This One Shall Be Called Woman

Update

2011-12-04T14:59:00.001-06:00

Sorry it's been pretty much silent here for a while now, and I'm sorry that it is probably going to be silent for a while longer. The last couple of weeks are been incredibly draining. On top of general Thanksgiving/holiday craziness on of my dogs has started seizing regularly for about two weeks now. The first week we thought it was just stress from having my boyfriend's mother staying at our place (my dogs get really anxious around new people) and the vet said the first two seizures were pretty normal and gave me some vallium to give my dog before bed each night. She was fine on that and then I stopped giving her the pills after his mom left and she was doing fine for a few nights. And then she had another seizure a couple of nights ago and then the next night she had two within a few hours. I talked to the vet the next day and while the first couple seemed normal, according to my vet it isn't normal for her to keep having them and in such a short span of time. So The vet gave me an anti-convulsant medication to give my dog twice and a day in hopes that that may help some. Apparently it takes a week or so for the medication to really start taking effect and my dog is till seizing, though the seizures last night (three this time, one grand mal and two partial) seemed a bit shorter and not as tough ad the previous ones. To add to this she only seems to be seizing at night when she's sleeping so I have not been getting a good amount of sleep at all the past two weeks and any sleep I do get isn't very restful since my entire body is ready to jump up and into action the second I hear her collar make too much noise or her slam into something while she's starting to seize.

The entire ordeal is incredibly stressful. The only symptoms she has are the seizures so there's really no clue as to what is really happening. She's eating fine, drinking fine, she's still rough housing with the other dog like normal. Only slight change is she seems to get a little more tired when we go on our walks, but that's probably mostly because she hasn't been sleeping well due to her seizures. We've ruled out a metabolic cause because all of her blood work was normal, and now it doesn't seem to be stress induced. So it's been tough. The seizures are just really hard to watch and, at least for the first four or so, she would get really aggressive afterwards and seem to forget who I was for about 5 or 10 minutes after. But I have to be the one to sit there with her and pet her while she's going through it and talk to her, and I have to be as calm as I can because if I act stressed and scared then she'll be more stressed and scared as well.

So I haven't had much energy these past two weeks. I feel like a huge ball of non stop stress and worry, mostly because there's really no idea right now what is wrong with her. It takes most of my energy to go to work and keep myself from thinking about it so I don't sit there crying in my cubicle. And then when I get home I'm really only good for mindless activities like tv or some simple video games. And I spend a lot of time just keeping an eye on her since I need to write down any changes I see or make sure I notice when she's starting to seize so I can get everything I need to get her through it (towel so I can hold her without her biting me if she is aggressive afterwards, a dog kennel to place her in she she doesn't run around right after while she's still disoriented, and her medication so I can give it to her right after she comes around so she doesn't potentially go straight into another seizure).

Long story short, a lot of my energy is going towards trying to keep my dog as safe as I can while she's having some unknown medical problems and trying to keep me sane enough so I can handle it. Unfortunately doesn't leave me much time at all to do the blog or anything else I want to get around to doing. I'm hoping in the next week or so her meds start working and I'm not completely on edge 24/7. It may not lower my stress levels significantly, but at least I might be able to get some sleep.

As it is now I'm afraid I'm going to be away from the blog and most everything else until things work themselves out. I hate going on another indefinitely hiatus again since it seems like I was on hiatus only yesterday, but I just cannot get myself pulled together long enough to read anything, never mind do any sort of analysis of it.

I hope everyone remains well in my absence.

Haggai & Zechariah

2011-11-06T17:00:00.000-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Haggai 1 - No mention of any women.

Haggai 2 - No mention of any women.

Zechariah 1 - No mention of any women.

Zechariah 2:7 - "Up! Escape to Zion, you that live with daughter Babylon!"
2:10-11 - "Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord. Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in your midst. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me [an angel of the Lord] to you."

Zechariah 3 - No mention of any women.

Zechariah 4 - No mention of any women.

Zechariah 5:5-11 - Seventh Vision: The Woman in a Basket

"Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said to me, 'Look up and see what this is coming out.' I said, 'What is it?' He said, 'This is a basket coming out.' And he said, 'This is their iniquity in all the land.' Then a leaden cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting in the basket! And he said, 'This is Wickedness.' So he thrust her back into the basket, and pressed the leaden weight down on its mouth. Then I looked up and saw two women coming forward. The winds was in their wings; they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and sky. Then I said to the angel who talked with me, 'Where are they taking the basket?' He said to me, 'To the land of Shinar, to build a house for it; and when this is prepared, they will set the basket down there on its base.'"

Zechariah 6 - No mention of any women.

Zechariah 7:10 - "Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another."

Zechariah 8:1-2 - "The word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with the great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath."
8:4-5 - "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets."

Zechariah 9:9 - "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
9:11-13 - "As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, I prisoners of hope; today I will declare that I will restore to you double. For I have bent Judah as my bow; I have made Ephraim its arrow. I will arouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior's sword."
9:17 - "For what goodness and beauty are his! Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine for the women."

Zechariah 10 - No mention of any women.

Zechariah 11 - No mention of any women.

Zechariah 12:12-13 - "The land shall mourn, each family be itself; the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves; and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves."

Zechariah 13:3 - "And if any prophets appear again, their fathers and mothers who bore them will say to them, 'You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the Lord'; and their fathers and their mothers who bore them shall pierce them through when they prophesy."

Zechariah 14:2 - "For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses looted and the women raped; half the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city."

My Comments

These books are taking a turn to talking about how God will rebuild and fix his people after his punishment instead of just waxing poetic about how horrible their punishments will be. I can't help but think back to Job, where God spent so long destroying Job's life (and Job was actually extremely faithful to God, unlike God's people) and then in the end God replacing everything with new stuff (not giving him back his old stuff like his dead kids are estranged wife) as if this magically fixes Job. Simply replacing something doesn't make it all better. It doesn't fix the emotional and mental harm that is caused by such destruction because there would definitely be some mental and emotional damage caused here. All of those women in these cities don't suddenly become unraped and all the men and children don't suddenly become undead and their families unsad. Shiny, new stuff and a promise that all that bad stuff will never happen again really doesn't solve half the problems such prolonged suffering causes.

I'll use an example from my own life when our house got robbed about a year or so ago, if that has ever happened to anyone reading this. It was a very hard experience to go through and it definitely has nothing to do with the physical items that are taken. In the beginning, that was part of it, but, at least for me, that was only a flashing moment in the whole experience. The stuff was replace, but our whole family spent that first night awake and on edge, and even after we had an alarm installed the next day it was difficult to feel completely safe in the house. I worried for months about people coming in and this time harming our dogs or, heaven forbid, taking something like my gun and using it to hurt someone else. If the robbers had come back the next day with all our stuff and given it back and, on top of that, added a few thousand dollars that wouldn't fix anything. And could you imagine if they had come back with our stuff and then some and then had the AUDACITY to demand that we praise them for bringing it all back lest they do it again?

This same issue when it comes to emotional and mental damage also shows up in many, many other crimes and situations, I only use the robbery example because it's been fresh on my mind for a while (we recently moved and no longer have an alarm system to provide any sense of security and I often worry about someone breaking in when we're not home, my biggest concern being the safety of my dogs). Having all the physical stuff in your life back and in order may fix some of it, but rarely does it fix everything. There is still so much healing needed which takes time, and that is made especially difficult when other parties are convinced that you should be all a-ok now, like how God expects his people to just continue on grinning from ear to ear and worshiping him simply because he raised the cities back up and defeated their attackers.

I also want to address Zechariah 5 concerning the woman in the basket. A lot of Zechariah deals with these visions he is getting and having an angel help him interpret these visions. Of these visions he sees: horsemen, the horns and the blacksmiths, the man and the measuring line, Joshua and Satan, the lampstand and the olive trees, the flying scroll, the woman in the basket, and the four chariots.

Notice, many of these visions involve men. Only one involves a woman. The horsemen patrol the earth for God and bring news to the angel that the earth is at peace. The blacksmiths (I'm kind of mostly guessing here because for whatever reason that section is ridiculously hard to figure out what is going on) are there to stop the horns which scattered Judah. The man with the measuring line is simply there to measure Jerusalem. Joshua is raised high and shall rule God's(?) house and keep charge of his courts. The chariots represent the four winds and they also patrol the earth.

Meanwhile, the woman in the basket represents the iniquity in all the land. She is Wickedness.

One of these things is not like the other.

Also like to note that the women who take Wickedness away are not called angels. They are simply women with stork like wings. Off the top of my head I do not recall a single female angel in the Bible thus far. Please correct me if I am mistake on this point, but if an angel had been female I would have definitely written about it, and I do not recall ever talking about female angels. Considering how angels are never female it's amazing that so many of our modern day depictions of angels have them in female form. What a simple way to erase some of the misogyny of the Bible by making it seem like women are actually a large part of the Bible and of God's angelic court.

So men are male symbols are protectors and God's workers. They go out and patrol the land and report back to God and take measurements and protect Judah from the forces keeping it apart.

But women are the embodiment of Wickedness. Nothing redeeming, nothing good. Pure evil that is meant to be locked away so it cannot meddle in the world of men and turn men astray and away from God's path.

Up next: Malachi

Habakkuk & Zephaniah

2011-11-01T19:56:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Habakkuk 1 - No mention of any women.

Habakkuk 2 - No mention of any women.

Habakkuk 3 - No mention of any women.

Zephaniah 1 - No mention of any women.

Zephaniah 2 - No mention of any women.

3:14-20 - "Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will dear with your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord."

My Comments

Yes, be PLEASED, Jerusalem, that God is around! BOW to the God that has gotten rid of all these ills that have plagued you and killed so many of your people!

Nevermind the fact that it was God himself who cause these ills to fall upon you. No, no, let's forget about all that. Water under the bridge. Don't pay attention to the last ten books that practically reveled in your misfortune and torment. No, now it's all over and God's here to give you a kiss and some flowers and ask you to just come back home, baby. He won't ever do it again.

You know... as long as you do everything he says and everything he wants. Otherwise, God may have to punish you again because hey, you won't learn without some discipline, right?

Ugh.... how much more of this abusive husband bullshit do I have to read through? It's really, really getting old...

Next: Haggai & Zechariah

Nahum

2011-10-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Nahum 1 - No mention of any women.

2:7 - "It is decreed that the city be exiled, its slave women led away, moaning like doves and beating their breasts."
2:12 - "The lion has torn enough from his whelps and strangled prey for his lionesses; he has filled his caves with prey and his dens with torn flesh."

3:4-10 - "Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute, gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery, who enslaves nations through her debaucheries, and people through her sorcery, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on your shame. I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt, and will make you a spectacle. Then all who see you will shrink from you and say, 'Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?' Where shall I seek comforters for you?

"Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart at sea, water her wall? Ethiopia was her strength, Egypt too, and that without limit; Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

"Yet she became an exile, she went into captivity; even her infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; lots were cast for her nobles, all her dignitaries were bound in fetters."
3:13 - "Look at your troops; they are women in your midst. The gates of you land are wide open to your foes; fire has devoured the bars of your gates."

My Comments

Well, here we are again. It may be a slow start getting back into the groove, but I need to try to get back into it and frankly I want so desperately to be in a state of mind where blogging is possible again. The last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle on the stress front, but I'm settling into my new job okay. There's a lot to learn, but I tend to pick up new things fairly quickly so I'm not too worried about that. :)

Anyway, back to the Bible!

Sorry, Bible, lions are no the be all, end all of the lion pride. Lionesses tend to be the primary hunters in a pride and primary caretakers of themselves and their cubs. Lions are important for safety, sure, but definitely not the most vital component of a pride, no matter what Disney may have taught us in The Lion King. So the sentiments in the verse listed above isn't horribly accurate, other than the bit about the lion taking from his children (the lion ALWAYS eats first in a pride). And while the lion may help hunt on occasion, he is not the master hunter that he is usually held up to be. The verses before it quest what shall become of the lion's den when the lion falters. Simple answer: nothing. Lions are constantly being rotated out of prides, either because they leave or because they are challenged by another male and lose. The only consistency in a pride are the lionesses. So really, losing a male lion is not a huge deal.

It would seem the dens filled with torn flesh are supposed to be analogous to the people of God hoarding treasures and other things, but I really do not think lions (or other carnivorous animals) tend to hoard food very often. They tend to eat all that they have so that none of it goes to waste.

So, really, lions are an odd choice. Other than the fact that prides have one to two males to 4-20 females and the females tend to do all the work for the males (preparing food and child rearing), there really aren't many similarities between the human family culture of the Bible and lion prides.

And once again we have nudity being used as a punishment for women. More than happy to let their bodies be laid bare for those around them to gaze upon and use as they wish against the will of the woman. Nice.

I've started to wonder where this idea that the flesh and being nude are shameful. Where exactly did this come from? According to the Bible this shame came from the Tree of Knowledge, since Eve and Adam presumably walked freely in the garden and only hid their nakedness after they ate the fruit, but when you really start to think about it the whole idea of it starts to unravel.

Think about this for a bit and see if you can make any sense of it. God make Adam and Eve naked from the start. He never pushed them to wear clothes or commanded it from them or had any issues whatsoever with it, which would imply that God was completely okay with human nudity. The Tree of Knowledge supposed held the knowledge of good and evil, which was knowledge God already possessed but Adam and Eve were (for whatever reason) forbidden from learning. Once they ate the fruit, Adam and Eve KNEW that their bared flesh was sinful and covered it up.

So here's my question: If the knowledge obtained from the fruit includes the information that nakedness is sinful, then why was God, who supposedly already had this knowledge, okay with Adam and Eve's nakedness from the beginning?

It seems that only AFTER Adam and Eve eat the fruit does God decide that, yeah, nakedness is a horrible thing! Suddenly, instead of a philosophy that includes nakedness as just a part of nature and life, God decides that nudity is something to be ashamed of; punishable if one looks upon another naked (unless under the binds of a marriage contract) and used as a punishment for those who displease God enough (so far, only women).

So why is this? It seems even odder because nakedness is seen as pretty much one of the worst things ever. Hell, an entire blood line from Ham (son of Noah) and on were cursed by God just because Ham had the audacity to cover his drunk, naked father with a blanket and accidentally looked upon him while doing so. Nakedness is so shameful that it is used as a punishment for women who dare to stray from their owners/husbands/fathers/whomever. Nakedness has proved to be something incredibly horrible and yet God still refrains from using it as a punishment against men/males. Women, sure, no problem, hang their shame out for everyone to see. But God loves men so much that he would never dream of making men deal with such a horrible punishment.

Any thoughts on the concept of nakedness in the Bible? Any ideas on God's sudden change of heart when it comes to nudity? I'd love to hear them. I've pretty much just come to the conclusion that it's not really gonna make any sense, like most things in the Bible. God, even though unchanging and perfect, changes his mind at the drop of a hat and is more than happy to find any new punishments that he can to inflict upon his creations.

Next post: Habakkuk

Micah

2011-09-28T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1:6-10 - "Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards. I will pour down her stones into the valley, and uncover her foundations. All her images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste; for as the wages of a prostitute she gathered them, and as the wages of a prostitute they shall again be used. For this I will lament and wail; I will go barefoot and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches. For her wound is incurable. It has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem. Tell it not in Gath, weep not at all; in Beth-leaphrah roll yourselves in the dust."

2:9 - "The women of my people you drive out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my glory forever."

Micah 3 - No mention of any women.

4:8-13 - "And you, O tower of the flock, hill of daughter Zion, to you it shall come, the former dominion shall come, the sovereignty of daughter Jerusalem. Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pangs have seized you like a woman in labor? Writhe and groan, O daughter Zion, like a woman in labor; for now you shall go forth from the city and camp in the open country; you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be rescued, there the LORD will redeem you from the hands of your enemies. Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, 'Let her be profaned, and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.' But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD; they do not understand his plan, that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter Zion, for I will make your horn iron and your hoofs bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples, and shall devote their gain to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth."

5:3 - "Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel."

Micah 6 - No mention of any women.

7:5-6 - "Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; your enemies are members of your own household."
7:10 - "Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, 'Where is the LORD your God?' My eyes will see her downfall; now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets."

My Comments

Okay, I can't seem to get over my anxiety about my Jonah post so I haven't worked on it anymore. I'm still gonna try to get time to sit and deal with my bullshit and finish it, but until then I'm going to continue to press on and cover more ground.

Honestly, I had no idea that so much of the Bible was dedicated to nothing but how much God punishes those who don't grovel every chance they get as his holy, all knowing feet. I'd gotten this idea from all my years of church and whatnot that the Bible was mostly a book about how cool and awesome God was, with a few stories and moral teachings mixed in for good measure. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it was filled with such hate and violence. Not only is it filled with hate and violence but it seems to REVEL in it. This all wouldn't be so bad if it kind of had a more somber tone. Instead it feels like it's almost enjoying it. Like a movie that claims to be making a statement about horrific topics but then takes every chance it gets to put those topics front and center on the screen. Kind of like Gamer (with Gerard Butler), if anyone ever bothered to watch those movie. It was a movie that seemed to have some notions of making a statement about violence and sex in video games and how gamers envelope themselves inside these twisted, violent fantasies. Of course, apparently to make this point they had to shove as much sex, violence, violent sex and unsubtle misogyny in your face so all it did was undermine their "point." Side note: If you ever do find yourself in the same room as that movie and you have any love for Michael C. Hall (like I do) there's a scene near the end with him dancing and singing with mind controlled inmates have a fight scene with Butler that is just the best scene ever. I hesitate to say that scene alone was worth the 5 dollars I paid to see that horrible movie in theaters, but it was really the only scene that was watchable.

But I digress! I have had some people imply that I went into this project hating the Bible. That all this I'm doing is just me going into it with anger in my head and with nothing but a motive to do as much bashing as I can. I don't think there's anything I could really say to those people to convince them otherwise, but I honestly went into this thinking, "Well, I'm sure it won't be that bad. I mean, it is the base for the religion I grew up in, and while some bits of it are troubling most services and whatnot had feel good messages. And if the majority of my church experience was fluffy God is awesome stuff then I'm sure there's at least SOMETHING to back that up in the Bible." I definitely didn't think in my wildest dreams that this is as bad as it is. I'm sure many people here haven't really read the Bible, and I'm sure a lot of you are taking this a bit like I am. Where you knew there were problems with it, but you never imagined they were THIS bad. My surprise and angry in any of my posts is my genuine surprise and anger, and my anger is only so strong because I do feel like I have been lied to my whole life about this. It's like finding out that not only is Santa Claus not quite the fat and jolly man you grew up loving but that he also murders children in their sleep when they've been naughty. Which might not be that far from the truth, really.

So I'm still honestly surprised that we're still harping on God's punishment of his people. I mean, Micah SAYS that he's walking through the ruined streets, lamenting the fate of God's people who strayed, but it's hard to think he's all THAT upset when he's got florid prose after florid prose describing these scenes in detail. Am I the only one who sees it this way? I'd hate to think I'm overreaching here, but to me, reading all these books one after the other, it's starting to really feel like these prophets are really protesting too much about how horrible they really think these scenes are. If it had just been the one or two books, I would probably say that they just wanted to definitely make sure everyone knew what sort of punishment awaited those who strayed from God. But after 6 or 7? Now it's just enjoying the whole thing.

Anyway, we have more female punishment involving being "uncovered" for all around her to see. Of course, she is merely a prostitute so this is a just punishment because she takes her clothes off and lays bare for men for money so letting other use her body without paying her is okay. Or something. It's like when people claim you can't rape a prostitute, but then men will still use rape to harm and "punish" prostitutes.

Also love how Zion has "no king in her," if you catch it the Bible's single entendre. Again, Zion is laid bare for all to see. The metaphors involving undressing and being laid naked for others to gaze upon aren't seen when the cities are neuter or male. Why is nakedness only used as a punishment for women? Is it because gazing upon men is a sin so great that God will punish an entire line of decedents simple because on man happened to see his father naked while he was trying to cover him up and make him look decent? So since gazing upon a naked man is such a great offense to God is that why God seems to never use it as a punishment?

I would say something about how pain inf child birth is also used often as a descriptor for pain when it comes to these punishments, but seeing as childbirth is pretty much one of the major punishments given to all women because of Eve eating the apple, it is not at all strange that it is often used in this manner throughout the Bible. Not that I don't find it problematic that childbirth is seen as a punishment throughout the Bible even when (male) children are seen as the only real accomplishments a woman can achieve. It is problematic, but at least the Bible seems to be consistent in the fact that labor = horrible pain comparable to the pain suffered under God's punishment.

There is also a part where God gives Zion the tools to defeat her enemies, but these tools are only provided after Zion commits herself completely and unquestioningly to God's reign and law. Only in her complete compliance will God allow her some peace. Funny, that.

Friday: Nahum and I'll continue with posting as usual and continue trying to finish up my long winded piece on Jonah.

Jonah

2011-09-19T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Jonah 1 - No mention of any women.

Jonah 2 - No mention of any women.

Jonah 3 - No mention of any women.

Jonah 4 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

So I had a really long post started for this book and then kind of got cold feet about it. I really want to finish it, so it's been sitting in the drafts since Thursday night waiting for me. I don't know if I'll have a lot of time to sit and work on it this week since my life is pretty much gonna be hella crazy for a while. I managed to land myself a new job that actually has benefits and paid vacations (along with better pay and a *hopefully* better work environment) so this week is going to be filled with general anxiety about forms and preparation to get security clearance into my new office building and then anxiety about handing in my two weeks notice to my current boss. I know I shouldn't be anxious about the second part but I have a great fear of letting people down so I can't NOT be stressed about telling my boss so suddenly that I'm leaving. And then, after that, it'll be good old new job anxiety that I'll have to push through my first couple of weeks at my new job.

Needless to say, the next month or so is gonna be a bit weird on the blog updating. I'm sure I'm gonna have plenty of days where the sheer stress of it all will just leave me so drained that I won't even have any energy to check up on my Facebook for a few minutes.

But I am excited about my new job even if I don't feel like I am. I don't do well with change and I overcompensate with worry and anxiety so I don't mess up while everything is busy testing my ability to adapt. After a couple of months I'm sure I'll be nestled comfortably in my new position and enjoying the fuck out of my paid vacation days.

TL;DR: I'm Anxiety Cat in human form and due to current random anxiety I have no new (completed) post and due to a new job coming up I'll have even more anxiety and thus shit will be crazy for a while for me.

Coming Soon *Hopefully*: An actual post about Jonah, even if there aren't any women in it.

Obadiah

2011-09-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Obadiah - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Nothing, nothing, nothing, and more nothing.

I was feeling a bit nostalgic today, thinking back on all the fun I had in my college classes (yeah, I'm a nerd, and my personal college experience was not all that great so the classes are all I really look back on fondly) engaging my brain and learning new things. I often think about how much I miss engaging my brain while at work which is, to say the least, definitely not stimulating in any sense of the word. This made me think back to a class I took called Gender, Sex and Violence in the Bible. We may want to blame this class on my future atheism since this class was literally the first time the idea of QUESTIONING stuff in the Bible (not even questioning in a bad way, just the ability to ask questions about it at all) was shown to me as an option. Hell, asking questions was the point of the class.

I believe this was during my sophomore year of college (may have been early my junior year...), so it was still fairly early in my development into the huge dirty hippie I am now. I was still going to church more or less every Sunday at this point in time, more for a sense of regularity and normalcy than anything since I was still a bit homesick from time to time. So this class was a nice change of pace and, for once, I was actually reading and really looking at what I was supposed to be learning from all those church sermons I went to. Long story short, that was a rather enlightening semester in many ways and I'm honestly grateful that such a class was offered at my college.

The point of this trip down memory lane, though, is to give a bit of back story to the video I am about to link to.

See, at the end of the semester we had to do a big project for my Gender, Sex and Violence in the Bible class. I decided to do mine over our discussions on Genesis. We had classes where we pondered if Adam was sexless/hermaphroditic when he was first created (before Eve). Or whether God bringing the animals to Adam before Eve was implied bestiality. It was good times. And since I had spent a lot of that semester in my free time playing with Macromedia Flash (a program I desperately miss and didn't get as much time to play with it as I would have liked) I decided to make an animation of Genesis with ideas from our discussions mixed in. I gotta say, I was damned impressed with the video at the time and I got a really good grade on it. Rewatching it now it's still hilarious but oh how I wish I still had a copy of Flash so I could fix stuff like timing and slow animations. I also want to reiterate my youth and naivety at the time. I may not have made the same jokes today that I did when I made this. Please let your judgments be gentle on my youth. :x

So since our reading for today has given me nothing, I present to you my flash animation of Genesis - when Adam met Eve.

Friday: Jonah

Amos

2011-09-12T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Amos 1 - No mention of any women.

2:7 "...they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned..."

Amos 3 - No mention of any women.

4:1 - "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, 'Bring something to drink!'"

5:1-2 - "Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel: Fallen, no more to rise, is maiden Israel; forsaken on her land, with no one to raise her up."

Amos 6 - No mention of any women.

7:17 - "Therefore thus says the LORD: 'Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.'"

8:13 - "In that day the beautiful young women and the young men shall faint for thirst."

Amos 9 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Will there ever be a book in the Bible that does not deal with the severe punishment of God's people for reasons that are long forgotten because they are rarely (if ever) mentioned? Seriously, how many books do we need that go on and on and on and on about what exactly shall befall God's people for their terrible sins of... adultery? Is it still just adultery? Amos had some bits about how God's people were supposedly greedy and took bribes and left the poor to rot. So maybe we've added avarice to the list of Godly no-nos? It's really vague about it either way and I can't be sure if it's some sort of general badness that is used to just kind of show why God's people are, in fact, evil or a serious infraction that adds to pile of sin that isn't just all around whorish-ness.

The addition of greed to the sins and the lack of mention of the whoring around may be a reason why there is very little gendering of the towns/tribes in this book.

What I can be certain about is that I am really, really, really getting tired of book after book of just general nastiness and hatred towards God's people. To end with something interesting, here's Amos 4:5-13 -

"O people of Israel! says the Lord GOD. I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me, says the LORD. And I also withheld the rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered; so two or three towns wandered to one town to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you did not return to me, says the LORD. I struck you with blight and mildew; I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards; the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you did not return to me, says the LORD. I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword; I carried away your horses; and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me, says the LORD. I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a brand snatched from the fire; yet you did not return to me, says the LORD. Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel! For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals, makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth-- the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!"

God just can't seem to understand why his people would leave him or not want to return to him. Imagine that. -_-

Wednesday: Obadiah (spoilers: I skimmed ahead a bit and thankfully it's incredibly short but I'll give you one guess as to what the theme of the book is...)

Joel

2011-09-02T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1:6 - "For the nation has invaded my land, powerful and innumerable; it's teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness."
1:8 - "Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth."

2:16 - "Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy."
2:28-29 - "Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even in the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit."

3:3 - "[They have divided the land] and cast lots for my people, and traded boys for prostitutes, and sold girls for wine, and drunk it down."
3:8 - "I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away; for the Lord has spoken."

My Comments

I need a small break from the blog so there will not be any posts next week. Just need a bit of time to let my brain rest a bit.

Next Monday: Amos

Hosea 12-14

2011-08-29T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

12:3 - "In the womb he tried to supplant his brother, and in his manhood he strove with God."
12:12 - "Jacob fled to the land of Aram, there Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep."

