# Humanities & Anthropology > Philosophy >  Gods and Gender

## Mycernius

This came up in another post by Tsuyoiko. If you believe in God, does it have a gender? In early religions and myths the Gods were female and male. In most cases the leader of the Gods was a male, although a few creation myths have the creator as either a female or a couple creating the world. Early figurines found by archeaolgist are invarible female in form, which might show that stone age man might have believed in a creator as female, after all life for most higher animals comes from females. Because, unfortuanately for you women, society is dominated by men. It would stand to reason that the chief God would be a man. As society progressed God started to be seen as neither gender. Muslims might use the word he for Allah, but it is seen as niether. Yet in the other abrahamic religions Gods is invarible seen as male. Probably down to the passage with says "God created man in his own image". An argument that has been used on many an occassion but the religious right. Nowadays, with our PC world, God now exists as female, both or non. So what is god or gods to you?

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## HomicidalMouse

I said something like this to my friends when i was little. They all thought i was mad, but i did go to a christian school. I guess i think of god as male because of it.

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## Kama

I think that gods can't be described as female or male. Well, Greeks had female/male Gods, but it was so humanlike. I think that Gods/angels/demons don't have sex, but showing themselves people they have to choose a sex. Also, people can't imagine a being with no sex, that's why there are female and male gods.

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## Kinsao

I think God is genderless, because such a thing as "God" can't be restricted to the confines of a human body, and therefore can't have chromosomes, sexual organs etc.

I think people assigned a gender to gods/goddesses as a way to make them more humanlike and easier to relate to. 

Especially the Christian religion has traditionally been very patriarchal... well, for one moment assume that it really is the case that God chose to make itself incarnate as a human being (Jesus), it had to choose a male or female body, and chose the male - why? I think the reason would be that Jesus was to have a certain role to play - a job to do, if you like - that he probably couldn't have done if he had been born a woman _in that society, at that time_. For instance, if the god was to take on human form now at this time, it would perhaps choose female, if that would be the best gender for fulfilling the necessary role. Unfortunately, though, the old (and not-so-old!) patriarchal society which always called God "he", although I guess it was mainly for convenience and to make the concept of "God" easier to understand and relate to, that "he" implication has stuck with the religion over so many years.  :Embarrassment: 

Personally, though, having said that, I don't get easily offended by non-PC language, like a religious writing that refers to "mankind" or "all men". "Mankind" I just think of as shorthand for "humankind", and... well, I understand of course that "men" was used as a generic term for human beings and, although women were of course not always treated as equals in the past, the use of that word "men" to mean "human beings" doesn't bother me at all... And to be honest, it annoys me when people change it, sometimes, because it often destroys the rhythm and poetry of the original.  :Angry: :

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## Tsuyoiko

I think the fact that women have had to fight for equal rights to men is a direct consequence of the worship of an exclusively male deity. It's no coincidence that now that women are well on the way to equal rights, people are once again worshiping the goddess.

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## Void

> I think the fact that women have had to fight for equal rights to men is a direct consequence of the worship of an exclusively male deity. It's no coincidence that now that women are well on the way to equal rights, people are once again worshiping the goddess.


perhaps, exclusively male deity is the result of patriarchy taking over matriarchy (why it happend it`s another issue worth of great scientific research), and as the result of its domination women had to fight for thier rights.
Nowdays we have a tendency of "equalisation" not only in rights of men and women, but in many other areas (social, psychological and such), unisex is very often a face of european modern society.
One of my friends interested in sociology and gender proposes that this might be the mechanism to control the population of human species.

Personnaly, i, probably, don`t care about god`s gender, though russian language has three genders and god is of masculine gender, therefore whether i think or talk about god it is always in terms of "he, him" (even if i am unaware of it)

I know, Tsuyoiko, you are not really fond of R.Dockins, but his idea about mems is quite interesting, i think if it will be necessary "mem of male god" slowly will evolve into (or will be substituted by) "mem of female (androgyne, genderless) god"

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## PRIZMATIC

:Blush:  The God never had the mixed properties sexes... He is primary - man's... But the birth of the universe is caused presence of the female beginning... The Metamorphosis qux|yyrp~y the God is connected to two reasons:
1 - not knowledge by people of " the pure man's beginning " and " the pure female beginning "...
2 - impossibility of people to understand a condition of " the perfect consciousness " and " non-material existence "
For example:
If the pulse of desire - is the man's beginning the image or an idea from this pulse is a fruit female and man's... (Therefore in the female beginning is both the wife and mother for the God...) the Female beginning is a transition of the God in the world of the creation, giving to Him "fruits" and a birth in this world...
And here itself " the Female beginning " - to transform... (but a separate theme - why and for what...)
But not to confuse the World of the God from the world created by the Lord God whom our world is...
(the Bible,Genesis, chapter 2 a verse 3- 4 )  :Note:

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## saigosan

A so called god does not need a willie if it creates from nothing....So to attempt to imagine what is not real is a waste of time....What should be asked is, why do humans believe that this so called god has a willie?

