London , May 11 (ANI): Babies fed with cow milk may be at a greater risk of developing type 1 diabetes in later life, says a new study.
A 1993 study conducted by Finish researchers had revealed that consuming dairy products early was linked to diabetes risk.
This is because beta-lactoglobulin, a protein in cow’s stimulate babies to make antibodies that also attack glycodelin, a protein vital for training the immune system.
This in turn disturbs immune system, thereby misguidedly destroying insulin-producing pancreatic cells, leading to type 1 diabetes.
Supporting the previous findings, Marcia Goldfarb of the company Anatek-EP in Portland , Maine , also discovered five children with type 1 diabetes, who were fed cow’s-milk formula and all had antibodies to beta lactoglobulin.
“It’s fascinating, but needs more back-up data,” New Scientist quoted Mikael Knip of the Hospital for Children and Adolescents in Helsinki , Finland , as saying. He is conducting further study, TRIGR, to test whether children fed formula have a lower risk of disease than those fed with hydrolysed version, where the milk proteins have been broken down.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/early-consumption-of-cows-milk-may-boost-diabetes-risk-re-issue_10047549.html
I found this particular article extremely interesting since I, myself, have recently developed Type II diabetes as have a good number of my siblings; and, there is some evidence coming out now that even Type II diabetes could be related to early nutrition. Many of us baby boomers were probably the first experimental generation with so many formula-fed babies. Frequently cereals were introduced into our bottles at any early age. This was a common way of feeding babies then, in order to fill them up and help them sleep more. It appears breast milk is more easily digested by infants; and, thus babies must wake up more often when they are breast fed in order to be fed more.
So giving a bottle with a little baby cereal mixed in it was seen as a harmless method of providing a more filling early diet to infants and giving them a sounder sleep.
Additionally in an old Joslin Diabetes Center newsletter from December 1, 2004, which I only read about a year or so ago, there was a reprint of a New York Times article claiming that early introduction of cereals into an infant’s diet could also be responsible for the vast increase of diabetes in the west. A study in Germany and another follow-up one in the United States appears to show some “correlation between diabetes and early introduction of cereals and other foods into the diet of infants at genetic risk of the disease”.
Regarding all these allergies young children appear to be suffering from today, I have also seen another study claiming that early introduction of cereals could be a contributing factor in that as well. Especially these horrible peanut allergies since many cereals have some extract of peanuts introduced into them, either peanut oil or some other peanut additive.
Last but not least, a medical alert from the John Hopkins Medical Center is warning how plastic containers or bottles holding foods or liquids can leech into the contents when heated up or frozen (as in freezing plastic water bottles or microwaving foods in plastic containers). This is becoming noticable now with so many veterans of the Iraq war beginning to turn up with immune disorders after eating those ready-to-eat meals served in plastic and heated up in microwaves for them over in Iraq. Probably they are freezing water botttles as well to keep them colder. Absorb all your nourishment from these items for a few years and God only knows what will turn up in your body.
Anyway, anyone who has had to prepare formula for a baby knows you have to sterilize bottles and nipples (many today containing some plastic or silicon additive) BEFORE feeding them to an infant.
Yet in spite of more and more evidence cropping up that breast milk is by far the best and safest nourishment for infants (not to mention the most economical), I just recently had the opportunity to glance through one of those books (there are dozens of them out now) instructing men on how best to establish a relationship with a nursing infant. This particular one had practically an entire section dedicated to giving men instructions on this issue: which could basically have been titled 101 Tips to Interfere with a Nursing mother and Infant. Even to the point of encouraging a young mother to bottle feed instead of breast feed, just so the father could have a chance to feed the infant as well, totally self-centered and selfish behavior on the part of men.
As usual the best interest of children can be tossed out the window at the latest whim of men, that’s the message I got from that book.
Grow up already you nitwits, that's my message.
89 comments:
I read an article on a father's rights blog a couple months ago where they were complaining about mothers who use breastfeeding as an excuse to interfere with visitation. They were giving tips on how to get around this issue. They told fathers to demand that the mother should pump enough milk to send along on a weekend visit, and if a mother claims that her child won't eat formula, the father should videotape the child eating formula so that they could proove the mother was a liar in court. Of course, a baby will eat formula if the mother isn't there to breastfeed and the father refuses to give it the pumped breastmilk just so he can videotape the baby eating formula. WTF? The kid is probably starving so he or she will eat anything at this point. All this to get one over on the mother. What a bunch of assholes the fucker's rights movement are! Half of breastfeeding is the comfort of the child eating directly from the breast. A child who is in daycare is already eating pumped breastmilk in a bottle, and should not have to spend anymore time away from mom just to accomodate dad. If fathers really cared, they would realize this, and NOT demand overnight visitation until a child is weaned. My friend and her ex timed his visits around the baby's feedings, and the baby still bonded with him without overnight visits. If a father can't understand this without making unreasonable demands on the mother, or is abusive in anyway, he shouldn't be allowed visitation unless their supervised.
"If fathers really cared, they would realize this, and NOT demand overnight visitation until a child is weaned."
Here's a clue, gals: How's about waiting to do your breeding with a guy you can live with at least until the kid is weaned?
Problem solved.
Hell, there's two robins with peanut-sized brains raising a family in a tree in our backyard, and even they can do this.
No doubt breast is best, but a kid whose idiot parents can't even keep it together until he's out of infancy has got way bigger problems coming up than a disruption in his feeding routine.
Richard
Here's a clue guys: How about doing your breeding with a woman who doesn't mind bottlefeeding and overnight visits.
Nice robin allegory, since you're bringing up a species that doesn't have mammary glands. How about looking at the species that are mammals. What? They all nurse, and the males of the species doesn't have a say in the matter. Sounds like a plan.
"No doubt breast is best, but a kid whose idiot parents can't even keep it together until he's out of infancy has got way bigger problems coming up than a disruption in his feeding routine."
A kid who has a father who interferes with breastfeeding is going to have bigger problems because it shows what a selfish asshole (s)he has for a dad. And if dad is an asshole who abuses mom, the kid is even going to have more problems down the road. Better off if dad isn't around at all. You are an asshole Richard! Even you admit breast is best, but you think the dad should be accomodated at the expense of the child and his or her mother. By the way, interfering with breastfeeding only makes attachment to either parent more difficult. My friend and her ex both understood this, and they managed to work it out because HE understood the importance of not interfering where nature never intended for him to. They have a child who adores both parents even though they are not together anymore. That said, an anonymous sperm donor is the way to go as far as I'm concerned.
"Even you admit breast is best, but you think the dad should be accomodated at the expense of the child and his or her mother."
Bullshit. I think the child should be accomodated at the expense of both the mother and the father if necessary. Which means, a proper two-parent home.
If they can't even provide that AT LEAST unti the kid is out of infancy, then this breastfeeding business is peanuts compared to the issues the kid is going to face later. Just another example of re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Richard
"Bullshit. I think the child should be accomodated at the expense of both the mother and the father if necessary. Which means, a proper two-parent home."
Bullshit yourself. If you think this point of view is realistic, you're living in fairyland. What's your definition of a "proper two-parent family"? A family where dad beats up mom all the time? A family where dad does little to nothing of childcare and housework and expects mom to be his domestic servant after doing everything herself? A family where dad is a drunk and cheats on mom all the time? If you think a woman should have to put up with this shit in order to give her child a "proper two-parent family" than I say, FUCK YOU! And your idea that the kid should be accomodated at the expense of both mom and dad is horseshit as well. Who is more likely the primary caregiver of that child? Chances are it ISN'T going to be dad. If you inconvience the primary caregiver, it is at the expense of the child, you stupid and selfish asshole. A child is a hell of a lot better off in a single mother household than in a two-parent household where dad thinks he is more important than everyone else. And this attitude is very common among men today. That is why men like you are bitching about child custody and visitation issues. If they would've been decent to the mothers of their children to begin with, they wouldn't have this problem in the long run. And as for women having to be more careful about who they breed with, this argument goes both ways. And in the final analysis, this doesn't matter when said child is already born and what is in the best interest of that child. The bond between the child and the primarycaretaker (in most cases the mother) is what is in the best interests of that child especially in a single mother home. And in two parent homes where the dad treats the mother of his children with respect and does his share of the childcare and housework without being an abusive asshole, drunk, or cheater, this is the only kind of two parent home that benefits children. You seem to think that the mere presence of a person with a penis known as bio-dad is the only thing that makes a two parent family better for a child. Well, I've got news for you. If dad is anything like I've described above, than any benefits of a two parent home go right out the window. It's as simple as that.
"Just another example of re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic."
And in the spirit of the Titanic- Women and children first! In this particular case, mothers and children first! Dad can either sink or swim depending on how well he understands this.
Some states have instituted laws that children under 3 cannot be court-ordered into overnight visits. Of course, court officials can then threaten the mothers of infants that they will take custody from them and give it to the recreational sperm donors, so mothers won't be able to see their own infants.
Once again we see why the courts are so utterly useless and how men continually use them to undermine the original intent of every law ever made to try and protect mothers and children.
Richard: once it's established that breastfeeding is in the best interest of the child (and it is unless the mother has some disease potentially transmittable through bodily fluids) there should be NO discussion or argument about this issue. Whatever circumstances led to a father not living on site with the mother and child should not be used as an argument to interfere with breastfeeding.
It's called tough luck Richard.
Men need to think of these issues before carelessly spawning with women they hardly know.
Okay.
The breastfeeding issue is not peanuts. Diabetes is actually turning into a worldwide health issue (30 million in China, about another 13 million and climbing in the US) and btw, it's the most expensive disease to treat once it's diagnosed.
So we need to be looking at cultivation of proper nutritional starts for young infants by encouraging MORE mothers to breast feeding and delaying the introduction of cereals into an infant's diet; not trying to figure out how best to interfere with a mother and child in order to accommodate the whims of men.
The other issue I have is the use of plastic in bottles and nipples to feed infants...so even pumping could be a problem if you have to use heat to sterilize the bottles, nipples and rings that hold the pumped milk.
Plastic when heated or cooled (below freezing as in freezing plastic water bottles) leeches into food or liguid...that is what we found out after testing returning vets from Iraq (who have been living off of food/drinks prepared in this manner, some for as long as two years). They come back with immune disorders. I don't know if they are permanent or not, maybe it's too soon to tell.
Anyway, a mother is already feeding her infant toxins, if they have them in daycare and are pumping milk into any plastic bottles and/or using nipples/caps made out of plastic. So if there's a choice here I would say daycare is worse then a once or twice a month visit...since daycare is everyday, sometimes as long as ten hours a day.
So potential for long-term permanent damage is greater.
Sorry but women need to hear these things so they can plan properly BEFORE having children.
BTW Richard, in response to your bird analogue I have a bear analogue to provide support for NO VISITATION by fathers: male bears are responsible for the death of most bear cubs. So in spite of much propoganda by men to the contrary father bear EATS his cubs for lunch if mother bear gives him the opportunity.
So let's not keep playing stupid here, males in every species, as well as our own, play a very small role in creating and then afterwards raising young...
