Women in Christianity

• Chockeh wrote on 2012-01-31 09:18
  Almost every religion in the world has something in common. Every religion believes that men should have a higher status than women. There is no logical reason as to why women are degraded in religion.
  
  Since the beginning of Christianity, women were considered as a flawed version of men. In the Christian bible, God created the first human, Adam. He then proceeds to create another human to accompany Adam. He used Adam as a reference point to create Eve. This implies that women are based on men, so they are inferior because they are not the original version of mankind. In the bible, God let Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. They can eat any fruit they want, except for the fruit from the tree of knowledge since it is a forbidden fruit. The devil tempted Eve and she ate the fatal fruit. She even tempted Adam to eat the fruit as well. God got mad, so he banned Adam and Eve from paradise. This implies that, because of a single woman, humans can no longer live in paradise. This led the early “Fathers of the Church” to blame women for creating the original sin and that women are responsible for all the evil in the world.
  
  Even though women play a major role in the church, they cannot do any leadership duties involving the church. Very few of them can be sanctioned a title. They cannot be priests, bishops or deacons because that goes against the sacrament of the Holy Order which was established by Jesus Christ, and so, not even the Pope could change that rule. You cannot be ordained even if you are a nun. Women can only do submissive duties like being a nun, being an altar server during mass (which they did not have the privilege of doing in the past) or being a reader during mass.
  
  Since the beginning of Christianity, the Roman Empire held that women were inferior to men physically and intellectually and that it is they’re nature to be dependent on men. A well-known Greek philosopher, Aristotle, once said: “The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities; we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.” This goes to show that even famous intellectuals believe that women truly are inferior to men.
  
  In conclusion, Christianity has been affected by patriarchy ever since it’s been created. There have been many negative views on women since they were created second and they are the ones that are tempting the men to sin. Even if they play a major role in the creation of the Holy Catholic Church, they cannot perform any leadership duties and they can only do submissive ones. In the past, it was common knowledge that women are physically and intellectually inferior to men. As you can see, there is no real evidence that women are inferior to men. It was all just knowledge passed down from generation to generation. In the past, women did not have access to education and power, so they could not assist in the creation of knowledge. Religion and its history are changing due to the newfound knowledge of gender equality. Women are starting to obtain access to more roles in the church, like the role of alter server. Hopefully, we can gain access to knowledge that was once lost with the female perspective being disregarded and we can learn more about the truth of the history that we have written.
• BobYoMeowMeow wrote on 2012-01-31 09:20
  is this your essay from women's studies
• Chockeh wrote on 2012-01-31 09:22
  Yeah, found it in a flashdrive I just found and wanted to share a bit.
• Cynic wrote on 2012-01-31 09:23
  It's because the bible was written during the times where sexism was not only normal, but praised and accepted.
  
  Sure, maybe God told some dude to write the bible.. but we all know it was humans who included discrimination against women, race, homosexuality, etc. Since I'm pretty sure if God honestly disapproved of any of it, he'd have smited a whole lot of us by now. Though I imagine religious people have an excuse for that, too.
• Skye wrote on 2012-01-31 09:29
  That's pretty good.
• Sekwaf wrote on 2012-01-31 09:36
  This is of course, referring to the Catholic church, and not all of Christianity. I for one am a Methodist, and my church has a woman preacher, in fact hers is the most popular service. Now there are other protestant groups that won't allow women to preach, like Baptists (nothing wrong with them, just an example). This is also most likely largely due to tradition rather than sexism now, as most Christian groups would accept women's rights.
• Episkey wrote on 2012-01-31 09:56
  Sekwaf summed up the whole early "Fathers of the Church" being part of Roman Catholicism thing quite nicely. Thank you.
  
  I liked your writing style, don't get me wrong - but I have two noticeable nitpicks.
  I'm not trying to attack you, but just sharing my viewpoint on the writing above.
  
  First, the begining of your essay mentions all religions. Yet later, on the essay solely focuses on "Christianity" which is then further tarnished by the fact that - it's only about the history of Roman Catholicism. And before anyone says Roman Catholicism is the birth of Christianity - you might want to analyze that statement again. Think about the time-frame when Jesus would have died, compared to the start of Roman Catholicism under Constantine (around 300 AD). Yeah.
  Unless your essay was analyzing women's rights in the beliefs of Roman Catholicism, you might run into some issues. The lack of discernment in your essay/paper caused me (a reader) to have some conflict and question what where you actually talking about. Of course, this kind of thing would probably escape most readers - but I believe it's a valid point to be made.
  
  Secondly, I appreciate the reference to the Bible. However, the interpretation (although it's your opinion) might be up for debate.
  Eve was created from Adam - I'll give you that. But both Adam and Eve were planned from the start of creation. Since God said, let them be maken in our image. Eve's purpose was never to serve Adam, but to have companionship since God said that it wasn't good for Adam to be by himself.
  
