A Discussion/Debate on Religion & Other Closely Related Topics

[Falcon Horus]

My point is that the human species, by design/evolution or however is a bisexual thing. Two sexes are so inseparably a part of our most basic makeup that I can't imagine there could be a human language that doesn't include the concept, any more than a human language could lack the concept of breathing or death itself for that matter. It's that universally an integral part of us.

Err... trying not to burst your bubble here but... but here's one that comes from your own continent:

5 GENDERS: THE STORY OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN TWO-SPIRITS

It wasn’t until Europeans took over North America that natives adopted the ideas of gender roles. For Native Americans, there was no set of rules that men and women had to abide by in order to be considered a “normal” member of their tribe.

In fact, people who had both female and male characteristics were viewed as gifted by nature, and therefore, able to see both sides of everything. According to Duane Brayboy, writing in Indian Country Today, all native communities acknowledged the following gender roles: “Female, Male, Two Spirit Female, Two Spirit Male and Transgendered.”

Or a little more worldwide...

Gender Variance Around the World Over Time - It's nothing new.
OG History is a Teen Vogue series where we unearth history not told through a white, cisheteropatriarchal lens.

For the record Annoyed -- this is you to a T.

A Map of Gender-Diverse Cultures

On nearly every continent, and for all of recorded history, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as “transgender” and “gay” are strictly new constructs that assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as two sexualities (gay/straight), and only two genders (man/woman).

Yet hundreds of distinct societies around the globe have their own long-established traditions for third, fourth, fifth, or more genders. The subject of Two Spirits, Fred Martinez, for example, was not a boy who wanted to be a girl, but both a boy and a girl — an identity his Navajo culture recognized and revered as nádleehí. Meanwhile, Hina of Kumu Hina is part of a a native Hawaiian culture that has traditionally revered and respected mahu, those who embody both male and female spirit.

Most Western societies have no direct correlation for this tradition, nor for the many other communities without strict either/or conceptions of sex, sexuality, and gender. Worldwide, the sheer variety of gender expression is almost limitless. Take a tour and learn how other cultures see gender diversity.

[aretood2]

Err... trying not to burst your bubble here but... but here's one that comes from your own continent:

5 GENDERS: THE STORY OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN TWO-SPIRITS

It wasn’t until Europeans took over North America that natives adopted the ideas of gender roles. For Native Americans, there was no set of rules that men and women had to abide by in order to be considered a “normal” member of their tribe.

In fact, people who had both female and male characteristics were viewed as gifted by nature, and therefore, able to see both sides of everything. According to Duane Brayboy, writing in Indian Country Today, all native communities acknowledged the following gender roles: “Female, Male, Two Spirit Female, Two Spirit Male and Transgendered.”

Native Americans...funny thing about that monicker...it's like grouping Chinese and Cubans together and then calmly simplifying things. They did have genders with roles. It's just that they had more than two. And they were clearly identified and defined within each culture. There was no question as to what "Two Spirit Female" meant. Also glossed is that yes, there still were gender roles. There were still things considered male and female, boy and girl. This is why they attributed exceptional traits to those who weren't, as we say, cisgendered such as extra intelligence or artistic ability. Cisgendered men still did only manly things. Cisgendered women still only did womanly things. Those outside of this were exceptional and believed to have exceptional qualities as a result...well...depending on the specific culture.

Or a little more worldwide...

Gender Variance Around the World Over Time - It's nothing new.
OG History is a Teen Vogue series where we unearth history not told through a white, cisheteropatriarchal lens.

For the record Annoyed -- this is you to a T.

A Map of Gender-Diverse Cultures

On nearly every continent, and for all of recorded history, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as “transgender” and “gay” are strictly new constructs that assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as two sexualities (gay/straight), and only two genders (man/woman).

