rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (08/03/84)
> > Take your god and ram it. [Rich Kulaweic] > That should read: > Take your God and ram Him. > [siemens!wws] Ignoring for the moment the tone of the original statement, the need to capitalize the 'G' (and the 'H')... Why 'it' to 'him'? In referring to even speculative notions about deities, I almost always use the neuter form 'it'. Is there anyone out there who thinks it's appropriate to refer to a deity as male, simply because ancient scribes transcribed references to god in the masculine? Because in those days it was assumed that anyone (anything?) with "power" was (by definition) male? Setting aside "it says so in X", if you think god is male, why do you think this? I honestly can't see any reason to believe that a universally powerful entity would have to accommodate human notions of gender. It seems like a view that's both anthropocentric and androcentric. Comments? -- If it doesn't change your life, it's not worth doing. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
stuart@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Stuart Kurtz) (08/06/84)
I'll agree with Rich Rosen (are those shocked gasps I hear?), it doesn't make sense to assign a gender to God. Quite bluntly, what would God do with a penis or vagina? What is the purpose of either without someone / something to share it? If there is one God, who / what is an appropriate sexual partner? If there are no conceivable partners, does it make sense to speak of gender? (Particularly if you deny the physical reality of the hardware.) I think attempts to ascribe a sex to God are based on pop psychology. E.g., God is powerful (and therefore male), or God is nurturing (and therefore female). Like most pop psychology, its entertaining, but bunk. Stuart Kurtz
heahd@tellab1.UUCP (Dan Wood) (08/07/84)
Rich has a point. But, nearly all mythologys (and I include the judaeo-christian systems under this title) make thier gods male or female. Most forms of monotheism for some reason make their god male. I think this is possibly because they all arose relatively late in history after humankind (hupersonkind?) had changed from semi-nomadic hunter/gather tribes to settled agrarian cities and the male of the species had assummed dominance. Before you have a chance to say "What about the Greeks and Romans?" They were settled people and they had Goddesses" I would like to point out that while they did indeed have Godesses, these were mostly left over from the pre aryan populations of the mediteranian basin and the head god of both pantheons were male. "I have seen God, and She's black." DW @ ...!ihnp4!tellab1!heahd
alan@sdcrdcf.UUCP (08/07/84)
> it doesn't > make sense to assign a gender to God. Quite bluntly, what would God do > with a penis or vagina? You're confusing gender and sex. What does a sailboat need with a vagina? (e.g. She's a beaut!) In German, the word for a young woman is neuter; in French, the word for a garbage can is feminine. You're right, it doesn't make sense that the word 'God' is masculine, just as the above examples don't make sense. Natural language has never made sense. But, to speak so that you can be understood, you've got to use the language the way it's used. Alan Algustyniak (ihnp4!sdcrdcf!alan) (allegra!sdcrdcf!alan) (cbosgd!sdcrdcf!alan)
aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (08/08/84)
From Rich Rosen: > In referring to even speculative notions about deities, > I almost always use the neuter form 'it'. Is there anyone out there who > thinks it's appropriate to refer to a deity as male, simply because ancient > scribes transcribed references to god in the masculine? It is appropriate to refer to God with *some* personal pronoun. "God created man in His own image", and we are persons; so how could God not be personal? Even without the creation argument, a god is something greater than human; so it seems a little odd to suggest an impersonal god when we see personal humans. As to the gender question: The New Testament, in probably dozens of places, uses the word Father to refer to God in heaven; particularly is this evident in the words of Jesus Himself. On the other hand, even the man Jesus is recorded as having applied at least one feminine image to Himself ("O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not let me!" [approximate quote]). There are hints in the Bible that gender distinctions may disappear in heaven; Jesus said that after the resurrection of the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but become like the angels in heaven. Combining this with the fact that God, especially in the New Testament, is seen to display qualities of both sexes (as traditionally associated), perhaps God is above gender. But perhaps not; again, the words Father and Son are used repeatedly. Anyway, *some* personal words are needed; we might as well go with what we've got while we're here on this imperfect earth and seeing a dim reflection in a mirror, to use Paul's metaphor. (from Rich's signature): > If it doesn't change your life, it's not worth doing. This has a great deal of application to Christianity. -- -- Jeff Sargent {decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq May you have the wisdom of lions and the strength of owls -- er, ....