  Furthermore, The Devil did tempt Eve. She was the first to eat from the fruit - but Adam ate from it as well. If the Bible was truly written by sexist writers ... why would they acknowledge Adam's fault? Since both Adam and Eve ate the fruit and disobeyed God, they are both at fault. If you want to really play the blame game, the obvious choice of character is not Eve - but the serpent (Devil, Satan, Lucifer)
  
  Of course, I'm sure people would like to state otherwise. But I believe what I've written would be a fair conclusion that any person could arrive at. I'm afraid the more popular view of Eve being the sole fault of the whole incident was indeed done by the Roman Catholic Church. In that, and many other things, I lament to say - that they have succeeded.
• Chockeh wrote on 2012-01-31 10:15

  Quote from Episkey;756838:

  Sekwaf summed up the whole early "Fathers of the Church" being part of Roman Catholicism thing quite nicely. Thank you.
  
  I liked your writing style, don't get me wrong - but I have two noticeable nitpicks.
  I'm not trying to attack you, but just sharing my viewpoint on the writing above.
  
  First, the begining of your essay mentions all religions. Yet later, on the essay solely focuses on "Christianity" which is then further tarnished by the fact that - it's only about the history of Roman Catholicism. And before anyone says Roman Catholicism is the birth of Christianity - you might want to analyze that statement again. Think about the time-frame when Jesus would have died, compared to the start of Roman Catholicism under Constantine (around 300 AD). Yeah.
  Unless your essay was analyzing women's rights in the beliefs of Roman Catholicism, you might run into some issues. The lack of discernment in your essay/paper caused me (a reader) to have some conflict and question what where you actually talking about. Of course, this kind of thing would probably escape most readers - but I believe it's a valid point to be made.
  
  Secondly, I appreciate the reference to the Bible. However, the interpretation (although it's your opinion) might be up for debate.
  Eve was created from Adam - I'll give you that. But both Adam and Eve were planned from the start of creation. Since God said, let them be maken in our image. Eve's purpose was never to serve Adam, but to have companionship since God said that it wasn't good for Adam to be by himself.
  
  Furthermore, The Devil did tempt Eve. She was the first to eat from the fruit - but Adam ate from it as well. If the Bible was truly written by sexist writers ... why would they acknowledge Adam's fault? Since both Adam and Eve ate the fruit and disobeyed God, they are both at fault. If you want to really play the blame game, the obvious choice of character is not Eve - but the serpent (Devil, Satan, Lucifer)
  
  Of course, I'm sure people would like to state otherwise. But I believe what I've written would be a fair conclusion that any person could arrive at. I'm afraid the more popular view of Eve being the sole fault of the whole incident was indeed done by the Roman Catholic Church. In that, and many other things, I lament to say - that they have succeeded.

  
  
  For your first point, I agree. I actually removed some information that would have cleared things up. I also agree with the fact that this is mostly about the Roman Catholic Church. I guess it's because I grew up being a catholic (even though I'm leaning towards the atheist-side). I actually noticed this after I posted the thread, but I didn't bother to change it.
  
  Secondly, I don't think that Eve being blamed for the creation of sin was fair either. As far as I remember, I came up with that statement based on this and on Simone de Beauvoir.
• Episkey wrote on 2012-01-31 10:27

  Quote from Chockeh;756880:

  For your first point, I agree. I actually removed some information that would have cleared things up. I also agree with the fact that this is mostly about the Roman Catholic Church. I guess it's because I grew up being a catholic (even though I'm leaning towards the atheist-side). I actually noticed this after I posted the thread, but I didn't bother to change it.
  
  Secondly, I don't think that Eve being blamed for the creation of sin was fair either. As far as I remember, I came up with that statement based on this and on Simone de Beauvoir.

  
  
  Well that makes a bit more sense. Well, I'm glad you shared this with everyone.
  
  So you grew up in the Catholic dogma. I would encourage you to take a second look at what Christianity (not Roman Catholicism) really says concerning most things in life. If you agreed with my two points, you probably might agree or even acknowledge other concepts.
  
  Looking at what you linked, that entire first paragraph is basically an accusation at Eve. It was almost as if the author was casting her into Hell.
  [S]Probably was trying to. Lol.[/S]
  
  There was also a little side comment on the book of Enoch which I found to be funny. He he~
  Of course, I sometimes have a weird sense of humor :chin:
• Lolicon wrote on 2012-01-31 10:37
  "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet." -1 Timothy 2:12
  While I don't think this applies anymore today, it sure did back then. Which is what we're talking about. So yes, it does apply to everyone.