Thanks to Ophelia, I have been introduced to the Vision Forum, where fantasy is inconsequential and contradictions can be blissed over. Their Beautiful Girlhood Collection is something to see: it’s built on what they claim is a Biblical vision of femininity.
The Beautiful Girlhood Collection aspires, by the grace of God, to encourage the rebuilding of a culture of virtuous womanhood. In a world that frowns on femininity, that minimizes motherhood, and that belittles the beauty of being a true woman of God, we dare to believe that the biblical vision for girlhood is a glorious vision.
It is, in fact — a beautiful vision. It is a vision for purity and contentment, for faith and fortitude, for enthusiasm and industry, for heritage and home, and for joy and friendship. It is a vision so bright and so wonderful that it must be boldly proclaimed. We are here to proclaim it.
They’re selling a girl’s childhood built around the concept that servility is beauty: girls play with dolls and cook and clean. You really don’t want to look in their science section. I’d be blinded by the brilliance if it weren’t all so dark and dismal.
It’s a big lie everywhere: they’re dressing up a life of faceless hard labor in frilly dresses and calling it good. Everything is backwards.
Personifying it perfectly, when I first went to their web page, the image that popped up was this one.
Nothing says “hope” to a Christian quite like a row of burning bodies on stakes and a couple of hungry predators advancing on unarmed people. They do realize how these scenarios turned out, right? They ended with some slaves picking up the leftover gobbets of flesh and bone and stuffing ’em in a bucket, and raking fresh sand over the pools of blood. Hope!
I’m still working on getting my wife to dress up in a ‘french maid’ outfit.
It’s not like I’d actually expect her to do housework in it! ;-)
The only worse image I can imagine for the website would be the ones shuffling pencil thin bodies into the gas chambers.
All these virtues, you really need ’em
But what good are they, without your freedom?
No need to teach girls anything that would cause them to wander away from the home. No science. No history. No critical thought. Why do they need to read. They might get exposure to ideas that would corrupt the purity of beautiful girlhood.
Also, in order to make sure that the beautiful girl does not have a vision that goes beyond the walls of her home, she should not be allowed to leave her home unless accompanied by a male relative. And, no, she does not know how to drive. Or ride a bike.
Perhaps the idea is that being reminded of past martyrs* will make children feel hopeful about progress: a few hundred years after events depicted in this picture, Christians get to be the ones in the seats and send people of other religions down to get eaten by lions or whatever.
*Did this “eaten by lions” thing actually happen? And if so, routinely or occasionally? I know ancient Rome wasn’t the most pleasant place ever, but is this real or propaganda?
I think the hope part, is about how after being massacred the way they were, they still managed to rise up to power, and screw humanity over… with the same intolerance and hatred that they were subjected to.
Or something like that…
Though, I admit that now days, they’re less prone to feed the atheists to the lions. They prefer inviting them on Fox…
one of my online friends just set up this site: rethinkingvisionforum.wordpress.com to debunk them, and it seems to be quickly making it up the rankings of google search results. Thankfully while I was a child in a fundamentalist culture… the sexism was a bit older and out of date, not quite as recently published as vision forum, and thus a little bit easier to throw off.
Seriously, this stuff is AWFUL.
@1: Do the housework for her first and THEN propose the cosplay. Trust me, it’ll go better.
From the site… She enjoys dressing like a lady and being about the business of women. Did I miss something? Did someone forget to hand me my instruction manual? WTF is the “business of women”?
*Did this “eaten by lions” thing actually happen? And if so, routinely or occasionally? I know ancient Rome wasn’t the most pleasant place ever, but is this real or propaganda?
Well from what I understood of ancient Rome.
Feeding slaves, prisoners of wars, enemies of Rome etc… to lions, was one of the popular entertainements, along with gladiators, public crusifixion etc…
But then I make those conclusions… from watching things like Asterix.. so don’t take my word for it.
@fastlane:
Jim doesn’t need to ask too many times for me to wear my maid outfit.
…
What?
…
Oh shut up, it’s not like I’m the first t-girl to ever wear a maid outfit for her boyfriend’s fantasies :p
{shudder}
I look at my beautiful 15 year old granddaughter and think about what those people want for her and just…..
——————
Oh, and Lorax @3
You are right. Virtues are not virtues if there is no option. And the sad thing is the number of people who think they will encourage those virtues by turning women into slaves.
That picture is so typical of fundamentalist culture. They revel in glorifying death. When I was a little girl, about eight years old, we had to read a story in Christian school about a little boy in Africa who became a Christian and witnessed to his family. They then beat him until all his bones were broken, dug a hole in the hot sand and buried him alive, his broken leg sticking out of the ground at an odd angle as his tombstone. Isn’t it wonderful, he went to Jesus and got a reward for dying for Jesus! There was a similar story about an islander girl who refused to wear her paganistic demon ward necklace and the community lynched her, etc. (This one caused considerable Fridge Logic in 8yo me: if their pagan religion isn’t real, then the necklace is perfectly inert, so why was the girl so convinced that Jesus would be angry with her wearing it?)
And we had to sing songs about facing down the lions in the arena…
Yes, I’m sure the joy of being your parents’ and later your husband’s property is infinite.
*pukes*
@Dianne #5: The damnatio ad bestias was actually a form of death penalty in Ancient Rome, and it is supposed to have happened to Christians (among others), so there is probably a basis in fact here, even if the accounts were glorified and exaggerated later. However, how the fact that people suffered that fate is to make anybody especially hopeful is beyond me.
What about us women who are already “impure”, educated, “unfeminine”, atheist, independent and/or unmarried? I guess there’s no hope for us… [goes off to cry in a corner…not]
Seriously, if it were completely up to Vision Forum, I wonder how they’d deign to treat/handle women like us? Or those feminist male allies who support women’s equality, freedom, and individuality…? Would we all be lion feed?
