You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘How Religion Poisons Everything’ tag.
Thank you to Slender Means for posting this, everything below this disclaimer is hers:
This is a very long post (linked below) but it is worth reading to see what some Christians still want to teach and believe about gender roles and norms, men’s rights to women’s bodies, and women and sex. Further down the post, racist beliefs are also discussed.
When Church teaching is about rape apology and white supremacy. You want to believe that it’s delusion and that we can all laugh at it and him but he has his followers and they believe every word of it. If you have time, I suggest you go to the link at the very bottom of this post and read all of it.
The following is a quote by Douglas (Doug) Wilson, a complementarian pastor, from his book Fidelity: What It Means to be a One-Woman Man:
The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.
We cannot make gravity disappear just because we dislike it, and in the same way we find that our banished authority and submission comes back to us in pathological forms. This is what lies behind sexual “bondage and submission games,” along with very common rape fantasies. Men dream of being rapists, and women find themselves wistfully reading novels in which someone ravishes the “soon to be made willing” heroine. Those who deny they have any need for water at all will soon find themselves lusting after polluted water, but water nonetheless.
The quote is part of an excerpt posted by Jared Wilson (no relation as far as I know) to The Gospel Coalition blog, with an approving note that explains the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey and “other modern celebrations of perverted sexual authority/submission.” (h/t Rachel Held Evans.)
[via arewomenhuman]
It is one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read. Maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked. It’s not wildly different from from things John Piper or Doug Wilson’s wife Nancy have said about submission and authority in sex.
But Wilson goes much farther than any rape apologist Christian writer I’ve ever read, and that’s a lot of people. His notion of godly sex is little more than sanctified rape. In the name of Jesus.
He also says (as Jared Wilson states in a comment defending this filth) that “rape is judgment upon a culture that does not cherish and protect women.” We should be OK with this, according to Jared, because Doug Wilson isn’t blaming rape survivors for being raped. He’s only blaming all women who want to be treated equally and all of our allies. That’s all.
[…]
A second point: Doug Wilson is not only a rape apologist; he’s also a slavery apologist. And contrary to Jared Wilson’s dismissal of commenters who repeatedly tried to point this out, this is absolutely relevant to Wilson’s teachings about obligatory female submission in sex.
Wilson is the co-author with Steve Wilkins, a white supremacist, of a pamphlet called Southern Slavery as it Was, which claims that Southern slavery “was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity” but a relationship between “friends and often intimates”:
Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, [slavery] was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. The credit for this must go to the predominance of Christianity. The gospel enabled men who were distinct in nearly every way, to live and work together, to be friends and often intimates…
[WPA Slave] Narratives consistently portray an amazingly benign picture of Southern plantation life. Affection for former masters and mistresses is expressed in terms of unmistakable devotion. Testimony to the good treatment, kindness, and gentleness of many so-called “heartless slave holders” abounds. Many of the old slaves express a wistful desire to be back at the plantation.
Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care. In the narratives taken as a whole, there is no pervasive cry of rage and anguish..abuses came from a distinct and very small minority. [emphasis mine]
If you can stomach any more: video [on link] of Wilson on why he’s a Paleoconfederate, why the post Civil War Reconstruction Amendments – you know, the ones that abolished slavery (in theory) and established black citizenship and voting rights (in theory) – “inverted the meaning of the Constitution,” and why the Civil War wasn’t God’s way of ending slavery and is to blame for racial animosity today.
[…]
What does this have to do with rape apologism? Firstly, both Wilson’s rape and slavery apologism hinge on that little word ”patriarchal.” He’s trying to sell a vision in which white male patriarchy rules benevolently over the rest of us, for our own good and protection.
[…]
Wilson means for us to accept a theology that revolves around authoritarian hierarchy, with white, straight, cis, Western men at the top, and everyone else knowing our proper place. We’re meant to accept that movements for racial and gender equality are actually the causes of racist and misogynist abuse and violence, and that the real root of such violence – white male patriarchy – is actually its remedy.
