One ticket to 9th circle of hell please

He was talking about a specific church not a generalization about women

As mentioned- there is a specific church being instructed on specific issues it is having- If you zoom out to the start of first Timothy- this letter isn’t even written to the church. It’s written by Paul to Timothy. Basically “man to man, not that that excuses it but it wasn’t written as an official document to the church for the church. That’s the first thing that has to be understood here.

The second thing you must understand is WHY Paul is even writing. Timothy was having problems with “false teachers.” People trying to lead others but who themselves didn’t have the knowledge or authority to guide others or themselves. So the letter Paul writes is addressing the issues in Timothy’s church.

The third thing we have to cover is the time period. Women weren’t generally allowed to go to school or learn. They had very narrow roles in the community and were more sheltered. This wasn’t a Christian thing- it was cultural to their geographic location and time. If we use gender neutral language- Paul is telling Timothy that his church has problems because it’s allowing people who are uneducated and inexperienced to lead and to distract. He’s saying that Timothy needs to get those people under control. In this case- it’s the women, because they are 1. Uneducated or experienced due to the culture and 2. Because Paul himself shares the sexism of his time and culture and obviously has issues.

So what Paul is saying IS sexist- and the idea that women are “deceivers” etc. is prevalent in many places as part of the justification for misogyny. In this case PAUL uses the Bible to justify his misogyny. Except... maybe not. In context if we understand that Paul is saying the largely uneducated women of their time aren’t fit to lead- and comparing them to eve- Eve was simply ignorant. She didn’t know enough and when you follow the leadership of an ignorant person it often goes badly. So we could read this particular reference to be an example of that. Now Paul makes reference to a woman’s place as making babies. Well... this is again- a cultural view of the time. It’s also in context to what we’ve discussed- maybe not what it sounds like.

Since the women of their time were largely uneducated and sheltered, and “prostitute” was pretty much the main job for women asides “home maker,” Paul here is going back to his point- that women of the day with their lack of education and exclusion from gaining social experience and interaction, weren’t suited for leadership or teaching but basically had only one thing to offer. Now- those women had the POTENTIAL to do far more. Humans can learn and grow. Paul doesn’t go into that. I suspect because he does carry some of the misogyny inherent to the time and place- but even if he didn’t it would be a digression from the point of the letter which is to tell Timothy how to solve his churches IMMEDIATE problems.

One might even say that using the contextual background we’ve set up, and viewing the statement (which happens by the specifics of Timothy’s case to be directed at women but) as largely about the idea of not letting inexperienced and uneducated people lead, that it stands to reason with more experience and learning any particular woman could be judged as apt to lead others and in time, men and women might be viewed equally for the task.

Men in this case get a default “pass” because their society and social values were such that men would be expected to have a certain level of education and experience in practical matters as well as some qualities of leadership (as heads of household family etc.) However women get a default fail in their society because of their roles. Therefore a man would need to prove himself unfit and be assumed fit and a woman would be assumed unfit and need to prove herself fit.

Yes. That’s sexist, misogynist. I hope you aren’t surprised to find out that some thousand years back societies often favored what are common gender roles with males seen as “leaders” or “protectors.” Thats... how things were. Not right, but how they were. In fact- in America we haven’t been too far from that for more than a few decades, and we STILL haven’t completely gotten past such ideas and “traditional gender roles.” Few places on earth have. So we can’t really judge a person too harshly who lived thousands of years ago (supposedly) for not behaving in a manner considered modern, progressive, or even radical many places in the world in 2019 can we?

It would be pretty obvious BS and likely revisionist history to open the Bible and have its accounts of day to day life and culture contradict every known historical record wouldnt it? If it said that women were superior to men in every way and all leaders should be women- you’d have to call BS or REALLY wonder what the hell happened when one of the biggest religions in the world called out me too a millennia back and everyone just ignored it no? However it would be very easy for someone wanting to justify sexism on religious grounds to look at this passage and read a personal letter between 2 bros about a specific church 2,000 years ago with a specific set of problems and say “see? Bible says women can’t talk. Can’t lead.”

Now lastly- we have to understand translation and transition. The Bible and the works it is based on have been translated many many times through many many languages and many many versions. Translators try to use the words that in their language convey the meaning they want, while their understanding of the source language is also only as good as it is. What’s more- these translations are translated and so on.

So through changing languages and changing cultures with localization changes made and tweaks here and there and languages changing through time- it becomes VERY messy to translate these sorts of things. Words like “ambidextrous”- which originally was a person who was two faced or duplicitous. Understanding how a word that LITERALLY means able to you both hands as well as the right could mean anything less requires some knowledge of history in England as well as the cultural beliefs and attitudes of the time etc.

