h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm a bit nervous about starting this debate, because I know it will arouse some strongly held beliefs. But it's something that has been the subject of much debate here in Northern Ireland, and I'm genuinely interested in trying to understand the issue.

The Presbyterian church has a conscience clause, whereby individual ministers can refuse to let a woman preacher into "their" pulpit. Much of the justification for this stance comes from 1st Corinthians 14;34, "Let your women keep silence in the churches", and also 1st Timothy 2:12 "But suffer not a woman to teach".

I have several questions.

1. Does silence mean that women aren't supposed to speak at all?
2. Does teach not imply that women shouldn't teach in schools, or Sunday school, or teach their children how to cook, knit, drive, use the computer, whatever?
3. Other parts of 1st Corinthians forbid eating in church - is it OK to have a polo mint during the sermon?
4. How can a church so vehemently and strictly cling to one verse, whilst ignoring the bits about having your head covered, or shunning a fornicator, or not wearing leather, or eating cloven hoofed animals?


Grateful for any enlightenment

It's simple, the Bible's an enormous book, full of contradictory statements and there's enough rubbish in there to justify just about any opinion you'd like to put across

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Even God couldn't manage that, so I doubt it applies to humans.

Given that in Judaism I believe that the sexes are segregated, and women aren't able to take part in the service, that would form a precedent for not allowing women to play a part in early Christian worship. I could be wrong on that as my knowledge basically comes from a single temple in Manchester.

Plus Paul didn't like women full stop. I tend to take anything he says with a slight pinch of salt.

Seem to recall it was one of the hurdles of the early churches. Some had female priests, some female bishops, some married priests etc. Some of the early wall paintings in rome, I think, clearly show women taking full part in the ceremonies.

You can see it happening though; people hear the word of someone who wants all people to be valued and who are equal in the eye of God so they set up equal societies, then society and all of its old ideals rears its ugly head and say No! Women can't be equal!

I think Whisky summed it up pretty well. Now the conservative religious types tend to claim that there is no interpretation or selection going on (they've been *told*). But really that's what it is.

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Decades ago, in the 1970s, I met an elderly Salvation Army colonel, a woman, who had had a long career as a preacher. She told us a story about how after her first "open air", a man had approached her, and quoted the old saying by I think, Samuel johnson, comparing a woman preaching with a dog walking on its hind legs, and he further said that she should give up preaching forever, citing that verse you quote.

She went home upset, and prayed about it, whereupon she was reminded of Galatians 3:28, which states that it doesn't matter if you're male or female, slave or free, all are one in Christ Jesus. So, she had a preaching career of over 40 years and a very successful one! (It certainly helped that she was a Salvation Army officer!) NZ was the first country in the world to have a female Anglican bishop.

The general way of thinking is, that proscriptions such as that woman must be silent and are forbidden to teach, are simply cultural and of their time, and not valid now.

Vicky

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I'm sorry, but IMO that's just not true! On what do you base that?
He was simply a (middle-aged) Jewish man of his time, no different.

Vicky

Really?

That obviously begs the question which other bits of the bible, Koran, Vedas are as you call them "simply cultural" and no longer valid?



While there are some men like me who dont like women at football matches and really would prefer if there werent femae pundits on TV talking about football (it's a voice thing I like roars at fottball matches not screeching, when Allen Hansen grumbles he doesnt "nag").


So I can accept the cultural urge for men to preserve their special place in society and ring-fence it from women folk...like the stoning scene in "The Life of Brian", even sympathise with it, I cant see the any good reason for keeping women out of teaching entirely.


Why do the Abrahamic religions promote equality in one breath and then make specific rules in the next?

Im not saying they sholdnt but they should atleast show a reasoning other than "God says" becase most times you get some other person coming up to say "Ah but God says this and I think this bit he says is more important than the bit you are quoting"


1. Does silence mean that women aren't supposed to speak at all?

I think here it means speak when spoken to shut your trap when your husband/father/higher ranking male says shut it. Otherwise you can talk to other women and to children just not too loud sweety.


2. Does teach not imply that women shouldn't teach in schools, or Sunday school, or teach their children how to cook, knit, drive, use the computer, whatever?

I think it means dont go thinking and certainly dont pass on your thoughts to other people. the people who wrote the bible obviously had the intention of telling other people what they ought to be thinking, eating, doing etc...etc...


3. Other parts of 1st Corinthians forbid eating in church - is it OK to have a polo mint during the sermon?

No that's eating! Oh you're being silly, are you? Good with irreverance and utter disrespect is the only sensible way to approach anything the bible says.


4. How can a church so vehemently and strictly cling to one verse, whilst ignoring the bits about having your head covered, or shunning a fornicator, or not wearing leather, or eating cloven hoofed animals?

Because people who eat in church are obviously greedy, quite a lot of greedy people are rich, if you rely on donations for a big chunk of income you dont want to piss off those who eat in church do you?

If the got rid of all the fornicators how many people do yiou think would be left in the already mostly empty churches?

