Ophelia has posted the creepiest explanation of Biblical marriage ever. This is apparently an explanation from some devout Baptist man about his absolute dominance over the woman he is poking with his penis; she has no say at all in anything, by this account.
As Bible-believing Baptists who hold to reformed theology, X and I believe that God is sovereign in choosing who will or will not believe in him, having chosen his people before the foundation of the world (see Ephesians 1), and that his selection is unbreakable and irresistible. If marriage is to mirror this principle, we believe that a woman has no right to select a husband for herself, but that she is to be chosen by a man and marriage is to be an unbreakable arrangement between the man and her father. Based on this reasoning, we have shunned a standard proposal and wedding ceremony, because if I had asked her to marry me (which I did not) then I would have given her the decision to marry me rather than selecting her and taking her myself. Furthermore, if we had exchanged conventional marriage vows, our union would have been based on X’s will and consent, which are not Biblical factors for marriage or salvation. Instead, I asked X’s father for his blessing in taking her hand in marriage. When he gave his blessing, X and I considered ourselves to be unbreakably betrothed in the sight of God. While we had initially intended to consummate our marriage after today’s symbolic ceremony, we instead did so secretly after private scripture reading, prayer, and mutual foot-washing.
Why does he even bother to say “we”, as in “we believe that a woman has no right to select a husband for herself”? It doesn’t matter what she thinks.
If it was/is all predestined, what was the point of even asking X’s father for permission? It was already a done deal, just cut to the consummation.
Hmm, how long before some ass uses that approach as exoneration on a rape charge? “Yer honor, god planned it, so I could only follow orders”
If she has no right to give consent to marriage, then she surely has no right to give consent to sex. Ergo, everytime they have sex he will be raping her.
I’m wondering how divorce works, in the inevitability that your husband turns out to be, well, less than Christ-like. Actually, I’m kinda not, because I’m pretty sure what happens is, if you successfully get out of the house, your husband and the Babble-Believin’ Baptists shun/harass the crap out of you to forgive, forget, and return to your rightful position under
God’syour husband’s thumb. This stuff is a recipe for lifelong abuse, and I am always at a loss to think of what can be done for women in this unenviable position.Poe’s Law strikes again.
Sorry, there should have been really big obvious quotes around “Christ-like.”
Do Baptists allow divorce at all? I mean, Catholics don’t, and neither does the New Testament.
This part made me laugh: “Based on this reasoning,”
I’m sorry, what reasoning?!
A modest bet says the wife was under the age of consent. Perhaps by enough years to put this evil, twisted piece of trash into prison for a considerable period.
And her father in for a reasonable one.
The Bible: the go-to place to justify your perversions.
Depends on what you mean by “allow” and what you mean by “Baptist,” as far as I remember. I know that’s not helpful, but I think there’s a pretty broad spectrum of beliefs among Baptists, and while divorce is obviously technically/legally possible for all Baptists in the U.S. (as far as I know), they may do varying degrees of shunning and shaming in response to it. [Heavy disclaimer: this comes from my “general knowledge,” which is spotty] I think for most of them it’s considered okay in cases of severe abuse and infidelity, but you’re not supposed to marry other people.
Actually, I’m of the impression that he has completely deluded him self. I read the entire letter and quite honestly, I believe she gave an implicit consent to marriage. Think about it, the letter is an explanation to their loved ones. My prediction: They discussed that belief beforehand and she knew it would come. She would’ve left him before letting it actually happen the way he believes it happened.
I think she knew he would do it and said nothing because she wanted the marriage and is as much of a faith-head as he is.
Alternative theory: Her father tells her to jump and she asks how high. Due to her lifelong brainwashing that that was her role in life.
This is the States? Islam has nothing over this one.
However, it is fornication to have sex before marraige which is a sin, and then you are marrying an impure/unclean? woman, aren’t you?
I have met devout christian women that were very promiscuous and they justified have many partners over the span of a year or two as being married in god’s eyes. So I’m wondering if foot washing is in fact an act of marraige in god’s damn eyes?
So marriage = slavery.
Ya gotta love these guys. They’re worried that gays freely choosing to marry of their own free will would corrupt the “sanctity” of marriage, while at the same time treating their own marriages as antagonistic slave/master relationships. No wonder the religious nuts have a higher divorce rate. Hopefully this guy’s wife will dump his medieval ass and get with a guy who respects her.
And then there’s this…
Ewww ewww ewww! Scripture and foot-washing before sex? My penis is recoiling in terror at the thought of it.
There’s not enough Axe body spray in the universe to cover up the stench of such a passage.
“recipe for lifelong abuse” – you hit the nail on the head. What happens when your husband is a molester/abuser/you-name-it and you file for divorce? You are the one who is “destroying the family”. It’s sick, and the sad thing is that there are people who otherwise appear (somewhat) rational who actually believe this stuff.
I think the typeface says it all, really.
If you go to Ophelia’s blog, which is linked above, she has a lot of links from the Love, Joy, Feminism blog, which is written by a survivor of a Christian Patriarchy family. Along with the brokendaughters blog, it’s got a lot of insights into how girls are raised in preparation for this sort of marriage. Tragic, honestly.
Silly you, In the Bible there is no rape in marriage, no need for consent.
/shudder
Thats creepy as fuck to write and unfortunately people and the law are fucking slow when it comes to rape in relationships even today. It’s fucking sad.
Can someone explain to me why the brain gets dirtier after brain-washing?
Creepier yet: What happens to their daughter(s)?
When he gave his blessing, X and I considered ourselves to be unbreakably betrothed in the sight of God.
B/c I’m unfamiliar with the word “unbreakably” and b/c every part of my brain had given over to screaming in pain, I read the above as “unbearably betrothed.”
It’s the royal “we,” of course.
Living where I do, I’d say this is plausible.
But I’d prefer to know that David M is right. Come on… foot washing? This has got to be a poe. Besides, it’s written in such good English.
Only, you know, in a modernist legal sense, which infused with the dread feminism and humanism. In his little world, her body became his when they married. Just like a slave, she cannot consent because she is property. You can’t rape a thing that belongs to you.
If this is for real, does it mean he will only get laid if “she” has no choice in the matter?
And cag wins the thread on the 18th comment.
*shudder*
Wow. If “X” has any self-worth at all, money says the two of them will be divorced in 2 years. Unless she has some kind of submission fetish, no one can take that kind of smothering domination.
Considering these sorts tend to believe that good women (the ones you marry) have no sexual desire at all, I doubt the possibility of her consenting would ever enter this dude’s head.
Even if she does, she’ll probably find it awfully hard to function in an environment where her consent does not matter.
You are correct. I’ve been in Baptist churches that didn’t care at all about divorce, ones that didn’t allow divorcees to hold positions of authority in the church, and ones that literally shunned a divorced person who then started living with her new fiancee. And those were all Southern Baptist, not even branching into all of the other varieties.
Wait, what was that up there?
*attacks MAJeff with a tackle hug*
Nice to see you!
Just the way God intended: Goodbye Earl! (He’ll know his own, as the saying goes.)
It varies. Some congregations are very rigidly against divorce, and for some, to quote from our good friend Wikipedia, “Some Baptists interpret scripture to prohibit a divorced individual from serving as a pastor or deacon under any circumstances, or even one who married a divorcée. Other Baptists believe that the issue is monogamy, not divorce. In between are those who accept divorces which took place before conversion, or which resulted from the infidelity, abuse, or abandonment by the other spouse.”
Sometimes it isn’t treated consistently within a congregation. In the town where I went to high school (I won’t say “my home town”, because I don’t consider it to be) there was an ugly example; a woman who was a member of one of the local Baptist churches divorced her husband and expected to remain a member of that church. There were other divorced members of the congregation (though not many), but a majority of the members “voted her off of the island”, citing the divorce as the reason (and ignoring the implied hypocrisy), but in reality it was more because she was not popular, and her ex was, so they…did him a little favor.
–
@16
http://nolongerquivering.com/ is also a “nice” website that will show you what sites like above rubies mean when they use certain words etc.
Today i’ve been searching info about smallpox, so i was allready trying to crawl out of my own skin, but this idiot made it worse…
One of the precipitating events that finally got me out of church altogether was that the church I was in did exactly that. It was a messy divorce between two church members, the church elders heard the one side of the story, and literally from the pulpit told the congregation to not have anything to do with the husband, ever, until he repented and apologized and came crawling back to his wife.
Not sure why you say that. If anything, I’d say it’s evidence that it’s real, because it’s not somehting that a parodist would be likely to stick in. A friend of mine in college had grown up as some kind of Christian in Texas, and even though he’d given up religion by then, was so used to ritually washing his feet at night that he always did it no matter what. The bit about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet is important to the gospel narrative in establishing his “humbleness” (ignoring his arrogance elsewhere, of course).
Of course, when you’re walking around barefoot in a place with little rain and no sewers, your feet tend to be a little less than peachy clean…
I need a shower. *whimper*
One wonders if the happy bride was of marrying age, doesn’t it?
