Hide That Naughty Word from All the Christians!

You mean to say that evangelical Christians have unequal rules for men and for women, particularly regarding sexual matters?

You don’t say! Shocking!

/sarcasm

I think we all know exactly what’s going on here, no?

“1) Every mention of God had to be capitalized.”

I have never understood this fixation, which borders on unhealthy even when one ignores all the other intellectual handicaps the religious intentionally place on themselves. One would hope that most Christians would be capable of realizing that such a capitalization only makes sense in circumstances such as referring to a proper noun, and that even when it is a proper noun, it isn’t always referring to the Christian concept of a god. Alas, no, one would be horribly wrong if they assumed such a simple and sensible thing.

There’s an excellent song by Karen Finley called ‘Suck My Pussy’ that this story reminds me of. Ms. Finley did it as a response in the 80s to gangsta rap musicians talking about their ‘bitches and hoes’ and treating women like dirt.

It may not have made a lasting or even well-known rebuttal, but Ms. Finley did make her point on impressionable girls such as myself. (Not to mention the whole gigglefest of the matter.)

Exercise your 1st Amendment rights, have a vagina.

I had to read it twice before I realised they weren’t posting their promises onto a giant “cockboard”.

I heard about this last week, but didn’t know about a confirmed double standard.  I’d switch to a secular publisher if it’s not too late, because a lot of Christian bookstores will probably reject this book anyway.

Seems simple to me. The word “vagina” evokes a mental image of a woman’s vagina, and therefore stirs lustful thoughts in men, therefore  using it is immodest and sinful.   No such lustful thoughts are suggested by the word “penis”, of course, unless you’re one of those disgusting sodomites.

I was going to write the same thing! Capitalization is not about respect; it is about proper grammar. If the word “god” is used as a proper noun, it should be capitalized no matter who is writing it. The same if it is used as a common noun.

“The Christian god” should be lowercase when mentioned like that, but capitalized as in “Christians believe in God.”

I think Hemant should’ve worked in a lot of asides about Mars, the God of war, this or that ancient God, etc.

 You do, obviously. Otherwise, why bother leaving any comment at all?

My concern is why we have another version of the same book of someone trying to live by the rules of the bible.  It was funny at first, now it’s just getting trite. 

Wait a second… are you trying to tell me Christians have a double standard regarding men and women? Are you pulling my leg? I am shocked, Shocked to hear such a thing! You could never find anything, anything at all in the Bible to support such a view! Oh, wait…

Of course you will never find any atheists with these kind of views. Well, maybe in elevators…

I noticed on Glenn Beck’s website that it’s okay to say penis but vagina gets censored.

I DELIBERATELY refuse to capitalize “god”, even when required by good grammar. Indeed, most times I spell it “gawd”, as pronounced by the grifters you see on TV.
Why? because I’m mean, and deliberately trying to be a jerk, and I figure that’s about all the ‘respect” chrsitianity deserves.

Reminds me of the George Carlin line (bowdlerized here) “Okay, you f*****s, I’m going to tinkle now.”

 Far better to provoke them by using the grammatically appropriate address, “Yahweh/Elohim/El/Shaddaj/Sin/Jehovah,” all words flattened into “God” as part of the monotheism movement which occurred much later. :p

 This is the same website that had a huge problem with Tim Minchin’s Pope Song being performed at the Reason Rally.  Because it’s much worse to take your children to a rally where swear words are used to describe churches/people that covered up the crime of child rape than it is to take your children to the churches where the rapes actually took place.

Do you also refuse to capitalize “Zeus”?

If “penis” is allowed, what about using the (admittedly clumsy) wording: “the female equivalent of the penis”?

(Yes, I’m kidding.  Mostly.)

There aren’t too many Greek pantheon believers nowadays, and the ones that do exist aren’t screaming for “respect”.

It is rather discussing isn’t it?

Does Zeus go by any he-who-must-not-be-named euphemisms?

Z–s please, thank you.

 Doesn’t he keep insisting he’s “THE LORD”, in allcaps?

Yep.  The world is run by repressed white men.

Groan.

Probably mostly male Christian commenters.

