Posts filed under ‘Uncategorized’
Vox Day is wrong about woman, part 5: How women rate themselves
Vox claim #6) …most women overrate themselves by at least two points because they rate themselves by their hottest-ever hookup rather than by the average of their past romantic record.
If that claim was true, (more…)
New Blog: Opening Special
Limited offer: For the opening of our new blog, Biblical Personhood, we now have all blog posts for FREE! This is only half of the usual price of nothing! Hurry while stocks last!
All jokes aside, if you like the posts on topics like gender equality or patriarchy on this blog, please drop in at my new one, which is now open. (Posts that were copied to Biblical Personhood will soon be deleted from this one.)
Notice: New blog in progress
For those of you who visit this blog for its observations on patriarchy, egalitarianism, biblical womanhood and the like- I am still blogging on it. These topics are seldom off my mind nowadays, and I appreciate you, my readers.
I got more half-finished posts on this than will ever be worth finishing. My new blog, which will be solely about these themes, will be up as soon as I succeed in importing posts from this blog to that one. When the Biblical Personhood blog is up, you will be invited. Meanwhile, I am praying that God will use my words, and that I will not mislead in what I blog.
Honestly, Internet atheists are like this
I made a boo-boo.
Some atheists told me that atheism is good for society and that the world’s most atheistic societies are also the healthiest. And that they get their views from a guy by the surname of Zuckerman. I saw right out that the Zuckerman numbers simply cannot be used to support what they say, and I assumed Zuckerman was very wrong.
And I made two blog post showing that what these atheists claim simply cannot be supported from the numbers, even those Zuckerman use. My boo-boo was to believe that Zuckerman indeed say everything that atheist/humanist blog commenters claim he does.
Today a commenter on this blog, Ianam, presumably an atheist or humanist, convinced me that Zuckerman’s views are more nuanced than I give him credit for. (Ianam also implied some slanderous nonsense on another topic – what Good News Clubs teach- that I know not to be true. I have the official certificate and experience to prove my knowledge of Good News clubs, but that is another story.) This led me to make blog changes and send him this e-mail, so Ianam know that I am trying to improve on my mistakes:
Hi, Ianam
You posted on my blog today.
You will notice that I set my two Zuckerman posts from published to draft, so readers here can no longer see them. You convinced me that I misrepresented Zuckerman. You see, I always heard of him from atheists who indeed made the claims represented here.
But if those claims are not Zuckerman’s, but only that of his fans, then my posts are indeed up for major revision. The numerous misrepresentations of Internet atheists who quote Zuckerman need to be showed to be wrong, but I have no right to blame Zuckerman for what his fans say.
This happens time and again when I trust Internet atheists- they end up lying, and then I lie when I believe and quote them.
Retha
PS: I hope you were honest about your e-mail address, and this e-mail goes through.
Guess what? The e-mail did not go through…
Should this remind me about anything regarding Internet unbelievers?
Christ or man? A complementarian silences me (Ahem…)
I recently had a conversation with Wbmoore, in which we defended different views of whether God want one sex to always lead and the other to always follow. A commenter named Bigwow answered him on his blog, on the same topic I did. In the comments there, I invited Bigwow to my blog too:
Bigwow, I believe that it is the witness of God inside you, the intentions of Jesus, that tells you that men cannot always lead in marriage, and women cannot always follow. You are being told that the Bible say the opposite of the “loving others as yourself” commandment your heart knows to be true.
Can I invite you to my blog? Like Moore, I believe the Bible is true. But we come to different conclusions on this issue. Perhaps, at my blog, you could see that the Bible does not contradict what you instinctively know to be right already. (Since Moore responds to me -parts of my words at least- here, and since he also conversed on my blog, and since I link to his blog on my answers to him, and he hasn’t politely returned the favor yet, I do not find it wrong to self-promote now. http://christianrethinker.wordpress.com/ )
This comment was posted on his blog, one week ago, but he still did not publish it. He usually publish comments within hours. Nor did he publish any other link to my blog, even though he directly quoted and opposed selected parts of my views. Moore does not, in my view, argue in good faith.
But more significantly: We have a soul here, Bigwow, who feel he/she cannot trust the Word of God. And he answers that all the negative impressions Bigwow has of the Word is indeed true, and Bigwow should suspend all his/her impressions of right and wrong, and rather believe the Wbmoore understanding of male/female relationships.
That is, to my mind, an unnecessary hindrance on Bigwow’s path to God. Even a strong complementarian, if he loves the gospel, have to say: “Hey, this is truly not a matter all Christians agree on. I’d love to talk to you on why you can trust the Bible, and the Bible’s Jesus, but meanwhile, we can leave this issue until you’re ready for it.” Jesus did not tell Simon and Andrew, James and John, the first day He met them, all the implications of following. He started by showing them Himself. But Moore do not even want to allow Bigwow to see a link to me, who may help convince him/her: The Bible can be taken seriously. And, per implication, Christ is worth accepting.
