Tuesday, April 25, 2017

"The husband is the head of the wife and that's the way it is, period" Pat Robertson

"Wives, (Converted RCG women) you can be independent in this. (In RCG women with money to give Dave Pack can have a voice in the family but outside of money issues, not so much.) You have half the worth in whatever is there in your house. I'm officially telling all of you, read verses 17, 18, 19 and focus on it. Wives you have an independent voice. Legally you have half the funds. What are you going to do about it? "
(An RCG man with a complaining wife not in RCG however...)
"Husbands, your wife, "Well, my wife isn't in the church. She doesn't want me to do it." You know what? [starts raising his voice] Tell her, "You don't have a voice, woman."
The Clarion Call
Dave Pack
Let's have a little talk about  the reality of male and female equality Bible or no Bible. Church or no Church.
A member once approached me after services to tell me what her husband had announced to her.  She said, "He told me he was the King and over me because that is God's way and I am NOTHING."  I knew her well enough to know she had more to say so I asked, "And YOU said...?"   I said, "Then that makes you King of NOTHING!"  I knew that's what she really wanted to tell me. Good answer actually.
The following facts are not ones in which your husband, your fundamentalist pastor, nor your literalist Church will rejoice in. In fact, they may ask you to quietly leave if you are going to believe this rather than the inspired, inerrant and historically accurate "word of God."
"The primordial plan for both female and male fetuses in mammals is initially feminine.
Contrary to some creation myths, in mammals, maleness arises from femaleness, not the other way round.
Masculinisation results from organisational effects of fetal testosterone (and its derivatives), which in humans occurs during the second trimester of pregnancy.
To be masculinised means that certain areas of the brain grow larger, while others remain smaller.
These differences to some extend explain sexual behaviors and preferences even in humans"
Dr. Alexander Thiele University of Newcastle upon Tyne Lecture 7: Social emotions -'the sexual brain'
In reality it seems that FEMALE is the default position as human beings develop in the womb. Maleness comes after with the proper wash of hormones applied at just the right time and in just the right amounts. The implications for literalists are staggering and for women, liberating!
In some cultures, young men are taught to pray "Blessed Art Thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman." Mohammed is said to have stated, "When Eve was created, Satan rejoiced." Much if all of the orignal creation mythology's sole purpose is to depose any notion of "goddess" worship, which was an absolute fascination that women had the power to give birth and bring forth life etc, and replace it with a male patriarchy. The Genesis story is not so much how life came to be or that we all came from two humans, named Adam and Eve, as it is to send the message that women, who are the fault of everything, are to have babies painfully now and say "yes Lord" to their husbands. From the totally mythological tale of the fall of man by the disobedience of woman, much misery and ridicuoulously false roles have been demanded of them by men and in particular the Christian church.
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. FOR (the reason being) Adam was first formed and then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." I Tim. 2:11-14
So according to Paul, the literal truth of Eve's sin produces the literal idea that women are more easily deceived than men and prone to sin, and thus should be silent in church. Or as St. John Chrysostom, a fifth century church father noted, "The woman taught once and ruined everything. On this account...let her not teach." It seems wrong ideas of how things really came to be have very big consequences over a very long time!
Paul goes on to say..."The head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God....for as much as he is in the image and glory of God, BUT ( as in , don't get the same idea about women) the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is NOT OF the woman, but the woman IS OF the man." I Cor. 11:3,7,9.
No more literally untrue words could every have been spoken by a man about  the origins of men.
Very simply put, Paul said that men are over women because women come from men as in the story of Adam and Eve no doubt.  Christ alone is over men and God alone is over Christ. So it's God > Christ > Man > Woman > pets and small animals. It is notable that it is here that Paul makes it plain, based on the creation of woman out of man mythology, that Men don't come from women at all and that women owe their physical existence to men too. I guess Paul and Dr. Alexander Thiele never actually met to discuss just how do males form in the womb. Like it or not guys, we come from out mom's literally and from the default fetal template of the female in time after we get our hormones in the womb. So men actually do come twice from females. Someone tell the Church!
St Clement, father of the Roman Church denied women the right to even exercise as men. He felt rather it was more in keeping with scripture that they be confined to spinning, weaving and cooking. Of course he could barely bring himself to add "and se..se...sex, unless it was out of the need to bring children into the fold.
St. Augustine, not the most balanced Church Father of the lot proclaimed that man only was made in God's image and not woman. But that's what Paul said too. He went on to note that men were quite complete without a woman, but that women could only be complete with a man. Man alone was self contained and complete alone. Once again, time has shown how untrue this all is, but the concept is still used by many churches and pastors to keep women in "their place" and fulfilling their "role".
Other theologians and Church Father's went on to note that men were the spiritual aspect of God, while women were merely a symbol of the flesh and thus she is the temptress and weakener of men who fail to see what the Church points out.
In the 16th Century, Clifford Alderman notes in a his book, A Cauldron of Witches, that an early Church report noted that "Woman is more carnal than man: there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed with a BENT RIB. She is imperfect and always deceives." Now there is some hot scientific reasoning for you! Of course no one notes that if women are deceptive because of being made out of a bent rib, what is a man that he was made out of red dirt? Maybe that's why men are so dirty minded..:)
Modern Christianity is still designed and used to annihilate the spirt of women. It's is still here to keep patriarchy in place and to defeat the matriarcy of former times. Women were mystical in those cultures as opposed to utilitarian in that of a patriarchy or man led society and religion. I believe I would much rather to have lived in a society where women were held high for their spirituality and creative abilities. As it is, we live in the age, not of Aquarius but of testosterone, where men rule badly, kill often and take the spoils from those who cannot oppose them. I like Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along" far more than those who bluster "Bring em on." But alas, tis not that way in our real world at this point.
You have to love this observation by the great philosopher Rousseau.
"As the conduct of a woman is subservient to the public opinion, her faith in matters of religion should , for that reason, be subject to authority. Every daughter ought to be of the same religion as her mother, and every wife to be the same religion as her husband; for though such religion should be false, that docility which induces the mother and daughter to submit to the order of nature, takes away, in the sight of God, the criminality of their error...they are not in a capacity to judge for themselves, they ought to abide by the decision of their fathers and husbands as confidently as that of the Church." Or as Paul would say, "if any woman has a question, let her ask her husband..."
So when does the church grow up and face the facts of science, and not base silly and demeaning demands upon women on mythology and error? When does a church finally admit to errors in teachings that hurt people? Never from what I can see. Let's remember, the Church took 350 years to apologize for almost burning Galileo at the stake for informing them that the earth was not the center of the solar system with the sun revolving around it or around the Church for that matter. Yet that's about the right amount of time for Churches to come to their senses and stop demanding of people things based in falicies. At what point does ignorance stop oppression and pain?
Only a relative few Christian women will have the confidence to step out of the box of fundamentalist Church control. They will suffer at the hands of ministers who quote Paul who frankly was misinformed as to how things really are in biology, endocrinology and genetics. Literal control over a woman by using allegorical or just plain wrong "facts" is wrong. It hurts the spirit and demeans the woman in a world where we better soon wake up to the fact that we all are one and the same.
So sorry guys... yes, you with the useless nipples. Without a woman, you would not exist, and without a good sprinkling of hormones at just the right time after your conception, the female default position you started out as would keep you there or perhaps acting in ways that the Bible also goes on to condemn you for, mostly with death.
Whether your pastor, church, tribe or friends like it, good science, truthfully so called, trumps sincere but ignorant Apostles, Priests, Popes and Kings. Dr. Thiele is correct.
"Contrary to some creation myths, in mammals, maleness arises from femaleness, not the other way round."


