Part One Point One

Christianity

It constantly amazes me how little Christians
know about their holy book. Whether it’s faithful
ignorance, wilful ignorance, or they simply choose
to put on a brave face in the midst of adversity,
you will never hear a fundamentalist Christian say
that the Bible is anything less than the word of
God.

Any honest, thinking person reading through the
bible cannot ignore the blatant misogyny and
barbarity towards women, but most Christians are
bible illiterates – they only hear the palatable
verses from the pulpit and blindly accept that the
bible emanates goodness.

The simple fact is, it doesn’t. Certainly, when you
go to church, all you will hear is the message of
love. And sure, those verses are in the Bible, but
so are a litany of examples of intolerance –
sexism, racism, homophobia and cruelty – that
reflect the Hebrew society of that time.

Put your pre-conceived notions aside for a
moment, and read through the following list.
Whether there is a god or not, is the Bible really a
book you want to take literally?

GENESIS
2:22 Eve created from Adam’s rib.
3:16 Eve cursed with painful childbirth and
domination by husband.
4:19 Man marries two wives.
12:13-19 Abraham prostitutes wife.
19:1-8 Rape virgin daughters instead of male
angels.
19:26 Lot’s wife turned into pillar of salt for
disobeying god.
19:30-38 Lot impregnates his two daughters
while drunk.
20:2-12 Abraham prostitutes wife – again.
25:1-6 Keeping many concubines is OK.

EXODUS
20:17 Wife as property.
21:4 Wife and children belong to master.
21:7-11 OK to sell daughters. Female slaves can
be used for sex. Polygamy permitted. Unwanted
female slaves can be set “free” without payment
of money.
22:18 Kill witches.

LEVITICUS
12:1-8 Childbirth unclean, Women need to make
atonement after childbirth.
15:19-32 Menstruating women are unclean.
20:10-16 Death penalty for homosexuality and
various sexual transgressions.
21:7 Priests must not marry prostitutes or
divorcees.
21:9 Burn daughters.
21:13-14 Priest must marry virgin, not “used”
woman.

NUMBERS
1:2 Census lists only men – women do not count.
5:11-31 Fidelity test for women only.
30:1-16 Woman’s vow invalid unless approved by
her father or husband.
31:17-18 Kill all except virgins. Keep virgins for
yourselves.
12 Miriam punished for rebuking Moses.

DEUTERONOMY
20:14 Take women, livestock as plunder.
22:13-21 Stone non-virgin bride.
22:23-24 Stone rapist and rape victim.
22:28 Rape victim must marry rapist; rape
victim’s father compensated for depreciation of
his property.
25:11-12 Cut woman’s hand for touching foe’s
penis.
24:1-5 Man can “send” wife from HIS house. Man
must not marry “used” woman.
28:18 The FRUIT of your womb will be cursed –
eclectic “pro-life” verse!

JUDGES
5:30 Women are spoils of war.
14:20 Samson gives wife to another man.
16:1 Samson visits prostitute.
CH 19 Concubine pack-raped and butchered.
21:10-12 Slaughtered all inc. women and
children. Saved virgins for wives.
21:21 Abducted girls for wives.

1 SAMUEL
15:2-3 Attack Amalekites, kill men, women,
children and livestock.
22:19 Kill all inc. infants and livestock.
21:4-5 Men avoid defilement with women.

2 SAMUEL
5:13 David took many wives and concubines.
CH 13 Ammon rapes his own sister.
16:21-22 Absalom sleeps with his father’s
concubines.
6:20-23 Mischal punished with bareness.

1 KINGS
11:3 Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
2 KINGS
9:30-37 Brutal murder of Jezebel.

2 CHRONICLES
15:13 Put to death unbelievers.
11:21 Hoards of wives and concubines.
ESTHER
CH 1-2 Queen Vashti dethroned for disobedience;
setting “bad” example to all other women.

PSALMS
51:5 Sinful since conception.
127:3 Sons are heritage from god.
137:9 Seizes infants and dashes them against
rocks.

PROVERBS
CH 5 Beware of wicked women!
CH 7 More of the above.
6:24 As above.
31:3 Do not waste strength on women.

