Religous Dating

[Zaphod B]

Of course, but it is organized religion that has supported and 'enforced' the notion that women are subservient and second to men. On the other hand, some would argue, and I agree, that Jesus Christ did much to liberate and support women.

 

 

Really? I know he taught "love others as you would love yourself", and he saved a woman from being stoned to death, but I don't see much more than that. Most of the women he aligned himself with were servial to him (like Mary washing his feet with expensive alabaster perfume and using her hair as a towel!). Jesus's condescending attitude towards his mother also showed the role he expected women to take.

 

If he did do anything for women, it was certainly undermined by Paul big time.

 

Ok, I know this could end up in a big religious debate, which would take this thread way off track, but you made a claim that just doesn't appear to hold water.

Edited September 16, 2011 by Zaphod B

[Mme. Chaucer]

I don't think religious (Christian, anyway) people want to date non-religeous people, either.

 

2 Corinthians 6:14: "Do not be unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common?

[ThsAmericanLife]

Really? I know he taught "love others as you would love yourself", and he saved a woman from being stoned to death, but I don't see much more than that. Most of the women he aligned himself with were servial to him (like Mary washing his feet with expensive alabaster perfume and using her hair as a towel!). Jesus's condescending attitude towards his mother also showed the role he expected women to take.

 

If he did do anything for women, it was certainly undermined by Paul big time.

 

Ok, I know this could end up in a big religious debate, which would take this thread way off track, but you made a claim that just doesn't appear to hold water.

 

His actions and behavior at the time were incredibly radical.

 

I'll admit that I haven't had as many years of my youth steeped in Christianity as you (I'm Unitarian... we spread ourselves around ). However, I seem to recall that washing feet was a sign of respect. His other disciples and he himself did it also.

 

I"ll also agree that Paul was a misogynist if I ever saw one. Whatever JC might have tried to do... his followers quickly undid. That is for sure.

[ThsAmericanLife]

I would define an egalitarian relationship as one in which both partners are of equal value, with their needs equally important, and with an overall equal say in decision-making.

 

Even within those relationships that take male leadership in a more biblically literal sense (which is not what I'm talking about with egalitarian), both Christians and non-Christians in my opinion can misunderstand what that means. It is intended to mean, I believe, that the men involved may have the final “say”, but ONLY when they are approaching it from a Christ-like perspective. That is, ONLY when they are making all decisions from the spirit of putting the woman and childrens’ good before their own to the point where they will sacrifice anything they have including their health and their lives, if necessary, for the good of the woman and children. You may consider that still condescending or paternalistic, but it is hardly the same as a fat and lazy man sitting on the couch watching TV and demanding beer be brought to him or something.

 

I guess I can understand how you might feel insulted by that, though I believe no insult is intended. Certainly, you wouldn’t be a good match for such a man if that's the case. But, try to give these men a bit of the benefit of the doubt, as long as they are truly putting their wives first.

 

To put this in a concrete example, let's say the couple is deciding how to spend $20. The man wants to buy a videogame, the woman wants to buy a pair of shoes. In the view I outlined above, even though the man has the final “say” he is going to choose to buy the shoes. It is only a very fine philosophical distinction to say that the man is truly making the decision here in the first place, since it's the woman who ultimately gets what she wants.

 

With the case of your friends, could you give an example of what you consider to be unbalanced? I'm curious what you mean exactly.

 

Any situation where it is implied that one person has more authority based simply on gender is repulsive to me, no matter how it is played out.

 

Because, in this scenario, it is still ultimately the man who decides what his intentions are and if they are in line with what is 'best for the family'. Any dictatorship... even a benevolent one.... is not one I want to participate in.

 

I don't need to give these men the benefit of the doubt. That is what your religion is for. I'll admit that if I were a guy, I'd love this setup too. They make the rules, and then decide how they get enforced. Great deal if you can get it.

 

Except... then you get resentful wives who use the only leverage they have... sex... Ah. But then your religion says it is against God's will to deny your spouse your body. Awesome. You get to be the boss and get sex whenever you want... no matter how you treat them??

 

You see why I'm not exactly running to religious men with open arms now. Doncha??