Let the games begin!!
Attention Ann Coulter: your personal plans may be subject to change per God’s selection of your husband! Be prepared for trailer park living!
Aside from a creep, I’d say the man is also a heretic. Nothing defined Jesus in the context of his times more clearly (aside from the miracles, etc) than his revolutionary treatment of women in a positive way, as Jesus Seminarian Walter Wink put it:
“In every single encounter with women in the 4 Gospels, Jesus violated the mores of his time . . . his behavior towards women . . . was without parallel in ‘civilized’ societies since the rise of patriarchy roughly 3000 years before his birth.”
Rodney Stark argues that the early church prospered in part because women were given MORE freedom to marry, and later, than Roman women in general, and were not forced to undergo dangerous abortions by their menfolk.
So this character is more than a little retro. With a little encouragement, he might even reinvent footbinding, or sati, or go the Joe Smith route and stash a harem upstairs.
The Bible, I think, would have very little to do with that innovation, either.
Huzzah! David Marshall is here to explain that this person is no true christian. If only the rest of us would believe in his god, we would all be intellectually advanced enough to know this.
Depends what church he belongs to. I divorced my abusive ex over his protests that nothing I did would “work” because a civil divorce wouldn’t “count” because marriages in the sight of God weren’t subject to divorce.
Haven’t seen him in over 15 years. :D
Marshall, you moron, go read that creepy misogynist Paul. You’re doing the same thing the wretched guy in that marriage apologetic was doing: justifying a relationship by invoking your interpretation of the words of a magic man in the sky rather than on your mutual humanity.
I find you just as contemptible.
The only non-true Xian here is David Marshall. Always trying to decide who the true Xian or not. Somehow, his inane and insane prejudices seem to be the dividing line. What a fuckwitted liar and bullshitter.
Hear! Hear!
David Marshall
Nothing defines jesus’ followers more than their ability to invoke jesus to support every stupid idea that occurs to them. Every christian is a heretic from the perspective of most other christians, and I can’t see how it is in any way relevant.
The important thing is that women are humans, and no reasonable standard of ethics would have them treated as though they were less than that.
DBM, until you can prove your imaginary deity really exists with solid and conclusive physical evidence (none presented to date), and show us a recent signed letter from said deity giving you permission to make who is and isn’t a Xian, all self professed Xians are Xians, period, end of story. It doesn’t matter what a liar and bullshitter like you says, period, end of story. To be a truth teller requires real solid and conclusive physical evidence. Evidence you know you don’t have. Ergo, time to lurk at another blog, showing your abject idiocy there. We have your number.
Andrew T @ 26
You might be surprised how long women can stay in abusive situations when they believe he will kill them if they leave. And most battered women who are killed, are killed when they try to leave. Staying with him might mean staying alive.
Nobody’s old enough for that sort of marriage.
Classical Cipher is right, Ophelia Benson has a LOT of material on the psychological training they inflict on girls in order to make them susceptible to this sort of abuse. It really is sickening. I can only take but so much of it.
PZ: Outside of your own field, you can be not a “moron” (it would be dishonest to question your intelligence), but to get technical, something of a fool. You may not like it, you may remain intently ignorant of the data from which I draw this conclusion, but it is simply a fact (IMO) that the life and teachings of Jesus have done more to help more women in history than anything else:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5071813&postID=638034196719495279
Deal with the evidence, not just the little slice you like to highlight to make your points. There’s a flood of historical and sociological data, in those five posts. I didn’t make it up. I don’t expect you to like it, but if you’re half the feminist you claim, you ought to give “the devil,” (ie, Jesus and not a few of his followers) his due.
As for “contemptible,” well, feel what you like, as long as you get your facts straight.
So all along all I had to do was find me a good baptist girl and order her to marry me? All that wasted effort!
*catches breath*
Howdy. I’m just wandering around, popping in here and there from time to time. :)
If it was all pre-ordained by G~d, then he knew that Job was going to pass the tests and just f***ed with him because he’s a evil son-of-a-b*tch.
Talk about worthy of worship.
“Deal with the evidence”!
Spoken by a Xian!
[cue a Danny Thomas spit-take]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaha!
Pull the other one!
And he DOES!
“…the life and teachings of Jesus have done more to help more women in history than anything else…”
All those witchess shriek out in agreement! From amid the flames; from the graves they are being interred alive; from the gibbets; even from beneath the waters they have been cast while bound.
And that’s just for starters!
One day the truth will breaak through that simpering mask you’ve pasted onto your face and reveal a pale, horridly-failed excuse for a human being.
What amazed me the last time I slogged through the NT is how little Jesus appears, and how lame and contradictory everything he allegedly said or did was, much less the nonsense about Easter!
The only possibly insightful comment he ever made was, “Father! Why have you forsaken me!” A fictional character who finally figured it out.
Now, fuck off.
Err what? Something is a fact in your opinion? Isn’t that kind of the opposite of what a fact is?
Yeah who needs silly old things like women’s suffrage or research into uterine or cervical cancer when you have jesus, eh?
I’d love to use this in some of my discussions, but there are too many ‘via via via-s’ that eventually lead to a link that leads nowhere .. no source whatsoever.
This might as well be some made-up shit, poe or otherwise.
Does ANYone have a somewhat plausible link to a more or less reliable resource for this?
I mean, I’d LOVE to quote a deeply religious baptist who insists that marriage is NOT between a man and a woman. (But between a man and some’body’-s father)
We’ve read the babble fuckwit, and know it is book of mythology fiction, unlike you, who presupposes it isn’t. That makes you an abject loser, as the evidence says it’s nothing but fairy tales. Show us solid and conclusive evidence for your imaginary deity, or shut the fuck up like a man of honor and integrity would do…
Perhaps this is just an attempt to be the next poster couple for a ChristianMingle ad. They say they are working to find god’s match for you, and Baptistman took them attheir word.
This reminds me of a culture conflict in California’s Central Valley a decade or two ago. A population of Hmong has grown, and is being assimilated. Unfortunately, Americanized Hmong young ladies are occasionally subjected to “old world” marriage customs which are indistinguishable from kidnapping and rape from an outside observer’s viewpoint. The Americanized young ladies would complain to the sheriff and Social Services, and “But we’ve always done it that way” from the males didn’t really help.
This Baptist freak is just a creepy savage. It’s strange how many so-called Christians pay more attention to the barbarian parts of Old Testament than to the New Testament.
Naw. Jesus/god is just a sockpuppet. He wants you to have what you want and hates who you hate.
This guy’s sockpuppet wants him to have a mindless slave for a a wife. Well, whatever.
We know what is wrong with him. He likes to enslave people. What in the hell is wrong with this wife. Assuming she even exists. Got to remember fundies always lie about everything. This could just be fundie xian porn from some loser living in mom’s basement.
I’d like to point out to Truthful Heretic @ 7: Reasoning and reasonable are not the same thing.
The idea that women are just as sinful and just as able to be redeemed as are men is just so liberating. So much better than being educated, not being property and having a life outside of bearing children and keeping a household. Too fucking bad that your messiah did not advocate for those ideas.
Women like Emma Goldman did more to help the plight of women.
What do you expect from me, I lack the faith that allows myths to become facts.
It’s not that the marriage itself is between a man and some woman’s father, it’s that the contract transferring possession of the chattel is between the two men-folk; “marriage” is a descriptive term for the relationship between the new owner and said chattel after the contract is executed.
–
Janine: “So much better than being educated, not being property and having a life outside of bearing children and keeping a household. Too fucking bad that your messiah did not advocate for those ideas.”
He did, all three, clearly, unambiguously, and repeatedly. See Part V, and get a grip.
Hurin: In case you overlooked the fact, this thread is (notionally) about “biblical marriage.” I didn’t introduced the topic.
It is telling that he refers to her as X: X the unknown quantity, X the unidentified, X the cipher, her identity ‘X-punged’, since he doesn’t really care, and probably doesn’t know, anything about her true thoughts and feelings. Or maybe people like that should be subjects for the X-Files, since their reasoning belongs on some other planet. If she’s smart she’ll soon be ‘X’ as in ‘ex-wife’.
My guess is that this guy will be the next John Wayne Bobbit, and if he’s lucky she’ll kill him first.
am i the only one who couldn’t get to the link in #50?
Ew. I’m going to go take a hot shower, now.
Some concepts just make calm li’l me want to hit and hit and hit and hit and hit.
I would think everyone would agree the mutual foot-washing part would be cool, except Wes #12, whose penis is recoiling in terror.
haven’t done a lot of foot “washing” but have done quite a bit of foot rubbing especially just after a (now former :( ) significant other came home from hospital.
And tangential I know but.. the ex wife is moving back to town, i’m ambivalent.
David
No you assclown, its primarily about the mistreatment of women, and secondarily about the fact that religion is being used to justify it. If you needed a clue that it wasn’t intended to be a forum for idiots to bray about the best way to interpret a fairytale I would think this should have been it:
Does that make sense?
