User talk:Justin Satyr

Hi there
Apologies. I was uncomfortable doing the revert, I always am. In this case it was more of an issue for me because you'd obviously put thought and effort into your edit and so much of it was good.

The reason I ended up reverting all of it was because it over simplified some points and ended up silencing the main point of the section. In the end it was just easier to go back to the weasled text and make minor changes, rather than work with the new text you'd supplied.

I'm still trying to work out what is a fair presentation of the Christian view of God and gender. One thing is clear, the main points need to be that:
 * Christian views are based on the New Testament,
 * for almost 2,000 years Christians have considered God to be a Trinity,
 * where each divine person is masculine in gender,
 * and one of whom actually took on male sex.

Having said these things, it still seems helpful to include the handful of explorations of feminine imagery for the Holy Spirit provided by otherwise theologically conventional writers. These explorations are well known, but have never gained wide acceptance. Gendered imagery can be interpreted in quite different ways, and typically says little about actual gender. It is tangential to the article, but is helpful mainly because it shows just how little support there is for a female or gender-neutral HS. These things distinguish the Abrahamic religions from other religions, where female deities and gender-neutral divine forces are very common indeed.

This article really needs someone to write up a goddesses like Ishtar (aka Ashtoreth, Inana), Artemis and Kali, who were very popular conceptions of a kind of female gender ideal within their cultures. Intriguingly, goddesses like Aphrodite and Hera provided quite different ideals of female gender roles.

Hinduism provides a modern version of such diverse understandings of gender in divinity. Sikhism is equally rich in theology with a gender-neutral, or gender-balanced godhead. The Abrahamic religions are well known for being uncompromisingly and recalcitrantly patriarchal, and can be fairly criticised or praised for this. There are many writers who do one or the other.

To argue that mainstream expressions of the Abrahamic religions include gender-neutrality or feminine understanding of God is very largely false. In the US and Australia, churches are granted exemption from some equal opportunity legislation, on the grounds of freedom of religious expression. This is easy to understand. The Catholic denomination would be illegal in its all male priesthood otherwise.

The Abrahamic religions should be known for the affront to gender equality that they are, and for government reticence to force them to change. Pretending that they have reformed their views regarding gender is not only without evidence, it undermines the opportunity for criticism.

I know you didn't remove the basic facts, and trust you have no agenda to do so. My main point here is simply that all the Bible translations (and their rationale) is relevant to explaining to random readers what they're dealing with in official Christianity -- even modern gender-neutral Bible translations deliberately use the masculine pronoun for the Holy Spirit.

Please feel free to continue this discussion at the talk page of the article, and to continue to make your quality contributions to the article.

PS I really appreciate the wit of your user-name. ;) Alastair Haines 03:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Talkback
Smallman12q (talk) 18:44, 12 January 2010 (UTC)