This is a good summary of my position on all the sex and gender chatter going on, except that I really don’t care at all what sex an imaginary god might have.
I’m a bit more flexible than he is on the question of biological sex, though. It’s more than just a small number of people on the saddle of a bimodal distribution, I think there are multiple parameters that define our sex that allow people to possess aspects of both male and female sex.
The snippets from the person whose argument he is addressing are pretty brief, but I get the impression he is basing his arguments on the English language Bible. If one takes a look at the original Hebrew text of Genesis, one must deal with the Yahweh – Elohim issue, where Elohim is plural.
Here is all the thanks he is going to get for helping that young man with his exegesis:
Police officer removes jar from raccoon’s head
So sex and gender is just another one of those multiverse movies, so god here would be wearing tights and his underwear on the outside.
@2 Reginald Selkirk
Is anyone seeing the cheetah spotted pitbull ad on this Yahoo News link? I’ve seen brindle but that’s different. I can’t help wondering why an overly muscular pitbull would have cheetah spots and distracts me from the cop chasing a raccoon with a jar on its head. The pitbull looks like a cryptozooid of some sort. Maybe Bigfoot’s pet?
Isn’t God(s) a trinity? That’s at least a step removed from binary. Or is Mary added too making four beings? I haven’t seen the OP video because the spotted pitbull ad has distracted me so greatly.
hemidactylus
Because his Florida woman owner is a ‘pet stylist’ who paints her dogs. He is a very good boy! 12/10
After watching the video I wonder what the less theistic “ground of being” god would be or an aloof deistic god. Why not transcend gender AND sexual categories? The Abramic god seems patriarchal male, but Jesus was produced from Mary as a parthenogenic product hence some feminine leaning as clone if her. He hung out with twelve dudes a lot so what’s his/her sexual orientation? What sex or gender is the Holy Spirit? And Mary herself if added to the Godhead (why not?) adds feminine elements and thus some fluidity.
I recall the Gnostic Sophia being feminine. Maybeva transfeminine aspect. But ground of being or deistic divinity need not be binary at all. They could be entirely neutral in sex or gender.
I’m an atheist so not a theologist in these transcendent matters.
FWIW. This might shed a new – old – light on the question here :
https://www.wisdomwordsppf.org/2016/08/12/the-feminineandrogynous-jesus/
Of course later re-interpretaions and artistic versions including those based on Da Vinci’s boyfriend have subsequently altered the popular conceptions of the man (?) in question. Imagine if they could somehow get The Yeshua of Nazareth’s DNA and it turned out he was trans AFAB?
FWIW I vaguely recall another study based on the only mention of his appearence in the Bible noted Jesus was apparent;ly pretty ugly or atleats not a handsome or overly good-looking individual.. Apologies if these were mentioned in that clip. haven’t yet seen will watch later.
Reginald Selkirk @ #1 — And a number of other names ascribed to god in the Hebrew bible, including Adonai, various versions of Yaweh, El and several forms of El, and Attiyq Youm (“Ancient of Days”). So many versions of the names of god that it’s almost like a polytheistic syncretic pantheon of gods. There are some other gods named in the Bible such Baal and Asherah. David (the beloved) is probably a demi-god name and Solomon is the god of wisdom.
hemidactylus @ 6 — “…Jesus was produced from Mary as a parthenogenic product” For some strange reason I was mulling this very subject yesterday. According to my dictionary parthenogenesis means “reproduction from an ovum without fertilization, especially as a normal process in some invertebrates and lower plants”. However, the story of the conception of Jesus seems to suggest that there was fertilization by God (whatever his/her name or gender in the moment). So, perhaps conception by god is parthenogenesis, or not.
Dan McClellan is one of the good guys. A very sharp scholar despite his Mormon background.
Reginald: THE KING JAMES BIBLE IS THE INERRANT WORD OF GOD! Or so I’m told via a bumper-sticker I once saw. I guess the original-language books God inspired were crap, so God had to want until the English language was created and then inspire someone else to translate them into the RIGHT language…?