13:8 - "I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and will tear open the covering of their heart; there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild animal would mangle them."
13:16 - "Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open."

Hosea 14 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

So I guess in this post I shall introduce a new category for the blog topics: Body Parts. I was gonna just go with "Wombs," but I don't know if wombs will be the only body parts often completely disembodied from the women they should be attached to. So I'm just gonna go with the general "Body Parts" for now.

Of course this isn't the first time the woman has been completely removed from the birthing process or disregarded as playing a large part in the process. Just a bunch of men busy using a womb, here. What woman?

Also more complete lack of caring on Gods part of small infants and fetuses. Everyone must be punished, doesn't matter how young and innocent. I mean, killing and torturing babies (actual alive babies, I'm not referring to fetuses here) is generally considered as evil as maiming puppies and kittens. It's pretty much a sure sign of villainy if someone is found spattering infants against stones ESPECIALLY if they seem to be enjoying themselves immensely while they do it.

Well, Hosea is over. Maybe this next book we can finally leave the Israel is an evil, treacherous whore motif?

Wednesday: Joel

Hosea 8-11

2011-08-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Hosea 8 - No mention of any women.

9:1 - " Do not rejoice, O Israel! Do not exult as other nations do; for you have played the whore, departing from your God. You have loved a prostitute's pay on all threshing floors."

10:11 - "Ephraim was a trained heifer that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will make Ephraim break the ground; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself."

Hosea 11 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

This verse just seems so... scattered. I wasn't sure if I should put it in the facts section. First it seems Ephraim is a woman being denied the only glory a woman can gain - a child. But then in the next verse Ephraim is leading "his" children to slaughter. Then Ephraim shall no longer bear fruit, which I guess could go either way, but then God will kill the cherished offspring of their womb and it's no very clear if that's referring to the people of Ephraim individually or Ephraim as an entity made up of people. Ugh, I dunno. But here's the verses so you can see them for yourself.

9:11-16 - "Ephraim's glory shall fly away like a bird-- no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them until no one is left. Woe to them indeed when I depart from them! Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow, but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter. Give them, O LORD-- what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal; there I came to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their officials are rebels. Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb."

These chapters have suddenly flipped the sex of these cities and tribes. Suddenly Israel is "he" and "him" and Ephraim is "his" and it's just weird why. The language has definitely changed, and I doubt this is any sort of "bias" that some people who don't see the inherent woman-hating in the Bible might assume I have. Seriously, read Hosea 10 and 11 for yourself. Then compare those chapters to Hosea 2 or Ezekiel 23 or Ezekiel 16. You would have to be seriously kidding yourself if you believe these chapters are even remotely similarly to each other in the way they treat Israel and other cities/tribes. Hosea 10 comes nowhere close. None of the verses or sections referring to these places are male are anywhere near close to the treatment the female versions at dealt.

And I can say with pretty fair certainty that verses like Hosea 11:8-9 ("How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. "), filled with such seeming remorse are not often found in the chapters concerning female Israel, et. al. When God states how his punishment of female Israel hurts him more than it does her and he will raise her back up and won't hurt her again as long as she remains faithful it's stated in almost a begrudging tone. It doesn't at all seem completely sincere or like God really thinks Israel didn't completely deserve what she got.

But in that one verse (surrounded by the light weight "punishment" verses) makes it really seem like God is honestly upset that he's had to do this to his people and he truly wishes to never have to do it again. Male Israel is surely a victim of God's wrath, while female Israel is simply a whore that God had to beat back into submission.

But, seriously, do not take my word for it. Hosea 10 and 11 aren't very long, go have a read and see if I am just blowing everything out of proportion. If anyone honestly thinks I am, I would love to hear about it.

I will give a SMALL benefit of the doubt and say that it looks like Hosea will continue to refer to Israel, et. al. as male and thus maybe some horrendous chapters are just around the corner. It's a VERY SMALL benefit of the doubt, but I will state no clear absolutes until the book is over.

I'm taking a MUCH needed mental health day from the world on Friday so no new posts until Monday. Hope everyone stays safe and the world treats you well enough until then. :)

Hosea 5-7

2011-08-22T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

5:3-4 - "I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore; Israel is defiled. Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they do not know the LORD."
5:7 - "They have dealt faithlessly with the LORD; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon shall devour them along with their fields."

6:10 - "In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing; Ephraim's whoredom is there, Israel is defiled."

Hosea 7 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Now, I present the above verses with a bit of uncertainty. They do not specifically state any female pronouns in these verses. But I put them with the facts because of the words "whore" and "whoredom" which have never once been used to describe a man and so I feel it would be odd for the Bible to start doing that now. Plus, it has been shown that a lands perceived sex can change without any warning or fanfare. Therefore, despite a lack of female pronouns I do believe these verses are still referencing these places/tribes as female.

Now, for some fun, let's contrast the male punishment of these tribes with the female punishment Israel as been forced to suffer for the past few books.

5:11 - "Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after vanity."
7:8-9 - "Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Foreigners devour his strength, but he does not know it; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, but he does not know it."
7:11 - "Ephraim has become like a dove, silly and without sense; they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria."

Holy shit, what atrocities!? Grey hairs, strength taken away, calling Ephraim SILLY?! Oh, the injustice! My God, why am I focusing on the women when it's so clear just how horrible the Bible treats men?! D:

Yeah... no. Ephraim may be crushed, oppressed, grey haired, weak and pronounced "silly," but I think that really doesn't even come close to Israel's oppression, destruction, repeated rapes, repeated unclothing and public shaming, constant condemnation of her "whoredom" and her "lusts" and "whoring," her constant reminder of her less than status. I mean, if they are equal then those must be some REALLY horrible grey hairs.

I'm gonna be honest, the line about Ephraim becoming like a dove and being "silly and without sense" left me with some very mixed emotions. I was at once hit with how RIDICULOUS that sounds after so many books of the suffering and unfair treatment of Israel and her other female tribes mixed with an extreme feeling of anger that that is how Ephraim is described after dealing with single chapters that used the word "whore" and "whoredom" 23 TIMES and that was not even counting synonyms of "whore" and "whoring" and "whoredom" which brings the number to truly ridiculous amounts.

If anyone wanted to see just how differently women or female designated cities/tribes
are treated from men or male designated cities/tribes then there ya go. If you want to read the entire chapters just to see if I'm just pulling out the weaker male quotes then be my guest. These chapters aren't very long. But the punishments do not get any worse than this and anything male Ephraim is meant to suffer Israel suffered and then some. But if you doubt this then, really, go look up the chapters are tell me I'm bullshitting.

And just one more verse that stood out to me:

6:6-7 - "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. But as Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me."

Adam transgressed the covenant and was faithless to God because Adam took the word of woman over the word of God. Woman is, indeed, the greatest enemy when it comes to man's relationship with God. Hell, this trust of a woman over God is the main reason God has to spend all this time making his people suffer and sending people to hell. Honestly, as far as I am concerned, the Original Sin wasn't eating the apple but trusting a woman. This was man's first act of "adultery" and, really, God hasn't forgiven woman since. Now God spends book after book, chapter after chapter warning men of just how evil woman is. Just how little woman is to be trusted. Heaven forbid men give woman even an ounce of freedom or control lest men "cheat" on God again and force God to punish them to an even greater extent.

"For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they do not know the LORD."

Again I think to myself, how can anyone say the Bible isn't woman hating?

Wednesday: More Hosea

Hosea 3-4

2011-08-17T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Hosea 3 - "The LORD said to me again, 'Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the LORD loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.' So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine. And I said to her, 'You must remain as mine for many days; you shall not play the whore, you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you.' For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; they shall come in awe to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days."

4:5 "You shall stumble by day; the prophet also shall stumble with you by night, and I will destroy your mother."
4:10-15 - "They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply; because they have forsaken the LORD to devote themselves to whoredom. Wine and new wine take away the understanding. My people consult a piece of wood, and their divining rod gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have played the whore, forsaking their God. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and make offerings upon the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with whores, and sacrifice with temple prostitutes; thus a people without understanding comes to ruin. Though you play the whore, O Israel, do not let Judah become guilty. Do not enter into Gilgal, or go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear, 'As the LORD lives.'"

My Comments

Hey, let's all be like God and get ourselves our own whoring/adulteress wives and abuse them as well! Come on! It'll be fun! She'll be super cheap too since no one's gonna want her after she's been all used! XD

...

Yeah...

I will also continue to highlight the many times the word "whore" is used. Seems to be the Bible's new favorite word now. I like to imagine every time I read the word "whore" that there's a large group of people who jump up and dance with streamers and confetti shouting, "Yay! You said the daily word! Whoo!" Because, you know, the image is funny, and then after about the 10th repeat of it I start to imagine the people getting more and more tired until they're finally like, "Really? Again? Can't you use a damned thesaurus? Or perhaps desist in your misogynist slurs?" And then they all fuck off because, really, it's used so much it just gets too tiring to bother caring.

Those people are my friends during these tough and trying chapters.

Friday: More Hosea

Hosea 1-2

2011-08-10T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1:2-3 - "When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, 'Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.' So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son."
1:6-9 - "She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the LORD said to him, 'Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.' When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said, 'Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not my people and I am not your God.'"

Hosea 2 - "Say to your brother, Ammi [meaning My People], and to your sister, Ruhamah [meaning Pitied]."

Israel's Infidelity, Punishment, and Redemption

"Plead with your mother, plead-- for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband-- that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts, or I will strip her naked and expose her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and turn her into a parched land, and kill her with thirst. Upon her children also I will have no pity, because they are children of whoredom. For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, 'I will go after my lovers; they give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.' Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns; and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers, but not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then she shall say, 'I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.' She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold that they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season; and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals. I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, 'These are my pay, which my lovers have given me.' I will make them a forest, and the wild animals shall devour them. I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals, when she offered incense to them and decked herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the LORD."

"Therefore, I will now allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. From there I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she shall respond as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, 'My husband,' and no longer will you call me, 'My Baal.' For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD. On that day I will answer, says the LORD, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth; and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel; and I will sow him for myself in the land. And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, 'You are my people'; and he shall say, 'You are my God.'"

My Comments

So, I had a lot more written here but then Blogger messed up and I lost all of it. Short version, I was going to write up this blog last night but my friends showed up earlier than planned to play D&D so I never really got a chance to write up anything. After copying all the quoted text I realized there's quite a bit here to look over so I'm going to go through it a bit tonight and write up something tomorrow.

But if you just can't wait for my own critical reading, feel free to do some analysis in the comments. :)

[update] Yeah, I lied a bit. My weekend is gonna be spent slowly recovering from the epic amounts of bullshit that decided to pop up Thursday and Friday. Seriously hate my job.

[Actual blog post follows]

Yeah, I wish my job didn't affect me so much, but when I have those really bad days I tend to just curl up and have no motivation to do anything. Here's hoping this week is better, yeah?

So to start off, right off the bat we got 3 occasions of the word "whoredom" in a single sentence. That's quite a large amount of "whoredom" for such a relatively small amount of words. "Go out and get a whore wife so you can have whore children in this whore city," God spoke to Hosea. Ah, how poetic, right? Just rolls right off the tongue. Now, do we even for a second believe that once Hosea is told to get a whore wife so he can bear his whore children that Hosea took a whore wife consenting manner? I'm gonna go ahead and go with no one that one.

And thus Hosea has his children "of whoredom" and the daughter is named Lo-ruhamah, which means No Pity, and the son is named Lo-ammi, which means My People. Those seem TOTALLY equal in meaning, right? Seems like they really had positive feelings for the daughter, right? Doesn't seem like she stood a chance, even if, in the end, God decides to go ahead and take pity on her. Not sure why there's a sudden change of heart. God seems to enjoy punish people (especially when they are female in nature) for no real good reason, telling them they TOTALLY deserve this most heinous of punishments, and then deciding (after a fair amount of torture) that he shall take pity and mercy on them and making sure that the small, pitiful subject of this torture understands that while God may be showing mercy and pity that the subject by no means DESERVES such pity and mercy. Therefore bow down and worship him before you do something REALLY bad and God has to punish you again for your own good even though it hurts him more than it does you.

The bulk of Hosea 2 is fairly unremarkable. Which is funny since all of it is pretty fucking deplorable, but really it is nothing that we haven't seen before. The declaration that the people God has chosen are suddenly "whoring" themselves out to others which is just the most egregious of sins. God declaring that his people will find no refuge, not even in their "lovers." God laying his people's shame and nakedness out for all to see and take advantage of. On and on and on and on. Even God eventually taking back his "whore" of a people isn't unusual, since God does eventually forgive Israel and others their "whoring," but not until they have been good and properly punished.

God's answer to this infidelity and "whoring" is, basically, to take Israel and leave her exposed to those whom were once her "lovers" and let them violate her again and again until God has decided it has been enough. Israel's sin was "sex" and thus God sees no problem with using "sex" as a punishment. I mean, if Israel had no problem sleeping with every other god and tribe in town then why would she have a problem with those same gods and tribes taking what they want now? Sound familiar? Kind of like the common idea that prostitutes and whores and unable to be raped or that women are unable to be raped by husbands and boyfriends? Because once a woman has sex with a man she is then seen as consenting to all future sex with said man (or, in the case of prostitutes, once a woman has sex with any man she is seen as consenting to all future sex with any man) Sounds a bit like that to me. Not sure if I've brought that point up before, but this has become such a trend that it's become incredibly hard not to notice.

I'm really hoping this book isn't going to turn into another Israel punishment/torture/rape fest. I'm sooooooo tired of that nonsense. I'd honestly thought the Bible would have a bit more to offer but it seems to be stuck in a rut. A really, horrible, terrible, torturous rut.

Wednesday: More Hosea

Daniel 9-12

2011-08-08T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Daniel 9 - No mention of any women.

Daniel 10 - No mention of any women.

11:6-7 - "After some years [the kings of the north and south] shall make an alliance, and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to ratify the agreement. But she shall not retain her power and his offspring shall not endure. She shall be given up, she and her attendants and her child and the one who supported her. In those times, a branch from her roots shall rise up in his place. He shall come against the army and enter the fortress of the king of the north, and he shall take action against them and prevail."
11:17 - "In order to destroy the kingdom, [the king of the south] shall give him a woman in marriage; but it shall not succeed or be to his advantage."

Daniel 12 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Oh, women. How they just can't do anything. Gotta leave it to a man to save them and fix their mess. Though WHY the daughter of the king was sent to ratify an agreement with an enemy king is just weird. So when she's alone, without a man, her power is taken. It's not until a male "branch from her roots" comes up that the south was able to prevail against the north.

And then we get a trickster woman to top it all off who is part of the plan to take down the kingdom of the north! So wait, a woman can't take care of negotiations by herself but a woman can most definitely take down a kingdom through use of sex and marriage? Once again, our power lies solely with our sexuality which is capable of taking down ANY man. Female sexuality is something to be feared and cautious about, lest a woman be the reason our lives and good future crumble before our eyes. A smart and capable woman, no worried there, but the power we hold between our legs is definitely something that, if left to its own devices and left unchecked, could destroy any man.

Anyone see how that basic idea is still around today?

Wednesday: Hosea

Daniel 5-8

2011-08-05T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

5:2-4 - "Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar commanded that they bring in the vessels of gold and silver that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the vessels of gold and silver that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone."
5:10-12 - "The queen, when she heard the discussion [about the writing on the wall] of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall. The queen said, 'O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts terrify you or your face grow pale. There is a man in your kingdom who is endowed with a spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father he was found to have enlightenment, understanding, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods. Your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and diviners, because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found in Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation.'"
5:23 - "You have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven! The vessels of his temple have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have been drinking wine from them."

6:24 - "The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions - they, their children, and their wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces."

Daniel 7 - No mention of any women.

Daniel 8 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

More women being punished for something their husbands did. Yay. X<

Sorry, my analysis isn't gonna go much further than that. There isn't really a whole lot here and I've had a wicked headache for the better part of the day. Word to the wise: wigs are just not good to wear during the summer with highs in the triple digits. Think I'm gonna stick with head wraps and bandannas until it cools off...

Friday: More Daniel

Daniel 1-4

2011-08-03T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Daniel 1 - No mention of any women.

Daniel 2 - No mention of any women.

Daniel 3 - No mention of any women.

Daniel 4 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

... well... at least we're out of the wrathful doom and gloom God books. Now we're just reading a story about how super awesome and wonderful Daniel is. Which, you know, is a BIT better than God killing everyone for no good reason but seems to leave a lot to desire in the women department.

Friday: More Daniel

Ezekiel 44-48

2011-07-29T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

44:22 - "[The Levites] shall not marry a widow, or a divorced woman, but only a virgin of the stock of the house of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest."
44:25 - "They shall not defile themselves by going near to a dead person; for father or mother, however, and for son or daughter, and for brother or unmarried sister they may defile themselves."

Ezekiel 45 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 46 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 47 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 48 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Finally done with Ezekiel! :D Dancing time, people!

Is it possible maybe we'll get something a little new in the next book?

Monday: Daniel

Ezekiel 39-43

2011-07-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezekiel 39 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 40 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 41 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 42 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 43 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

*yawn*

Friday: More Ezekiel

Ezekiel 34-38

2011-07-25T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezekiel 34 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 35 - No mention of any women.

36:17 - "Mortal, when the house of Israel lived on their own soil, they defiled it with their ways and their deeds; their conduct in my sight like the uncleanness of a woman on her menstrual period."

Ezekiel 37 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 38 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Note: The repellent and CONSCIOUS actions of the people of Israel is JUST LIKE a woman's natural and NON-CONSCIOUS menstrual cycle.

Remember, ladies, despite your lack of control over your natural bodily functions men will STILL blame, shame and punish you for having them.

As a side note and possible future post topic: I did not know that "smokin' hot wives" and referring to your wife as "bride" was a Christian thing. Apparently, it is. When I get around to checking this out further I can guarantee there will be a post filled to the brim with rant. Until then: Anyone else notice how that NASCAR prayer listed "smoking hot wife" within a list full of objects and property (tires, cars, engines, and what have you)? Stay classy, Christians.

Wednesday: More Ezekiel

Ezekiel 29-33

2011-07-22T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

29:12 - "I will make the land of Egypt a desolation among desolated countries; and her cities shall be a desolation forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries."

30:18 - "At Tehaphnehes the day shall be dark, when I break there the dominion of Egypt, and its proud might shall come to an end; the city shall be covered by a cloud, and its daughter-towns shall go into captivity."

Ezekiel 31 - No mention of any women.

32:16 - "This is a lamentation; it shall be chanted. The women of the nations shall chant it. Over Egypt and all its hordes they shall chant it, says the Lord GOD."
32:18 - "Mortal, wail over the hordes of Egypt, and send them down, with Egypt and the daughters of majestic nations, to the world below, with those who go down to the Pit."

33:26 - "You depend on your swords, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor's wife; shall you then possess the land?"

My Comments

Blah blah blah I'm God blah rar I'm big and mean and scary rar argh blah rawr I will punish anyone who doesn't love exactly as I want them to blah blah blood blah guts blah destruction and turmoil and devastation and famine and plagues and death and bloodshed and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...

Yeah, thiiiiis is getting a bit dull...

Ezekiel 24-28

2011-07-20T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

24:7-9 - "For the blood she shed is inside it; she placed it on a bare rock; she did not pour it out on the ground, to cover it with earth. To rouse my wrath, to take vengeance, I have placed the blood she shed on a bare rock, so that it may not be covered. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile great."
24:18 - "So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded."
24:21 "Say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and your heart's desire; and your sons and your daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword."
24:25-26 - "And you, mortal, on the day when I take from them their stronghold, their joy and glory, the delight of their eyes and their heart's affection, and also their sons and their daughters, on that day, one who has escaped will come to you to report to you the news."

Ezekiel 25 - No mention of any women.

26:5-6 - "[Tyre] shall become, in the midst of the sea, a place for spreading nets. I have spoken, says the Lord GOD. It shall become plunder for the nations, and its daughter-towns in the country shall be killed by the sword. Then they shall know that I am the LORD."
26:8 "Your daughter-towns in the country he shall put to the sword. He shall set up a siege wall against you, cast up a ramp against you, and raise a roof of shields against you."

Ezekiel 27 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 28 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Am I the only one who is pretty sure that 24:7-9 is describing menstrual blood and not just any old blood? That's kind of the automatic thought that pops in my head whenever the Bible discusses the bleeding of a woman and doesn't specifically describe a wound or attack. Especially when the bleeding of men is never discussed in this manner, where the blood is unclean and shameful. God REALLY hates menstruation doesn't he? You'd think if it was just so disgusting he would have designed us differently. But then how would he convince others of out inferiority and uncleanliness if he didn't design us this way? Or properly punish us for that whole tree of knowledge thing? I dunno, but either way we get another reminder that female blood is just a horrible thing and shameful for others to see.

Also have to love the seeming randomness of 24:18. God's basically telling everybody that people are gonna die and you shouldn't give a shit about it because, really, there are far more important things at hand than people dying. So we get this small bit about how well this man follows these rules. The guy's wife dies and he just carries on. His wife's demise is nothing more than a side note in this whole affair. And really, are we supposed to be IMPRESSED with his callousness towards his wife? When we've had Lot just leave his wife as a pillar of salt without even a single tear being shed or the Levite who let his concubine be gang raped to death and then cut her into 12 parts to send to the tribes of Israel. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that many of these lead men in the Bible give two shits about their wives so I'm not all that "impressed" by this act of bravery in the face of the death of a wife.

Friday: More Ezekiel

Ezekiel 23

2011-07-15T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezekiel 23 - Oholah and Oholibah

The word of the LORD came to me: Mortal, there were two women, the daughters of one mother; they played the whore in Egypt; they played the whore in their youth; their breasts were caressed there, and their virgin bosoms were fondled. Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

Oholah played the whore while she was mine; she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors clothed in blue, governors and commanders, all of them handsome young men, mounted horsemen. She bestowed her favors upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone for whom she lusted. She did not give up her whorings that she had practiced since Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and fondled her virgin bosom and poured out their lust upon her. Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, for whom she lusted. These uncovered her nakedness; they seized her sons and her daughters; and they killed her with the sword. Judgment was executed upon her, and she became a byword among women.

Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt than she in her lusting and in her whorings, which were worse than those of her sister. She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, mounted horsemen, all of them handsome young men. And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. But she carried her whorings further; she saw male figures carved on the wall, images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, with belts around their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers--a picture of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. When she saw them she lusted after them, and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their lust; and after she defiled herself with them, she turned from them in disgust. When she carried on her whorings so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned from her sister. Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your bosom and caressed your young breasts.

Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord GOD: I will rouse against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side: the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, handsome young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and warriors, all of them riding on horses. They shall come against you from the north with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples; they shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet, and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their ordinances. I will direct my indignation against you, in order that they may deal with you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors shall fall by the sword. They shall seize your sons and your daughters, and your survivors shall be devoured by fire. They shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your fine jewels. So I will put an end to your lewdness and your whoring brought from the land of Egypt; you shall not long for them, or remember Egypt any more. For thus says the Lord GOD: I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust; and they shall deal with you in hatred, and take away all the fruit of your labor, and leave you naked and bare, and the nakedness of your whorings shall be exposed. Your lewdness and your whorings have brought this upon you, because you played the whore with the nations, and polluted yourself with their idols. You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand. Thus says the Lord GOD: You shall drink your sister's cup, deep and wide; you shall be scorned and derided, it holds so much. You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow. A cup of horror and desolation is the cup of your sister Samaria; you shall drink it and drain it out, and gnaw its sherds, and tear out your breasts; for I have spoken, says the Lord GOD. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, therefore bear the consequences of your lewdness and whorings.

The LORD said to me: Mortal, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominable deeds. For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands; with their idols they have committed adultery; and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me. Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my sabbaths. For when they had slaughtered their children for their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. This is what they did in my house.

They even sent for men to come from far away, to whom a messenger was sent, and they came. For them you bathed yourself, painted your eyes, and decked yourself with ornaments; you sat on a stately couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense and my oil. The sound of a raucous multitude was around her, with many of the rabble brought in drunken from the wilderness; and they put bracelets on the arms of the women, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.

Then I said, Ah, she is worn out with adulteries, but they carry on their sexual acts with her. For they have gone in to her, as one goes in to a whore. Thus they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, wanton women. But righteous judges shall declare them guilty of adultery and of bloodshed; because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands.

For thus says the Lord GOD: Bring up an assembly against them, and make them an object of terror and of plunder. The assembly shall stone them and with their swords they shall cut them down; they shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses. Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land, so that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done. They shall repay you for your lewdness, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry; and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

My Comments

Today's "whore" count is not as bad as the last one, but still gets up to 15 before the chapter is over. Not that this chapter isn't as bad as 16, oh no. The only reason the "whore" count isn't as high is because the author got MUCH more colorful with the descriptions of said whorings. I mean, really, someone got their thesaurus out and probably a few erotic writings in order to REALLY flesh out just how WHORE-ible (see what I did there?) Oholah and Oholibah are. They lust. They are defiled. They are caressed and fondled. They flaunt their nakedness. They are come into like prostitutes.

And, really, my brain could have done without the imagery of donkey penis and stallion ejaculate. I mean holy shit, this chapter reads pretty much like a violent porn. Adulterous women lusting after hordes of men and seeking out men they see in sculpture, being defiled over and over and over again by these men. All the while also being constantly punished and wounded by these men and others. Hell, even when these women are seemingly satisfied with their "whorings" the men continue their sexual acts with them (this rape being included as part of their adultery against God).

So... yeah. Here I thought Ezekiel 16 was the worst. Like I said, by no means does this chapter make Ezekiel 16 any better. This chapter isn't quite as good about showing all of the bigger sexist themes of the Bible, but it is JUST as good at giving you woman hatred in concentrate. Hatred of female sexuality, hatred of female autonomy, hatred of female control. The whole chapter could be replaces by big red letters that just said, "WOMEN ARE EVIL WHORES!!! WHORISH-WHORY-WHORE-WHORES!!! WHOOOOOOOOORES!!!" Like God got really drunk at the bar, found a few other misogynist douchebags to pal with and proceeded to just rip the women in his life a new one (with added color commentary from the douchebag gallery).

And since we're only 23 chapters into a 48 chapter book, I won't even bother thinking that this will be the last chapter long "whore" spiel that we come across. Seriously, the Bible is just way too fucking long...

Monday: More Ezekiel

Ezekiel 19-22

2011-07-13T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

19:1-5 - Israel Degraded "As for you, raised up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, and say: What a lioness was your mother among lions! She lay down among young lions, rearing her cubs. She raised up one of her clubs; he became a young lion, and he learned to catch prey; he devoured humans. The nations sounded alarm against him; he was caught in their pit; and they brought him with hooks to the land of Eygpt. When she saw that she was thwarted, that her hope was lost, she took another of her cubs and made him a young lion."
19:10-14 - "Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard transplanted by the water, fruitful and full of branches from abundant water. its strongest stem became a ruler's scepter; it towered aloft among the thick boughs; it stood out in its height with its mass of branches. But it was plucked up in fury, cast down to the ground; the eat wind dried it up; its fruit was stripped off, its strong stem was withered; the fire consumed it. Now it is transplanted into the wilderness, into a dry and thirsty land. And fire had gone out from its stem, has consumed its branches and fruit, so that there remains in it no strong stem, no scepter for ruling."