The point is that if you start with the notion that women and men have equal humanity you can’t reasonably come to the conclusion that a woman is a piece of chattel that a perspective husband should bargain for with a prior owner.
What kind of woman would be so self-hating that she would agree to this?
She might as well have a barcode tattooed to her forehead
and tie a “For Sale–As Is” label to her wrist.
I’m sorry, but there is no way this is not parody.
Ish not me!
:P
But, more seriously, if you go to the original letter, you’ll notice that the woman’s name is present but blacked out, likely to protect the poor woman, who’s already got enough on her plate without some creepy interneters too.
Gah! No. Everybody can just… stay away from my feet.
Likely, lifetime of psychological abuse in the name of training up a broodmare for Jebus.
If I were you, I’d ask Rebecca for the source. Don’t know why you’d think Pharyngula’d have it if we’re posting a bunch of “via”s.
72 and 73, please see both the links in my comment 16 and the resources compiled by Ophelia about Christian Patriarchy. In the light of these people’s philosophy and lifestyles, first of all, the letter seems twistedly, horribly plausible to me, and second, it’s hard to feel anything but compassion for such women. Women raised in these movements haven’t been given a chance to think of themselves as worth anything, and the effects are horrendous even on women who have escaped.
I would LOVE to. But I do not have nor do I want a Google account. But I do have one fucking stupid question. How could all of this be clearly, unambiguously, and repeatedly and yet ignored for over fifteen hundred years?
Also, I have no fucking reason to accept this because I see no proof that there is a god and the there was a Jesus.
As for getting a grip, blow it out your fucking ass.
Janine: “So much better than being educated, not being property and having a life outside of bearing children and keeping a household. Too fucking bad that your messiah did not advocate for those ideas.”
He did, all three, clearly, unambiguously, and repeatedly. See Part V, and get a grip.
I’m not reading any blog post that is nothing more than you pulling the usual bullshit out of your gelatinous ass. All your after-the-fact rationalizations will not fly here, you lying sack of shit.
All of these unbelievers did more for women in just over a century than anything you Christards did in the 18 centuries previous:
Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin
Frances Wright
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
William Lloyd Garrison
Ernestine Rose, and, of course:
Susan B. Anthony. Every American woman who can vote, attend college, own her own property, and keep her children after a divorce owes all that to Susan B Anthony more than anyone who has ever lived, and certain more than your disgusting imaginary friend.
Fuck off, you lying piece of shit.
David
Since you ignored me before to trivially note that the word “bible” appeared in the OP, I’ll reassert the force of my first post. Yeah, you made it up. That is what you are doing when you are interpreting the bible. Making shit up. And every christian who does this makes different shit up, which is why if you have 5 randomly selected christians in a room, you probably have 7 different denominations. The shit you make up about jesus isn’t more convincing than the shit made up by the chauvanist in the OP. It isn’t even clear that jesus was a real person, so how could it be?
It is clear that christians exist, and have for roughly 2000 years. The societies that they have been in charge of have assigned second class citizenship to women, and have persecuted them for absurdities like “witchcraft”. The idea that jesus or christianity “has done more to help more women than anything else in history” is so laughable idiotic that it is hard to even know how to respond to it. If you can write something as stupid as that without being a bad satire act then it doesn’t seem very plausible that you can be reasoned with.
Finally, if you want to make arguments here then go ahead and make them. Here. I don’t want to lend your cesspit full of bible verses credibility by giving you a hit, and I doubt many other people who frequent this site do either.
“Why does he even bother to say “we”, as in “we believe that a woman has no right to select a husband for herself”?”
I just assumed he meant ‘we men’.
“While we had initially intended to consummate our marriage after today’s symbolic ceremony, we instead did so secretly after private scripture reading, prayer, and mutual foot-washing.”
We were going to do it right there in the aisle but when we saw all the people we got cold feet.
#79 Marie, that was my thought too: we as in “her dad and I, the ones who matter”.
parody or psychotic or both… either way it’s a nonstarter.
I’m gonna go with poe, the writing points to determinism which doesn’t coincide with traditional baptists, but as the writer qualifies “Baptists who hold to reformed theology.” Which is an odd way to put it. The Westboro Baptist Church is from a similar Calvinist tradition of predetermination and they don’t put it that way nor do other more mainstream Calvinists describe themselves in such an awkward way.
When hardcore believers quote the bible, they quote the bible and leave “the word”, they usually don’t leave a passage for people to look up.
the via, via, vias on the link reek of internet urban legend. and the overall writing is how do you say…? studied, pedantic, contrived? The best analogy I can come up with now is a modern band mimicking a 60’s sound. It has the style but lacks the substance, the authenticity.
Oh and it ends with mutual foot washing. Are you that fucking naive or so filled with righteous indignation not to see the poe through the raven?
parody or psychotic or both… either way it’s a nonstarter.
I’m gonna go with poe, the writing points to determinism which doesn’t coincide with traditional baptists, but as the writer qualifies “Baptists who hold to reformed theology.” Which is an odd way to put it. The Westboro Baptist Church is from a similar Calvinist tradition of predetermination and as nutty as they are they don’t put it that way nor do other more mainstream Calvinists describe themselves in such an awkward way.
When hardcore believers quote the bible, they quote the bible and leave “the word”, they usually don’t leave a passage for people to look up.
the via, via, vias on the link reek of internet urban legend. and the overall writing is how do you say…? studied, pedantic, contrived? The best analogy I can come up with now is a modern band mimicking a 60’s sound. It has the style but lacks the substance, the authenticity.
Oh and it ends with mutual foot washing. Are you that fucking naive or so filled with righteous indignation as not to see the poe through the raven?
blessed are the patient for they shall not post twice
I third the sentiment. We = her father and I.
UpAgainstTheRopes
I just want to point out that by definition it can’t be a Poe if it is clearly assignable as parody.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law
Yeah, this could be parody, but Poe’s law wouldn’t have caught on if it was easy to tell.
I’m going with Poe.
Some time ago I posted a comment here that was more or less along the same lines as this nonsense, and even in this sceptical crowd, a few took it at face value.
But that’s not why I’m calling Poe. I’m doing so because, if this guy is for real, there is no alternative to opening my veins in despair.
I fucking hate religion man, more and more everyday
An interesting statement.
Though I must say I think David Marshall’s historical statement, that early Christianity gained a great deal of its early appeal because it treated women well compared to the dominant Roman culture of the time, is broadly true.
Of course, Ancient Rome, as one of the most macho misogynistic cultures of all time, is a rather low bar.
Not to mention that Paul and his successors spent much of their ministries working to and largely succeeding in stamping out this early woman friendly version of the faith.
The fictional character of Jesus objectively did treat women rather well in the context of the time and place. But of course there actually isn’t any connection whatsoever between the modern practices of most versions of Christianity and anything that Jesus actually did or said.
“Death do us part” does give women one way out (well two, actually), and I think, historically, that way was used far more often than actually documented.
God and I decided I’ll gay-marry this man. No need to ask his consent.
Mutual foot washing? So we’ve been using the wrong body parts?
Are you kidding? In history? Jesus did better? No, absolutely not. And “fact in your opinion” is not fact. It’s your opinion, and you’re very wrong. Jesus might have treated women marginally better than they were treated by society at the time but they had no real rights or autonomy. And what little gains they made were quickly taken away per Titus and the two Timothys, plus other misogynistic rantings of Paul. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Mary Wollestonecraft and countless other women did much more than Jesus or his coven of apostles ever did for women. As far as Jesus, Paul, and his lot are concerned, when you’re downtrodden, any little crumb of tough, stringy meat tossed at you looks like prime rib.
Also, I think the letter in the original post is a fake. Poe. I think you’ve been trolled.
It’s simply a fact in my opinion that facts are fucking facts and opinions are opinions. Figure out the difference.
What my lovely co-royal neglected to mention is that at it’s base, jesus did nothing positive or negative because the schlub didn’t even exist.
On the other hand, jesus’ putative teachings are colored by the lens of whoever last wrote about them and whatever agenda they wished to push.
That’s how you get an AK-47 jesus and dino riding jesus alongside your feminist jesus.
Nah, the only typeface for this would be Gothic surely. I hope it is a Poe, I really do.
@Hurin
point noted.
Quoth the raven “Nevermore!”
mikmik says:
This is the States? Islam has nothing over this one.
The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference. That said, the legal theory in Islam clearly says consent is required and a woman absolutely has the right to arrange her own marriage.
don’t know if it’s already been done, don’t care….
MUST QUOTEMINE FOR GREAT JUSTICE!!
Assuming it’s true– and I don’t see parody in it– is she better or worse off for having no legal marriage to worry about?
That’s right, legally, they aren’t married, and he knows it. He’s referencing a “symbolic ceremony”, specifically because she would have to give consent for a legal marriage to take place.
Has he already got another wife? Was she too young to legally marry? Is he planning to dump her later without having to go through divorce courts? I don’t know, but I hope she leaves him soon.
one, it’s not data you draw your conclusions from.
two, facts are not opinions, simple or not
three, your link is busted.
four, you’re a moron.
five, There is no five.