gtaylor@cornell.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (08/08/84)
The "feminine" image attributed to Jesus by Jeff is itself a quotation from the Psalms. I think that if we wish to seriously talk about Deific gender within the Christian tradition, we need to address two fairly dissimilar issues: Gender and language. English doesn't really have a gender neutral promoun that I know of. It seems that what little I remember from my Hebrew (linguistics, unfortunately), there is a "plural of respect"...that is, that certain honorific titles and references which involve powe or a relationship require the use of the plural (Oh my-I have the sinking feeling that I could be thinking of Javanese......), which is understood in the context of usage to *not* necessarily be gender specicific. Naturally, that's a bit of a problem for a language like English. The question might more accurately be put something like this: To what extent do Hebrew, Greek and Latin *allow* for the notion of "transcended gender" in the conventions of common speech. If that is a difficult notion to express in the conventions of regular discourse, then how would one go about hunting for times when an author tried to express such a notion? I would think that this would be a fairly difficult problem for even the most dedicatedly Deconstructive, let alone the average conservative scholar of the Torah, the Patristics, or the NT. Gender and Culture. Syntactics and Semantics embody a rather complex set of relationships: a usage of certain words may imply a substratum of relationships encoded in the conventions of speech (why, for example do we put certain words with certain other words....when all is quiet, we say that silence "reigns" rather than governs? But I digress.). Those assumptions and "threads" are, I think, also imbedded in the culture in which the phrases in question are uttered. The corrolary question then becomes: To what extent are gender related utterances cultural (although you'd never believe it, *some* Christians believe that that Christ was not an American, not a Republican, and not a Fundementalist), and how are they best understood? I am thinking in particular of a very interesting "biography" of Jesus written by Shusaku Endo, the eminent Japanese Novelist. Endo is a Catholic (in the tradition of Gabriel Marcel, Bernanos, and the other European Christian Existential tradition folk) who undertook a life of Christ in order to present Jesus to the Japanese in a non-western way. One of the major difficulties he felt he had to overcome was the difficulty of familial imagery in Japanese culture and language. His book presents God as a "mother" figure, since the Japanese image of the mother is more in keeping with what Endo feels to be the orthodox conception of God. It is, in my view, a strange and wonderful book in that it's the first real non-Western version of the Gender/Language/Culture problem that I've ever really encountered in such an explicit way. If you're at all interested in this question, you might want to check it out. I should cut this short, since our Bitnet link is acting funny. Bye now.... ________________________________________________________________________________ If you ask me, I may tell you gtaylor@cornell it's been this way for years Gregory Taylor I play my red guitar.... Theorynet (Theoryknot) ________________________________________________________________________________
lund@ucla-cs.UUCP (08/09/84)
Here's an curious idea. Given that humans have some sort of life after
death. (Reincarnation on earth dosen't count.) Perhaps humans
don't retain there sex. Maybe there are 10 different genders in heaven.
Or there may be only one.
Actually this is part of a bigger discussion about what life after
death is like....... . . . .
.......Laurence
UCLA CS Department
uucp: {ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf,cepu}!ucla-cs!lund
arpa: lund@ucla-cs.arpaza68@sdccsu3.UUCP (08/09/84)
I will go home and look this up, but I beleive there were one or more female Jewish deities, but knowlege and discussion of these were supressed as time and patriarchal history went on... Anyone else have info on this? -Karen Pickens UCSD
brunson@usfbobo.UUCP (David Brunson) (08/09/84)
re: >I'll agree with Rich Rosen (are those shocked gasps I hear?), it doesn't >make sense to assign a gender to God. Quite bluntly, what would God do >with a penis or vagina? What is the purpose of either without someone / >something to share it? If there is one God, who / what is an appropriate >sexual partner? If there are no conceivable partners, does it make >sense to speak of gender? (Particularly if you deny the physical reality >of the hardware.) > >I think attempts to ascribe a sex to God are based on pop psychology. >E.g., God is powerful (and therefore male), or God is nurturing (and >therefore female). Like most pop psychology, its entertaining, but bunk. > >Stuart Kurtz True. But the question is which pronoun do we use to refer to God? he, she, or it? The name "God" refers to the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob about whom we can read in the Bible. The pronoun *it* is used to refer to non-persons: objects, ideas, figments of the imagination. Since God is definitely a person (after all, we are made in his image), we must reject the use of *it* to talk about him. The use of *it* is perfectly acceptable, however, in discussing the gods of the heathen ("wood and stone" -- see the Prophets). Use of *he* vs *she* is not so clear. For example, one of the names of God used in the Bible can be translated "The breasty one", giving cause for the nurturing mother concept. Also much imagery in the Prophets is female. I stick to *he/him* because this is the common convention, and there doesn't seem to be much reason to switch. Also, men would be much more uptight about a female God than women seem to be about the male. After all, it is not wise to go around offending the sensibilities of people without good reason! -- David Brunson (decvax or duke)!ucf-cs!usfbobo!brunson ... better understanding through higher education.