Hmmm – is it just the word “vagina” or are all the other words associated with the vagina also verboten?  How about “clitoris”, “labia”, or “cervix”? What about “perineum”, “uterus”, “mons”, “fallopian tubes”, “ovary”?  And what about….”tits” and “boobs” or just plain old “breasts”.  

Hey if “penis” is allowed, I wonder if one can also use “scrotum” and “testicles”.

Of course it’s possible for atheists to be irrational, bigoted, misdirected, misinformed, or to just plain have values that disagree with my own.  But atheism itself has no doctrine to reinforce such values.  That an atheist believes these things does not mean that Christianity itself does not also promote these beliefs outright.

There is actually not much of a reason that safe sex outside of a monogamous relationship is a particularly bad idea, but the Bible doesn’t simply say that unsafe sex outside of a monogamous relationship is a bad idea.  It says that ANY SEX outside of MARRIAGE is EVIL.  The difference is not even subtle.

While the Bible does say that man was made in God’s image, it also encourages shame of the body – the Bible is not without its inconsistencies and contradictions.  The first thing Adam and Eve do when they become self-aware is to cover their bodies out of fear, because they are now aware of right and wrong and thus are ashamed to be naked.  

In Exodus 28:42-43, it is commanded that the descendants of Aaron must make undergarments as a “covering for the body” and “wear them whenever they enter the tent of meeting or approach the altar to minister in the Holy Place, so that they will not incur guilt and die.”

Isaiah 47:3 says “Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen”

Leviticus 15:16
“If a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water and be unclean until the evening.”

Then we get the shame of menstruation, because women’s bodies are even worse than men’s:

Leviticus 20:18
“If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people.”

Leviticus 15:19-30
“When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. And everything on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be unclean. And whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. And whoever touches anything on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. Whether it is the bed or anything on which she sits, when he touches it he shall be unclean until the evening.”

Ezekiel 36:17
““Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity.”

Leviticus 15:28-30
“But if she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. And on the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and bring them to the priest, to the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the priest shall use one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her before theLord for her unclean discharge.”

 Haha!

 Assuming they know it exists.

So why is it exactly that if someone touches the bed of a menstruating women they’re considered unclean for the rest of the day?  Why is a woman clean after seven days?  Why must she bring two turtledoves and two pigeons to a priest?  Why must the priest make a sin offering?  Why must the priest “make atonement for her before the lord for her unclean discharge”?

I realize that condoms and the pill didn’t exist in the biblical time period but, if the rules were intended strictly for the context of that time period, why do so many Christians still consider them applicable today?  Why are many Christians in the U.S. still trying to block education about safe sex, prevent women from getting contraception, and demonizing homosexuals?

Regardless of whether it is actually true that “In most peoples minds,that being the case,outside of a commited relationship,not a good idea” [sic], what does that have to do with the notion that sex is only acceptable between a heterosexual couple who is MARRIED (not just committed)?  And who cares if it’s “not a good idea” in “most people’s minds”?  What right does anyone have to condemn someone else for what they do privately with another consenting adult, just because it might be considered a bad idea by some hypothetical “most people”?

Nope, not unclean, you obviously have never walked down a feminine hygiene aisle at any store have you? Women have had there ways of staying clean for thousands of years, and yeah they also had sex during menstruation. BTW, sexual activity during menstruation actually helps alleviate the pain from cramps.

It was meant as a derogatory and demeaning term,because unclean people were not allowed in public. Or did you not read that little part? That’s right, for almost a week out of every month, women were not to be seen in public.

Your claim about safe sex is also a lie. Humans have been making use of condoms for centuries, and rubber condoms were a common form of safe sex practice before the pill came on the scene. Do you know why the pill was important? Because it gave women the power to be in control of their bodies. Condoms are essentially controlled by the man, but with a pill women can control when they get pregnant. Nifty right?

I have a friend in India as we speak,posted on facebook that today they were sewing feminine pads to give women freedom to leave the house that they dont curently have. You may be able to go to the supermarket, others carnt.In New Guinea even today women go to a menstating hut during that time.Nothing to do with religion.

First off, what exactly constitutes of “primative” [sic] culture?  Do you mean cultures where non-white people subsist without Western philosophy, religion, government, and economic concepts?  Or do you simply mean “ancient”?

