I notice that a lot of women are becoming Christian evangelists and pastors now a day. Here in our street for example, there is this small Christian church and every Sunday, I can hear a female pastor preaching inside. I don’t think it has something to do with religion, but it’s more about the growing trend on women liberation and women’s rights. It was said that back on the early 60’s women can’t even apply to become a cop, but today we have women justices in the Supreme Court and we even have lady presidents. Ah....the emancipation of women and their rights have advanced since the time of Elizabeth Cady Stanton...but when in comes to God and religion, I think it has a very different idea.

Majority of today’s religion worship a male god. Naturally, they were created by men. They are paternal in nature and because of this they tend to be indiscriminate of women. Religion places women lower than men, it blames women to the “sins” of this world and it declares women as unclean. Almost all religion of this world is guilty of this kind of mentality.

For example, in Hinduism it is said that the highest duty of a woman to immolate herself after her husband’s death. We also read that women are to be debarred from being competent students of the Vedas. That’s just a scratch...we all know about the tradition in Hinduism that when a person dies, all his properties are burned, including his wife.

Buddhism is not spared with this twisted mentality. In Buddhism one is reborn a woman because of bad karma.

In Islam, the Qur’am regarded women as “half a man” and that “forgetfulness overcomes a woman, they are inherently weaker in rational judgement.” Women are to be absolutely obedient, and can be beaten (or scourged) for being rebellious in sura 4:34. In addition to the four wives allowed by law, a Muslim man can have an unlimited number of slave girls as concubines (or sexual partners) according to sura al-Nisa 4:24-25. Even paradise creates inequalities for women. suras 55:56; 56:36 and 78:33 state that paradise is a place where there are beautiful young virgins waiting to serve the "righteous" (sura 78:31). These virgins, we are told, will have beautiful, big, lustrous eyes (sura 56:22); they will be Maidens who are chaste, who avert their eyes out of purity (sura 55:56, Yusuf Ali's note no.5210), and have a delicate pink complexion (sura 55:58, Yusuf Ali's note no.5211). Nowhere are we told what awaits the Muslim women of this world in paradise: the Muslim mothers and sisters. One wonders who these virgin maidens are, and where they come from.

The Judeo-Christian religion is much worst! According to the Bible, original sin, desire, error, the yearning for knowledge, all stems from the decision of one woman; Eve. The Bible detests anything in regards to “intelligent” and it also condemns those who were curious and inquisitive just like Eve. Adam was content to obey and surrender his will and servitude to God, but Eve, the second one to come forth, the humble spare rib, the inferior cut-off the prime beef, the fragment, the crumb, the after thought, the left over,  was easily seduced by the “serpent” to pick and try a fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge”. (Latter on, this “tree” was dubbed by Fundamentalist Christians as “The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”)

The Judeo-Christian god considers virgin maidens as war booty (Numbers 31:17-35)

Apostle Paul believed that women should keep quite in the church (1 Cor. 14:34), that they should cover their heads as a sign of respect (1 Cor. 11:5ff.). You can also read in the Christian New Testaments that women are not permitted to teach or to have an authority over a man (1 Tim. 2:12 NRSV). Jesus calls his invisible Father in heaven as “Father” yet he calls his own earthly mother as “woman”.

The Christians also believe that women are created for man (1 Cor. 11:8-9)

Have you notice that majority here in the Philippines would always love to have a male child than a female child? Some justify this belief because they say that a male child will carry the surname of the family. But does this tradition also come from religion?

I really don’t have the idea where these anti-female sentiments started but some studies suggested that because of the nomadic, hunting and gathering ways of our ancestors. In those times, women and children were assumed to be weak since men always do the hunting. Until now, we still have this backward mind-set residing in our supposed to be modern thinking. One best example is circumcision. Do you know that circumcision has no medical use or biological advantage whatsoever? A skinned penis is just the same as an un-skinned one. It’s just a rites of passage from being a boy to man. A sort of a tradition just like what those primitive tribes on some jungles in South America is doing. (Hmmmm maybe I’ll just make an article about circumcision later).

Going back to the topic, our sexism is the same way of thinking as our primitive ancestors, yet we still cling to such backward belief. Does that make religious fanatics retards huh? And speaking of being a retard, today modern religion is feeding this diffident frame of mind about women!

But what bothers me is that some women accept modern religion as a fact of life! They accept religious doctrine to save their soul in heaven but they’re not even thinking that this same religion is making their lives hell on Earth. The issue of gender equality is a taboo in religious thinking.

Oh yes, some Christians will say that the author of Galatians claimed that Christ doesn’t discriminate sex (Galatians 3:26-28) yet majority of Biblical scriptures says otherwise. Well, Christians will insist that the Bible have characters like Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of Jesus...Yep, they made Magdalene a slut and they dehumanized Mary. Two characters that enticed male sexual fantasy – a prostitute and a perpetual virgin!

In 1941, a psychologist Charles Moulton created the comics character Wonder Woman. Today, she now personifies modern women, women with dreams, inspired and strong. Today she stood proud of her strength, her self-reliance. Religion will do everything to demolish and drag her down the gutters. Christianity and Islam will try everything on its power to degrade and demerit her. Yet this primitive, barbaric bigot which Christians and Muslims called “God” will never destroy her.

Until next time,
Pinoy Atheist