On Courtenay Werleman's blog, he posted 10 "proofs" that God hates women. In this blog I have posted his original ten "proofs" with a brief response to each. Much more can be said to each but the point of this blog is to show a prime example of a person who blames Christians for using faulty history, believing myths, blindly ignoring evidence, and being irrational HIMSELF doing those very things. This is not a POSTIVE argument for the Bible (as Jerome said that he would "sooner defend a lion" than defend the teachings of the Bible) but rather is to show that the atheistic arguments often are simply blind to what is actually written in the text, unconcerned with the historical/literary contexts, and blinded by their own worldview.
1. The villian in the story of Garden of Eden is Eve, for seducing Adam into taking a bite. Eve’s punishment is she will now experience the excrutiating pain of childbirth, and Adam, well he now has to shave everyday.
1. Have you actually READ the accounts? The women have pain in childbearing and an uneven longing for her husband. Where in the world did you get that man has to shave only? The curse is that the man will have to toil EVERY day of his life to bring food from the ground and will fight with thorns and thistles. The funny thing is that it is the WOMAN who receives the promise of Redemption (that it is HER seed that will crush the head of the serpent, and no don’t read that uber-literally) but the man gets the official pronouncement of DEATH. Ha, if anything, Adam has it WAY worse than Eve as far as the curses go. And who is blamed throughout the entire Bible for plunging the entire human race into sin? Adam! Eve is almost NEVER blamed save one or two ambiguous references, while Adam is seen as the head of fallen humanity. So your first point…. pointless.
2. Women are not included as citizens under Mosaic Law. They are not considered in any Census, nor does their genealogy count for anything.
2. Census’ did not include children either. The purpose of census was to find the number of HOUSEHOLDS within a clan, not to find the number of citizens. They were done in order to determine land distribution, not citizenship recognition. Women had all the equal rights under the law and underwent a covenant ritual parallel to circumcision. Since women don’t have penises they could not be circumcised (the symbol of the covenant) so they underwent purification to be citizens. And how can you say that their geneaology doesn’t count? Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew is the lineage of Mary and includes Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, Ruth, and Mary! So your second point… pointless.
3. The law of adultery applies only to women, punishment by death. A man may have 700 wives as in the case of King Solomon, but if a man discovers his wife has slept with another she is to have her brains smashed on the pavement.
3. Both sexes were to be punished by death. See Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:24. As for the kings having multiple wives, you mistake an event being recorded in the Bible with events that are condoned by the Bible. There is a VERY big difference. We see in Deuteronomy 17:17 that Israelite kings were FORBIDDEN to marry more than wife. The Bible records them doing so as a fact of history, not a moral imperative. Your third point… pointless.
4. God thinks so lowly of women that in the hierarchy of man’s livestock, she is positioned beneath a goat. For if a man has sex with a goat, he is to be executed. Whereas if a man rapes a woman he only has to pay 50 sheckles to the victim’s father.
4. Sorry, read Deuteronomy 22:22-26. The man who rapes a woman is to be killed. Your 4th point… pointless.
5. What compensation does the female rape victim receive for such man forced violation? Well God says she must marry her assailant. Nice!
5. The word for rape in Hebrew is (transliterated in English) ‘chazak’ and means forced upon. The word in the passage you are referring to is ‘tapas’ (no, not Spanish finger food) and it means to grab or to hold. Rape is shown to be a capital crime just a couple verses before and explicitly calls it ‘chazak’ (rape) and that the offending party is to be killed, then it would not make sense just two verses later to say that the offender isn’t killed. The word ‘tapas’ is used in CONTRAST to ‘chazak’ and the idea is if a man sleeps with a woman (consensual), as long as she is not pledged to be married (which would be adultery and punished by death) then they are to be married and he is to pay the father the dowry plus extra for the offense. So sorry, this isn’t a law making a rape victim marry his attacker since the law regarding rape has already been established previously. Your fifth point… pointless.
6. If a man discovers his wife is not a virgin on their wedding night, the groom is to drag her to her father’s doorstep and murder her there. But a man can have more notches on his bedpost than Hugh Hefner.
6. If all the above laws hold, both the husband and the wife SHOULD both be virgins. Because if EITHER has had sex previously it was with either a person not pledged to be married, in which case the law says that they MUST be married, or a person pledged to be married/already married in which case they should be killed. So in any of those cases, a capital crime has been committed. And you are flat wrong because the men are not to be Hugh Hefner either. (If they aren’t virgins they either slept with someone who wasn’t pledged and should have paid the dowry to the father and married them, or it was with a pledged/married woman in which case they are to be stoned). Sorry, your sixth point… pointless.
