When a Gospel of Servanthood and Suffering Stands in the Way of Equality and Justice
When you teach people to live their lives focused on what they will get in the next life, you can lead them into doing all kinds of things. Happiness awaits in the next life, but only if they are willing to suffer greatly in this one. Why try to get ahead in life? Why try to find happiness and enjoy yourself? Nothing here on earth matters, so why bother? This is a very sad state of affairs. There is much here on earth, in the every day things we experience, that is beautiful and heavenly. The only purpose to having people stay focused on the next world is so they will more readily forget what their lives are here on earth. Makes it very easy to get good, honest people to work themselves to death for a cause, stay dirt poor and give to an institution (which may or may not use those funds for the true good of their fellow humans [I'm not speaking against charity, rather the abuse of it that has gone on for centuries in the Catholic church and others]), and submit themselves to leadership that will tell them they are filthy and worthless without Christ and should therefore gladly give all they have so they might receive rewards in the next life.
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Patriarchy: Saving the World or Destroying It?
Definition of PATRIARCHY (Merriam-Webster)
1: social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power.
Current tenets of Christian patriarchy (Vision Forum): http://www.visionforumministries.org/home/about/biblical_patriarchy.aspx
Much of my recent reading has somehow involved patriarchy and, more specifically, how harmful it has been and still is to society. Many cultures around the world have traditionally held to patriarchy, but certainly not all of them. Both of the Abrahamic faiths - Christianity and Islam - have been promoting patriarchy for thousands of years, all while backing their misogyny with claims of divine endorsement. Burkas, virginity tests for women, giving and receiving women as if they were property, using them to breed massive families, requiring complete submission to men, barring women from offices of spiritual leadership, etc. are some of the obvious examples of the discrimination against women. The Bible, at least in the English translations I've read, mentions the concept of female equality VERY rarely, while throughout the many books, women are almost always in submission to men, raped, stoned, told not to speak in church, and not allowed to teach men. The Bible never comes right out and says women are inferior to men, but that is the message being conveyed by every aspect of patriarchy. Are men and women different in many ways? Yes. Do those differences make one gender superior to the other? No.
I am so thankful that my father
1: social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power.
Current tenets of Christian patriarchy (Vision Forum): http://www.visionforumministries.org/home/about/biblical_patriarchy.aspx
Much of my recent reading has somehow involved patriarchy and, more specifically, how harmful it has been and still is to society. Many cultures around the world have traditionally held to patriarchy, but certainly not all of them. Both of the Abrahamic faiths - Christianity and Islam - have been promoting patriarchy for thousands of years, all while backing their misogyny with claims of divine endorsement. Burkas, virginity tests for women, giving and receiving women as if they were property, using them to breed massive families, requiring complete submission to men, barring women from offices of spiritual leadership, etc. are some of the obvious examples of the discrimination against women. The Bible, at least in the English translations I've read, mentions the concept of female equality VERY rarely, while throughout the many books, women are almost always in submission to men, raped, stoned, told not to speak in church, and not allowed to teach men. The Bible never comes right out and says women are inferior to men, but that is the message being conveyed by every aspect of patriarchy. Are men and women different in many ways? Yes. Do those differences make one gender superior to the other? No.
I am so thankful that my father
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