The hope in this picture is that their conviction of going to be with Chirst was so strong, that they were willing to suffer the buring cross and the lion’s claw all the way to death…. Sad to say, I was there for a long time.
buring means the wood was rough. lol
(sorry if this is a double post, several new posts appeared while I was writing)
Psych-Oh #9:
Well according to Proverbs chapter 31, the “business of women” is buying and selling land and running a store in the marketplace and working the fields and generally doing everything but sitting around the house on a pedestal. Yeah, it’s a least favorite chapter of many aspiring patriarchs. (That’s the great thing about the Bible: you can use it to support almost ANY position! Especially the ones that contradict each other!)
@IndyM:
Or women like me :D How would they handle me!?!
Routinely, in the principate, after the Colisseum was built in the late 1st c. (I don’t know how much of it went on when they still held the gladiator bouts in the Forum). There were both gladiatorial combats against wild animals, and executions by slavering predators. The morning entertainment was the executions. Gladiator combats were in the afternoon. It would be a big hit with the crowds if a condemned prisoner was able to get loose from his bonds and go running around the arena chased by a lion or a bear, and there was actually a rolling ivory cylinder around the railing at the top of the enclosure so they couldn’t get a grip and pull themselves over.
One of the functions of the legions in provinces in Africa and the East, when they weren’t otherwise occupied with a siege or a battle, was to hunt and capture wild animals for the arena.
A Bad Idea – She enjoys dressing like a lady and being a
bout thebusinessofwomen.There now… that’s better!
Sigh…. Not only is the girls’ section horrendous, but that picture…it doesn’t even make sense! I think my brain my implode if I spend more time on that site.
#13{blockquote]This one caused considerable Fridge Logic in 8yo me: if their pagan religion isn’t real, then the necklace is perfectly inert, so why was the girl so convinced that Jesus would be angry with her wearing it?[/blockquote]
Because the false gods of a pagan religion aren’t made-up and non-existent, they’re demons who have convinced people that they’re actually gods….
Or should I have gone with Exodus 21:7
Katherine, for people like them, women like you do not exist.
Would be even better without dressing as a lady part. How exactly a lady should dress (or what the hell makes a lady), differs quite a lot from person to person. With all the baggage that it has , I honestly wouldn’t want to be considered a lady.
I think it did but was greatly exagerated by the church.
The xians did the same thing when they gained power. Paganism didn’t go quietly into the night. There was more than a little killing to help it along.
Mostly, the xians systematically and continually persecuted the Pagans for centuries until there weren’t very many left. Then they systematically killed the last of them, a process which took a few more centuries.
@Janine:
Ah, true. I keep forgetting that to them, I’m really just confused.
Oh, Kitty.
Never in their wildest fever-dreams could they imagine such as you!
(meant as a sincere compliment)
@chigau:
♥♥♥
I don’t know where you’ve been, PZ, but from everything I’ve seen they hope to be properly persecuted one day so they can justify their self-image of martyrdom.
After all, it’s hard to work up a good persecution complex when the worst that happens is that they’re asked to put up their religious monuments on private land. Bring back the public live burnings and they’ll be happy as Larry.
The classic story of glorifying death is the Big Boat event.
They tell that to children because it is so cute. It has a Big Boat and animals and stuff.
It’s a story about the invention of genocide. A Sky Monster kills all humans but 8 and destroys the world. This was supposed to teach people a lesson. It also didn’t work. The Sky Monster had a plan B though, which involved sending himself down to be killed. That didn’t work either. Plan C is to show up someday and kill everyone again.
The Sky Monster’s kludgy fixes usually end up with a lot of dead people.
The day my daughter was born I looked at her little body and though some day she will be able cook and clean for a man and produce his of spring. Can’t get any better than that.
Oh barf.
@Mr Ed:
That had me trying not to LOL XD
i am reminded of the anti-choice argument that any aborted foetus might have grown up as a the person to find a cure for cancer or some such tripe. But the minds of the girls that are wasted by these morons don’t matter. Who cares about their potential, as long as the men don’t have to do the cleaning themselves.
IndyM:
Ummm..dibs!! =P
Let me just check with my wife…. ;-)
“Aslan, we’re so happy to see you! …Aslan?”
The lion looks well fed, powerful haunches and all.
If he’s going to take a run at a bunch of puny, cowering humans who are not even conveniently naked for lunchtime, you’d think the lion would be kept lean and hungry.
The lion has been taught to pause and pose, which makes me think he has a contract with the overseers of the sheeple. Christian Head Honchos hired that lion. Theater. Wowbagger could back me up on this.
And how come the cowering humans are all dressed in easter egg colors, and none of them are dirty?
I’m giving this whole thing an F for realism.
As for girls learning to be downtrodden just like their mothers, and being dissed if they don’t “dress like a lady,” it’s ridiculous. But it’s the kind of ridiculous that hollows out the female half of the population.
Jesus. What century are these people from? Sickening.
You should read Tertullian sometime (but not at the website of that horrible bigot Roger Pearse)–or the acts of Perpetua and Felictas. To them being condemned to the beasts was like a cheerleader going to the prom–and they get to marry Jesus at the end. Tertullian even tried to make a joke about it once: “‘Christians to the lion! Christians to the lion!’ that is all they say. So many Christians to just one lion?’ Tried being the operative word.
Well, obviously, you can’t sell parenthood if you don’t have a well defined idea of what your customers are buying. So let’s make sure that we tell parents how their children will be so they can get busy making more babies and perpetuating the large pool of available labour.
I think it’s kind of our fault that today’s Christian is such a lily-livered whiner.
“‘In God We Trust’ should not be in our courtrooms, nor the ‘Ten Commandments’ in front of our courthouses.”
“You commie atheists can’t do that! This here is a Christian country!”
“Actually, thanks to a breeding program based on a modern understanding of evolution and genetics, this is now a lions-who-instinctively-recognise-and-hunt-those-wearing-crucifixes country. Now, what was that you were saying?”
“I guess I can just pray in my own closet like Jesus told me to.”
“Good boy.”
In a world that frowns on femininity
Funny–the only part of culture that tends to value women for being women and human beings are feminists.
that minimizes motherhood
Funny–even many feminists want and have children. Unlike you, cupcake, they don’t believe in being brood mares downloading kids until they have a distended vagina.
and that belittles the beauty of being a true woman of God
What’s beautiful about being an ignorant, hateful bigoted scumbag?
we dare to believe that the biblical vision for girlhood is a glorious vision.