ISAIAH
3:16-26 Lord punishes haughty women.
4:4 Filthy women.
13:16 Ravish wives, dash infants.
19:16 Will be like women! (insult to Egyptians)

EZEKIEL
9:6-7 Slaughter all including children.
CH 16 Prostitutes, stoning, promiscuity…
CH 23 Tale of two adulterous sisters – reads like
the script of a pornographic film. I bet you
weren’t told this story at Sunday school!

HOSEA
13:16 Rip pregnant women, dash little ones.
(Another “pro-life” verse!)

NAHUM
3:4… wanton lust of a harlot… prostitution…
witchcraft.
3:5 I will lift your skirts over your face!
3:13… Your troops are all women. (insult to
Nineveh)

MATTHEW

5:32 Husband can divorce wife for adultery. Can
wife divorce husband for the same?
CH 25 Sexist tale of ten virgins.
LUKE
2:22 Mary must be purified after birth of Jesus.
2:49 Jesus rebukes his mother.
I CORINTHIANS

11:2-10… Woman created for man.
14:34 Women must be silent in churches.

EPHESIANS

5:22-24 Wives must submit to husbands in
everything.

COLOSSIANS

3:18 Wives submit to husbands.
3:22 Slaves must obey masters in everything.

I TIMOTHY
2:11-15 Woman must not have authority – she
must be silent. Women can be saved with
childbearing.
5:9-10 Widows should be faithful to husband and
must wash saints’ feet.

1 PETER
2:18 Slaves submit to masters, even masters who
are harsh.
3:1 Wives submit.
3:5-6 Sarah calls husband master.

REVELATION
CH 17 Destroy great prostitute.
14:4…they did not DEFILE themselves with women
but kept themselves pure.

The central premise of Christianity is that human
beings are to be allowed into heaven, only
because God demanded, and got, a blood sacrifice
of his allegedly beloved son, to bring about
redemption from their original sin, after God had
formerly left all of them unsaved. The blood
sacrifice was essential. The bible says that all
things are purged by blood, and “without
shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22).

Part One Point Two

Acts of Sexism By Christians throughout History

St. Augustine and other church fathers insisted
that only this blood sacrifice could have atoned
for Woman’s original sin of disobedient apple-
eating, which brought death into the world, and
with which all generations were infected simply
by the passage of every child through a female
body. God laid his curse on Eve: “In sorrow shalt
thou bear children, and thy husband shall rule
over thee” (Gen. 3:16), which was interpreted as
a punishment deserved by all “daughters of Eve”
forever. All three major patriarchal religions still
use this same text.

The early Christian Tertullian told Everywoman
that she is another Eve, the “devil’s gateway,”
and on account of her “even the Son of God had
to die.” So Woman, rather than God, was made
responsible for the death of Jesus and even for
the existence of death itself. Jesus’ death as
atonement for original sin seems especially
pointless today, when even the Catholic Church is
willing to admit that the story of Eden is just a
myth.

Still, ever anxious to absolve God of the murder
of his son, early Christians often blamed the Jews
along with Woman, calling them “Christ killers.”
Throughout the centuries, churchmen pointed to
the passage in Matt. 27:25, where the Jews
declare their responsibility through all
generations: “His blood be on us, and on our
children.” But this was a misinterpretation of what
was actually a ritual formula repeated at all
sacrificial ceremonies where a god-surrogate,
human or animal, was killed. It meant that all
present, and their descendants, would be “washed
in the blood of the Lamb,” so to speak, and
redeemed.

In ancient Rome at the Taurobolium, for example,
celebrants stood under a grating where the
sacrificial bull was killed, and literally bathed in
the divine blood, and were said to be “born again
for eternity.” Jesus was by no means the only
human savior-god whose death was thought to
redeem his followers. There were literally dozens
of similar, earlier, virgin-born, miracle-working
“sons of God” in the ancient world. All their myths
contributed to the Judeo-Christian synthesis.
But none of the others were so replete with
sexism. Clement of Alexandria said every woman
should be filled with shame by the thought that
she is a woman, and quoted Jesus’ words from
the Gospel According to the Egyptians: “I have
come to destroy the works of the female.” St.
Peter’s remark in the Gospel of Thomas was that
“women are not worthy of life.” St. Odo of Cluny
said that a woman is nothing more than “a sack
of dung.” Andrew the Chaplain said woman is by
nature inconstant, fickle, disobedient, and prone
to every evil. John Scotus Erigena taught that the
sinless part of humankind is embodied in man,
the sinful part in woman.