So all you need for vagina access is the father’s permission? I think the technical word for that in US law is ‘rape’.
I can imagine trying to have a discussion with them:
Me: “Your Biblical concept of marriage sounds just like how cavemen would have behaved!”
Them: “That is flat-out false! Everyone knows that cavemen never existed.”
This is probably fundie xian slave sex porn. But it isn’t impossible by any means. Just look at what the FLDS does, polygamy, child rape, women treated like property and moved around as needed.
Occasionally the women break their programming and flee. Or shoot the slave owner. If you are going to keep slaves, that has always been a problem. If they get pushed hard enough and gain access to weapons, the owner can end up dead.
Fundie pastors in xian fundiestan being shot by their wives isn’t unknown. Sometimes they get acquited at trial under the principle of justified homicide, self defense.
As far as I know, the divorce rate among Evangelical/Baptists is the highest in the US of any grouping by religion.
Hey Marshall? You managed to lose what little respect I had for you (depth of knowledge) with this. You are…so, so incredibly far off the mark with this one it would be hilarious, except you’re propping up a disgisting set of anti-morals by claiming just the opposite of what they say.
Christian teachings are the worst things to happen to women in the entire period between 0 AD and the rise of Islam. The story of the woman taken in adultery is a later addition to the text. Jesus gives contradictory rules on when one may and may not divorce (and it’s always a man divorcing a woman).
The victims of the witch trials have already been mentioned. All the women who perished in utter agony, and were told that far worse would await them for eternity, now rise out of their graves and point at you. Every “Biblically-married” woman suffering spousal rape and abuse points at you. You can go burn in the Hell you would consign us all to. And I hope someone sends you there.
I’m getting awfully sick of this “It’s a Poe/fake!” bullshit.
I hate to break it to some, but there are Christian scum who think exactly like this and they are much more common than they imagine. To dismiss it as Internet tomfoolery plays is just as much delusion (i.e. that most people are intellegent, decent and rational) as believing in a magical man who lives in the sky that grants wishes to his sycophantic ass-kissers (e.g. David).
Ignore these people at your peril.
Samantha Vimes:
Actually, they are (assuming it’s truthful and not Poe) – click through the link to see the letter, and in the paragraph after the one PZ quotes it says:
Rambler, Samantha has it right.
“Based on this reasoning, we have shunned a standard proposal and wedding ceremony, because if I had asked her to marry me (which I did not) then I would have given her the decision to marry me rather than selecting her and taking her myself.”
It’s dead clear: he did not ask her for marriage, nor did she have any say in the matter. He “selected” her and “took her for himself”.
That’s not marriage as I know it, bits of paper notwithstanding.
You really need to check out this woman, who is living for a year strictly according to Biblical rules for women. And no, not just the Old Testament. Paul, Jesus’ chosen one, really didn’t like women. Interestingly, it’s fundamentalists who don’t like what she’s doing because she’s exposing the parts of the Bible they prefer to keep hidden amongst themselves.
EXACTLY. I feel the same way.
I don’t even understand his first point. I thought faith in God was a choice, and by making that choice you buy into the whole life-after-death deal. How can belief be predetermined by the deity in question? Is this what is meant by reformed theology?
David, please enlighten us on how jesus has “helped” more women than anything else?
…and no I’m not going to read your wretched blog since you don’t allow critical comments there. You’ll have to defend it here.
A part of it. For example calvinism is like that.
” 91. Cor (formerly evil) says:
God and I decided I’ll gay-marry this man. No need to ask his consent.”
Thanks Cor,I needed that laugh after reading the morbid letter!
Genius!
They should call it “How to sleep with a Christian virgin whilst being unmarried and get her to accept your crazy foot fetish”.
I’m not shocked at all by this – religious (and often state) marriage has always been about trading women for status/cash. That is the point of it.
QFT!
The Quiverful Movement and FLDS show us this sort of thing is NOT fake. If people’s children die because their parents pray for healing rather than take the children to medical facilities to have actual healing take place, then can anyone be surprised that some men play Biblical patriarch as much as possible and some women are brainwashed into being the submissive housekeeper and sperm receptacle?
I don’t believe the letter is a Poe, a fake, or anything other than a man using religion to get himself a domestic servant and sex slave.
I hereby nominate DM for the position of One True Scotsman pro tem until a sane candidate comes along.
David Marjanović, OM says:
In my own family, there have been at least three pairs of devout Catholics remarried. They may not “believe in” divorce and remarriage. But they do it, regardless. Sometimes they arrange for the right incantations from the Church hierarchy to “annul” a former marriage.
Sandi: Apologies for the broken link. Google “How Jesus has liberated women.” Part I is an introduction, then my own story; most of the evidence is in parts 3-5, which are linked sequentially.
David Marshall, if there even was a real Jesus (doubtful), he was a Jew and died a couple of thousand years ago; so if he liberated women, it would’ve happened then.
This claim is contrary to history, hence it’s spurious.
Nattering Shish Kabob of Bullshit: “What this thread is about,” is (I guess) a place for atheists to regain a little solidarity, by reminding themselves however much PZ has been dumping on male atheist nerds for anti-social behavior, the enemy is after all religion, preeminent in most things vile, including abuse of women.
What I’m about is setting the record straight. PZ can be about that, too (as in recent post about inexact correlation between religion and evil), and I’m not about to apologize for calling him down when he gets things wrong. There ought to be at least one eminent New Atheist whose generalizations about religion take more than one slice of reality into account.
Angela: I allow critical comments all the time: most of the comments are critical, from atheists. You’ve posted there. Its a big argument, and I won’t try to compress it into 100 words for PZ’s blog. Maybe I’ll expand it into a book, instead.
John: It did happen then, as even many non-Christian scholars acknowledge. Read Funk or Borg on Jesus and women. Read Stark, The Rise of Christianity, on the early Church and women. Other sources are given as well.
David, please comment on the woman I linked to who is living according to the Bible’s rules for women, and how her life is “liberated”.
Yawn, still nothing cogent from DBM. But then, that requires real evidence, not inane opinion based on a book of fiction.
This guy sounds dangerous. I think this is the same sort of crap spouted by that crazy Mormon cult guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart.
That’s what happens when you wash something in bullshit.
This appears to be the original link.
David Marshall (#40):
Which is true only if you limit your understanding of “civilized societies” to Greece and Rome and ignore more egalitarian societies like Ancient Egypt. Thus, for example, Egyptian women could initiate divorce just as freely as men. Jesus’s teaching on divorce are typically patriarchal, addressing the issue specifically in terms of the husband divorcing the wife. Indeed the idea that a man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery (e.g., Matthew 5:32) is explicitly patriarchal – the woman is not being treated as a free agent.
Classical Cipher @16: Going back to the Love, Joy, Feminism blog, per your suggestion, I see that, to the patriarchs, control of the kiddies is just as important as control of the wife. And, you’re right that control of children, especially female children, sets them up to follow rigid roles when they are adults.
This is strongly reminiscent of a speech Elder Larry R. Lawrence (mormon) said in a recent speech. Here’s the full story as presented in the Deseret News.
No sleepovers, no slumber parties. Sin-breeding situations must be avoided.
Ladies and gentlemen, theology!
As amphiox@89 says, David Brooks Marshall has a good case that early Christianity gained adherents from Graeco-Roman paganism because it treated women comparatively well. However, there have been many cultures, both earlier and later, in which women have had more agency and nearer to equality than in early Christianity, or in medieval or early modern Christendom. The greatest move forward in women’s freedom and gender equality has come precisely with the decline of the power of Christianity – and other traditional religions – since the Enlightenment. Reversing this advance is the key policy of the religious right.
David the troll
Ah, much better.
I’m sure you had a point here, but I’m not sure what it is. Yes, PZ doesn’t like it when con-goers or internet personae spew misogyny or make inappropriate sexual advances toward women. That is why I identified the religious component of the post above as a secondary concern. To his credit PZ doesn’t limit his criticisms of sexism to theistic sources. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a concern when theistic sources are used to justify enslaving women as described in the OP.
You make my head explode, dude. Yes, please enlighten me more about the ‘reality’ you’ve gotten from this book about jesus the magic man who was killed by god so that god could forgive us for all for being the way he made us. Its really a shame that your brain is apparently too broken to deal with the concept of irony, because this passage is full of it.
Patrick Smythe:
A better question, as far as I can tell, is how the concept of predestination can be wrong if one assumed an all-knowing, all-powerful deity.
A number of Christian sects accept the doctrine of predestination, although it has been my personal (and therefore extremely limited) observation that they do everything they can to avoid thinking about the ramifications of the doctrine.
. . .
With regards to David Marshall,
I don’t know if Christian tradition treated women well or badly compared to other primitive, sky-god-worshiping societies many years ago. And, quite frankly, I don’t much care.
The more important question, as far as I can make it out, is what side does that sort of faith put you on in the modern world?