Men who have a complaint about that fact should direct it to God, evolution or nature, not to women.
nymom:
That's interesting about the toxins in the baby bottles. I have to read more about that. On the other hand, I have read that babies are less likely to be sick when the mother continues to breastfeed after going back to work even if the child is getting pumped breastmilk in a bottle while in daycare all day. Anyway, a lot of single mothers who want to breastfeed and continue doing it don't have any choice about going back to work and said child will still spend a large part of the day in daycare. I think drinking pumped breastmilk from a bottle is still a lot better than drinking formula though, and overnight weekend visits with dad just make the situation even worse. Anyway, in my friend's case, she did not go back to work until her child was six months old, and he was on solids. He refused to drink from a bottle at all while in daycare and would only eat solids. He would nurse only at night about every two hours. My friend asked her pediatrician about this, and he said that her child was "cycling" or in other words, adjusting his schedule to his mother's. Her doctor said this wasn't unusual and as long as he was eating solids during the day and nursing at night, her son would still get all the benefits of breastmilk. It didn't give my friend much sleep, but she was glad in the long run. Anyway, I doubt most babies will do this even though her doctor said it wasn't all that unusual. I think that there should be a year long paid maternity leave like in Sweden, and that would solve the problem all together, but I doubt it's going to happen any time soon in this country.
Been gone for a few days while the sound system was repaired.
But I see Anon has predictably thrown out the abusive-drunk-and-so-on-and-so-on-dad scenario to pretend that expecting a baby to have two parents to tend it is "living in fairyland."
If we men need to be more careful about the women we "carelessly spawn" with but barely know, fair enough, but then ditto times two you gals who can't even live with your guy till your kid is weaned.
If he's such a loser, then why did you lie down and make a baby with him just a few short months ago?
THAT is why I'm saying that kids born to idiots with this kind of crappy judgment are hosed in the long run, whether breast-fed or not.
Incidentally, breast-feeding isn't even usually an issue anyway among the kind of people who have kids in this manner. It mostly happens among the poor and uneducated, and it's well known that these women breastfeed far less than other women do because they get free formula through WIC and it's more convenient for them.
And no, "inconvenciencing" the primary caregiver is not at the expense of the child. Mothers' and children's interests are not the same.
If they were, we wouldn't have so many wives with families and obligations sitting in divorce lawyers' offices whining that they're not "fulfilled" (as if their husbands are) and they've "grown apart" and they need to get out and "find their soulmate" before it's too late and other such bullshit.
And more to the point of what we've been discussing here, we also wouldn't have so many young and incapable women bringing kids into poverty-ridden and crime-infested environments so they'll have "someone to love me."
We've had about a generation now of what is really a "women first, and dads and children can sink or swim" kind of philosophy. It's all but destroyed conventional marriage and left our young people terrified of commitment. Great job!
Richard
Richard:
I personally think you are a good example of men being jealous of women as being the creators of life on this planet. This is the origins of most religions as a matter of fact: male jealousy of women's ability to procreate. So you've invented god as an all powerful male, who is supposedly the creator of all life...to compensate for the fact that men create no life.
You are secondary factors. I personally feel your constant denigrating remarks about the reasons women have children is proof of this.
Wow anonymous.
This story about the baby waiting all day for his mother to come back from work and then starting to nurse every two hours throughout the night is a scary one. First of all, babies draw comfort from nursing, not just nourishment. So that means this kid is on standby all day waiting for his mom to return in order to comfort himself????
This doesn't sound healthy to me. There has to be some long term impact on this kid's psyche from this sort of thing.
I guess the only thing I can say is that maybe women have to think along the lines of putting away some money towards the time they have a baby, so they can stay home longer and live off their savings. Kind of like what women used to do before marrying, putting away a dowry. Yes, since history shows us that men have never wished to get married so women always had to bribe them with offers of money, property, portable goods, etc., (what we called a dowry).
Maybe women need to return to that behavior, but the dowry would be for themselves now to enable them to stay home for a few years with their children and not work. Even the poorest of women saved up a dowry if they wanted to be married and have a family. I remember my grandmother's 'hope chest' when I was little. It used to sit at the foot of her bed, used to store extra blankets and sheets in then. At one time this sort of chest would have formed part of her dowry, equipped with linens, quilts and other portable items to set up a household for when she eventually married.
I guess it was thought to be inconsiderate for women to expect men to pay for anything related to marriage, since men were already doing such a 'favor' to consider marrying a woman and finally allowing her to legitimately have children.
So we had to provide everything. For instance, in ancient Rome in the event of divorce, a portion of a womens' dowry would be kept by her husband to support any children of the marriage. The rest was returned to her family, along with her.
Many of the wars in European history began as fights over royal womens' dowry. When their husbands tried to keep the lands, vineyards, whatever they were supposed to return to her birth family after they turned in the woman herself for a newer, younger model...
LIke much else in history that can be summed up under the heading: the greed of men.
"This is the origins of most religions as a matter of fact: male jealousy of women's ability to procreate."
That so? I thought you women had laid claim a long time ago to having started religion, with your earth-mother-moon-goddess-harmony-with-nature-and-so-on-and-so-forth schtick. But whatever.
"I personally feel your constant denigrating remarks about the reasons women have children is proof of this."
If you're talking about that "someone to love me" comment, well, that's the main reason poor and unprepared females give for having children. Love ME, give ME meaning, get MY life straightened out, etc. Everyone who's actually lived among such women and studied them reports the same.
"Yes, since history shows us that men have never wished to get married so women always had to bribe them with offers of money, property, portable goods, etc., (what we called a dowry)."
Really? Then what got people married up until a few centuries BC when the bride price was the prevailing custom instead of the dowry?
For most of human history whether men or women did or didn't want to get married had jack all to do it. Marriages were arranged not by individuals but by families to form advantageous in-law alliances, pool resources efficiently, and promote the interests of entire kin groups.
And now it's the greed and the lack of commitment of women, not us, that will finish off marriage for good.
Women who wish someone to love them is not rare at all.
It's why many women frequently marry nitwits, as well as having children when they are unprepared.
We could probably cut the birth rate (as well as the marriage rate) if women didn't follow this instinct. Since applying logic to the whole situation, there is no logical reason for any woman to go to the trouble of having children ever.
Okay.
Logic dictates that any female of any species (not just human) would be better off just using her progeny as food like males do...
So that's the bottom line.
Bride price is a very rare custom. My observation is that it was generally practiced in a few societies where they had the unfortunately habit of murdering most of their girl children at birth, so they had to pay to buy a woman later for their sons to marry. Common sense should have indicated this unfortunate end result, but common sense doesn't appear very common in most of these places.
The only GOOD thing about it is that most of the societies that had the custom of bride price appear to either have become extinct or are rapidly heading into it.
Good riddance I say.
Bride price is not rare, NY. It was definitely practiced in Mesopotamia. There are many references to it in the Old Testament. In fact the rabbis invented the ketubah to make it easier for poorer men who couldn't afford bride price to obtain wives. You know, those wives they didn't really want.
Ancient Greeks practiced this too, and it was the prevailing custom in Rome until dowry replaced it a few centuries BC. It's still practiced in parts of Asia.
American Indians practiced bride price for the most part, too.
But again, it didn't matter too much what the parties wanted or didn't want. Marriages were family arrangements, made to serve the interests of both families, up until relatively recently.
"Since applying logic to the whole situation, there is no logical reason for any woman to go to the trouble of having children ever."
Well, I agree. We're living in interesting times, when for the first time in history sex and childbirth are separated and people don't have to have kids and the birth rate is dropping everywhere as a result.
Richard
Richard,
I asked you a direct question. What is your definition of a "proper two parent house"? Don't give me the obvious answer of a home with a mom and a dad. You think the mere presence of a parent that is male is the ONLY thing that makes a two parent family better for a child. Not good enough. I want SPECIFICS. Quit dancing around the question.
As for "ditto times two" for women who "carelessly spawn" with a loser, that is easy for you to say from your position of male entitlement and privilege. While I agree that both women and men should be careful about who they "spawn" with, women get a wider margin for error. We live in a society where the majority of men have a HUGE SENSE OF MALE ENTITLEMENT AND MALE PRIVILEGE TOWARD WOMEN AND THE CHILDREN THAT THEY GIVE BIRTH TO. This is so embedded in the MALE PSYCHE that most men don't even realize that they are causing most of the problems in the relationships between men and women. You blame women for not picking a decent guy, but the truth of the matter is, there aren't a heck of a lot of decent men out there to begin with. That said, men have less excuse than women when it comes to who they have a child with.
"Mother's and child's interests aren't the same."
You really are living in Fairyland. Do you even know anything about infant attachment? Attachment has to do with the child's relationship with his or her primary caretaker (mother). A child has to develop a SECURE attachment to his or her PRIMARY CARETAKING MOTHER before he or she can develop a secure attachment to any other SECONDARY caretaker (father). Forcing a PRIMARY CARETAKING MOTHER to cater to the UNREASONABLE DEMANDS and WANTS of the father when they are in DIRECT CONFLICT to the NEEDS of her child IS NOT IN THAT CHILD'S BEST INTERESTS. This makes attachment to BOTHS PARENT more difficult. It doesn't matter whether the father lives in the house or not. The fact that you can't see this makes you an idiot.
FYI women don't sit in lawyer's offices griping about "growing apart" or "finding their soulmates". WOMEN are usually the ones who try to fix the problems in their relationships DURING their marriages, i.e., through marriage counseling or whatever, and MEN are the ones who resist these efforts. When women are asked why they want to end their relationships, they usually give concise, concrete reasons like, "He was abusive." or "He cheated on me." MEN are the ones who can't understand what went wrong even though they didn't do anything to prevent the break up of their marriages. MEN are the ones who whine to their lawyers,"I don't know what went wrong?" "Wah!"
Way to go calling those "young and incapable" GIRLS "women". Most girls who want "someone to love them are" are unwed teenagers, not women. And the fathers of these teenager's babies are usually ADULT MALES. But I guess that doesn't count because of MALE ENTITLEMENT AND MALE PRIVILEGE. You should know, but than you can't see beyond your own male bias.
"We're living in interestig times, when for the first time in history sex and childbirth are seperated and people don't have to have kids and the birthrate is dropping everywhere as a result."
I lived in Japan for two years, and they have one of the lowest birthrates in the world. The government is worried because there is a big percentage of women in the childbearing years who do not have children. A lot of Japanese women are refusing to marry and have children because Japanese men are very chauvinistic. In fact, this is trend isn't unusual in western countries for the same reason. I think it's extremely telling that women don't want to put up with mysoganist attitudes anymore, and it's affecting the birthrate. Instead of changing their attitudes, men want to deny women birth control. It figures they can't see where the real problem is.
Look, sis, I'm not dancing around anything. I didn't know I had to spell it out for you, but OK.
A proper two-parent home is one with married biological parents raising their own children. Clear enough?
It doesn't much matter WHY this is the best arrangement for kids, but it is. It's the one which keeps kids healthiest mentally and physically, happiest, safest from abuse and delinquency, and most likely to succeed academically and economically and form stable families of their own.
My personal opinion of why this is so is that each parent brings something essential to the parenting process that the other can't. You women may indeed, on average, be better nurturers, better teachers, and more patient. Good for you.
But that isn't the whole story of what kids need as they develop. On average you're also substandard providers, mediocre protectors, abysmal disciplinarians and boundary-setters, and by virtue of your sex completely unqualified to serve as role models for boys as they face the unique challenges of responsible manhood.
And for some reason that I have no clue about, you're also strangely inept at conveying to girls the importance of modesty and sexual restraint.
So there you are. Ignore my opinions as you please, they're only opinions. But facts themselves are not in dispute.