 

The only question I have to ask is... why does putting the needs of your spouse first imply that guarantees the man gets final say? The woman should be putting her husband's needs first too. And what does she get??

 

If both are aligning their actions with what is best for their spouse and their family... then they can use a policy of joint agreement on anything. No need for the 'final say' rule. There are other Christians who use that method to effectively avoid resentment in both parties. The folks who run MarriageBuilders have a much better approach than the typical religious one, IMHO.

 

Regarding non-egalitarian... Mostly it is relationships where the woman is working and still doing all or most of the other traditional duties. Its as if the 1950s never went away, except now she is also working.

[thatone]

I'm not really sure what contradiction you mean. If you mean that it's a contradiction to say religious people are in favor of truth and facts but believe science can’t provide all the answers, consider that science is very good at answering questions of material fact such as explaining rules of gravitation, electromagnetics, biology, etc. It is not useful at all for answering questions of meaning such as “Why are we here?”, “Why does a universe exist at all?”, “Is this action right or wrong?”, etc. To take a concrete example, science is quite good at explaining all the events that occurred following the Big Bang. It is unfortunately of almost no use whatsoever in describing why the universe exists in the first place, or why anything exists.

 

Further, science cannot disprove the existence of supernatural events. A scientist can measure the speed with which a ball falls to the ground 1000 times and come up with the same answer. If on the 1001st time the ball falls twice as fast due to a supernatural influence, and then never does it again, what can science really say? Something happened that is not explainable and can't be repeated. If on the other hand the ball falls at the same rate every time, it is not possible for the scientist to say that it could NEVER happen differently the next time, only that he sees no reason to expect that it will. In the same way, if someone is miraculously healed of cancer, scientists will typically say that they don't know what happened, not that they are positively certain no supernatural intervention occurred, because science has no tools for arriving at such a certainty.

 

yes, science an disprove the existence of supernatural events. that's the basic difference between believers and non-believers.

 

you simply disprove it by saying "show me evidence" and absent any, it does not exist.

 

it is not the burden of everyone else to prove themselves to you. again, that is nothing more than a political tactic. the burden of proof lies with you when you want to present a belief as factual.

 

and, like i said, it's nothing more than a straw man that religious people use to try and justify themselves in a scientific age. scientific process says that absent evidence, a hypothesis has no merit. you can't warp that into something that supports the supernatural with the absence of everyone else proving your assumption wrong.

 

the argument you're presenting is not valid.

Edited September 16, 2011 by thatone

[Scottdmw]

Any situation where it is implied that one person has more authority based simply on gender is repulsive to me, no matter how it is played out.

 

Because, in this scenario, it is still ultimately the man who decides what his intentions are and if they are in line with what is 'best for the family'. Any dictatorship... even a benevolent one.... is not one I want to participate in.

 

I don't need to give these men the benefit of the doubt. That is what your religion is for. I'll admit that if I were a guy, I'd love this setup too. They make the rules, and then decide how they get enforced. Great deal if you can get it.

 

Except... then you get resentful wives who use the only leverage they have... sex... Ah. But then your religion says it is against God's will to deny your spouse your body. Awesome. You get to be the boss and get sex whenever you want... no matter how you treat them??

 

You see why I'm not exactly running to religious men with open arms now. Doncha??

 

The only question I have to ask is... why does putting the needs of your spouse first imply that guarantees the man gets final say? The woman should be putting her husband's needs first too. And what does she get??

 

If both are aligning their actions with what is best for their spouse and their family... then they can use a policy of joint agreement on anything. No need for the 'final say' rule. There are other Christians who use that method to effectively avoid resentment in both parties. The folks who run MarriageBuilders have a much better approach than the typical religious one, IMHO.

 

Regarding non-egalitarian... Mostly it is relationships where the woman is working and still doing all or most of the other traditional duties. Its as if the 1950s never went away, except now she is also working.

 

Maybe I wasn't clear about exactly how I see this working, but I don't see this as a case of the man gets to make the rules AND decide how they’re enforced. If the woman in the situation described feels the man is not making decisions based on God’s will, she has no obligation to do what he says because he is exceeding the bounds of his authority.