dcm@wlbr.UUCP (08/09/84)
It seems to me that the question of the gender of deity is rather pointless. I use the masculine form when speaking of God, because that is what I am comfortable with. I really doubt that God is either male or female, God is God. In stating that God is male or female we are trying to define His existance in terms of our own mortal understanding. dave ..scgvaxd!wlbr!dcm
smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) (08/09/84)
From: brunson@usfbobo.UUCP (David Brunson) Subject: Re: Deific gender question Message-ID: <157@usfbobo.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 23:23:11 EDT Also, men would be much more uptight about a female God than women seem to be about the male. Wrong. The attitude of "they don't really mind" is at the root of a lot of societal discrimination, be it sexual, racial, or almost any other kind.
sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) (08/09/84)
God!
What makes anyone think that God has a body to assign a sex to? Is not
God a spiritual entity?
God's gender is, of course, feminine...nurturing, loving, sensitive.
God's gender is, of coures, masculine...omni{potent,scient}.
God is not of this lowly 3rd dimension world.
Neither are we. We are all spirits in a material world. Do spirits
have sex? gender? bodies?
No.
--
{ucbvax|decvax|ihnp4}!sun!sunny(Sunny Kirsten of Sun Microsystems)stuart@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Stuart Kurtz) (08/09/84)
There is a gender-neutral singular animate third-person pronoun in English -- "they". (A rather esoteric use of that particular word, I'll admit, and perhaps even dangerous if used incautiously.) In my day-to-day life, it is only in this forum that pronouns for God would ever become an issue. Otherwise, second person "you" or "thou", depending on context, serves quite adequately. Stu
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (08/10/84)
>Also, men would be much more uptight about a female God than women >seem to be about the male. Now THAT's a strange statement, and pray, tell me why you think this is so. Sophie Quigley ...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley
sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) (08/10/84)
God!
Upon further reference to the spiritual world, I must change my
previous statements:
Spirits have gender, but occupy sexless androgynous bodies.
As for God? There is only one...so there is no applicability of
the concepts of gender or sex to distinguish the one God from another which
does not exist.
We are all brothers and sisters. We have all been here before.
Love, unconditionally, if you would know God.