Without those, that link can be lost. A “Bunny” was a squirrel not a rabbit. Explode- plode is derived from the same Latin as the plaud in applaud. Explode meant to heckle someone off stage it was like an opposite to applause. In English- the word “girl” predates “boy” and was used for all genders! Boy was borrowed from French and meant a servant. Woopity woop- shake up things and add time- now a “girl” is a young female and a “boy” is a young male.

Translations are hard and nuanced and that’s when a language isn’t “dead.” Even the translation of the passage you posted differs greatly in subtle ways from other translations. But it’s 2019- the specific DETAILS and MINUTIA of a solution to a specific problem of one church as suggested by one guy in a personal letter isn’t the thing to take away from the passage. The underlying idea is not to let ignorant people lead- that those who need to learn should do so. There’s some dress code stiff in there we could go over too but I’m tired of this for now so am stopping here. You can take many things from any text but if you get caught up trying to live by thousand year old details applied to other people’s lives or trying to judge those things from a perspective more advanced the math won’t work out.

It's also possible that Paul was helping Timothy with certain women, not all women, and that it got lost in translation. Imagine writing a letter to your pastor friend asking for help with the Jones girls who loudly preach false doctrine all the time and he replies that you should just not let *those* women speak at all. Now translate it and edit it for 2,000 years and bingo, context is totally lost.

While you're absolutely right about context I do want to point out that Paul never met Jesus. Well at least not the living Jesus. Paul was still Saul of Tasus when Jesus was alive.

Strangely, Most of evengelism also use snippets from the bible to spread the word. It should be fair for atheists to use them as well. Unbiased Bible scholars will tell you for certain that the bible is taken out of context by all kinds of people.
Plus, the new testament (bible of christianity if you may) is just a bunch of manuscripts that were singled out by early Roman catholic church out of many others, at their discretion ofcourse.

In what contaxt is this quote not horrible to be found in a "holy book"? Fuck all that shady and irrelevant semantics: the bible pt. 1 is a terrible collection of nonsense, hate, terror and especially misogyny while the bible pt. 2 is a comparably decent collection of calendar mottos and ethics that simply make sense for every society, while leaving the high and mighty enough lead way to be doing what they're doing. The handful of christians who don't use the bible to excuse terrible ideas and behavior are like those people who dress as skinheads and live up to the ideas of the 1980s micro-movement of "skinheads against racial prejudice" referring to a couple 1960 skins hanging around with black mods. They're offended by people who think all skins are nazis, while it's actually only 99,8% and demand to differ. Fuck them actually.

@texasranger- thank you. I didn’t phrase that very precisely but yes- Paul met Jesus after the resurrection and at the time was in the process of persecuting Christians before his conversion. I used imprecise language because without goin into much detail I just wanted to give the impression to those who might not know that the link between Paul and Jesus beyond any spiritual or other sense wasn’t one where Paul is in direct Devine authority- but thanks to you I realize the precise information should have been included and I appreciate you adding it for posterity.

@kevman- 1/3 do you condone or support the way evangelicals use out of context quotes to push their ideas or agendas? If not- then why would we do something we don’t like? If one politician lies and we don’t like it, so we lie to oppose them- now we just have twice as many liars instead of no liars right? Misinterpretation of religious texts is very common though- and relative. Most sects of any religion will say the others interpret the texts wrong and the others will say the same about them.

2/3 but... simple seductive reasoning can tell us some things. If I’m reading a medical textbook and the second half has been misprinted with CIA interrogation techniques, or there is a chapter that is ambiguous and can either mean that I am supposed to help a patient or hurt them more... I can infer from the nature of the text that acting in that way is against the spirit of the text and its core theme. The semantics of religion and the use of religion by people in authority over others to serve their own agendas and well being are the primary dangers of religion.

3/3 the core ideas of “forgive people.” “Be nice to people.” “Be honest.” “Do what you say.” “Your perspective is relative and not omnipotent. Leave the judgments to a (real or not) omnipotent being and live your life doing only what is the minimum practical necessity to secure against those who would stop that..” those are the spiritual themes of most religions. The rest is secret handshakes and dances that if people want to do and not force on others- good on them. But the same mechanism of control and manipulation exists in the religious leader who twists the word of a holy book so they can influence others to believe or so as they desire as exists in the atheist who would do the same. It’s not a good color on anyone and if we can’t stop others from doing wrong we can at least refuse to do the same wrong ourselves. If we want to say we are “better” then we have to actually at least try to be “better” than “the other guy.”