Ezekiel 20 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 21 - No mention of any women.

22:7 - "Father and mother are treated with contempt in you [Israel]; the alien residing within you suffers extortion; the orphan and the widow are wronged in you."
22:10-11 - "In you they uncover their fathers' nakedness; in you they violate women in their menstrual periods. One commits abomination with his neighbor's wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you defiles his sister, his father's daughter."
22:25 - "Its princes within it are like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things, that have made many widows within it."

My Comments

Man, it's been a while since we've had mention of how DIRTY and UNCLEAN women are when they happen to be on the rag. Yep, keeping it classy there, Bible, as usual. Also been a while since we've had a real reminder that women that belong to men are strictly OFF LIMITS. But, as usual, women who are not owned by men are totally fair game (and if you manage to rape an unclaimed woman you might even be able to buy her from her father for cheap).

Yep, the Bible is TOTALLY not anti-woman. Nope, not one bit. -_-

Friday: More Ezekiel

Ezekiel 17-18

2011-07-11T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezekiel 17 - No mention of any women.

18:6 - "If [a man is righteous and] does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor's wife or approach a woman during her menstrual period... [he shall not die]."
18:11 - "[If a son] does any of these things (though his father does none of them), who eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor's wife... [he shall die]."
18:15 - "[But if a man has a son who sees his sins and does not] eat upon the mountain or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor's wife... [the father shall die but the son shall not]."

My Comments

Nice to see God (all knowing and unchanging, right?) seems to have changed his mind on the whole "the sins of the father shall pass on to the sons" thing. Funny how God does tat but no one seems to question it.

If God's will is supposed to be our standard of morals, how can we judge any morals when God simply changes his mind at the drop of a hat? What if God's morals during Biblical times are COMPLETELY different now, but we wouldn't know because God seems to have given up the whole prophet bag. Well, unless you count the Book of Mormon, which I really don't.

How can you base your morals on a book which can't even keep it's own ideas on morality straight for 700 pages?

Wednesday: More Ezekiel

Ezekiel 16

2011-07-08T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezekiel 16 - God's Faithless Bride

The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you out of compassion for you; but you were thrown out in the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.

I passed by you, and saw you flailing about in your blood. As you lay in your blood, I said to you, "Live! and grow up like a plant of the field." You grew up and became tall and arrived at full womanhood; your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.

I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you, and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off the blood from you, and anointed you with oil. I clothed you with embroidered cloth and with sandals of fine leather; I bound you in fine linen and covered you with rich fabric. I adorned you with ornaments: I put bracelets on your arms, a chain on your neck, a ring on your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. You were adorned with gold and silver, while your clothing was of fine linen, rich fabric, and embroidered cloth. You had choice flour and honey and oil for food. You grew exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen. Your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of my splendor that I had bestowed on you, says the Lord God.

But you trusted in your beauty, and played the whore because of your fame, and lavished your whorings on any passer-by. You took some of your garments, and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore; nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver that I had given you, and made for yourself male images, and with them played the whore; and you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. Also my bread that I gave you--I fed you with choice flour and oil and honey--you set it before them as a pleasing odor; and so it was, says the Lord God. You took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. As if your whorings were not enough! You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering to them. And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, flailing about in your blood.

After all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! says the Lord GOD), you built yourself a platform and made yourself a lofty place in every square; at the head of every street you built your lofty place and prostituted your beauty, offering yourself to every passer-by, and multiplying your whoring. You played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. Therefore I stretched out my hand against you, reduced your rations, and gave you up to the will of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. You played the whore with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. You multiplied your whoring with Chaldea, the land of merchants; and even with this you were not satisfied.

How sick is your heart, says the Lord God, that you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen whore; building your platform at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square! Yet you were not like a whore, because you scorned payment. Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! Gifts are given to all whores; but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from all around for your whorings. So you were different from other women in your whorings: no one solicited you to play the whore; and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; you were different.

Therefore, O whore, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whoring with your lovers, and because of all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, therefore, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated; I will gather them against you from all around, and will uncover your nakedness to them, so that they may see all your nakedness. I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring blood upon you in wrath and jealousy. I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall throw down your platform and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful objects and leave you naked and bare. They shall bring up a mob against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. They shall burn your houses and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women; I will stop you from playing the whore, and you shall also make no more payments. So I will satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall turn away from you; I will be calm, and will be angry no longer. Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged me with all these things; therefore, I have returned your deeds upon your head, says the Lord God.

Have you not committed lewdness beyond all your abominations? See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, "Like mother, like daughter." You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. You not only followed their ways, and acted according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. Samaria has not committed half your sins; you have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have brought about for your sisters a more favorable judgment; because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes along with theirs, in order that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done, becoming a consolation to them. As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former state, Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former state, and you and your daughters shall return to your former state. Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you are a mockery to the daughters of Aram and all her neighbors, and to the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. You must bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, says the LORD.

An Everlasting Covenant

Yes, thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath, breaking the covenant; yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant. Then you will remember your ways, and be ashamed when I take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my covenant with you. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, in order that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord GOD.

My Comments

Just to get it out of the way: God is a creepy bastard.

Gotta love how incredibly passive Jerusalem is in this entire affair. She was born alone and untouched, left to her own devices which apparently means she just sat there because she can't possibly do anything herself. She flailed aimlessly in her own blood (menstrual?) until God happened along and told her to get up and grow. She does as told and then when God comes by her again and sees her at the "age of love" he basically just descends upon her and takes her as his bride without any input from Jerusalem herself in this entire affair. God dresses her up in fine cloth and jewelry and even makes sure to remind her that the only reason she has gained fame is because of the "splendor that I had bestowed upon you."

So let's go over the beginning of this again. God finds Jerusalem, takes as his bride and pretties her up and then basically tells her that he made her and he owns her. Big implication in this whole affair being that what God has given God can take away just like that. No matter that Jerusalem hasn't had any actual input in any of this, God is calling all the shots. (Seriously, God, just because the the bagpipe didn't say no doesn't mean she's okay with it)

But then, oh no! Jerusalem starts WHORING around. And yes, I take A LOT of offense at the number of times the word "whore" is used in this chapter alone. I bolded all the instances of the word "whore" or "whoring" (I didn't bother counting any synonyms for "whore" or "whoring") and there is a whopping 21 instances of those words in this chapter. The chapter is only 63 verses long and it's mentioned 21 times? Really? It was actually physically hard to read the rest of the chapter after about the first 5 uses of the word "whore." And after number 15 I was about ready to throw the damned book across the floor and throw a match at it.

So yeah, Jerusalem is apparently cheating on God, a "man" whom she never seemed to want to be with in the first place. She was taken. Conquered. Made property. Essentially raped and decorated with jewels meant to entrap her to a "man" she would have never actively attached herself to if she'd had any say in the matter. Are we surprised that Jerusalem isn't 100% faithful to God here? Especially when other tribal gods, as we've read previously, are much more friendly and willing to aid her? God takes her, openly shows the unequal power balance in the relationship (I made you and I can break you), and then is never really especially protective of her or loving to her. But, as we have learned so much through the last few books, cheating on God is a VERY big no no (pretty much the ONLY big no no in the "good book") and thus God proceeds to punish Jerusalem for the "abominations" she has committed.

Now, I find it interesting when God mentions how he shall punish Jerusalem "as women who have committed adultery and shed blood are judged." Now, looking back at the laws set down for adultery in Leviticus 20:10-16, "If a man commits adultery with his neighbors wife then both he and the wife shall be put to death. The man who lies with his father's wife has seen his father's nakedness, and both he and the wife shall be put to death. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law then both shall be put to death. If a man takes a wife and her mother also that is depravity, and they shall all be burned to death. If a woman approaches an animal to have sex with it then she and the animal shall be put to death."

So, why, when God talks about Jerusalem's punishment for her adultery, does God allow those Jerusalem committed adultery with to get involved with Jerusalem's punishment? If we're going by the very rules God himself set up, BOTH parties should be killed/beaten, not just the wife. And yet, here we have God punishing Jerusalem by having her lovers break her, strip her, leave her bare and cut her. God even makes a point of this basically being a message to women everywhere. Jerusalem is being made an example so that women may know exactly what can be expected if they ever try to "stray" from the husbands and "whore" around with other men. Obviously, most of these stories about women in the Bible and the extreme punishments they face are meant to be lessons for other women (for example, Jezebel), but this is the first instance in which it is very clearly stated what the intent and purpose of this graphic depiction of Jerusalem's punishment is meant to do.

Even when God restores Jerusalem's fortunes it's meant as a punishment. "I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes along with theirs, in order that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done, becoming a consolation to them... I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, in order that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord God." God restores Jerusalem only so that she may continue to suffer. I know I referenced the To The Pain scene from Princess Bride already, but again it is very relevant. God wants to leave Jerusalem alive so that she may continue to be shamed by those around her who have denigrated her and seen her nakedness. So that she may forever remember the pain that she was put through when she dared to cheat on God. So that Jerusalem will be alive and remember and thus be silenced for fear that she may incur God's wrath yet again. The bit about her being left "confounded" is odd, since that basically implies that Jerusalem is left alive and wounded without any real idea of why it all happened to her. All she is meant to know is that she is God's bitch and if she doesn't stay quiet and completely under his will and command she will face that same pain again.

Jerusalem remembers the pain but she does not know exactly why she has been made to suffer this pain? Is this because she is too stupid (and female) to really understand what she did wrong? I mean, God did find her flailing in her own blood, seemingly without the presence of mind to even get up out of her own filth. Or is this because God, as is his usual modus operandi, punished Jerusalem without telling her why (for an example of this, see Job, which will of course make it almost impossible for her to not make the same mistake twice.

I think, from now on, if anyone ever asks me why I think the Bible is garbage this chapter will be my answer. It's like all the bullshit sexist messages of the Bible all rolled into one. Women are passive. Women are too stupid to do anything without a man telling them what to do. Women are too evil to be trusted and must be kept under strict and unyielding control by men to keep them in line. Women are always consenting to sex, especially when they are incapable of simply just don't say no. Rape and torture is an acceptable punishment for a woman who has cheated on her spouse. Women are bought by men when they are married and adorned with jewelry (ie. engagement rings) and are thus property and without wills and desires of their own. Even when you punish a woman, she is too stupid to understand exactly what happened which is why no punishment is too severe and no form of control too ridiculous. Women are best when they sit down and shut up and just let the man do all the thinking and talking.

Yep, I think this will be my go to chapter from now on. Thank you, Bible, for distilling all your woman hating into one convenient chapter so that it'll be much easier for me to reference the biggest shitstain of the Bible in 8 easy syllables: E-ze-ki-el-chap-ter-six-teen.

Monday: More Ezekiel

More Sexism in the Atheist Community

2011-07-06T17:00:00.005-05:00

Okay, I started reading Ezekiel 16 and boy, is it just wall to wall craziness concerning Jerusalem and her transgressions (again). And since I was pretty sick yesterday I didn't get any time to go through it well enough to talk as much as I'm going to need to about it. But! It seems the gods of coincidence are on my side because another big sexism issue has popped up yet again in the atheist community and it's getting quite a bit of talking about going on. So there will still be a post today, yay! So without further ado, I give you more interesting tales of sexism in the atheist community.

I think my absolute favorite part of the video is near the end where she mentions the extremely misogynist comments she's gotten about her video and the video of the panel she was on at the conference. She thanks those people for their comments because if people watch those videos and get it in their head that she's just an emotional woman blowing things out of proportion, all these people need to do is look down at the comments and see that no, she isn't exaggerating or overreacting. This sexism is very much there and it's very "kind" of people to leave those horrid comments so others can see it for themselves. Of course, most of the sexism I've come across in the atheist community isn't the overt in your face kind, so these comments are both helpful and not. I feel it's often easy for people to point at in your face comments and go, "Well, yeah, of course THAT'S sexist." But it's much harder for these same people to see the sexism in a man following a woman at 4am into an elevator to ask her up for coffee in his hotel room when the woman has made very clear prior to this that she does not want to be treated as a sexual object.

It's important to see the harsher comments, especially for those who are very new to the concept of sexism. Unfortunately, if that's all we give these people they will only see the most extreme misogyny as sexist and anything else is just women "misinterpreting" a situation.

For example, Shakesville does a great job of taking down some comments that Richard Dawkins made on a post Pharyngula did mentioning the Skepchick panel and the situation with the man in the elevator. I'm gonna be honest, I'm extremely disappointed to read these comments by Richard Dawkins. His book The God Delusion did so much for me while I was struggling with not having religion and helped me answer a lot of questions I had about my skepticism. So yeah, it hurts a bit to see that a man I kinda looked up to really isn't any better than the other entitled men I deal with on a daily basis. Note: It would seem Skepchick feels much the same about Dawkin's comments, since she just put up a very excellent post on those comments and her stance as a feminist in the atheist community.

Richard Dawkins seems to understand (in a rather condescending manner) that extreme acts of violence against women (Muslim women, at least) is misogynistic. Female genital mutilation, rapes, being stoned to death, not being allowed the basic freedom to leave the house or basic mobility like driving a car. He seems to see that these acts are sexist and violent against women. Much like the overtly sexist Youtube comments, these are things many people do not argue about.

Yet, when given a scenario that many women face on a daily basis (unwelcomed come-ons from strange men) he shrugs that off as nothing more than simple "words" that Skepchick just took the wrong way. Yeah, like I haven't heard THAT before when I've recounted cat calls or other come-ons to people. Or you hear that this is a stupid thing to talk about because other women in other parts of the world are going through so much worse! Like we can't multitask when it comes to getting rid of sexism. These more non-violent or extreme acts of sexism are not obvious to these men. Or, when made obvious, not treated as an issue that actually needs to be addressed.

So while I do love that the Youtube commenters, in their exercises in sexism, help to make Skepchick's point, those comments alone will not win the fight. We need to continue to point out the non-violent sexism that we women face every day and we can't back down. It saddens me that one of the most influential men in the atheist movement seems to completely miss the point no matter how many people are trying to show him exactly how he's missing the point. This will only encourage many men in the atheist community to stay the way they are and not change.

Richard Dawkins, I am disappoint, and I don't think I will really ever look at you the same way again, since it seems you would probably find it difficult to see me as a rational, thinking human when I hold many of the same thoughts as Skepchick. I really have no tolerance for people like that anymore.

I can only hope that his completely ridiculous comments and those who support said comments will help those people in the atheist community who are on the feminist fence see what exactly is going on and that something does need to be done to address these issues. Skepchick stated that she wasn't a feminist before, that she was in the atheist community and felt feminism had played out and women were equal and done. But as she got more into the community and began to speak out on issues that many disagreed with, the misogyny came out and she began to see that no, sexism is not over and done with and feminism is still needed. Blaghag makes a similiar statement early on in the comments of Skepchick's post as well.

I'm honestly happy to see this issue seems like it's FINALLY being taken seriously by many of the big bloggers in the atheist community. Especially after the fiasco at that other atheist panel where the talk of sexism actually led to people mocking and laughing a woman out of the room. I don't know why this is getting more attention than the other incident. Maybe it's because people got sidetracked with stupid discussions on whether to call women "females" or not during the last incident. Maybe it's because Richard Dawkins actually stuck his fat privileged head into this debate and suddenly it's not just an issue of a few "bad eggs" in the atheist community but not it also includes some of its biggest players. I don't know, but I really am happy to see that this seems to be getting people REALLY talking and seriously looking at how the men in the atheist movement act. I can only hope that it will lead to some progress because I really would like to get back into the community again. Well, I don't know about that. I kind of stopped being a fan of the community because of the extreme hard science bias, too (really, it gets tiring having people think your college major is a huge joke), and I don't think that'll really ever go away.

But is nothing else, more talk like this and more people really seeing that what us women have been talking about all this time is really happening and is really hurtful might start bringing more women into the atheist movement and more women as speakers and leaders. Even if I don't ever feel completely welcome in the community, it would be very much worth it to have more female voices being heard loud and proud in the movement.

Also, if you have not yet been to the Stop Street Harrassment blog, I highly recommend it. Especially if you are under the impression that the scenario Skepchick mentioned is an isolated incident.

Edit: Skepchick.org has put up a post containing letters written to Richard Dawkins concerning the comments he's made about the Rebecca Watson incident. They are very much worth the read.

Friday: (hopefully!) More Ezekiel

Happy 4th of July

2011-07-04T13:28:00.001-05:00

Off partying today. New blog post will be up Wednesday.

To all those in the US, happy 4th! Hope you get to see some fantastic fireworks today. I fear I shall be left out of the firework festivities on account of the drought still going on, but there shall be fun none the less. :)

Ezekiel 11-15

2011-07-01T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezekiel 11 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 12 - No mention of any women.

13:17-23 - "As for you, mortal, set your face against the daughters of your people, who prophesy out of their own imagination; prophesy against them and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the women who sew bands on all wrists, and make veils for the heads of persons of every height, in the hunt for human lives! Will you hunt down lives among my people, and maintain your own lives? You have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, putting to death persons who should not die and keeping alive persons who should not live, by your lies to my people, who listen to lies. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I am against your bands with which you hunt lives; I will tear them from your arms, and let the lives go free, the lives that you hunt down like birds. I will tear off your veils, and save my people from your hands; they shall no longer be prey in your hands; and you shall know that I am the LORD. Because you have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not disheartened them, and you have encouraged the wicked not to turn from their wicked way and save their lives; therefore you shall no longer see false visions or practice divination; I will save my people from your hand. Then you will know that I am the LORD."

14:16 - "Even if these three men [Noah, Daniel and Job] were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they would save neither sons nor daughters; they alone would be saved, but the land would be desolate."
14:18 - "Though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they would save neither sons nor daughters, but they alone would be saved. "
14:20 - "Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they would save neither son nor daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness."
14:22 - "Yet, survivors shall be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; they will come out to you. When you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it."

Ezekiel 15 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Wednesday: More Ezekiel

Ezekiel 6-10

2011-06-29T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezekiel 6 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 7 - No mention of any women.

8:14 - "Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD; women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz."

9:6 - "'Cut down old men, young men and young women, little children and women, but touch no one who has the mark [those who sigh and groan at the sight of the abominations being committed]. And begin at my sanctuary.' So they began with the elders who were in front of the house."

Ezekiel 10 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

I think I would give anything, right about now, for the Bible to STOP going on and on and on and ON about how God just HAS to punish all his people because they just HAD to commit to HORRIBLE abomination (of which there are no greater abominations, apparently) or *gasp!* WORSHIPING DEITIES THAT AREN'T GOD! I mean holy shit, this is, what, the fourth book now that has to completely bash us over the heads with this nonsense? Not just imply, like other books have, but completely and totally show us just what a jealous asshole God is.

I completely agree with others that reading the Bible is probably the easiest way to get people to stop believing in this douchebag deity. I think if I had still been a believer when I started this project I would definitely not be one now. And I'm supposedly to believe that THIS God right here, old testament, jealous as shit god, is supposedly to suddenly turn into daisies and sunshine when Jesus is born?

Bullshit.

And I hate that I still sound like a broken record after all these books but it's really all the Bible is giving me to work with, here. Also, oddly enough, it CONTINUES to surprise me. Is that weird? I know I should be expecting this crap by now, but every other chapter or so I find myself just face palming and thinking what the fuck? Why do people still believe in this shit? What the fuck am I reading? I just don't get it...

Friday: More Ezekiel

Ezekiel 1-5

2011-06-27T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezekiel 1 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 2 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 3 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 4 - No mention of any women.

Ezekiel 5 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

And we kick off a brand new book with a whole lot of nothing.

Wednesday: More Ezekiel

Lamentations 3-5

2011-06-22T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Lamentations 3 - No mention of any women.

4:7 - "[Sodom's] princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy then coral, their hair like sapphire."
4:10 - "The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they become their food in the destruction of my people."
4:13 - "It was for the sins of [Jerusalem's] prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in the midst of her."
4:21-22 - "Rejoice and be glad, O daughter Edom, you that live in the land of Uz; but to you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare. The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter Zion, is accomplished, he will keep you in exile longer; but your iniquity, O daughter Edom, he will punish, he will uncover your sins."

5:3 - "We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows."
5:11 - "Women are raped in Zion, virgins in the town of Judah."

My Comments

Cannibalism again. Once again, it's only the mother's ACTUALLY eating their children, no father's in sight. Father's are okay to mention ALONG WITH mothers only when cannibalism is being mentioned as a possible punishment or outcome of some horrible famine. But father's are never seen when the actual act is being committed. Fancy that.

Does the Bible just have a thing about women eating basically anything it is understood they shouldn't? First the apple and now our own children? I'm not sure but it's just getting to the point of ridiculousness.

Here's hoping Ezekiel will bring us something different for a change. I'm tired of reading about God's punishment on people for the crime of not loving him enough.

Friday: Ezekiel

Lamentations 2

2011-06-17T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Lamentations 2: God's Warning Fulfilled

How the Lord in his anger has humiliated daughter Zion! He has thrown down from heaven to earth the splendor of Israel; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

The Lord has destroyed without mercy all the dwellings of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of daughter Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers.

He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn his right hand from them in the face of the enemy; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.

He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; he has killed all in whom we took pride in the tent of daughter Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire.

The Lord has become like an enemy; he has destroyed Israel; He has destroyed all its palaces, laid in ruins its strongholds, and multiplied in daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.

He has broken down his booth like a garden, he has destroyed his tabernacle; the LORD has abolished in Zion festival and sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.

The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; a clamor was raised in the house of the LORD as on a day of festival.

The LORD determined to lay in ruins the wall of daughter Zion; he stretched the line; he did not withhold his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.

Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; guidance is no more, and her prophets obtain no vision from the LORD.

The elders of daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young girls of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.

My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of my people, because infants and babes faint in the streets of the city.

They cry to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' bosom.

What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter Zion? For vast as the sea is your ruin; who can heal you?

Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen oracles for you that are false and misleading.

All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at daughter Jerusalem; "Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?"

All your enemies open their mouths against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: "We have devoured her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; at last we have seen it!"

The LORD has done what he purposed, he has carried out his threat; as he ordained long ago, he has demolished without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you, and exalted the might of your foes.

Cry aloud to the Lord! O wall of daughter Zion! Let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

Look, O LORD, and consider! To whom have you done this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have borne? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

The young and the old are lying on the ground in the streets; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; in the day of your anger you have killed them, slaughtering without mercy.

You invited my enemies from all around as if for a day of festival; and on the day of the anger of the LORD no one escaped or survived; those whom I bore and reared my enemy has destroyed.

My Comments

Seriously, why does God delight so in the threat of making parents eat their children? You would think cannibalism would be one of those things God is completely against. And yet, when it comes down to it, God is actually okay with putting people in situations where eating their children would be necessary (or just outright forcing them to eat their children, as it sometimes comes across) nor does God seem upset when it actually happens because of famine. In 2 kings, the only one really upset by the child cannibalism is the king himself. God says nothing on this subject. Again, God spends BOOKS on how bad it is to not be faithful to him and exactly how God will punish those who dare to turn to other gods before him, yet he is okay with forcing parents to eat their children as punishment and is completely silent when mothers are so hungry they actually turn to eating their children.

And why are only mothers mentioned in this particular cannibalism verse? Before, when cannibalism is being threatened as a punishment, it is implied that both parents may be forced to eat their offspring. Yet, here, the focus is placed specifically on the mothers. Also, to note, the only people in the Bible to actually commit cannibalism (thus far, anyway) have been women. What exactly that says, I don't know. Is it just women are really the only ones truly weak enough to eat their children without God pushing them to do it? Like, fathers would eat their children but only if God was pressing it upon them as a punishment and wouldn't do so otherwise. But those women, you gotta keep an eye on them. They start feeling a bit peckish and bam! You're down one kid. Is this just the Bible once again pointing to the inferior and weak nature of women/mothers?

Don't get me wrong, the Bible does show cannibalism in a bad light, it's not that just because God doesn't make it a commandment that that means the Bible thinks it's okay. When cannibalism is mentioned you can see that it's a bad thing that really shouldn't happen. That is not my beef. My beef is that, like human sacrifice, the Bible will SAY it's a wrong, evil, bad thing and yet God is still okay with using it. God SAYS he's very anti-human sacrifice and yet look what happened to Jephtha's daughter. Or even Jesus, for that matter, the bestest of all human sacrifices. It's the same with cannibalism. It's written in a non-positive light, and yet that has never stopped God from using it to punish or threaten his people, and it apparently doesn't even warrant an appearance or any ACTUAL punishment when it really happens. God only has time to punish those who cheat on him, okay? He SO doesn't have time to deal with mother's eating their children.

All I want is just a little actual morals to live by, here. I'm not asking for much. But so far the only real message that's coming across loud and clear is DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE EVEN LOOK AT ANOTHER GOD BESIDES YAHWEH OR HE WILL FUCK YOUR SHIT UP! If the Bible can't even get the pretty simple ideas of "don't sacrifice people" and "don't eat other people" across as well as it does the whole God adultery thing, then really I don't see how this even remotely comes close to being a codes of ethics and morals...

Monday: More Lamentations

Lamentations 1

2011-06-15T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1:1-11 - The Deserted City

"How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.

"She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.

"Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives not among the nations, and finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

"The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter.

"Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper, because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.

"From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty. Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.

"Jerusalem remembers, in the days of her affliction and wandering, all the precious things that were hers in the days of old. When her people fell into the hands of the foe, and there was no one to help her, the foe looked on mocking over her downfall.

"Jerusalem sinned grievously, so she has become a mockery; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans, and turns her face away.

"Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; her downfall was appalling, with no one to comfort her. 'Oh Lord, look at my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!'

"Enemies have stretched out their hands over all her precious things; she has even seen the nations invade her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation.

"All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. Look, O Lord, and see how worthless I have become."

1:15 - "The Lord has rejected all my warriors in the midst of me; he proclaimed a time against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden as in a wine press the virgin daughter Judah."

1:17-19 - "Zion stretched out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her; the Lord has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors should become his foes; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them.

"The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but Hear, all you peoples, and behold my suffering; my young women and young men have gone into captivity.

"I called to my lovers but they deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city while seeking food to revive their strength."

My Comments

*sigh* I think I spoke too soon. -_-

How long can they harp on this? Yes, God's people cheated on God. Yes, God got super angry (even though it hurt him more than it did them) and punished his people. Yes, it really sucked for his people.

Can we move on, now?!

What is the point of dragging this on for so long? What does this add to anything? Is it supposed to add to our moral code? Is it supposed to add to our sympathy for God's people? Is it supposed to add to our awe of God and his power? Is it supposed to make us love God more? Fear God more? Understand God more? Is it supposed to explain why bad things exist (because if God will do this shit to his most loved children imagine what he's make normal people suffer through)? Is it just filler to make the Bible longer? Why did the few skilled people in the world at this time waste so much precious paper to records something that was basically just a waste of space?

My main beef here is, why are we supposed to be siding with now? During Jeremiah, it was fairly obvious that Jeremiah was the character we were supposed to side with and sympathize with (not that it means I DID relate to and sympathize with him). Jeremiah was God's man in the street, trying to turn people back to God and away from their "sins." He was laughed at and treated as an outcast for this, even while Israel and Jerusalem and others began to feel God's punishment and anger. Jeremiah, who whined incessantly about how no one would listen to him and how persecuted he was because he only believed in God, was our lead in that book. Even if you didn't identify with him or feel for him, which I sure as hell didn't, it was obvious that was the point.