Who’s supporting women’s rights?
Who’s opposing women’s right?
Look around you, David, check out what your side of the fence is saying about the worth of women. Ask some of your evangelical buddies if they think women are worthwhile people. Or, even better – don’t put anyone on the spot like that, just sit back and watch. Watch, and listen, and experience what is being said, what is being voted on, what candidates and policies are being supported by your side.
You’ll either be appalled… or you’re appalling.
“secretly consummate” – does this mean he didn’t hang the bloody sheet out to show the neighbors that his wife was a virgin? how gauche
… marriage is to be an unbreakable arrangement between the man and her father.
Sounds like an offbeat premise for gay porn. Do they have a “filf” category?
Best comment from the Reddit thread:
“tc;dr (too crazy; didn’t rsvp)”
David Marshall
*facepalm* Here we go with “he’s not really a Christian”… AGAIN.
The truth of the matter is simple. If you believe yourself to be a Christian, you are a Christian. A Real Christian. A True Christian. It can’t be any other way, because for every “you’re not a real Christian” finger you point at someone, another finger is being pointed back at you by someone who believes you’re not a “real Christian”. As long as people keep pointing their fingers at each other and saying “You’re not a real Christian”, those accusations will all cancel each other out, and no one is a “real Christian”. Face it: Either you’re all “real Christians”, or none of you are.
Calling someone who did something you don’t like “not really a Christian” is a fucking coward’s way out of evading the nastiness that permeates your religion, and all religions for that matter. Stop it. Christians need to start taking responsibility for the dregs of their religion. Why do we nonbelievers always have to be the ones to shine the light on the cockroaches in your fucking religion?
I remember being horrified to discover that people actually will argue for less extreme versions of this; that men will say they are respecting their wives/girlfriends by loving them as Jesus is said to love the church. I’m like, so, you’re Mr. Perfect Jesus and I get to be the sinner? Yeah, no, that is not equal. Nobody needs to go dying for each other. Mutual respect would be nice.
DM, whether you lie well or badly doesn’t really matter to me. That you are stupid enough to believe your own tripe makes me wish you had become obsessed with something less harmful than the poison of religion, esp. any religion linked to the Bible, like baseball or Star Trek.
You’re scholarly martyr pose here, with the little pettiness floating like a turd in the punchbowl of your already insipid and watery lemonade of “ideas” and “facts” is one of the most revolting I’ve ever seen.
Maybe I didn’t see it, but the original post for this letter (as far as I know) was on the atheism board on Reddit.
David Marshall – boohoo, how dare atheists know more about religion & the bible… It must be a conspiracy! Despite your mewlings to the contrary, your opinions are not fact. Neither are your appeals to authority. Jesus did jack for women, & his followers perpetuate it.
up a bit, Raven notes:
Occasionally the women break their programming and flee. Or shoot the slave owner.
reminds me of “The Color Purple”
[Your] scholarly martyr pose here, with the little pettiness floating like a turd in the punchbowl of your already insipid and watery lemonade of “ideas” and “facts” is one of the most revolting I’ve ever seen.
I like your style.
may I subscribe to your newsletter?
:)
Cosmic Snark #138
Because Christards like David Marshall prefer to play the No True Scotsman fallacy every time one of the religious cockroaches appear.
● “The Catholic hierarchy supports and protects child rapists.” “Catholics aren’t true Christians.”
● “Mormons are interfering in political elections.” “Mormons aren’t true Christians.”
● “Certain fundamentalist try to pray their children to health instead of seeking medical attention for them, so sometimes the children die unnecessarily.” “Those fundamentalists aren’t true Christians.”
● “A Baptist man thinks marriage is arranged between him and the woman’s father without any input from the woman.” “That Baptist and the father aren’t true Christians.”
● Etc.
For further examples, just ask David Marshall, the only True Christian™ in existence.
Thanks Classical Cipher for finding the apparently original source (and for pointing the letter out to me in the first place).
I have to say you peeps who think the letter has to be a Poe – you need to learn more about the Patriarchy movement. I’ve been doing that lately and lemme tellya, they’re not messing around.
Heddle is the same way, btw, and he proclaims the mantle of Calvinism, FFS.
er, that last in response to Tis’ post at 145.
Well, Mormons aren’t Christians given that they use the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price as scripture. They’re a Christian derived sect.
Oh noes. And here I am without my bagpipes.
For more examples of the Quiverfull “courtship and betrothal” insanity, see here:
http://nolongerquivering.com/2011/09/10/taking-her-myself-a-new-trend-in-quiverfull-courtshipbetrothal/
How long before they simply auction them off or run ads in their newsletter?
Virgin 12 year for sale. Mature for her age, cowers when the word whip is even mentioned, cooks, sews, and can sign her own name with some help. Comes with a few dolls and a teddy bear. See Real Xians Auction Services. True
ScotsmenXians only.I’m missing something here.
Not going to that link. I’ve reached my xian atrocity limit for this weekend.
I’m wondering how many laws these cultists are breaking.
Child rape is illegal.
Child and spousal abuse is illegal.
Slavery is illegal.
Wouldn’t surprise me if someday they end up like the FLDS. Under pressure from law enforcement with some of them in jail. Not every state is like Utah, which at best does nothing, at worst enables the worst of their society.
@ #138
Maybe DM is the One True Recursive Scotsman.
I can understand why it might seem too off-the-wall to be true ~ but so much of the thinking behind QF/P is equally crazy ~ to me, it’s just one more example of fundamentalist bible interpretation.
A lot (the majority?) of the Quiverfull believers that I knew called themselves “Reformed” and held to this view that God determined who would be saved before He created a single human being ~ those who would be damned, were created for destruction “for His glory.” I can’t remember where the verse is in Isaiah that says so ~ but when I questioned that teaching during a home church meeting, the man in charged read the scripture aloud and when I said, “But that’s just evil!” he responded, “Who are you to judge God, sister?”
R.C. Sproul Jr. and (I believe) Doug Wilson teach the same thing ~ check out the Highlands Study Center.
Tis
Yeah, I know. It was a rhetorical question. People like him helped hasten my departure from the religion. For that, I thank them.
LOL. That is just straight Calvinism. Predestination.
It’s also just a cuckoo if widespread Protestant belief.
My natal sect was supposedly Calvinist. I never heard one word about Calvin or Predestination, ever. In fact, they were liberal xians whose big causes were world peace and eliminating poverty. A lot of the clergy are women. My impression was that everyone from the theologians on down thought it was nonsense and desperately hoped no one would ever bring it up.
The Calvinist god is even more evil than most of the xian gods, the Sky Monsters. He has the same saving features, just something some nutcase (John Calvin was a creepy loon), made up.
If predestination is true, I was predestined to leave xianity behind and US xianity is predestined to slowly die out. The vast majority of the world’s population was predestined to think Calvinism was trash and most ended up nonxians.
Jesus/god is just a sockpuppet. Your sockpuppet wants what you want, and hates who you hate.
This is actually the conclusion of academic research, not just a throwaway line. The bible is such an amorphous mess that you can pick and choose and rationalize anything.
These people aren’t starting with the bible and coming up with a conclusion. They are starting with a conclusion and working backwards.
A lot of religion is just a cover for the usual human drives; money, power, and sex.
Something about that letter made me think of Jeffrey Lundgren. That’s all I’m saying.
Skin-crawling is right! I hear that is pure rape-apologists’s voice: “Doood, you don’t ask her! That would suggest she has the right to say no!”
It’s also a recipe for “how to find someone who will put up with your abuse.”
Since marriage is between two consenting adults, he doesn’t have a marriage.
And 2/3 of women who are murdered are killed by a spouse, lover, or ex of same.
Incidentally, when Quebec cut funds for women’s safe houses where they could get away from the bastards, the number of men murdered by their wives went up. Know what side your bread is buttered on!
Isn’t not letting a woman decide for herself and just taking her and selecting her without consulting her wishes in the matter, well, y’know rape?
Isn’t the Bible / Torah y’know kinda critical of rape and rapists too?
If that odious letter is real and not a Poe – could it be used as evidence of criminal non-consensual sex (since he didn’t see the need to ask her) and help convict the bastard?
Also “mutual foot rubbing” / forced marriage – contradiction?
Isn’t the Bible / Torah y’know kinda critical of rape and rapists too?
actually, not so much. plenty of rape encouragement in the OT.
for the most part, women are indeed considered mostly property.
Even Jesus himself (well, the guys who made up what he supposedly said, anyway), while more egalitarian than most of his time, still gives women second class status.
Hmmm…for some reason DM has decided not to continue this discussion.
His absence is conspicuous.
Hazuki #107: My argument in part V isn’t based on a single incident, it’s based on every single mention of Jesus with women in the gospels. I cite them all, and show a clear pattern demonstrating my point. The story of Jesus rescuing the woman caught in adultery was added to John later, true, but fits into the general pattern, and I think is probably authentic. Nor is it just conservative scholars who recognize that pattern.
I am not “incredibly far off the mark,” I’m dead on.