--
{ucbvax|decvax|ihnp4}!sun!sunny(Sunny Kirsten of Sun Microsystems)
It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the
lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as
high as the eagle?greg@zinfandel.UUCP (08/11/84)
#R:pyuxn:-95700:zinfandel:20600009:000:955 zinfandel!greg Aug 9 12:21:00 1984 Maybe we're looking at this backwards. Maybe the Biblical view of God as male isn't just man's projection of his own nature onto God. Let's not forget that when Jesus came to the earth, He came as a man. "And [Jesus] is... the exact representation of [God's] nature." (Heb. 1:3) He could have come neuter, couldn't He? Look again at the passage in Ephesians that describes the way husbands and wives should relate. (Paraphrased) Husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church. Wives should submit to their husbands as the church should submit to Christ. "This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to *Christ and the church*." (5:32) Maybe God created us with gender so that we could better understand His nature. Maybe instead of "transcending" gender He fulfills it. Well, we'll just have to wait and see... "Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face." (I Cor. 13:12) Greg Boyd zehntel!zinfandel!greg
daemon@decwrl.UUCP (The devil himself) (08/11/84)
Re: Deific Gender Question_____________________________________________________ > I stick to *he/him* because this is the common convention, and there doesn't > seem to be much reason to switch. There most certainly *is* a good reason to switch! We've recently become aware of the socio-psychological effects of ass- igning male gender to God. They should be obvious: over-inflated egos for males, low self-esteem for females. I certainly remember incidents in my childhood where arguments between boys and girls over superiority (a ridiculous pasttime in any event) were ir- refutably ended with "God is a boy, so boys are better." Even when the local theological authority (like a Sunday school teach- er) assured us all that God was both male and female, the belief that God is male overrode that and was reinforced every time God was referred to as "he." You want a good reason to switch? Think about all the poor little girls growing up with the belief that they are cheap imitations of the species made in "his" image. Think about the poor little boys growing up with the idea that they are superior. > Also, men would be much more uptight about a female God than women seem to be > about the male. What makes you say that? > After all, it is not wise to go around offending the sensibilities of people > without good reason! Then I hope you can give me some good reasons for offending me! Seri- ously (and don't take this personally), I am offended by things like the use of male terms for God and the use of male terms for humans in general. But that's me. I'll speculate that you're referring to the large num- bers of people who would be offended by a female God or an "it" God. If so, I can only respond that such offenses have plenty of good reasons, some of which I've mentioned above. It seems to me that the problem with using a term to refer to a gender- less God is related to the problem of using a genderless pronoun for humans. (That's a seperate issue. Until something better comes along, I recommend the singular "they.") <_Jym_> :::::::::::::::: Jym Dyer ::::' :: `:::: Nashua, New Hampshire ::' :: `:: :: :: :: DYER%VAXUUM.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA :: .::::. :: {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|ucbvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-vaxuum!dyer ::..:' :: `:..:: ::::. :: .:::: Statements made in this article are my own; they might not :::::::::::::::: reflect the views of |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| Equipment Corporation.
alan@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Alan Algustyniak) (08/14/84)
<The Pagans solved this problem long ago.> Tsk, tsk! All this talk about which pronoun to use. I just use the first-person singular! ;-) sdcrdcf!alan
hitchens@ut-sally.UUCP (Ron Hitchens) (08/14/84)
Who is this God person anyway ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Hitchens hitchens@ut-sally
[Water, water everywhere. But no beer. [.UTEXAS, domain of the
-- Ratliff McNub] Mayan SUN worshippers]rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (08/14/84)
> It is appropriate to refer to God with *some* personal pronoun. "God created > man in His own image", and we are persons; so how could God not be personal? > Even without the creation argument, a god is something greater than human; so > it seems a little odd to suggest an impersonal god when we see personal > humans. It is precisely because the notion of a deity implies something "greater than human" that that the use of "human"-oriented or even life-form-oriented terms seems bogus. Does the idea of using a pronoun denoting neither sex seem less great than using one that implies a particular sex? > As to the gender question: The New Testament, in probably dozens of places, > uses the word Father to refer to God in heaven; particularly is this evident > in the words of Jesus Himself. On the other hand, even the man Jesus is > recorded as having applied at least one feminine image to Himself > ("O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers > her chicks under her wings, and you would not let me!" [approximate quote]). The sexuality preconceptions of those who wrote the text should not affect what a deity really is, should they? >> If it doesn't change your life, it's not worth doing. [from my signature] > This has a great deal of application to Christianity. It has even more application to rationalism and independent logical thinking. (You got your plug in, I get the chance to get mine in, too, no?) I hope Jeff doesn't think THIS signature line is applicable to Christianity, otherwise we're all in trouble... -- "If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy!" Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
slag@charm.UUCP (Peter Rosenthal) (08/15/84)
kdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdkdk God has no gender in the english language. English is genderless. He/She may have a sex, depending on your belief. Gender is merely a way of divvying up a language. The gender of a noun has nothing to do with the possible sex of the noun.
rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (08/16/84)
>There is a gender-neutral singular animate third-person pronoun in >English -- "they"... Uh, hello? Last I heard, "they" was plural. I know, I know, if I can understand operator overloading in a programming language, I should be able to understand inventing new meanings for common words in natural language. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.
alan@allegra.UUCP (Alan S. Driscoll) (08/16/84)
> English is genderless.
