If you want even more proof that the denizens of A Voice for Men live in Imaginary Backwards Land, let me draw your attention to a recent posting from FeMRA TyphonBlue and JohnTheOther. The post’s bland title, Men, and patriarchy in the church, belies the loopiness of this particular bit of theological argument, the aim of which is to prove that Christianity is and always has been about hating dudes.
Oh, sure, TB and JTO note, it might look like Christianity in its various forms has been a tad dude-centric. I mean, it’s based on the teachings of a dude. And there’s that whole “God the Father” thing. Oh, and Christian religious institutions have been almost always headed up by dudes. There has yet to be a Popette.
But apparently to assume that the people running something actually run that something is to indulge in what MRAs like to call “the frontman fallacy,” by which they mean that even though it looks like men run most things in the world it’s really the sneaky ladies who call the shots, somehow. TB/JTO, citing the aforementioned faux “fallacy,” ask:
Because Christianity has a male priesthood, is headed by a man and uses masculine language to refer to the God and humanity’s savior, does it necessarily follow that Christianity is male favoring?
Bravely, the two decide not to go with the correct answer here, which is of course “yes.” Instead, they say no. And why is this? Because Jesus didn’t go around boning the ladies.
Seriously. That’s their main argument:
[Christ] had no sexual life. This absence leaves no spiritual connection between the masculine body and the divine.
The Christ is sexless; presumptively masculine, but never actually engaging in any activity unique to his masculine body. …
The implicit stricture of making the female body the vessel of Holy Spirit while offering no corresponding connection between the divine and the male body creates a spiritual caste system with women on top and men on the bottom.
Also: Joseph didn’t bone Mary, at least not before she gave birth to Jesus.
The birth of Christ is without sin because, quite simply, it did not involve a penis. The entire mythology around the birth of Christ implicitly indicts male sexuality as the vector of original sin from generation to generation.
Uh, I sort of thought that the notion of Original Sin had something or other to do with Eve and an apple in the Garden of Eden. But apparently not:
Forget Eve. Forget the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the Serpent. If all human women, tomorrow, conceived and gestated and gave birth without ever coming into contact with a penis, our race would be purged of original sin.
Pretty impressive theological revisionism from a couple of blabby video bloggers who apparently don’t know how to spell “canon.” (ProTip: “Cannon” refers to one of those tubey metal things you shoot “cannonballs” from.)
The two conclude:
Our culture’s war against masculine identity, male sexuality and fatherhood is an old one. That war arguably began as we adopted a faith which marginalizes the role of men in procreation, idolizing a story that removes them completely from the process. The exemplar of male virtue in this theology is a man who had no natural sexual expression, although his character is designated as male. And his primary purpose was to be flogged, literally tortured for the “crimes” of others, and then bound and nailed through his limbs, still alive to an erected cruciform scaffold, to die from shock and exposure on a hilltop. And we somehow manage to claim that this religion elevates men over women?
Well, yeah.
Rather than supremacy, Christianity provides to men the role of asexual stewards of women’s benefit, and sacrificial penitent, preaching the gospel of a female-deifying, male-demonizing faith. It is true that women have not historically been allowed to front this farce, but mostly because that would make the message too obvious.
What?
While some kinds of Christianity get rather worked up about the evils of premarital sex and/or birth control, I’m pretty sure married and/or procreative sex is a-ok with all Christians this side of the mother in the movie Carrie. Even — well, especially — if it involves dudes. (I’m pretty sure the church fathers were never big proponents of lesbianism.)
And if women really run the show, despite men “fronting” the church, could you perhaps spell out just who these all-powerful women are? Like, some names perhaps? Who’s the lady puppeteer behind the pope?
They of course don’t offer any real-world evidence for this secret supposed matriarchy. Instead, they ramp up for a sarcastic ending:
But we continue to ignore all of this, and we entertain the farce that our religious institutions constitute a male-elevating, female oppressing patriarchy.
Yeah, tell us another one.
No point in telling you guys anything any more. Clearly you can twist any and all facts about the world to fit your increasingly weird and baroque fictions about men always being the most oppressed, past, present and future.
A Voice for Men is slowly but surely disappearing up its own ass.
I never had anything that dramatic. Just a nagging sense that if I could see the flaws, they must be obvious to everyone. What wasn’t obvious was why we were all pretending to go along with it. I don’t remember ever asking, I just knew it wasn’t to be talked about. I was already a nervous, high-strung child, prone to worrying about things, so it was a constant source of low-grade stress even before I knew that was a thing.
Well yeah Rubes, you are free to keep on commenting here so long as David allows it. (You’d do well to not to take that for granted, fyi.) Just as the community at large is free to call out your “My misogyny and rape apologia is just a different kind of feminism!” routine for the hateful, ignorant bullshit that it is.