And bacon bacon is just sooooo tasty

Milliners arent that rich if they were and made big donations I imagine the church might feel differently about covering your head in church.


Obviously Im being whimsical and faecitious.

The real answer is people find, cling to and vehemently, sometimes even aggressively promote whichever ideas they find in any book they can claim orthodoxy for that bvest suit there own present circumstances and personal preferences.

Cue brother fighting brother over where the alter should be, which is very silly when they are supposed to be praying to an omnipresent bigG!

one love

Not valid now???


It's a subject of huge debate here in NI!

Bit of background - 2 Presbyterian churches in Portadown traditionally swap ministers for one service over Christmas. This year, one minister refused to let the other (female) minister into his pulpit, on grounds of conscience. Quoting Corinthians.

And prompting much discussion in the letters pages of the newspapers, much of it supporting the minister's refusnik stance and using the scripture to validate this.

I just don't get how some words are to be interpreted literally, others can be put in context, and yet others ignored entirely.

I'm tempted to write to the papers myself, but I know that no matter how cogent or logical an argument I construct, small minds cannot be changed.

I just goes to show how powerful stone-age thinking(?) really is in todays world. There really is no reasoning in religious arguements. They always come back to 'because god says so' which is a complete abdication of logic and reasoning.

I could go on but it's late...

turvy

You could look on it as a "Bone fide occupational qualification", such as that you can't have a male wet nurse, or a woman advertising mens' boxers...

That argument is really no sillier than the "all religion is pants" level of engagement which everyone but Beatrice is showing... Stone Age thinking? Give me a break! How utterly illogically stupid and abusive. I happen to find the "just-so" stories the evolutionary psychologists (evo-psychos Natalie Angier has called them) use to justify *male* (but not female) infidelity, equally Stone Age.

That is just not true.

I have read theories that explain female "infidelity" just as as they explain male harem protection both are ways that animals of all kinds subconciously empploy to ensure a wide more stable platform for the continuation of their species and specific genetic lineage.

More importantly there is not "justification" involved. As a non-believer in the maorality that the bible and its adherents spout I dont need to justify myself in terms of the subject little bits that people like you like to pick out from it.

I have the intellectual will and moral courage to think it through and not abdicate responsibility for my descions and actions.

If I dont want a woman to do certan things I have the...the bits ladies dont have...to stand up and say its my call not fall back on the words of people I have never met and about whom I know only what they have chosen to tell me after it has been edited down by other people later.


"You could look on it as a "Bone fide occupational qualification", such as that you can't have a male wet nurse,

As usual your take on the sunject which amount to 0% thought and 100% opinion is wrong.
http://www.unassistedchildbirth.com/miscarticles/milkmen.html



"or a woman advertising mens' boxers...

Oh they do...dont ask me how I know but I do

Thanks blicky

More coherent than me at this time

turvy

You have either had a lot of or its very, very late where you are its the first time anyone has called me coherent.

>>1st Corinthians 14;34, "Let your women keep silence in the churches",<<

There is another way to interpret that - it's that women can hold a certain kind of meditative space within spiritual contexts. I have no idea if that was the intent of the statement, but I'd love to see a discussion of the translation from the original to English. Plus the cultural context.

In NZ Maori cultures are often criticised for being sexist because in some places women aren't allowed certain speaking rights on the Marae (meeting places). But Maori women point out that they have other powers including the one that determines who comes onto the marae in the first place.


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If I dont want a woman to do certan things I have the...the bits ladies dont have...to stand up and say its my call not fall back on the words of people I have never met and about whom I know only what they have chosen to tell me after it has been edited down by other people later.
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Isn't the whole of h2g2, or at least The Forum based on using the edited writings of people we've never met to justify our beliefs?

If you read my entry on William Booth - which should be coming up soon - he was condemmed as The Anti-Christ for allowing women to preach in his churches because it "elevated women to the status of men."

I really thought this type of pathetic cultural misogynism was confined to the third world nowadays.

The film, 'Breaking the Waves' is set on an island off the west coast of Scotland, in the seventies I think, it portrays the typical 'Kirk' mentality of strong Presbyterianism, which forbade women from speaking in church; they were also forbidden from attending the burial service. The same is true for Welsh 'Chapel'.

Don't know how widespread such stuff still is, but I'm sure in a few backward backwaters, it probably still goes on.

I remember some literature lessons, in which, the teacher used to throw a poem for us to interpret it. It was funny, we laughed a lot, some occasions were touching, it depended on the student or the day. The question is that where there´s ambiguity there´s a lot of different interpretations.
Now, let´s imagine that those poems were considered holy. inspired by God and objet of wordshipping. Texts considered relevant because they say something good for humankind, something worthy...food for thought.
Which would be the difference from the Bible in terms of being useful for humankind?

WOMEN and religion.
Catholicism ( I mention it because it´s the one I know most) comes from patriarcal, mysoginist cultures. Women in the bible appear as saints or sinners. They are abnegated mothers delivering a child per year, silent daughters, who can be sold or be an object for deal, or women of "bad reputation".
Women mean nothing. Servants, that´s all.