As for the historical evidence, just waving your hands and saying, “Not so!” does not rebut the evidence Stark, Bernard Lewis, Mangalwadi, Hu Shi, and the United Nations offer.
It’s funny how often Internet skeptics, when faced with claims and patterns of evidence they don’t like, are reduced to wishing the person offering them to slow deaths or to hell. And I do mean funny. It seems a remarkable admission of intellectual impotence.
Carlie #124: I’ve always thought that custom of living in tents for several days every year was cool: everyone in the country is commanded to go on a big group camping trip. I bet the kids looked forward to it for months.
But I’m talking about historical influences. I’m not an inerracist, nor do I think Paul’s famously unpopular comments on the role of women in church need to all be followed, since he didn’t follow them himself. (Even if he gave them all, which is debated.)
Anri #134: Who’s supporting women’s right in the modern world?
I am one of many Christians who have (to some extent) challenged the mafia on behalf of girls who were forced into prostitution.
We are.
ACN: Can’t be here all the time.
But I admit I am disappointed that so many skeptics, faced with a wealth of evidence that the Gospel has liberated women in profound ways, can offer nothing better in response but to croak, Raven-like, “No True Scotsman! No True Scotsman!” They seem to think calling this guy a “heretic” was the heart of my argument, rather than rhetorical frill to make a point. His views on women are directly contradicted by the example and teaching of Jesus, and are out of sync with the liberation Christianity has generally brought women (that’s the real point); I don’t know or much care what his status is with what obscure church.
So I tend to focus on posts that address the real issues.
Uh… “Challenged the mafia”? What precisely does that mean? Facing down Scarface with a tommy gun?
“Back away from the prepubescent girls, you dastardly villain! The power of Christ compels you!”
I googled “inerracist” and got 10 results, 45 with an expanded search.
All but 4 were the same book review.
I suppose we shouldn’t focus on posts like yours, then, which address frivolous issues about imaginary beings and doctrinal disputes between delusional wankers.
aladegorrion (#139):
Yes, that’s the Pauline view of marriage – the bridegroom is analogous to Jesus, and the bride analogous to the Church. Even though the New Testament view of marriage is in some regards more of a two-way partnership than the Graeco-Roman model, it is still conceived of entirely in terms of asymmetric power relationships.
The Catholic Church does not allow divorce, but it is pretty routine now to get an annulment (a finding that the marriage never existed), especially if the spouse was non-Catholic. The Church pays lip service to the presumtive validity of marriages, but failure of the non-Catholic spouse to convert to Catholicism (or a defective conversion) shows that the necessary conditions for the creation of a valid marriage were not present. The price of an anulment has fallen from about $50,000 when my cousin got divorced in the 1980’s (and needed to involve Rome) to about $5,000 now.
I find it telling and ironic that a price is attached to a Catholic Annulment. Time to toss some salt into the eyes of God.
H’mm. Ironically the Bible would call him a rapist in the OT. What makes it even more interesting is the OT puts the power of life and death in her hands. So if he is the Biblicist as he claims he might want to read the last four books of the pentatuch again. So if we are to have a theocracy like this joker want then we should the women decide if he can live and be married to her or dies.
Andrew @177–Would the OT consider him a rapist? It seems that he came to an agreement with the woman’s father. Doesn’t that make it legal in the OT?
It is so fucking tiring too see DM constantly whine that skeptics give no credence to his “facts” based on his cherry picked biblical myths.
Here is a fucking truth for DM; if he expects a skeptic to buy his argument that his good friends Jesus and the big sky daddy have done more to improve the lot of _______ then any other group of people, he needs to fucking proof that his bestests super friends exists.
I, for one, lack the right faith that is trhe basis of true knowledge.
I’ll see your crawling skin and raise you one irritated bowel.
As for the historical evidence, just waving your hands and saying, “Not so!” does not rebut the evidence Stark, Bernard Lewis, Mangalwadi, Hu Shi, and the United Nations offer.
you mean like waving your hands with a list of names and no actual evidence?
yeah…
keep dreaming.
LOL “To some extent” = wrote a post about it on his blog.
And he prayed. Really really hard.
When he says Jesus liberated women, what he means is,he granted them the freedom to be house-bound fuckable mommies to penis-bearing jesus followers.
You want to know who’s currently standing up for women – WOMEN ARE. We don’t need your imaginary sky-friends and book of rules that no one – except you, apparently – can follow.
FOAD.
Except that it was only the women.
And they were separated from the comforts of home at the most painful time of the month.
And they weren’t allowed to talk to anyone, because they were so unclean.
If you call that “cool”, I guess.
Ah. So it’s only the parts of the Bible you like that are inerrant. Thought so.
In a D&D game we had a villain who had rescued a young girl when her tribe was slaughtered…and kept her as a personal slave, basically helping her and then making sure her life can never get any better than that slight boost he gave.
According to DM this guy is a hero
Carlie, I hope you will like my suggestion for DM. Every time DM presents one of his favored biblical myth as a fact, he gets to go on a grand adventure where he has to stay in a tent for one week without communicating with anyone. That would be so “cool”.
Marie the Bookwyrm @178
Yes the OT would consider him a rapist. In the Book of Genesis when Rebekah marriage was arranged to Issac the men said “let us consult the girls wishes” meaning she had the right to say no. So Rebekahs marriage was consensual from her. While culturally the father is asked for the girl’s hand in marriage she could still say no. The OT Mosaic law has specific rules to preserve a women’s honour. OT law says that if a man rape’s a woman, it is up to the woman whether he can live as her husband with no divorce permissible or dies. The reason for the culture of asking the father, is simply due to a man’s sin nature to rule over a women. Man was never given permission to rule over a women by God. Eve was told that was what was going to happen to women because of their being in a sinful state. When the church is translated at the ressurection women will be freed from man’s dominance, all marriages (at least Christian) will be over and each man will give an account for how he treated his wife. It will not be pleasant for the these QF/Patriarchy folks.
Because that makes it soooooo much better.
Andrew:
Which version is that? According to the Bible, the woman does not get a choice:
Deuteronomy 22:28-29:
Nowhere in there do I see a choice. As for “preserving a woman’s honor,” it appears her honor is worth 50 shekels.
At least, according to the Bible.
Andrew, what do you mean by that? This sentence doesn’t make sense … (well, not that the rest of it does either – but the constituent parts of this sentence don’t even parse).
It does not say that for one. It’s not for her benefit it’s a fucking “You break it you bought it”
Can we get an ETA on this?
opposablethumbs@190
The reason for the culture of asking the father, is simply due to a man’s sin nature to rule over a women.
Andrew, what do you mean by that? This sentence doesn’t make sense … (well, not that the rest of it does either – but the constituent parts of this sentence don’t even parse).
According to Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve fell into sin the following punishments were handed out. To Adam, cursed ground and having to work hard and eat by the sweat of his brow. To the woman, Increased pregenancy and intense pain in child birth and victimization (he shall rule over you.) Adam was not told to rule over her, rather Adam’s (and therefore a man) will sinfully want to rule over a woman. This is why since creation women are treated as property and why conservative Bible Worshippers claiming to be christians think this way and look for OT versues to justify their actions. Remember Moses wrote the law, not God (think the 613 laws not the ten commandments) Christ said this of the OT law “Because you have harden your hearts Moses wrote… (Yep I know he referred to divorce) but then said “in the beginning it was not so”. A real Biblicist would recognize what Paul means by “Husbands love your wives” Sure it is very strange that the woman that was raped has to marry the attacker but exactly how loving is that relationship, it is not. Her contempt would show even if she eventually forgave him. Also to the other fellow, please note there is a passage in Deuteronomy that will call for the man’s death and leaves the woman alone.
There is also another problem trying to define a Christian life based on OT Law. That is living in spiritual bondage to the law and falling from grace. We have been freed from the law. Christ commandments are not the 613 laws of Moses as much as these jokers would like to think.
Yes they are. Read your Bible.
So, when Jesus said he didn’t come to change the law, but to fulfill it, he was lying?
Andrew:
Two quick questions: which passage is this? I can’t find it, but then, I only spent about 30 seconds on Google. I don’t recall it from my Bible reading.
Second: so which law is the correct one?
Matthew 5:17
Seems Jesus must be one of those jokers.
illuminata says:
12 September 2011 at 1:17 pm
We have been freed from the law. Christ commandments are not the 613 laws of Moses as much as these jokers would like to think.
So, when Jesus said he didn’t come to change the law, but to fulfill it, he was lying?
No he did not lie. What you need to understand is, how did Christ fullfill the law. Simple. The law demanded death. So by his death on the cross he fullfilled what the law was demanding. His death satitisfied God’s wrath so if we believe in him we shall not die but have everlasting life. The gospel cannot be any simplier than than that. As far as man is concerned all the law can do is show we need a saviour, us keeping will not save us because it is impossible to keep. In the book of Acts, Peter, James (I think Paul may have been on the scene then) meet with other apostles and elders and they decided that the gentiles did not need to be taught or expected to try to keep the 613 Ot laws. Instead the NT gives as a sin definition based on 9 of 10 commandments plus moral laws (like homosexuality), and totally redefines the sabbath (and I don’t mean gathering on Sundays). And as for looking for guidance in defining a Christian life and Christian marriage (or single life), just read the NT for that guidance.