St. Thomas Aquinas claimed that every female is
a birth defective, imperfect male, begotten only
because her father was ill or in a state of sin. In
the 19th century, Anglican churchmen declared
women “intrinsically inferior in excellence, slowpoke
by sex and nature, inconstant in mind, and
imperfect and infirm in character.”

Even today, the Catholic Encyclopedia says “The
female sex is in some respects inferior to the male
sex, both as regards body and soul.” Elizabeth
Cady Stanton wrote: “There is nothing more
pathetic in all history than the hopeless
resignation of woman to the outrages she has
been taught to believe are ordained of God.”
Wife-beating and enslavement have been so
prominent in Western culture that a standard
symbol of “marriage” on Alsatian New Year’s
decorations was a toy man beating a toy wife.
From the pulpit, men were ordered to beat their
wives, and wives to kiss the stick that beat them.
An ecclesiastical “Rules of Marriage” text from
the 15th century said that a husband must bully
and terrify his wife, and if that didn’t work, he
must “beat her soundly, for it is better to punish
the body and correct the soul.”

A man’s home was said to be his castle, and his
wife’s prison. Up to the middle of the 20th
century, American law upheld the “doctrine of
immunity,” which meant that the sanctity of the
home could not be invaded to arrest a husband
for assaulting his wife, because this would
“destroy the peace of the home.” Only in 1962
did a judge rule that there was a certain lack of
peace in the home of a wife-beater. Even so,
most churches still retained the bride’s marriage
promise to “obey.”

Churches now try to deemphasize the holocaust
perpetrated against women under the Inquisition
and other European witch hunts, but it is clear
that many millions were arbitrarily tortured and
murdered during the 500 years of inquisitorial
domination, simply because clergymen taught
that women were evil.

The Inquisition persisted for centuries because it
was a highly profitable extortion racket, developed
for the economic benefit of the Church. Immediate
confiscation of the property of accused persons
was its raison d’etre. The popes publicly praised
the rule and noted that “the business of defending
the faith languished lamentably” when
confiscation was not promptly carried out. There
was no need to wait for a confession, though the
use of torture made confession almost inevitable
in any case. It is estimated that about 85 percent
of the Inquisition’s victims were women, who
committed none of the crimes of which they were
accused, such as consorting with devils, raising
storms, causing illnesses by magic, or keeping
familiar spirits in the form of dogs, cats and other
animals.

Part Two

Islam

Restrictions on and abuses of married women,
similar to those of traditional Christian culture,
are still evident in Islam. The “great theologian”
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, whom the Encyclopedia of
Islam calls the most influential authority after
Mohammed himself, agreed with Jews and
Christians that Eve was the original source of all
sin. Because of Eve’s offense, Allah ruled that
every woman must be punished in various ways
in addition to bearing the “sorrow” of childbirth.

She must be separated from her parents and
married to a stranger, which can be accomplished
when still a child. She cannot divorce her
husband, though he may divorce her and turn her
out of his home any time, just by saying “I
divorce you.” He keeps the children and may also
have up to four wives. She must never leave his
house unless accompanied by an adult male
relative. She must keep her head covered, even at
home. She can have no control over her own
person.

Under Sharia law, women have a lesser share in
inheritance, and cannot serve as judges or rulers.
They have no recourse if their husbands choose
to beat, starve, rape or mutilate them, or even kill
them for the sake of “honor.” A majority of
Muslim women have little or no formal education
and know nothing of any religion other than
Islam.