Yeah, because being one of Solomon’s concubines is what we all aspire to be. Or being Leah rather than Rachel. Or Michal rather than Bathsheba.
You’re just like the scumbags who read Plato’s Republic and think they’ll be Philosopher-Kings, rather than Guardians or slaves. Funny, you and they have something in common: Being sanctimonious, egomaniacal and deluded morons.
For the daughter who has embraced the beauty of Christian girlhood, the richest friendships begin within her family, where she learns to love and honor, and first learns the joy of belonging to another.
Funny, my formative years were spent with a sociopathic scumbag of a father who drank, beat his wife and kids, wouldn’t work and would bring home women to screw in the bed he used with my mother while she was at work supporting his sorry ass.
I see nothing valuable in loving and honoring a scumbag like that. I think the proper response is to hate the fucker for all time, and seriously contemplate finding his grave, digging up the corpse, spitting on it, and then kicking it around for a while. And then not reburying it.
But that’s just me.
I guess I fail at being a “beautiful girl”. But I can tell ya now: I’m perfectly content to be a bad one. Or a mean one. Both are a lot more fun.
My personal favorite was the “Created Cosmos” DVD:
I was reading this thinking “only thousands? That’s off by, like, six orders of… oh. Right”.
@40
Yep. If there are really 20 – 30 of you and just 1 Lion and 1 Tiger … charge those mofos. You aren’t all going to make it out ok but half of you will; and you might get lucky and the beasties freak out and they run away.
Also, what happens to women after their kids are gone? Let’s say that you’re a good christian girl and get married and have kids young. The last kid will leave the nest when you are about 40. Then you have another 40 years to do what?
My grandmother turned to alcohol and died when I was 5. My mother has always had a career and she is happy.
I would not have done well living in that time period. Though of course if that was the norm and I didn’t know any different I would have been a completely different person. It makes me sick to think that there are still people out there that think girls should only grow up to be home makers and that it’s not right for girls to go to school. SCREW THAT!
I am the only one in my immediate family with a college degree and I am a woman and a wife. My husband encourages me to keep going with my schooling and get a career. My mom has a high school diploma and she often comments that she wishes she had continued on with going to college but she was raised in a family where that wasn’t possible and being a housewife was her only option. She was my inspiration to keep going and to be more than just a house wife. I will encourage my future children to not give in to the stereotypical male and female roles in life and be what they want to become.
One of the books they offer for sale is the “The “Weapons Great and Small” Collection”, including a book showing kids
how to build mini ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (catapults and the like) and one titled “Sabers, Spears, and Catapults”. Seriously…I could not even begin to make this stuff up. What is the logic here? Bronze-age weapons are in the Bible, therefore kids need to learn about them.
@Katherine: You were, of course, included when I wrote of “women”–it’s only morons who think of you as some sort of “other” woman. You can join us in the lion pit! (Maybe the lion will like us because we’re cat ladies… Chigau, you can come along, too.)
@fastlane: LOL
@IndyM:
Yay! I love lions, they’re such big pretty kitties! :3 Oh, what a big lion, lemme rub his belly!
Oddly, I was not aware of that. From the Science section.
@Katherine: Word! LOL
Oh, if Don LaFontaine was still with us.
They prefer inviting them on Fox…
Speaking of which, can’t American Atheists get a better spokesbeing for Fox appearances? We had a lovely chance the other day when asked what atheists do instead of praying when the hurricane is coming at you. It started out well: you board up windows and gather survival supplies and listen for the technology-provided weather warnings.
But then the guy was asked about the comfort given by prayer at times of stress, and he went for the “heroin gives comfort too” argument.
Gahhh! The correct response is a lucky rabbit’s foot gives comfort too, unless you’ve got this nagging suspicion that maybe you chose the wrong rabbit, or this burning conviction to denigrate your neighbors because THEY chose the wrong rabbit, (or in the case of their athiest neighbors they don’t HAVE a rabbit’s foot of their own.) Humorous, yet making the point that a prayer=a lucky talisman, a magic feather, a security blanket.
You go for the “religion=heroin” equivalence when you WANT to piss people off, like at a bar. Not on TV. It gave the Foxoids the perfect opening to claim he was denigrating religion–because he WAS, but so blatantly there was no chuckling defense possible.
I’d think this was an “off” day for the guy, but it’s the second such appearance I’ve seen with similar tactics.
This site sells a “father/daughter purity locket”. I know that in the fundie world father/daughter purity balls and pledges and whatnot are popular, but I find that SO creepy. I really don’t get why they like to frame teen *female* sexual choices as somehow related to a promise made to her father. If they view her sexuality as somehow her father’s property that makes it WAY creepier. Ick.
PZ – You seem to have put the same URL for the “servility is beauty” and “science section” links.
As for the lions – I thought was only Daniel that avoided becoming lions’ supper, and that was in the dungeons.
Randomfactor:
Seems pretty simple to me. The Fox talking heads want to be outraged, or at least simulate it: their viewers lap that up. And the guy wants to be invited back. Both sides gain from the relationship.
I’m all for girls playing with dolls and cooking and looking up to mommy caring for her family and friendship and all that… if a girl wants to.
But stating that every girl ought to like that and act like that… hey, I don’t tell you what to like either, do I?
As for the lions – I thought was only Daniel that avoided becoming lions’ supper, and that was in the dungeons.
There were a few stories about saints escaping the wild beasts by a miracle, notably Thecla in the Acts of Paul and Thecla.
I read this and envisioned myself putting on a long skirt and a hat with a feather in order to drive out to the Pick ‘n Save to buy tampons.
Maybe I’ll do that next time. Sounds like a bit of a kick.
I’ve been reading and following the “Quivering” movement for a while now, partly out of morbid curiosity and partly because the ideological stance on God’s proper role for women has always intersected and clashed in strange ways with my own choice to be what I guess might pass as a “traditional housewife.”
But my motivation, rationale, and attitude is light-years apart from this sort of traditional appeal: I don’t take my personal tastes as some sort of mandate for the masses or Natural Law. It’s like wearing a hat when you go to the grocery store; an individual fashion statement shouldn’t be about how dressing is done.