15 comments:

Byker Bob said...

Awe, Gee. You mean we can't have fun role playing with a little S & M bondage? Our wives aren't allowed to spank us? Is that why Herbie always hated stiletto pumps?

Unbelievable! Get taught to enjoy spankings while you are growing up in Armstrongism, and then you have to give them up when you get married! What a mixed message that sends!

BB

DennisCDiehl said...

I know BB. It's sad. Really sad. :)

Anonymous said...

I would never start a company if the employees could run the show and fire me and take all the money. I would never start a marriage as long as the law allows the wife to play the harlot, refuse to obey, and end up with your house, kids and money. I would never get married under the current legal system. The old ways worked better, and that's why the grey-headed West is literally dying off.

anonymous63 said...

It seems, according to the bible, that obedience servants to masters good or bad, children to parents, wives to husbands, is the default setting and nothing less is permitted. Tell me, if someone can, are wives children, or servants, or both?

Never mind. Most wives have know doubt where they stand with their husbands and in the COG'S and religions in general. Both!

He came to set the captives free? Waiting.

Thanks for a great post Dennis. It gives the heart hope.

Anonymous said...

Now I know why Bob Thiel fails to be the standard of masculinity.

nck said...

"I would never start a company if the employees could run the show and fire me and take all the money."

This person is not fit to run a democratic country!
The entire point is that this should always be possible in any organisation. The fact that it doesn't happen is because more than the majority in companies, countries, organizations should share the same goals. Labor should have a big a voice, perhaps not as much as the shareholders but substantial.

To rule your wife the old way is ok AS LONG as she controls at least 40% of the assets through a fund or/dowry. You cannot select parts of the old ways that give you a 100% "fundamentalist" control.

nck

DennisCDiehl said...

The "rules" for women in church and relationships with men are not literally true because they are derived from stories that are not literally true. You can't do that. The myth of Adam and Eve was written for those precise reasons. In Israel, patriarchy, temples, a male priesthood and male authority over women was going to be the whole of the culture.