"When women are asked why they want to end their relationships, they usually give concise, concrete reasons like, "He was abusive." or "He cheated on me.""
Bullshit. The reasons why people divorce have been studied a great deal. At least two-thirds of divorces involve low-conflict marriages where one party (usually women) simply doesn't feel "appreciated" or "fulfilled" and thinks he/she (not the kids, of course) can do better elsewhere. Actual abuse is cited in only a small minority of cases, something like 6% I think, and as far as adultery goes women are cited at least as often as men.
Children only benefit from divorce in very high-conflict marriages. In all other cases it's an enormous detriment to their well-being, and mothers might do better to make the best of things and not pull their kids' foundation out from under them before they're launched. If their interests and their kids interests are really the same.
"MEN are the ones who can't understand what went wrong even though they didn't do anything to prevent the break up of their marriages. MEN are the ones who whine to their lawyers,"I don't know what went wrong?" "Wah!""
So we're not into navel-gazing and analyzing how we feeeeeeel about everything. So we're simple creatures who think that if the bills are paid and everyone is safe and healthy that things are pretty satisfactory. So what? Most of you already know that about us when you make that marital commitment that we take seriously and you evidently don't.
"Forcing a PRIMARY CARETAKING MOTHER to cater to the UNREASONABLE DEMANDS and WANTS of the father when they are in DIRECT CONFLICT to the NEEDS of her child IS NOT IN THAT CHILD'S BEST INTERESTS."
For someone who likes to call other people idiots, you sure are thick. We're talking about BABIES here. It's not "in a baby's best interests" to be brought into a situation where its parents are not both there to care for it in the first place.
I mean, most people with a minimum of intelligence and maturity can manage to stay together at least while their kids are helpless babies.
If they can't even do that, then all this hand-wringing over whether or not the baby's going to have an overnight and be bottle-fed or breast-fed or whatnot is ridiulous. Odds are the kid will grow up to do all the same stupid shit its parents did and face all the same old tired pathologies that drag kids from half-assed families into the underclass generation after generation. Breast-fed or not.
Just like a kid whose parents worked and waited and planned and saved to build the right kind of home to bring him into, and hung in there once they did, will generally succeed even if he's bottle-fed from the git-go.
Talk about stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime!
"We live in a society where the majority of men have a HUGE SENSE OF MALE ENTITLEMENT AND MALE PRIVILEGE TOWARD WOMEN AND THE CHILDREN THAT THEY GIVE BIRTH TO."
Oh please. Don't make me puke on my newly-repaired computer. As if women have no sense of entitlement in their relationships. Only to everything, from lavish weddings that nearly bankrupt their families to the choice to work or not work, support or be supported, as they please, and to be kept happy and fulfilled and understood and placated every minute of their lives or otherwise to freely repudiate every phony promise they made at that expensive wedding and drag the kids off god-knows-where along with as much money as the law lets them grab. Oh no, women have no sense of entitlement...
"This is so embedded in the MALE PSYCHE that most men don't even realize that they are causing most of the problems in the relationships between men and women."
Ha ha! If ever a pot called a kettle black...
"You blame women for not picking a decent guy, but the truth of the matter is, there aren't a heck of a lot of decent men out there to begin with."
Well, I can respect open and honest misandry a lot easier than the "I don't hate men, but..." variety of most feminists. But if you really believe there aren't many decent men out there, then that says more about your ability to either choose or attract good men than anything else. And I'd say the same thing to another guy if he said something this ridiculous about all women in general.
Richard
"I think it's extremely telling that women don't want to put up with mysoganist attitudes anymore, and it's affecting the birthrate. Instead of changing their attitudes, men want to deny women birth control. It figures they can't see where the real problem is."
Oh, so falling birthrates all over the entire western world are our fault too?
FYI, sis, birthrates have been steadily fallling all over the western world ever since the onset of the fucking Industrial Revolution. You know, when rural/agricultural society began to be replaced by urban/industrial society and kids became more of a financial liability than an economic asset.
The baby boom was a brief blip on he screen. After it was over birth rates resumed their decline and the invention of reliable contraception only accelerated an established trend.
Low birth rates are just typical of affluent, educated and liberal societies. Especially such as western Europe, where people have largely abandoned religion and mostly value pleasure and leisure over achievement and obligation.
Flexible family-friendly social policies help, which account for the somewhat higher birth rates in Scandinavia, but probably not enough to reverse the Islamization of Europe.
I'm not sure who you think wants to deny women birth control. That's a favorite boogebear that Amanda Marcotte and her ilk like to throw out there, probably to scare more women into feminism. But I can't see that anyone wants to deny women contraception except religious extremists, who really don't have enough influence at least in this country to accomplish something that momentous.
Of course, Muslims are another story, and when they swallow up Europe you'll see a lot of restriction on contraception then. That and a whole lot more.
Good thing you gals ain't puttin' up with no misogynistic attitudes....
Richard
Richard: you don't know what you are talking about with Greek and Roman civilization. They did NOT practice bride price, but dowry...read a few books about roman laws and customs. I'd recommend William Harris from Columbia Univ. to start...
Yes, American Indians practiced bride price, but didn't I say it was a few primitive societies that practiced it, most heading into extinction???? Probably the two are connected...
Regarding two-parent families, it's nice if it happens. I certainly have nothing against it, YET, it is NOT the necessity that men make it out to be to raise healthy, happy, well-adjusted children. Men just paint it that way so as to give themselves more importance then they merit. As they do with much else.
To return to my own theory of societies going into decline when they emphasis bride price, probably they reach some kind of tipping point where they just can't get the numbers back up...sometimes they can kidnap women from neighboring states and tribes. But eventually this must fail as well and then they are just finished...
Men, as usual, appear to overvalue their worth in every situation...
"A proper two parent family is one with married biological parents are raising their own children. Clear enough? It doesn't matter WHY this is the best arrangement for kids, but it is."
"Children only benefit from divorce in high-conflict marriage"
You just prooved yourself a bigger asshole and an idiot than you already are. You keep on blabbering about two parent families being better for children, but you make the same point that I've been saying the whole time, you ignoramous. It's not the quantity of the parents that make a two parent home better, it's the QUALITY of the relationship between the parents. After ignoring everything that I've been saying if you would've bothered to read my posts to begin with, you just admitted that you agree with me. What a fuckhead you are. Thanks for making my point.
"As if women have no sense of entitlement in their relationships."
Now you're an even bigger asshole than I thought possible. You are comparing the MALE ENTITLEMENT AND MALE PRIVILEGE that women experience as a group from men in our society to some vague entitlement that some individual women may feel. In our society, women are constantly held up to impossible beauty standards, beaten up, raped, murdered by the men in our relationships, and than blamed for everything wrong in those relationships and society as a whole and called liars to boot. We are told we are bad mothers if we are single parents, working mothers, single working mothers, welfare moms. If we stay home with our kids, we are called parasites and blamed for making our kids too clingy. No matter what, women are blamed for EVERYTHING if a child goes the wrong way, and MEN TAKE ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANYTTHING AT ALL. Women work full-time jobs and still DO THE MAJORITY OF THE HOUSEWORK AND THE CHILDCARE WHETHER THEY ARE SINGLE OR MARRIED BECAUSE MEN THINK THEY ARE ENTITLED TO HAVING THEIR CAKE AND EAT IT TO. Women are discriminated against in the workplace just for being women. We are exploited in the porn industry and prostituted. Since, women have all the family responsibility and discriminated against in the workplace, you have the nerve to say that men are better providers! Men don't have to put up with all the shit that women do in our society. Men are better providers because the system is set up by them for them, and they don't have to worry about ANYTHING. YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE. WHEN MEN HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS THAT WOMEN HAVE THAN WE'LL SEE HOW GOOD A PROVIDER THEY REALLY ARE. You compare some INDIVIDUAL woman's entitlement to a lavish wedding to the HUGE AMOUNT OF MALE ENTITLEMENT AND PRIVILEGE THAT MEN AS INDIVIDUALS AND AS A GROUP ENJOY IN OUR SOCIETY. You are one sick individual to even think that this compares. MOST MEN DON'T UNDERSTAND THE MALE PSYCHE, AND THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE CUSTODY OF ANY CHILDREN ESPECIALLY BOYS. The ONLY REAL SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT WOMEN HAVE IS TO BE TREATED AS EQUALS, AND WE DEFINITELY DON'T GET THAT.
And I didn't say that I don't think that their are decent men out there. I am saying that decent men are humanity in short supply. So don't blame women when they end up with a loser because men don't know how to behave. Men have absolutely NOTHING to complain about, and they have ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE. A lot of women don't want to put up with this bullshit, and they decide not to marry and have children. It's directly related to how MEN TREAT WOMEN. Of course, women are than blamed for the falling birthrates because MEN CAN'T SEE THEIR OWN PRIVILEGE. YOU ARE A PRIME EXAMPLE OF THIS. Thanks Richard, you just prooved everything that I've been saying all along.
Also, you say you don't know who wants to take away women's birth control. You really are an ignorant loser. The religious right wing conservatives talk about this all the time. It's not just abortion they want to make illegal, but any kind of birth control at all.
"It's not "in the babie's best interests" to be brought into a situation where its parents are not both there to care for it in the first place."
Again, in married households, women are the ones who do the majority of the housework and the childcare even if they work outside the home. In most two parent families, women are bringing in half the income as well. The majority of men aren't taking care of their babies whether they live in the home or not. Instead, they want the wife to clean up after them. All this leads to is a burnt out wife and mother and a lot of conflict between the parents. In families that actually have a SAH father and a working mother, the working mother still manages to find time to do childcare and housework so her husband isn't stuck picking up after her just because she brings home the paycheck. And I'm not talking about the households where there is a lazy slob dad who watches TV all day because he refuses to do housework/childcare or work outside the home. I'm talking about households where the SAH dad actually does housework and childcare while mom works and they do it together when she gets home. Most breadwinner fathers and SAHM households don't have it this good. If a working mother can be the provider and help out her SAH husband with childcare/housework, working fathers don't have any excuse about not helping out their SAH wives because they "bring in the money." Face it, most men aren't taking care of their children when the parents are together to begin with. Just another example of male entitlement and privilege.
"You keep on blabbering about two parent families being better for children, but you make the same point that I've been saying the whole time, you ignoramous. It's not the quantity of the parents that make a two parent home better, it's the QUALITY of the relationship between the parents."
You can't even stop yammering long enough to read. The quality of the relationship between the parents isn't the critical factor here except in extremely high conflict marriages. Meaning, unless someone is being beaten up or something major and kids are scared. And this is a small minority of marriages even though the fems like to paint it otherwise in order to get more goodies for women. It's a lot more common in, yep, unmarried relationships.
The hard reality is that it doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to kids whether their parents are happy or not. It means more that they're THERE, fulfilling their obligations. Some degree of shit is just part of life. This is something men seem to grasp better than women.
You speak (or screech) of women putting up with men's shit and I'm sure many are, but there are hordes of men out there putting up with selfish and abusive women (of which you sound suspiciously like one) for the sake of their kids, many just accepting it as their duty without even thinking about it too much.
A woman who thinks she can do better can walk out scot-free with whatever she can grab, to the cheers of "you go, girl!" A man who thinks he can do better usually walks out with nothing but debts and obligations and is labeled a heel. More female privilege.
"Also, you say you don't know who wants to take away women's birth control. You really are an ignorant loser. The religious right wing conservatives talk about this all the time."