@Randomfactor;
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think the Christards would have reacted exactly the same way if Silverman had compared religion to a rabbits foot.
If you can never win using the silly rules of “civility” we are asked to abide by, then you should ignore them.
No 42.I Ocassionally visit Roger Pearse’s website because I’ve found all sorts of rather useful and interesting stuff on it. Like Jerome’s version of Eusebius’ chronology. Although I got the impression that he is conservative I’ve never got the impression he is a “horrible bigot”, but then to be fair I haven’t read all the pages of his website.
Akira MacKenzie @54:
Thank you! I couldn’t remember his name, but that’s the voice playing in my head with that quote.
Totally OT, but I thought I’d throw this in to add to the silliness about the lions….
Just bring some Fennec fox droppins with you. I kid you not, it’s like catnip for larger cats (it works on mountain lions, not sure about lions/tigers). A friend of mine works at the Living Desert in Palm Desert, CA, and took us on a ‘behind the scenes’ tour years ago.
Throw some fennec fox droppings in a (empty) 50 lb dogfood bag, and watch the mt. lion roll around, purr, eyes glaze over….absolute riot. /derail
Yeah, I always detect a faint (and sometimes not so faint) whiff of incestuous pedophilia in all the “Daddy’s little girl” shit. And every time I think about that, I think about my Dad, who was enjoying learning about how his CB radio (why, yes, I am that old, why do you ask?) worked and proceeded to teach it to his 9 year old daughter. By the time he was finished I could follow the circuits and explain what each part did and why.
Which brings me to: Aquaria, honey, I am so sorry. When I think about what kids like you had to go through it makes me feel so sad and so angry, and maybe a little bit guilty, because my Dad has been about as perfect a father as you could ask for in a human being. This, mind you, is a man who was beaten half to death on an regular basis as a kid and never once laid a hand on any of his kids. He was an alcoholic when he came back from Viet Nam in 1968 and he drank A LOT. So much that it eventually killed a good chunk of his brain (he is 81 and pretty seriously demented these days) but every single one of his 5 kids and his wife adored him. And we still do.
You see, I think that is what they are aiming for. But the way to get there is not, as I said above, to turn your daughter into a slave, willing or not. My Dad respected me and let me know it. So when I think about the little girls being subjected to all that shit, it makes me want to cry.
#65- Okay, you’ve just ruined Kevin & Kell for me.
They only view women as such until it’s their time of the month.
That “science” section doesn’t deserve to be called such. “Created Cosmos”? Really? Such a thing exists? If an afterlife existed, Carl Sagan would be, well not raging, but calmly, firmly denouncing such a travesty.
And that “Origin of the Species” DVD? “Dr. Terry Mortenson takes a close look at the claims made in Darwin’s infamous book and shows that real science, rightly defined, always confirms that God’s Word is true!” Gaah! I’m sure glad that neurons regenerate, because I feel as though some of them have surely been damaged by that sentence.
I hate societal enforced gender roles. I was picking up my 15-mo-old daughter from daycare recently, and she was playing with an Iron Man action figure. Obviously too young to have a clue what it is, or that it’s a “boy’s toy”. The sitter said “You can’t play with that. You’re a girl.” My blood boiled. But, English is not her first language, and I don’t know if she may have been joking. And I didn’t want to say something out of anger to somebody who doesn’t speak the language well. But I’ve had time to think about it, and if it happens again I’m sure as hell saying something. Or my wife will, if she’s there instead of me.
Btw, a couple of the first toys my wife picked up for our daughter were a police car and a fire truck. She has plenty of fun with them.
What the fuck is wrong with wanderlust? and why should girls avoid it? These religious organizations should drop the pretense of “morality” and “family: and just up say they hate that women compete against them. The more a girl learns, the less power these groups have over her.
@ 28 raven:
Yeah, but the killing wasn’t the same as the romans. The killing of pagans by Christians wasn’t nearly the, uh, sport and spectacle that the Romans did. There was a certain aversion among the Christians against doing it the Roman way. When pagans were conquered, they were usually given a choice: remain a pagan and get killed immediately or get tortured and then killed; convert and either be killed quickly if you were still considered a threat or become a serf if you were not a threat. That was what made Charlemagne such so magnificent – by conquering and christianizing so many germanic tribes.
I remember seeing my niece and her friend peacefully playing with their Barbie dolls, then suddenly they had Barbie in her Barbie car running over Ken over and over…the horror!the horror! Be afraid!
I also hate this. A woman becomes inferior just because she doesn’t want children, according to these folks. They don’t give a rat’s ass about the actual wants and needs of girls.
And what if a girl looks up to her father instead? What if she has only a father? Or two mothers? Or perhaps it’s the boy who looks up to his mother. What if it’s the boy who wants the “home and hearth” lifestyle? How is any of that wrong?
Please visit our site. I and several acquaintances have put it together to combat the teachings of Vision Forum. It is geared specifically toward those who might be drawn to Vision Forum and it’s teachings in an effort to challenge the rosy picture Vision Forum presents. In fact, P.Z., if you would link it in your main post up there it would help the site in search rankings; the goal is to be right after Vision Forum’s own site on google’s main page. Thanks!
This is…how I was raised. Yeah, fun times.
The worst part is that Vision Forum teaches that girls are to be nothing but homemakers, and I bought into it, leading to a stunting of my dreams and opportunities. Furthermore, Vision Forum teaches that adult daughters remain under their fathers’ authority, and I ran into some trouble with that when I was twenty and started to have desires outside of those of my father. Vision Forum and their ilk are poison – but in the homeschool community their influence is great.
Akira:
*snort!* You deserve one shiny new internet made out of cake for that.
… Now I’m reading everything in his voice. :D
If their views come the Bible, then they do see a woman’s sexuality as the property of her father. Rape a virgin and Deuteronomy says your punishment is to pay a fine to her father and then you have to marry her. The crime isn’t that you violated the woman’s will; it’s that you robbed her father of a salable virgin. You broke the merchandise, now you gotta buy it.