Welcome to the ranks of the trolls, Ruby. Good luck pretending you’re better than them.
see, i think you really do believe this, and good for you. the the thing is you dont seem to care about thinking about how or doing anything to make it happen. you want all the plaudits with none of the responsible, and that’s something that deserves to be mocked. that may make you technically a feminist, but only in the weakest, most worthless sense of the word.
you can post here all you want, i guess, although for the record i support banning you because even when you’re not saying awful shit, you just post lazy one liners that contribute nothing to the conversation. what you can’t do is demand that we accept you or that we cant tell you when we think your being nasty and hateful. we get to have opinions too, you know.
so i guess if youre gonna stick around and pull your lame ‘misunderstood martyr’ shtick, whatever. i think it’s exceptionally childish, but then again i already thought you were exceptionally childish. the main thing is i dont understand why you dont go somewhere youd fit in better. besides give you a chance to play victim, i’m not sure what this is doing for you.
WHY ARE YOU SO CLOSED MINDED, WHY CAN’T YOU JUST CONSIDER THAT NOSTRADAMUS WAS A SECRET KENYAN MUSLIM WHO BUILT THE PYRAMIDS FROM DIRECTIONS IN THE BIBLE CODE???
When I tried to follow the Bible code I messed up my cubit and span conversions 🙁
Uh, it’s people like Jerry Sandusky whom I don’t give a flying fuck get raped in prison. Oh, but you guys have sympathy for a child rapist? OK, whatever. If he spends the rest of his life in prison, and gets raped, it still doesn’t come close to the pain he caused others.
This post is a laff riot. More anti-MRA propaganda from Davey.
Here are some actual facts: Of course Christianity isn’t entirely misandrist- but then that’s no what Ms. Blue and Mr. Other are saying. What is does have is elements of misandry (as they have pointed out)- and yes, elements of misogyny as well. HOWEVER, in our pseudo-matriarchal culture today, it is these misandrist elements of Christianity that are focused upon and blown up, and the misogynist elements that are minimized. Religion has to pass through the prism of a given culture, and while objectively Scripture may not be especially misandrist, when applied to our present culture, in practice is is deeply anti-male. Let’s try reading a little more critically, Davey.
Yeah Ruby we know, you think that would be hilarious if Jerry Sandusky was raped. Just like you think Bernie Madoff being raped would be hilarious. Because you’re a disgusting person who thinks rape is funny.
*bangs head against wall* Do y’all think I could manage to make myself as stupid as that comment from Ruby?
Ruby, you’re from/in the US right? Please review the 8th amendment (and the 6th while you’re at it) — we don’t think anyone should be raped, full stop. Justice is not about causing “close to the pain he caused others”, that would be called “revenge”, not “justice”.
What makes you so special you should get to decide which punishments fit which crimes anyways?
yeah, ruby, you’ve said the same thing a million different ways now. we get it, and we still think its disgusting and hateful. repeating yourself isnt helping.
i have sympathy for all rape victims. as fars i know, jerry sandusky is not a rape victim, so no. if he is raped, yes, i’ll have sympathy for him, because nobody deserves to be raped.
but this is pretty rich coming from the woman whos constantly screaming and stomping her feet about strawmanning. does it only count when its done to you, or are you actually too dense to realize what you were doing?
Ruby, “rape is okay as long as it happens to the right people” is exactly what rapists think.
You aren’t setting yourself apart here.
So? I don’t know this guy and will take your word that he’s a despicable human but:
– you’re still supporting a rapist. His rapist maybe, but a rapist.
– raping him won’t bring anything to his victims and their loved one, and it will certainly not bring any kind of justice.
– when you’re laughing at a “dropped the soap” joke, it’s mostly about people way less horrible than him.
– you’re laughing at a rape, you horrible person!
No matter how many time you repeat the same heartless thing, you won’t convince anybody that rape is funny under certain circumstances. And the fact that you are so sure that people in prison and your family are basically from different race (evil people! good people!) certainly doesn’t help.
Fucking hell, banging my head against a wall is more productive than dealing with Ruby.
Ruby, you’re horrid.
Did someone imply Ruby is heatless? Yeah, that looks about right.
@kyrie
this isn’t strictly true. i’m sure stormfront or the spearhead would be totally willing to have a serious discussion about which rapes are and arent something to laugh about. but associating ruby with people who agree with her is strawmanning and totes not fair because I AM SO A FEMINIST AND YOU CANT FORCE ME TO UNDERSTAND WHAT WORDS MEAN
Since when does “justified”=”funny”, anyway? I think it’s justified that vandals should have to do community service, but I don’t think it’s hilarious–I just feel hopeful that they learn from it. I think it’s justified that murderers should go to prison, but again, not really funny–more like a sad necessity.