Religions perpetrate a great many lies. Some are
harmless enough, even rather charming, like fairy
tales. But two lies are the vilest and most
destructive of all human concepts.
The first is the lie that “our” way of believing is
the One Truth, and that all other ways are false
and of the devil. It’s only a short step from this
to fanatical aggression and “holy war” against all
those who doubt “our” doctrines or call “our” god
into question. The Truthers are terrified of any
doubt or scholarly examination of their beliefs,
and their terror can make them collectively
homicidal lunatics.

The second most destructive lie is the denigration
of woman as the source of all evil — the lie that
has blackened all three major patriarchal religions
throughout history. It still clings to credence in
many parts of the world. Until this particular lie
has been fully disproved and abandoned, no
religion deserves a hearing.

We may talk of mutual tolerance and freedom of
religion as good, humane goals, but there is no
freedom where women, the mothers of the race,
are suppressed or abused. The myth of Eve’s
guilt may be the vilest lie ever perpetrated. It
deserves not tolerance but blame.

Ladies and gents what are your views on this?

Sources: https://ffrf.org www.religiouscriticism.com
Tags: Apathiest Mymizcoli RationalMind Logicboy01 plaetton manmustwac aManfromMars....

Lucario007: Part Two

Islam

Restrictions on and abuses of married women,
similar to those of traditional Christian culture,
are still evident in Islam. The “great theologian”
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, whom the Encyclopedia of
Islam calls the most influential authority after
Mohammed himself, agreed with Jews and
Christians that Eve was the original source of all
sin. Because of Eve’s offense, Allah ruled that
every woman must be punished in various ways
in addition to bearing the “sorrow” of childbirth.

She must be separated from her parents and
married to a stranger, which can be accomplished
when still a child. She cannot divorce her
husband, though he may divorce her and turn her
out of his home any time, just by saying “I
divorce you.” He keeps the children and may also
have up to four wives. She must never leave his
house unless accompanied by an adult male
relative. She must keep her head covered, even at
home. She can have no control over her own
person.

Under Sharia law, women have a lesser share in
inheritance, and cannot serve as judges or rulers.
They have no recourse if their husbands choose
to beat, starve, rape or mutilate them, or even kill
them for the sake of “honor.” A majority of
Muslim women have little or no formal education
and know nothing of any religion other than
Islam.

Religions perpetrate a great many lies. Some are
harmless enough, even rather charming, like fairy
tales. But two lies are the vilest and most
destructive of all human concepts.
The first is the lie that “our” way of believing is
the One Truth, and that all other ways are false
and of the devil. It’s only a short step from this
to fanatical aggression and “holy war” against all
those who doubt “our” doctrines or call “our” god
into question. The Truthers are terrified of any
doubt or scholarly examination of their beliefs,
and their terror can make them collectively
homicidal lunatics.

The second most destructive lie is the denigration
of woman as the source of all evil — the lie that
has blackened all three major patriarchal religions
throughout history. It still clings to credence in
many parts of the world. Until this particular lie
has been fully disproved and abandoned, no
religion deserves a hearing.

We may talk of mutual tolerance and freedom of
religion as good, humane goals, but there is no
freedom where women, the mothers of the race,
are suppressed or abused. The myth of Eve’s
guilt may be the vilest lie ever perpetrated. It
deserves not tolerance but blame.

Ladies and gents what are your views on this?

Sources: https://ffrf.org www.religiouscriticism.com
Tags: Apathiest Mymizcoli RationalMind Logicboy01 plaetton manmustwac aManfromMars....

Yes. The custodial religions are male-centered religions.

The worship of a male deity is called religion, but the worship of a female deity is called a cult or idolatory.

plaetton:

Yes. The custodial religions are male-centered religions.

The worship of a male deity is called religion, but the worship of a female deity is called a cult or idolatory.

I have always wondered why that was.

and also from sexism, the women revolt and feminism was born.

I honestly wonder why there are Christian women, at times

Lucario007:

I have always wondered why that was.

and also from sexism, the women revolt and feminism was born.

I honestly wonder why there are Christian women, at times

it's actually very ironic that most of the ladies are more religous than men. If you tell them this they would tell you that you are preaching blasphmy. Always in denial.