 

In practice this is essentially the same as joint final say, because the man's “final authority” only applies if the woman agrees it does.

 

Again, other Christians may not agree with that interpretation, but that's how I see it. Now, if you're talking about a situation where the man really does have final say and it doesn't matter if the woman, after careful consideration, feels he's being selfish, then I agree that's wrong. Again, I think it's simpler just to do what you suggest and have straight-out joint final say, but I'm just making the point that the Christian view on this is often distorted, in my opinion. I don't think God’s commandments say that men get to be despots over their women, benevolent or otherwise.

 

I would agree that what you describe with your friends is wrong, with a couple of notes. When comparing household chores, I think it's important to put everything in the mix. Man and woman should add up their time spent working, commuting, and doing household chores, and the total amounts should be equal. Note that often even though men and women both work, the man works longer hours and commutes a longer distance, as well as doing many traditionally male things like lawnmowing, car repairs, etc. In a case like that it would be reasonable to me to ask the woman to do more of the remaining chores.

[Scottdmw]

yes, science an disprove the existence of supernatural events. that's the basic difference between believers and non-believers.

 

you simply disprove it by saying "show me evidence" and absent any, it does not exist.

 

it is not the burden of everyone else to prove themselves to you. again, that is nothing more than a political tactic. the burden of proof lies with you when you want to present a belief as factual.

 

and, like i said, it's nothing more than a straw man that religious people use to try and justify themselves in a scientific age. scientific process says that absent evidence, a hypothesis has no merit. you can't warp that into something that supports the supernatural with the absence of everyone else proving your assumption wrong.

 

the argument you're presenting is not valid.

 

Saying “show me the evidence” and then being shown no evidence does not disprove a contention, it merely fails to prove it. Failure to prove is not positive disproof. There are scientific hypotheses out there right now they don't have any proof behind them. Scientists are looking for the proof right now. Does the absence of that proof mean the hypotheses are definitely false? No, they simply haven't been proven one way or the other.

 

The burden of proof is complicated with religion. It's not the case that for all of history everyone was atheist, and then a group of believers suddenly appeared and wanted to advance the idea that God exists. In that situation, the burden of proof would be on them.

 

What we actually have is quite different. Arguably, it is atheists who are advancing the contention that God does NOT exist, contrary to most previous human experience. Throughout all of human history and across all human cultures most people have believed in some kind of God. Right now in the world something upwards of 80% do. There are countless eyewitness accounts of miraculous happenings throughout history and today, some of them quite well documented. I can tell you right here that I have a personal experience of God every day and I know many others that do.

 

If you want to look at all that and say it's not enough proof for you I can understand that. But, if you look at all that and say that counts for nothing, I think that is stretching beyond rationality.

[Thornton]

I myself am not religious, and I believe I would be incompatible with a religious person for several reasons.

 

*They would want to spend time at church, and I would want to spend that time doing other things as a couple.

 

*We would probably see each other as being in need of conversion, and we would argue constantly.

 

*They would want to raise our children as religious, and I would want them to be atheist - plus I wouldn't want them to go to a religious school.

 

*I would see them as lacking common sense, since (in my opinion) it's idiotic to hold unproven beliefs. This would make me disrespect my partner somewhat, which is never a good thing.

 

All of these sources of conflict would make our relationship unmanageable. I think it's much better to be in a relationship with someone who shares your core beliefs.

[KathyM]

I don't think it works for religious people to have a serious long-term relationship with non-religious people. Their values are too different. Their beliefs are too different. One of the most important things in a religious person's life cannot be shared with the other person if he's not a believer. Christians, and people of most other faiths, are instructed by their faith to pair with other believers. People who are serious about their faith (i.e., religious people) want to share that with their partner.

[Zaphod B]

Hi However, I seem to recall that washing feet was a sign of respect. His other disciples and he himself did it also.

 

I was always taught it was an act of humility. Jesus humbled himself when he washed the feet of the desciples. He was teaching that we should be humble too. So going by that, what that woman did was to humble herself. I don't want to be crude but when I look at the story of Mary now I can't help but feel that what she did then would be a little like a woman today doing felatio on a man in front of a group of people. A very self debasing act. Probably one of the most humbling things you can do. Her motives were certainly not sexual and she did what she did as a form of worship to who she saw as the son of God, but I think it would have been a great opportunity for Jesus to suddenly step up and say "NO, you should never perform such an act on a man. You should be considered our equals." Something like that would have shown once and for all that women were to be considered equal to men and guys like Paul wouldn't have had a leg to stand on with his obvious misogyny.