There is also a section for boys, in which they sell weapons, of course. Also have a look at the books, Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction1 & 2; at the end of the description is the following disclaimer:
“Toward the very end of book one, instructions are given for making two mini-weapon targets that feature non-descript aliens and zombies (these targets are also mentioned in the book’s introduction). Vision Forum does not endorse the concepts of aliens or zombies, even in play. Toward the beginning of book two, instructions for how to create a disguised book cover are given. The make-believe reason given in the book for creating the disguised cover is to hide it from “unknown saboteurs (a.k.a. teachers).” This is not a proper perspective of authority, and Vision Forum does not endorse the author’s implication, even in make-believe.”
Yeah, I’m getting this for my son. But I’ll buy it from Amazon. He plays well with both aliens and zombies.
Whenever I read this sort of thing (after getting peeved about the lack of choice and the ‘father/duaghter’ pledge crap) my thoughts go to those women who have either bought into this, or indoctrinated into it, do ‘every thing right’ – and find out they cannot get pregnant/carry to term/etc. In their eyes being a women effectively means producing the next generation. I can only imagine they feel that they have ‘failed’ as ‘women’, how it is ‘their fault’, they ‘have sinned’ etc etc. When only one path through life is allowed, and you do not succeed at that, then it can not do good things for your emotions.
From Leviticus, chapter 15:
19″When a woman has a discharge of blood, which is her regular discharge from her body, she shall be in her impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. 20And everything upon which she lies during her impurity shall be unclean; everything also upon which she sits shall be unclean.21And whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening; 22And whoever touches anything upon which she sits shall wash his clothes…
I can’t continue, for obvious reasons.
Yes, truly “a beautiful vision.” A vision “for purity and contentment.”
@ Diane #5
Mostly propaganda. The first thing to consider is that until Constantine supported it, Christianity was a really small cult at the fringes of society, most of its adherents being women and slaves. Their numbers were relatively few and far between. It’s kind of hard for us to put it in perspective, since we see it looming so large in our own culture.
There were persecutions on occasion (often local and bottom-up rather than top-down), and when there were, many Christians practically (even actually) volunteered for martyrdom. The more gore, the more torture, the better the non-martyred Christians liked it.
I wish I had numbers to hand, but probably over the course of 300 years, maybe a few thousands at most were martyred and not all of them would have been executed in public stadiums.
Brain Hertz
Apparently, the Andromeda Galaxy is only a few miles away. I can see it from my house, after all.
I don’t really see how this is much worse than the endless parade of childrens stuff that tell women they are all little princesses doing what daddy and future dreamboat want because it’s just magically “right” …and she gets pretty dresses. Most “girl” toys deeply depress me.
Frankly most of the men i know are appalling cooks and they would be considered progressive. So I can only assume that christian women are given such heavy training in baby and house care, so they will be able to deal with the over-entitled christian man-children that were too busy fighting to learn how to properly feed, wash and dress themselves.
Offtopic :
I would point out that god is just sending a vehicle to pick them up for heaven (who else could bend the weather to his will). If they really believe then they should go outside and wait for Mr. Taxi.
I win either way (evil grin).
The first thing to consider is that until Constantine supported it, Christianity was a really small cult at the fringes of society, most of its adherents being women and slaves. Their numbers were relatively few and far between. It’s kind of hard for us to put it in perspective, since we see it looming so large in our own culture.
Constantine wouldn’t have supported it (or, more accurately, courted its support) if the numbers had been so small or if its adherents had been mostly women and slaves. This is perhaps an accurate picture of the early 2nd century, though it seems that there were at least a few elite, educated Christians quite early (else, who are Paul, Clement et al communicating with?). Constantine ruled in the 4th century. In the intervening couple of centuries, Christians came to represent a substantial minority of Roman citizens. We can determine this to some extent by noting the prevalence of Christian iconography on tombs and the increasing number of specifically Christian names showing up in records and inscriptions and the like.
As for the incidence of martyrdom, it seems to have been greatly exaggerated by the post-Constantine church. In my answer to the same question you addressed, I was talking about the damnatio ad bestias generally as a practice, not about how often Christians were so condemned. For martyrdoms total, even your few thousands is probably high.
There were persecutions on occasion (often local and bottom-up rather than top-down), and when there were, many Christians practically (even actually) volunteered for martyrdom.
By “local and bottom-up” I assume you mean mob-justice-type pogroms. There was quite a bit of that, toward Christians and Jews, usually on charges of impiety or atheism. But pre-Constantine, and under Julian, there were top-down persecutions also, but what the Roman authorities didn’t get in these cases was that they were dealing with a mass movement. On the models they were familiar with, if you rounded up the top-ranking priests and shut down a local temple of some troublesome foreign cult, you pretty much nipped it in the bud. But with Roman Christians in the third century, say, it didn’t work. You could nab the bishop and there would be thirty guys ready to be the next bishop. And they primarily gathered and worshipped in private houses, so there was no geographical focus like a big prominent temple to close down. It’s why such persecutions as there were, probably few, were ineffective or even counter-productive, given the enthusiasm for violent death in the name of the faith that you note.
feralboy12:
But what about the menz?
Richard:
It’s all part of the same clusterfuck, IMHO. All of that super pink princess shit makes me want to throttle everyone.
Mr Ed @ 34
The day my daughter was born I looked at her little body and though some day she will be able cook and clean for a man and produce his of spring. Can’t get any better than that.”
You think you jest! There’s a passage exactly like that quoted in Quiverfull – some preacher holds his infant daughter and imagines her millions of descendents. Yes really.
Hmmm, no swimsuit collection, too bad. Wicked Weasel could use a little competition.
Century? You are off by a factor of 10.
What millennium are they from?
They sell pastel pink BB guns…
Ugh. The whole concept makes me spew.
There’s nothing wrong with a person of either gender being a good host and housekeeper, but there’s something very wrong with telling women that this is their one true path.
And so some wily e coyote-level supergenius at this horrid site has played the internet equivilent of welcoming the lions to eat them!
‘Cos it’ll boost their ratings! You get it? Us atheists is helping them thar Xians that we mock! Every time our beastiness tears their cyber-flesh, they are exalted further!