I already said, religious extremists. Who don't have nearly the influence that Pandagonish morons like to claim. They can talk all they want, but they'll never get the voting people to give up reliable birth control because this is something that hits the them in their POCKETS.
"MOST MEN DON'T UNDERSTAND THE MALE PSYCHE, AND THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE CUSTODY OF ANY CHILDREN ESPECIALLY BOYS."
This is by far the most idiotic statement you have made so far. I suppose YOU understand the male psyche? You can't even see your own advantages and you want to tell us what we can or can't see?
And that business about boys and custody is pure ignorance. The best place for a boy in the event of a marital break-up is with his dad (and the reverse is true for girls). Boys in father custody are far better adjusted. The entire reason that boys have a harder time adjusting to divorce is because most of the time they're left in the care of mothers who don't understand the "male psyche" and can not effectively corral them or motivate them or show them what being a responsible man is all about. So they simply follow their testosterone and over-compensate in the other direction.
And incidentally, two-thirds of those custodial dads have no child-support order to help support those boys. Some even pay support to the mothers in order to be left alone. But instead of whining about it they mostly just mind their own business and go on, knowing that that few judges will do jack-shit when a woman blows off her obligations. Yeah, some male privilege.
"I am saying that decent men are humanity in short supply. So don't blame women when they end up with a loser because men don't know how to behave."
They're in no shorter supply than decent women. And yeah, we're all ultimately responsible for our choices of mates, although I know you fems are seriously allergic to the concept of responsibility.
The rest of your screed is nothing but a collection of feminist platitudes and buzzwords, unresponsive to anything. And a lot of abusive name-calling, also typically feminist and puerile. So this "loser" will go back to his profession, his educated wife and his college-bound kids and say so long for now.
As for NY, I see little evidence for your position on the unimportance of two-parent homes, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion.
Richard
"The quality of the relationship between the parents isn't the critical factor here except in extremely high conflict marriages. Meaning, unless someone is being beaten up or something major, and kids are scared. It's a lot more common in, yep, unmarried relationships."
In your earlier post, you said:
"Children only benefit from divorce in high conflict marriages. In all other cases, it's an enormous detriment to their well-being, and mothers might do better to make the best of things and not pull their kid's foundation out from under them before their launched."
And even earlier in your posts:
"I think the child should be accomodated at the expense of both the mother and father if necessary, which means a proper two parent house."
Well, if this isn't an oxymoron. You say the quality of a parent's relationship doesn't matter except in high conflict marriages, and in the same breath you say this is more common in unmarried relationships. Than before this, your telling mothers in high conflict unmarried relationships to make the best of things to give their kid a two parent home. If there is high conflict in an unmarried relationship, it's not going to go away by giving the kid a "proper two parent home". It's only going to make it worse. And you have the nerve to tell MOTHERS they have to "make the best of things". Doesn't matter if dad is an abusive asshole. Mom should marry him and that will solve the problem and give the kid a "proper two parent family". In the meantime, dad doesn't have to do a fucking thing to change his abusive ways. If dad refuses to change his abusive ways after they are married, than mom can divorce him. But marry him first to solve the problem. What a fucking joke!
And of course, abusive dad should get custody of said kid especially if said kid is a boy because mom doesn't understand the male psyche. Ha! Ha! Ha! Of all things, Richard, you are the king of the idiots and assholes! Thanks for prooving my point once again, that high conflict two parent homes are not the best environment for children in ANY SITUATION MARRIED OR UNMARRIED. And thanks for finally being honest about your definition of a "proper two parent house." A home where dad can say or do whatever the hell he wants, and mom just has to put up with it at the detriment of both the child and mom. Yes, "loser" go back to your profession of being the world's biggest idiot and asshole with your so-called educated wife who likes to pander to the patriarchy by being an MRA/FRA supporter. As for your two college bound kids, I feel sorry for them especially if they are girls. And if they are boys, I know exactly how they're going to turn out thanks to their asshole dad. Fuck you!
I wasn't coming back to this thread but you've so snarled up everything I've said that I'll simply set the record straight by saying:
Don't have a kid in a high-conflict unmarried relationship (Duh!). In fact, don't have a kid in an unmarried relationship AT ALL. Take some time and use your birth control and figure out if you really want to live and raise a family with this guy. If he's a loser or abusive, it'll almost always show up before too long.
And after you're married, don't pull the rug out from under your kids and break up their family unless the guy does a complete reversal and the situation is dangerous. Otherwise, yeah, make the best of it even if neither of you is completely "fulfilled". Maybe you think you can find a better husband but your kids usually can't find a better dad than their own.
And no need to feel too sorry for my kids. My daughter will more than likely turn out professional and responsible like her mom, and all signs point to my son being like his dad and both grandfathers, capable family men who take care of their obligations and are loved by their families.
And they'll probably both laugh out loud at screeching liberal idiots who screw up their lives and encourage everyone else to screw up theirs and then try to tell us how fucked up WE are.
See you around.
Richard
Richard, the problem with your 'cure' is that it's worse then the disease itself.
The fact that many marriages only last about 5 to 7 years (10 years is a long-term marriage today) means women, as the ones who actually bear life, (sorry to disappoint you Richard but the male role is insignficiant in this instance) have to adjust their life plan accordingly. The high divorce rate clearly signifies a sea-change in how men and women will live going forward and 7 or even 10 years is just not long enough to raise a child to maturity.
The greed and selfishness of men ensures that every divorce or separation involving children will mean a prolonged, bitter, custody fight and our society just can't afford it. Our legal system is being overwhelmed, not to mention the many fine women (who would make excellent mothers) that won't even bother having children rather then risk losing them some years later for financial benefit to some idiot.
So the current scenario, as it exists today, is not sustainable, thus, it will change one way or the other. The question is just what direction the change will take.
That's part of what this blog is about...
Regarding two-parent families, I have nothing against them. If all parties are happy in the relationship, fine by me. I just don't believe they are the only way to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted children.
I think MEN are very invested in making this appear to be the ONLY way to raise children as it gives them far more importance then nature intended them to have...it's like this whole invention of religion by men: labeling men as Creators. When, in fact, they are NOT...your role is small in the creation of life, minimal.
Accept it already and shut up about it...you are jealous of womens' life giving role. That's pretty obvious.
"In fact, don't have a kid in an unmarried relationship AT ALL!"
You're absolutely right Richard! Skip the relationship entirely. An anonymous sperm donor is the way to go.
Richard, you are the one who said:
"Here's a clue gals, how's about waiting to do your breeding with a guy you can live with at least until the kid is weaned?"
"ditto times two you gals who can't even live with your guy until the kid is weaned"
Both times you used the phrase, "live with". You made absolutely no distinction between an unmarried and a married relationship. You used the phrase "proper two parent home". I asked you what your definition of a "proper two parent home" was when I was making a point about high conflict between the parents (a point that I brought up from the beginning that you conveniently ignored). You danced around the question, and I had to ask you again. Only than, did you bring up being married. Of course, than you decided to bring up high conflict even though I have been making that point all along. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SNARLED THINGS UP.
Can't take it, go fuck yourself!
NY, your comment about 5-7 year marriages completely ignores education, age, socioeconomic status and marital and reproductive history, all of which affect marital success. 5-7 year marriages are not standard for all groups.
But that's too complicated to get into here. Suffice it to say the less stupid shit you do elsewhere in life, the better your chances for marital success.
But even a 5-7 year marriage would eliminate the problem of breast-feeding and overnights for infants.
"The greed and selfishness of men ensures that every divorce or separation involving children will mean a prolonged, bitter, custody fight"
Don't get this. Only about 10 percent at most of separations involve a custody fight.
"So the current scenario, as it exists today, is not sustainable, thus, it will change one way or the other. The question is just what direction the change will take."
My own opinion is that in the short-term the currently established pattern will continue. The haves will continue to have kids within intact families, and the have-nots will continue to half-ass it.
But in the very long-term we'll probably follow Europe into ever-increasing government dependency and inertia, with the people best able to raise families instead having fewer and fewer kids in order to preserve their leisure and comfortable quality of life.
But maybe by then we'll be closer to Brave New World.
Now, NY, this is the second time you've thrown this "You're just jealous" business at me. You often said it at Gonz's too. My better judgment tells me to blow it off, because it smacks too much of the grade-school playground to take seriously.
But just for the hell of it, I'll respond.
We aren't jealous of any female power to "create life" because it doesn't exist.
Perhaps the early cavemen thought reproduction was some kind of hocus-pocus women did all by themselves. Possibly.
But Judeo-Christian tradition (which I suspect you're slamming here) never labeled men as creators of life. They believed that spirit created physical life, and THEN subdivided it into male and female for reproduction.
Of course now we know that you women do the same thing we do to get the ball rolling, i.e. have sex. Beyond that pregnancy is something that happens TO you and THROUGH you, not something you DO, unless you do something to stop it.
So what does that leave us to be jealous of? Nausea? Stretch marks? Labor? Uh, no.
But nice try. It's a neat way to shift the focus from kids and their needs to women and their rights. Feminists and woman-firsters are masters at this.
We love our kids, and our kids love and want us, and according to all the evidence, have a need for us as well. Your "power" isn't an issue.
Perhaps it offends your sense of justice that this should be so when we don't suffer the effects of pregnancy to pay for it, so to speak. But a better object of focus is our kids needs and what will make them as successful as possible.
Smart women have already figured this out. If not-so-smart women could also get it perhaps we could narrow the class divide in this country a bit.
Richard
"But Judeo-Christian tradition (which I suspect you're slamming here) never labeled men as creators of life."
You're so right, Dick. The bible calls the first man/couple Adam which is the generic term for human being. To distinguish woman from the man, woman was called Eve. Eve is from the ancient Hebrew Hawwah which means LIFE.
Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Even Adam recognized this fact which is something modern men don't. I asked my rabbi about this, and he would know more than you.
"We aren't jealous of any female power to "create life" because it doesn't exist."
Now Dick, in case you forgot the facts of life, a baby does not start to develop until AFTER the fertilized egg implants itself into the uterine lining and a placenta develops. Through the placenta, the mother eats and breaths for the child. The child depends on it's mother for his or her very life, and if she dies, said child will die too. The unborn child's life does not start until the fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus of the mother's body, and she uses her body to sustain that life. Afterwards, BREASTFEEDING is what kept the child alive for centuries before the invention of formula. God, can't you even understand simple biology? Dad might give half his DNA along with mom during fertilization, but what part does he play after this? Absolutely nothing! It's the implantation of the fertilized egg that creates the life and the nutrients that it receives through the placenta that sustains it through the entire pregnancy. You can freeze a fertilized egg for years, but it sure as hell doesn't implant itself into the freezer wall and become a child. You think women don't create life? You think that pregnancy is only something that happens to us and through us, but it's not something we do? Everything that a mother DOES is what ensures a healthy pregnancy. The only ones who don't "do" pregnancy are men! You are such an asshole and an imbecile, Dick! Men are jealous all right because women have a bond with their child that starts in utero and continues as long as the mother is the primarycaretaker. This is why men start these stupid custody and visitation wars because they are jealous of the bond that was created during the pregnancy. They didn't want to form their own bonds with their children by helping out with childcare/housework when they were in the relationship with the mother, and they want to start some stupid custody nonsense so that they can be "equal parents" afterwards. They weren't equal parents to begin with. The real parenting is done hands on, and the majority of men CHOSE not to do it. And they wonder why the mother leaves them after being treated like some kind of domestic servant without any kind of help from the dad? And this is why most women should and do retain custody.