But here, in Lamentations, we are no longer getting these accounts from Jeremiah (or whoever actually wrote the book). This is no longer prophecy and warnings spouted by a lone believer, cautioning God's people to turn back to him lest God destroy them in his righteous anger. This book is told from the point of view of some man (not identified as of yet) who is quite obviously caught up in these great punishments. Now we get the view of those people whom were beaten and destroyed, left to fend for themselves while they tried to survive God's angry onslaught. Am I now supposed to identify and sympathize with Jerusalem and Israel and all the people who were cruelly and needlessly tormented for a crime as petty and small as worshiping gods other than Yahweh? I'm going to think no, that I am not supposed to sympathize with them at all because it would honestly make no sense for such a huge shift to take place from one book to the next. I imagine the real purpose of this is for those who would dare turn their back on God to see just exactly what the punishment is for such a "crime."

1:18 - "The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but Hear, all you peoples, and behold my suffering; my young women and young men have gone into captivity."

We are supposed to feel the pain of the people of Israel, not to empathize with them but instead to learn from it and, for those few truly faithful, possibly even to look down upon those poor, suffering souls with a look of "I told you so" because you stayed faithful and loyal to God unlike those weak and faithless fools. Really, the Bible LOVES to talk about those who are without faith as being fools, so why would this be any different? The person talking in Lamentations (and the city of Jerusalem) completely DESERVED what happened to them. Their cries, their pain, their rape and suffering. Whatever pity the true believer may feel for them is simply that.

Lamentations (so far, anyway) to me shows just how cruel God has been to these people and to these cities. He has left Jerusalem and Zion and Babylon and others raped and lain open, their shame open for all to see. They are left alone and unclean, without God to help them or comfort them even when their crimes were not great.

The narrator of this book may look upon this suffering and say it is just even while he is in pain and sees the desolation and ruin around him.

I look upon this and wonder for the thousandth time how anyone can say they love such a God who is willing to destroy the ones he claims to love the most.

Friday: More Lamentations

Jeremiah 50-52

2011-06-13T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

50:2-3 - "Declare among the nations and proclaim, set up a banner and proclaim, do not conceal it, say: Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed. Her images are put to shame, her idols are dismayed. For out of the north a nation has come up against her; it shall make her land a desolation, and no one shall live in it; both human beings and animals shall flee away."
50:9-10 - "For I am going to stir up and bring against Babylon a company of great nations from the land of the north; and they shall array themselves against her; from there she shall be taken. Their arrows are like arrows of a skilled warrior who does not return empty-handed. Chaldea shall be plundered; all who plunder her shall be sated, says the Lord."
50:12-16 - "You mother shall be utterly shamed, and she who bore you shall be disgraced. Lo, she shall be the last of the nations, a wilderness, dry land, and a desert. Because of the wrath of the Lord she shall not be inhabited, but shall be an utter desolation; everyone who passes by Babylon shall be appalled and hiss because of all her wounds. Take up your positions around Babylon, all you that bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows, for she has sinned against the Lord. Raise a shout against her from all sides, 'She has surrendered; her bulwarks have fallen, her walls are thrown down.' For this is the vengeance of the Lord; take vengeance on her, do to her as she has done. Cut off from Babylon the sower, and the wielder of the sickle in time of harvest; because of the destroying sword all of them shall return to their own people, and all of them shall flee to their own land."
50:21 - "Go up to the land of Merathaim; go up against her, and attack to inhabitants of Pekod and utterly destroy the last of them, says the Lord; do all that I have commanded you."
50:26-27 - "Come against her [the Chaldeans] from every quarter; open her granaries; pile her up like heaps of grain, and destroy her utterly; let nothing be left of her. Kill all her bulls, let them go down to the slaughter. Alas for them, their day has come, the time of their punishment."
50:29-30 - "Summon archers against Babylon, all who bend the bow. Encamp all around her; let no on escape. Repay her according to her deeds; just as she has done, do to her - for she has arrogantly defiled the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. therefore her young men shall fall in her squares, and all her soldiers shall be destroyed on that day, says the Lord."
50:35-40 - "A sword against the Chaldeans, says the Lord, and against the inhabitants of Babylon, and against her officials and her sages! A sword against the diviners, so that they may become fools! A sword against her warriors, so that they may be destroyed! A sword against her horses and against her chariots, and against all the foreign troops in her midst, so that they may become women! A sword against all her treasures, that they may be plundered! A drought against her waters, that they may be dried up! For it is a land of images , and they go mad over idols.

"Therefore wild animals shall live with hyenas in Babylon, and ostriches shall inhabit her; she shall never again be peopled or inhabited for all generations. As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors, says the Lord, so no one shall live there, nor shall anyone settle in her."
50:42-44 - "They wield bow and spear, they are cruel and have no mercy. The sound of them is like the roaring sea; they ride upon horses, set in array as a warrior for battle, against you, O daughter Babylon!

"The king of Babylon heard news of them, and his hands fell helpless; anguish seized him, pain like that of a woman in labor.

"Like a lion coming up from the thickets of the Jordan against a perennial pasture, I will suddenly chase them away from her; and I will appoint over how whomever I choose."
50:46 - "At the sound of the capture of Babylon the earth shall tremble, and her cry shall be heard among the nations."

51:2-4 - "and I will send winnowers in Babylon, and they shall winnow her. They shall empty her land when they come against her from every side on the day of trouble.Let not the archer bend his bow, and let him not array himself in his coat of mail. Do not spare her young men; utterly destroy her entire army. They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and wounded in her street."
51:6-9 - "Flee from the midst of Babylon, save your lives, each of you! Do not perish because of her guilt, for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance; he is repaying her what is due. Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine, and so the nations went mad. Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is shattered; wail for her! Bring balm for her wound; perhaps she may be healed. We tried to heal Babylon, but she shall not be healed. Forsake her, and let each of us go to our own country; for her judgement has reached up to heaven and has been lifted up even to the skies."
51:22 - "Go up to the land of Merathaim; go up against her, and attack the inhabitants of Pekod and utterly destroyed the last of them, says the Lord, do all that I have commanded you."
51:27-28 - "Raise a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations; prepare the nations for war against her, summon against her the kingdoms, Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; appoint a marshal against her, bring up horses like bristling locusts. Prepare the nations for war against her, the kings of Medes, with their governors and deputies, and every land under their dominion."
51:30 - "The warriors of Babylon have given up fighting, they remain in their strongholds; their strength has failed, they have become women; her buildings are set on fire, her bars are broken."
51:33 - "Daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come."
51:36-37 - "Therefore thus says the lord: I am going to defend your cause and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her fountain dry; and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins, a den of jackals, an object of horror and of hissing, without inhabitant."
51:43 - "Her cities have become an object of horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one lives, and through which no mortal passes."
51:45 - "Come out of her, my people! save your lives, each of you, from the fierce anger of the Lord!"
51:47 - "Assuredly, the days are coming when I will punish the images of Babylon; her whole land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in her midst."
51:52-53 - "Therefore the time is surely coming, says the Lord, when I will punish her idols, and through all her land the wounded shall groan. Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify her strong height, from me destroyers would come upon her, says the Lord."
51:55-58 - "For the Lord is laying Babylon waste, and stilling her loud clamor. Their waves roar like mighty waters, the sound of their clamor resounds; for a destroyer has come against her, against Babylon; her warriors are taken, their bows are broken; for the Lord is a God of recompense, he will repay in full. I will make her officials and her sages drunk, also her governors, her deputies, and her warriors; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake, says the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

"Thus says the Lord of hosts: The broad wall of Babylon shall be leveled to the ground, and her high gates shall be burned with fire. The people's exhaust themselves for nothing,and the nations weary themselves only for fire."
51:63 - "'Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disasters that I am bringing on her.' Thus far are the words of Jeremiah."

52:1 - "Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah."

My Comments

Finally we come to the end of the madness. I hope everyone has enjoyed this wonderful look into the mind of the One True God (tm). A God who, when shunned or not loved as much as he wishes to be, will utterly destroy and torment his own people. But the Bible is supposed to be the Good Book, a guide on how to live life and be a good person, right? A place to go to to get your morals and to also see the proof of God's wonder and wisdom?

Bah, I've mentioned this ad naseum already, I don't feel like going into the same rant I've done several times already. Long rant short, The Bible as a moral guide book argument is ridiculous because the only moral God is trying to teach you throughout most of it is to never, ever, EVER stop loving him in the exact way in which he demands you love him or else God will make your life a living hell. No real rules on how to treat your fellow man or anything (unless, you know, it's letting you know when the appropriate moments are the STONE or OUTCAST you fellow man) or how to live your life so that you and those around you will be as happy as possible. Nope! It's all about God, God, God, God. And the second it isn't all about God you can expect to get hit with a plague or to have your city captured and ransacked by an enemy tribe. Hell, even God's warnings against adultery with other men's wives is basically just God whining about how women are evil and lead men away FROM GOD. That's not even some halfhearted attempt to promote monogamy or anything. Everything in this book so far (aside from the Ten Commandments, which I don't even really count because most of those are jealous God rules too) is just one long warning on exactly how God will fuck your day up if you dare cheat on him with another God or dare to forget to say thanks to him before you go to bed.

The only new thing we really get here is the addition of God making the men "like women" as a punishment for their "sins." So we've got death and war and whatnot and to top that all off suddenly God/Jeremiah bring out the added insult of making the men like women. And how does he make them like women? By making them weak, helpless, conquerable, passive, and under the complete control of men. So, we can conclude that to be a woman is to naturally be weak, helpless, conquerable, passive, and under the complete control of men. (for further notes on women's inferior status see posts under the topic "Men Rule")

I'm mostly just glad this is finally over. It was like big, long God temper tantrum. Really could have been only half as long and it could have gotten the same ideas across and still have been really obnoxious. Here's hoping the next book brings us something different.

Wednesday:

Jeremiah 48-49

2011-06-10T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

48:2 - "In Heshborn they planned evil against her: 'Come, let us cut her off from being a nation!' You also, O Madmen, shall be brought to silence; the sword shall pursue you."
48:4 - "'Moab is destroyed!' her little ones cried out."
48:9 - "Set aside salt for Moab, for she will surely fall; her towns shall become a desolation, with no inhabitant in them."
48:18-19 - "Come down from glory, and sit on the parched ground, enthroned daughter Dibon! For the destroyer of Moab has come up against you; he has destroyed your strongholds. Stand by the road and watch, you inhabitant of Aroer! Ask the man fleeing and the woman escaping; say, 'What has happened?'"
48:41 - "The hearts of the warriors of Moab, on that day, shall be like the heart of a woman in labor."

49:3-4 - "Wail, O Heshborn, for Ai is laid waste! Cry out, O daughters of Rabbah! Put on sackcloth, lament, and slash yourselves with whips! For Milcom shall go into exile, with his priests and his attendants. Why do you boast in your strength? Your strength is ebbing, O faithless daughters. You trusted in your treasures, saying, 'Who will attack me?'"
49:11 - "Leave your orphans , I will keep them alive; and let your windows trust in me."
49:13-14 - "For by myself I have sworn, says the Lord, that Bozrah shall become an object of horror and ridicule, a waste, and an object of cursing; and all her towns shall be perpetual wastes. I have heard tidings from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: ;Gather yourselves together and come against her, and rise up for battle!'"
49:24-26 - "Damascus has become feeble, she turned to flee, and panic seized her; anguish and sorrows have taken hold her, as of a woman in labor. How the famous city is forsaken, the joyful town! Therefore her young men shall fall in her squares, and all her soldiers shall be destroyed in that day, says the Lord of hosts."

My Comments

Edit: Sorry this post didn't come with any comments. We had a vacation in Dallas for A-Kon (anime convention) and I got sidetracked by packing and costumes and craziness. We just got into town so I will see what I can write up tomorrow when I get some down time. :) Although if anyone wants to add their own analysis before then they are more than free to. :P

Monday: The last of Jeremiah

Jeremiah 44-47

2011-06-08T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

44:7 - "And now thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Why are you doing such great harm to yourselves, to cut off man and woman, child and infant, from the midst of Judah, leaving yourself without a remnant?"
44:9 - "Have you forgotten the crimes of your ancestors, of the kings of Judah, of their wives, your own crimes and those of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?"
44:15-20 - "Then all the men who were aware that their wives had been making offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: 'As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you. Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no misfortune. But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine.' And the women said, 'Indeed we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her; do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out libations to her without our husbands' being involved.' Then Jeremiah said to all the people, men and women, all the people who were giving him this answer:"
44:24 - "Jeremiah said to all the people and all the women, 'Hear the word of the Lord, all you Judeans who are in the land of Egypt.'"

Jeremiah 45 - No mention of any women.

46:11-12 - "Go up to Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt! In vain you have used many medicines; there is no healing for you. The nations have heard of your shame, and the earth is full of your cry; for warrior has stumbled against warrior; both have fallen together."
46:19-21 - "Pack your bags for exile, sheltered daughter Egypt! For Memphis shall become a waste, a ruin, without inhabitant. A beautiful heifer is Egypt - a gadfly from the north lights upon her. Even her mercenaries in her midst are like fatted calves; they too have turned and fled together, they did not stand; for the day of their calamity has come upon them, the time for their punishment.

"She makes a sound like a snake gliding away; for her enemies march in force, and come against her with axes, like those who fell trees. They shall cut down her forest, says the Lord, though it is impenetrable, because they are more numerous than locusts; they are without number. Daughter Egypt shall be put to shame; she shall be handed over to a people from the north."

Jeremiah 47 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Ah, goddess worship. Truly the most heinous of sins one can commit! I find this particularly amusing because it seems that their goddess was actually taking care of them. She kept them fed, happy, healthy, and prosperous. But once they stopped worshiping her (presumably because they were told to worship "the one, true" god by Jeremiah) all hell has broken loose and they have become unhappy and are under constant attack from enemies. Would seem that God, in all his infinite mercy, decided to show his superior power by overpowering the goddess and inflicting pain and torment upon her worshipers. And even when the goddess had stopped being worshiped God continued to harm the people, just to prove a point. Sorry, I can find no fault with the women who basically said fuck you, Jeremiah, we're going to continue to worship the goddess.

Love how it's always the women who can see through God's bullshit. The women seemed to be the main ring leaders in the goddess worship, their husbands merely being involved in the process. The women are the ones who speak directly to Jeremiah and let him know that they will be going back to worshiping the goddess because the queen of heaven actually seemed to give a shit about their well being. Of course, it's the women speaking out like this because it is always the women who try to steer men away from God. Eve gives Adam the apple, Job's wife tries to tell Job that he should forget about God because God has obviously forgotten about him, copious amounts of women try to lure men to their beds and away from God's path, etc. To me (and I would hope others) the women are the smart ones here, willing to actually go to a god/goddess who will provide and take care of them instead of suffering through the temper tantrums of an immature and jealous god. The men blindly follow, just taking whatever bullshit God throws at them, but the women realize that that is just stupid. Why should they stay and worship a God who is so willing to treat them like crap?

But, this is the Bible, so it's the women who are completely in the wrong here. Abandon logic, all ye who enter.

Then we have Egypt. Oh, virgin Egypt! Oh, sheltered Egypt! Oh, sacrificial heifer Egypt! Oh, snakelike Egypt! Oh, raped Egypt-wait, what?

Oh, Egypt how wonderful you are, it's just too bad I have to have enemies from the north come and ravage you, leaving nothing but ruin and desolation because you have angered me yet again?

Is this because Egypt tried to take his people away? Tempting God's people with the promise of general well being instead of the torture and suffering God is promising them? Luring God's people with the hope of a constant state of affairs instead of the tempest of emotions and anger that is living in a land ruled by God? How dare that temptress, Egypt, try to turn God's people away from him, tempting his people into adultery!

Seriously, Israel, I really think you should start listening to your women more and crazy prophets less.

Friday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 39-43

2011-06-06T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Jeremiah 39 - No mention of any women.

40:7 - "When all the leaders of the forces in the open country and their troops heard that the king of Babylon has appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed to him men, women, and children those of the poorest of the land who had not been taken in exile to Babylon, they went to Gedaliah at Mizpah.

41:10 - "Then Ishmael took captive all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah, the king's daughters and all the people who were left in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, had committed to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, Ishmael son of Nethaniah took them captive and set them out to cross over to the Ammonites.
41:16 - "Then Johanan son of Kareah and all the leaders of the forces with him took all the rest of the people whom Ishmael son of Nethaniah had carried away captive from Mizpah after he had slain Gedaliah son of Ahikam - soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs, whom Johanan brought back from Gibeon."

Jeremiah 42 - No mention of any women.

43:5-6 - "But Johanan son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took all the remnant of Jodah who had returned to settle in the land of Judah from all the nations to which they had been driven - the men, the women, the children, the princesses, and everyone whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan: also the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch son of Neriah."

My Comments

I wish I had something to add here but I don't. Haven't even seen any recent news stories or opinion pieces or anything particularly interesting to mention or that haven't been covered well on other blogs. If the next reading proves to have nothing interesting to talk about I will definitely look a little more actively for something at least slightly interesting and on topic to talk about. But until then, Jeremiah is still boring and God is still a horrible, jealous douche-hat who would forbid his people from settling in Egypt where they would have their needs met and be pretty well off because it's not the land HE told them to live on and so help him if they even dare try to settle in Egypt to have a nice and peaceful life without him for he will strike them down and make sure the rest of their short, pitiful lives are filled with as much misery and pain as possible until they come crawling back to him (even then he'll probably keep them in pain just for good measure).

I mean, Jeremiah makes me angry but not really in any sort of feminist way. It just makes me angry because God is so obviously an asshole in this story. Not even hiding or disguising it. I'm sure some people can do some BS gymnastics on this to try and hide the blatant assholery from those with less wits about them, but really I would hope any reasonably competent person would at least recognize it was bullshit even if they choose to ignore it and go on praising God for being "awesome." Of course I've said this before, the whole book of Jeremiah since the start has basically filled me with anger because I have no clue how anyone could call this God "loving" or "good" which is why I'm kind of tired of writing about it. Again, the Bible is making me feel and sound like a broken record here. So when I say there's nothing to really talk about I don't mean that there isn't some troubling shit in the current reading, it's just that the troubling shit really isn't anything new and I've talked about it in detail within the last couple of posts. I'm sure I'll talk about it again, but at least if it's been a week or two since my last rant I don't feel as weird doing basically the same rant over and over and over.

I'm seriously gonna try to finish off Jeremiah this week, just so I can hopefully get into some new territory, but it's fairly long and pretty boring so it may take me two posts to finish... but it's just not a fun book to read at all. :\

Wednesday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 36-38

2011-06-03T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Jeremiah 36 - No mention of any women.

Jeremiah 37 - No mention of any women.

38:21-23 - "But if you [Zedekiah king of Judah] are determined not to surrender [to the Chaldeans] this is what the Lord has shown me - a vision of all the women remaining in the house of the king of Judah, being led out to the officials of the king of Babylon and saying, 'Your trusted friends have seduced you and have overcome you; Now that your feet are stuck in the mud, they desert you.' All your wives and your children shall be led out to the Chaldeans, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand, but should be seized by the king of Babylon; an this city shall be burned with fire."

My Comments

Ugh, Jeremiah is 52 chapters long. Someone shoot me now.

Monday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 33-35

2011-06-01T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

33:11 - "[Once more shall be heard] the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing, as they bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord."

34:9-11 - "[The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord] that all should set free their Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one shall hold another Judean in slavery. And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that all would set free them slaves, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again; they obeyed and set them free. But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free, and brought them back again into subjection as slaves."
34:16 - "but then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back your male and female slaves, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them again into subjection to be your slaves."

35:8 - "We have obeyed the charge or our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, or our daughters."

My Comments

God's not against slavery, only against you enslaving his own people and, even then, only when the mood strikes. Never forget the many rules and laws set forth in Deuteronomy concerning owning members of your own tribe. So while God may change his mind on whether or not it's okay to enslave his chosen people, he has never changed his mind about owning slaves in general. It's still totally okay to enslave conquered people and beat them and use them until the day they die.

Now that that's out of the way, I want to address a verse I came across in my reading yesterday.

Jeremiah 32:39 - "I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them."

The idea of God fearing is not uncommon. Many people who describe themselves as religious would use the terms "god-fearing" to describe themselves. And it is this notion of fear that is so often spoken about in the Bible and in many churches that has never sat right with me. Why fear? Why is fear considered a positive feeling to have towards one's god?

Fear, to me, is an emotion I attach to something that I would not, in any way, love or expect to love me in return. Fear is not something that I attach to other feelings like respect or worship. Fear is not a good state for humans (or any animal for that matter) to be in. It cripples us, leaves us unable to think, unable to make decisions, makes us timid and passive. Fear is not a good way to raise children, especially if the fear is created through abuse and threats. There is nothing good about fear, and yet here it is, spoken as if this is something we should strive for in our relationship with god.

If you talk to Christians, often times they will conflate fear with respect, basically giving the impression that they are either one in the same or you cannot have one without the other. Respect brings fear and fear brings respect. But I call bullshit on this notion. I'll try to use dogs as an example of what I'm talking about when I say fear and respect are two different things.

If you've ever worked with, interacted with, or even just seen a show about violent and aggressive dogs, there's something to be learned there about fear and respect. Dogs know when an animal is scared or passive which means that the dog has control over it. This is the basic idea on why running is not the best option when an aggressive dog comes at you. To interact with an aggressive dog you cannot fear it, much like if you want a dog to interact and trust you it cannot be afraid of you. Trainers that deal with aggressive dogs know that treating these dogs with respect, not fear, is the best way to train them. You acknowledge the dog's power and you respect that power, but you do not fear it. In the same way, when you are working with a dog you do not want the dog to fear you but to trust and respect you as the leader in the group. You cannot have a dog that both fears and respects you just like you cannot interact with an aggressive dog with both fear and respect. Fear makes you weak and controllable. Respect leaves you a confident individual even while you recognize the potential power someone or thing may have over you.

Fear keeps you from acting and leaves you open to be controlled and affected by the things around you and implies that the object that has power over you is not afraid to use that power to punish you. Respect, on the other hand, provides a mutual trust between parties, where a power difference may be present but both individuals are in a much safer position to act and question. I think that's the main part here, the ability to be able to act of your own will. If you live in fear, any action you do is followed by questions and guilt. Was it okay that I ate that piece of cake? Shoot, they're gonna be so angry when they realize I drank one of their sodas. Oh man, I can't believe I kissed that boy the other day. Was that okay? Should I have waited? What will happen to me if I'm found out? Is it okay if I read this Richard Dawkins book? I'll probably have to hide it under my bed so no one sees it. Fear makes people not think for themselves. Fear of punishment for their actions can leave people constantly questions what they are doing or have done in the past. How is that productive? Why would you want your chosen people/children to live in a constant state of fear of you and what you might do to them? I man hell, God's chosen people have plenty of reason to be shit-their-pants-terrified of God and he knows that is exactly what he did. This was calculated, much like when God hardened Pharaoh's heart in Egypt so that God could continue to rain down destruction and terror on the people so that all may know his wrath and fear him.

God wants nothing to do with your respect or love. All he wants is you fear, because fear is a sure fire way to keep complete control over other people and make sure they do not question his authority.

So why, again, do Christian's cherish fear so much? Many constantly spout that God is love, and yet many in the same turn will say that God is to be feared. God himself doesn't even describe himself as love. He plainly states that he wants all of his followers to fear him lest he have to punish them again and their children after them. God is completely on board with the abuse parent act, happy to dole out punishment completely disproportional to the alleged crime. How is that good? How is that love? How is that even considered a positive?

And no, I don't want to hear any, "But that's the God of the past. The God of the new testament is all about love and patience! Don't you know about Jesus?!" I say that the God's are no different. Both old and new are the same asshole, he's just using a different approach to fear and punishment. Old testament God would strike you down with the plague and let you be slaughtered by you enemies simply because you did not worship/love and fear him. New testament God will send you to hell for ETERNITY simply because you did not worship/love and fear him. Is there any difference there? Other than the punishment has actually gotten WORSE? An eternal punishment for a finite crime?

I cannot love that which I fear and I could never love or respect something that DEMANDS my fear.

Those are just a few, slightly scattered thoughts on the whole idea of "god-fearing." Again, I hope they made sense. This is something I have thought about before but have always had a bit of trouble really putting into words. Any other ideas on this? Ideas on fear v. respect or love? Or ideas on fear in parenting? Or just ideas on how the church uses the concept of fear and how that influences or can influence its followers?

And I only slightly apologize for the maybe poorly done dog analogy. I blame it on the fact that I've been watching too much Dog Town. Aggressive or dominant dogs are just really interesting to me and I've worked to learn how to deal with them and always want to kind of teach others how to handle them, lol. Proper dog handling is important to learn and teach because, really, dogs respond to you so how you approach one is very important. It really bugs me when children (and adults, for that matter) aren't properly taught how to interact with dogs and other animals. It's just a big pet peeve of mine. Can you tell I'm a huge dog person? :P

Friday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 30-32

2011-05-31T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

30:6 - "As now, and see, can a man bear a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor? Why has every face turned pale?"
30:17 - "For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, says the Lord, because they have called you an outcast: 'It is Zion, no one cares for her!'"

31:4 - "Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall take your tambourines, and go forth in the dance of merrymakers."
31:8 - "See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here."
31:13 - "Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow."
31:15-17 - "Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work. Says the Lord: They shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country."
31:21-22 - "Return, O virgin Israel, return to your cities. How long will you waiver, O faithless daughter? For the Lord has created a new thing on the earth: a woman encompasses a man."

Jeremiah 32 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Sorry for the short (and late) post. This weekend was crazy busy between spending a day at a comic convention, helping my aunt move the stuff from her storage unit, and my body subsequently getting angry with me Monday for daring to do so much activity. Not to mention the craziness of my Friday where I had to rush the dogs to the vet before they closed so I could get them treated for kennel cough.

So I guess I'm a bit thankful right now that Jeremiah is still a vast nothingness on the woman front. There is STILL nothing interesting going on (woman related or otherwise), other than pointing out moment and verses where God is an exceptional dick. I cannot believe how long this book is. 30 chapters and NOTHING is going on, or at least nothing that couldn't be covered in 5 chapters or less.

We seem to now be leaving the wrathful and angry phase of God's abusive husband routine and seem to be moving into the apologies and flowers phase. Now God's forgiving Israel for being so wretched and horrible and calling her back to the land he promised. He promises he won't do it again as long as Israel continues to fear and worship him (something which I will probably address in my next post when I have a bit more time to write, since the concept of God-fearing has always confused me).

Hell, Jeremiah 32 is basically just a chapter where Jeremiah talks about buying a field. Really? Is that what we really need in our holy book? A brief intermission so we can listening to the RIVETING details of Jeremiah buying a plot of land? I really despise this book sometimes...

As a side note, this: "For the Lord has created a new thing on the earth: a woman encompasses a man." This is weird. The hell does this mean? Here's a site that claims to have an answer for this, but it's just... really, really weird.

Wednesday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 27-29 and An Opinion Piece

2011-05-25T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Jeremiah 27 - No mention of any women.

Jeremiah 28 - No mention of any women.

29:2 - "This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem."
29:6 - "Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage; that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease."
29:23 - "[The people who leave the king of Babylon shall be cursed] because they have perpetuated outrage in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, and have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them; I am the one who knows and bears witness, says the Lord."