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## No-name

> A so called god does not need a willie if it creates from nothing....So to attempt to imagine what is not real is a waste of time....What should be asked is, why do humans believe that this so called god has a willie?


 :Relieved:  saigosan-LOL that is an absolute gem.

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## strongvoicesforward

> A so called god does not need a willie if it creates from nothing....So to attempt to imagine what is not real is a waste of time....What should be asked is, why do humans believe that this so called god has a willie?


Maybe Bible God is Willie Wonka of the Chocolate Factory. ??? He also had a rather big ego and God Complex, if you will.

And some do think the flavor of chocolate is heavenly.

Yes, it is decided. The Chocolate Factory does need a Willie. Most definitely!

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## No-name

See now saiogosan was funny and witty. Your post is unoriginal and just bitter and sad.

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## Sile

> God does not have a gender. He is neither male nor female. Gender is a biological characteristic, and God is not a biological being. God is Spirit (John 4:24), and spirit does not have flesh and blood (Luke 24:39). However, in the Bible God is always referred to in the masculine. This is most probably because of how God "the Father" relates to Jesus, who is the Son of God. He was born a male, and in the Biblical culture the male is the one who represents his descendants (1 Cor. 15:22) and has the authority in the family (Gen. 27:1-29, 48:13-14). When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, Eve sinned first, but sin entered the world through Adam (Romans 5:12). This means it was the man Adam who possessed representative authority, not Eve. This phenomena is called Federal Headship. Jesus likewise possesses representative authority since He was and still is a man (1 Cor. 15:22) who is God in flesh (John 1:1, 14, Col. 2:9). Since we have an issue of authority in discussion related to gender, it makes sense to say that we would have God the Father and not God the mother since the male gender, Biblically, represents authority.


And he said , do not pray to idols and false Gods.................all people who follow any current religion pray to an idol, be it moslem, christian, buddha, hindi etc etc, crescent, crosses, statues, buildings etc

There shall, in that time, be rumours of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and the bezan shall be huge and black, and the eyes there of red with the blood of living creatures, and the whore of Babylon shall ride forth on a three-headed serpent, and throughout the lands, there'll be a great rubbing of parts. For the demon shall bear a nine-bladed sword. Nine-bladed! Not two or five or seven, but nine, which he will wield on all wretched sinners, sinners just like you,

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## bancroft

If I am going to base that from who was the first man that God created, then I could say that God is a male. For, He create Adam first and from Adam's rib God created woman. However, God is spirit so neither.

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## Sile

> If I am going to base that from who was the first man that God created, then I could say that God is a male. For, He create Adam first and from Adam's rib God created woman. However, God is spirit so neither.


But every human is conceived as a female initially.............then if you have a y chromosome, that kicks in after about 6 weeks and you become a male.

human and ape males are the only ones that have nipples........because we started off as a female......................so God must have been a female , and that what all original deity where , initially female

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## Rethel

> God does not have a gender. He is neither male nor female. Gender is a biological characteristic, and God is not a biological being. God is Spirit (John 4:24), and spirit does not have flesh and blood (Luke 24:39). However, in the Bible God is always referred to in the masculine. This is most probably because of how God "the Father" relates to Jesus, who is the Son of God. He was born a male, and in the Biblical culture the male is the one who represents his descendants (1 Cor. 15:22) and has the authority in the family (Gen. 27:1-29, 48:13-14). When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, Eve sinned first, but sin entered the world through Adam (Romans 5:12). This means it was the man Adam who possessed representative authority, not Eve. This phenomena is called Federal Headship. Jesus likewise possesses representative authority since He was and still is a man (1 Cor. 15:22) who is God in flesh (John 1:1, 14, Col. 2:9). Since we have an issue of authority in discussion related to gender, it makes sense to say that we would have God the Father and not God the mother since the male gender, Biblically, represents authority.


You are wrong. You repeat some jewish apostatic views.

God presented himself as a male in the Bible.
He created Adam (not Eve) on his very image.
No, not fleshly, but by personality, character,
way of thinking aso males are the image of
God himself - very corrupted of course, but 
Bible's God is 100% male, everything else is
a heresy and fantasy.

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## Sile

> You are wrong. You repeat some jewish apostatic views.
> 
> God presented himself as a male in the Bible.
> He created Adam (not Eve) on his very image.
> No, not fleshly, but by personality, character,
> way of thinking aso males are the image of
> God himself - very corrupted of course, but 
> Bible's God is 100% male, everything else is
> a heresy and fantasy.


Didn't the Bible say s/he created the human race in his/her form ?

Since we are ALL conceived firstly as female, then logic states that GOD was a female.

These religious books must surely be propaganda against women.............or more likely, since the majority of "Pagan" ( what is pagan anyway ) religion worshipped women dieties, then the bible was to discredit these religions

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