"We love our kids, and our kids love and want us, and according to all the evidence, have a need for us as well."
Bullshit! The majority of men don't recognize their "love" for their children until the mother decides that she doesn't want to put up with their shit anymore. And men don't love their children as much as they claim.
"Men are jealous all right because women have a bond with their child that starts in utero..."
Which fully one-third of the time ends with the child sucked or scraped out and flushed down a sewer. Yeah, I'm SO jealous...Not.
"and continues as long as the mother is the primary caretaker."
The more common pattern in intact families is for each child to more closely bond with the parent who better matches their personality. It doesn't negate the importance of either parent, and it doesn't bother anyone except someone who's so insecure they have to to own and control all the kids to feel important.
And as for "creating life," when you can make life out of non-life, then you can be a creator. Women are nurturers of the life already within them and within men that combines to make a new person. We're no more jealous of that job than you are of our job of providing, disciplining and motivating, as evidenced by the high proportion of deadbeat mothers and fatherless kids running wild without direction.
The term "creator" is best left to a higher power than us humans.
"The majority of men don't recognize their "love" for their children until the mother decides that she doesn't want to put up with their shit anymore. And men don't love their children as much as they claim."
We love them enough to usually stay even when we don't want to put up with the mother's shit anymore. Which is more than we can say for you gals.
Bottom line is, sis, anyone who seriously believes that she understands the male psyche while men do not, that men should never have custody of boys, that there are few decent men out there, that men cause most of the problems in relationships and that men have absolutely nothing to worry about in life, obviously doesn't know shit from shinola about how much we love our children, thank you very much.
But you'd get a lot of laughs in stand-up comedy. Try it.
Goodbye.
Richard.
"Which fully one-third of the time ends with the child sucked or scraped out and flushed down a sewer."
Considering the fact that homicide by a jealous husband or boyfriend is one of the leading causes of death among pregnant women, a lot of women are probably getting abortions to save their own lives first. And a lot of women are pressured into abortions by the father as well.
"It doesn't negate the importance of either parent, and it doesn't bother anyone except someone who's so insecure they have to to own and control all the kids to feel important."
You mean like all those abusive men who start custody wars so that they can make bogus claims of PAS and make their ex look like a bad mother so that they can own and control their kids in order to keep them away from their mothers who did the real parenting. After all, these are the kinds of fathers who usually win full custody anyway. Ha! Women are protecting themselves from this when they use an anonymous sperm donor.
"And as for "creating life", when you can make life out of nonlife, then you can be a creator."
Again, the fertilized egg is only a genetic blueprint that combines the DNA of both parents that tells what a "potential person" may look like, etc. That "potential person" does not come into existence until the fertilized egg is implanted into the uterine lining. The judeo-christain Bible says that the life is in the blood, or the blood is life. Leviticus 17: 11,14. Why do you think women shed the lining of the uterus every month when a fertilized egg does not implant? It's the uterine lining that gives the nutrients that make the fertilized egg develop into an actual living person. A fertiized egg without this is nothing. The woman gives the egg half her DNA AND she actually gives it the life to become an actual person. The life is in the blood. The Bible doesn't call the first woman mother of the living, or a name that means LIFE for nothing.
"The term "creator" is best left to a higher power than us humans."
The Bible describes God as creating the world by giving birth to it in Psalm 90:2. It's the same word in hebrew that is used of a woman giving birth. In Isaiah 46: 3-4, God talks about giving birth when he created Israel. Again, the hebrew word that is used to describe the woman giving birth is the same word that is used to describe God in the creation processes of the world and of the hebrew nation. Again, my rabbi knows more about this than you.
"We love them enough to usually stay even when we don't want to put up with the mother's shit anymore. Which is more than we can say for you gals"
Bullshit! Men stay because they have someone else to do all the domestic work, childcare, and bring in an income as well in most cases. They only do what they want to do, and it sure as hell isn't hands on parenting. And than they whine how much they "love" their kids when the mother gets fed up and walks. If they would've demonstrated their love to their children and the mother to begin with, more relationships wouldn't break up. There's a saying, the best way a father can love his kids is to love their mother. Abusing her, and treating her like a domestic servant is not showing your kids how much you love them.
Dick, you and men like you really don't understand the male psyche. If you did, you wouldn't be in denial about your male entitlement and privilege. Men like this shouldn't get custody of children especially boys. After all, boys learn how to be abusive by seeing the wonderful, upstanding speciman of fatherhood that was their own abusive fathers. I don't know about stand-up comedy, but you sure gave me a lot of laughs by reading your totally absurd and stupid comments about women. So I say, fuck off, Dick.
I'm tellling you, chatting with an honest-to-God misandrist is such great lunchtime entertainment that it's hard to stop. NY, anytime you get sick of this, let me know and I'll give it a rest and let your pal here have the parting shot (such as it is).
"Considering the fact that homicide by a jealous husband or boyfriend is one of the leading causes of death among pregnant women, a lot of women are probably getting abortions to save their own lives first."
Yeah, I read that crap in the Washington Post. Pure feminist bullshit. 100 documented cases a year out of 4 million births. One out of 40,000. And even the Post notes that nearly a third of those murders happen to the perpetually pregnant underclass baby-mamas in the course of drug-dealings, robberies and drive-bys. And they don't even speculate how many of those murders are committed by other women. An epidemic it ain't.
"And a lot of women are pressured into abortions by the father as well."
You mean the desire to hang on to one of us evil men is stronger than the magical inutero mother-child bond? Say it ain't so!
But I don't buy it, anyway. All I ever hear you women screaming about is us men trying to take away your sacrosanct right to abort for your convenience, not make you have more of them.
Besides, by far the leading reasons given by women for wanting abortions are being unprepared for the responsibility of a child and not having enough money.
"The Bible describes God as creating the world by giving birth to it in Psalm 90:2. It's the same word in hebrew that is used of a woman giving birth."
The Psalmist says that God (not woman) created his inmost being and knit him together in his mother's womb. Job said that God (not woman) clothed him with skin and flesh, knit him together with bones and sinews, gave him life and showed him kindness.
But come to think of it, that's how the big life-giver first got in trouble with the snake and the apple and all, isn't it? Wanting to be "like God."
Your testament says God makes men and women one in marriage because he desires "godly seed." This thousands of years before anyone foresaw rampant illegitimacy and millions of "ungodly seed" running wild and doing stupid shit and costing everyone a lot of public money.
It's about enough to turn a nonbeliever into a believer.
But want to try to create the way the God of the Bible does? Be my guest. Go mold a baby out of the dirt and breathe into it till it comes to life.
And another little trick I'd like to see you do, if the life in your blood is the only life that matters, is to make a baby using a dead sperm. It has all the DNA info you need. Except that, once it stops swimming, all the life in all your blood isn't going to create anything out of it.
Not that I'm selling the Old Testatment or anything. I'm sure our esteemed hostess isn't buying any of this. All I'm saying is that if you're looking for some sort of validation of your ideas about worshipping women and their "creative powers" or intact families being unimportant, you might find it in Wicca or crap like that but you won't find it in the Bible. The Bible doesn't make men creators like NY thinks but it doesn't make women creators either.
"Women are protecting themselves from this when they use an anonymous sperm donor"
In the case of misandrists like you, I think that's a good idea. That way you only screw up your kid's life and at least spare some poor doofus who thinks he can get a committed and stable family out of a woman-firster.
"Men stay because they have someone else to do all the domestic work, childcare, and bring in an income as well in most cases. They only do what they want to do, and it sure as hell isn't hands on parenting. And than they whine how much they "love" their kids when the mother gets fed up and walks. If they would've demonstrated their love to their children and the mother to begin with, more relationships wouldn't break up."
Well that's a typical assumption of someone who thinks women don't cause problems in relationships. That contemptuous self-centered poor-me attitude, all by itself, is one shining example out of a thousand of the shit many men simply accept and put up with to keep their kids' families together.
If you made a stinko choice of a mate, too bad for you, but it says nothing about what the rest of us family men are about.
"After all, boys learn how to be abusive by seeing the wonderful, upstanding speciman of fatherhood that was their own abusive fathers."
Truly abusive men are a small minority, feminist propaganda notwithstanding. And most of those men as well as other kinds of violent characters are raised by, you guessed it! single mothers. Great job!
Richard
"But come to think of it, that's how the big life-giver first got into trouble with the snake and the apple and all isn't it? Wanting to be "like God"."
BTW, life-giver is a more complete translation for Eve. Thanks for saying that. Otherwise, your ignorance is laughable. God gave Adam a direct command because Eve was not yet formed:
Genesis 2:16 Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat but the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
The serpent (or the devil in disguise) is said to be the craftiest animal in the garden.
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman "Did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden?"
Now, since Eve did not hear the original prohibition directly from God, her knowledge of the tree was incomplete BECAUSE SHE WAS NOT YET FORMED. BUT ADAM KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THE SERPENT WAS TRYING TO DO, AND HE WAS WITH EVE THE WHOLE TIME.
Genesis 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.
Why didn't Adam do his job and protect his wife? Why did he stay silent why the serpent was telling his wife lies? Where is Adam's wonderful leadership ability to take charge and tell Eve that her knowledge of the tree was not right, and she needed to learn more?
Instead, when God questioned Adam about his role, Adam blamed Eve directly and God indirectly for the whole thing. Talk about letting someone else take the blame when ADAM should have known better.
Genesis 3:12 The man said, "The woman-YOU PUT HERE-she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.
He said absolutely nothing about the serpent's part in the whole thing. He was protecting the serpent. When Eve was questioned, she said:
Genesis 3:13 The serpent deceived me, and I ate it.
Eve owned up to what she did, and she turned in the instigator of the entire thing. As the newcomer on the scene, Eve was more likely to make mistakes than Adam. The thing that deceived her was the devil himself, and ADAM WAS COMPLICIT IN EVE'S DECEPTION. Than he tried to cover his ass by blaming Eve by way of God. The Bible clearly says:
1 Timothy 2:14 Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was caught in the transgression.
A transgression that was clearly Adam's transgression.
2 Corinthians 11:3 The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety.
Eve had extenuating circumstances for her "sin", while Adam had ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE. And this attitude can be see in modern day men who wan to blame women for everything.
BECAUSE EVE DID WHAT WAS RIGHT AND TURNED THE SERPENT IN, she was given a special place in the prophecy.
Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
Notice, between the woman's offspring and the serpents's. Christains believe that this offspring is Jesus Christ, and he was conceived by God in the womb of a woman without any help from a human male. Apparently, Jesus's single mother home (since Joseph was a step-father)worked out for him.
"But want to try and create a baby the way the God of the bible does? Be my guest. Go mold a baby from the dirt and breathe into it until it comes to life."
When a fertilized egg implants into uterine lining and an actual person comes into existence, the mother breaths for that child for nine months. For someone who likes to downgrade women's ability to give life, let's see you do this.
And another little trick that I'd like to see you do, if the life in your blood is the only thing that matters, is to make a baby out of a dead sperm. It has all the DNA information you need. Except that once it stops swimming, all the life in your blood isn't going to create anything out of it.