My Comments

Nothing new here. So instead, I bring you something that is completely priceless. From the Christian Science Monitor: "For girls who hate their bodies: a spiritual crisis."

It's so good, I feel like breaking it down piece by piece, just so there's no real need to actually go and read the laugh/barf fest yourself. :D

Worried talk about the next generation of high-achieving, health-neglecting "perfect girls" is everywhere.

Girls Inc. just published the results of its depressing, nationwide survey called "The Supergirl Dilemma," which reveals that girls' obsession with thinness has gotten significantly worse in the past six years. Despite the efforts of the Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty – well-intentioned, though undeniably market-driven – and Love Your Body Day events sweeping every school from San Francisco to Syracuse, 90 percent of teenage girls think they are overweight today, compared with 24 percent in 1995, according to a recent ELLEgirl survey.

So what gives? Is it our celebrity-obsessed, extreme makeover culture? Is it the newest version of the age-old story of dysfunctional family relationships? Is it peer pressure – mean girls critiquing one another's every lunchtime indiscretion? Is it the $30 billion a year diet industry?

Okay, so far it's okay. We've acknowledged the fact that society as a whole is constantly telling girls that they are not pretty enough and we need an ever increasing amount of damage control (plastic surgery, makeups, creams, Spanks) in order to make ourselves look human and to not make others want to vomit every time they look at us. Nevermind there's no real mention of MEN (or patriarchy) in this section, seeing as it's usually MEN women are doing this for. MEN whom we want to date, MEN whom we want to hire us, MEN whom basically hold the power in the world and if we want to survive or thrive in it we need to tow the line to please them. The extreme make up culture, diet industry, and female peer pressure when it comes to eating is all a symptom of the patriarchy which makes us women constantly feel like less than, like we HAVE to conform and spend our income on items to get us ahead in the world.

But, like I said, it's an OKAY look at what makes girls hate their bodies from a Christian (and very non feminist) website. But, of course, the author is about to tell us what the REAL problem is with girls' body image. Let's listen and learn, shall we?

It is, in truth, all of the above. But there is also another profoundly important – yet little noticed – dynamic at work in the anxious, achievement-oriented lives of America's perfect girls: They have a sometimes deadly, often destructive, lack of faith.

Oh, Dog! My entire frame for viewing the world has just been shattered! It all makes sense now! My constant critiquing of my not so slim stomach, the slight guilt I feel anytime I grab a second helping of cake (sometimes even with the first helping), the fear I sometimes feel that if I don't start wearing makeup right now my boyfriend of 6 years will suddenly leave me, the shame I feel because I haven't gone to the gym or done any "exercise" (we all know just walking doesn't count as real exercise) in 2 months. It's all because I just don't believe in an invisible sky daddy! It's not because of the patriarchy, which only values me based on my willingness to conform to impossible beauty standards (even if it's to a deadly degree) and my ability to tow the line and remember my lower status as female, at all! It's all about church and God and faith you guys!

Shoot, does it mean that when I felt like a weirdo and outcast for being a tomboy when I was young and believed and went to church every Sunday I was doing it wrong? Was I really not being faithful enough? And does this mean that you won't find a Christian anorexic or a Christian girl/woman who slathers themselves with makeup every morning? Are Christian women immune from the patriarchy? Or do such disorders and beauty regimens prove that they are not the believers that they think they are? Such wondrous secrets! We must read on so we can learn how to cast off our body shame shackles!

So many perfect girls were raised entirely without organized religion, and the majority of the rest of us – I reluctantly admit to my own membership in the perfect girl club – experienced "spirituality" only in the form of mandatory holiday services with a big-haired grandmother or unconscionably elaborate and expensive bat mitvah parties, where everything but the Torah is emphasized.

Overlay our dearth of spiritual exploration with our excess of training in ambition – never mind SAT prep courses; today, even community service is linked to college application brownie points – and you have a generation of godless girls. We were raised largely without a fundamental sense of divinity. In fact, our worth in the world has always been tied to our looks, grades, and gifts – not the amazing miracle of mere existence.

In this climate, we feel perpetually called to perfect our own "body projects" – the term used by historian Joan Jacob Brumberg. Thinness and achievement stand in for the qualities of kindness and humility. We think that our perfect bodies – not God's grace or good works – will get us into heaven. We have no deeply held sense of our own divinity, so we chase after some unattainable ideal. Perfect girls, as a result, feel they are never enough. Never disciplined enough. Never accomplished enough. Never thin enough.

Notice how the blame and emphasis is put on the girls themselves? THEY are the ones who care more about their looks than about God. THEY are the ones who half-ass faith and only go to service on major holidays. THEY are the ones who care more about SAT scores and community service (seriously, this author just said community service was not a GOOD or ALTRUISTIC activity, wtf?). THEY are the ones who let thinness and achievement stand in for kindness and humility (nevermind that it is often others who associate thinness with positive traits, ie. kindness, healthy, active, and fatness with negative traits, ie. lazy, dirty, unhealthy).

"Perfect girls, as a result, feel they are never enough. Never disciplined enough. Never accomplished enough. Never thin enough." That sentence is the truest one I've read in this entire article. Girls never feel like that are good enough for anything because, in essence, they really are never good enough for anything. We're always too fat, too skinny, too big chested, too flat chested, too short, too tall, too ugly, too pretty, too learned, too stupid, too blonde, too brunette, too accomplished, too unsuccessful. In the eyes of society and the patriarchy we are NEVER exactly what it wants us to be. Being ourselves isn't enough, we have to constantly be something different. Constantly changing and willing (and happy) to do so.

And I'm sorry, so many perfect girls were raised without religion? In a world where the overall majority of the people in it are religious in one way or another how the fuck can you say that with a straight face? Apparently she doesn't count people who only go to service "sometimes" as REAL believers, so that means now most of the world isn't actually religious? A no true Scotsman fallacy being used as a major foundation of the article? Really? So, I guess, the reason so many "perfect" girls are so messed up is because they may THINK they have faith and believe in God but really they are just fooling themselves. Look at them doing their community service. We ALL know they only do it for the college brownie points, am I right? This woman is basically right there saying that no girl can ever be altruistic because, presumably, she is ALWAYS doing it for her image! Holy woman-hating, Batgirl! Notice how this article now basically becomes one long piece about how girls just aren't doing good enough and need to change in order to be better people.

Wait, isn't that the exact kind of thinking that the article is supposedly speaking against, that girls need to stop thinking about how they need to change and be better and should instead just be thinking about loving themselves? Have I stumbled into opposite land? No? Wait, does that no mean yes? Wait, does that yes mean no? Oh, my poor brain!

The worst of this can be seen in the frightening websites that purport to be support groups for girls with anorexia and bulimia. Such sites claim that these two disorders are a religion, not a disease, and pray to false gods named after them: Ana and Mia. Though highly deluded and dangerously ill, girls who frequent these sites have taken the black hole at their centers and filled it with an obsessive faith in the power and purity of thinness. In essence, they are crying out to our godless culture, showing us just how damaged a child can be who is thrown to the wolves of advertising and amoral media without any spiritual armor.

I want to nominate this has possibly the worst paragraph to ever exist, ever.

First, I just want to do a general scoff at the author's claims that we live in a godless culture. Typical religious persecution complex there. We are not even CLOSE to being a godless culture. Should I go outside and count the churches I can see just from my front door? Well, I can try, though I may need to take an abacus with me for fear of losing count. Our media and advertising may be godless, I may concede to that, but there really is nothing godless about our culture (Note I speak for the US, I don't know enough about other countries to try and make claims about them).

Also, the whole paragraph confuses me. She begins by talking about support websites for girls and women suffering from anorexia and bulimia but then mentions how they turn these diseases into a religion and give the "goddess" diseases names like Mia and Ana? Is she actually talking about Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia sites? Because those are NOT support websites for these girls. Those are inspiration sites used to continue the desire to starve yourself, the inspiration usually gained through pictures of thin women and girls. I have never once heard of an actual support group for these women refer to their conditions as anything other than a disease, and definitely NOT as a religion. Did this woman even do any research here?

So let's assume that she is actually talking about these Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia sites (Google these if you want to see them, I don't want to link to any of them since I do think they are very unhealthy and they are really very easy to find through a simple Google search), since that seems to be what her tone implies, even if her actual words don't. Where does she get the idea that what these girls need is religion to cure them? Is there some sort of research she found that states this? Does she know any girls battling with an eating disorder that she talked to? Did she watch any shows about eating disorders or even just a documentary? I'm gonna assume no, because even with the limited amount of documentaries and shows and articles I've read about eating disorders I can see that this is just pure unmitigated bullshit. Plus, in her entire opinion piece she sites ZERO articles. An opinion piece, indeed.

Yes, some eating disorders develop because a girl/woman wants to look like the pictures in the magazine and so she takes on an extreme diet in order to try and become that ideal. But eating disorders can be the result of a girl or woman trying to gain some control over her life, or a response to trauma or abuse in her life (note: sexual and physical abuse of girls and women happens often in religious homes, so I fail to see how religion is supposed to HELP here). Eating disorders can even be a result of or a part of an anxiety disorder (or in small part to genetics). I don't know if they run the show anymore, but A&E had a show called Obsessed which looked into the lives of people with OCD and other anxiety disorders. I noticed during these shows that some of the women had anxiety disorders that would impact their relationship with food and how much they ate or exercised (Also note I love this show, it's very moving and such a personal look into someone's life and hardships. Just letting people know that I highly recommend it if you're looking for some interesting documentaries to watch). Hell, even MTV did a True Life episode on eating disorders which can tell you more about the disease than this article can, which I'm starting to think is more and more based on the author's stereotypical view of women/girls with eating disorders as vain and completely self involved people.

You know what's great about that? That took me less than 15 minutes to find all those links and information on eating disorders. In that 15 minutes I learned that eating disorders can be caused by body shame, past sexual or physical abuse, anxiety disorders, lack of control, or even simply genetics may have a small influence on the possibility of you developing the disorder (like alcoholism). I've learned that people who actually HAVE eating disorders describe their eating disorder in terms of control of their bodies or body shame, but the one thing they NEVER say is that it's 100% their choice and that they LOVE to be afraid/anxious about food or love to vomit after every time they eat. And once they do realize they have a problem they can't just stop having an eating disorder, it takes time and therapy and a lot of work to overcome it. Of course even one who suffers from it is different and has different reasons and life stories, but there are patterns and studies that can be used to at least inform people who know nothing about the illness so they have at least some understanding of what is going on. None of this information seems to even remotely inform this paragraph or any of this article. Anorexia and bulimia is a serious disease that can often result in death and treating it as if it's just the whim and choice some self obsessed teenage girls is wrong and does way more harm than good.

Amazingly enough religion isn't what cures their eating disorder nor is religion a reason for someone to NOT have an eating disorder or body shame. At least, it isn't mentioned in most of the articles or documentaries or personal stories I've ever come across. It may play a factor for some people, but it is definitely not the penultimate cure all for anorexia and bulimia. It's actually insulting to not only treat eating disorders as if they are a choice made flippantly by a girl/woman that one should be admonished for having (and that these diseases are WORSHIPED, no less), but to also insinuate that these people are this way because they have a lack of faith in God. I bet that just makes the girls and women who suffer from anorexia/bulimia and consider themselves religious and faithful feel really good about themselves.

Again, I ask, do religious people never suffer from anorexia or bulimia? Or, in her mind, if someone is anorexic or bulimic does that automatically mean that they were never faithful or religious to begin with (kind of like how religious people say those atheists who used to be religious just never had faith in the first place)?

Anyway, let's move past that. Onwards to the end!

I'm not calling for a return to conservative religion or restricting dogma. I'm envisioning an inspired movement toward community where girls are nourished with dinner-table conversations about the values of kindness and charity; where girls undergoing puberty are encouraged to embrace the miraculous, complex, and perfectly imperfect bodies they possess; and where girls can find inspiration – not condemnation – in religious texts.

Again, the fact that this woman so easily equates body shame with a lack of kindness or charity is astounding to me. Body shame is not a choice! Body shame is pounded into girls from the second we are born until the second we die! We are constantly told over and over and over again by EVERYONE that how we look affects how we are treated and what people think of us! How the fuck does reacting to that reality mean that women and girls who care about their looks can't be kind or charitable?! HOW?! Oh, I'm sorry, this is the woman who apparently believes that any girl/woman who gets a manicure and then goes out to the soup kitchen to feed the poor is a fucking ditz who is only feeding the hungry to make herself look good. My bad, I forgot logic does not exist here. Carry on.

For starters, the Bible has something to teach the perfect girl who calculates beauty in terms of pounds and dress sizes: "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment…. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight" (I Peter 3:3,4). (New International Version)

And Buddha, the man often portrayed as blissful with his belly, has a paradigm-shifting message for the average American woman accustomed to self-hate: "You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."

In the age of the skeletal celebrity-filled US Weekly and shrill sound bite commentators such as Ann Coulter, these are the kinds of deep reflections and recommendations we perfect girls need most.

The Bible also says that women and girls should physically hide themselves from everyone when they have their monthly period, that girls are worth MUCH less than boys, that first born girls do not count as first borns and are not valued by God, that pregnancy and birth is an unclean act that also requires being sequestered from society at large, and that girl children DOUBLE the unclean period (as compared to boy children). The Bible also says that women and girls are free to be taken by men as spoils of war, to be raped and married by the same men who just came through and slaughtered their families and loved ones. The Bible also says the only value a girl has is in her virginity and she is, quite literally, not worth as much if she has had sex with a man (and also that sex with a man that isn't her husband will pretty much result in her violent and gruesome death). For reference please see the blog sections on uncleanliness, spoils of battle, rape, men rule, and property. I'm sure these sections will really uplift your spirits and see just how valued you are as a woman to God.

Yes, I can TOTALLY absolutely see how the Bible would definitely work to increase self esteem and decrease body shame in girls and women. -_- Not that the verse she picked isn't just as insulting. God is basically saying girls and women are stupid and focusing on the unimportant because they dare to let societies pressures alter their behaviors; that women and girls dare to tow the line when it comes to the beauty standard because doing otherwise is very likely to leave them jobless and penniless; that women and girls may focus more on the outside than what is on the inside because, for the most part, the world could care less who we are on the inside since we will be mostly be judges based on the outward and no on the inward. Would she advocate going to a job interview (or to a current job) wearing no makeup, in an ill-fitting button down shirt and hair haphazardly put up in a pony tail? Because, you know, if I really didn't have to care about how I looked and could just be myself (focus on the inward more than the outward, as God would want me to) I would pretty much be lectured to shape up (or sent home or fired) and be guaranteed to never get another job or keep my current one unless I went back to the nice hair, makeup and pencil skirts with tailored shirts. What exactly is the message here, because I think it's safe to assume that she wears makeup and heels and nice business attire to the office. If so, is she even qualified to give this kind of advice? Does she actually understand that the outward IS important in society, but she wants to make black and white statements without regard for the complexity of the real world so it's just easier to ignore stuff like we have to care about our appearances in order to function in the world as it is right now? It's all so complicated and complex and yet the author waves it off as if it's just a given that one should stop caring about the outward, as if this would have no real life consequences so of course everyone should do it if they want to be a selfless person.

I do agree with Buddha, we do have to learn to love ourselves. Loving yourself is pretty much the base for happiness in your life. But, there is a difference between learning to love who I am and dressing myself up to go outside into the world. Women and girls will not be able to fully cast off the need to constantly police our dress and eating behaviors until we disassemble the patriarchy and society as a whole learns to love women for whom they are. I can love myself every which way, but until the patriarchy is gone and the constant reinforced message that I am never good enough is silenced, there will always be that body shame there and there will always be a need to tow the line to some extent in order to survive.

A supermom of an elite college hopeful told New York Times reporter Sara Rimer, "You just hope your child doesn't have anorexia of the soul." While she is spot on in her fears, she seems woefully shortsighted about her responsibilities. It is we, all of us, who have the power to resurrect a society that values spirit above skinniness. We have to start doing it – one prayer, one family hike, one heart-to-heart discussion about what really matters – at a time.

Oh good, we didn't leave out the mom blaming either. This article just has everything, doesn't it?

So, story time. The other day my mom was regaling my little brother and I with stories of our childhood. As background, we lived in a home where my mom was the bread winner and my dad stayed at home and cooked and cleaned and took care of my brother and I. You would think, living in such an environment, that my brother and I as children would be very egalitarian in our view of the sexes, if not have it completely backwards from the societal norms. If people like the author are to be believed, all you need is the correct home environment and voila, perfect children who have learned all the right things and will never be influenced by the ugly sexism or racism or classism of the world outside the home. And yet, almost as a perfect example of how this is completely not true, we have one evening at our house long ago and far away. We were all watching TV and I (maybe 10 at the time, making my brother around 6) went to the kitchen to get something. When I came back, my brother ordered me to grab him a drink. When I refused he exclaimed, "But your place is in the kitchen." much to my parents displeasure and my rage. My mom and dad corrected my brother and chastised him for saying that. I love this story because it is pretty obvious proof that no matter what the home environment is like, we cannot escape the forced of our culture and society. We will be taught how a woman is a woman and how a man is a man no matter what, the best we can hope is that we are at least taught to question it so we can hope to escape as much of it as we can. Hell, even I, as a small child, noticed that girls were supposed to be one way and boys were supposed to be another. I HATED what girls were expected to be so I did my best to shun anything girly (going so far as to always insist my favorite color was blue, even though it was yellow). My home life never taught me that I couldn't be sporty and active, but I heard loud and clear what the rest of the world wanted me to be, even though most people would assume I was too young to really understand it. My brother and I have since grown up and learned to question the sexist thinking we learned as children, but we were still influenced by it all the same. No one person is an island. By all means, try to make home environments more egalitarian and warm and loving. Have parents teach and show kids how the world SHOULD be. But never for a second think that that is all it takes or that the culture will never undo the wonderful things taught at home.

But, to point out, religion would make that a fairly useless endeavor since religion almost always teaches separate roles of submission and dominance for a wife and husband (respectively) and that is very non conducive to a well balanced and woman-loving home. Can't build up a girl's self esteem and self image if she's learning from an early age that she is always less than men and always will be, no matter what she does. So again, I fail to see how religion will help in this situation as well. For an article that is meant to show me how religion is supposed to help girls' body image issues it REALLY doesn't ever state exactly HOW it's supposed to help. The article could have basically been one sentence, "Religion and faith is what girls need to get over their body image issues." and it would have been just as helpful. Telling me that it is true doesn't make it true. You need logic and reason and some evidence or facts to back up your assertions. Just saying.

So there you have it. A wonderful piece about hoe all girls need to get over themselves is one hour of church every Sunday and a few family meals a week. No, really, that's it! Take two of those and tomorrow body shame will be gone for good!

Or maybe I'll just present this article with the *facepalm* award, presented by Patrick Stewart:

Presented for having an entire article about body shame and eating disorders without ONCE mentioning the patriarchy or men. Also for having an entire article about body shame wherein girls are constantly shamed for even caring about how they look (or perform on the SATs?) and told that because they dress up or put on makeup that they are selfish, selfish people who really need to learn how to be kind and charitable to other around them. Yes, even those girls who do community service should really learn to stop being so selfish and just think about someone other than themselves for once. Also for managing to have this entire article where opinions are stated as fact with not one single outside source linked or quoted to back any of the author's bullshit up.

So there you have it, the Christian Science Monitor is clearly the leader in feminist discord. All you feminists just need to turn your minds to God and surely all of our sexism problems will be solved! The article is never really very clear on exactly HOW faith is supposed to help but I'm sure this person obviously learned in the realm of body shame and feminism could NEVER be wrong! The article is also not very specific on exactly how you are supposed to be a REAL believer and not one of those fake ones or weak ones that she talks about at the beginning of her piece. Do I have to go to church every Sunday to get best results? Every other day? Is this going to require constant prayer or can I just get my praying done and church and then have the rest of the week off... and do I need to pick a specific religion and god or will pretty much any do? Oh! Except for Ana and Mia, I totally can't worship those, right. Almost forgot about that. Should I just shoot off an email asking to make sure I do this right because I would hate for my body shame to spiral out of control simply because I'm not practicing faith and religion EXACTLY how I need to to battle off the evils of advertising and media... hello? No? Not gonna get anything specific here? Is it possible you just pulled all this out of your ass?

Hm, maybe I'll pass on the whole religion and faith thing. I think I'll just stay where I am and use actual data and actual reality to inform my discussions and continue working my ass off to break down the patriarchy as best I can because, as any good feminist knows, the patriarchy is the root cause of sexism and woman-hate in the world, not a lack of faith in a god. I'm fairly certain I'll be doing more for those girls you claim to care so much about than you ever will. But thanks for the laugh! XD

(H/T to my friend on Facebook who posted this article and I'm sure was expecting a different kind of response to it)

Friday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 23-26

2011-05-23T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Jeremiah 23 - No mention of any women.

Jeremiah 24 - No mention of any women.

25:10 - "And I will banish from them the sound of mirth and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp."

Jeremiah 26 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

I will never enjoy the length of these whiny books in the Bible. Jeremiah only needs to be 3 chapters MAX. One chapter for whining about how everyone hates him because he loves God (boo-hoo), one chapter for how much God hates Israel cheating on him and maybe another about just how much God is going to punish (read: torture and abuse) Israel for having the audacity to not love him as much as or in the exact way that he wants them too (boo-fucking-hoo).

There isn't even anything to really talk about anymore. I might as well just start copying and pasting previous posts because that' pretty much exactly what the Bible is doing. Why should I put more effort into my writing than God is willing to put into his One True Book?

I may start accelerating the reading process to try and rip this Jeremiah bandaid off more painlessly...

Wednesday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 19-22

2011-05-20T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

19:9 - "And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and all shall eat the flesh of their neighbors in the siege, and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them."

20:14 - "Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed!"
20:17 - "[Let my dad hear my cry] because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great."

Jeremiah 21 - No mention of any women.

22:3 - "Thus says the Lord; Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place."
22:18 - "Therefore thus says the Lord concerning King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah: They shall not lament for him, saying, 'Alas, brother!' or 'Alas, sister!' They shall not lament for him, saying, 'Alas, lord!' or 'Alas, his majesty!'
22;23 - "O inhabitant of Lebanon, nested among the cedars, how you will groan when pangs come upon you, pain as of a woman in labor!"
22:26 - "I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die."

My Comments

19:5 - "And gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind."

I'll just leave that there for future reference to the hypocrisy that is the Biblical God.

Also, be sure to add cannibalism to the list of things God is totally okay with using as a punishment. Because, you know, making people eat each other (along with raping and slaughtering) is "just" and "righteous." But again, this really isn't anything new.

Seriously, this book is almost as horrible to read as Job was. If it's not waxing poetic about the torture and massacre of God's chosen people it's Jeremiah whining incessantly about how he is just so burdened with having to live among these horrid people and how he just wishes he was never born. Sounds like Jeremiah and a few other emotionally tortured dudes in the Bible should get together and start an emo band or something. I must say, though, I second his sentiments about wishing he wasn't born. If he wasn't born I wouldn't have to sit here and read this crap. -_-

Monday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 16-18

2011-05-18T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

16:2-4 - "You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bear them, and the fathers who beget them in this land; They shall die of deadly disease. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall become like dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall become food for the birds of the air and for the wild animals of the earth."
16:9 - "For this says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to banish you from this place, in your days and before your eyes, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride."

Jeremiah 17 - No mention of any women.

18:21 - "Therefore give their children over to famine; hurl them out to the power of the sword, let their wives become childless and widowed. May their men meet death by pestilence, their youths be slain by the sword in battle."

My Comments

You know what? Maybe it was the almost month long hiatus, maybe it's just because the idea is just so ridiculous, maybe it's because I just do not want to acknowledge that millions of people read this book and see it as something holy and good and therefore, on some level, they think God's actions here are thus holy and good. Whatever the reason, halfway through chapter 17 it just struck me. Struck me really hard, actually, and you can tell from all the ranting in large letters I did on the pages for chapter 17 (I usually only write on the pages when something has severely pissed me off). I know I've touched on this before, but it bears repeating over and over and over again, simply because of the sheer stupidity and cruelty the Biblical God shows towards his chosen people whom he supposedly loves above all others. Whom he created with the utmost care. For whom he crafted an entire UNIVERSE. Yes, let us once again look over the asshattery of God towards his chosen people of Israel.

Why is God punishing Israel? What has she does that is so heinous that it would require not only chapters but BOOKS dedicated to talking about how severe the torture and punishment would be for Israel for her egregious crimes and transgressions?

Was it murder? Rape? Theft? Genocide? Cruelty? Torture? Lying? Killing kittens? Anything that you could think or that would even remotely warrant this kind of punishment?

No. We've already established that God is pretty much okay with any of the aforementioned "sins." He has no qualms with murder or mass genocide or torture or rape or lying.

Israel deserves this torture simply because she was not completely loyal to him. That's it. Simply because some of her people decided to worship other gods this warrants, "they shall die or deadly diseases; they shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall become like dung on the surface of the ground; they shall perish by the sword or by famine; and their dead bodies shall become food for the birds of the air and for the wild animals of the earth."

Does that sound like a just and loving God? A jealous God, sure, but even he calls himself jealous. But loving and just? How can anyone even remotely kid themselves with a lie like that when books like Jeremiah and Isaiah are right there, plain as day, not even trying to hide the fact that God is a jackass simply because he isn't the center of attention.

I guess he created the universe simply so he could be the center of it?

Whatever the case, let you never forget that the whole of the Bible is not to tell you how to live your life. It's not a code of morals or even stories which explain good behavior to you. No, the Bible is here to remind you that if you are not COMPLETELY 100% faithful to the Biblical God, if you do not think of him every single minute of your pathetic life on this planet, if you do not thank him for every gasp of air he allows you to have, if you do not praise him in a way he deems worthy or if you, in your human weakness, turn to someone or something other than the Biblical God in times of need, then God will. ruin. your. shit. period. Even if God is purposefully ruining your shit right now in order to prove some point (be it a dick measuring contest with another god or just because he happens to be having a crappy day) you STILL have to praise him and have faith in him 100% or else he will never, ever make your life better. Even if the Biblical God rescues you from slavery and then makes you wander a desert for 40 years (during which you have to obey every teeny-tiny law and rule he makes up lest he make it longer than 40 years or simply throw you to your enemies) you are not allowed to lose even an iota of faith.

The moral of the good book (so far)?

Out of every evil in this world: rape, genocide, murder, torture, child abuse, sexual assault, stoning, racism, sexism, classism, etc. The only one God cares about is adultery. He cares so much about adultery that ANY adultery is pretty much the worst sin you could ever do. He has books dedicated to the hell God puts Israel through for not being fully faithful to him at all times. And books before that have been dedicated to the exact way sacrificing rituals are to be performed in order to please God because doing them wrong proves you do not completely love him. And books before this have been dedicated to the evils of adulterous women, who call to helpless men and trick them into laying with them. Adultery. Adultery. Adultery.

I'm sorry, anyone who calls this the good book or uses it as a moral code of any sort is fooling themselves. There is no moral code here. Only verse after verse of a jealous man ranting about not being loved as much as he wants to be and punishing those he wants to love him.

Bonus picture.

Friday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 10-15

2011-05-16T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Jeremiah 10 - No mention of any women.

