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From: travis@liberty.cs.columbia.EDU (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminism & Religion (was Re: Newspaper Article)
Message-ID: <9011010122.AA13834@liberty.cs.columbia.edu>
Date: 1 Nov 90 15:42:24 GMT
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In article <1990Oct19.221509.8092@nntp-server.caltech.edu> morphy@truebalt.cco.caltech.EDU (Jones Maxime Murphy) writes:
>
>   travis@liberty.cs.columbia.EDU (Travis Lee Winfrey) writes:
>
>   >Well, if a male god really had sent down his male son, there wouldn't
>   >be much to argue about, would there?
>
>   You're missing the point. I'm not interested in the truth or falsehood
>   of the scriptures. I'm simply questioning the relevance of grotesquely
>   androcentric scriptures to a feminist agenda.

You say that people are missing the point and maintain that you're
only "questioning" things.  However, your "questions" are phrased as
declarative and absolute.  You continue to use absolute phraseology
such as "absolutely oppressed" and "grotesquely androcentric".  To my
mind, this indicates that you're not considering any possible useful
contribution from Christianity.  I can't go that far.

>   What difference does it make to modern women if millenia ago, a
>   few genderless gods were propagated?  I'm dealing with a modern
>   phenomenon, not esoteric redaction theory.

Well, I simply don't believe in modern phenomena of the type you seem
to desire.  If it were easy to replace Christanity with a less harmful
set of philosophies, the western world could have done this centuries
ago, when more harmful crimes than androcentric biases were in living
memory.  However, no one can escape the past, not even in the
supposedly all-rational sciences.  As members of the western world,
Christianity is deeply interwoven in our culture and our modes of
thinking.  Only lengthy, patient questioning of ourselves can ever
change it.

While I share some of your eagerness to just toss Christianity away, I
don't think that can happen in our lifetimes.  I doubt you would agree
if I were to say that we could just toss racism and sexism away, that
we can act freely now that everyone is completely equal.

>   >People like Paul and Augustine convinced others by the force of their
>   >personality.  However, we live in a different sort of society now.
>   >Because we are aware of explicit acts of interpretation, such as the
>   >creation of the Christian bible, we can recreate and reinterpret them.
>
>   My question is given the many more pressing issues on any feminist
>   agenda I've heard, why bother with this recreation and
>   reinterpretation?  It may be time to move on, and focus our energy on
>   reeducating the men of this world. (It's certainly time to wrap up
>   this thread!)

Why?  Are you serious?  Because a search for faith is not idle
recreation, it is the search for meaning in our personal lives.  Why
do we all die?  Why do good, innocent people die and suffer terribly?
How can evil deeds go unpunished?  How are `good', `innocent', and
`evil' fairly reckoned?

Men and women in the modern world _must_ interpret Christianity, or
whatever religion they were raised with, because most people cannot
"move on", ever, even if their religion is directly harmful to them as
men or women.  Attitudes and beliefs are not theorems; it is futile to
pretend otherwise.  You sometimes write as if you had never seen a
self-destructive belief system persist in someone you know -- yet this
cannot be true.

>   [Or start another direction?  Do we dispense with religion, rework
>   existing ones, or create new ones?  --CLT]

Or all three.  It's mostly up to the people searching for faith.  As
an agnostic, I'm just kibitzing, apart from figuring out
Christianity's effects on me personally.

>   >Note also that you subvert your own message -- i.e., that gender is
>   >not important -- when you refuse to overlook the gender of the
>   >Christian Messiah.
>
>   I see. Just like feminists subvert their agenda when they refuse to
>   overlook the gender of the people oppressing them.

No, just like thoughtful people will seek to recognize truth no matter
what its source.  Either what you assert is true -- or usefully
revealing or important -- or it is not.  If the Christian message is
completely determined by the historical Jesus' gender, then so are
your arguments completely determined by your gender, equally true with
me.  However, if what you say as a male can be true, then so can the
Christian message be true, important, etc.

(Why do you construct such strawmen arguments?  You know I've never
denied the importance of gender.)

Much harm has been done in the name of Christianity, but it's foolish
to stop one's consideration of an entire philosophy with the genitals
of one of its prophets.  Granted, your point rests on more than this,
but you have posted several articles along the lines of "Look, a male
god sent down a _man_.  Get it?" as if the rest of us hadn't noticed.

>   >perhaps this is the legacy of Catholicism that you have kept.  Many
>   >people have found meaning and beauty in Christianity; let them.  There
>   >are few absolutes here.
>
>   No. There are many absolutely oppressed women whose aspirations are
>   stifled by the different manifestations of J-C-I tradition.  Too many.

I'm sorry, but I must disagree again with your use of the word
"absolute".  It's not that I haven't considered oppression carried out
in the name of one of these faiths, only that I don't consider it my
business to give the final decision on the "oppressiveness" of a
particular set of beliefs.  I'll question anything, of course; but
generally I'm just not willing to tell women or homosexuals or
whomever might be targeted as a group that they should toss their
belief system in favor of some unspecified, "rational" alternative.

If you feel you have the answers on the meaning of life, good for you.
However, I won't reject as much as you seem willing to.  I remain
extremely skeptical that some aspects of religious belief can ever be
easily tossed away.  Finally, I recognize that there are conservative
and progressive and fundamentalist elements of all of the world's
religions, and I believe this will probably never change.

>   The personal jabs have no basis. I think I'm right and so do you. If
>   that's dogma, you're equally guilty. I guess that just makes you
>   Catholic, then.

Actually, part of my deep interest in texts comes out of my youth as a
Southern Baptist.  I still consider many of your articles dogmatic,
although I'm not trying to make "personal jabs" in saying so.  There
is a great deal more to the mantle of Christianity than a belief in a
(white, male) Christian god.  You can't toss off your youth easily.

t
--
"Patriotism, red hot, is compatible with the existence of a neglect of
 national interests, a dishonesty, a cold indifference to the suffering of
 millions.  Patriotism is largely pride and largely combativeness.  Patriotism
 generally has a chip on its shoulder."   -- Charlotte Perkins Gillman (1898)