Are you for real? Did you flunk Human Biology 101, or something? A dead sperm doesn't create anything, and neither does a woman's unfertilized egg. If a woman's egg is not fertilized, that egg is expelled from the body during a menstrual period. In the same way, if a sperm doesn't fertilize an egg, it dies. I'm not talking about DNA in the sperm that only belongs to the father. I'm talking about a fertilized egg where the DNA of both mother and father combine to make a blueprint for a potential person. The fertilized egg needs to implant itself into the life-giving blood of the uterine lining to become an actual existing, living, breathing person, and the entire process takes nine months to complete, and the woman does this all on her own. A fertilized egg that doesn't implant into the uterine lining stagnates and goes nowhere. I can't believe that someone like you is so ignorant of human biology (on second thought, I can believe it judging on your thought patterns throughout your posts).
"Your testament says God made man and woman one in marriage because he desires "godly seed"."
Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
Geez, Dick for someone who seems to think that single mother households and matriarchy leads to "ungodly seed", you need to be enlightened. For one thing, there has never been a so-called matriarchal society that is a mirror image of a patriarchy. In other words, where one sex rules exclusively over the other sex like in a patriarchy. The term "matriarchy" is misleading, but I'm going to use the term for lak of a better word. In early matriarchies, men left their blood kin, and went to live with their wives's relatives. A man was adopted into his wife's family, and he contributed as an equal family member after he prooved his worth as a responsible husband and father. The wife had her own relatives for protection against an abusive and defrauding husband, and she relied on them in the loss of a husband. Any husband who failed to proove his worth as a husband was driven out of the family, and women had the right to divorce. Children were considered part of the mother's lineage, they carried her name, and the mother ALWAYS got custody because the children were acknowledged by everyone (including by the father) as belonging to her. Later on, patriarchy uprooted the matriarchies, women left thier families of orgin, and children belonged to their fathers. Abuse and exploitation of women and children were rampant because the original system of matriarchy that was in place for their protection was now replaced by a patriarchy where women were exploited by men. You notice in Genesis 2:24 it's the man who leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife. It doesn't say anything about the wife leaving her family. This is the original family recipe ordained by God himself, and it was MATRIARCHY. Genesis 1:28 clearly states the both men and women are suppose to have equal dominance over the earth, but the family kinship system was matriarchal. This was ordained by God for the protection of women and children. A man has equal rights as a husband, father, and contributing member in his wife's family as long as he is responsible, and not abusive. Women and children aren't left to fend for themselves, and THERE AREN'T ANY CUSTODY WARS BECAUSE THE CHILDREN BELONG TO THE MOTHER. If said husband, is abusive, he will be driven out. It's as simple as that. And this is the best system in the world for the protection of women and children. You want to blame single mother homes for all society's ills, but it was the patriarchy that is really to blame. There have been studies that show when a woman is financially comfortable, has a lot of help, and there little or no conflict between her and her ex, children do just as well in a single mother household as they would do in a two parent family where the father loves, respects, helps out his children's mother financially, emotionally, and with childcare/housework, and is not abusive. Otherwise, the two parent family doesn't do anyone any good. A lot of children who show problems in single mother homes were already showing these problems while THEIR PARENTS WERE STILL TOGETHER. AND MOST SINGLE MOTHER HOMES DON'T HAVE THESE KINDS OF PROBLEMS ANYWAY. Most children are able to bounce back from divorce because the high conflict that caused them to have problems to begin with is no longer present. That said, single mothers who are constantly hauled into court by a vengeful ex, harassed,denied child support, or are uneducated, poor, have substance abuse/mental health problems are the ones who usually have trouble with their children (and most likely the biological fathers of said children have the same kind of issues), and THESE ARE NOT THE MAJORITY OF SINGLE MOTHER HOMES. And having a patriarchal society trying to blame all of society's ills on single mothers doesn't help the situation either. And that is what men like you do not get, and your part of the problem, not the solution. You call me a misandrist. Ha! You can go on all day about your picture, perfect two parent family (and since I have only your word to go by,I don't take what you say seriously) but deep down, you hate women. That's it. End of story.
"Well, that's a typical assumption of someone who doen't think women cause problems in relationships."
Again, Dick, I don't live in fairyland like you do. I know that there are women out there who can be as nasty as a lot of men, but said women don't have an ENTIRE PATRIARCHAL SYSTEM BASED ON MALE ENTITLEMENT, MALE PRIVILEGE, MALE TRADITION, AND MYSOGANY BUILT AROUND WHAT THEY WANT. Again, your confusing individual women with individual men/man as a group who benefit from a system that is made by men for men. In the end, these women will only benefit as long as some man allows it.
As for me, any child I have will turn out better than anything you and your wife spawned. And if I meet a man who wants to create a two parent home like I've described above, than he's more than welcome. Otherwise, I'm better off as a single mother. I saw a T.V. a while back where a married couple was trying to conceive a baby. After they were done having sex, the wife said to her husband, "Now stand back while God and me create a life." That about sums it up.
"All I'm saying is that if you're looking for some sort of validation of your ideas about worshipping women and their "creative powers" or intact families being unimportant, you might find it in Wicca or crap like that but you won't find it in the Bible"
That's laughable for a man who clearly doesn't even know what the Bible actaully says. And I never said I wanted to "worship women", but God clearly gave women the ability to give life in a way men will never be able, and that is validated in the Bible. And a God giving birth like a woman is a creation theme in the Bible. BTW, if you're looking for some kind of validation for your beliefs that women are to blame for everything, than maybe you might want to try Satanism or some crap like that. After all, Adam aligned himself with the serpent (Satan) to deceive Eve, and than, tried to blame her and God for everything. Try the Satanic Bible, you might find validation for your beliefs in there.
Yes, as I've often said to people regarding Jesus's being conceived by a single mother, "if it's good enough for Jesus Christ, then it's damn sure good enough for the rest of us."
Explanation: A little joke for anyone who now wishes to attack me for saying it...
The bottom line is that women have always been the persons responsible for raising any children they bring into this world. This is as it should be, as we are the only persons with an actual physical connection to the child prior to birth...The entire notion of men having (or even wanting) custody of children was applicable to the landed aristocracy ONLY.
In all other cases children were a burden, a dependent, worth no money to anyone and thus, mothers were the only one interested in their children. If this were not the case, we would have fallen into extinction eons ago...In the past, if a mother was not interested in her children, they were simply abandoned and probably died, maybe someone adopted them if they were lucky.
We have changed this entirely healthy and natural situation from a few aristocratic males scrambling for custody to simply everybody and his grandmother now being doing it. It's a free-for-all, now. This is due to our introducing stringent child support laws which can take well over half of a person's income and assign it to the so-called 'custodial' parent.
This is the 'root cause' of these custody wars.
Thus, I have also often said, we need to solve the child support problem. Everything else will resolve itself once that's fixed.
Sidenote: Kevin Federline just got his child support increased on Friday from $15,000 monthly to $20,000 monthly. Of course, he'll never give up custody of those kids. They are a revenue source for him for the next 20 odd years.
Richard: I'm going to just start ignoring you because you are starting to not make any sense and just arguing for argument's sake. We live in Western Civilization so, of course, I'm referrring to Christianity, as you well know. But there are simply dozens of other religions that do the smae thing. They have assigned male gods the power to create or re-create life in human beings.
Clearly, it's a jealousy issue with men being jealous of womens' unique ability to do what you cannot. Rather then admit this, you'll spend hours trying to refute the obvious...
It's pretty sad.
Richard: I wanted to address one issue you mentioned however which was women filing for divorce FIRST. The person who files for divorce FIRST usually files for a temporary custody order at the same time. These so-called 'temporary' custody orders are virtually impossible to overturn later unless you can prove the parent who obtained them is abusive or some sort of monster.
My point is that generally the 'status quo' of temporary custody morphs into permanent custody. So a distinct advantage is obtained by filing for divorce first if you see a problem coming...any good attorney will tell you this. Some states have even passed laws to try and lessen the unfair advantage a temporary custody order gives the filing parent.
Yet somehow this perfectly natural behavior of a mother wishing to keep her own children with her has now been used to paint women as unstable or flightly. In fact under the circumstances, women filing for divorce/custody first is a perfectly natural reaction to what men have turned our family court system into: a crap shoot, where our children are used as bargaining chips for men to protect their income and assets.
BTW, Richard, I'm not even mad about men doing that. It's a perfectly natural thing for them to do.
What does upset me is this attempt to deny the motivations of the parties here and then to try and paint men as more interested in a child then its mother. It's like men have to attack mothers to cover up their own intentions. Not to mention the entire body of phony research you've all dreged up to self-justify this...
Anon, you must be about to pop a hernia trying to torture a mythical matriarchal utopia out of the purely patriarchal Hebrew Bible, so I'll respond only one of your points:
"the mother breaths for that child for nine months. For someone who likes to downgrade women's ability to give life, let's see you do this."
Machines can do this for only a little less than half of the entire process. And we're only in the infancy of this science. Eventually we will be able to artificially conceive and gestate human life from beginning to end. It's not even in the all-that-distant future.
And guess what? Even that won't make any of us human beings into "creators." We'll still be only passing on the life already placed in all of us by the Creator.
Richard
"Yes, as I've often said to people regarding Jesus's being conceived by a single mother, "if it's good enough for Jesus Christ, then it's damn sure good enough for the rest of us.""
NY, the Jesus of the Bible was not conceived by a single mother but by a legally married woman not yet cohabiting with her husband pending preparation of her marital home. To dissolve this union would have required a formal divorce, as Matthew notes.
If one believes the biblical account, it was quite clever timing to have the child born into a legal marriage with all the protections that go with it but still leave no doubt as to the special nature of his conception.
"The person who files for divorce FIRST usually files for a temporary custody order at the same time. These so-called 'temporary' custody orders are virtually impossible to overturn later"
You're leaving out a lot, NY. You can file for anything you want but to get this temp order you have to appear at a hearing and answer all kinds of questions to the judge's satisfaction such as where the child is, who's caring for him, who's paying what and how much, etc.
If you can't give the right answers, you aren't going to get the order you want even if you filed first.
But even if you were right and it WERE this easy to get custody, but men don't tend to use it while women do, well, that still doesn't speak too well for modern women's sense of commitment and responsibility to their families.
"They have assigned male gods the power to create or re-create life in human beings."
Possibly pagans. But again the Judeo-Christian God isn't the same. He's supposed to be spirit. Spirit is not categorized by gender but rather creates those genders out of itself.
"Kevin Federline just got his child support increased on Friday from $15,000 monthly to $20,000 monthly. Of course, he'll never give up custody of those kids. They are a revenue source for him for the next 20 odd years."
Yawn. Not interested in his why's and wherefores. It's not any outsider's business to try to assess and pass judgment on a natural, legal father's "motives" for wanting custody of his own kids.
Any more than it's any outsider's business when a mother goes into divorce negotiations willing to work out a joint custody arrangement but instead decides to demand sole because she'll get a better money deal. She's entitled to want her own kids.
The law's only concern should be preserving kids' homes whenever possible, and protecting their rights to both their parents when it isn't.