11:15 - "What right has my beloved in my house, when she has done vile deeds? Can vows and sacrificial flesh avert your doom? Can you then exult?"
11:22 - "...therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: I am going to punish them; the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine."

12:8-9 - "My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest; she has lifted up her voice against me - therefore I hate her. Is the hyena greedy for my heritage at my command? Are the birds of prey all around her? Go, assemble all the wild animals; bring them to devour her."

13:18 - "Say to the king and the queen mother: 'Take a lowly seat, for your beautiful crown has come down from your head.'"
13:21-22 - "What will you say when they set as head over you those whom you have trained to be your allies? Will not pangs take hold of you, like those of a woman in labor? And if you say in your heart, 'Why have these things come upon me?' it is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up, and you are violated."
13:26-27 - "I myself will lift up your skirts over your face, and your shame will be seen. I have seen your abominations, your adulteries and neighings, your shameless prostitutions on the hills of the countryside. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will it be before you are made clean?"

14:2-3 - "Judah mourns and her gates languish; they lie in gloom on the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem goes up. Her nobles send their servants for water; they come to the cisterns, they find no water, they return with their vessels empty."
14:5 - "Even the doe in the field forsakes her newborn fawn because there is no grass."
14:16-17 - "And the people to whom they prophesy shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword. There shall be no one to bury them - themselves, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out their wickedness upon them. You shall say to them this word; Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter - my people - is struck down with a crushing blow, with a very grievous wound."

15:8-9 - "Their widows became more numerous then the sand of the seas; I have brought against the mothers of youths a destroyer at noonday; I have made anguish and terror fall upon her suddenly. She who bore seven has languished; she has swooned away; her sun went down while it was yet day; she has been shamed and disgraced. And the rest of them I will give to the sword before their enemies, says the Lord."
15:10 - Jeremiah Complains Again and is Reassured

"Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me."

My Comments

Well, we're moved in and settled and it's back to blogging. And what a mess I have started back with!

It's been a while since I've even bothered reading the Bible (go figure I don't pick it up for light reading) and I forgot how much abuse female Jerusalem (or the feminized realization of God's people) gets. She is a vile woman cast out of her master's house. She is a loud and proud lion, whose voice her master HATES to hear, and she is a greedy hyena who is best set upon by wild animals which will consume her (not the first woman punished in this way). She is raped as punishment for her indiscretions, her skits lifted up so that she may be violated by her enemies and her shame shown to all. Jersualem is sullied by her adulteries, her prostitutions, her abominations and her master wonders if she shall ever be clean again. She is dried up and laid open for all those who wish to enter (more rape imagery?) She is compared to a fawn that is left by her mother because there is little grass to eat (if you take it the way I did, Jerusalem/Israel is basically God's abortion, which I admit may be stretching it but that's the basic concept there).

And yet the author has the nerve in 14:17 to say, "Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter - my people - is struck down with a crushing blow, with a very grievous wound."

Oh, Israel, look what you have made God do. You were his virgin daughter and it so pains God for him to punish you with rape and wholesale slaughter. But, you know, you made him do it. A man cannot tolerate a vile woman in his house or a woman who would raise her voice to proclaim her own individual thoughts/complaints or a woman who has been so dirtied by her sexual indiscretions. Nevermind that God hasn't been the most attentive husband/father to you which may have led you to seek other support in your times of need. Nevermind God has constantly repaid your devotion and loyalty with 40 year long exiles into the desert or pestilence or mass executions enacted by waring tribes. No, it's the virginal daughter's fault and God will cry himself to sleep at night after condemning her to rape after rape and slaughter after slaughter.

It's really what any loving husband/father would do.

AND YET!

Jeremiah complains again and is reassured?

So I guess a man can complain over and over and over again and he will get reassurance and not condemnation and punishment? Heaven forbid a woman be a lion and lift up her voice against her master. But if one of God's chosen MEN happens to sit around most of the day gritching and whining he'll get a nice pat on the back and some reassurance that evil lady Israel, who is of such concern to Jeremiah, will get her comeuppance.

Wednesday: More Jeremiah

Update on Hiatus

2011-05-02T16:49:00.002-05:00

We are officially moved into our new place. And now that it's been a few days, my stress levels have gone down significantly. Though I have to say my hair did not make it through unscathed, since I had clippers taken to it yesterday and now I have a totally bithin' and stress reducing mohawk. At least my mode of stress reduction is punk rock. So other than getting the people to come out and repair some broken stuff in the house and hopefully getting something worked out in the yard for the dogs, pretty much all the big stuff is handled and done with. So just to let everyone know I'm still alive and haven't exploded from anxiety. :)

The blog will still be on hiatus until the 11th because that is when our internet is supposed to be hooked up. So if all goes well expect a new blog post up that Friday. Until then. :P

Temporary Hiatus

2011-04-22T23:03:00.003-05:00

Good news, we are finalizing all the paperwork and money stuff for our new place. Our move in date is the 30th, so basically the next couple of weeks are going to be hella crazy with packing all of our stuff into boxes and then getting it unpacked as quickly as possible.

The blog will be on a temporary hiatus for the next few weeks, depending on how long it takes to get settled in our new place. I really hope it does not take long, mostly for my sanity's sake. Thankfully I am also feeling much, much better after taking Thursday off to sleep all day at home, so that's another plus.

See everyone in a few weeks! :)

Filler

2011-04-20T17:00:00.000-05:00

Life is not going my way right now. I was feeling better for a while last week and then I did another day of coughing and now I'm back to feeling crappy. Looking for places to live isn't going very well either and thus I've been very stressed lately. The stress has actually been worst the last few days so I have a sneaking suspicion that the stress may be making whatever was wrong with me worse. So basically I've been surviving work and then going home to lay unmoving in bed for the past few days, which makes blogging difficult.

But it feels weird letting the blog sit around like this, so I figured I might as well post an interesting lecture I was listening to earlier today. You may have heard of Gail Dines, she's a pretty big player in the anti-pornography movement. I love her lectures, and I stumbled onto her website where she has an hour long lecture posted. It's a great watch if you have the time. A brief warning, it is explicit about pornography practices and the slides do contain uncensored images of porn, which are shown briefly as they come up (the video is pretty blurry so it's not like a huge crystal clear image).

Here, also, is a Q&A that she did at a bookstore. If you watch it on Youtube be aware that the comments, as to be expected, are pretty vulgar and anger inducing.

Also, if anyone wants to do more reading on the topic, Robert Jensen's book "Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity" is a great read and also any works by Jackson Katz. If you can get your hands on Katz's documentaries on masculinity I highly recommend you watch them. Unfortunately they are the hardest documentaries to get a hold of unless you can find a copy at a library or a college or you feel like dropping $300 to buy a copy.

Here is also a playlist of a documentary called Dreamworlds 3 which looks at pornographic images and sexism in the music industry. Kind of goes along with the topic, where it shows a lot of the effects of pornography on women and how they are treated.

I know it's not horribly on topic, but I think it is important to look at how prolific pornography is in our modern culture and how it affects women and the sexism we face. I hope everyone at least finds it interesting, too. And hopefully things will settle soon (fingers crossed) and I can get back to regular postings. :)

Jeremiah 7-9

2011-04-15T17:00:00.002-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

7:5-7 - "For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hunt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever."
7:18 - "The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger."
7:31 - "And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire - which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind."
7:34 - "And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for the land shall become a waste."

8:10 - "Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to conquerors, because from the least to the greatest everyone is greedy for unjust gain; from prophet to priest everyone deals falsely."
8:19 - "Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: 'Is the Lord no in Zion? Is her King not in her?' ('Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?')"

9:17 - "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider, and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skilled women to come; let them quickly raise a dirge over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids flow with water."
9:20 - "Hear, O women, the word of the Lord, and let your ears receive the word of his mouth; teach to your daughters a dirge, and each to their neighbor lament."

My Comments

I just noticed that the only women God apparently gets all up in arms about is the widows. Anyone else noticed this? If you mess with widows God will surely punish you. Not current wives, or young virgins or prostitutes. Just widows, the women who have already played their role of marriage and child bearing and have had their husbands (unjustly) taken from them. Kind of a bit weird, I think.

8:10 - "Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to conquerors, because from the least to the greatest everyone is greedy for unjust gain; from prophet to priest everyone deals falsely."

Yeah, glad to know God pretty much cares nothing about women getting raped. I mean, rape is the same as having one's fields taken away, right? Sure, totally the same.

Remember not too long ago when people were having fits about how Justin Bieber apparently thinks that abortion is wrong even in cases of rape because God has a plan and everything happens for a reason? People got upset about this for obvious reasons (even though the quote was later shown to have a bit more to it than what the magazine printed) but I recall someone (I cannot remember who at the moment) saying that any God they would be willing to believe in would not use rape as a tool or as a way to get someone on the right path. I agree, I would never worship a God who thought rape was okay to throw around as punishment or as a consequence of his end goal, whatever that may be. And so I would never worship the Biblical God because he is completely capable and willing to use rape on women as punishment for their sins, as punishment for the sins of others, or even as just a reward to his people for conquering a piece of land he had promised them.

Rape, to the male Biblical authors, is nothing more than the seizing of property. It's easy to think of it this way when you do not view women as anything other than chattel, no different than the cows and sheep that are used for meat or milk.

Monday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 4-6

2011-04-13T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

4:16-17 - "Tell the nations, 'Here they are!' Proclaim against Jerusalem, 'Besiegers come from a distant land; they shout against the cities of Judah. They have closed in around her like watchers of a field, because she has rebelled against me, says the Lord.'"
4:31 - "For I hear a cry as of a woman in labor, anguish as of one bringing forth her first child, the cry of daughter Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands, 'Woe is me! I am fainting before killers!'"

5:7-8 - "When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of prostitutes. They were well-fed lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor's wife."

6:2-8 - "I have liked daughter Zion to the loveliest pasture. Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her. They shall pitch their tents in her; they shall pasture, all in their places. 'Prepare war against her; up, and let us attack at noon!' 'Woe to us, for the day declines, the shadows of evening lengthen!' 'Up, and let us attack by night, and destroy her palaces!' For thus says the Lord of hosts: Cut down her trees; cast up a siege ramp against Jerusalem. This is the city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her. As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her wickedness; violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me. Take warning, O Jerusalem, or I shall turn from you in disgust, and make you a desolation, an uninhabited land."
6:11-12 - "But I am full of wrath of the Lord; I am weary of holding it in. Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the gatherings of young men as well; both husband and wife shall be taken, the old folk and the very aged. Their houses shall be turned over to others, their fields and wives together; for I will stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord."
6:23-24 - "The grasp the bow and the javelin, they are cruel and have no mercy, their sound is like the roaring sea; they ride on horses equipped like a warrior for battle, against you, O daughter Zion! 'We have heard news of them, our hands fall helpless; anguish has taken hold of us, pain as a woman in labor.'"

My Comments

Is it just me or does it feel like we're basically reading about the rape of Jerusalem/Zion here? A very, very detailed account of the rape Jerusalem/Zion can expect if they do not comply with God's wishes. But we know that God isn't beyond advocating rape as punishment for unruly women. It just goes on and on, poetically even, about the punishment God's daughter city shall have to endure. It's disturbing and disgusting and sometimes it's almost like something you'd read in some serial rapists fantasy notebook. How long does the Bible really need to linger on this? How long before others become uncomfortable as well with the overly sexually abusive language?

Doesn't take long before I'm uncomfortable and quite angry with it. Perhaps they leave this part out during church services, so that others never have to deal with it.

Funny, though, that the daughter cities are the ones paying such a high price when it's their male inhabitants that have a great deal to do with God's displeasure.

"When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of prostitutes. They were well-fed lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor's wife."

Why must the female cities be ravaged and raped on account of male mistakes and sins? Is it because women are always the root of male sin? Women are the reason man fell from paradise, women are the reason that men stray from God and are led down a path of lust, women are the reason that men are born unclean, women are the reason men are tricked and deceived and left weak (like Samson). It seems men's shortcomings can always be blamed on a woman, and generally it's on a woman who is not "pure" and "virtuous".

Jerusalem and Zion were whores to other lands. They couldn't keep their people under control therefore it is their fault that the men in these cities were led astray. Jerusalem and Zion are the ones t fault, not the men who actually engaged in the sinful behavior, therefore it is Jerusalem and Zion who shall pay the price. Honestly, if it was Jerusalem and Zion it would be some other group of women. It would be the prostitutes and adulteresses in the streets or the beautiful daughters of Zion.

Nope, woman just cannot catch a break. So let's sit back and enjoy the word of God as he further delves into the horrid rapes and abuses that he shall allow Jerusalem and Zion to endure until they beg for his forgiveness.

Bonus videos!

There was an episode of 20/20 about IFB (Independent Fundamentalist Baptist) churches and the sexism and sexual abuse that happens in those churches. It's kind of hard to watch, the stories can be so horrible. I don't know if anyone recalls a story that was going around about a girl at one of these churches, when she was 15, having to stand in front of her congregation and apologize for being pregnant after she was raped by a church member. Also a lot of child abuse going on in these churches as well. It's a very interesting episode and worth a watch if you get 40 minutes.

This video is a response that an IFB pastor gave regarding this episode of 20/20. I'm thinking of just permanently posting this at the top of the blog and taking a long vacation because he basically made the point of my entire blog in 3 minutes. Thanks for saving me all that time, asshole.

(h/t Stuff Fundies Like)

And to prove that isn't an isolated incident. This sermon is also referenced in the 20/20 episode.

(h/t Christian Nightmares)

Friday: More Jeremiah

Jeremiah 1-3

2011-04-11T17:00:00.000-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1:5 - "'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.'"

2:2-3 - "Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord: I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of the harvest. All who ate of it were held guilty; disaster came upon them, says the Lord."
2:23-24 - "How can you say, ' I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baals'? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done - a restive young camel interlacing her tracks, a wild ass at home in the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her."
2:32-33 - "Can a girl forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number. How well you direct your course to seek lovers! So that even to wicked women you have taught your ways."

3:1-13 - "If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her? Would not such a land be greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you return to me, says the Lord. Look up to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? By the waysides you have sat wailing for lovers, like a nomad in the wilderness. Therefore, the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come; yet you have the forehead of a whore, you refuse to be ashamed. Have you not just called to me, 'My Father, you are the friend of my youth - will he be angry forever, will he be indignant to the end?' This is how you have spoken, but you have done all the evil that you could.

"The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every hill and under every green tree, and played the whore there? And I thought, 'After she has done all this she will return to me'; but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense, says the Lord. Then the Lord said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah. Go, and proclaim these words toward the north and say: Return, faithless Israel, says the lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, says the Lord; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the Lord your God, and scattered your favors among strangers under every green tree, and have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord."
3:20 - "Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so have you been faithless to me, O house of Israel, says the Lord."
3:24 - "But from your our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our ancestors had labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters."

My Comments

Strange thing, Israel throughout all of these chapters (and all throughout Isaiah) is consistently female. She is a whore and a bride and a mother. She is always a she. Except, it seems she isn't always a she. For two verses in chapter two, Israel suddenly becomes a man before shifting right back into being a woman.

2:14-15 - "Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant? Why then has he become plunder? The lions have roared against him, they have roared loudly. They have made his land a waste; his cities are in ruins, without inhabitants."

Notice anything interesting about the language? Israel is constantly berated for being a whore, for playing the slut behind God's back. It's Israel's mercurial nature and wayward lusts that have forced God's hand in punishment. SHE is the whore in this marriage between God and his people, and it is HER actions that have caused HER downfall.

But wait. Suddenly, for two verses at least, it seems it is not completely Israel's doing. "Why has HE become plunder?" it asks. Isn't it because Israel is an unfaithful cheat? Isn't it because Israel strayed from God's wishes and plan? "The lions have roared against him... They have made his land a waste..." Wait, didn't Israel do this herself? Isn't it Israel's actions that have laid her lands to waste? Isn't it Israel who caused these lions to roar against her? Why is this suddenly something to question?

Why have the kiddy gloves suddenly been brought out? Even the verses after those two (which may still be addressing the masculine Israel, though I am not exactly sure) are tame compared to, say, 3:1-13. The vitriol in those thirteen verses is just DRIPPING with anger and hatred and straight up LOATHING of women. While reading it I was afraid it might coalesce, take shape and punch me in the face for daring to have a deceitful and filthy vagina. The word whore is used no less than 6 times in those 13 verses alone. They read like a recently divorced man sitting at the bar after one too many shots, flying off the handle and yelling to anyone who would hear about his whore wife that would put out for anyone else but him! Might as well have called her the town bicycle! Why, he gave everything to that whore and THIS is what she does after all these years?!

It's really something to read. I especially love the bit where he states that he will not look upon Israel in anger if she comes back and GROVELS at God's feet for forgiveness. He will not look upon her in anger BUT there will still be punishment. It'll be short punishment, but it will still be there. So I guess this means that he'll look away while he beats Israel into submission? Wow, I can't think of a single reason why Israel wouldn't want to come back to that loving picture of a "husband."

Also love the bits about the divorced woman who marries another man as being "polluted." Is there any conclusion to draw from this other than, on some level, sex with men is "polluting" of a female body? And why the hell would the husband go back to his wife after HE divorced HER? No, really, I'm curious about this. The husband, when this is first mentioned, is the one divorcing his wife. Why divorce her if he is liable to want her back? And if he didn't, in fact, want her then what is the big friggin' deal if she married again while he's off being an asshole? Apparently serial monogamy is now a horrible, POLLUTING activity, now. Good to know. Of course, this is the first telling of the divorced story. Later in the same chapter, suddenly it is the faithless wife who is leaving the husband. How did that happen? I can understand the upset if the wife leaving the husband story was at the front of this ridiculous diatribe, but no. It STARTS with the husband divorcing the wife and only after all the "whores" have been, one can only assume, spat out like a curse upon all women who dare stray from their (abusive) husbands, do we get the situation where it's the faithless wife who is leaving her (loyal?) husband.

I still can't believe this is such a thing. I mean, God is clearly such a huge dick in this situation. It's amazing when he whines about how he kept his people alive while he forced them to stay in a dessert wasteland. And how do his people repay him for keeping them pretty much trapped in a barren land? Why, they seek out fertile lands were they can actually live and enjoy life! How could they?! After God was nice enough to actually feed them while he kept them trapped in that huge, unbearable dessert land, they go and leave him for (literally) greener pastures? It's like a husband whining about his wife leaving after he spent all those years feeding her while he kept her chained in the basement. I mean, of all the nerve! He could have just let her starve while she was chained down there, you know? He even constantly promised her that one day she would finally get to go upstairs and sleep in a real bed and get to eat freely from the fridge. But no, apparently that future promise and the constant, tasteless gruel just weren't ENOUGH for her.

THIS, people, is the Christian God. The Christian God is something I would expect to see as the villain in an upcoming episode of Criminal Minds or Law and Order: SVU. The Christian God is not something I would expect people to go out of their way every Sunday morning to worship. Not one bit.

Wednesday: More Jeremiah

IRL Update: I am feeling much better now. My throat seems to be getting better, as long as I don't let myself go into coughing fits and I keep sucking on cough drops to keep it from getting that dry tickle right at the back of my throat. I don't know if it's allergies or what, since I don't normally have really bad allergies. Whatever it is, I'm feeling mostly better and that is the most important bit. :)

In other news that may affect future blog posting, the boyfriend and I have been looking at places to rent these past couple of weeks. We found a couple houses we really loved this weekend, so we're making offers/applying to rent them. Which is awesome, really. I'm so ready to be out of my parents house it's not even funny. But, being me and consisting of half of my Mom's DNA (which I call certified-crazy DNA because she and her entire family are all battling a myriad of mental craziness) I have a great amount of potential for anxiety attacks. Which, of course, kick up most when I'm really stressed and nothing stresses me out more than change (even GOOD change). So just putting that out there to let people know that there is a chance, during the next few weeks, that posts may be skipped without any notice due to anxiety and general panic. Dog willing, we'll be able to get one of those houses and we'll be moved and in a new place by the 1st of next month, so that all of this craziness can be over and done with as quick as possible. If this week proves to be pretty bad for me, I may just put the blog on a temporary hiatus. Well, I may end up doing that for a week anyway when we actually have to get the bulk of the moving done...

I guess that long winded mess was mostly just to say that things may be crazy (figuratively and literally) for the next few weeks, so the blog may be a bit inconsistent with posts. And there will definitely be a week sometime soon where I will be away from the blog so I can work on packing and moving stuff, but I will give some advanced warning before that week happens. And I know some people get concerned when I mentioned my stress induced anxiety, but there's no real need to worry about me and my stress. I can freak out pretty good, but it's never been something I couldn't survive. So if you must say anything just wish me good luck. :D

Friday Video Grab Bag

2011-04-08T17:00:00.005-05:00

Yeah, I'm still a bit under the weather, so no new readings yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is the tail end of whatever it is I've got. I didn't find anything especially interesting in the atheist or feminist front to talk about today, plus I think I'm just a little too exhausted to get properly ragey. So, instead of a rant I present to you some of my favorite videos that are mostly silly and not at all serious. Seems like a good Friday for a laugh, right? :)

Gonna be video heavy so I've put them after the jump to save those with slower connections.

More...

Sorry, I think this makes me giggle so much just because this is basically what my brain sounds like while I'm super bored at work.

Math has never been so awesome! :D

And if you do any amount of time reading ridiculous comments on video or gaming sites, you will now suddenly wish every single comment could be read this way.

I want to hug this man. He makes me smile. :)

This game is super scary. I haven't played more than 45 minutes of it because this is pretty much exactly how I play it. It's stressful. :x

I get this song stuck in my head all the time. It's not really a bad thing, tho. :P

Best story about explaining sex to a kid ever. Ever.

One of my favorite Youtubers ever. Seriously.

Aaaaand that's just the tip of the iceberg, lol. I almost fear that I have put too many up here but it was so hard to choose between them all. Perhaps there will be a next time and I can share more. And yeah, I have kind of an odd sense of humor. Hope most of them were funny anyway. :x

Modern Modesty That Is Biblically Based

2011-04-06T17:00:00.001-05:00

I seemed to have come down with a sore throat yesterday. It pretty much had me scarfing down cough drops and laying in bed for the night. Unfortunately, this kept me from doing any reading and thus a blog post for today. So this is kind of a quick write up while I have some downtime at work. Hopefully this sore throat will calm down and I'll be able to resume our regularly scheduled blog on Friday. If not, I may just do another write up on a video or news story. :)

So, instead of Jeremiah, I present to you a video about women dressing modesty. I'll give 20 bucks to whomever can watch it without their jaw hitting the floor. Or without throwing your computer across the room. Or without barfing. Seriously, his tone of voice alone makes me want to reach through my screen and smack him in the face.

So, ladies, remember! You aren't allowed to dress the way you want because it totally affects those poor men and their uncontrollable boners! You should constantly think about those poor, poor men and how everything you do completely affects them and how they have no ability to keep themselves in check. Even that small sliver of belly, ladies!

If you can't find clothes that fit because, heaven forbid, you have a body type that most clothes designers do not create for (ie. naturally large breasts, long torsos/legs, etc) so that clothing just doesn't fit you very well it doesn't matter! Think about what you are doing to those poor, helpless men. And us women don't even realize we're doing it! I mean, the man has to sit everyone down and basically hand feed us this patronizing, condescending information like we're fucking children.

Of course the worst part is this is all completely supported by the Bible (if you require more links than that just look through the "tricksters" posts or any of the rest of Proverbs), this view that it is women who tempt men into lust and death, not the men who lead themselves into sin. Again, I reiterate the reasons that I started this blog. While the Bible may not be the end all be all reason for why sexism in our present day is so persistent, this kind of shit does not help. These pastors who are (for the most part) blindly followed by people who view him as inspired and led by God, their words have an impact. And since their words and teachings come from the Bible, the Bible has an impact. The people who listen to this sermon, the people who believe that this is in fact God's word, now have these ideas implanted in their minds as some sort of inherent truth of the world. Women are the downfall of men, women lead men to lust and sin, so it is women who need to change their behaviors in order to keep themselves and men safe and godly. No action is required on the part of the men, oh no, they apparently have their hands full just trying to keep themselves from staring at a woman's cleavage, they couldn't POSSIBLY spend any more energy to actually change the underlying sexism in their actions and thoughts.

The sexism in the Bible is still influencing our world today, even if it is just in the pews. With a majority of the US (and the world) being religious, an influence in the pews is a BIG influence on the world. These men are now more likely to go home and start throwing away their daughters' (or wives') "immodest" clothes, or to start yelling at and punishing (or perhaps beating) them if they do not continue to follow his new strict dress code. They are more likely to view the women around them who don't dress "modestly" as lesser-than, as whores who are walking around trying their best to lead them off the path of righteousness and into hell. Even if it's just a small change in their views, these ideas will effect every woman around them. All women will be shoved into a "whore" or "virgin" box. Those who are "whores" do not deserve the same treatment and respect as "virgins". "Whores" were implicit in their rapes. "Whores" had some fault in their beating or murder. "Whores" are sleeping their way to the top and do not deserve respect for any position of power they hold. "Whores" are not marriage material or a woman to bring home to the parents but instead they can be used and tossed aside without any guilt. After all, if they choose to be a "whore" then they have to live with the consequences, right?

Well I got a better idea, asshole, how about you put down your Bible and take a real good look around. How about, instead of addressing the ladies, you address the men who feel it is perfectly okay to sit there and treat women as pieces of meat. As nothing but boobs and butts and legs and lips and stomachs for them to dissect and ingest as they see fit. Maybe because you and other men seem completely incapable of viewing women as individual people with feelings and ideas and dreams and desires of their own is the reason why you and other men seem so incapable of treating them as human beings. Maybe you should speak with the men who sit around and create those sexy ads, those sexy video game characters, and those sexy tv characters. The men who create the dehumanizing porn that celebrates violence against women and hold up women as objects for men to use, abuse and discard. The men who stand in front of congregations that give sermons in a slow, quiet, warning tone about how women are turning men away from God and down a path of death.

How about instead of blaming women, dehumanizing women or only showing/viewing women as sex objects, these women who have little power in this patriarchy we live in, you look at yourself and all the other men in power and see exactly who is to blame for this male mental shortcoming. Because maybe once you and other men stop viewing women as objects for you to own and fuck and abuse, you'll see that sermons like this become needless. Once these women stop being YOUR sisters, wives, daughters, and instead become their own people, you will stop "instinctively" treating them as property and objects only meant to arouse you. Dog willing, maybe you'll be able to ignore those boobs and instead engage with the person inside the skin.

I'm sure you'll find a person who is far more complex than a pair of heels.

This video is pretty much presented without comment (embedding is disabled on it so you'll have to watch it on Youtube). I am unsure how I feel about this video. I mean, it's nice that a bunch of men are stepping up and owning to the sexism and oppression that woman have faced throughout the ages. And it's nice that they seem to be making a choice to try and change these forces in their life. But I still kind of get a sense of othering from this video, more like they are trying to place us up on a pedestal and less that they are trying to view us as humans and individuals. And othering, even if it's trying to be POSITIVE and reverent, is still never really a good thing. I don't know, I'm gonna have to digest this for a little while. Any thoughts on it are welcome here, I'm interested to hear what others think about it.

Isaiah 61-66

2011-04-04T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

61:10 - "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels."