Nonsense.rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (08/16/84)
> English is genderless. [PETER ROSENTHAL]
Nonsense. [ALAN DRISCOLL]
To expound on Alan's statement:
To make the claim that an analysis of axioms by linguists determining what
language should mean and how it should be used is not as important as how
the use of the words of a language in context are perceived. One might say,
"See, the word he is used to mean he and she, thus its the neutral third
person pronoun", while another might perceive that the use of the word he
clearly implies male and excludes female.
--
AT THE TONE PLEASE LEAVE YOUR NAME AND NET ADDRESS. THANK YOU.
Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlrwmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (08/18/84)
After just plowing through 20-30 postings about the gender of God, I think it might be worthwhile to bring up a point I haven't seen mentioned: "He", a capitalized pronoun referring to God, is NOT the same word as "he", an uncapitalized pronoun (which may be capitalized at the start of a sentence, but that is a different thing entirely, being position-dependent) referring to a male person or animal. Same with "His" vs. "his", etc. Just because the words are spelled in a similar manner does not mean that they are the same word. That is why one is capitalized -- to distinguish it. Just as the "royal 'we'" does not mean that you have some sort of symbiotic colony for a monarch -- it is a special and distinctive word, used in certain circumstances for special purposes. So the pronouns "He" and "His", when referring to God, have no true gender. Of course, being the creatures we are, we naturally hang the gender connotations of "he" and "his" on "He" and "His". This is a mistake. (To err is human.) Will
wmartin@brl-tgr.UUCP (08/18/84)
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site houxe.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site brl-tgr.ARPA Message-ID: <4059@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Fri, 17-Aug-84 17:51:22 EDT er question Organization: Ballistics Research Lab Lines: 22 After just plowing through 20-30 postings about the gender of God, I think it might be worthwhile to bring up a point I haven't seen mentioned: "He", a capitalized pronoun referring to God, is NOT the same word as "he", an uncapitalized pronoun (which may be capitalized at the start of a sentence, but that is a different thing entirely, being position-dependent) referring to a male person or animal. Same with "His" vs. "his", etc. Just because the words are spelled in a similar manner does not mean that they are the same word. That is why one is capitalized -- to distinguish it. Just as the "royal 'we'" does not mean that you have some sort of symbiotic colony for a monarch -- it is a special and distinctive word, used in certain circumstances for special purposes. So the pronouns "He" and "His", when referring to God, have no true gender. Of course, being the creatures we are, we naturally hang the gender connotations of "he" and "his" on "He" and "His". This is a mistake. (To err is human.) Will
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (08/18/84)
Since God is supposed to be everywhere at once, "they" would appear to be the only possible pronoun, right? As someone astutely pointed out, God is made in our... oops, excuse me, we are made in God's image. Did you ever see a single human being that was everywhere at once? Jeff Winslow
julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies) (08/20/84)
I was in a discussion last week on the subject of "non-inclusive language". The question of gender for God arose. One person remarked that the concept of God as "Father" was very meaningful in terms of its associations, even though she generaly objects to non-inclusive language being used. Our feelings don't always match our thinking. Other remark made was that *many* people nowadays are growing up in single-parent families in which they have no exposure to a "father" figure--maybe the language will not speak to them. Julian Davies
greggt@ncoast.UUCP (Gregg Thompson) (08/22/84)
God is a male. I forget what
book it is in but Moses was on a
mountain and God covered him and walked
by and Moses saw the back of God. This
proves he has a body (unless you don't
beleive in the Bible).
Since God, Jesus, and the
Holy Spirit are one the marriage supper
of the Lamb also shows God is a male.
The church is the bride.
If anyone wants Bible
refenerences I would be happy to
provide them.
--
Gregg Thompson
{ucbvax}!decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!greggt
{ucbvax}!decvax!cbosgd!aat!m-net!greggt
{ucbvax}!decvax!microsoft!trsvax!sneaky!greggt
{decvax}!ucbvax!dual!proper!greggt
{ucbvax}!decvax!vortex!ihnp4!wlcrjs!greggt