Sex Mom & God by Frank Schaffer

[Smith]

I found this rather noteworthy...

The-God-of-the-Bible—not to be mistaken for whatever actual deity might be out there—is appalled by women. According to the prophet Isaiah, God will mightily punish women who overstep their divinely ordained bounds: “Moreover the Lord saith: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts.” It seems The-God-of-the-Bible created his first female human as something of an afterthought, after squirrels, sheep, whales, and everything else, according to the Bible’s most familiar story in Genesis.

That said, when The-God-of-the-Bible hastily made the first woman as a sort of garden-warming present for Adam, He must have carelessly botched her plumbing. Soon after Creation, the Female Plumbing Problem began to weigh heavily on The-God-of-the-Bible’s Mind. Women brimming with bodily fluids—like shellfish, Canaanites, and the wearing of wool and cotton at the same time—are among the many things that got out of hand soon after The-God-of-the-Bible completed Creation, thus inciting His Divine Regret. So The-God-of-the-Bible expelled the first man and woman from the Garden; He sent a Great Flood; He killed at least as many unruly beings as the numberless descendants He promised Abraham. The-God-of-the-Bible issued countless factory recalls—for instance, miscarriages—and complex owner’s manual updates, replete with regulations and strict rules about how to deal with women, fix women, repair women, curb women, keep women in line, and, if need be, kill women if they didn’t keep The-God-of-the-Bible’s Women-Managing Rules.

The-God-of-the-Bible’s Women-Management Plan is particularly focused on controlling bodily fluids. The-God-of-the-Bible hates wetness! Certain kinds, at least....

[Darrell]

Franky makes me sad.

[Josh]

While women got the short end of the stick, nocturnal emissions also caused uncleanness...

[leaving]

You know, though, that this is one of the major things I struggle with as a Christian, and one of the things that has almost swung me over to the agnostic side...

God says we are all equal. In other places he shows us that men are clearly superior and women are clearly inferior, and that He created us to be either one or the other. I still struggle with this now. I don't want to, and I'm even afraid it will turn me into an agnostic and right now I want to be Christian for the sake of my kids, but it does seem like God lied and that He made second class citizens.

[ThankYouJesus]

(05-25-2011 07:06 AM)Smith Wrote:  I found this rather noteworthy...

I find it rather disgusting

[HazelEyed]

(05-25-2011 09:11 AM)leaving Wrote:  You know, though, that this is one of the major things I struggle with as a Christian, and one of the things that has almost swung me over to the agnostic side...

God says we are all equal. In other places he shows us that men are clearly superior and women are clearly inferior, and that He created us to be either one or the other. I still struggle with this now. I don't want to, and I'm even afraid it will turn me into an agnostic and right now I want to be Christian for the sake of my kids, but it does seem like God lied and that He made second class citizens.

I struggle a lot with this too, Leaving. But I am slowing learning that maybe a lot of the parts where we think it means women are inferior are either us misunderstanding the culture or the text, or us reading into the text. I've been reading some great books and blogs lately that make good cases for things like egalitarianism and that sort of thing.

As for Frank Schaffer, I've read some of his stuff, and I feel a tremendous amount of affection and empathy for him. We both had upbringings in religious homes where we feel we were lied to, we both had a lot of the same questions and thoughts as children and young adults ... only he chose to leave Christianity, and ultimately I didn't. But I could have easily been exactly in his place. But yes, his conclusions make me sad.

[elfdream]

I thought Frank Schaffer converted to the Orthodox church?

[RobMille]

He attends an Orthodox church but openly has at best a highly skeptical faith, and doesn't take much of any of the Bible as being anything more than a metaphor for living a good life.

[Kevin]

Well at least fundies aren't the only people that set up straw men to argue against. Although, there are a couple of legitimate points that could be appropriately argued in his mess, he ruins it by going the simpleton route.

Whenever I read things like this, it is a good reminder not to try and use these same tactics if I am talking to someone about what they believe.

[UptownHippie]

Commas, people, commas. "Sex Mom & God" is very different from "Sex, Mom, and God."