62:4-5 - "You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is In Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you."
62:11-12 - "The Lord has proclaimed to the end of the Earth: Say to the daughter Zion, 'See, your salvation comes, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.' They shall be called, 'The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord'; and you shall be called, 'Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.'"

Isaiah 63 - No mention of any women.

Isaiah 64 - No mention of any women.

Isaiah 65 - No mention of any women.

66:7-13 - "Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be delivered in one moment? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor she delivered her children. Shall I open the womb and not deliver? says the Lord; shall I, the one who delivers, shut the womb? says your God.

"Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her - that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious bosom.

"For thus says the Lord: I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflown stream; and you shall nurse and be carried in her arm, and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem."

My Comments

I'm sorry, I still find the marriage relationship between God and people really weird and a bit icky. In essence it's like a father marrying his young daughter, because God was our creator and is termed the Father (or in this case the builder). Plus he's constantly referring to these cities as daughters, so it's not just simply me inferring a father/daughter relationship. And then he's populating these cities with children...

It just freaks me out. Maybe this is because we have a different view of marriage now than they did back then, when it was more a business contract, and that's why it just seems creepy for God to continually be waxing poetic about his "children" in marriage terms. Either way, not gonna change the creepy factor with me. I mean, I can understand it and still think it's a little weird, especially since churches still use this terminology to this day.

Thank dog, we're finally done with Isaiah! :D

Wednesday: Jeremiah

Isaiah 56-60

2011-04-01T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

56:5 - "I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off."

57:3-4 - "But as for you, come here, you children of a sorceress, you offspring of an adulterer and a whore. Whom are you mocking? Against whom do you open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression and offspring of deceit?"

Isaiah 58 - No mention of any women.

Isaiah 59 - No mention of any women.

60:4 - "Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms."

My Comments

Why is it only the mothers are mentioned in 57:3? Why are no fathers mentioned here? Do the sins and transgression of the father not harm the child in the same way the mother's shortcomings do? I mean, men are already flawed because they have to be born from woman who is just so unclean and inferior, but to add to that the mother being a sorceress or an adulteress or a whore? I guess those born in such a manner really have no room to talk, huh? Though I guess it's worse to be born of a immoral mother than it is to be born of an immoral father, right? Because we don't get any mention of people born unclean because of fathers who were thieves or murderers or adulterers (only women can really be adulterers, it seems, because we hardly ever get mention of male adulterers, only the adulteress' victims). Nope, the sperm doesn't matter, only the body the baby actually comes out of.

It seems it is worse, in the end, to be an immoral woman than to be an immoral man. Any real reason for this, other than women suck and we just need more excuses to punish them?

And again, we get God telling us that he is better than any family you will ever produce. See those children God has commanded you to create? Yeah, they pretty much suck. God is better than any child or any wife you could have because only he can keep you living on forever. So really, it's totally okay to give up the people who depend on you and put God first. Again, this isn't something God tried to keep secret. God seems to have an incredible disdain for family, and it usually always seems to stems from the fact that a family can distract a man from worshiping God to the fullest. And again, I state that this is an incredible dick move because children and wives depended completely on the adult men in their lives. So God is telling these men it's okay to abandon the people who count on them the most. Go ahead and leave them as widows and orphans, because in the end the women and children will not give the man the immortality he needs. Only God can do that.

It always comes down to eternal life, doesn't it? One is not good for goodness sake and one does not really worship God because they really love God. They worship God and follow God's laws because otherwise they will not live on forever. It's a completely selfish system, which honestly never made any sense to me. I'd rather spend my life being good because it's just how I should spend my life, not because being good will eventually get me a pass into eternal paradise.

And such a system makes it easy to abandon the people who really need you in order to pursue that eternal paradise since that paradise is all that matters. This planet is just a doormat to heaven, right? So these kinds of teachings make it easy for parents (or others that are relied on) to throw out their children when they don't follow God's teachings (or the way those specific parents view God's teachings). Parents can kick their teenage daughter out of the house because she's a lesbian. Or their son because he's gay. Or their daughter because she was raped or had premarital sex. Brothers and sisters can ostracize you if they find out you're an atheist. Parents may deny you a college fund they have been saving for you just because you decide to move away for college and live with your boyfriend without getting married first.

I'm sorry, but a religion that can make it so easy for those you trust and rely on to turn on you and leave them not only guilt-free but their actions something to be praised and mimicked is a bad religion. I've seen family members made outcast and denied help because their choices were not in line with others' "moral" religion. I've seen friends lost because of simple disagreements when it comes to God or other religiously charged political ideas. Hell, I keep a lot of myself and my views quiet because I know many of the people I know would probably turn on me, even though I manage to tolerate their different views just fine.

It's just the way the religion works. God wants you all to himself, so he's more than happy to reward you for turning on others that may not follow his teachings and are likely to turn you astray. So just keep surrounding yourself with others who echo your religious views and cutting out those who may see and experience the world differently. Make sure you never have to look around and actually think about whether that invisible man in the sky is actually real or not or whether his teachings are even worth following. Never question, never learn, and don't forget to leave your 10% tithe before you exit the church.

Monday: Isaiah 61-66

Isaiah 51-55

2011-03-30T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

51:2-3 - "Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many. For the Lord will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song."
51:18 - "There is no one to guide [Jerusalem] among all the children she has borne; there is no one to take her by the hand among all the children she has brought up."

52:2 - "Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem. loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter Zion!"

Isaiah 53 - No mention of any women.

Isaiah 54 - "Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married, says the LORD. Enlarge the site of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left, and your descendants will possess the nations and will settle the desolate towns.

"Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the LORD has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man's youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer.

"This is like the days of Noah to me: Just as I swore that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

"O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, I am about to set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your wall of precious stones. All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the prosperity of your children. In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you. If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you. See it is I who have created the smith who blows the fire of coals, and produces a weapon fit for its purpose; I have also created the ravager to destroy. No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, says the LORD."

Isaiah 55 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

I am proud to present to you God's abusive husband speech! Right there in black and white! "I'm so sorry I hurt you. I promise I won't ever do it again. I mean, not like you didn't kind of deserve it, but it wasn't a nice thing to do to you and I really won't do it again. See, I brought you some rainbows. Will you worship me again?"

God sure does give you some pretty words but, if experience can be trusted, he's just as likely to strike you down with lightning or pestilence again as he is to make you prosper and healthy. Without any warning or real reason, either. Just one day BAM! you're trying to explain to your friend why God killed all your children and struck you down with the plague, while your wife sees the abuse for what it is and your friend is busy trying to explain that your brought this on yourself somehow. God has given over his chosen people to their enemies so many times now I've lost count. And when God decides to punish the enemies it seems so arbitrary, like God just gets tired of torturing his own people and decides to punish their enemies as a change of pace.

So yeah, I don't trust this speech for a minute. God, when he's not busy being a vengeful God, is busy being a mercurial jackass who kills and plagues people when he's bored. Like a kid with an ant farm. I mean, he basically says it right here: "For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you." He's GOD, all powerful, all knowing, ever present and omniscient! How does he just abandon someone for a brief moment? Is that even possible? For that to be true he either isn't omnipresent and all knowing or he actually CHOSE to ignore your suffering. Who said that quote about if Godis omniscient and doesn't help you then he's evil or if he isn't omniscient and can't prevent evil then is he a god worth worshiping? I can't find it for the life of me... I know it has something to do with the problem of evil, but all I seem to be getting on google is similar arguments but not the exact quote I want.

Oh well, point is this is something that philosophers have tackled before, but it's interesting to see the Bible practically hand us the argument on a plate. God flat out states that he abandoned his people, which either makes him a huge dick or kind of a crappy all powerful invisible man in the sky. Which brings up all sorts of questions. Like, why should I bother pleasing a God who is so plainly immoral and uncaring about my life, which he has claims to have had a hand in since sperm met egg and even before then? Or how can a God judge my actions if he seems to be unable to actually see what I am doing at all times? If it's possible for him to "abandon" me without meaning to, then that implies he can be gone and unaware of what is happening to me or what activities I am engaging in. So why should I worship a God who is the ultimate judge of my eternal soul when, in the end, he wouldn't have all the evidence to judge me anyway. And is that was prayer is for? Is it like a cellphone call to God while he's on the road and away from your general area? Is that why prayers constantly go unanswered, because God just can't be everywhere at once dammit, so cut him some slack?

Or perhaps God just doesn't exist and all of these questions are just moot? Because how are we supposed to tell the difference between an apathetic God or an absent God from a god who just doesn't exist at all?

Hm, yeah, I think I'm gonna stick with my "imaginary man in the sky probably doesn't exist" theory. Just makes more sense. But it is kind of fun to sit there and pull stuff out of my ass to try to make sense of the God that is taught in church and the God that is in the Bible. Apologetics is fun! Like acrobats for your brain! :D

Friday: Isaiah 56-60 (I can't wait to be done with this book...)

Isaiah 46-50

2011-03-28T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

46:3 - "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb."

47:1-9 - "Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon! Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter Chaldea! For you shall no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind meal, remove your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers. Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one, Our Redeemer - the Lord of hosts is his name - is the Holy One of Israel.

"Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter Chaldea! For you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms. I was angry with my people, I profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand, you showed them no mercy; on the aged you make your yoke exceedingly heavy. You said, 'I shall be mistress forever,' so that you did not lay these things to heart or remember their end.

"Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children' - both these things shall come upon you in a moment, in one day: the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments."

Isaiah 48 - No mention of any women.

49:1 - "Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you people from far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me."
49:15 - "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you."
49:18 - "Lift up your eyes all around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, says the Lord, you shall put all of them on like an ornament, and like a bride you shall bind them on."
49:22-23 - "Thus says the Lord God: I will soon lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust off your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame."

50:1 - "Thus says the Lord: Where is your mother's bill of divorce with which I put her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? No, because of your sins you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was put away."

My Comments

Okay, I'm kinda coming back from a long weekend of trying to rest and reset my brain, so please chime in if it looks like I've missed anything important here. I'll probably reread it later Monday night and look to see if there's anything I might have missed as well.

God seems to be pretty angry at Babylon and Chaldea. They shall be forced off their place of privilege and forced to labor. They shall not be respected as women but treated as men are, not delicate or tender. They shall be uncovered and stripped of their feminine clothes, and naked they shall be seen by all. God will take vengeance for he is the Lord. God gave his people to Chaldea and put them into her hands. And she abused God's people, showing them no mercy. For this God commands Chaldea go into darkness and silence, not to be remembered or seen as a "mistress."

Does this strike anyone as odd since it is even stated in these very verses that it was God who delivered his people in the hands of Chaldea? What did he expect the conquerors to do to those they conquered? Hell, God didn't let his people who much mercy to those he told them to conquer, so why the hell would he expect another tribe/city to do any different? At least the Chaldeans didn't seem to slaughter all of God's people en mass, a mercy God rarely bestowed upon the poor people he commanded the Israelites to take over. I guess God is punishing Chaldea for doing exactly as he does, because only he is allowed to be the supreme asshole god in the land. It's different when God does it because he writes his own moral code which he never follows himself. Basically it's a "Do as I say and not as I do" moral code.

And the greatest suffering shall befall those who sit in pleasure (and presumably not in constant fear)! They shall be like women who have lost their children and husband! Because, again, a woman is nothing without a man to own her and children to take care of.

"Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you people from far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me. Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you." God is better than your mother, so screw her and care only about him. A concept which he will repeat, since Jesus was said to command his disciples to leave their wives, children, and entire family behind so that they may follow him and learn from him. God is the bestest parent ever, don't you know? And notice how it doesn't mention the flesh and blood father here. Does this imply that, like the holy father, a mortal father won't forget or cast out his children as quickly as a mortal mother? Or is this here to emphasize God's capacity for compassion and love, since of course a mother wouldn't forget about or cast away the child whom she nursed and raised? Is it a compliment/insult, where he praises mothers for being better than fathers but then right after that bashes mothers for not being as awesome as he is?

I guess it could go either way.

And that last verse is weird to me. Was it common for the mothers to be involved in a child's punishment? Or is God just amazingly special because he seems to think it's okay to punish the mother the transgressions of the son? I mean, the Bible has mentioned children paying for the sins of the father (a concept which I also think is incredibly flawed) but this is the first I've seen a mother paying for the sins of a son. Just... kinda weird and out of the blue. I do feel an important part to this verse is, "Where is your mother's bill of divorce with which I put her away?" but I am not exactly sure what this is supposed to mean, or what exactly it has to do with the transgressions of her son and her being punished for them.

Ideas?

Wednesday: Isaiah 51-55

Isaiah 41-45

2011-03-25T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Isaiah 41 - No mention of any women.

42:14 - "For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant."

Isaiah 43 - No mention of any women.

44:2 - "Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you in the womb and will help you; Do not fear, O Jacob my Servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen."
44:24 - "Thus says the Lord your God, your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb; I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who by myself spread out the world."

45:10 - "Woe to anyone who says to a father, 'What are you begetting?' or to a woman, 'With what are you in labor?'"

My Comments

A woman's reality is pain. But we know this is apparently nothing unnatural since God decreed that we shall basically live in pain our whole lives for the horrendous sin of eating an apple. So when a woman's reality is pain, why should we make a big fuss about the suffering women face in the world?

I was originally gonna leave the verses about the womb out, because it doesn't mention women anywhere in the passages. But then I realized, the fact that the woman ISN'T mentioned is really a big freakin' deal here. This is simply more erasure of women in the process of childbirth. God has made that baby in the womb and brings it forth, the woman is completely detached from the process. The womb is separated from the woman, and only a man is left as the responsible party for the creation of the fetus. It's insulting, since childbirth is incredibly dangerous for women even today, so thanks for erasing women's sacrifice to continue the human race, jackasses. No, gotta make sure the sex that has no risk in procreation gets a mention all the time, whether mortal and fallible or immortal and all powerful. Because men are actually important, you know?

Oh wait, but despite women having really NOTHING to do with the creation of a fetus, it is still women who have to bear all the pain when it comes to actually birthing the child. Really? Really? So men (or God) get all the credit for making the baby and the woman is the one expected to actually pay the price for that creation?

Yeah, thanks for that. I feel all warm and fuzzy already.

Monday: Isaiah 46-50

Isaiah 36-40

2011-03-23T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Isaiah 36 - No mention of any women.

37:22 - "This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning [the king of Assyria]: She despises you, she scorns you - virgin daughter of Zion, she tosses her head - behind your back, daughter Jerusalem."

Isaiah 38 - No mention of any women.

Isaiah 39 - No mention of any women.

40:2 - "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins."
40:11 - "He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep."

My Comments

Why does Jerusalem have to deal with double the punishment for her sins? Why is God being such a dick to this city which I thought was some sort of holy place for him? Yes, please rush to comfort poor Jerusalem for suffering at the hands of her God and be sure to treat her like the damaged, delicate flower that she is.

Nothing much else here that I haven't ranted about ad nauseam already.

Friday: Isaiah 41-45

Isaiah 31-35

2011-03-21T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Isaiah 31 - No mention of any women.

32:9-15 - Complacent Women Warned of Disaster

"Rise up you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, listen to my speech. In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent ones; for the vintage will fail, and the fruit harvest will not come. Tremble, you women who are at ease; shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourself bare, and put sackcloth on your loins. Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers; yes, for all the joyous houses in the jubilant city. For the palace will be forsaken, and the populous city deserted; the hill and watchtower will become dens forever, the joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks; until a spirit from on high is poured out on us, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest."

Isaiah 33 - No mention of any women.

34:9 - "And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soul into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch."
34:14 - "Wildcats shall meet with hyenas, goat-demons shall call to each other; there too Lilith shall repose, and find a place to rest."

Isaiah 35 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Here's a wiki page (as always, take wiki pages with a grain of salt) for Lilith, since she isn't a commonly known character. The only reason I know about her at all and her mythology is from Neon Genesis Evangelion then they explain the body NERV has been hiding was really Lilith and not Adam... it's a really complicated anime, so it's a bit hard to explain. Anyway, I watched the show and was like, "Lilith? Who's that?" All I knew was it was probably someone from a religious text in that show is REALLY heavy handed with the religious symbolism. In doing research, I found that she was supposed to be Adam's first "wife", which really confused me because I had always been told that Eve was the first woman. An interesting mythology which really complicates the creation story, to say the least. She has also been viewed as a demon, which I guess makes a little more sense in the context presented here.

A female demon being the downfall of man? Totally didn't see that one coming, right?

Anyway, just thought people would be interested in a little information on Lilith since I think it's a really interesting bit of Biblical mythology and I know she's not very well known.

So, again, we have a warning that is specifically written for (complacent) women. Women who, it seems, have no clue what is going on around them because women are just so oblivious. So far we have had passage after passage of violent prophecy about the downfall of cities and God's people and kings and princes. Yet, God does not stop and directly address the king. Or the prince. Or the complacent men. Or the complacent children. It seems God and his prophecy only has enough time to take a step back and direct address the women who are unaware of the coming downfall. Which is odd since the entire book of Isaiah is just a big destruction fest and seems to be addressed to everyone, so why take a moment to break away from talking to everyone to just speak to the women? You may think, how nice of him, right? See how much he cares for the women over anyone else, right?

As I mentioned in the previous post on Isaiah 26-30, this shows more of a mistrust and lack of confidence in women's strength and faith rather than any actual care for these women. Which I don't find to be all that comforting at all. In fact, it's really rather insulting. Like that teacher that takes you aside from the rest of the class to patronizingly give you an extra talk about manners when you didn't start the sandbox fight in the first place. Or that guy talking about the latest video game who stops the conversation mid way and feels the need to explain what video games are to you when you've actually beaten that game a week ago (okay, sorry, Gamestop flash backs).

It's insulting. Special treatment is not always a good thing and is not always wanted. Most of the time special treatment just makes you look like more of an outcast to others, and people notice that you are being treated as a weaker person who is in need of extra help. This generally makes everyone else see you as weaker and that you require this special treatment (when you may have never asked for it in the first place). An example would be like how able bodied people often treat any person with a handicap as an invalid, such as when a server at a restaurant speaks loudly and slowly to someone just because they have a cane. Or how men will explain any concept that is above a high school education level in detail to a woman who has 4 years of college under her belt and never even asked for an explanation on the subject in the first place... sorry, more flash backs. The type of "special treatment" where those in power feel they have to bring themselves down to our level in order to really communicate. Usually this type of "special treatment" is general hand holding and infanitlization, not constructive. Treating someone like a child never pulls them to your level, it only serves to reinforce their "lesser" status.

Basically, I'm saying that specifically addressing women in this way shows that the Bible and God believe that women are weak and lacking strong faith because it feels it has to hand hold and give "special treatment". Even though these women never asked for this special treatment nor did they seem to require it. And when the Bible continues to provide this special treatment over and over and over again to women and female subjects, it is just reinforcing the idea that women need hand holding and special explanations while men do not. Thus, it reinforces the idea that men are stronger than women and inherently superior. (I really hope that's how that all came across...)

I mean, if women weren't inherently weaker and stupider then God wouldn't need to take a time out to take those women aside and give them a personal talking to while he left the men out there to fend for themselves, right?

Wednesday: Isaiah 36-40

Isaiah 26-30

2011-03-18T17:00:00.001-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

26:17 - "Like a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near her time, so were we because of you, O Lord."

Isaiah 27 - No mention of any women.

Isaiah 28 - No mention of any women.

29:7 - "And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night."

Isaiah 30 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Another female city being conquered.

Notice how God keeps telling these cities that they're gonna suffer now, but as long as they endure and believe they will be rewarded in the end. Live through the beating now, it's okay, God will bring you roses tomorrow, right?

Do the stories of Ariel and Tyre remind anyone else of the story of Hagar?

Yeah, I know, women aren't the only ones to get this. Job had to suffer to get God's grace in the end, too. But I think the main difference between these cities and Hagar is that God actually commands these women/cities to suffer and tells them of their reward. Job wasn't commanded to endure and then he'd be rewarded. Job was left in the dark and constantly cried out to God for an explanation for his suffering. So why do these women/cities get the benefit of God letting them know that they're suffering will be temporary? Does God not think that these women/cities will endure and keep faith in him like Job will? Does he think that if these women/cities are left to suffer that they'll just leave him? I mean, evidence suggests that the women will since Job's wife couldn't keep her faith under pressure. She was ready to curse God after her children were killed, she didn't even need to go through the rest of Job's tribulations.

So does God speak to these women/cities because they are instrumental in his bigger picture? Not because the women/cities themselves are important but because they will bear a crucial son or because they will be used to expand his kingdom? As a demonstration of God's power? I mean, if God allowed Ariel and Tyre to be conquered and the cities turned away from God before he could lift them up how would that benefit him? If he lifted them up after they turned to a different God he wouldn't get the credit, and if he didn't lift them up he wouldn't get any praise at all. No, the only way the city's downfall would work in his favor is if they kept their faith and in doing so were rewarded.

But since women are weak in faith unless (so it would seem, anyway) God seems more willing to explain what he is doing to them. That their suffer is only temporary and he will be there to save them. Honestly, that pretty much guarantees they will keep the faith because if they didn't the implication is that God will not make everything better again. So it's not really a choice, in the end.

At least, that is what this is all kind of looking like to me. Anyone have any different ideas?

Monday: Isaiah 31-35

Isaiah 20-25

2011-03-16T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Isaiah 20 - No mention of any women.

21:2-3 - "A stern vision is told to me; the betrayer betrays, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam, lay siege, O Media; all the sighing she has caused I bring to an end. Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labor."
21:9 - "Then he responded, 'Fallen, fallen in Babylon; and all the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground."

Isaiah 22 - No mention of any women.

23:4 - "Be shamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the fortress of the seas, saying, 'I have neither labored nor given birth, I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.'"
23:7 - "Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle far away?"
23:12 - "He said: You will exult no longer, O oppressed virgin daughter Sidon; rise, cross over to Cyprus - even there you will have no rest."
23:15-18 - "From that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the lifetime of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song about the prostitute:

Take a harp, go about the city, you forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody, sing many songs, that you may be remembered.

At the end of seventy years, the Lord will visit Tyre, and she will return to her trade, and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. Her merchandise and her wages will be dedicated to the Lord; her profits will not be stored of hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who live in the presence of the Lord."

24:2 - "And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with the master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor."

Isaiah 25 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

More violence against cities that are considered female. Are they female because they are being conquered and destroyed? I would bet yes.

If you are female you should feel shame for not bearing any children at all. Even if you are a city.

And I don't think I'm quite getting the part about Tyre. Is this one instance where being a prostitute is considered a good thing? It's never been considered a good thing so far, so why does it suddenly seem to be put into a good light? Is prostitution only good when you're doing it for the Lord, but how does that make it any different? Does God really not care what you do if you just happen to dedicate your life to him and give all of your profits and business to those who serve him? And why is a city's normal trade and business considered prostitution, anyway? Is a woman/female city conducting business considered prostitution no matter what that business may be? Or is she a prostitute because there is, of course, no other business a woman could actually conduct?

I just... I don't know here. There is just so much here. Women are inherently weak and made to suffer great pain and violence, whether by men or by natural causes like child birth. Women are nothing without children and should feel great shame if they live their life without producing any. Prostitution is the only business a woman could possibly conduct and the only way to be praised for prostitution is to do it for God and give up all your earnings. If a woman goes into prostitution with the goal of keeping herself alive with what little money she may get from her business then she is a bad prostitute because only women who give all of themselves will be praised.

I'm just amazed that even the cities cannot escape this horrible sexism.

I found this blog this other day, My Teen Mania Experience, and it's really shocking stuff. I know this is the more extreme fundamentalism type thing, but my heart breaks seeing how out of hand religion can get and how damaging it is to people. A lot of these stories are based around this Christian camp that is set up like Navy Seals hell week. The participants ("interns") are basically beaten, sleep deprived, tortured and ridiculed throughout the entire experience, and they claim to do this for God and in the name of God. Really, it makes me sick.

One of the videos in particular stuck out to me. Here a man is being humiliated by having to yell out that he is not a man. Apparently making men dress up in dresses and act like women is something that happens often at places like ESOAL. Listen for the part at the end where he explains why he is not a man.

Really made me think of these passages here. Women are weak. Women are conquered. Women are made victims.

To be a man is to be none of those things. To be a woman is so bad that just saying you are a woman or having to dress like one is considered humiliating and degrading.

I highly recommend reading through some of the back posts of that blog, if you can stomach it. Just a warning it is pretty intense stuff, and some of the videos are hard to watch.

Friday: Isaiah 25-30

Just as an FYI, I now have a Tumblr mostly because I was super bored at work and figured why not, it would give me something to do. Pretty much just random posts of interesting stuff I find online, not all of it feminist/atheist related but all of it awesome. :)

Isaiah 14-19

2011-03-14T17:00:00.003-05:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

14:2 - "And the nations will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess the nations as male and female slaves in the Lord's land; they will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them."

Isaiah 15 - No mention of any women.

16:2 - "Like fluttering birds, like scattered nestlings, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon."

17:1-2 - "And oracle concerning Damascus. See, Damascus will cease to be a city, and will become a heap of ruins. Her towns will be deserted forever, they will be places for flocks, which will lie down, and no one will make them afraid."

Isaiah 18 - No mention of any women.

19:16 - "On that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of hosts raises against them."

My Comments

I tried to do more chapters than normal to make up for the irregular posting last week. Postings may continue to be irregular since we are once against experiencing problems with our internet's reliability. -_- A suggestion for anyone looking, if you are thinking about going with Clear check around your area to see if you get reliable service, because apparently the tower near us just loves to take time off every month or so.

Anyway, even though I read a bit more than normal there isn't much here. Though we do get an interesting insight into the dynamics between a woman's relationship between her and God/husband/men.

19:16 - "On that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of hosts raises against them."

It's right there in black and white. Women tremble at the violence men raise against them. The Egyptians aren't becoming like servants or slaves or children. They are becoming like WOMEN, which entails fearing violence against those who are above you. Taking that further that basically also says that those above women (ie. men) are supposed to hold physical harm and violence over women's heads. Women cannot be expected to naturally act this way if violence against them wasn't a normal part of life. And this verse makes it fairly clear that it is natural for a woman to feel fear under a man/God's hand.

Seriously, why not children or slaves or servants or cattle or sheep or any other myriad examples of groupings that are both male and female?

Because apparently this metaphor would only work with women, which definitely cannot be ignored.

In other news: Here is a video of people sharing their feelings about a Baptist couple's retreat. 10 points to you if you see what is so fucking ridiculous about it.

In other other news: I had the "pleasure" of going to church this weekend, mostly because my dad has started playing bass for a praise band and has been wanting me to go watch him perform. The music was good enough for generic Christian pop-rock fare, but that wasn't the real highlight of the morning.

I have to say, I have never heard a sermon that was as amazing as the one I heard that morning. It was so amazing even my mother was angry about it afterward, and THAT takes talent. This is the woman who wasn't even upset at the mother's day service we went to, wherein the minister actually bitched about his mother during the sermon. I shit you not, he gave a shitty sermon that mostly had nothing to do with mothers, and the only time he did mention mothers was when he decided to just go on a rant about how much he hates his. I wanted to destroy that entire church after that service. Since then I have settled for making it perfectly clear that I will never step foot in that church ever again. So to upset my mom (or give her a headache, as was the case) takes quite a bit of effort.