So, when Jesus said he didn’t come to change the law, but to fulfill it, he was lying?
It’s all mushy-mouthed nonsense anyway. Given that the Bible is a mess of incoherencies and contradictions and a lot of it was written for self-serving reasons anyway, you can twist bits of it about to justify any crap you want.
However, what the author of Matthew probably means when he has his mouthpiece Jesus say that he came to “fulfill” the law and not “abolish” it only makes sense in the diverse climate of early Christianity, where some gentile groups had no intention of keeping what we call the OT, even as scripture. The author of Matthew was what early proponents of these gentile churches called a Judaizer. “The law” meaning the Jewish scriptures, couldn’t be abolished, because the “Judaizers” (which wing developed into the early Catholics) found all their supposed prophesies proving Jesus’ messianic status in it. So the author is talking more about canonical status as scripture than making a prescription that Christians are actually supposed to follow the law code found in the Torah. If the law is “fulfilled” in a sense that means one of the duties of the old covenant –Torah observance– has in fact been dispensed with, made obsolete, by the new covenant of Christianity. The law is fulfillled in the sense that you fulfill a promise and therefore have dispensed with the obligation represented by it.
Seems this is the Deuteronomy quote mentioned above:
Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)
So both are to be stoned to death, not just the man, if the maiden is betrothed. The man is to die not because he raped someone, but because he violated his neighbor’s property.
And Jesus said “Ignore the old laws, for they are fulfilled and go forth with new conscience and empathy. Also women are equals not property, slavery is wrong, and try to be nice to eachother”
Actually yes it fucking could.
So, the law was not particular about who died, just so long as someone did. This is both ludicrous and morally offensive. Even more ludicrously, doctrinally orthodox Christianity claims that Jesus was God, in which case God “satisfied his wrath” by sacrificing himself to himself. This is a guy with serious, and I do mean serious, identity issues. Andrew, you sound like you might be a nice guy, but really, this is the most ridiculous nonsense I’ve ever heard. Seriously, Mormonism and Scientology can’t hold a candle to Christianity for outright flapdoodle.
KG:
To be fair, God did this because he set us up with a set of laws that were impossible to follow, effectively dooming even his special people. Since he’d already said, “Ah fuck it,” and went all etch-a-sketch on the world with the flood, he had to reboot the franchise in some other way. I mean, God hates to copy himself.
This time, God sent the new laws through himself / his son, and through a homophobic asshole (note that the son never says anything about homosexuality — that’s all on this Paul dude, who was a complete raging shithead).
So, God sacrificed himself to himself to take care of a the plot problem with which he’d painted himself into a corner. He got rid of all the laws except the bit about worshiping the fuck out of him, because God apparently has self-esteem issues and needs constant reassurance that, yes, he is The Best, The Fonzie of All Gods, The King of King of Kings, The God Who Impregnates Little Girls Without Their Consent And Damned Well Expects Them To Be Grateful.
And so on.
But, hey! At least we can now wear mixed fibers, and still get to keep slaves.
I just love that the deity of the bible has this running relationship with it’s creation. Hmm, wonder what happens if I try this? Nope, that won’t do, lets do something else. This isn’t a character with avanced knowledge, it’s like if we put a ten year old in charge of the government. Fits and starts and anything that works does so in spite of the guidance, not because of it.
LOL, perhaps you should take your own advice. Here’s but a few:
1 : Matthew 19:29 – “And every one who hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”
Ditch your families.
2 : Luke 20:34-36 – “The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”
Never marry.
How about the rest of the NT?
1 : 1 Corinthians 7:1-2 – “Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Women are icky.
2 : 1 Timothy 2:11-15 – “A woman should learn [from men] in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”
STFU, bitches, cuz you’re stupid and icky. Get breeding!
3 : 1 Corinthians 11:9-10 – “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”
Paul fails at basic biology but excells at the festering misogyny.
Weeeell, maybe. But as a plot device, it’s less convincing than Dallas‘s “It was all a dream!”.
3 : 1 Corinthians 11:9-10 – “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”
Clearest case of womb-envy you could want.
KG:
True. But it requires a character shift as believable as Preed’s in Titan AE (that is, completely unbelievable). “Hi, I’m God. You might remember me from such grand mass-murders as the Pharaoh and the Sea, Die Midianites Die!, and of course the greatest of all: The Great Flood. Well, it was great if you were me. But now I’ve changed. I’m a nice god. I love little kittens. I especially like young girls! I’m a swell god. So anyway, come on back. You get to sing some great songs, and feel sanctimoniously superior to everyone else. And I promise not to kill you much in a flood. Just don’t ask about nuclear holocausts! LOL.”
So, yeah. Better than Dallas, or Jacob’s Ladder. Still not very believable, as plot devices go. I’d expect God to be a better writer.
nigelTheBold, Pure as the Driven Snow says:
12 September 2011 at 1:28 pm
Andrew:
“Also to the other fellow, please note there is a passage in Deuteronomy that will call for the man’s death and leaves the woman alone.
Two quick questions: which passage is this? I can’t find it, but then, I only spent about 30 seconds on Google. I don’t recall it from my Bible reading.
Second: so which law is the correct one?
We have been freed from the law. Christ commandments are not the 613 laws of Moses as much as these jokers would like to think.
Matthew 5:17
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
Seems Jesus must be one of those jokers.””
Answer to first passage. Deuteronmy 22:25. Please note that according to NIV titling this section is all about marriage violations.
Exodus also gets into social responsiblities. In Exodus it refers to a man seducing a woman and paying the bride price but in that case has to ask the woman father for her hand in marriage who in turn can absolutely refuse. If he says yes then he can never divorce her. At least in this case there is some consenual actions for all parties.
The subject about law has quite a road map. Moses went to mount Sinai and received the ten commandments. The first nine carried a death sentence, the tenth carried a sentence of despair. The 613 laws were written by Moses which Christ himself points out in the divorce discussion. The 613 laws also covered food safety (kosher), basic sanitation (sewage), finance, and other subjects. Remember Jesus never corrected the Pharsises on when they say they observer the law of Moses rather he attacks them. You must also remember that the Mosaic law (613) laws were given to a specific group, Gentiles were not and are not under the law. Unfortunately there are many teachers cherry picking the 613 laws and saying this is how a true christian should live.
However the 10 commandments which came from God we consider to be God’s law however God’s law was already in operation even before the giving of the law. For example God judged Cain for Able’s murder, he judged and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. He went after Moses son’s for lack of circumcision, he judged Onan for spilling his seed. Moses was judged for striking the rock with his staff thus disobeying God, yet the 10 commandments and the 613 laws don’t cover that.
Christ kept the law perfectly but he deliberate healed on the Sabbath, he told the man at pool to pick up his bed and walk on a Sabbath. But that would be “work” The NT reiterates only 9 of the ten commandments which we call moral law. The NT gives us a whole new definition of a Sabbath rest.
So which law is the correct law, and what did the apostles mean by we establish law. I can tell you it’s not Mosaic law. I can tell you God’s law demanded death. I can tell you Christ fullfilled the law and it’s demand. I can tell that those who want us to observe some or all Mosaic law just want to put us in bondage and to see us fall from grace. No Christ was not one of those jokers. Far from it. The old covenant was done away with. There is a new covenant. Christ is not forcing the church to marry him. He asked the church. We have free will. We have liberty.
BTW for those who think you can use the f-bomb, don’t you know that a true Christian should refrain from fowl language. I am not holier than thou but even non Christians get offended.
Andrew:
Cluck-cluck.
It’s not really a bomb. It’s just a word.
Listen up, tone troll. You do not dictate what words can nor cannot be used, So stop fucking clutching your pearls, cover a bible with chocolate sauce, eat said bible and blow your fucking holy words out of your fuck ass.
When that is done, find a decaying body of a porcupine and cram that up your true christian ass. Repeatedly.
KG says:
12 September 2011 at 2:46 pm
The law demanded death. So by his death on the cross he fullfilled what the law was demanding. His death satisfied God’s wrath so if we believe in him we shall not die but have everlasting life. The gospel cannot be any simplier than than that. – Andrew
So, the law was not particular about who died, just so long as someone did. This is both ludicrous and morally offensive. Even more ludicrously, doctrinally orthodox Christianity claims that Jesus was God, in which case God “satisfied his wrath” by sacrificing himself to himself. This is a guy with serious, and I do mean serious, identity issues. Andrew, you sound like you might be a nice guy, but really, this is the most ridiculous nonsense I’ve ever heard. Seriously, Mormonism and Scientology can’t hold a candle to Christianity for outright flapdoodle.””