The idea that the Christian deity, an all powerful, all knowing god, whatever “god” means, could be restricted to one, two, or any finite number of sexes is a darling little idea worthy of patting your four-year old on the head and telling them that they’ll know better someday, if you actually believe any of that crap in the bible.
I accept that but surely don’t know the full scope of it. Could someone point me to a reliable and hopefully brief article/reference that describes these multiple parameters that define our sex, how they might interact, whether they are genetic or epigenetic or something else, how they are expressed in the body, and how common they are? Thanks very much in advance.
In following up to my own question about the scope of sex determination, I should ask is the wikipedia page below reliable?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_differentiation_in_humans
@8: My favorite Biblical name of God is in Exodus 34:14 – “Jealous”
Reginald Selkirk @1:
There are several words that are plural in Hebrew but not (in common use) English: sky (shamaim), water (maim), furniture (modern Hebrew, rahitim).
Does god have a penis?
God having any sex or gender only makes sense in the context of His being part of a broader, reproducing population of gods and goddesses. Which of course would be consistent with “Elohim”, etc.
The original El/Yahweh indeed had a spouse; Asherah.
As Judaism moved from monolatrism to true monoteism the references to the older versions of Judaism were mostly purged from the scriptures, but fragment remains and are giving researchers plenty of work reconstructing the older faiths.
.
I recommend “The Memoirs of God” by Mark S. Smith, but it has been out of print for long and used copies are not cheap.
Also the title “Did God Have a Wife” about folk religion in the old Palestine.
El/Yahweh is floating around in hyperspace like a lantern fish, the big one a female with tiny male fish physically attached to her forming a single unit.
Maybe gods have their genes in a triple helix and need three genders?
I also only care about the sex of real gods.
Well, a monotheistic deity has no need for sex, there being no other gods with which to nookie.
I grant that a wanking monotheistic deity could be sexed, because how else to have a wank? ;)
PS Heh. By the ontological argument, God is the greatest Wanker.
@ #23 John Morales
“By the ontological argument, God is the greatest Wanker.”
One point that I was going to mention, but which I’ve refrained from doing up to now because after all it is a bit childish. But since we’re getting to this point, why not?
Back in post #16, dstatton raised the question, Does God have a penis? That reminded me of the long-ago days when a friend of mine was into Native American oral literature. As I recall, he had the Viking Portable Something-or-Other (one of their better titles). There was one recurrent character, whose name I can’t recall, but he was the archetypal Trickster. You never knew what he was going to get up to next.
E.g., one day he was strolling along by the lake, when on the other side he spied a very attractive young woman, whereupon he extended his penis and sent it speeding across the water and finally penetrated her. Talk about going to great lengths to rape a woman.
So, yeah, it seems to me, God (if he’s male) must have a penis, which he can extend from the heavens all the way down to Earth, since after all, whatever any Trickster can do God can do better. And the rest is history.
moonslicer, :)
—
[OT]
“A rabbi and a priest went for a walk in the park, and strolled by a large lake.
Suddenly the rabbi said: “Let’s go in and do some ‘baptism’, the water looks really clear!”
“But we don’t have swimsuits” the priest told him.
“So what?” replied the rabbi, “Let’s go into the water as God created us.”
The priest thought for a moment and then agreed with him. They took off their clothes, laid them on a piece of grass at the edge of the lake and went in for a short dip. After a few minutes they left the lake and walked back towards the place where they had put the clothes.
Suddenly the two noticed a small group of people staring right at them.
Embarrassed, the priest tried to cover his shame with his hands. He looked to the side and discovered that the rabbi was covering his face with his hands. “What are you doing?!?” hissed the priest, “cover your privates!”
“I don’t know how it goes in YOUR congregation.” Said the Rabbi, “but my people recognize me by my face!””