Edited September 19, 2011 by Zaphod B

[thatone]

now i'll play devil's advocate, so to speak, from being in a relationship with a catholic as an atheist...

 

I don't think it works for religious people to have a serious long-term relationship with non-religious people. Their values are too different. Their beliefs are too different. One of the most important things in a religious person's life cannot be shared with the other person if he's not a believer. Christians, and people of most other faiths, are instructed by their faith to pair with other believers. People who are serious about their faith (i.e., religious people) want to share that with their partner.

 

our values are not very different. morality doesn't come from religion.

 

I myself am not religious, and I believe I would be incompatible with a religious person for several reasons.

 

*They would want to spend time at church, and I would want to spend that time doing other things as a couple.

 

*We would probably see each other as being in need of conversion, and we would argue constantly.

 

*They would want to raise our children as religious, and I would want them to be atheist - plus I wouldn't want them to go to a religious school.

 

*I would see them as lacking common sense, since (in my opinion) it's idiotic to hold unproven beliefs. This would make me disrespect my partner somewhat, which is never a good thing.

 

All of these sources of conflict would make our relationship unmanageable. I think it's much better to be in a relationship with someone who shares your core beliefs.

 

a) yeah, but it's a couple of hours on sundays. i can live with that.

b) i don't try to convert anyone, and she doesn't try to convert me, so we get along in that respect

c) we've had that talk, and i don't have a problem with religious schools. kids don't stay kids forever, eventually they make up their own minds

d) this depends. i know people who use religion as a crutch, and those people i don't associate with. as long as i'm not being force fed their religion, i am tolerant of other people.

[Scottdmw]

I was always taught it was an act of humility. Jesus humbled himself when he washed the feet of the desciples. He was teaching that we should be humble too. So going by that, what that woman did was to humble herself. I don't want to be crude but when I look at the story of Mary now I can't help but feel that what she did then would be a little like a woman today doing felatio on a man in front of a group of people. A very self debasing act. Probably one of the most humbling things you can do. Her motives were certainly not sexual and she did what she did as a form of worship to who she saw as the son of God, but I think it would have been a great opportunity for Jesus to suddenly step up and say "NO, you should never perform such an act on a man. You should be considered our equals." Something like that would have shown once and for all that women were to be considered equal to men and guys like Paul wouldn't have had a leg to stand on with his obvious misogyny.

 

I'm not sure which passenge you’re talking about for Paul’s misogyny, but he does also say this in Galatians 3:

 

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

 

I think the most important thing to remember is that balance of power between male and female is a very small part of the Christian message. That part should not be overstated by proponents of either side. Further, anyone who wants to claim that the original message of Christianity somehow contains male abuse of power over women must put aside numerous central tenets such as “the last shall be first”, “the meek shall inherit the Earth”, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, etc etc etc. These teachings are far more central than taking one or two obscure verses. That's not to say that Christians have not tried to use those verses in some cases to justify misogyny, merely that they were misusing the teachings when they did.

[taiko]

I don't think religious (Christian, anyway) people want to date non-religeous people, either.

(and Islam, except by definition in Islam they would not be "dating")

There are two problems I see. First the attempt to convert after the fact, in effect holding the possibility of a relationship out as a honey trap. God sent that person to me now I must do my part to save. Secondly the nominal Christians who still see themselves as "religious" but may be seen as "cafeteria", "in name only"....followers of a specific path

[KathyM]

now i'll play devil's advocate, so to speak, from being in a relationship with a catholic as an atheist...

 

 

 

our values are not very different. morality doesn't come from religion.

 

 

 

Actually, morality does come from religion. God has set the rules, and society has, for the most part, adopted them. You may not personally believe in God, but you supposedly do adhere to society's rules of right and wrong. Society's rules came from God. Our legal system in America, was founded on Judeo-Christian principles.