KG
Obviously you don’t believe which is your choice to make. Even Paul recognized that the cross appeared as foolishness. Now if you think Christianity has issues you’ll love Mormonism with their water baptisim for the dead (like it will do them any good) and the women getting salvation through marriage. And then the fundlementalist mormons (the Jeff Warren’s) believe and practice in pural marriage which they extract from the OT. Why, because Moses wrote the law to permit it. Why, because their hearts were hard. Why, because they are sinners and as a matter of fact it is just plain fun to sin.
For the record I don’t believe the folks behind the article should be permited to practice their faith the way they do. I believe they are a menance to society. I believe they will stand in judgment before Christ and hear him say Depart from me for I never knew you. Why, because they worship the Bible, not God.
So, fucking tone troll, with out pulling out scripture, how can one tell if your cherry picked bible bits are superior to the goons’ cherry picked bible bits?
Andrew, prove with conclusive physical evidence Yahweh exists*, and that the babble is inerrant**. Or, if you are a person on honor and integrity, no more babble verses, myths, prophesies, until you do provide said evidence. Just trying to keep you honest and truthful.
*Evidence that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers, as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin. Something equivalent to the eternally burning bush…
**Same level of evidence as described *. One non-true statement, like the flud, exodus, or even the existence of jebus puts the whole babble into mythology/fiction. So, start with the flud. A one-time full world inundation that killed everything but one family and an ark.
Andrew:
Oh, I see. So it’s not that God instructed Adam to rule over Eve; he just sort of went along with it, allowing it to happen and not doing or saying anything to prevent it, even incorporating it as part of His punishment to Eve, but hey, he is not involved, he never ordered for it to happen! /wink-wink, nudge-nudge
That is, frankly, ridiculous. If your God doesn’t prevent something, that means He approves of it. Full stop. He certainly isn’t averse to micro-managing.
Andrew:
You’ve mis-represented the Bible. (SEE the evidence above, in which your version was far more accommodating of women and rape than the Bible itself.) You’ve stated you think the article prompting this blog post is indeed dangerous to the society you’d like to see.
Why is it so hard to recognize the fact the Baptist quoted above actually sees the Bible more clearly than you? The account you are so quick to denounce cleaves more closely to the Bible than you do.
Simple fact.
In both of the Deuteronomy quotes I presented, you were far more liberal than the Bible itself. Why is that, do you suppose? Could it be that you are far more liberal than the book which you claim to follow?
The evidence says, “Yes.”
Ah good to know
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUUUUUCK!
Get the hint?
ing:
Probably fuckin’ not.
There ain’t much of a hint to get. He thinks words contain power. We don’t (other than their psychological power). He thinks the Bible is all good towards women. It isn’t. He basically has no fucking clue.
He can’t defend the old testament. He can’t defend the new testament. We’ve left him with nothing. His delusions should be shattered (though probably remain intact).
There ain’t a fuckin’ lot we can do from here.
Except say: Fuck. That.
I didn’t see anyone discussing chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants, or any other type of fowl. Perhaps Andrew was talking about foul language, which is a completely different type of bird.
Andrew:
Serious question: how do you distinguish the two?
No. I am really serious. The only reason to believe in God (at least, the Christian god) is because the Bible says to do so. And the only reason to believe in the Bible is because God swears it’s his word.
So, what’s the difference? And how do you tell the difference?
It seems you have no epistemic grounds on which to judge other Christians, my gullible friend. You swear you know what God wants. So do they. Yet you presume to judge them! By what authority?
I’m serious here. Were do you get off judging them? They’ve already proven a better interpreter of the Bible. Certainly, their judgement of what constitutes a wife is closer to Biblical teachings. So where the fuck do you get off judging them?
And as soon as you provide an answer, pretend it was them providing that exact same answer.
Afterwards, we might be able to have a discussion.
It would appear I have become the target of everyone’s wrath. For those who like to use the word “fuck”, I challege you to use it as a noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, past participle and all in the same sentenence. Oh, and just so there is no misunderstanding, I am not an english major.
Someone asked how to tell a Bible Worshiper from someone who worships God. Simple. A Bible Worshiper takes the Bible literally. They also have a tendency to not have love. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist is a real good example of a Bible worshiper. John wrote in his epistle if someone claims to be a christian and not have love then that person is a liar. A real Christian would have love. A real Christian would ask the woman herself to be his wife. A real Christian would accept a no answer from her.
From all the comments I got aimed at me all I see is rape and/or domination apologists.
Do I think I will ever convince anyone of anything. No. I also know that the Bible can be twisted to support anything. Pre civil war south used the Bible to justify slavery but if you really read it you find out just the opposite. Same goes for white supremacy. But Genesis tells us that all of Cain decsendants died in the flood so there is no mark of Cain today.
The hate mail will be interesting to read. I found the comment about what to do with a porcupine quite humourous.
So, chickenshit tone troll, nothing to say about my direct ly quoting the bible disproving your assertion that the bible is the place to go to relationship advice? Not that I’m surprised, of course, xtians are always total cowards.
At least one of the people talking to you is a rape survivor. So, do the world a favor and jump off a bridge, you dispicable, chickenshit liar.
“At least one of the people talking to you is a rape survivor”
If you think I approve what that person did you are really really wrong. I have met a victim myself. She is so mentally scarred she won’t get in a close relationship with any man and has remained unmarried. My ex-wife was molested as a young girl, a fact she suppressed and I didn’t learn about until after we got married. She was so scared of intercourse she left me and went straight to the psych ward.
I will leave the expletive filled last word to you. Before you say you need to join her there, I will tell you I have already been there. I have gone through my own Damascus road experience. I was raised a Baptist but have become a closet pentacostal in a Baptist church.
I used the NIV because that is one of the most popular translations. BTW all English translations have flaws, most people don’t know how politically correct the King James is with passages translated a certain way just because James I didn’t like how it was done in the Geneva.
We will meet again but not in this life.
Andrew
Of course you interpret it, it’s those other xtians who “twist” it. Funny how they could say exactly the same about you. Of course you are nicer than they are – because you are more moral than the bible. It doesn’t make you moral, Andrew – it’s the other way round; you only pick out the nice bits if you’re inclined to be a nice bloke. And if, say, you were inclined to be an oppressive douchecanoe on certain issues, you’d find your justification right there in your favourite text, no bother.
A set of guidelines that is so pathetically easy to use in justification of rape, slavery, murder, homophobia, racism and misogyny is worse than no use at all as moral guidance.
You don’t get it, do you? Justifying rape, endorsing homophobia, supporting the forced-birthers – those are real obscenities causing actual people actual harm. Making a fuss and getting all upset because you don’t like others using “naughty” words merely trivialises the concept of obscenity.
We got that.
No, since there is no afterlife, we won’t meet again. Just another Xian delusion without any evidence for it. Just like your imaginary deity and inerrant babble.
Seriously, this is what you got out of the comments here? That we are rape apologists and defenders of inequality. It shows that one cannot trust your interpretation of the bible or any other work.
No fucking shit. Now think of all the other dozens of times that all of the parts of the bible were translated, stitched together and edited. You have just started to realize why that book is not a reliable source. Do yourself and continue to fucking think.
Andrew:
Then you’ve missed the point entirely.
First understand: for us, the Bible contains no moral authority. The old testament passages I quoted demonstrate the morality presented in the Bible. Whether or not the old laws still apply is irrelevant. Those laws represent the morality of your God, where a woman must marry her rapist, and her honor is worth 50 shekels. There are further examples where the morality of God encourages genocide, slavery, rape of young girls, and other atrocities.
I’ve heard Christians say, “A different morality for a different time,” but when was owning another person ever a truly moral choice? When is genocide moral? And yet this is the morality of your God. It doesn’t matter this isn’t the morality presented in the New Testament. (As others have pointed out, the morality in the New Testament isn’t that great, either.) What is important is this: the Old Testament represents the morality of your God.
What you have read in the comments isn’t rape apology. It’s us, pointing out that your Bible explicitly encourages rape. There are passages in which God encourages his people to kill all the men of opposing tribes, while keeping the women for themselves. These comments are us demonstrating what you refuse to acknowledge: that the Bible does present the exact same morality espoused by the Baptist PZ quoted. His views are Biblical, based on the morality of your God.
Jesus may have paid the cost of sin, of breaking the old laws. That doesn’t ereditate the old laws. They still exist, and they are still the morality of God. Jesus says he paid the price, because as you pointed out, the old laws were impossible to follow.
But they are still there. You don’t have to pay the price for breaking the laws, but Jesus did not end your obligation to try to follow them.
So the unnamed Baptist may not be the same kind of Christian as you, but he is most certainly following the Bible. You cannot simply disown him as a fellow believer. If anything, he has proven himself more devout, more loyal to God’s morality.
This isn’t rape apology. I abhor the morality presented in the Bible. If you think what I’ve written is rape apology, it’s because I’ve presented the Biblical morality. I’m not representing my morality at all.
All I’ve done is hold up a mirror.
Nope. I couldn’t believe such ludicrous and morally vile crap however hard I tried.