An encouraging development

The reverend of that church is on the CITY COUNCIL!

Well, there's another city I'll take off of my list of possible places to retire.

Homer Simpson once said "I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my homosexuals flaming".

And I say "I like my religions fundamentalist".

They might run into problems with state laws when they try this one:
Deuteronomy 13: If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. 9 You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people

Aieee! That's only two hours from me, and depending on the flavor of Baptist, probably in the same state association as the one I attend. It'll be fun to see how quickly this one gets swept under the rug. However, Baptist churches have a great deal of autonomy on issues like this, so it probably won't make waves anywhere.

When Susan B. Anthony was kicked out of the Baptist church for preaching for the right for women to vote (they literally locked the doors behind her) she marched a block over to the Unitarian (now UU) church and kept preaching there.

And of course it's typical that their 'biblical authority' for the 'no lady teachers' rule is legendary closet case Paul...

BTW, expect an asinine comment from Jason about broad brushes and 'Blue states'.

xtianity, islam, judaism, and almost any other major religion you can think of are misogynist. They were created of males, by males, and exclusively for males.

It is far past time that women quit all of them. It is for their own good.

It was revealing that one guy from the larger church said of this one, "they have a slightly different interpretation of the scriptures than we do."

That is exactly the point. Anyone can interpret these mythological texts in any manner they like. There is no way to say that one interpretation is more "true" than any other.

"The only really respectable Protestants are the Fundamentalists. Unfortunately, they are also palpable idiots." H.L. Mencken

O'Brien wrote....
"Hello McFly; Paul did not author the Pastorals. (And he was not a "closet case.")"

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning, but Paul in fact did supposedly author the text being used to support the church boards decision, 1st Timothy. 1st Tim 2:12 to be exact. Paul then supposedly gives his reasoning in 2:13 and its a doozy. Adam was first "formed", then Eve? Uh, yea, good one. Maybe I should try that one out when I get home tonight.

A cynical person might suppose that these no-girls-allowed clergymen are scared for their jobs.

If it weren't for the tradition against women in the clergy, clergymen would be the rarity. Most of the hours are flexible, there's frequently on-site daycare during the week, and the work is as genteel, or as hands-on as you want. Plus, the pay, like most traditional "women's work," isn't great (although there are often free--and untaxed--housing, housing allowances or mortgage loans as part of the package).

And what could these guys say when women apply for their jobs? "Hire me because I'm so much more competent"? No, they're pretty much stuck with "If you hire her, God will smite thee."

All that bible quoting was just a pretense to get her out of there. She was getting way too uppity. All uppityness must be nipped in the bud --so says another bible quote somewhere. I'm not sure why, but the pastor won't answer any of the comments over at his blog, so forget it. Don't even try that.

Hello McFly; Paul did not author the Pastorals. (And he was not a "closet case.")

You mean Paul was openly gay? Kinda don't think so.

And no, I'm not actually insulting Paul by saying that, tho I bet you think it's an insult.

bernarda got is exactly right. Religion was made by men for men and is comprised of men. Men put themselves on a pedastal and called it "god". Religion is misogyny.

I've always heard (from people in the church) that the reason women were so put down was as a way for the early church to distinguish themselves from all the pagan goddess worshipping cults in Greece and Rome. Yeah. Great reason to keep the rule going now, if so.

Making claims about the sexuality, one way or the other, of any of the early figures of Christianity is a waste of time given that we know so little about them, assuming of course some of them actually existed and weren't the ancient equivalent of what we'd now call a pen name.

Paul was not gay at all

Nice to hear you guys have proof now, since the evils of homosexuality seem to be the most important thing in modern American Christianity.

Why do people want to be members, and even work for, churches that clearly don't want them? I heard recently that a friend of mine I haven't seen in a while is having trouble becoming an Episcopalian minister because - you guessed it - he's gay. I understand wanting to be part of a family tradition or something like that, but at some point you have tell the idiots just which bridge they can go jump off of.

Why do people want to be members, and even work for, churches that clearly don't want them?

The example of the Log Cabin Republicans also comes to mind.