This isn’t just about Doug Wilson. It’s about an entire culture of white Christians who promote his teaching of sanctified rape and domineering patriarchy as godly theology. It’s about a culture that conveniently ignores his vile racism when it suits them, thinking they are remaining “neutral.” In fact they implicitly endorse his racism by promoting him as “sound and compelling” while refusing to acknowledge, much less condemn his defense of slavery. This is about an entire culture that majors in perpetuating rape culture and racism by looking the other way.
[via arewomenhuman]
Linked posts:
- Doug Wilson on The Gospel Coalition: How Christian Patriarchy Turns Sex into Rape and Pregnancy into Slavery (barefootchristianfaith.wordpress.com)
- The ‘Gospel’ Coalition? Maybe They Should Call Themselves the ‘Haunt of the Reprobate Rapist’ (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
- If This is What Christian Sex Is Like, No Thank You (patheos.com)
- Rape: A Punishment for Egalitarians? (sarahoverthemoon.com)
The neat thing about bad arguments is that usually they are layered in thick and fast that you don’t catch them the first time,so you have to slow down and rewind the tape to see the intersectionality of wrongness and then unweave the fail.
Today’s disservice is dedicated to a post by the Wayward Catholic, ostensibly extending the putrefied olive branch of religion to those who are drifting (I imagine it is code for people who are starting to think for themselves) to get them back into the feckless fold.
A noble cause indeed. But hey, if the arguments are good, then maybe there is a good point to be had. Riiiiight…anyhow, lets see how the Wayward Catholic does in his(assumption of gender) post “Killing is wrong“.
The argument was if I supported such a law and the law passed then that would be forcing my opinion on others. Of course the commentor fails to see that the opposite must also be true as well. Passing any law ca be considered one group of people forcing their opinion on another group.
Individual laws are forcing their “opinion” on other people. Cannibals are rightly annoyed that they cannot go to the local Uncle Wally’s and begin the all-U-can eat feast. Laws are in place in society to preserve order and promote fair treatment in society and usually, said laws are enacted based their utility and on the needs of said society.
A perfect example is the HHS contraception mandate. This mandate forces all employers (with a very narrow exception) to provide contraception, sterilizations and “morning after” pills to their employees whether they have a religious objection to them or not.
Ah, the persecution!! Not being able to propagate outdated and irrational beliefs on society, the horror! Welcome to civilization that does not kowtow to your magic book and delusional mind-set. Women use contraception and should have access to it when they need it, at any time. Reproductive consequences for women are serious and they need to have all the options available to them.
But then this is the typical secular argument. They see all issues from one side, and one side only. If they think something is right, it is right, end of story, and anything which has to do with religion isn’t right so it is bad and must be destroyed.
What a marvellous case of projection you have going there, never mind the sweeping generalizations about all “secular arguments”. I imagine the problem for you is that often, secular arguments are based on evidence and verifiable facts, rather than on mythology, magic and dogmatic adherence to bronze age bugaboo.
The fact is, access to contraception is good for society. The above links are just a small sample of the evidence that supports the benefits of contraception in society. Just because you do not believe in contraception does not mean contraception is a bad thing. You have every right to express your opinion. However, unsubstantiated opinion is pretty much next to worthless when it comes to the law and moral issues in society.
Belief weighs heavily in the next paragraph, a paragraph one sees much to often from those who worship the almighty fetus. But hey one more reiteration won’t hurt, especially when its being used for educational purposes.
Even though killing and murder is wrong they will defend it, doing everything they can to “soften” the fact that it is murder, that they are taking a life. An innocent one at that, one who doesn’t have a “choice”.
Killing and murder is generally wrong, especially when dealing with people. Blastocycsts, fetuses, fertilized eggs et cetera are not people. I’m going to assume, for the sake of argument that you think that “life” begins conception. It is an erroneous, problematic assumption at best. So, what this comes down to is whether or not you think women get to makes choices about what goes on in their body.
You don’t get a say if you need a kidney and I happen to have one that is suitable to donate. Bodily autonomy does not magically stop when it comes to uteri. What goes on in a woman’s uterus falls under the same measure, her body, her choice. It starts and ends there.