Yet hundreds of distinct societies around the globe have their own long-established traditions for third, fourth, fifth, or more genders. The subject of Two Spirits, Fred Martinez, for example, was not a boy who wanted to be a girl, but both a boy and a girl — an identity his Navajo culture recognized and revered as nádleehí. Meanwhile, Hina of Kumu Hina is part of a a native Hawaiian culture that has traditionally revered and respected mahu, those who embody both male and female spirit.

Most Western societies have no direct correlation for this tradition, nor for the many other communities without strict either/or conceptions of sex, sexuality, and gender. Worldwide, the sheer variety of gender expression is almost limitless. Take a tour and learn how other cultures see gender diversity.

While my knowledge of non Western/Native American cultures is severely limited, based on what I am reading, they are not that different than what I mentioned above. It's all still based on two fundemental genders, Male/Female.

[Gatefan1976]

Native Americans...funny thing about that monicker...it's like grouping Chinese and Cubans together and then calmly simplifying things. They did have genders with roles. It's just that they had more than two. And they were clearly identified and defined within each culture. There was no question as to what "Two Spirit Female" meant. Also glossed is that yes, there still were gender roles. There were still things considered male and female, boy and girl. This is why they attributed exceptional traits to those who weren't, as we say, cisgendered such as extra intelligence or artistic ability. Cisgendered men still did only manly things. Cisgendered women still only did womanly things. Those outside of this were exceptional and believed to have exceptional qualities as a result...well...depending on the specific culture.

FH is trying to prove that gender fluidity, or even "misgender assignment" is not a new concept, it's old, old as time, society may and did push people into roles, but society did still recognize them as "separate" Native American is just one example that has not been eradicated.

While my knowledge of non Western/Native American cultures is severely limited, based on what I am reading, they are not that different than what I mentioned above. It's all still based on two fundemental genders, Male/Female.

It's a scale, based on what is "perceived" as manly, and what is perceived as womanly.

Oh, and really you guys can't find a western example?
Loki would be a good start point, he is the father of many monsters, and the mother of many wonders.
I wonder how that works, eh?

[aretood2]

FH is trying to prove that gender fluidity, or even "misgender assignment" is not a new concept, it's old, old as time, society may and did push people into roles, but society did still recognize them as "separate" Native American is just one example that has not been eradicated.

It's a scale, based on what is "perceived" as manly, and what is perceived as womanly.

Oh, and really you guys can't find a western example?
Loki would be a good start point, he is the father of many monsters, and the mother of many wonders.
I wonder how that works, eh?

Not as "separate"? By identifying them as a separate thing, they kinda did do that.


Divine entities notwithstanding?

[Gatefan1976]

Not as "separate"? By identifying them as a separate thing, they kinda did do that.

I'm not sure what you mean.

[aretood2]

I'm not sure what you mean.

Nor do I understand what you meant, to be honest.

[SoulReaver]

it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God

... bah, f that

it is easy for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God

[thekillman]

It's all still based on two fundamental genders, Male/Female

Depends on how you define that.

Men can be considered "manly" or not, and women "womanly" or not. But a non-manly man is not a woman (as any quick glance could tell you), nor is a non-womanly woman a man (as any quick glance could tell you).

Nor is "manly" or "womanly" (or masculine/feminine, whatever) all that tightly defined. The 19th century's manly man would be today's effeminate man.

While the defining characteristics of femininity are not universally identical, some patterns exist: gentleness, empathy, sensitivity, caring, sweetness, compassion, tolerance, nurturance, deference, and succorance are traits that have traditionally been cited as feminine

Traits traditionally cited as masculine include courage, independence and assertiveness.

(wikipedia, though you could also consider briefly what you consider manly, or what society does, or google for 5 minutes. If anyone finds other interesting results, let me know).

Note that those traits are not necessarily opposites. You can be courageous, independent and assertive yet caring and emphatic, tolerant and gentle. it may depend on moment to moment, but there's certainly been an ideal to listen to your elders (ie, deference). Yet i've never heard someone been accused of not being manly because they listened to their senior. For that matter, the military requires obedience to the chain of command, which is a major opposite of the male value of independence.