@halfdeadhammerhead- the mistake here is an assumption (like many religious folks) that every word in the Bible is a rule for you to follow. The Bible is parable. Stories (true, false, or somewhere between) which are intended to teach morality. When a “hero” character in a film does something questionable or outright wrong that isn’t an endorsement to to do the same. Walter White cooked meth and did other bad things- but he also did good things. It’s for a viewer to reconcile these things, but not everyone in the Bible (even those who are “most holy”) is a “Mary sue” who never does anything wrong. What’s more- context is important.

When you watch a film set in the 1960’s, 1940’s etc- there may be things that are “problematic” by today’s standards which were not by the standards of the time. The Bible is not even supposedly written by God- it is agreed upon that whatever is in the book was written by a person or persons (minds disagree as to “who,” but they were human and alive long ago.) So inevitably, as a word made by those living long ago, about those living long ago, with a central theme that “no human is perfect....” it stands to reason that the book would be informed by its times and prevailing views from the cultures portrayed within as well as the cultures of those transcribing it.

So “women can’t do shit” is not an enlightened or progressive view- it’s not a statement likely to be endorsed by a loving and all knowing deity- and in the book it isn’t coming from said deity but some supporting character. How many major characters use racial slurs (make it through a Tarantino flick without someone dropping an N bomb...) or do or say questionable things because it’s period or thematically suited to the scene? Picking out one line of dialog from one character and using that as the example is a bit narrow.

Do I agree with the statement, support it? No. But- regardless of any other content the Bible is a piece of history. As at the very least historic literature. We do know that certain events depicted while possibly embellished are also historical facts, so while the details might not always be to modern standards (much serious historical record of old isn’t either-) as either events that may have happened and been embellished or edited over ages- or events of fiction chronicled in the past- the passage exists as historical context if nothing else- a record of a conversation or a work of fiction many centuries old.

We can only speculate on the Bible. Wether much of it happened as recorded or at all, the intent of the author in writing or recording certain passages, the intent or true circumstances of events recorded, the intent or motives of writers embellishing, fabricating, or falsifying information, the intent of translators and transcribers in a line of centuries- there isn’t bonus features anthology where they recorded commentary and they are far too dead for us to ask them- assuming we’d get a straight answer anyway. So there’s a lot of room for interpretation. One can largely take away what they want from such a book. If you want to MST3K it- that’s what you’ll take away. You want to demonize it- that’s what you’ll take. Want to find justification for good or evil deeds that is what you will take away.

The central message and point of such a book is to try and tell people how to live a “good life.” Keeping that in mind one cannot in my view reconcile something like sexism- so that is what I take away. I cannot see such a thing applying in 2019, I can’t support it in 4bc either- but I wasn’t alive then, so now is what I got. One cannot take a literal and dogmatic stance to specific details from thousands of years ago unless one lives in a world and lives a life like that lived thousands of years ago. Morality lessons from such an old text needs a “broad strokes view” with more nuanced details being left as a historical debate and context. People will fish through the thousands of pages of holy books and find even the loosest or most trivial support for whatever view they say.

It’s just fan fic conspiracy theories like that guy who swears that the way Kevin Spacey did xyz in American beauty and the camera angle used in scene 42 prove the film takes place in the matrix universe and blah blah.

On the issue of women in the bible. I want to point out that the first person Jesus revealed himself to be the messiah too was a woman. A gentile too (non jewish person). AND she was an adultress too. Jesus came to her anyway. Take from that what you will. John 4: 4-26.

True. It’s important to remember the culture and time period too. Paul may have been a misogynist or not- but by 2019 standards pretty much anyone’s parents or grandparents alive today wouldn’t have been judged well unless they were a radical of some sort. If we strip the gender norms of their time and realize that women tended to be uneducated and inexperienced in Paul’s day- the core message we can take away here is Paul is telling Timothy that letting g uneducated inexperienced people teach others and lead is going to cause problems. Paul is speaking to the gender roles of THE TIME and not the gender roles of ALL TIME because Paul wasn’t gifted perfect prophecy and was a man of his own time.

Ok @guest_ its good and all but how do you manage to type so many paragraph replies on so many posts like heck! I'd easily believe that you are Ai before whatever explanation you have for it.