It’s impossible to dislike and disrespect people like this more than I do right now. They’d find out just how much of a fantasy their silly Jesus is if they were able to directly threaten me or mine.
It’s good to know that there is a difference between being dead and being dead.
The Albigensian genocide might not have beein too sporting but it was thorough. It’s estimated that 1 million people died and the RCC killed every last one of them.
One of the Catholics and other xians charming customs was public execution, burning people at the stake. Later on they started hanging people instead.
I am really sorry but I really, really want one.
This seems to be mostly oogedy boogedy religious fanatasy.
Statistically the fundies look worse than the general population. These girls most likely have a high chance of;
1.Getting divorced. The fundie divorce rate is the same as the US one. About 1/3-1/2 of all marriages end in divorce.
2. They have a higher rate of teenage pregnancy and abortion than normal people.
3. Being abused or in a home where the children are sexually abused. Fundies have higher rates of those social problems than the general population.
4. Being poor. These days jobs are scarce and good jobs scarcer. Even two income families are struggling. Fundies score lower on socioeconomic scales too.
Although the news isn’t all bad. There is an exodus of people from US xianity and some of those girls will find out they have a brain, use it, and run like hell. The lifetime rate of people born in the JW’s leaving that horrible cult is over 50%.
raven #94
This isn’t hanging out with your friends drinking beer dead, Spartacus, this is little tiny pieces being swept up by the janitor dead, and I don’t think you’re ready for that.
I get it! Those are the people missing from Thomas Kinkade’s paintings.
I looked at the picture, did an inexact count, and determined that in half an hour the score will be:
Lions 20
Christians 0
Indeed! I remeber the Fractured Fairy Tales version of Androles and the Lion, where the expected turned out: they ran up the game score: Lions 1 Christians 0.
This site gave me the shits so I promply printed out a few pages and went to the toilet.
I put it to the same use one can put a few torn out pages from Creation magazine.
From QI:
‘Name the teams at the Colosseum in Ancient Rome. (Forfeit: Lions v Christians) There is no evidence that any Christians were thrown to the lions in a colosseum. Among punishments given to Christians were being forced by Nero to make torches on the Appian Way.’
Ref ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QI_%28C_series%29
I showed the site to both my daughters. In short both of them described the content as utter and complete crap. How could my wife and I screw up so bad? Raising 2 girls to have brains and ambition (history for one and sports medicine for the other). Gawd may not be pleased but Ceiling Cat could be I hope.
I can’t go to that page it would spoil my margarita…but all I could think from the descriptions is, where have I heard this all before? Oh, yeah: Taliban.
girls stay at home…check
girls gotta wear the burka/uniform (in Utah it used to be and probably still is prairie skirts and braids)…check
girls don’t need no education…check
etc. nauseum (or whatever the ending should be…Latin nazis :-)
Go Tigers! and Lions!
Kathryn Joyce’s “Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement” goes very in depth on these psychos. It’s a compelling, wonderfully-written, and terrifying book. I’m re-reading it, and it disgusts me at every turn. Quiverfull is one really fucked up movement.
Is there ANY mainstream concept of femininity that doesn’t include servitude as beauty? I am very familiar with what the sinful godless world of showbusiness feeds little girls these days, and it really isn’t that much better.
The passages that lead to and from auditorium seating in Roman aremas were the “vomitoriums.” I hereby declare a new unit of measurement in light of that tidbit of information: a vomitim is the volume of vomit, measured in shoe-units, something inspires.
The contents of this site made me want to vomit; estimated volume of such expression I estimate at roughly 6 shoes-worth.
Note: While I find both women as servants and as “princesses” repelling, at the very least, princesses aren’t being trained to servitude.
Ray @98 OH MY gHOD! You’re RIGHT!!! Kinkade’s crap is PERFECT for this mindset!
Gosh, “Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution I” – and they have a giraffe on the front! Are they serious? Are they sane?
“Vision Forum and their ilk are poison – but in the homeschool community their influence is great.”
Not really – the VF/ATI/ ‘Quiverfull’ people have their own raving corner of the homeschool movement, their own conferences, their own events, etc…but they have little or no influence on secular homeschoolers, liberal-christian homeschoolers, pagan homeschoolers, unschoolers of various types, etc. Their biggest ‘in’ in HS is really via the HSLDA. HSLDA is an extreme right-wing advocacy group, which presents itself as a needed ‘legal defense fund’ for all homeschooling families, even though the fine print makes it clear that they will not defend most families who pay their exhorbitant legal fees, and that they divert a lot of the ‘defense’ money to their pet wingnut causes. Many homeschool families are frightened into joining HSLDA, and that gives them – and their extreme views – way more power to claim to speak for all homeschoolers than they should actually have. That’s the scary stuff.
VF/ATI’s main influence is actually outside the homeschooling community, via the Duggar family (devoted members of VF, got to ATI events, etc.), who Discovery have made mainstream celebrities. Most viewers only see the very edited vision of ATI their show presents (one episode a year is devoted to attending ATI conferences), and see their multiple product placements for ATI products, without any indication of how extreme ATI really is. The Duggars are their best propaganda.
THe best place to find out more about VF/ATI/Quiverfull from former insiders (as well as laugh yourself sick) is undoubtedly the amazing http://www.freejinger.org
And there was one poor lion didn’t have a Christian. :-(
Here’s the story of a gal whose parents raised her and her 12 siblings using Vision Forum curriculum and ideals:
The Beautiful Girlhood Doll by Libby Anne
http://nolongerquivering.com/nlqstories/libby-anne/
I especially love the conclusion of the series in which Libby declares: I’m a Person, Not a Doll!
Libby is now an atheist and blogs at Love, Joy, Feminism
http://lovejoyfeminism.blogspot.com/
Also, here’s a website exposing Vison Forum for homeschoolers:
http://rethinkingvisionforum.wordpress.com/
If they view her sexuality as somehow her father’s property that makes it WAY creepier. Ick. (SkepticalPixie @56)
Just to be clear: I don’t think every father who signs up for Purity Balls or this Christian Girlhood stuff molests his daughter (in fact, I’m sure the vast majority of them are really trying to be good dads, even if it’s in a profoundly small-minded way).