We can always thank religion for continuing the war on women.
Some of what I dislike about creationists stems from their basic epistemological premises. For instance the idea that belief in an idea ipso facto makes it correct. The harder you believe in something, the more correct you are. Of course this idea is just one of the pathologically shitty ideas creationists come up with; it gets worse.
Because in their epistemology if you believe something, and their magic book of choice happens to mention it in passing, well then Goddidit and no further explanation is needed. It must nice to be dishonest and lazy when it comes to backing up and relating your ideas to the world. Dear reader, I hear you saying, “But Arbourist, this is a rational humanist blog where is your evidence?” Praise the Four-Cheezes patience, gentle reader the mighty wordpress has come to the rescue.
There is a handy feature in wordpress where you can search tags people make for the content of their posts. The posts I tag with “creationism” are much different much much that appears in that category. Take for instance, this noxious little gem of stupidity which we are going to examine with some detail.
What can we prove?
The truth is that no one can prove evolution or creation. We have the same evidence, but no one alive today was an eye witness to the origins of man, and neither of the claims of the creationist and the evolutionist can be observed today. We can only study the result.
*splat* That was my cerebral cortex recoiling in horror at the level of stupid in this one small quotation (there is more friends, but my little cortex is weeping and is begging for the inanity to stop). The fastest way to make arguing easy for yourself is to dishonestly represent your opponent. This one little paragraph is dishonest and shows an astonishingly brain-dead-shambling-zombie-like grasp of argumentation and rhetoric.
“The truth is that no one can prove evolution or creation.” – Bullshit – About 3,630,000 results say you are being a dishonest fuck-wit.
“We have the same evidence,” – Bullshit – Your “evidence” is based on the mystical ramblings of barely sapient bronze age goat-herds. Some 3.6 million papers that mostly conform to the scientific method, are peer reviewed and falsifiable say your version of the facts are the equivalent of the chunder my dog threw up yesterday.
“but no one alive today was an eye witness to the origins of man, and neither of the claims of the creationist and the evolutionist can be observed today.” – What the frack does being an eyewitness have to to with anything? I cannot see the moon orbit around the earth, should we infer that it floats into the sky on unicorn farts and then sinks every night once they dissipate? Usually you cannot see electricity, only its effects – are we to believe it doesn’t exist either or is its more fucking fantastical farting unicorns?
“We can only study the result.” – The only thing being studied by creationists is the depths of their rectal cavities because it is where they get all their fecal-dominated facts from when not busily bloviating about how godidit.
There is no controversy, only the religiously deluded making shit up and trying to pass it off as reasonable. Their arguments are piss-poor and they offer little to no evidence of a theory with more explicative power. Their arguments can sound good, but like polishing a turd for centuries,(the bible being one of the biggest floaters in the bowl), once the varnish is gone, all you are left with is shit.
Ah, the prefect moral being and originator of all things good and holy is at it once again, this time condemning people to death for daring to defy his will. Objectively moral my ass.
This small clip features Hitchens at his best, dismantling the arguments of Christian apologists and believers with his acerbic wit and argumentation. Consider the horrible implications of the all knowing, all seeing, all father. I for one reject the tyrannical celestial dictatorship and the misanthropic beliefs it spawns.
Made for our friends down south, but really our fine Harperites are feeding from the same trough so it applies to them as well.
I really wish my job was harder on finding and featuring the appalling nature of religion and the horrible shite it makes people do. Today’s disservice features Cardinal Timothy Dolan arguing that if forced to allow women access to birth control they intend to cease their charitable work done by the church on behalf of the poor. The illogical depravity of such a statement is currently ripping a hole in my frontal lobes as I seem currently unable to process this level of outrageous stupidity.
Un-frakking-believeable. This is why religion needs to be shat out of the collective bowel of humanity; as it has (once again) proven that religious doctrine has no place in a civilized rational society.
Clean your brain with Steven Fry’s thoughts on the RCC –
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…