Merlot Goddess
The Fly
Any thoughts on the Goddess in Christianity? Does anyone think that "God" created humankind rather than just "man" in his (her?) image?
BonoVoxSupastar said:I think it's simple minded to think God needs a gender.
coemgen said:Most people here don't.
AussieU2fanman said:
That's the image I got hammered into me being raised a Christian, and I very often see God being portrayed as a well built old man with a white beard.
AussieU2fanman said:
That's the image I got hammered into me being raised a Christian, and I very often see God being portrayed as a well built old man with a white beard.
MrsSpringsteen said:I don't think of God as having a gender- but once I heard a priest say something to the effect that if you don't have the human father that you feel is adequate and adequately loving-that you always have God the father. I like that.
AussieU2fanman said:
That's the image I got hammered into me being raised a Christian, and I very often see God being portrayed as a well built old man with a white beard.
Merlot Goddess said:I suppose the thing that puts me off Christianity the most is the sexism. I feel totally alienated by it because by picking one gender over the other, a statement is being made that maleness is superior to the feminine. To be abolutely fair God could be refered to as "Lord and Lady" with "God" as a neutral word.
e2a: In fairness... in here most people have said they think of God as not being exclusively male. That heartens me.
Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have had priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity.... Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?
Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable.
--C.S. Lewis
INDY500 said:God exists eternally as a spirit, possessing no physical body and hence no gender, yet having all the traits of both males and females.
But throughout his Word it's clear how believers are to speak to him. Christ's own example being "Our Father Who art in heaven."
coemgen said:I don't think God's exclusively male, however, I don't feel it's sexist to use the term Lord or Father with God either. That's how he was referred to by Christ himself, in a relational sense. These must be terms that reflect God's nature more accurately.
coemgen said:I've never heard that, but if that is the case, it doesn't mean the concept of Lord didn't exist before.
Ormus said:
Actually, yes, the concept of "Lord" has no ancient equivalent. The earliest it stretches back is a Germanic (read: "pagan") tribal structure of the "loaf guardian" or "keeper of the loaves" (Old English: "hlaf-weard"). This position reflected a Germanic tribal custom, where the superior provided food for his followers. The inclusion of "Lord" in the Bible is an example of sloppy medieval translation practices. Or, perhaps, with this being the days of the "Divine Right of Kings," ensuring that "God" had a medieval aristocratic title would more than imply to the worldly Lord's vassals and serfs that he was to be obeyed and unquestioned like God.
The Bible, at the very least, has no Germanic heritage, and, instead, was written wholly from a Semitic and, later, a Greco-Roman point of view. By the time the last book of the Bible was written, the Germanic tribes were still mostly in Scandinavia and Germany, with their culture having no effect on the Roman Empire.