But you can see what a gold-mine this way of life is for the man who does. His daughter interacts less with the outside world, he can control her view of how fathers are supposed to behave, and it offers him a pillar-of-virtue disguise with which to dampen suspicion. If he can con her mother into home-schooling, the daughter’s resulting social isolation and invisibility to school authorities or other mandated reporters facilitate his abuse and decrease his risk.
@Vyckie:
Thanks for those links. I read Libby Anne’s story and it was so sad.
PZ, Vision Forum is a major purveyor of creationist bullshit. For some homeschooling fundie families, Vision Forum “documentaries” like The Mysterious Island are the only science education the children will have.
It would be amazing if you would look at some of their material and give it an online critique. Some of the kids who have online access might stumble across it and have their eyes opened.
Seriously. The “girl” toy aisle at Toys “R” Us makes me want to burn the place down. It’s shelves upon shelves of completely worthless items, all designed to atrophy the brain and kill all self-confidence (apart from one’s ability to clean and breed, of course).
But you’re right – they are part of the same problem. We are, after all, a “christian nation” – tainted on all levels by their excremental beliefs. It’s not an accident that all cleaning product commercials are still mom cleaning up after a family – with daughter helping! It’s not an accident that we raise them as “princesses” – as opposed to real-world, actually useful professions.
Its enough to make one want to avoid breeding at all costs.
Comments @ 5 and 15:
The christians (and jews, and Osiris worshippers etc.) were persecuted from early days, but it was not until the “philosopher emperor” Marc Aurelius that christians were thrown to the lions. Burning christians alive on stakes started during the reign of Nero a century earlier.
Rome was never a “free” society, prisoners that upset the order were sometimes thrown from the Tarpeic cliff, sometimes strangled (this is what Caesar did to Vercingetorix), beheaded and so on.
That women (and sometimes men) were raped before being killed can be taken for granted, even if this has not been recorded in written history. Torture was ubiquitous, and the Romans were always on the lookout for more horrible ways of killing people (crucifiction was originally a Persian execution method).
It is ironically proper that the Third Reich and the communist architects both looked to Roman ruins for inspiration for their monumental architecture.
— — — — — — — —
“related to a promise made to her father”
…this raises a lot of red flags.
The text has “cult” written all over it.
Child sex abuse is high in “conservative” religious families. According to the statistics, it’s the second highest predictor behind drug and alcohol abuse.
All the patriarchial cult religions have problems with child sexual abuse. Everyone knows about the Catholics, the Mormons and JW’s have the same problem.
Not every Christian supports this stuff. Actually some of us who are Bible believing Christians are warning about Vision Forum and groups like it. Dominionism as a whole is a great evil. They are deceiving and selling more a “lifestyle” with Christian labels marketing a control matrix for politicians and the powers that be to use and abuse, then anything that actually comes from the Bible.
http://galatiansfour.blogspot.com/2010/12/duggars-bill-gothard-vision-forum-and.html
http://galatiansfour.blogspot.com/2011/01/politics-and-christian-deceit-of-this.html
Odd that Vision Forum has pictures of Christians being thrown to the lions when they are joined with the modern “Rome” at the hip…desiring the marriage of church and state.
With the girls, and all the rhetoric there, explore the patriarchy movement which is non biblical as well, scary stuff, even to Christians. [Notice others here have posted about it] Vision Forum, the Duggars and others are part of it. These men want total control and obedience, this is about the abuse of power not about Christianity.
The Bible warns of the churches falling away in the last days, they definitely have.
“Women submit to your husbands”
Seriously, you’re disgusting.
@Biblebeliever:
Sorry to say, but their beliefs are a lot more in line with the actual Biblical texts.
Yeah, that line will convince atheists that they have a common cause with you.
First part is true, second part is not. Control and obedience to patriarch is christianity in a nutshell.
Don’t call yourself “biblebeliever” if you’ve never bothered to read the whole thing.
I don’t know where you are in the homeschooling world, but where I am, the unschoolers, pagans, liberal christians, secular, etc. do not constitute the “homeschooling community.” The conservative Christians ARE the community. We have exactly two homeschooling families in our immediate community who are not seriously conservative Christian types, and we live 20 miles from Capitol Hill. We know people who teach their daughters that Jebus will be in bed with them on their wedding day, along with hubby and any former sex partners, so if you want the Speshul Jebus Sexytime, you might want to limit the number of sex partners to Jebus and hubby. Who teach their sons that they should not be around girls at all until they are ready to get married, and that friendships or even collegial work relationships are impossible between men and women. All the horrid Vision Forum crap, in other words.
And don’t even get me started on HSLDA – what a bunch of bullying toe-rags.
Might be because you are near the south.
On the west coast, new agers and pagans outnumber the fundies, who aren’t all that common.
The statistics are all over the place on this but a good consensus would be less than half are oogedy boogedy religious kooks nationwide.
I always wonder when I see “cited religion as a factor”. Just how specific are those questions? I can imagine a situation where I would homeschool and “cite religion as a factor” — if I lived somewhere where crazy Jebus freaks took over the school and the only way to remove my kids from religious indoctrination/persecution were to homeschool them.
What’s interesting about these “Quiverfull” guys in particular is that while they vehemently disagree with the existence of evolution, they’re tremendously concerned (as in, it’s their defining characteristic as a group) with their reproductive success. Much moreso than ordinary Christianity, which explicitly encourages altruism (and unless you’re laying down your life for more than two brothers, or more than four cousins, it’s not going to increase your fitness very well).
Answering that religion is a factor in one’s decision to homeschooling tells you nothing at all about the family’s religious affiliations. I would say that religion is a factor in my decision to homeschool, since I don’t want my Jewish-atheist kids in a predominantly conservative Christian public school system being told that they’re going to hell because they’re not Christian, told that their Yu-Gi-Oh cards are demonic and should be burned, etc. (all by the other kids, of course, so it’s a-ok!). A lot of secular homeschoolers answer the question the same way, and for similar reasons. (Yes, the homeschooling listservs are full of discussions about the problems with how this question is worded.) Similarly, many Christian homeschoolers don’t want to be seen to be one of “those” sorts of homeschoolers, even if they use some of the same materials – I suspect there’s quite a problem with social desirability bias in that particular survey.