Theologians have even a more severe problem with Original Sin if they don't take the story as literally true. It would mean you and I did not really kill Jesus too because of our sinful nature acquired thousands of years ago by a woman disobeying a God. You can't believe the story is a myth without problems in the atonement of Christ for all. It's a good reason to resist the fact of human evolution.

Women were the cause of sin, we aren't going to honor the goddess as do all the nations around Israel. Our religious symbols will not be vegetables, fertility the feminine. The whole point of the Cain and Abel story was to establish meat sacrfice for temple worship under male priests and annihilate, as distressing to God, the symbols of fertility i.e. veggies. A few chapters earlier veggies were created and called good, but not for religion and Cain lost out.

The gods, including Satan, also love sugar as we learn from Easter, Halloween and Christmas. It took a national holiday, Thanksgiving, to restore veggies to their proper place in society. :)

The fact that the story of Adam and Eve is indeed mythological and written for the very purpose of diminishing the lives of women to having babies painfully (A good time to make this seem true is to issue the decree BEFORE anyone in the story actually had a baby which would have been painful but without it being attached to a punishment), and say "yes Lord" to their husbands. The mythical nature of the story and that none of it literally happened makes all the opinions of NT writers on the "role" of women moot and very untrue if they use the myth to make their rules.

In reality:

Childbirth is always painful

There is everything right with veggies too

Women did not actually cause the fall of man

Serpents, who in this story were the wise counselor to the goddess and only later evolved into Satan. (recall the powerfully erotic pics in our current culture of women and serpents)

Women don't really come from men via a spare or bent rib. The reason for this in the tale is not because she is "close to his heart" It was because men have lots of ribs and would not miss one to make a mere woman.

Men DO come from women

Women don't really have to ask their husbands if they have religious questions.

Women really do have a say in everything

And, if you are the only other man on the planet except your dad and mom and you get kicked out of the garden for killing God's approved one, you don't really have to worry about "when anyone finds me they will kill me". There is no anyone else out there yet. Something both God and the author of the myth evidently did not consider. It just means, "And if you resist our patriarchy, temple worship, meat and blood symbols and priests, we will drive you out and you're on your own."

amen..

Hoss said...

In some cultures, young men are taught to pray "Blessed Art Thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman."

This line is similar to one in a Jewish Siddur (prayer book) and is prayed by men; women substitute, “for having made me according to His will”. I was told it is not meant to demean women, but is a statement of appreciation of life’s structure and status quo. In some ways it’s like Homer Simpson’s “I’m happy with things the way they are” (S08E13) or Popeye’s “I yam what I yam”. The prayer also gives thanks for not being a slave or a Gentile.

I heard a homophobic Protestant pastor, who used some gender segregation in his congregation, mention this line as a slur against Judaism. I missed my opportunity; I felt like asking, So… you would rather be a woman?

Hoss said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

NCK.

You completely and totally missed the point. I wasn't talking about big corporations. I was talking about starting my own company with my own money and years of hard work and watching moochers take it all away. That's what marriage is like today for men. I have a friend who worked 70 hours a week for his wife and family, for years. Then she took most of it, left him poor, and ran off with some other guy. He could have lived for himself and lived off of 30 hours a week and enjoyed his life.

nck said...

Perhaps she was entitled to at least 50% if the money "he" earned was made during their marriage.

But if she took all that is a terrible thing.

nck

Questeruk said...


The Churches have got the logic completely the wrong way round.

If Adam was not deceived, but Eve was deceived, then who is responsible for not following God’s instructions? (The Genesis account shows they were both there together).

Pretty clearly, it was Adams who was at fault! Eve didn’t realise what she was doing was wrong, but Adam did. Therefore Adam bears the responsibility.

He was knowingly going against what he had been told – he bears the responsibility.

Simple.

Hoss said...

Questeruk wrote: he bears the responsibility

Yes, if Adam he been doing his duty, Eve wouldn't have been making decisions on her own! She should have asked him if he approved of her talking to a snake and if he approved of her eating the fruit! Adam clearly neglected his duty for allowing his wife to act so independently! And after Eve did this, Adam behaved like a wimp!

Hoss said...

Questeruk wrote: he bears the responsibility

Yes, if Adam he been doing his duty, Eve wouldn't have been making decisions on her own! She should have asked him if he approved of her talking to a snake and if he approved of her eating the fruit! Adam clearly neglected his duty for allowing his wife to act so independently! And after Eve did this, Adam behaved like a wimp!

Questeruk said...

That's not my point, Hoss, and you know it isn't.

If someone knows an action is wrong, but still does it, that is a bit different to someone who doesn't realise the action is wrong when they did it.

Adam was responsible because he knew what he was doing was wrong. I am not talking about 'one person being in charge of another'.

Marriage is a partnership of two equals. Two people with equal opportunity, who should be able to live life in harmony together, and decide things by communicating with each other. But that's a completely different subject to the point under discussion here.