7. Paul says that women are not only forbidden form holding any position of authority in the Church, but it is disgraceful to allow a woman to speak inside it’s four walls
7. The women are not forbidden from holding any authority, but only the office of Elder. Women in Corinth were not allowed to speak in public because (and if you read this IN CONTEXT of Paul talking about orderly worship settings) in Corinth the women were known for speaking out and gossiping in the middle of the service. It would be like if you went to a catholic mass and someone was talking loud on their cell phones. It has to do with a specific kind of disruption that was taking place. This is a good example of actually doing research would help you instead of reading the Bible anachronistically. Your seventh point…. Pointless.
8. Women are excluded from entering Heaven. John in the Book of Revelation reveals that only 144,000 souls may enter the Kingdom, this number equal to the 12,000 men of each of the 12 tribes of Israel.
8. A great example of you out fundamentalisting the fundamentalists by reading the Bible MORE literally than they do. Even fundamentalists realize that Revelation is apocalyptic literature and should not be read like a news paper or a court brief but uses literary devices. You really think John mean 12000 EXACTLY? Scholars note that most ancient cultures used numbers symbolically more than mathematically in literature. And that 12 was a number of completion and 1000 was like saying “more than we can count.” So 12000 from each tribe is A LOT and is EVERYBODY involved (completion)! In fact, this is clear when John “HEARS” the number of each tribe but then when he LOOKS to see the people that were JUST numbered, it is a great multitude that cannot be counted. But the two groups (the 144000) and the countless multitude are the same group. Welcome to literary symbolism and numerics. Ha, 144000 cant include women. Wow, if this is what you have, youre stretching it. Kinda like a UFO conspiracist. Lol Your eighth point… pointless.
9. If men are sold into slavery, they are to be freed after serving six years. A woman is never freed.
9. This is based on Ex. 21:1-11, and it clearly refers to women in a marriage relationship. The man has paid a dowry and if she is “displeasing in the eyes of the master who has DESIGNATED her for himself, then he shall let her be REDEEMED.” Then later, “If he designates her for his son…” that is, if the dowry was so she would be his son’s wife, “he shall deal with her according to the custom of DAUGHTERS” not SLAVES. Sorry, but this is actually a safety measure for daughters who are married. She some men who wanted to divorce, rather than send her back to the family (and not get their dowry back) would try to get their money back by selling the girl into slavery. This is to PROTECT women by not allowing that to happen by making the man allow the family to REDEEM her, that is, repay the dowry. Wow, simply commentary work would solve all of this for you. Your ninth point… pointless.
10. In God’s eyes it is better to offer your daughters to be gang-raped than to surrender two male guests that you had only met five minutes earlier. (Lot; the story of a Levite man in Judges)
10. Sorry, wrong again. In most cultures it adultery was ALWAYS taboo. There is no ancient culture near Israel that allowed for adultery. IT was ALWAYS a capital crime. Homosexuality was not the same. Many cultures allowed for the practice. So when the entire city of Sodom came out to gang rape the two ANGELS (not just men) Lot offers up his two daughters and describes them as his daughters “who were pledged to be married.” Why? Because the Sodomites would recognize that adultery was unacceptable and would be distracted from their original intent. In fact the Sodomites recognize the ploy and don’t fall for it because they don’t accept his offer (because they recognize that they would be sinning if they did, which was Lot’s intention) but rather than dispersing, they got MORE mad and violent.
And as for Judges, the entire book of Judges is written to show that Israel had become just as wicked, if not MORE so, than all the neighboring people (hence the main theme, “and everyone did what was right in their own eyes” said throughout the entire book). So the incident with the Levite and his CONCUBINE (didn’t you find it strange that a priest would have a concubine) was to illustrate that even the priests, the ones who were supposed to be the MOST pure and minister before God at the tabernacle, was just as wicked as the Sodomites! And the Benjaminites, who raped his concubine, had become MORE wicked than the Sodomites! Did you not notice that the Levite, when finding his concubine, just dispassionately steps over her, throws her on his mule like a sack of potatoes then CUTS her up and sends a piece of her to the different tribes to incite civil war!? You moral repugnation at his actions are what you are SUPPOSED to feel! That WHY the story is told! Israel had become wicked and needed a JUDGE (hences the book of Judges), someone to DELIVER them and lead them back to faithfulness to God.
It is clear that you are entirely unable to differentiate between and indicative (what happened) with an imperative (what we should do). Most of the Bible is indicative, simply telling the story of what happened and often the implied imperative isn’t “be like David,” but “DON’T be like David when he did this!” Just because the Bible records an event does not mean that God condones the action. Sorry man, but your tenth point… pointless.
Your final score – 0/10.
This is where ACTUAL research would help.
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