Hypocrisy of Religious People Regarding Women - By Bob Johnson

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Mr. Johnson has appeared in our blog several times. Invariably he writes critically about religion, with particular emphasis on Christianity. His underlying agenda is to push his never-explained deism.

We have found him to be a less than rigorous thinker. Though not an atheist, he might as well be, since his rhetoric conforms particularly well to atheism. Further, he largely contents himself with spurting regurgitated atheist and/or leftist talking points. 

Ironically, he relies on the morality of "revealed religions" to make his pronouncements. So there is a code of right and wrong with him, from which he derives moral imperatives which he happily desires to impose on others. However, he is unable, or unwilling, to explain why his moral pronouncements are self-evident, or why we would want to adopt them for ourselves.

That is, he engages in the very same moralizing he opposes in religious people. That would be hypocrisy, sir.

Today he asserts that religious people are hypocrites regarding women. Oddly, he will never discuss or identify any hypocrisy. We think he meant to use the word "misogyny" rather than "hypocrisy." This can easily happen with leftists because they continually recycle talking points, slogans, and buzzwords. He probably forgot which talking point he was using.

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Yesterday was International Women's Day, a day intended to celebrate the contributions to progress and society made by women.(Actually, it is a day intended to advance The Agenda.)

Women have been held back by the patriarchal mindset that infects almost all societies on earth. (Actually, the patriarchy has nothing to do with women being held back. A patriarchy is simply a society organized around male authority, which does not automatically imply negative outcomes for women. Or would Mr. Johnson agree that a matriarchy would necessarily hold back men?)

A primary source of this harmful and irrational patriarchal mindset is found in the Abrahamic man-made "revealed" religions. All of the Abrahamic "revealed" religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism and Baha'?, are guilty of promoting misogyny. (If only it were true that religion uniquely did this. But history shows that from ancient to modern, from secular to religious, all societies tend to treat women as inferior. Most likely, this was because women are generally physically weaker. The strong always oppress the weak. This is not unique to religion, but due to his own bias, Mr. Johnson singles it out. Which makes him an advocate of "secular-achy." Not surprisingly, he will never attempt to demonstrate this as superior.

In fact, Mr. Johnson tacitly concedes that misogyny isn't uniquely religious in origin. Remember that he wrote that it infects "almost all" societies on earth? Since there are many societies not influenced by the four "revealed" religions, then it isn't a uniquely religious problem.

Further, Mr. Johnson mentioned that religion is a "primary source," which of course admits there are other sources. Despite this, Mr. Johnson's criticism is reserved solely for religion.)

The original Abrahamic man-made "revealed" religion is Judaism. The other Abrahamic "revealed" religions are all offshoots of Judaism and see Judaism's "holy" book/Word of God, the Hebrew Bible, as being part of their own Word of God. The "holy" books/Word of God of all four spinoff Abrahamic "revealed" religions all refer back to the Hebrew Bible.

Misogyny starts early in Judaism and its Hebrew Bible. In the second creation story (?? There was no Judaism when Adam and Eve were alive. The Jews as a people trace themselves back to Abraham [Ge. 17:5], who was born around 1852-1872 BC. And beginnings of Judaism itself is put at the time of Moses [Ex. 3:1], born 1593 BC.

And by the way, there is no second creation story.) 

God sees that Adam needs a helper. This caused God to create the first woman by putting Adam in a deep sleep and taking out one of his ribs. God then, allegedly, turns Adam's rib into a woman. Adam names her Woman. (Genesis 2:21-23) (In the first creation story God creates the man and the woman at the same time at Genesis 1:26-27.) (There is no first creation story. And no, the account does not tell us they were created at the same time.)

At Genesis 3:16 God allegedly told Woman (Adam did not name her Eve until Genesis 3:20) ("Adam" means "man." Mr. Johnson's ignorance is mounting.):

"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

There are many other pathetic and damaging examples of misogyny in the Hebrew Bible. (??? We must have missed it. Where is the misogyny in this account? The woman was cursed because of sin, and the man was as well. If Eve's curse was misogyny, then Adam's curse, which three times as long [Ge. 3:17-19], must be misandry.)

This misogyny spills over to the Christian New Testament. One of the many misogynistic teachings in the New Testament, and which is tied directly to the biblical nonsense quoted above, is found at 1 Timothy 2:11-14 (We deal with this passage in some depth here.)

which teaches:

"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."

The anonymous author of First Timothy (Wikipedia is his reference? C'mon. The opening verses:

1Ti. 1:1-2 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, 2 To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is clear who wrote this epistle.)

relies on the Hebrew Bible for his misogyny. He claims God made Adam first, (No, he doesn't "claim" anything. He references Genesis.)

so he's ignoring the first creation story, (There is no first creation story.)

and he claims Adam was not deceived but that "the woman was deceived" by the talking and standing upright snake. (According to the Genesis account, Eve took the apple. Mr. Johnson doesn't like this, of course. But that's what the account tells us. It is not misogynistic to have a story where a woman does something wrong.)

However, Adam ate the forbidden fruit, so he must have been deceived, (There is no mention of Adam being deceived by the snake. He may have been deceived. He may have been defiant. He may have been simply ambivalent. Mr. Johnson cannot argue from silence. 

The account related to us in Genesis 3 is clear: 

Ge. 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

What other unmentioned elements were involved are speculation. But clearly both sinned and were held accountable. 

And we are still waiting for the hypocrisy.)

not to mention that God told Adam, not Woman/Eve, not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam was disobeying a direct order from God, (Indeed, the narrative says this. We agree.) 

not Woman/Eve. (Um, no. We can read for ourselves. Eve replied to the snake:

Ge. 3:2-3 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

Therefore, it is clear she knew God's command. She disobeyed and received the consequences, just like Adam.)

The Quran not only promotes misogyny as Judaism and Christianity promote it, Islam goes a step further and actually commands Muslim men to commit battery against women. Quran 4:34 actually instructs Muslim men to scourge/beat women. It teaches:

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great."

The above misogynistic "revealed" religious teachings need to be eliminated through compassion and God-given reason. Deists, and all freethinkers, need to let as many people as possible know about the truly ungodly and harmful teachings being promoted in the "holy" books of the "revealed" religions. If Deists and freethinkers can get a large enough number of people to embrace Thomas Paine's Deistic anti-cruelty statement, "I detest everything that is cruel," we will go a long way in making a much better world for women and for everyone.

(Mr. Johnson was supposed to identify some sort of hypocrisy. He never did. He repeated the charge of misogyny over and over, but never discussed any sort of hypocrisy. 

We are therefore puzzled.)