the right way to run a family? Well, it created a lot of problems, as I said, there was a lot of chaos. Men and women are biologically different and there is biblical evidence for treating them as being different, although many Christians do not read the Bible the way that the man in the video said.

I really could not say what is the answer. I do not think that it is self evident the proposition "some passages of scripture teach male leadership as greater than female leadership" in any way entails the moral inferiority of scripture. Where do you deduce this from? From what assumption about human nature do you come to the conclusion which men and women, biologically very different should have the exact same roles. This is not self evident to me, I think it is likely false, but I don't know the exact form that should manifest.

Feminism is a very new movement, it has not been around for very long at all. To say that lack of agreement with feminist theory constitutes an absolute intrinsic evil, a standard that can be measured absolutely against the Bible is to fail to see that the standard originates in a human movement.

What is your basis for claiming that feminist values supersede the Bible?

And yet, even as I say this, scripture itself declares that husbands and wives should "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" and the Deborah was the prophetess who ruled over Israel and that there is "no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free but Christ is all and in all" Gal 3.

I do not know what to make of this issue, but frankly I know that the person who posted this video does not know enough to be taken seriously. If you consider what he is doing to be an authoritative work on the subject, that shows that you are not well read about issues in New Testament theology.

He assumes that a fundamentalist approach to scripture is the only one that is Christian. This is a typical atheist lie, that in order to be a Christian, you have to read the Bible and take every single thing literally, and not study the traditions and culture that informs the Word of God. Of course, the person on the video does not do this, he is more concerned with getting a laugh out of people than being accurate.

I actually saw this same person on YouTube smoking a bong and then talking about atheism. If this is who you want to learn about Biblical criticism from, that shows you aren't serious about it.

This is just pure propaganda, designed to take women away from the church and get people into drugs and follow an easy course of life.

"Who are you going to believe: God or logic"
This is so typical, the word logic actually does not refer to any mathematical system in which self evident truths are related to each other through established means, but instead refers to the culture of atheism. There is no logic to prove that women should have the same roles as men. If anything, the closest scientific evidence would say that they are different, in many many ways.

People that use the term "logic" to mean "an argument from authority" should be given the title "propagandist". That is all they are.

[John V]

Why would any woman want to be Christian?

Uh, maybe cause she's a sinner seeking salvation.

[CleanShavenJesus]

That is because I don't really know what the correct position is. I have thought about gender issues a good amount in the Bible. There are different positions people take. You mention "the Bible puts women below men" and you treat this as a self-evident assertion of the Bible's moral inferiority, yet you give no evidence. I think it is an interesting and perplexing aspect of scripture that men and women are repeatedly given different roles. It is true obviously that they have different roles biological, women are able to produce children while men are not.

Whether in fact men are to be given greater spiritual authority than women, I believe is very probable. I grew up in a feminist home in which my mother and father both had equal say in what happened. The result was chaos, they fought all the time, there was no peace, there was no sense of order. My dad bought into feminist values to a large degree and there was a sense that equality between genders was something that was stressed.

Was this the right way to run a family? Well, it created a lot of problems, as I said, there was a lot of chaos. Men and women are biologically different and there is biblical evidence for treating them as being different, although many Christians do not read the Bible the way that the man in the video said.

I really could not say what is the answer. I do not think that it is self evident the proposition "some passages of scripture teach male leadership as greater than female leadership" in any way entails the moral inferiority of scripture. Where do you deduce this from? From what assumption about human nature do you come to the conclusion which men and women, biologically very different should have the exact same roles. This is not self evident to me, I think it is likely false, but I don't know the exact form that should manifest.

Feminism is a very new movement, it has not been around for very long at all. To say that lack of agreement with feminist theory constitutes an absolute intrinsic evil, a standard that can be measured absolutely against the Bible is to fail to see that the standard originates in a human movement.

What is your basis for claiming that feminist values supersede the Bible?

And yet, even as I say this, scripture itself declares that husbands and wives should "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" and the Deborah was the prophetess who ruled over Israel and that there is "no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free but Christ is all and in all" Gal 3.

I do not know what to make of this issue, but frankly I know that the person who posted this video does not know enough to be taken seriously. If you consider what he is doing to be an authoritative work on the subject, that shows that you are not well read about issues in New Testament theology.