(I shouldn’t be surprised that a complementarian silence me, a woman. But Moore believe women should not lead in the church or home, and bringing an unbeliever closer to trusting the word would not fall in either of those two categories.)
I have to assume he loves male leadership more than he loves Christ…
Vox Day is wrong about women: Part 3, working women
C) Claims evidentially wrong things about women’s effect on society:
Vox claim #5) …Unlike immigrants, women don’t create any additional demand by entering the work force. The Law of Supply and Demand is an iron one. If supply rises faster than demand, the price falls.
(Bold mine)
Vox is really, actually blind enough to believe that women do not create any additional demand by working? Vox is proveably factually wrong. Even the most superficial thinker on this topic has to admit that it increases the need for things like neat women’s wear, for transport, for day-care for children, and for readily-prepared food.
It increase the demand for buildings – women who previously spent most of her time at home now spends a lot in an office/ workshop/ store/ consulting room, and some time at home. Children now need both a home and a day-care centre. These are examples and not an exhaustive list of how working women increase demand.
Deeper thoughts may include that many, Vox among them, believe that working women take a large part of the blame for the increase in divorce. Divorce, abhorrent as we may find it, increases demand. It is more expensive for two adults to run two households than to run one. (By one study, two together live as cheaply as one-and-a-half seperately.)
Vox or his fans may reply with: “But the increase in demand is not as big as the increase in supply! Wether that is true or not, it will be moving the goalposts. The original claim was that “women don’t create any additional demand by entering the work force.”
And suppose women entering the work force makes less of a difference to demand than to supply, this still makes them exactly the same as men entering the work force. The material needs of, say, a boy in his last year of high school, and a newly employed young male who was in high school last year, are pretty much the same.
Is this a silly little detail which only an ankle-biter can complain about? No. This is an example of how Theodore Beale (Vox Day)’s prejudices cause him to miss the simplest and most obvious facts about the opposite sex. He blames women (to quote the name of the piece I link to: “Now this you can blame on women”) for things obviously equally true of men. I assert that he misses the facts to an equally large extend when discussing the character of women.
Jerry Coyne: Promoting his religious views, not science
But Jerry Coyne is not happy about this. Is he ranting about the 16% of teachers who are creationists, or the 9% who failed to answer? No. His problem is that the 75% divides into 28% who believe evolution was unguided, and 47% who personally think God had a hand in it. That 47% irks him.
Because, you see, it is no good to Coyne if people believe in the whole theory of evolution by natural selection, but reject his doctrine on religion and God. According to Coyne:
Can we count those 48% of “guided-by-Godders” on our side? I agree with P. Z.: the answer is NO. Yes, they do accept that our species changed genetically over time, but they see God as having pulled the strings. That’s not the way evolution works…To count them as allies means we make company with those who accept evolution in a superficial sense but reject it in the deepest sense. After all, the big revolution in thought wrought by Darwin was the recognition that the appearance of design—thought for centuries to be proof of God—could stem from purely natural processes. When we cede human evolution to God, then, we abandon that revolution. That’s why I see selective creationists like Kenneth Miller, Karl Giberson and Francis Collins as parting company with modern biological thought.
Why are there more women than men in church? One possible answer.
“It is feminization of the church“, some experts claim. “The churches are run nowadays in a way that soothes female ears more than male ears, that caters more to women’s needs than men’s.”
That sounds sensible at first glance, but is it the whole truth? And it matters. God’s heart is for both males and females to love Him and live for Him.
According to this “feminization” theory, men don’t like singing love songs to God, flower arrangements in the church, emotional preaching, etc. And little more than the feminized men stay in church, as those are the only ones not too upset with things like this.
Can this be the whole truth? King Solomon, for example, wrote and sung love songs, some of which are collected in the Bible as “Song of Songs”. His father, David, sang of God’s love and wrote Psalms. Neither of the two strikes me as effeminate. And today’s male, love-song-singing stars? Well, by what the tabloids write about some of them, it wouldn’t seem pansies are the only men who sing love songs.
It also seem that the more emotional churches tend to have more people- both male and female – than the less emotional ones. I may not be crazy about emotionalism, but emotional congregations grow in membership.
And do anyone seriously believe that flower arrangements in church keep men away?
Perhaps something else, way more foundational to the male mindset, is a big part of the reason. I suggest this, because if the real cause of the illness is not diagnosed, there is little chance of curing the patient. (Our patient is the church; the symptom is a shortage of men.)
Sex may be the answer.
1. Men are very interested in sex.
2. The church say the sexual act belongs inside marriage.
3: Current laws in many countries (divorce laws, custody laws, domestic violence laws) make it risky for men to get married.
4. There are more loose women than before, who are willing to sleep around without marriage.
When the church asks men to get married, they are asking them to do something very risky, with many potential drawbacks. And the primary immediate benefit men previously had by marrying, could be obtained easily these days without a wedding ring.
