It's been a while.
It's been a while since I've felt that I have anything worthwhile to contribute to this blog. I guess it doesn't have a specific topic or coherent theme like some blogs do, so sometimes I wonder if it's too disjointed to really ever be worth reading. But the only people who currently read this know me well in any case, so perhaps that doesn't matter too much. It's not like I have a specific theme in mind every time I initiate conversation with people, and this is much the same.
I'm still adjusting to my newfound freedom from religion - every now and again I'll feel odd responding in certain ways to certain topics, because as a Christian I always felt that there were specific ways in which I was *expected* to respond, and now the freedom I have in expressing whatever actually pops into my mind is startling. I'm not used to such complete independence of thought. Even though my intellect never entirely abandoned me, and I always did give considerable thoughts to my position, it was never really from an initially objective stance, and I recognise now that if you explore a topic with a pre-formed religious stance, you can never really learn what you're supposed to. The way in which you process and interpret information is inescapably manipulated by your religious beliefs trying to defend themselves. You will find yourself subconsciously dismissing facts and perspectives which do not fit with your Christian or religious worldview, and very often you do all of this without even recognising it for what it is, it's such an insidious thing. I always felt I had to "defend" myself from opposing viewpoints, lest they actually convince me that my religious beliefs were unfounded, and now, it is so invigorating not to have to defend anything. I can just take on facts, statistics, viewpoints without prejudice or scorn, and just make what I will of them. I can believe, I can choose to accept or reject anything I want. I don't have to swallow anything unpalatable or disagreeable because some religious "leader" tells me it is a prerequisite element of the belief system I am supposed to belong to.
And man, was there a lot of that going on. I never could accept the writings of Paul, for example, on submission to be the word of God, or even right. I always thought he was full of shit, and now I can say it loud and proud! I am embracing the hairy-armpitted feminist hag within, hurrah!! And I love her, she's great, if a little bit new and scary. Feminism gets such a bad rap these days, but yanno what? It's just about fairness. As a rule, I love men. I love the broad shoulders, the forthrightness, their bemusement at the unfamiliar complexity of the female mind (this is all an example of a good man, naturally. Not all men are *good* men, I'm not naive about it) I know you can't generalise men as a category, any more than you can women, but honestly, I'm about as far from a misandrist as is humanly possible.
One of Newton's Laws of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. While this law was intended to apply to physics and the natural world, I think it can, in ways, apply to philosophy and psychology. I'm not sure if I am using those terms in the proper context, so forgive me if I am not. What I mean is that I am inclined to counteract years of indoctrination and being subliminally taught a kind of disregard for myself as a woman, and for women in general, by going to extremes of furthering gender and sexual equality. I was taught for so long that men were in some way superior, or had some kind of moral authority given by the Judeo-Christian deity, that upon finding this to be a lie I feel myself obliged to discover the truth of the matter. I need to find out where these ideas came from, what are their true origins - now that I have eliminated divine will as the cause... *rolleyes* And looking in from the outside, religious - and specifically Christian - culture fascinates me in a kind of grotesque way that can only be compared to a particularly horrible car crash. You know it will give you nightmares, but somehow you can't keep yourself from looking. There are, naturally, varying levels of extremism in every denomination and while I do not wish to tar all of those who call themselves Christians with the same brush, the general outlook on gender roles within organised religion repulses me.
Take, for example, the concept of Christian Domestic Discipline - CDD, as it is affectionately known by those who put it into practice. Basically, the concept of a husband having the authority to spank his wife for the "4 D's" - disobedience, disrespect, dishonesty, or dangerous behaviour. Supposedly "serious offences" in a marriage, I simply love the ambiguity of the terms "disobedience" and "disrespect" in particular. So, basically, anything the husband cares to take a dislike to, then? Nice. It doesn't matter that this essentially gives someone free licence to inflict physical harm on another human being in as arbitrary a manner as they see fit, though, because apparently God will hold them responsible if they misuse their power. Oh, that's OK then. I will give my husband free rein to hit me all he likes, because a non-specific deity - the existence of whom I cannot be certain - is going to be mad at him in a life after death - the existence of which I cannot be certain either - if he takes it too far - the parameters of which are not made clear. I feel much better now. He can hit me, as long as he's not mean about it. And as long as he still respects me as his spiritual equal, while I'm bent over his knee.
http://www.christiandomesticdiscipline.com/home.html
Have a look. You're in for a real treat. It makes my ovaries positively tingle with indignation, let me tell you. I also love how they misconstrue entirely the philosophy, aims, and objectives of modern feminism in order to portray us as godless, hairy-armpitted lesbians who want nothing more than to strip you of your beloved morality and eat your babies. Sensationalist propaganda, anyone? Over here, plz. Kthxbai.
While I can appreciate that this is a rather extreme viewpoint, and that it would make even the average Christian squirm a little bit with embarassment - if it doesn't make you squirm, for the record, I suggest you seek the assistance of a mental health professional - it still gets me to thinking of the Biblical respresentation of women as a whole. No matter what way you choose to look at it, no matter how many "cultural context"-based arguments you can pose, the Bible is not the kindest piece of literature with regards to women. Or, indeed, the most accurate. The mere fact that it takes a greater effort of will - in my view - to integrate an acceptance of the Bible as the word of god with a balanced outlook on gender (or indeed pretty much anything), than it does to integrate it with an acceptance of wife spanking, would cause me to question the legitimacy of using the Bible as a kind of moral benchmark at all. If you have to work harder in terms of manipulating terminology and context in order to make it sound halfway fair or palatable, than you do to make it sound like the ravings of a demented, cave-dwelling misogynist... it's probably not worth using to guage your everyday behaviour. Just my two cents.
