The following facts are not ones in which your husband, your fundamentalist pastor, nor your literalist Church will rejoice in. In fact, they may ask you to quietly leave if you are going to believe this rather than the inspired, inerrant and historically accurate “word of God.”
“The primordial plan for both female and male fetuses in mammals is initially feminine.
Contrary to some creation myths, in mammals, maleness arises from femaleness, not the other way round.
Masculinisation results from organisational effects of fetal testosterone (and its derivatives), which in humans occurs during the second trimester of pregnancy.
To be masculinised means that certain areas of the brain grow larger, while others remain smaller.
These differences to some extend explain sexual behaviours and preferences even in humans”
Dr. Alexander Thiele University of Newcastle upon Tyne Lecture 7: Social emotions –‘the sexual brain’
In reality it seems that FEMALE is the default position as human beings develope in the womb. Maleness comes after with the proper wash of hormones applied at just the right time and in just the right amounts. The implications for literalists are staggering and for women, liberating!
In some cultures, young men are taught to pray “Blessed Art Thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman.” Mohammed is said to have stated, “When Eve was created, Satan rejoiced.” Much if all of the orignal creation mythology’s sole purpose is to depose any notion of “goddess” worship, which was an absolute fascination that women had the power to give birth and bring forth life etc, and replace it with a male patriarchy. The Genesis story is not so much how life came to be or that we all came from two humans, named Adam and Eve, as it is to send the message that women, who are the fault of everything, are to have babies painfully now and say “yes Lord” to their husbands. From the totally mythological tale of the fall of man by the disobedience of woman, much misery and ridicuoulously false roles have been demanded of them by men and in particular the Christian church.
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. FOR (the reason being) Adam was first formed and then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression.” I Tim. 2:11-14
So according to Paul, the literal truth of Eve’s sin produces the literal idea that women are more easily deceived than men and prone to sin, and thus should be silent in church. Or as St. John Chrysostom, a fifth century church father noted, “The woman taught once and ruined everything. On this account…let her not teach.” It seems wrong ideas of how things really came to be have very big consequences over a very long time!
Paul goes on to say…”The head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God….for as much as he is in the image and glory of God, BUT ( as in , don’t get the same idea about women) the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is NOT of the woman, but the woman IS OF the man.” I COr. 11:3,7,9.
Very simply put, Paul said that men are over women, Christ alone is over men and God alone is over Christ. So it’s God > Christ > Man > Woman > pets and small animals. It is notable that it is here that Paul makes it plain, based on the creation of woman out of man mythology, that Men don’t come from women at all and that women owe their physical existence to men too. I guess Paul and Dr. Alexander Thiele never actually met to discuss just how do males form in the womb. Like it or not guys, we come from out mom’s literally and from the default fetal template of the female in time after we get our hormones in the womb. So men actually do come twice from females. Doh…someone tell the Church!
St Clement, father of the Roman CHurch denied women the right to even exercise as men. He felt rather it was more in keeping with scripture that they be confined to spinning, weaving and cooking. Of course he could barely bring himself to add “and se..se…sex, unless it was out of the need to bring children into the fold.
St. Augustine, not the most balanced Church Father of the lot proclaimed that man only was made in God’s image and not woman. But that’s what Paul said too. He went on to note that men were quite complete without a woman, but that women could only be complete with a man. Man alone was self contained and complete alone. Once again, time has shown how untrue this all is, but the concept is still used by many churches and pastors to keep women in “their place” and fulfilling their “role”.
Other theologians and Church Father’s went on to note that men were the spiritual aspect of God, while women were merely a symbol of the flesh and thus she is the temptress and weakener of men who fail to see what the Church points out.
In the 16th Century, Clifford Alderman notes in a his book, A Caldron of Witches, that an early Church report noted that “Woman is more carnal than man: there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed with a BENT RIB. She is imperfect and always deceives.” Now there is some hot scientific reasoning for you! Of course no one notes that if women are deceptive because of being made out of a bent rib, what is a man that he was made out of red dirt? Maybe that’s why men are so dirty minded..:)
Modern Christianity is still designed and used to annihilate the spirt of women. It’s is still here to keep patriarchy in place and to defeat the matriarcy of former times. Women were mystical in those cultures as opposed to utilitarian in that of a patriarchy or man led society and religion. I believe I would much rather to have lived in a society where women were held high for their spirituality and creative abilities. As it is, we live in the age, not of Aquarius but of testosterone, where men rule badly, kill often and take the spoils from those who cannot oppose them. I like Rodney King’s “Can’t we all just get along” far more than those who bluster “Bring em on.” But alas, tis not that way in our real world at this point.
You have to love this observation by the great philosopher Rousseau.
“As the conduct of a woman is subservient to the public opinion, her faith in matters of religion should , for that reason, be subject to authority. Every daughther ought to be of the same religion as her mother, and every wife to be the same religion as her husband; for though such religion should be false, that docility which induces the mother and daughter to submit to the order of nature, takes away, in the sight of God, the criminality of their error…they are not in a capacity to judge for themselves, they ought to abide by the decision of their fathers and husbands as confidently as that of the Church.” Or as Paul would say, “if any woman has a question, let her ask her husband…”
So when does the church grow up and face the facts of science, and not base silly and demeaning demands upon women on mythology and error? When does a church finally admit to errors in teachings that hurt people? Never from what I can see. Let’s remember, the Church took 350 years to apologize for almost burning Galileo at the stake for informing them that the earth was not the center of the solar system with the sun revolving around it or around the Church for that matter. Yet that’s about the right amount of time for Churches to come to their senses and stop demanding of people things based in falicies. At what point does ignorance stop oppression and pain?
Only a relative few Christian women will have the confidence to step out of the box of fundamentalist Church control. They will suffer at the hands of ministers who quote Paul who frankly was misinformed as to how things really are in biology, endochrinology and genetics. Literal control over a woman by using allegorical or just plain wrong “facts” is wrong. It hurts the spirit and demeans the woman in a world where we better soon wake up to the fact that we all are one and the same.
So sorry guys…without a woman, you would not exist, and without a good sprinkling of hormones at just the right time after your conception, the female default position you started out as would keep you there or perhaps acting in ways that the Bible also goes on to condemn you for, sometimes with death.
Whether your pastor, church, tribe or friends like it, good science, truthfully so called, trumps sincere but ignorant Apostles, Priests, Popes and Kings. Dr. Thiele is correct.
“Contrary to some creation myths, in mammals, maleness arises from femaleness, not the other way round.”
How cool is that!