I humbly suggest the Christian view on sexual morality may be a bigger stumbling block for men than ever before, something they prefer not to heed. And this makes them believe that God’s laws are not relevant to the real world.
Is this the church’s fault? Probably not. The man’s fault? Largely. Society’s fault? Partly. Now, if this is true, what should the church do get more men? Change men’s thinking? Change society? How?
——–
PS Update: This link gives a more balanced view of church feminization than most proponents do.
No true Christian, no true Scotsman?
Tom: No true Scotsman drinks Jack Daniels.
Sally: My uncle Angus is from Glasgow and he drinks Jack Daniels.
Tom: Then he is no true Scotsman.
The above type of false logic is called the no true Scotsman fallacy. Here is an example where the fallacy is not present:
Anne: True Scotsmen comes from Scotland.
Ben: I know someone from Canada who loves Scotland, often go there and calls himself a Scotsman.
Anne: Then he is no true Scotsman.
The latter example is not the No True Scotsman fallacy, as “A Scotsman is a man from Scotland” is an entirely just definition of Scotsman. And this one?
Joe: Many Christians have been responsible for henious crimes in history.
Melissa: Then they are no true Christians.
Wether this is the No True Scotsman Fallacy, depends on the definition of “Christian.”
However you choose to define Christian, the definition most certainly is not “anyone who calls himself a Christian, is a Christian.” We don’t use that definition for anything else. We don’t believe that everyone who calls themselves “honest” are. We don’t believe that everyone who calls themselves “not overweight” are not. You cannot be a king, or a genius, or a dog, or a tall person, by calling yourself that. (If it worked that way, it would have been a very strong temptation to call myself drop-dead gorgeous.)
Simple word etymology is more useful: Christian has the root word Christ and the suffix -ian. A Christian is a Christ-following/ Christ-imitating person. Who is meant when we speak of Christ? He is the Jesus described in the New Testament, as described there.To be a Christ-ian, you need to follow/ imitate Jesus as he is painted in the Bible. That is where He is painted as the Christ.
When is “but they were not true Christians” a case of the no true Scotsman fallacy, and when not? Whenever an action is inconsistent with Christ and his teachings, it is entirely logical to say that this was not a Christian action. To claim, for example, that Christians do not kill people because they believe differently, is entirely just. Christ’s words on the topic is found in Matthew 13:24-31 and :36-43
A Christian who kills those who believe differently does it despite, not because of Christianity. It is possible to say that (s)he was a true Christian, but not to blame Christianity.
At least that’s how I understand it.
Single Christian women, ignore bad spiritual advice
A divorced female friend once gave me some MP3′s to listen to. The theme is about “releasing single Christian women for marriage.”In the first message, the speaker tells how he see, in his ministry, many Godly young women who would like to be married, but cannot find Godly young men. And how God told him he should help them.
So far, so good.
Then this speaker realised that many of these women sit with “labels on their souls.” Past generations of their family were perhaps unfaithful, or unbelieving or whatever, and now people- including God-loving young men – treat them that way. Because these people sense the label of “unfaithful” or “unbelieving” placed on her by a prior generation’s acts.
Now me and that preacher start to part ways.
He continues with a story of a woman who already confessed the sin that one of her grandfathers was a traitor, but now re-confessed it in the sense of the label of traitor on her soul. He tells how people suddenly started trusting the woman. What he does not tell, is that she found a husband after that. Then he gives the advice that unmarried women should look at their family histories, and see if there is anything they should confess and ask God to free them from.
He is wrong. If he knew a roundabout equal number of single godly men and single godly women, he may have had a point, and certain qualities, or even labels, in those women and men may have kept them single. But previously non-existent Christian men won’t suddenly materialize when women are taught to reconfess sins of their ancestors, that they already confessed before but not in terms of labels. In fact, this concentrating on their genealogies sounds a lot like the endless genealogies Paul warns against in 1 Timothy 1:4.
Is God so weak that he cannot give His blessings to His child, if his child had the wrong ((great-)grand)parents? I see the need to confess your own sin for God to renew you, but confessing and re-confessing the sins of your grandparents? And what if your parents or their parents did things you don’t know about? Will you never get free?
Miss Single, you do not need to focus more on spiritual gimmicks. Rather focus on firstly, your Maker (Mat 6:23), and then on giving out the love inside you- if not to a man, then to whoever God sends over your path. Don’t allow anyone – not even well-meaning church people- to take your focus from God towards gimmicks.
Church, don’t exploit the emotions (and money, on courses and books on being “set free”) of single women with gimmicks. There is a simple reason why church women do not find church men: There are too few church men to go around. Period. And what should the church do about that? They should change. The gospel, properly preached and applied, is the good news for both sexes, a challenge to obey for men, women, and children. If the churches have too few men, somehow the gospel is preached in a way that soothes female ears more than male ears, or that do not challenge men’s talents enough. What the church should do, is to ask God what they are doing wrong, why they are not producing more godly men.