This sermon was about what would Jesus do. But not what the fluffy, lovey-dovery populace thinks Jesus would do but what the REAL Jesus would really do. The short answer: Jesus would take care of himself and not devote every single hour and every single penny to helping those in need. Jesus would also run over squirrels and never feel bad about it. No, really, I am not fucking kidding. This guy went on for about 30 minutes about how we can't be expected to help EVERY homeless person out there, so don't feel bad about not helping them out with a little change. I mean, really, God knows you got stuff to do and lattes to spend you're money on. You can't help everyone. And if the person in need gets angry with you then screw 'em, they're the dick, not you.

Then there was some bit where he talked about squirrels and running them over. He talked about feeling bad about it and he was really sad about running over squirrels. But THEN he realized what Jesus really meant for him to feel was a complete lack of empathy for nature ('cause, duh, right?) so now he runs over squirrels and doesn't even bat an eye. I mean, come on! If that squirrel was stupid enough to try to run across the road that WE built in front of ITS tree home then that squirrel totally deserves to be flattened in a horrific manner by an unnatural gas powered vehicle, right? The icing on top of that cupcake was the entire rest of the congregation was right there with him and cheering. I kid you not, the entire group of people were basically clapping and yelling, "Yeah! Fuck squirrels! Preach on, brother!"

So this Sunday I learned that Christianity is not about helping others or even spending a small amount of energy feel bad for those who are worse off than you are. Nope, Jesus taught us to help the needy in moderation and to not feel bad if you completely ignore the plight of those less fortunate than us, be it a human being or a squirrel.

You know, because it totally wasn't Jesus who commanded all of his disciples to leave their entire family and ALL of their material goods to follow him and preach his word. Nope, even if that is what Jesus SAID that is so totally not what he MEANT. -_-

I love my mom. After that great sermon when they started passing around the collection plate the guy stopped by her and she started going through her purse and acting like she just couldn't find her wallet or any of her money. Eventually she looked at the guy and was like, "Oops, sorry, I can't find anything. Really, so sorry, go on to the next person. Don't wait for me." She only had a couple of 20s in her purse and she'd be damned if she was gonna give that asshole that kinda money, lol.

I told her it was okay. She already gave to 2 churches this month and she can't be expected to give to EVERY church she visits. Jesus wouldn't want her to give up too much of her money. :P

UPDATE!!!

But don't take my word for it, here is the video of the sermon.

Lent Week 1 Message 3-13-11 Mike Aus from Theophilus Houston on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

And thanks to Lurker for asking about finding it online. I would never have remembered the thing was recorded, otherwise. :)

Wednesday (hopefully): Isaiah 20-25

Isaiah 10-13

2011-03-09T17:00:00.001-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

10:2 - "[You who write oppressive statutes] to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widow may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey."
10:11 - "... shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols what I have done to Samaria and her images?"
10:12 - "This very day he shall halt at Nob, he will shake his fist at the mount of daughter Zion, the hill of Jerusalem."

Isaiah 11 - No mention of any women.

Isaiah 12 - No mention of any women.

13:8 - "Pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor."
13:16 - "Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished."
13:18 - "Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children."

My Comments

The only mentions of women here are in relation to violence against them or the pain they suffer. They, along with the children and fetuses (God's pro-life, huh?), will be punished for the sins of the men of their community. Oh, wait, right, it's really all the women's fault because they are loose women who tempt men away from God by dressing up nice and shaking their bottoms to lure them into their marriage beds. So OF COURSE women, who are so often considered nothing more than property of men and the inferior sex who should have no real power in the community, should bear the worst of the punishment. Along with the fruit of their loins because nothing clean and pure comes out of a woman. Riiiiiight...

Violence, violence, violence. All in the name of God or perpetrated by God himself.

I can't help but giggle sometimes at all this horrific Biblical violence. Anyone remember after 9/11 how all anyone (at least anyone non-Muslim) could talk about was how violent the Koran was and this was why those terrorists blew the towers up? I know at least in my family my dad read the Koran (or at least claimed to, I never actually saw him reading it) and would tell us how horrible the Koran was, with people going out and slaughtering non believers in the name of Allah. Thank God our good Christian religion wasn't so barbaric! We would wipe our brows and rest easy knowing that our faith truly wasn't like violent Islam.

I really can appreciate the irony of those talks now that I have read first hand just how loving and peaceful the Bible really is.

Friday: Isaiah 14-16

Isaiah 7-9

2011-03-04T17:00:00.001-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

7:14 - "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel."

8:3-4 - "And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. The the Lord said to me, Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz [Translation: The spoil speeds, the prey hastens]; for before the child knows how to call 'My Father' or 'My mother,' the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria."

9:17 - "That is why the Lord did not have pity on their young people, or compassion on their orphans and widows; for everyone was godless and an evildoer, and every mouth spoke folly. For all this his anger has not turned away; his hand is stretched out still."

My Comments

Wow, have I mentioned lately that God is a dick? Most people will at least agree that one should not punish children or kill children during times of war or whatever. And yet God here is totally okay with leaving the children and orphans and widows to their horrid fate. Because everyone was a wrongdoer? How the hell did a child do wrong against God? How the hell can God hold a child accountable for their (or their parents') actions? Most children do not fully understand the consequences of actions simply because their brains are not fully developed (studies on which I have always found horribly interesting), so why is God angry with them? I mean, it only says "young people" so I'm not sure where the age cut off is here. Not that it makes it any less heinous if he's sparing anyone younger than 3 or anyone younger than 12. It's a complete douchebag move.

For a God who is said to love so unconditionally he sure seems to be able to hold a grudge. Actually, I've seen more evidence of grudge holding than forgiveness so far. How messed up is that?

Also:

If no one has heard of Tim Minchin, here is an introduction to his awesomeness.

You're welcome. :)

Monday: Isaiah 10-12

Isaiah 5-6

2011-03-02T17:00:00.002-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

5:14 - "Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure; the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude go down, her throng and all who exult in her."

Isaiah 6 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

A break from the craziness.

Friday: Isaiah 7-9

Isaiah 3-4

2011-02-28T17:00:00.001-06:00

The Facts (chapter number: Verse)

3:12 - "My people - children are their oppressors, and women rue over them. O my people, your leaders mislead you, and confuse the course of your paths."
3:16-26 - "The Lord said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet; the Lord will afflict with scabs the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts.

"In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarfs; the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the signet rings and nose rings; the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; the garments of gauze, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils. Instead of perfume there will be stench; and instead of a sash, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a binding of sackcloth; instead of beauty, shame. Your men shall fall by the sword and your warriors in battle. And her gates shall lament and mourn; ravaged, she shall sit upon the ground."

4:1 - "Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, 'We will eat our own bread and wear out own clothes; just let us be called by your name; take away our disgrace.'"
4:3-4 - "Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning."

My Comments

Gotta say, I just LOVE the detail that is put into the punishment of the daughters of Zion. The Bible just waxes poetic about how they will be disfigured and removed of all their clothes and jewels. Really, it just lingers on them. The punishment of others doesn't contain nearly as much detail (when any detail is even given). The men simple die but the women are stripped and shamed and left to suffer for the rest of their disgusting and shameful lives.

You know what, I think I'll let the Dread Pirate Roberts explain this one.

And lest we have forgotten already, women ruling over you is HORRIBLE! Truly, if it has come to that your leaders have led you astray and you are all on the wrong path!

Women are bad bad bad evil bad!

In case you forgot.

No, really, I honestly have no idea why the most evil thing out of all of Zion is the women. Why? Other than recently the Bible has been on a real "women are the root of all of men's shortcomings" kick, I don't see any other reason for this to be the focus. Or why is the fact that the daughters of Zion desire to look nice such a huge issue? There is no evidence that they place their looks above God or their duties or have caused them to slut it up, though I assume that is what is being implied. Because they looked good and wore makeup and fancy dress they have suddenly stopped caring about their duties and their loyalty to God. Or their fancy dress and good looks are meant to lure men away to the depths of Sheol.

Really, why is this the reason they are being punished? Is it too much to want an explanation for this? Was the answer to this question just so painfully obvious to those who lived during these times that further explanation was unnecessary?

Also, I am uncertain what exactly to make of "the Lord will lay bare their secret parts." Does this just mean he strips them of their finery so much that they will be naked or does this mean that he actually invites their rape as a punishment? But it doesn't seem like He leaves them naked since later it describes what their fine clothes are replaced by - sackcloth for robes and ropes for sashes. It even says there will be lamenting and mourning, and "ravaged" she shall sit upon the ground.

From this section, it really looks to me like God is advocating rape as a punishment for women who dare to draw attention to themselves by way of their looks. I'm just gonna go ahead and make that call. Just from the words that were chosen and the extreme disdain in which these women are held I'm pretty sure that is exactly what is going on. If only one of those things was present, the parts laid bare or the ravaged women I would say that they were probably just stripped and that's that. But to have women laid bare and ravaged it's too much together. It seems like a description of rape to me.

What a stand up guy, that God. Totally worthy of our worship and praise, right?

Wednesday: Isaiah 5-6

Isaiah 1-2

2011-02-25T17:00:00.001-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1:8 - "A daughter Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a shelter in a cucumber field, like a besieged city."
1:21-23 - "How the faithful city has become a whore! She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her - but now murderers! Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow's cause does not come before them."
1:27 - "Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness."

2:3 - "... For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."

My Comments

Does a city have a choice in whom lives there? Really? It's not like daughter Zion, a piece of land and a collection of citizens, has any agency to get rid of these murderers and rebels who have chosen to reside within her walls or any ability to keep them out. That job is really up to her "righteous" citizens. Maybe this is meant to refer to all the citizens of the city, but then why gender it? Why call the people responsible (ie. men, because women have no power in city government) "whores" when so far we have never had an instance of a man being referred to as such? Why, when it's suddenly an issue of rebels and monsters within a city, is it suddenly the female city's fault and not the fault of the men already within her walls?

When you gender a city like this and then choose to call it a whore for something it could never have had any choice in, you are making a statement about feelings towards women whether you mean it as a metaphor or not. Why is it that a woman can be called a whore for something she didn't consent to? Even a female city isn't safe from this idea that virginity and chastity is something a woman is supposed to safe guard and if anything happens to it, whether it was against her will or not, blame is still placed on her. This is a sentiment we still hold today, where a woman who files rape charges is often critiqued up and down for how she dressed, what kind of makeup she was wearing, how high her heels were, whether she batted her eyelashes one too many times at the accused rapist. Some blame is always placed on the victim, and I think it is because we still hold this idea that a woman is the sole protector of her chastity and there is no way that she can be violated without some consent on her part. Or this idea that all women are on this earth to tempt men with sex and so we are always consciously or subconsciously, in some way, either wanting sex or enticing men to have sex with us.

We're not people, we're walking, talking, pheromone emitting and unwitting sexual temptresses.

And just in case any of your readers are of the belief that rape victims and feminists blow victim-blaming during rape cases out of proportion and we're some how SO much better nowadays, I present to you an article from only one day ago about a judge who let a convicted rapist (note he wasn't just accused, he was convicted of the crime) go without jail time because he felt the victim was inviting the sexual advances. To many men rape is just a case of "misunderstood signals and inconsiderate behavior" and not a violent violation of another person's agency and body. Fuck, the judge even states that he's sure whatever sex signals the victim sent were unintentional, which goes with this idea that women can't help the fact that they constantly tempt men into sex with them. It's just all subconscious. So because she was tempting her rapist with unintentional signals that she had no idea about the rapist cannot be held fully responsible for his crime and therefore does not have to go to jail.

Yes, truly we are a post-feminist society! Why do I even bother having this blog? Clearly all our problems are simply made up and fabricated by a female victim mentality. I see the light!

... -_-

So here's a reminder that it isn't the choice whether or not you have unscrupulous men inside you that makes you a whore but the fact that apparently you didn't do enough to keep those men out. The city of Zion has no choice in who lives in her so how can Zion ever consent to ANYONE (the righteous or the rebellious) living within her. And yet even though she lacks consent she is still called a whore and blamed for the monsters whom have settled within her.

Bible can't even resist calling its most beloved city a whore. What chance do we flawed female human beings have?

Monday: Isaiah 3-4

Song of Solomon 7-8

2011-02-23T17:00:00.001-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Song of Solomon 7 - How graceful are your feet in sandals, O queenly maiden! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus. Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses.

How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden! You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth.

I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and over our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.

Song of Solomon 8 - O that you were like a brother to me, who nursed at my mother's breast! If I met you outside, I would kiss you, and no one would despise me. I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of the one who bore me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranates. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me! I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready! Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you; there she who bore you was in labor.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned.

We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister, on the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build upon her a battlement of silver; but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar. I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who brings peace. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is for myself; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred!

O you who dwell in the gardens, my companions are listening for your voice; let me hear it.

Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of spices!

My Comments

Okay, it kinda got a bit icky once the mother and sister with no breasts suddenly became involved in this. Are they gonna have sex on the mother's bed? Or is this a euphemism for someone's vagina, not sure whose in this case? And what exactly are they doing for this sister? What makes one a wall or a door? Is it better to be a wall than a door? Is this some sort of metaphor for a chaste virgin and a woman who has premarital sex? If the young sister has sex before love/marriage how exactly do they plan to board her up? The image of boarding a woman up so that she may not be an open door for others is really, really disturbing and not the imagery I really wanted this book to leave me with. :\

Overall, this book was not terrible and was good for some giggles, but I fail to see its purpose. It has no real plot. It doesn't provide any sort of guidance or lessons. The only lesson it may be saying is "wait for love," but how can that be taken as a real warning when the entire book is praising love and waxing poetic about the physical relationship between two people. Based on the last section on the sister is this a book that is meant to encourage others to wait until marriage before being physical with one another? Is the warning to not look for love until you are ready a warning to not become physical with someone until one is married?

Odd how a book that is filled to the brim with sexual innuendos and praise for such a physical love would turn around and in its last breathe denounce such love (outside of marriage, anyways). This is another thing I really hate about the Bible. You can take one section and it says one thing and not 5 pages later it's saying the complete opposite. Without a hint of irony, mind you.

So, I guess the lesson we can take from this is that marriage is a passionate love adventure filled with phallic fruits and architectural body parts, a union which is something that melds two people together so much that they can hardly exist without the other. Without this bond that has been given to us by God love is dangerous. Love should be kept away until one is ready to face a life long promise of commitment and devotion. If one cannot wait till marriage (read: if a WOMAN cannot wait till marriage), she is not better than a door that allows anyone to enter and leave, and she should be boarded up by those around her in order to save her from the lustful urges which she is not ready for.

Ha! I knew the Bible couldn't get through one entire book without succumbing to its inherent sexism! The youthful sister at the end is the true audience of this book. It is the women who are plagued with having their womanly parts that must be warned about the dangers of love. The girls and woman are the ones who are done a dishonor by unmarried love; they are the ones who are the doors that need to be kept shut so that they may not be hurt by love. The boys and men, they are not ruined by this love. They do not need to be warned of the dangers of love nor do they need to warn others. Notice how it is the woman in this book who is always reminding the daughters of Jerusalem to "not stir or awaken love till it is ready." Ladies, it is our job and our job alone to understand the dangers of sex and how it will ruin it. We only have ourselves to blame if we become doors instead of walls.

I really had not noticed the trend before now. I looked at the warning about love to be a testament to the power love can hold over a person. A feel of powerlessness to a force greater than you, a force you may not be able to control. The idea that love is something we cannot control is a common theme in many love stories. So it would make sense for someone to warn people that love is great but at the same time one should not throw themselves into such a situation unless they known what it is they will be in for.

But they could not help adding the young sister into the mix. They just couldn't. I could have ended this book with nothing but good, giggly things to say, but no. They had to go and ruin the entire thing. The Song of Solomon brought it all home in no more than two sentences. Love as great as long as you're keeping those legs together before marriage, ladies! Ugh! I hate it when this shit gets turned around on me. Drop my guard for a bit and BAM!

Well, at least I now no longer wonder why this book is in the Bible. We all know God's number one priority in life is to make sure us women folk stay in our place and heaven forbid we have any sort of sexual independence or control.

I guess it has to remind men over and over and over again because men were constantly being made immoral and dumb by our mystical vagina powers and so God was treating the men like one would a puppy that you're trying to train but keeps getting distracted by a blowing leaf. Sit! Stop looking at the leaf! Sit! Good boy-no! Sit! Oh my god when did you have time to shit on the rug?! I was watching you the whole time! Hey, come back here! You were supposed to sit! Quit being so cute, I'm trying to hate you! D:

Friday: Isaiah

Song of Solomon 5-6

2011-02-21T17:00:00.001-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Song of Solomon 5 - I come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk.

Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.

Another Dream

I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen! my beloved is knocking. "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night." I had put off my garment; how could I put it on again? I had bathed my feet; how could I soil them? My beloved thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and was gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but did not find him; I called him, but he gave no answer. Making their rounds in the city the sentinels found me; they beat me, they wounded me, they took away my mantle, those sentinels of the walls. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him this: I am faint with love.

Colloquy of Friends and Bride

What is your beloved more than another beloved, O fairest among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us?

My beloved is all radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand. His head is the finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside springs of water, bathed in milk, fitly set. His cheeks are like beds of spices, yielding fragrance. His lips are lilies, distilling liquid myrrh. His arms are rounded gold, set with jewels. His body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires. His legs are alabaster columns, set upon bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

Song of Solomon 6 - Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Which way has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?

My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine; he pastures his flock among the lilies.

The Bride's Matchless Beauty

You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me! Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, that have come up from the washing; all of them bear twins, and not one among them is bereaved. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and maidens without number. My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the darling of her mother, flawless to her that bore her. The maidens saw her and called her happy; the queens and concubines also, and they praised her. "Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?"

I went down to the nut orchard, to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom. Before I was aware, my fancy set me in a chariot beside my prince.

Return, return, O Shulammite! Return, return, that we may look upon you.

Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies?

My Comments

I think I am having more fun reading this book than any of the others so far. It's just passionate romance and physical love. Granted, I am not a huge fan of love that is more physical than intellectual (I'm just more passionate about having someone that I can talk to than a nice set of abs, I guess) but it's just SO nice to see here. The Bible is full of relationships that are based on fear, dominance, control, and respect. The Bible hardly speaks of love between people, especially man and wife. Especially a MUTUAL love, which I think is the key. We have seen some sparks, but none that seem to really glorify a love that could surpass one's love for God himself.

I kind of see this book this way. God is hardly mentioned and is not the recipient of this love. Odd to find in a Holy book, a human relationship which seems to be held up over the love between creation and Creator.

Honestly, I like it.

Still fun to find the innuendos. I remember reading Shakespeare and having fun finding all the sexual innuendos in his plays. Get the same kind of childish giggles reading this. Especially the dream in chapter 5. Hot damn. :P

Wednesday: Song of Solomon 7-8

Song of Solomon 3-4

2011-02-18T17:00:00.000-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Song of Solomon 3 - Love's Dream

Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer. "I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves." I sought him, but found him not. The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!

The Groom and His Party Approach

What is that coming up from the wilderness, like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant? Look, it is the litter of Solomon! Around it are sixty mighty men of the mighty men of Israel, all equipped with swords and expert in war, each with his sword at his thigh because of alarms by night. King Solomon made himself a palanquin from the wood of Lebanon. He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple; its interior was inlaid with love. Daughters of Jerusalem, come out. Look, O daughters of Zion, at King Solomon, at the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart.

Song of Solomon 4 - The Bride's Beauty Extolled

How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them is bereaved. Your lips are like a crimson thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the tower of David, built in courses; on it hang a thousand bucklers, all of them shields of warriors. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the peak of Amana, from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards.

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! how much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! Your lips distill nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon. A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed. Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all chief spices-- a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon. Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.

My Comments

Whoo, man, doesn't chapter 4 just make you weak in the knees? Apparently romantic poetry doesn't always hold up well with time. Never had a guy wax poetic about my teeth. Or my tower like neck. I think if anyone tried that would be pretty awkward.

Reading further into the Song of Solomon, the idea that this might be a metaphor for the church and God seems very unlikely. Either that or God has a very intimate relationship with his church that I really don't feel like thinking about.

I think by the time I'm done I'm just gonna pick out all the ridiculously flowery phrases they use for naughty bits and sex acts and compile them into a list for future reference. Just in case I feel like asking if anyone would like to come into my garden and eat of my choicest fruits, know what I mean? know what I mean? Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more! Say no more!

Monday: Song of Solomon 5-6

Song of Solomon 1-2

2011-02-16T17:00:00.001-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.

Colloquy of Bride and Friends

Song of Solomon 1 - Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you. Draw me after you, let us make haste. The king has brought me into his chambers. We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you. I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has gazed on me. My mother's sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept! Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; for why should I be like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions? If you do not know, O fairest among women, follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture your kids beside the shepherds' tents.

Colloquy of Bridegroom, Friends, and Bride

I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh's chariots. Your cheeks are comely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you ornaments of gold, studded with silver. While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh that lies between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-gedi.

Ah, you are beautiful, my love; ah, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves. Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely. Our couch is green; the beams of our house are cedar, our rafters are pine.

Song of Solomon 2 - I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.

As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens.

As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention toward me was love. Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me! I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!

Springtime Rhapsody

The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards-- for our vineyards are in blossom."

My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on the cleft mountains.

My Comments

This brief study guide to the Song of Solomon is about the best thing I could find that addresses who is speaking in these books. I recommend giving it a read because this book is so vague and full of unidentified pronouns (which I hate!) that I will probably not be able to get much out of this. At least not much that isn't pretty much pulled straight out of my ass.

The Song of Solomon is a love story between a man and a woman oddly placed in the middle of the Old Testament. It seems there is debate over whether this is metaphorical/allegorical or literal or whether this is between an actual husband and wife or if this is between God and church or God and the virgin Mary.

I actually find any of these cases irrelevant because you cannot tell who the hell is speaking in any of these parts. It is obvious the speaker goes back and forth, but we are given no clear indication of who is speaking when. There are very few gendered pronouns (hers and hims) and a great amount of "I" and "you." Seriously, it's ridiculous. Now, it is safe to assume, since the Bible frowns upon homosexuality, that any verses referencing the love for a man are being spoken by a woman and vice versa.

From reading the first chapter it would seem the first half of it is from a woman's perspective, describing her love and hos she wants him to kiss her. She is black and beautiful, though, according to the article I found this is an inaccurate translation, which makes sense because two verses later she asks to not be looked upon because she is dark. She talks about her love tending flocks, which was typically a male job.

The second half seems to be from a male perspective. He compares his love to a mare with jewels for whom he wishes to adorn with more jewelry. His nard (which is apparently something that is used for its fragrance and not some silly word for male anatomy) is fragrant and his love is a bag of myrrh that lies between his breasts. She is a cluster of henna blossom. His love is incredibly beautiful in his eyes.

I guess the woman is speaking the parts about being a rose and being a lily among brambles.

The entirety of chapter 2 seems to all be spoken by the woman. Her love is one of a kind and she stays with him and enjoys his shade. He comforts her, feeds her, sustains her. Her love is awakened and is apparently wild because she urges others to not awaken love before they are ready. Her lover calls for her to rise and come to him. She is his and he is hers. Her beloved is like a gazelle in the fields or a young stag on the mountains.

Honestly, the imagery is quite nice and I like the passion and romance behind it. It is reminiscent of the young love we as a culture so often admire and it is kind of cool to see that this isn't a uniquely modern thing. These passages are filled with an seemingly unsatisfiable lust, which is odd considering this book is part of the Bible. It is a love based purely on the physical, in smells and looks and feels, not in the intellectual. These two do not seem to have been friends for years who have suddenly developed feelings for one another. These two are physically drawn together by a force greater than they (and no, I don't mean God, just good old fashioned hormones). Which is a love story older than time, I guess.

Funny, seems I have the least amount of issues with the book that is the least God-fearing. This book seems to celebrate a love between a man and a woman without any guilt attached. These two love each other and that seems to be okay. Granted, they are being married so their love is all a-okay according to the Biblical laws, but it's nice to see an actual celebration of love in the Bible instead of the parade of woman-hating we often get in the place of love.

Do love how comparing a woman to a bedazzled horse (albeit a NICE bedazzled horse) is considered a compliment. Boy, how the times change. :P

Friday: Song of Solomon 3-4

Ecclesiastes 5-12

2011-02-14T17:00:00.002-06:00

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

5:15 - "As they came from their mother's womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil, which they may carry away with their hands."

Ecclesiastes 6 - No mention of any women.

7:26-29 - "I found more bitter than death the woman who is a trap, those heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters; one who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. See, this is what I found, says the Teacher, adding one thing to another to find the sum, which my mind has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these, I have not found. See, this alone I found, that God made human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes."

Ecclesiastes 8 - No mention of any women.

9:9 - "Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun."

Ecclesiastes 10 - No mention of any women.

11:5 - "Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in your mother's womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything."

12:3-4 - "[Remember your creator] in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; when the doors on the street shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low."

My Comments

Okay... Sometimes I'm pretty sure these translators are just pulling words out of their ass because the text they have isn't all that complete or is just jumbled from years of translations because does the last half of 7:26-29 make any sense to anyone? I get the first part, a woman (presumably an adulteress or prostitute) is a fate worse than death and the faithful will resist her while the sinful will fall into her trap.

But what is all that nonsense about adding sums and a woman isn't among them and God has made humans straightforward so it is humans who brought in deceit? Does that mean women are not counted about the people because of their ability to ruin man so handily, and in the next sentence the divisors of schemes are women? Since God made MAN perfect but had to create Eve to suit Adam and she is the one who "devised a scheme" that got them kicked out of paradise? That is the only way I can make all three of those verses together make sense. First verse: Women are the downfall of man. Second verse: A woman cannot be found that can add up to a sum (a Godly sum perhaps?). Third verse: God created humans (man) perfect, but they (women) devise schemes. It just seems odd for that last verse to move from being women specific to suddenly being a general thought on humans. It would be like telling someone that cats are evil and do not fit into the scheme of the world, so I have found that all animals are mischievous and up to no good. That does work. You cannot say a subset is all this way therefore the group that subset comes from is all that way. Logic goes the other way around, if all of a group is a specific way then you can conclude logically that a subset of that group must all be that way.

So going from women to all humans is just weird and does not flow logically, which is why I do believe that last verse is actually about God's perfect creation being man (because God created Adam first and Eve was a mutation of God's perfection) and women being the deceivers of his creation.

Of course that may not be what the last parts of those verses are about. I swear, that math verse in the middle is ridiculous. From what I can tell it is saying women do not add up in God's plans, but really it could be something completely different. That is just a mess of words that happen to be in English. Reminds me of my days in Latin classes, when I'd get to a sentence that I had no clue about, and I would just translate the words and try to arrange them in a way that made sense. It usually came out as jumbled up nonsense that was completely unreadable. That is what that math verse reminds me of. Ridiculous.

Anyone have any other thoughts as to what those verse may actually be trying to say?

Also, Ecclesiastes 11:5 just seems silly now. We do know how breath comes to the baby in the womb, so does this now mean that we can understand the workings of an invisible all powerful creator? Or does this mean we can apply the same things we use to determine how a baby grows in the womb (science) and use it to determine the nature of God? Because when we use science (and logic) to determine the nature of God his nature turns out to be nonexistent, so... case closed?

... no, I guess not.

Wednesday: Song of Solomon

Let's get ready for Bible porn! :D