Does God Hate Women?
Looks fascinating.
And, yes, I'm still around. Haven't technically given up blogging. Just still absorbing/decompressing from that last crazy semester.
Final grades haven't been posted yet, but it's time to buy my books for Fall semester. It's going to be crazy busy. 2 Anthro classes, 2 Women's Studies classes and Abnormal Psych. Let the wild rumpus start.
If I may be be so bold, I kind of took the side of the second commenter:
ReplyDelete"The validity of the arguments aside, one wonders if the angry tone means it's appeal will be limited mainly to the already-converted?"
It kind of sounds like just a synopsis of what most atheists have already studied or know. I guess maybe it is to convince the rest of the world?
As another perspective of which I'm sure you know I would have ;), I don't disagree with any of this. I think that some of the most horrible things in this world have been done in the name of religion. And I feel like that is Satan's tool. I think that I belong to a religion that reverences women (my religion, not the family/culture I grew up in) and truly does teach a God of mercy.
When I did my first intense study of the Book of Mormon I found it was interesting how *shocking* I found the references to mercy, forgiveness, peace, throughout the entire book, which I never really felt was emphasized growing up. Anyway, no need to be-labor my point.
I read that second comment and was amused by its assumption. From what I've read, the tone of this book is not angry... and I think it says more about that commentor's prejudices (that she thought it was anger)than about the book.
ReplyDeleteFrom my observation, it seems many religious people take comfort in the belief that their personal construct of truth is what God really means and that everyone else has it wrong. This books, in my opinion, does an excellent job of pointing out what happens to this notion on the macro level. You have regional (for example) sects of the same religions doing and believing very different things - each quite sure that their interpretation is so correct that often they are willing to die and/or kill to support it.
As far as a religion that has reverence for women - well, I've never seen that in a patriarchal/Abrahamic version. I've seen an awful lot that pay lip service to virtue and motherhood, but none that actually (via doctrine) support women as people, rather than chattel for the glory/subjugation of males and a masculine god.
And that probably sounded angry. It's not. *shrug* It's just that I've been reading a lot of BS defense of the concept of "modesty" lately and doing some breaking down of the concept of modesty as a fetish and don't have a lot of patience for apologia for patriarchy.
This book may well appeal mostly to the already-converted (de-converted?), but we probably have very different notions of why that is. I'm not completely sure of your thinking (is it just the tone? I'm guessing not). But I know it appeals to me because sometimes I can't quite wrap my brain around the cognitive dissonance required to accept the ways of thinking/feeling we (specifically our family, our religion - and, on a larger level, all the other religions along its pedigree) were called to embrace. Studying the history of how people/religion came to be what they/it are/is helps me to understand why the people I care about (and a lot more people I don't care about as much but are still trying to sculpt secular law) are doing what they're doing.