Also, most of the United States is more similar to rural Maryland than to Northern California. There are a lot of us secular progressive non-crazy homeschoolers out there, but I’d never say that the crazy Christian versions are a minority.
I wish the world had fewer loons in it…
From what I gathered from reading accounts of women “recuperating” from Quiverfull childhood, given in post #111, I think they want to have as many children as possible to please God.
..And I even found a passage from Libby Anne’s recounting of her life (linky):
On the contrary; in many cases they appear to enable it.
It’s more the USA than the world, at least in percentage of loons.
I know the feeling. I’m getting real tired of living in a lunatic asylum.
If I wasn’t a rooted Boomer, I’d be seriously thinking of leaving the country. While I can and have survived living surrounded by more and more fruitbat crazies, why should I settle for just living in a loony bin?
Child sex abuse is high in “conservative” religious families. According to the statistics, it’s the second highest predictor behind drug and alcohol abuse. (raven @ 117)
No surprise. One consistent effect of that sex-is-the-worst-and-scariest-thing-in-the-universe-and-it-makes-Jesus-cry-when-you-even-think-about-it upbringing is that people come out of it completely unprepared to deal with sex in any responsible or rational way. This takes a lot of forms, but one is: if you think all non-marital sex is irredeemably immoral, the moral differences between, say, doing it before you’re married and doing it to a 10-year-old just aren’t going to register as clearly as they should.
Another: kids think whatever their parents do is normal. These patriarchal religions having built a milieu where the adults believe that sex is the most horrific thing ever–only meant for making babies–you can assume the wives are generally going to be unenthusiastic and judgmental about it (just like they were trained to be). Who’s not going to be judgmental? Why, the family members who think everything daddy does is normal.
Vision Forum truly is a “bible-believing ministry.” Whatever is written in scripture is “biblical” – which is why Quiverfull families are beginning to practice polygamy ~ and the scary part about that is the emphasis on the father/daughter relationship can and does lead to sexually incestuous relationships.
I realize that sounds extremely far-fetched. My concern with regard to QF families and incest is based partially on personal experience, but more so on the actual teachings which are becoming more frequent and are going unchallenged among the prominent leaders of the movement.
For instance, Voddie Baucham, whose “Family Driven Faith” materials are promoted by Vision Forum, is an up-and-coming pastor/teacher in Quiverfull circles. Baucham has a video series on Biblical Womanhood which is available on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qljgjT2Q4-g ~ particularly between 2:08 – 2:21, Voddie states that middle-aged men have a need for the attention of younger women ~ and God has anticipated and provided for this need by placing teenaged daughters in their homes. When the daughters are not giving their fathers their attention (either because they are going to college or are involved in a dating relationship), then it is no surprise to discover that daddy is having an affair with his secretary. Voddie has not retracted, apologized or attempted to clarify his statement. His teaching is not atypical among promoters of “biblical family values.”
NancyNew:
No, girls are just being trained that they’re worthless unless they’re pretty and they’re pleasing to men. Which is every fucking bit as awful as being a servant (and, quite frankly, will probably lead them down the path of servitude. Gotta keep the menz happy, afterall).
It also teaches girls inaction. Most of the princess model I’ve seen emphasize that girls should just be and they’ll be rewarded, which causes them to avoid using their ability. It’s actually a very old and tired gender role that should done away.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paper_Bag_Princess
Chigau,
Looks awesome, but most pretty pretty pink princesses don’t wear paper bags or save their princes or fight dragons…
… That was your point, wasn’t it?
Audley
I just think there should be more of the warrior-type.
I also love the story.
Chigau,
Oh, I love the warrior type, too. :D
US xianity is redefining itself as a social problem.
Polls from NYT/CNN/CBS show that the most hated groups in society are Moslems, atheists, fundie xians, and the Tea Party.
Vision Forum is the future of the US xian religion. Weird cults in out of the way places, torturing their women and children, and widely considered socially dysfunctional. Much like the FLDS which they closely resemble. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Mormon polygamists had a lot of influence here.
Pink BB-guns! Pfaugh! In the world of any gun, what role does pink play other than to convey a very stereotypical (or at the least, frivolous) message? Yes, there are also “real” handguns & long guns which are partially or even all pink. And pink ammo, too! But in hunting or in self-defense, function is everything and “making a statement” is an ill-considered move in either scenario. In a hunting situation, a conspicuous color is a disadvantage to the hunter. In a self-defense situation, a conspicuously pink firearm actually increases the shooter’s vulnerability by raising the level of visibility. Furthermore, a pink firearm could be easily be construed by a prosecuting attorney (or even the investigating authorities) as a deliberately provocative element(this has happened). Prosecuting attorneys have turned even so subtle an element as hand-loading one’s own ammunition for self-defense carry into a deliberately provocative act, and sometimes to the otherwise-legal shooter’s disadvantage. Adding what could easily be turned against the gun owner is an additional problem the law-abiding citizen does not need in our accusatory culture. A gun is either a hunting/competitive device or a tool of last resort. It ought not be considered a fashion statement.
To what extent?
Biblebeliever… I don’t think the bible says what you think it says. Certainly not as a whole. You also shouldn’t really find this surprising given it was written by a patriarchy.
I’m sure you can cut and paste the nice bits. But taken as a whole, the bible is massively misogynistic. Sit down with the entire thing, start at the beginning and every time a woman is mentioned check whether it heals or hurts.
To get you started, blaming Eve for God’s hissy fit punishment to EVERY creature because of her curiosity.
If she had just done as she was told, everything would have been fine and they could have continued to live vapid, dull lives as toys to amuse their creator.
biblebeliver,
“In the last days” is an empty catch-phrase.
Vyckie – it doesn’t sound far-fetched at all – FLDS, the Amish – it’s not all that rare.
Lions and tigers (oh my)? I’m not sure that’s entirely biblical.
Did they have a band playing the Benny Hill theme?
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