I’m not like “five to seven years? HOOOAHAHAHAAHA OH YEAH THAT’S RIGHT HAW HAW HAW.”
That pretty much makes you an asshole even if you weren’t cheering for FUCKING RAPE.
The confusion over the gene lines comes from the fact that Mary was eldest daughter and there was no son, so her husband becomes her fathers heir. The lines track back through the house of David both through Joseph’s blood and his inheritance of Mary’s line.
The books of the Bible were not all written in the same language. Immanuel, in Hebrew means God with us, and sure enough he was called that among other things.
If it turns out that it really is God’s book those people who have been changing it to suit their politics over the years are gonna be in the deep yoghurt.
Ruby, your situational ethics are revolting and deeply revealing of your character. You totally flunk decent human being 101, but all is not lost. You can change if you want to.
Though that would be understandable (which is not the same as right) if you’re one of the victims, if it comes from a place of pain. But this here is just plain: “HAHA (bad) people being raped!”.
Thanks thebionicmummy and thebewilderness for your comments, that makes interpretation much clearer. Given what you both said about the ancestry lines, still not seeing how any of this could be interpreted as showing that women have power over men in xtianity.
Also, setting aside disbelief to make another point, wouldn’t have been devastating for Mary to have her son (and first born) crucified? Or do they think that Mary would have gone out and celebrated when that happened? I’m also assuming that Joseph might have been somewhat cut up about it too, but I’m more familiar with the impact of a loss of a child on women than I am with the same on men – because the couples I know where it’s happened, the men don’t talk about it to me.
And now it’s time for definitions from Ruby: Straw man (n): using a person’s own statements to point out why you disagree with them.
Hey Ruby: No one deserves to be raped. Not even rapists. Suggesting rape is funny because someone had it coming is sick. You are a bad person and you should feel bad.
ive been thinking about this statement and i wanna say a little more about it.
so, i dunno if you’ve noticed, but a lot more goes on here than just ‘venting’ about mras. there’s a conversation happening, and it’s one that you dont see to give a fuck about. you ignore the general etiquette and standards of appropriate speech, you incessantly repeat points that have already been addressed, you don’t respond to substantive criticism, and you accuse everyone else of acting in bad faith with a hair trigger. if this was a real life congregation, and you pulled the same stunt day after day after day, and when people got fed up and told you to leave them alone responded with ‘you can’t make me so neener neener neener’, people would write you off as obnoxious, immature and entitled. and theyd be right.
im not sure why you think it makes it different that youre behaving this way on the internet. it doesnt.
I was raped as a small child. Do you know what fate I want for my rapist?
For her never to have the opportunity to rape again.
I do not want her raped.
That is not justice.
I wish I were as good a person as you, Bostonian. As far as I can tell, my rapist (the one whose name I know) has had a great life — with children and a great career and all that. I wish his life fucking sucked. I also hope he never rapes again, but my bitterness is way, way deeper than that. I want him to be constantly reminded of what an awful human being he is. I want him to not be able to leave the house for days because he’s been triggered and now can’t forget that he’s a rapist and not fit to be around people. I want him to have been the one who worried about coming into the office once he realized that I worked there, and then finally quit in order to avoid me. I want him to do the work to atone for being a criminal and a predator and a person with a rotten soul.
I don’t want him to ever be raped, because I don’t think anyone should ever be raped, and because rape is not a punishment. But I do feel like an awful, vengeful person, looking at your comment.
you shouldnt feel awful bee. wanting people who have hurt you to feel that hurt themselves is a totally normal and natural thing, it’s not an indictment of who you are. the question is, do you recognize that there are right and wrong ways to handle that desire, and from what i can tell that’s a test you pass.
It took me a long time to get to that place. Wanting your rapist to not feel good about having raped someone is not horrible.
My only point was that I did not wish rape on her.
That is not justice.
I would have loved for her to go to jail, because that is an appropriate punishment for raping children.
Wow diddler (why am I not surprised at this name) you MRAs really do live on another planet dont you? What element of Christianity today is misandrist? because last time I checked on earth, its the catholic church that is doing everything in its power to reduce or eliminate women’s reproductive rights. Meanwhile men are free to do what they wish. Even if you bring up the child support argument, the church hasnt done anything to enforce those laws or have any part in the discussion. You MRAs are so arrogant and delusional, everything has to be about you. Reality check: it isnt.
Also, what the hell ruby? I have nothing more to add, everyone else pretty much covered it. Prison rape is disgusting.