Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ora!daemon
From: jan@orc.olivetti.com
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminism in the Craft
Message-ID: <197@ora.ora.com>
Date: 18 Nov 89 19:06:00 GMT
Sender: ambar@ora.ora.com
Reply-To: jan@orc.olivetti.com
Lines: 48
Approved: ambar@ora.com

In the referenced article, ray writes
>What should I do, being a Discordian (believer in Eris, the Greek Goddess
						   ^^^^
>of Chaos, Confusion, Discord, Bureaucrasy, and International Relations as
>the ultimate force in the Universe)?
   
You misspelled it.  It's IRS.

> And it's no new tale to tell"                      ../ray\..

Yeah.

In article ? rich writes:
>In article <61131@aerospace.AERO.ORG> jan@orc.olivetti.com writes:
>>If you think you are advanced past the point where this would affect you, I
>>can only say I thought so too, but there is a big difference between holding
>>an intellectual opinion that God is genderless or that the ways you use to 
>>refer to God are unimportant versus actually experimenting with vocalization 
>>and visualization.
 
>[...]  But can we give up the gender requirement? Certainly
>calling the god female doesn't accomplish this -- 
>
>My conclusion is that feminism has taught us the impossibility of
>believing in a personal god, male or female. Or rather that such a
>belief is at odds with feminism. Gender is a human issue, exclusively.

There are two issues here.  One is, is there a Supreme Being.  The other is
how do we refer to Him/Her.   The first is a personal-experience-based
decision for each person.  (Although whether or not there is a Supreme
Being is unlikely to be actually caused by whether or not it agrees
with feminism.)

The second is whether or not we balance our language when referring to
this being or lack thereof.  I do not advocate addressing Her as "She"
for an entire lifetime, just long enough for it to seem as believeable
as He is (or isn't), then half the time thereafter.  And I think this 
will even affect an atheist's ideas about men and women, even if it 
doesn't affect that person's belief about God.

My objection to 'it' is that it excludes personhood (in English)
whereas using BOTH genders a) balances existing practice and b) is
inclusive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Universal Consciousness cannot be confined to any of the 5 genders, 
but we must worship Uy as each in turn in order to keep a balanced outlook."
					-- St. Xphlcyb of Alpha III