In other words, an anti-male is not a woman, nor is an anti-woman a male. (For clarity, the opposite of a man is a cowardly slave sycophant. But it's not feminine to be cowardly, nor is it feminine to be a slave or a sycophant).

Nor do these traits and their opposites encapsulate all traits. In my opinion, we're far to busy putting people into little convenient bins and forgetting that a good father is caring and empathetic with his children. A good soldier is (sufficiently) obedient. A good leader should still know deference, a good teacher nurturance, a good scholar tolerance and caring.

Seems to me that it was once a convenient way to instill some virtues into people that got out of hand and turned into a recipe to dictate your life. Boys play with dolls, but got conveniently named "action figures" and women belong in the kitchen, except when it's a barbeque because that's totally manly (actually, the BBQ being manly is just a clever marketing trick from ~100 years ago).

Men being the breadwinner is only possible since automation allowed women to stay at home, because if your wife stayed exclusively indoors and only looked after the kids, then a few hundred years ago and longer you'd starve. Notions of what is "manly" or not is for a good part just whatever way the wind blows.

[Womble]

Men being the breadwinner is only possible since automation allowed women to stay at home, because if your wife stayed exclusively indoors and only looked after the kids, then a few hundred years ago and longer you'd starve. Notions of what is "manly" or not is for a good part just whatever way the wind blows.

That is not true, especially if one recalls that the definition of cooking and sewing as women's work is vastly older than automation. Even back in the hunter-gatherer societies, the separation of labor between men and women was clear.

If you look at tasks traditionally defined as women's work, they are typically indoor tasks. With exceptions (fetching water, gardening, animal husbandry, food foraging as opposed to hunting, planting grain, harvesting and stacking it once it grows) which serve to confirm the rule as almost all of them tie back to housekeeping. Women's jobs, historically speaking, were all a form of paid-for extension of housekeeping or child care tasks - nurse, midwife, governess, maid, sewing, knitting etc.

The modern idea of a housewife is, of course, about as old as the modern idea of a day job. It was a short-lived concept enabled by the window of relative prosperity of the baby boom generation coupled with insufficient home automation.

[Coco Pops]

On a totally unrelated note something I have been thinking about for a long, long while

If God reached out to humanity whom he/she supposedly created in the image of god is God humanoid in shape? Did God manifest on other worlds as well as Earth and would we see aliens in heaven, if by aliens beings that were not born on Earth, and would we know that?

[aretood2]

On a totally unrelated note something I have been thinking about for a long, long while

If God reached out to humanity whom he/she supposedly created in the image of god is God humanoid in shape? Did God manifest on other worlds as well as Earth and would we see aliens in heaven, if by aliens beings that were not born on Earth, and would we know that?

Ancient commentators never saw that a a literal image. It's more of a figurative image. Our self awareness or sentience if you will. As far as what is out there, the Bible is silent on the matter for good reason. It's not important for the purpose it was intended for.

[Coco Pops]

Ancient commentators never saw that a a literal image. It's more of a figurative image. Our self awareness or sentience if you will. As far as what is out there, the Bible is silent on the matter for good reason. It's not important for the purpose it was intended for.

Yes but I'm asking for discussion do people think we will see other beings in Heaven if such a place exists?

Or Hell if you think that place is real too.

[Coco Pops]

I have a curly question.

Scientology is a man made religion and it comes under a hell of a lot of scrutiny and rightfully so.

But aren't all the other major religions also man made?

[thekillman]

But aren't all the other major religions also man made?

Yes, though scientology is quite special in how bat**** insane it is.

[Gatefan1976]

I have a curly question.

Scientology is a man made religion and it comes under a hell of a lot of scrutiny and rightfully so.

But aren't all the other major religions also man made?

Yes, though scientology is quite special in how bat**** insane it is.

Is the notion of "let there be light" any less bat**** crazy than an alien race?
I mean, really, given the sheer scope, size and age of the universe............