That's pretty much what I'm saying: the bible is a huge pile of redundant, irrelevant outdated bullshit and the little amount we can still refer to as a modern society is less than whatever Dr. Suess book has wisdom to offer. The main attraction of the bible is that everyone finds something in it they can justify their ideas and demands with but that includes those who want to exclude and marginalize other people. About half a dozend people worldwide dealing with 1 Tim 2:12 will consider what guest_ is talking about while way, way more people quoting it to say: shut up bitch and make me a sandwich. I KNOW for a fucking fact that guest_ will be able to write an elaborate 5-posting essay explaining why Mein Kampf has so many valid points in it we all never knew about. Just for the sake of it. That's just verbal wanking and while I'm all for having a good time, this annoys me watching.

@kevman- I scored a 1280 on my Turing test and was upset by the outcome of yesterday’s sporting match. Surely that and my ability to turn oxygen into carbon dioxide will assuage your fears that I am an AI sent to chat rooms to build a syntax base for mining sensitive human readable intelligence for an unarmed government agency.

@halfdeadhammerhead- I appreciate your confidence in my abilities to make a case. I can’t really see myself defending such a work as that outright. As a general rule I am against erasing history. There is a danger such as with any holy text that such a work could be taken literally and out of a historical context or used in a manner harmful to society. But the fact that someone might be inspired by Genghis Khan to do horrible and brutal things or to justify what they will isn’t a valid reason to me to censor that part of history. In fact it’s a bigger reason to study and understand the context of such things from a modern perspective.

As it stands you won’t get any argument from me that people use the Bible to justify wrong or to control others or push agendas. The same is true of the constitution, the law (that’s a big part of a lawyers job...) really- anything. Knowledge of atomic energy could be advanced to create ways to colonize the galaxy or to destroy it. A reactor and a bomb are the same technology interpreted and executed with slight nuance.

I don’t know that I can agree that it is “verbal wanking” to apply critical thought to the world around us and our actions. I’d see it more as active engagement and not seeking the easiest way to plow ahead without thinking. The person who just glances at a passage like this and says: “see? The word of god says women need to shut up...” isn’t fundamentally different than the person who looks at it and says “see? This fake story book says women need to shut up.” Neither one wants to understand what they are looking at- they already have made up their minds and are just looking for a way to justify it. In my book both are the same, both are part of a fundamental problem of ignorance and self serving bias.

As for having no more moral lessons than a Doctor Suess book- that is by and large true. Suess was a Christian raised by Christian parents and attended religious services much of his life. His books have been extensively analyzed (not to the degree of the Bible though,) and while it is known as fact he intentionally layered themes in his books (the Lorax is an obvious environmental parable,) many theories exist that he intentionally made his stories Christian allegories. His estate doesn’t like this view, but wether intentional or not it is hard to believe that a man raised on Christian values in a time and place of Christian majority and strong Christian influences on society wouldn’t write from the perspective of such and at least have his works informed by the experiences of that perspective and life.

We are in works of fiction from all parts of the world that values of prevailing religious, spiritual, philosophical, and cultural movements tend to inform other works of fiction and the core values of the society itself. In many Asian countries you can see the influences of Buddhism in mundane and small facets of life. So there likely isn’t a great deal of morality one can find within the Bible one cannot find within Dr. Suess books- but much of the morality in Dr. Suess books is derived from the Bible- and wouldn’t be so much different than the basic moral teachings of most religions.

Most major religions are based in whole or part on other older religions, going back before we have clear history. Not discussing any sort of “divine origins” or even truth- many of the fundamentals of modern religions are ancient values that have guided and been refined by society over many thousands of years. Religion- viewed either as a creation of man’s imagination or as a divine influence adopted and kept by men- both theories still draw the same conclusion. Whatever fundamental wisdom is there is something that speaks to humans on a basic level. That which isn’t useful doesn’t endure the ages so well.

Much of the Bible is outdated and doesn’t directly apply or cannot directly be applied to modern times. A sequel has thus far not been green lit, which is a surprise since the sequel to the Torah aka Old Testament was a block buster hit. A new, New Testament seems to be the half life 3 of holy books. So I agree that unless you want to live in some “Amish” style hamlet set in the 1st century- you probably should not model the details of your life after someone who did.

However- since we have worked out that a Dr. Suess book or many other children’s books will contain roughly the same morality lessons as the Bible- there isn’t really a good reason to get those lessons from one versus the other. One requires a little more critical thought and knowledge or research to use- but developing those skills is ultimately good for a person provided they do the work and not just take the laziest path. For those who want to interpret such books at face value- wether in support or detraction of them; those people might be best to stick with Dr. Suess. Although- if you go start googling discussions of the meanings and subjects of his books you’ll find there are many heated debates and crazy self serving interpretations of something so seemingly simple as well.

