Skip to main content

God on a leash, language makes him male

Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions...

This notion is prevalent in feminist theology, particularly in the work of Mary Daly, who first suggested that the words we use to speak about God shape the way we experience and understand God. That’s why, she argues, it’s important to be aware of gendered language when speaking of the divine. If we always describe God as “he” and, more specifically, as “God the Father,” we will close ourselves off to the whole, full, range of ways in which we can experience God. We limit the divine power in our lives, and, too, in the lives of others, by suggesting that the only way to know God is as “He,” the father. Language, she famously writes, functions.

The Grand Sweep: A Marriage, Observed and Magic Words

Maybe the reason why the world sucks is because we need to take God onto the moors and let 'him' off the leash.

...
Cinnamon Gurl sparked this off. Thanks. Each week the Flashback Friday: Feminist Edition will feature a story that has something to do with being or becoming a woman or feminist. This series will continue until I run out of stories. I love having guest bloggers. If you have a story you want to tell and you want to be a guest blogger here, please email me; or feel free to link to your own story in the comments.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Richard Dawkins on militant atheism

Dawkins has become outspoken in his atheism , coining the word "bright" (as an alternate to atheist), and encouraging fellow non-believers to stand up and be identified. intelligent design is creationism redressed creationists are right that evolution is hostile to evolution statistical improbability of the complexity of design - intelligent design but the intelligent designer wouldn't have made such a hash - why would the designer be bothered with disapproving of our sex lives, favor our side in the war Dawkins suggest rocking the boat - attack religion as a whole taboo of speaking ill about religion - Douglas Adams said, sacred ideas at the heart of religion, holy cows, you can support any operating system you want, but the challenge of religious ideas is off limits science and religion are corrosive to each other - religious explanations are trivial and improbably, teaches people to accept authoritarianism takes the example of famous scientists and imagines ...
6 comments
Read more

Mary Daly explains the pejoration (of one) of the words related to women

Of Death and Conscience: Brief thoughts on gender role and the values of the dominant culture in medicine : "“Under the influence of the Church and the newly formed male-dominated medical establishment, the word “witch,” which originally meant “wise one,” became a term of scorn. It took a reign of terror lasting several hundred years to radically alter a way of life thousands of years old. Millions of women who carried the healing lineage were systematically killed (see The Church and the Second Sex by Mary Daly).”"
4 comments
Read more

VHEMT (Vehement) is a anti-procreation movement

"Here's a novel idea to save the planet: Remove the main cause of its woes - homo sapiens. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT - pronounced "vehement") proposes the phasing out the human race. "When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, and evolve (if they believe in evolution)," offers the movement's website. But 'it's going to take all of us going'." See www.vhemt.org SOURCE: Email invite. I thought I was the only one who thought like this. Everyone I know thanks the universe that I didn't study microbiology. I would have developed a human-specific killer virus. WE are the vermin.
6 comments
Read more