He assumes that a fundamentalist approach to scripture is the only one that is Christian. This is a typical atheist lie, that in order to be a Christian, you have to read the Bible and take every single thing literally, and not study the traditions and culture that informs the Word of God. Of course, the person on the video does not do this, he is more concerned with getting a laugh out of people than being accurate.

I actually saw this same person on YouTube smoking a bong and then talking about atheism. If this is who you want to learn about Biblical criticism from, that shows you aren't serious about it.

Because he partakes in recreational drug-use, drug-use that's not harmful to his body at all and isn't even a sin in your God's eyes, that makes his opinion worthless? And you call atheists closed-minded.

I guess, in terms of world history, you could call feminism young (I'd say it started about 180 years ago, with women like Elizabeth Stanton), but I wouldn't call it young because 180 years of women fighting for egality and to still not have it today, that's pathetic. At least, that's the way it is in America.

Now, at the time the Bible was written, everybody thought - actually, they knew - that women were inferior to men. That men were the dominant figures in the home. But like everything in the Bible, this outlook is outdated. If the Bible is truly the word of God, why would he place such a closed-minded, narrow view on women here? Women are just as intelligent and just as strong as men are, in today's world. How could he have not seen that? Is it because the Bible was written by a bunch of men around that time, and God had absolutely nothing to do with it? That would explain why the Bible depicts the Earth as flat. Human understanding around that time was that the Earth was flat and women and men were not equal. Only makes sense.

[Esquilax]

That is because I don't really know what the correct position is. I have thought about gender issues a good amount in the Bible. There are different positions people take. You mention "the Bible puts women below men" and you treat this as a self-evident assertion of the Bible's moral inferiority, yet you give no evidence.

Um... the biblical quotations in the OP's video are literally in the bible. How is that not evidence?

Whether in fact men are to be given greater spiritual authority than women, I believe is very probable. I grew up in a feminist home in which my mother and father both had equal say in what happened. The result was chaos, they fought all the time, there was no peace, there was no sense of order. My dad bought into feminist values to a large degree and there was a sense that equality between genders was something that was stressed.

What's your point? Are you attributing the fighting your parents did to equality? Or are you willing to entertain the prospect that there might have been deeper, personal issues that, in a household that prizes free, unfettered expression from both sexes, were allowed to be aired?

Hell, maybe they just liked to fight. Some couples do that.

I really could not say what is the answer. I do not think that it is self evident the proposition "some passages of scripture teach male leadership as greater than female leadership" in any way entails the moral inferiority of scripture. Where do you deduce this from?

Uh, from the words you yourself placed in quotation marks?

From what assumption about human nature do you come to the conclusion which men and women, biologically very different should have the exact same roles. This is not self evident to me, I think it is likely false, but I don't know the exact form that should manifest.

And this just shows that you're missing the point: it's not so much about having the same roles as it is about the bible preaching female subservience to male authority, unquestioningly. To the point where a woman who is raped, according to the bible, should be married to her rapist. That's... that's sort of in there.

You probably don't agree with that treatment- I hope!- and that's fine, but the fact of the matter is that other people do, and that's a problem; it's the kind of religious exhortation that leads to casual misogyny and violence against women (spousal abuse is documented to be higher in fundamentalist religious homes) as well as political sanctions like the old nineteenth century concept of coverture, under which a married woman isn't counted as a person in legal terms, but as an extension of her husband. Hell, even more recently, it shows in the way the christian right fought tooth and nail against equal rights for women, based on this concept.

Feminism is a very new movement, it has not been around for very long at all. To say that lack of agreement with feminist theory constitutes an absolute intrinsic evil, a standard that can be measured absolutely against the Bible is to fail to see that the standard originates in a human movement.

So what if it's a new movement? I bet if I'd started a movement today that had absolute incontrovertible proof for god you'd be on my side immediately, so don't start acting like the age of an idea is its sole determining value. Beyond that, you're arguing with atheists here: from our point of view, every standard is a human standard. You'll have to do more than just assume the bible is something else.

What is your basis for claiming that feminist values supersede the Bible?

... Because one's a genuine and impassioned movement for the equal rights of fifty percent of the planet, and the other is a book of made up fairytales that endorses the keeping of slaves?

And yet, even as I say this, scripture itself declares that husbands and wives should "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" and the Deborah was the prophetess who ruled over Israel and that there is "no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free but Christ is all and in all" Gal 3.