(Oldie but a goodie; my copypasta source here is https://www.ba-bamail.com/jokes/religion-jokes/?jokeid=1111)
@7. See :
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/new-book-claims-jesus-christ-may-have-been-unattractive-or-even-disfigured/news-story/b730545b9256c0bd30f3a3f02f70f439
Which notes :
Plus :
That article also notes work injuries likely meant Jesus could well have been disfigured or scarred and his life outdoors with extra sun exposure meant he probly looked older than his actual age.
@16. dstatton : “Does god have a penis?”
As usual it depends onthe specific doctrines of the specific and mutually incompatible and vehemenelty often violetly disgareeing Christian sub-groups and cults. The Mormons for instance :
Source : https://beliefmap.org/mormonism/mormonism-teaches-god-and-mary-sexually-produced-jesus
Which if Jesus is the same individual as God and Mary was his literal biological mother means, well, I’ll let Samuel L Jackson say it.. WARNING : Violence, gore, gendered slurs.
There’s another page fromthatite that notes Mormons also think -or thought -that God has sex with actual wives in Heaven and has kids with them that way too..
@ ^ Fixes : There’s another page from that website..
Plus, dangnabbit, wrong clip again – take II :
this tim e should be the Samuel LJackson one I meant & thought I had linked above – D’oh! Again, WARNING :Violence, gore, sexist terms of abuse.
StevoR, nah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cosmology#Divinity
(Gods were once men, basically. They just level up)
If Jesus can be God and man at once, I don’t see why He can’t be woman and man at once.
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them
So, male and female is his image? But his pronoun is “his”? So many questions here…
Huh. Well, there goes the philosophical argument that I had in mind. That is, if God is truly the transcendent creator of all things, the God is not made of matter; is not in any way physical, and therefore has no DNA and no genitalia. DNA and genitalia are creations, not philosophically necessary things. Therefore, God’s “gender” has nothing to do with any physical traits. If God’s gender has nothing to do with physical traits, why should human gender always follow from physical traits? Why not have gender concepts that are disassociated from physical traits?
And I think some religious people would actually be OK with that argument, and with others, that God is nonbinary.
But it looks like Mormons said “Fuckit, we’re going with a fully anthropomorphic God.” Hm.
It’s worth pointing out that Hebrew only has masculine and feminine genders; there’s no way to easily speak or write of a neuter/neutral or nonbinary gender, or of something that transcends gender. I recall reading that Israeli transfolk/nonbinary persons try to bypass this linguistic restriction by alternating gender references; deliberately mixing female and male grammar. I don’t know how well that gets the point across.
There’s an oddity in the gender of Hebrew grammar when talking about body parts: Those body parts that only exist as a singular thing are grammatically masculine (head, nose, mouth, tongue, neck, throat, chest, stomach), but those that exist as duals or plurals are feminine (eyes, ears, teeth, lips, hair, breasts, arms, hands, fingers, legs/feet). So the penis, vagina, vulva, and womb should all be masculine, and the testicles and ovaries should be feminine (or at least, it would be that way if the language were consistent — I just looked up [morfix.co.il, he.wiktionary.org] the anatomical terms, and it looks like “vuvla” (פּוֹת היא) is feminine, while “testicles” (אֶשֶׁךְ הוא) are masculine, after all. But “vagina” and “womb” are indeed masculine as well.)
@#32: I swear I originally wrote “vulva” correctly . . .
Getting back to the Bible — I have repeatedly pointed out that if the very image of God contains male and female both simultaneously, then God must indeed be nonbinary, and human nonbinary and transfolk are closer to the image of God than mere binary cisfolk. I watched the video, and no-one brought up Genesis 1:26-27. Why am I the only one to think of this?
This is a little late but might be of interest to some here:
Saw an interview over the weekend (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbLcPyjC7gE) with Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou.
It sounds like her book “God: An Anatomy” has at least a couple of chapter’s with pretty graphic descriptions of Yahweh’s naughty bits. I hadn’t realized, but the guy was originally some kind of male fertility god in the ancient Levantine pantheon, so they were in fact very notable and impressive naughty bits. Probably only one kind though, which is rather boring.