The author of Timothy claimed to be Paul.

Are you saying that some ofthe holy Scriptures are fraudulent? Blasphemy!

And Jesus H. Christ claimed he was coming back in the same generation.

And Jesus H. Christ claimed he was coming back in the same generation.

By any chance do you know what the 'H' stands for? Some people claim his middle initial was 'F'.

wait just a second...the admonition is against women teaching MEN...this woman was a sunday school teacher...so how many MEN (i.e., adult males) was she teaching? isn't sunday school something that only children are subjected to until they're old enough to attend the main preeaching/worship event (and not squirm in their seats as their brains are slowly turned into oatmeal by the weekly serving of religious dogma)?

raindogzilla:
Don't you think it is about time that you move out of your parents' basement in Ohio and get a life? Pleasuring yourself to your glossy of Sean all day long will get you nothing in life except chaffed hands.

('Chaffed'? I think you mean 'chafed'.)

Who on earth are you addressing?

A hint, it makes you look even more foolish when half the things you say are completely incomprehensible.

O'Brien retorted....

"The author of Timothy claimed to be Paul."

1st Tim 1:1-2 is pretty plain in that regard...

"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord."

If one cannot rely on the authenticity of 1st Tim, what part of the "cannon" can one rely on? Oh, that's right. Just those parts that you agree with, instead of the passages that are, shall we say, embarrassing or inconvenient. You're beginning to upset your little faith based house of cards there, O'Brien. Start discrediting part of the "cannon" and you have no idea where it will lead.

I think O'Brien's pissed that his suppressed personalities tend to pop out at such inconvenient times.

The example of the Log Cabin Republicans also comes to mind.

But at least they get to be disgustingly rich and marry their partners. What the hell does a female preacher get? Flexible work hours and a shitty salary?

When they kick out the women, there goes over half their membership

Unfortunately, no--women will still be kept around to bake the cookies, and staff the Sunday schools, and warm the pews, etc. The women who will indeed hive off will not necessarily be more enlightened than these dudes.

Men put themselves on a pedastal and called it "god". Religion is misogyny.

Granted, but "men create gods, and women worship them." If it weren't for the complicity of women, churches would have a much harder time. In fact, a lot of congregations are trying to attract men back to church; they attend far less than do women.

It is unlikely that you could bring up anything about the New Testament I do not already know.

That's what's called in the trade a 'nonanswer'.

""And Jesus H. Christ claimed he was coming back in the same generation."

It is unlikely that you could bring up anything about the New Testament I do not already know."

OK? Then address the question? Did he or did he not come back before the last of them died?

I think O'Brien's pissed that his suppressed personalities tend to pop out at such inconvenient times.

Nah, it's just O'Brien's Tourette's Syndrome acting up. He needs to go back on his meds.

George, get your head out of the cauldron before you intellectually asphyxiate.

Nonanswer #2.

The worst part of this whole affair is that the church board backed up the dismissal citing additional, undisclosed reasons. So it was not enough to deprive the women of a job she obvoiusly loved, but they had to go and smear her reputation with undisclosed allegations too. Shameful (but not surprising).

BTW, expect some assinine (that's not a typo) comment from George about what I supposedly think.

Oh, too late.

(Too bad he's got his head so far up that he doesn't have a clue about what I think about this or anything else. He's too obsessed with asking me questions I've already answered.)

Hey Jinxy, you're back!

Now, you see the thing is, you always refuse to answer my questions, and you didnt tell me where we can find the answer, so you can save all of us a lot of trouble by answering it right now. Should be no prob for you, since you're so eager to hold forth about your religious beliefs and all. Here it is:

a) Do you believe, word for word, in the literal accuracy of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments?"

Yes or no.

And what the hey, for good measure:

b) how old do you believe the Earth is?

C'mon Jinx, don't let us down!

New or old earth creationist Jason?

I don't presume to know because I've never seen you answer the question.

"Granted, but "men create gods, and women worship them." If it weren't for the complicity of women, churches would have a much harder time."

Agreed. All the more reason for women to abandon the houses of phallus worship, imo.