Richard
"Anon, you must be about to pop a hernia trying to torture a mythical matriarchal utopia out of the purely patriarchal Hebrew Bible, so I'll respond only one of your points:"
Genesis 2:24 was something that God ordained BEFORE ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION WITH THE SERPENT. Patriarchy replacing matriarchy is a RESULT OF THAT TRANSGRESSION. In other word, patriarchy is a direct result of the fall. All through history, God has worked with and through a sinful society. The explanation Jesus gave for why Moses allowed divorce was because of the "hardness in the hearts" of the Jewish men. At the same time, divorce is used as an escape for women to get out of abusive situations, etc. God had to work with the good and the bad. Patriarchy was so entrenched as a system in the middle east, God allowed the Hebrew Patriarchy for the same reason he allowed divorce. However, all through the Bible, there are signs of the former matriarchy. The term Israel has the same root in Hebrew as the name Sarah. This term was given to Sarah's son, and to the Israel nation as a whole in the term israelite. The matriarchal system of naming descendents after the mother (in this case an entire nation) is very much in evidence. Again, my rabbi knows more than you.
"NY, the Jesus of the Bible was not conceived by a single mother but by a legally married woman not yet cohabiting with her husband pending preparation of her marital home. To dissolve this union would have required a formal divorce, as Matthew notes."
While Sarah's name was carried on through the entire nation of israel, God still allowed patriarchal naming in individual families because of the "hardness of men's hearts". Jesus is called at times Son of Joseph by people who knew him in Galilee, but at other times, he was called Son of Mary BECAUSE PEOPLE WERE NOT SURE OF HIS LEGITIMACY. That's why the invention of a foster father (Joseph) was needed to give Jesus a place in the (male)geneaologies of a patriarchy as a descendant of King David. If the original matriarchy were left in place, there would have been a place for Jesus in the (female) geneaologies, and a human father would not have mattered. Again, because of the sinful human condition, God allowed some things because of the hardness of men's hearts. You see, Dick, the human condition, was so degraded by sin that to try to force an "ideal situation" onto an entire population would have defeated the purpose. God doesn't look for perfect people to work with because there are none, God looks for people who though sinful are capable of development in their character. That's why the Law of Moses wasn't made up of ideal laws that reflected the pre-fall environment. Your idea of two parent homes is an IDEAL. It's what everybody would like to see, but forcing everybody in a society that is far from ideal into an ideal situtation will only make things FAR WORSE. God understood this, and that is why patriarchy was allowed. The prophecy said "The Seed of the Woman". And that is exactly what Jesus was.
"And guess what? Even that won't make any of us human beings into "creators." We'll still be only passing on the life already placed in all of us by the Creator."
And guess what, Dick? I'm talking about NATURAL PROCESS OF GIVING LIFE. God gave WOMEN the natural ability to give life. The only "We" that is giving life placed in us is GOD AND WOMEN. Men contribute to a genetic blueprint (along with women), but they don't give life. That's left up to God and women. As for scientists givng life in a test tube, or a lab, so what? They are ripping off the natural process anyway. And a female scientist can do this as well as a male scientist anyway. Big deal.
"Any more than it's any outsider's business when a mother goes into divorce negotiations willing to work out a joint custody arrangement but instead decides to demand sole because she'll get a better money deal. She's entitled to want her own kids."
Well, aren't you a hypocrite. Your the first one to write posts frothing at the mouth about some mother's motives for custody, but if some guy wins custody, it doesn't matter if he's father of the year or some drunken, abusive asshole who never spent any time with said kids anyway, you don't give a shit because he's bio dad. Here's news for you, Dick,(even though it's been said time and again), the money motive is more common with men who want to lower or eliminate their child support orders. Most women want custody because they did all the caregiving and made all the decisions for said kids during the relationship, and said father was more than happy to let her do it. Now, it's divorce time, and said father wants "an equal right to be a parent" when he wasn't one to begin with. These men are better off with weekend visitation than any kind of physical custody, and legal custody is laughable when they don't even know what vaccinations their kids have, who their kid's pediatrician is, or never changed a fucking diaper. Get real. THE PARENT WHO HAS AN ALREADY ESTABLISHED TRACK RECORD DOING THE HANDS ON PARENTING AND MAKING THE MAJORITY OF THE DECISIONS FOR SAID CHILDREN DURING THE RELATIONSHIP IS THE PARENT WHO SHOULD HAVE SOLE LEGAL/PHYSICAL CUSTODY. IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT. And even if a mother's motives were for money, she is still the one who was most likely the primarycaregiver, and would make the better custodial parent anyway. Men can't compete with what they didn't do during the marriage so they have to invent some legal fiction about wanting to be "equal parents" and whine about how they "love their kids."
"The law's only concern should be preserving kids' homes whenever possible, and protecting their rights to both their parents when it isn't."
I agree. Since most mothers did most if not all of the day to day hands-on parenting and decisionmaking during the relationship. They should continue in that capacity after the divorce by having sole physical and legal custody. Since dads don't spend nearly as much time with said kids, or make most of the decisions about said kid, and most of their contributions toward said kids was monetary anyway, they are better off with weekend visitation and paying child support. The kid's relationships with both parents is preserved exactly as it was during the relationship. It's as simple as that.
"My rabbit knows more than you! Nyah nyah nyah!"
Listen, Miss Anonymous Third-Grader, I hate to break it to you but your rabbi's opinion lends no cachet at all to your weird distortions of the Bible.
I don't know what you think of the Jesus of the Bible, but clearly he for one was unimpressed with the rabbis of his day as they oftentimes perverted the clear meaning of the scriptures for their own reasons (Christian ministers do this too). He encouraged the people to check it all out for themselves. His usual response to theological questions was "Haven't you read the scriptures?"
I've read the entire Bible, like any educated person has. The message clearly conveyed by Genesis and the New Testament references to it is that both the man and woman knew exactly what their orders were. And that Eve was placed under Adam's authority as a result of the fall because although he messed up big time by listening to his wife instead of God and was punished for it with a lifetime of endless toil, he at least wasn't silly enough to buy a pig in a poke from a talking snake promising to turn him into a godlet and playing on his feeeeeelings.
But that someone would come and overcome the curse of evil, and yes he would be born of woman but fathered by God.
And all these centuries later, we walking wallets are still working insanely long hours to finance everybody, and you gals are still eating up any nonsense that comes along and makes you feeeeeel good about yourselves. Gender feminism being a shining example. Thank God for smart, level-headed women who are abandoning this crap in droves.
Again, it's almost enough to turn a nonbeliever into a believer.
As for your pre-fall matriarchy, that's stretching the poor scriptures to the snapping point and I don't intend to waste any more time discussing it. Suffice it to say matriarchy is a loser system EVERYWHERE you find it, and I'd wager that 99.9 percent of WOMEN would not want to live in any society it's created.
"Well, aren't you a hypocrite."
No, I'm not interested in any parent's motives for wanting custody of their child. I've never frothed about women's motives, either, if you'd care to take a look back. The custody of their own children is everyone's fundamental right and it's the height of arrogance for any busybody outsider to presume to assess and approve their "motives" and substitute their own judgment of what is best for those kids.
I've said it before, if dad's parental rights are not sacrosanct, neither will mom's be eventually. Count on it.
"These men are better off with weekend visitation than any kind of physical custody, and legal custody is laughable when they don't even know what vaccinations their kids have, who their kid's pediatrician is, or never changed a fucking diaper. Get real."
Here's something real: Kids in various kinds of custody arrangements have been studied in detail with many different measures of well-being and adjustment. On average there is NO DIFFERENCE in the well-being and adjustment of kids in father custody and kids in mother custody. With the caveat that girls in mother custody and boys in father custody are better adjusted than the reverse.
Changing diapers and scheduling pediatrican visits ain't rocket science. And even if it were, it's ludicrous to assign which parent will guide a boy into the minefield of manhood based on who changed his "fucking diaper." And the same goes for girls.
But all of this is beside the point. I'm not interested in mother custody or father custody. One is as good as the other but they're both BAD.
The law should be concerned, as I said, with preserving kids' FAMILIES when possible, i.e. preserving marriages to begin with.
THAT'S the reason why I support a rebuttable presumption of joint custody. Not because joint is great. No custody arrangement is great. But because it's been shown to significantly reduce the rate of divorce in the first place.
No doubt for many people a less-than-happy but low-conflict marriage is more worth preserving if there is no assurance of simply packing up the kids and dragging them away from their home and their other parent to follow some new hottie to god-knows-where, and no assurance of a large support check to finance it all.
Now if you don't mind, I'm finally bored with this subject and shoving off. Go ahead and scream about joint custody (rebuttable, of course) trapping women in abusive (feminist-defined, of course, not common-sense-defined) marriages. It's all been heard and discussed before. The last word is yours if you want it. Cheers!
Richard
Change "rabbit" to "rabbi." But even with the typo it works. Probably a rabbit DOES know more than any feminist.
R
this site saddens me. I did not know the extent of man-hating in this nation. you all should be ashamed for the hate you promote, which ultimately ends in violence.
" And that Eve was placed under Adam's authority as a result of the fall "
Ah, yes, Genesis 3:16, the infamous passage where God "supposedly" put Eve under the authority of her husband. Dick your reading English translations of the Bible. These translations are not "inspired". The ORIGINAL HEBREW THAT THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS WRITTEN IN WAS THE LANGUAGE INSPIRED BY GOD.
Genesis 3:16
16 To the woman He said:
“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
Now the first part of the verse that has God saying to Eve, "I will greatly multiply....." is actually the Hebrew phrase HRB ARB. ARB occurs fourteen times in Joshua and Judges where it is translated snare, ambush, a liar in wait. The verse's real translation is: A liar in wait (the serpent) will greatly multiply...
The next part of the verse:
your sorrow and conception.
The Hebrew word for sorrow can mean physical or emotional pain. However the word translated conception is actually the hebrew word HRN. The actual word for conception in Hebrew is HRJWN where it is translated correctly in Ruth 4:13 and Hosea 9:1. The word HRN in Genesis 3:16 is translated in other ancient sources as "sighing" as in longing for something or someone. The next part of the verse: in pain you shall bring forth children. Again the word pain is also translated as "sorrow". The next part of the verse: Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. The original hebrew word for desire is teshuqua which actually means in the original Hebrew "turning". And all those shalls in the verse are actually wills in Hebrew which means that this is not a commandment, but a simple future tense as in a warning to Eve. As in something that can happen, but doesn't have to. Most English translations translate Genesis 3:16 as God's punishment on Eve, but in reality, it's a warning from God telling Eve how Satan will use her sorrow and longing for companionship with Adam against her through male domination in order to pervert God's original one flesh union. In short, male domination and patriarchy has SATANIC ORIGINS. Genesis 3:16 should be translated as:
Unto the woman, He said: a liar-in-wait (serpent) has greatly increased your sorrow and longing.
In sorrow, you will bring forth children.
You will turn to your husband (for companionship), and he will rule over you.
Notice she will bring forth children in sorrow. Men have used the patriarchy to exploit and abuse women through her childbearing function by replacing matriarchy (where a woman's ability to bear children is honored and protected) with patriarchy. These modern day custody wars are just a modern day example of that. After all, God told Satan in a prophecy that the "woman's offspring" will defeat "Satan's offspring". What better way for Satan to attack women through her childbearing function, and using her own husband to do it. The modern version of this is women being able to get custody of her children after centuries of automatic male custody (something that should never have been). And the modern MRA and FRA movements are Satan's response to it. Plain and simple.
"I don't know what you think of the Jesus of the Bible, but clearly he for one was unimpressed with the rabbis of his day as they oftentimes perverted the clear meaning of the scriptures for their own reasons (Christian ministers do this too). He encouraged the people to check it all out for themselves. His usual response to theological questions was "Haven't you read the scriptures?""
