*sigh* You keep completely missing the point of what I'm saying. For one thing, I don't doubt you have good reasons to have a chip on your shoulder, but good reasons or not, it's skewing your judgment. You were amazingly quick to jump on something that was already explicitly explained as not sexist and insist it was sexist too. Your experiences are valid, I'm not arguing that, but I simply have never seen the world-wide all-of-Christianity sexism you insist exists, and I think your experiences are making you see what may not be anywhere near as common as you think it is.
Secondly, I didn't say the "man" thing was from the Bible. I said it was archaic. It's from the dictionary. "a member of the species Homo sapiens or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex: prehistoric man." It's used by all kinds of people including scientists! It's archaic, but it's not used in that sense because of the Bible. However if you use it in that sense, then the Bible is much less the negative, sexist document you see it as. I can read "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom" and know it's talking about me, where if I take your view, I guess women aren't allowed to be happy in wisdom, or something.
And honestly, have you never read Ruth? Or Esther? Two entire books of the Bible that are centered on women as the heroes and stars of the story! Mary is not the only good woman in the Bible. For every Whore of Babylon there's a Rachel, who Jacob loved so much he worked for her father 14 years so he could marry her, or a Sarah who God blessed to be the mother of nations, or a Rebekah who was shown to be kind-hearted and generous to all. The Bible is full of good stories about women! Have you read the Bible? Were you so busy being angry about how sexist it was that you missed these stories? You seem aware of the restrictive laws of Leviticus that Christ said were done away with anyhow, but you seem to be missing entire books! And the New Testament has more of the same, in addition to Mary, did you know about Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who was a disciple of Christ? Or Mary Magdalene, who was the first person to see Christ resurrected? I could list more, this is not by any means a complete recitation of the positive depictions of women in the Bible!
There's probably not much point in my going on further, because I think your world view and mine are too wildly different to come to an agreement about this, but I really think you might want to reconsider some of your prejudices. Certainly not all Christians are sexist, and I maintain that most are not, and you've had the misfortune of knowing some people who are not at all typical of Christianity as a whole.
no subject
Secondly, I didn't say the "man" thing was from the Bible. I said it was archaic. It's from the dictionary. "a member of the species Homo sapiens or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex: prehistoric man." It's used by all kinds of people including scientists! It's archaic, but it's not used in that sense because of the Bible. However if you use it in that sense, then the Bible is much less the negative, sexist document you see it as. I can read "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom" and know it's talking about me, where if I take your view, I guess women aren't allowed to be happy in wisdom, or something.
And honestly, have you never read Ruth? Or Esther? Two entire books of the Bible that are centered on women as the heroes and stars of the story! Mary is not the only good woman in the Bible. For every Whore of Babylon there's a Rachel, who Jacob loved so much he worked for her father 14 years so he could marry her, or a Sarah who God blessed to be the mother of nations, or a Rebekah who was shown to be kind-hearted and generous to all. The Bible is full of good stories about women! Have you read the Bible? Were you so busy being angry about how sexist it was that you missed these stories? You seem aware of the restrictive laws of Leviticus that Christ said were done away with anyhow, but you seem to be missing entire books! And the New Testament has more of the same, in addition to Mary, did you know about Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who was a disciple of Christ? Or Mary Magdalene, who was the first person to see Christ resurrected? I could list more, this is not by any means a complete recitation of the positive depictions of women in the Bible!
There's probably not much point in my going on further, because I think your world view and mine are too wildly different to come to an agreement about this, but I really think you might want to reconsider some of your prejudices. Certainly not all Christians are sexist, and I maintain that most are not, and you've had the misfortune of knowing some people who are not at all typical of Christianity as a whole.