I know my own opinions on the subject, but - why do women attend more than men when their religions treat them as worth their weight in housework?

"I accept the scholarship to the effect that the Pastorals are pseudepigrapha; don't make more of an ass out of yourself by assuming you know my worldview."

I assume nothing. I merely comment upon what you have written. If I am wrong, then please point out specifically those thoughts of mine that are off the mark. As for making an ass of myself, from your responses on this thread, you are way ahead of me in that account. Just read your response above.

So, you agree with the text, just not the traditionally attributed author. In other words, some unknown author penned 1st Tim and then lied about who wrote it? That's OK in modern fiction, but not supposedly inspired works of gawd. Why add additional "authority" to the scripture? Cannot its own supernatural inspiration stand on its own?

Oh, you didn't answer the question above. Did he or did he not come back before the last of them died? Come on, O'Brian. Please regale us with your vast knowledge of the New Testament.

"By any chance do you know what the 'H' stands for?"

"Haploid"

You people infuriate me with your science and your facts. Why can you not just accept my pithy remarks as Gospel and incorporate them into your lives accordingly?

RO's in good company, I'm told Howard Ahmanson has Tourette's, too. :-)

Your impersonator makes better reading than you do, lame troll. Nobody cares about your persecution complex.

It's interesting that O Brien does not accept the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles. Indeed, Biblical scholarship agrees with him, but the Catholic Church, and presumably those churches that preach inerrancy, disagree.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14727b.htm

The same scholarship, of course, disputes the apostolic authorship of the Gospels.

"Preterists seem to think so but I disagree."

So are you a Classical Preterist? Apparently you're not a Consistant Preterist. Perhaps you no Preterist at all? Since the man stated quite plainly that he would be right back, the Consistants would seem to be on the most solid logical footing. However, if he did come back during the first century CE it must have been somewhat boring since apparently no one thought enough of the event to write it down. Or he lied or was confused or someone lied for him. Maybe he's not coming back. Which do you believe and why?

"In what respect?"

Is it the inspired word of gawd or not? If not, why? If part of it is, why not the rest?

I for one am ready for someone how to tell me once again how to killfile RO. His disruption of threads and lack of any substance offered simply takes to much valuable time to read.

He seems to have quite a few issues that I frankly am not inclined to read about anymore. I mean in this thread alone he has called people bitches, asses, losers, and of course trumpted his 'knowledge' of the New Testament.

Enough is enough.

You people infuriate me with your science and your facts. Why can you not just accept my pithy remarks as Gospel and incorporate them into your lives accordingly?

This must be an impersonator. O'Brien has never ejaculated this much at once.

For anyone who hung arond on t.o. back in the day, don't you find R O'B's abusive manner and obsession with the doings of his "enemies" quite reminiscent of Peter Nyikos (the real one, that is)?

Robert:

So what parts, if any, of the NT are inspired, and how does one tell?

How to kill a troll.

GH--you can find Daniel Martin's greasemonkey script here.

"There are some worthy ideas in Timothy but if God had inspired it (as a whole) it would not contain slavery-enabling passages."

Is it a prerequisite that inspired scripture meet your test of worthiness? Yes, I may be leading again, but thats how I interpreted your response. I'd really like to know how one tells the difference. After all, what is worthy to me may not be worthy to you and visa versa.

When my daughter was little, I went to church just in case the whole faith thing stuck with her (after all, studies are often cited that religious people are happier). Sunday School services were so appalling that I asked the minister this: "You know I'm an atheist, but could I please lead the singing?" I led Sunday school singing for 2 years, until I realized that no one else was following my lead by making those 15 minutes meaningful and fun, and I gave up. My daughter apparently inherited the atheist gene, so we eventually stopped going.

When I had sons, I briefly tried to take them to Sunday School, but it was a struggle because they didn't want to go. Finally it occurred to me that it would be insane for me to take them to a church where they would be trained to believe in the superiority of men (only men can be ministers and elders, but women do all the work). The overt prejudice against other groups isn't too extreme at the church I was raised in--after all, they even let an atheist lead the Sunday school singing--but sexism will never disappear from the structure of that church.

