One thing that has always baffled me is how many women are devout Christians. Sure, it's almost always the men who get the spotlight. Look at the televangelists. How many of them are women? Too few to count. And yet, the population of your average church is positively bursting with women.
I've maintained that most believers do little more than a cursory glance-through of their bible. They read what they're told to read and probably nothing more. I think this is especially true for women. Or rather, I hope this is true for women.
If it isn't true, then my opinion of women will have to be drastically lowered. Because if women really do read the bible, and continue to be Christians, then they must be nuts.
That was a bit harsh, perhaps, but let's be honest… The Judeo-Christian religion is amazingly sexist. The bible states plainly that men are to be the masters of women. It is very clear in many places that women are essentially the property of their fathers and husbands.
Some cultures in the world still maintain this obscene practice. And most of us here in the States are aghast that anyone could believe women to be on the same level as farm animals, basically.
Yet the holy book worshiped by the vast majority of Americans states exactly that.
And don't think they're just words that no one has ever paid attention to over the last 2000 years. The bible's attitude toward women has been the single biggest factor in the lack of equal rights for women up to the present day. Just ask any women's rights activist from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Gloria Steinem.
Many believers will concede that the Old Testament does say many things that are sexist. They'll claim that pagan cultures treated women even worse. (In truth, some of them did, but many were actually matriarchal by design.) But, they also claim, the New Testament reverses all that negativity. Jesus said all were equal, men and women alike.
Perhaps. But if so, then why didn't the Church live up to this claim? For two hundred years, while the New Testament was still being compiled, the Church picked up the worst characteristics of the Old Testament, as well as the surrounding Greco-Roman culture, leaving us with the same sexist propaganda we had before. And it all can be summed up as: Women are to be submissive at all times.
Recall the furor over the Southern Baptists' recent convention, in which they upheld the doctrine that women should "submit graciously" to men. Look at moronic groups such as The Promise Keepers. These people are not simply your standard sexists. They are obeying the word of the bible! Women are, even according to the New Testament, to stay quiet in church, not permitted to teach, and basically created for men.
Doubtless there are some women out there who actually believe such drivel. Most likely, there are many more men who do.
Robert G. Ingersoll put it well: "As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. The Bible was not written by a woman. Within its lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. She is regarded as the property of man. She is made to ask forgiveness for becoming a mother. She is as much below her husband, as her husband is below Christ. She is not allowed to speak. The gospel is too pure to be spoken by her polluted lips. Woman should learn in silence."
No woman who considers herself the equal of man should be able to believe in this atrocious book. No woman with an ounce of self-respect should ever be a Christian.