Regardless of whether the idea that some people are more primitive than us is offensive, let’s just examine the statement itself.  “…except for young children people covered up using whatever they could”

Let’s investigate.  From Wikipedia entry on Nudity”

“Different traditions exist among, for example, sub-Saharan Africans, partly persisting in the post-colonial era. Whereas it is the norm among some ethnic and family groups including some Burkinabese and Nilo-Saharan (e.g. Nuba and Surma people) in daily life or on particular occasions not to wear any clothes or without any covering below the waist – for example, at highly-attended stick-fighting tournaments well-exposed young men use the occasion to catch the eye of a prospective bride.”

“In Japan, public baths are very common. Bathing nude with family members or friends of the same (or sometimes opposite) gender in public bath houses, saunas, or natural hot springs (Onsen) is popular. In Korea, public baths (Jjimjilbang) are also widespread and communal nude bathing is normal, although nudity is not permitted in unisex areas.”

“Cultural and/or religious traditions usually dictate what is proper and what is not socially acceptable. Many non-Western cultures allow women to breastfeed in public, while some have very strict laws about showing any bare skin.”

“The trend in some European countries (for instance Germany, Finland and the Netherlands) is to allow both genders to bathe together naked. Many German spas allow mixed nude bathing. For example the Friedrichsbad in Baden-Baden has designated times when mixed nude bathing is permitted. There may be some older German bathhouses, such as Bad Burg, which remain segregated by gender, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Most German (not to mention French, Spanish and Greek) beaches and swimming pools offer FKK (clothing-optional) areas. In general, continental Europeans have a more relaxed attitude about nudity than is seen in the British-influenced world. Some have attributed this difference to the influence of Queen Victoria’s husband Albert, who was raised in a very restricting religious sect (see Victorian morality).
The sauna, originating from Finland, is attended nude in its source country[30] as well as in most Scandinavian and in the German-speaking countries of Europe. This is true even when a swimsuit must be worn in the swimming pool area of the same complex.[30] Saunas are very common in modernFinland, where there is one sauna for every three people[31] and became very popular in the remainder of Europe in recent decades. Gender segregation is more the exception than the rule in modern European sauna facilities.”

“For men and women, public nudity was at least permissible in ancient Sparta, and customary at festivals.”

“In some hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates, near-complete nudity has been, until the introduction of Western culture, or still is, standard practice for both men and women. In some African and Melanesian cultures, men going completely naked except for a string tied about the waist are considered properly dressed for hunting and other traditional group activities. In a number of tribes in the South Pacific island of New Guinea, the men use hard gourdlike pods as penis sheaths. Yet a man without this “covering” could be considered to be in an embarrassing state of nakedness. Among the Chumash peopled of southern California, men were usually naked, and women were often topless. Native Americans of theAmazon Basin usually went nude or nearly nude; in many native tribes, the only clothing worn was some device worn by men to clamp the foreskin shut.”

“In 1498, at Trinity Island, Trinidad, Christopher Columbus found the women entirely naked, whereas the men wore a light girdle called guayaco. At the same epoch, on the Para Coast ofBrazil, the girls were distinguished from the married women by their absolute nudity. The same absence of costume was observed among the Chaymas of Cumaná, Venezuela, and Du Chaillu noticed the same among the Achiras in Gabon.”

“A religious sect known as Naga sadhu (monk) can be seen nude. These sadhus usually remain naked or some wear a loin-cloth around their waist and ashes smeared over their body.”

“In Jainism, there is a major sect of Digambar Jain, whose monks remain naked.”

 Those don’t count as REAL reading, though…

/please just shoot me now for even typing that in jest!

Knowing how christians detest cursing,  I’ve always derived great Pleasure from cursing at them.  I love calling several of the phony TV preachers up and telling them what pathetic a-holes they are, for ripping off the GULLIBLE……….

 I once accidentally capitalized “him” in a post I made on Facebook. Had I been writing about any god, christian or otherwise, I would have fixed it; however, I was writing about Henry Rollins so I left it as it was.

1) Every mention of God had to be capitalized.

Oh, that would have annoyed me! You couldn’t use “a god,” huh? I probably would have gotten around that by sticking to the word “deity,” LOL.