It was the sexism of the catholic church that first started making me uncomfortable with religion. And when I started taking more science classes in college, none of the god stuff made sense anymore. GOD, what a relief to discover you're an atheist after all those years! Shocking, but so very free. I suppose I should thank the catholic church for getting that ball rolling with their Good Ol' Boys Club.

It is unlikely that you could bring up anything about the New Testament I do not already know.
Why is it that whenever I see someone saying stuff like this I think of Star Trek geeks? For years now I have been convinced that if we didn't live in a global society in a few generations we would have the Book of Kirk, the Book of Sisko, the Book of Janeway, and the Book of Archer. They would be filled with the same internal and external inconsistencies that followers need to rationalize (often angrily), just look at some of the discussions on the Trek boards on usenet.

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cngrts.

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wt... s smbdy mprsntng brn? t's jst s hrd t tll.

Ah, fundamentalism shows it's true face yet again.

Wonder what they would've thought of the female pastor at the church I went to as a kid? She was one of the most genuinely spiritual people I've met, too - probably 10x times the Christian (in the loving, compassionate, etc. sense) "Rev. LaBouf" is.

This thread has turned into Looney Tunes

I've always heard (from people in the church) that the reason women were so put down was as a way for the early church to distinguish themselves from all the pagan goddess worshipping cults in Greece and Rome. Yeah. Great reason to keep the rule going now, if so.

Those pagans may have worshipped the occassional goddess, but they weren't any more woman-friendly than the early Xians. In fact the early Church (before it became an imperial cult) was amazingly equalitarian for the time... it was the Romanization (paganization) of the Church that shut women out.

I can see that argument about OT Judaism, but that doesn't involve Greece and Rome.

George Cauldron replied:

And Jesus H. Christ claimed he was coming back in the same generation.

By any chance do you know what the 'H' stands for? Some people claim his middle initial was 'F'.

Jesus's middle name was the same as His Father's first name, Harold, as in, Our Father, Harold be thy name... :)

On Jesus H. Christ: I've long thought the 'H' stood for 'Haploid'.

George Cauldron: "Haploid". We've been through this on the blog previously.

So his middle initial wasn't 'F', then?

Now now theres plenty of misogyny in thing atributed to paul to go around timothy or no timothy. Like good old Corinthians,
"But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God." ..."any woman who prays or prophesies" should keep her head covered, whereas a man should never cover his head, "since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. (For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.)"

It takes some serious mental contortionism to get anything egalitarian out of that...though catholics are the reigning champs of twisting things through metaphysical semantics with a good deal of semantic axle grease. and the best part is theres more!

Of course Paul was a misogynist, the whole damn book is misogynist. The first man giving symbolic "birth" to a woman? the 600 some commandments half of which involve stoning women for this and that? Telling an angry mob to rape your own daughter instead of some guys who just showed up at your house? The writing out of any female deities(which people did worship concurrently with big daddy)? I doubt its coincidence either that the social staus of women fell as the one male deity began superceeding the all the others in the palastine 2800 years ago or so. All of that is based on an ancient set of social customs wherein people took a collective dump on womens rights, at least that wasn't true everywhere in the ancient world.

The Watertown church is NOT a fundamentalist church. It is a member of the American Baptist Convention, the same church that Martin Luther King belonged to. The pastor's interpretation of the quote from Paul is a conservative interpretation, but that does not make him a fundamentalist.

It takes some serious mental contortionism to get anything egalitarian out of that...

At the time of the early Church, Paul wasn't that important. Remember, there was no such thing as a "canon" then. Quite a few things were floating around that didn't make it into the canon (Gospel of Mary, for instance), and a lot of stuff that made it into canon was obscure or unknown to most Xians. Many of the sponsors of Xianity at the time were women, and in many places women acted as priests and bishops. The Romans considered Xianity a religion "for women and slaves".

A good history of the early Church can be found in Elaine Pagels "Adam, Eve and the Serpent".

George Cauldron: Actually, I have heard a syncretic version - "Jesus H. F[censored]ing Christ", too.