There is an impressive list of murderers and terrorists from strictly religious families, which tends to be ignored by people defending religions. Dr. Suess happens to be a decent person but there is not the slightest hint that is because of a christian upbringing. His brother may as well be a child raping asshole.
Actually those beneficial ethics have been agreed upon in every society throughout history, they're not a christian trademark at all. They are based on social and even biological evolution, and the so-called "good book" is just one of many. Religions use this to help an upper class divide and rule

Well yes, as I mentioned the morals found in the Bible predate Christianity and were largely inherited and modified from previous religions and philosophies. The moral lessons therein are generally valid and shared amongst many societies past, present, and likely future. So as a moral compendium the Bible is no more or less valid objectively than any other.

It wasn’t my point that morality is a trademark of Christianity- but specifically in your mention of Doctor Suess- and culture or value system which a person is raised in will likely influence their own values and views- those views may or may not align or be identical to the originals and may “evolve” based on that individuals experiences and perspectives. That was my point.

As for terrorists- yes. Many do come from religious backgrounds. We can also show that certain countries or groups produce more terrorists in general or at any specific date in history. If the implication is that religion breeds terrorism and is thus “bad,” I can’t support that since the same logic could be applied to a country or ethnicity whom terrorists are statistically associated with. So we can observe that many terrorists come from religious backgrounds- but we cannot link that to any meaningful conclusion beyond circumstance than we can say that people from a geographic region which produces large numbers of terrorists are linked through anything beyond circumstance.

Then there are issues with the statement. Firstly- the overwhelming majority of the world either practices or believes in some form of religion, or can be said to have been brought up with some form or another. Thusly- its spurious in that regard on its own. Most terrorists were also raised in homes that eat animal products. since the majority of the world... isn’t vegan. The next major problem there is with how we define a “terrorist.” The definition allows us to include many sorts of crimes- and even things which are not crimes. The dictionary definition doesn’t apply to many who are considered or convicted of terrorism- and in practice- accomplices, those who aid or abed, etc. etc. are often tried or labeled as “terrorists.”

That being said- if we DO explore the information- many terrorists do come from religious backgrounds. Many acts of terror, war, violence, etc. are carried out by the religious and often for what they consider religious motivations. So what does that tell us? Nothing that hasn’t been known for thousands of years. Religion, nationalism, tradition, esprit de corps, philosophy, education, moralizing, group identity etc etc. are all great ways to control people, and are things that human beings often act irrationally and destructively in relation to.

Money is a method of control. Not at its core- at its core it is a system of assigning and regulation value through proxy for physical goods and labor, and an element of a system that allows floating debt against securities. But... it’s used through history and the world over as- a method of control as well as a means. Sports teams, military units and branches, political parties, racial groups, families... where there is an “us” most people will form a “them.” Where there is a “them” there will be conflict unless both “us” and “them” can agree to just let the other ones do them.

It hardly seems advisable that we reject every single system of control, order, advantage, and hierarchy because it can be and often is misused. It may not be practical to remove all the borders from the map and tear down the divide between all people. Have no more school rivalries or sports teams, one flag and one rule for all. And that itself is part of the problem. In that quest to unite, conflict is often born from noble intent because there will be those who do not want to live by what has been decided as the “single law of the land.” Many Chinese on the mainland love their country and its ways. HK and Taiwan do not. What works one place may not work all. Instead of seeing it as there being a place for all sorts though- we like to see it as a call to push our beliefs on others.

There comes a point where a line is crossed an harm is being done- but up to that point and so long as people have the freedom to choose for themselves- things are what they are. Different folks with different ideas trying to live their lives. There’s nothing inherent to religion that makes it bad- it’s people that make it bad. Take away the Bible’s and Torah’s and all the other holy books and replace them in peoples hearts with a science book and watch people kill each other over who REALLY invented what first or who’s theory was right etc. When the common denominator is human nature- the tool is irrelevant. Before ray guns we killed each other with our bare hands.

To the original topic, the sexism we can see in this passage: you already covered that. What did you say again? That the values in the Bible aren’t Christian ones? You’ll find the idea that women cannot lead or speak, must be “inferior” in non Christian and even non religious societies across the world through history. There are, in 2019, atheists guilty of sexism. When we create a scapegoat for our behavior- we take personal responsibility away. The same way that religion allows the sexist to claim divine mandate- blaming religion for problems with human beings allows humanity to avoid looking at itself.