We can all find bible verses to prove whatever we want them to, dude. It's one of the reasons we atheists find the damn book so specious.

I do not know what to make of this issue, but frankly I know that the person who posted this video does not know enough to be taken seriously. If you consider what he is doing to be an authoritative work on the subject, that shows that you are not well read about issues in New Testament theology.

Yeah, maybe he's not so well versed in the mental contortions you guys put yourselves through in order to convince yourself that evil is good, but do you deny that all the shitty passages he mentions are literally written down in the book?

He assumes that a fundamentalist approach to scripture is the only one that is Christian. This is a typical atheist lie, that in order to be a Christian, you have to read the Bible and take every single thing literally, and not study the traditions and culture that informs the Word of God. Of course, the person on the video does not do this, he is more concerned with getting a laugh out of people than being accurate.

No, that is not the assumption here. There is no assumption here, just the observation that some Christians use those passages as justification for awful things. Once again, the context of the book, or your interpretation of it (why is that interpretation something that takes precedence over what's literally on the page, by the way?) doesn't matter: what matters is the actions of people that are justified by that book.

I actually saw this same person on YouTube smoking a bong and then talking about atheism. If this is who you want to learn about Biblical criticism from, that shows you aren't serious about it.

Oh no, a bong!

But seriously, you've never done anything undignified? You gonna base your reactions to everything a person does on a single action? Really?

This is just pure propaganda, designed to take women away from the church and get people into drugs and follow an easy course of life.

Don't be silly.

"Who are you going to believe: God or logic"
This is so typical, the word logic actually does not refer to any mathematical system in which self evident truths are related to each other through established means, but instead refers to the culture of atheism. There is no logic to prove that women should have the same roles as men. If anything, the closest scientific evidence would say that they are different, in many many ways.

Missing the point again. The point is that different does not mean, as those passages in the bible indicate, inferior. Or that submission to men is a requirement.

People that use the term "logic" to mean "an argument from authority" should be given the title "propagandist". That is all they are.

You're being silly again. I told you to stop that, it does your argument no good.

[Gabriel Syme]

For the opinion of Mainstream Christianity regarding men and women, it would have been better to post a link to a description of their doctrine, and use that as the basis of a discussion.

I haven't watched the video: the pre-play screen-shot seems to be of a dishevelled and ranting male redneck so my 'spider sense' is tingling and telling me he isn't going to be greatly informed as to modern female interpretations of Christianity. Hearing from a woman would have been more relevant, for a start.

Reading some of the commentary in other posts, he seems to be a disgrace to the word logic on his T-shirt.

I am a mainstream Christian, a Catholic.

To me, the suggestion that Christianity is somehow oppressive or sexist to women is absurd. Here is what the Catholic Catechism says:

1935 The equality of men* rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it:

Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design

1935 is the paragraph number, not a date btw.

(*here is term 'men' used as per the common description of 'mankind' for all humanity, it doesn't refer exclusively to male persons.)

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/ar...s1c2a3.htm

And if you look around the Church, you will see that women are its beating heart at parish level and beyond.

There are many influential and prominent lay and religious women working in the modern Catholic Church. There are many female Saints. 4 women hold the honourific title of "Doctor of the Church", which is the highest 'rank' (if you will) the Church can bestow, referring to individuals whom it recognises as having been of particular importance, particularly regarding their contribution to theology or doctrine.

Additionally, most of the practising Catholic women I know are, or were (before retiring), degree-educated (or better) professionals with a successful career.

I do not see any evidence, in the Catechism or in my experience, that an ordinary Catholic womans experience of Christianity is any different from an ordinary Catholic mans.

Criticism of the Church as regards women is generally absurd nonsense from non-Catholic people, people who speak from an agenda, not experience.

And so from the perspective of mainstream Christianity, a woman might want to be a Christian for exactly the same reasons as a man might. The word Catholic means "universal", (i.e. for everyone), and so there is no difference in its appeal between genders or races or age groups or whatever.

[Esquilax]

I am a mainstream Christian, a Catholic.

To me, the suggestion that Christianity is somehow oppressive or sexist to women is absurd. Here is what the Catholic Catechism says:

And in amazing news just in, from theologians toiling tirelessly for decades: Catholicism is not the totality of Christianity.