Actually, Dick, I was raised in a mixed faith background both Jewish and Christain. There is a thing called messianic judaism where Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah, but I still have close ties with my rabbi from the synagogue that I attended, and he knows the ORIGINAL HEBREW LANGUAGE. I also know people at the local university who understand the original greek of the New testament. If I have a question about translations, I go to them. I'm well aware that Jesus told people to check out the scriptures for themselves, and I'm also well aware that christain ministers and other religious leaders (even within judaism) can pervert the original meaning of the scriptures. And this perversion can be done by WILLFULLY MISTRANSLATING THE ORIGINAL MEANINGS OF THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES. The judeo-christain TRADITION of Eve being the one to blame for the fall and is being punished by God by being placed under male authority is an example of this perversion of scripture. The idea that Eve was to blame first appeared in judaism around the time of the babylonian captivity. And when Alexander the Great spread Greek ideas and myths throughout the world, a lot of Jews became hellenized and combined the biblical stories with greek mythology. Note the Greek myth of Pandora the woman who was blamed for bringing evil into the world by opening a box that was forbidden. This myth was combined with the bible story, and Eve was confused with Pandora. The first indication that Eve was being blamed for the fall in judaism was in 250 B.C. from a book in the Apocrypha "Ecclesiasticus" or "The Wisdom of Ben Sira". The quote from Ben Sira is: From woman beginning of sin: and because of her all die. (25:24).
"I've read the entire Bible, like any educated person has."
Apparently you haven't because your idea of Eve being blamed for the fall came straight from Judeo-Christain tradition and not from what the Bible actually says. Paul knew what was really to blame for the fall, and he sets the record straight:
I Cor. 15:22 In Adam all die.
Romans 5:17 By one man's offense death reigned.
Romans 5:14 Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similtude of ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION, who is the figure of Him that was to come.
And as far as Adam not being silly enough to fall for a talking snake. He was formed first, and he had the chance to commune with God for some time. He was able to spend time with the animals and name them. In other words, Adam had more experience in what an animal's capabilities are than the NEWLY FORMED EVE. Adam had more experience knowing what God wanted of him, and he was given the commandment not to eat from the tree while EVE WAS NOT YET FORMED. You expect a newly formed person to have the experience to know that an animal doesn't talk? Do you really think Adam automatically knew that animals didn't talk when he WAS FIRST FORMED? No, you idiot, his knowledge of what animals could and couldn't do came from experience. Experience is something that EVE DID NOT HAVE. Adam had the knowledge and experience to know the serpent was lying, but he chose to stay silent while the serpent told Eve lies. Adam was COMPLICIT IN EVE'S DECEPTION. Why do you think that is? ADAM WAS THE ONE WHO REALLY WANTED TO "BECOME GOD." Your comparing Eve's "sin" who was DECEIVED to Adam who WILLFULLY SINNED. AND what made Adam's sin even worse is that he tried to cover his own ass by BLAMING EVE AND GOD ALL WHILE PROTECTING THE SERPENT. Eve, for all her lack of experience, showed better judgement than Adam and admitted what she did wrong, and she turned in the serpent who instigated the whole thing. Boy, all you've shown is THAT YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE BIBLE.
"Suffice it to say matriarchy is a loser system EVERYWHERE you find it, and I'd wager that 99.9 percent of WOMEN would not want to live in any society it's created."
Matriarchy is only a loser system to men who want to abuse and exploit women as in a patriarchy. On the other hand, the real losers are the men who did exactly what Satan wanted and replaced the early matriarchies with patriarchy. After all, these men have no idea how to form a relationship with a woman without abuse and exploitation just like modern MRA's and FRA's. Now the tide is turning, and they can't handle it without hanging onto to their Satanic views that women are the cause of all evil. Ha! Look in the mirror, and these men will see who's really to blame.
"Here's something real: Kids in various kinds of custody arrangements have been studied in detail with many different measures of well-being and adjustment. On average there is NO DIFFERENCE in the well-being and adjustment of kids in father custody and kids in mother custody. With the caveat that girls in mother custody and boys in father custody are better adjusted than the reverse"
And guess what, Dick? I can show studies that say the opposite, and all your going to say is that they are feminist propaganda, and I'll just call any studies you site as MRA/FRA propaganda. We're at an impasse here, and it's just beating a dead horse. I don't really care what your studies say, obviously, you don't care about anything that studies I bring up say. Your not going to convince me otherwise.
"Probably a rabbit DOES know more than any feminist"
No, but a rabbit definitely knows more than you.
"Now if you don't mind, I'm finally bored with this subject and shoving off"
Finally something we can agree on.
"this site saddens me. I did not know the extent of man-hating in this nation. you all should be ashamed for the hate you promote, which ultimately ends in violence."
Nice try, Richard trying to get the last word without signing your name. Your not fooling anyone. Oh, now your threatening violence because you couldn't refute anything I was said. Just like an MRA. The so-called "hate" you say this site promotes is the truth, and you MRA/FRA can't handle it. If women try to assert themselves and claim their God given rights, you men threaten with violence. That's patriarchy right there. After all, it's the Satanic way. And you say women are as violent as men. You sicken me.
Richard, you trouble-maker.
You've incited this biblical invasion of my blog with your nonsense.
AND Jesus was NOT conceived within a legal marriage. He was conceived prior to Mary marrying Joseph. She could have been stoned to death if she had been discovered pregnant w/o a legal marriage. So to save her life, Joseph married Mary, thus, becoming Jesus's step father.
Wake up...
"Probably a rabbit DOES know more then any feminist"
No, but a rabbit definitely knows more then you.
I have to elect this as funniest response on my blog this year...
"Kids in various kinds of custody arrangements have been studied in detail...On average there is NO DIFFERENCE in the well-being and adjustment of kids in father custody and kids in mother custody."
Well then can you give me ONE good reason why we should continue this politically correct crap, aggravating women who are the more significant actor here???? Why bother favoring men then when there is no real difference in the end result????
NY, I'm not interested in re-entering this discussion, but I'm puzzled at your view of the nativity story and wonder if you've ever actually read Matthew 1:18-20:
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was ESPOUSED to Joseph, before they CAME TOGETHER, she was found with child by the Holy Ghost.
Then Joseph HER HUSBAND, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to PUT HER AWAY privily.
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee (meaning, take her home) Mary THY WIFE, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."
In those days marriage was a done deal as soon as the contract (similar to our marriage vows, only they were taken seriously then) was made. Cohabitation, or "coming together," was only delayed until the marital home was prepared, and the family might throw a party at that time. But dissolving the contract once it was made required a divorce, and any infidelity thereafter constituted adultery.
Mary would have been an outcast for having an illegitimate child but nothing in the law required her to be stoned for it if she were unattached. Her father, though, could have required the guy who did it to marry her and pay a fine. Or if not, her dad could have kept the fine and added it to her dowry and then maybe some other joe would have agreed to take her on in spite of her being damaged goods.
But she could well have been stoned for infidelity after being contractually married or for misrepresenting herself as a virgin at the time she made that marital contract. See Deuteronomy 22 on that.
Her fate was in Joseph's hands, not her father's, because he was her husband.
Sorry but there it is, and I didn't write it. Do with it what you please.
Again, all I'm saying is that for approval and validation of single parent families, you have to look somewhere besides the Bible.
Richard
"Here's a clue, gals: How's about waiting to do your breeding with a guy you can live with at least until the kid is weaned?"
"A proper two-parent home is one with married biological parents raising their own children. Clear enough?"
Dick, by your own standards, a biological mother not married to or living with the BIOLOGICAL FATHER is a single parent. Joseph was not the biological father,and the fact that there was not a biological father made it a single parent home twice over. Your always going on and on about the importance of the biological father. Yeah, God thought biological fathers were so important that Jesus didn't even have one.
"Again, all I'm saying is that for approval and validation of single parent families, you have to look somewhere besides the Bible."
Again, the Bible clearly states that the SOLE BIOLOGICAL PARENT JESUS HAD WAS HIS MOTHER.
Anon, my comment was to NY, not you.
For the identity of Jesus' biological father, reread Matthew 1:18.
I invited you to take the last shot and you quite predictably did. Now goodbye to you already.
Richard
"Anon, my comment was to NY, not you."
Dick, I can comment on anything I want unless NYMOM bans me. I don't need your permission.
"For the identity of Jesus' biological father, reread Matthew 1:18."
You really are ignorant of basic biology. Biological parent has to do with GENETIC LINEAGE. In other words, a parent related by flesh and blood as in a HUMAN PARENT. Matthew 1:18 says Jesus is the Son of the Holy Spirit. God is SPIRIT. GOD IS NOT FLESH AND BLOOD. Why do you think Paul says we shall be changed from flesh and blood to spirit at the resurrection? Because they are not the same things. Flesh and blood can't enter the kingdom of heaven. JESUS DID NOT HAVE A BIOLOGICAL FATHER, OR IN OTHER WORDS, A FLESH AND BLOOD FATHER. HIS ONLY FLESH AND BLOOD,I.E., BIOLOGICAL PARENT IS HIS MOTHER.
"Again, all I'm saying is that for approval and validation of single parent families, you have to look somewhere besides the Bible."
Oh, really? There are only two divorces recorded in the entire Bible where child custody is even mentioned. In Genesis 21:9-13, Sarah tells Abraham to cast out his slave wife Hagar and her son by Abraham, Ishmael. Abraham doesn't want to because of Ishmael. God tells Abraham to do what Sarah said. In other words, Abraham divorced Hagar, and CUSTODY OF ISHMAEL WAS GIVEN TO HIS MOTHER WITH GOD'S APPROVAL.
The other divorce(s) recorded with child custody is in Ezra 10:3:
"So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives AND THEIR CHILDREN according to the counsel of my God and those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law."
In other words Dick, the Israelite men were commanded by God to divorce their wives and send them away WITH THEIR CHILDREN. God certainly made a lot of single mother homes that way!
Dick, I'm sure that your about to shit a brick after reading that God gave custody to mothers, but do yourself a favor, and don't make claims about what the Bible says when you haven't got a clue.
"I invited you to take the last shot and you quite predictably did."
Oh,gee, thanks, Dick for "inviting" me to take the last shot on a blog that isn't even yours. You've got a lot of arrogance, and absolutely no brains.
NYMOM, I apologize for infiltrating your blog with all this religious stuff, but I couldn't resist because Richard makes himself look like a huge imbecile.
Amen!!!
I haven't been responding for a while since I finally purchased a new computer but haven't hooked it up yet...I will be doing that shortly; however, I'm glad to see that debate is continuing...
Only a person determined to be right in everything would argue that Mary was not a single mother, when it's so obvious she was.
Joseph was a STEP-FATHER to Jesus...
Well, NY, if that's obvious to you then it's obvious that you haven't checked out what you're talking about and don't plan to.
Mary was not single and Joseph was not just a step-father but a legal father. More importantly, one who evidently respected the primacy of the biological Father and followed His instructions to the letter regarding the care and protection of His child.
But if that pinches your toes too much, hey, you're welcome to your alternative universe. Your version of the nativity story is certainly the least of the misinformation I've been privileged to observe around here.
Richard
"Your version of the nativity story is certainly the least of the misinformation I've been privileged to observe around here."
Coming from an absolute moron who doesn't know that a biological father is a HUMAN FATHER. The same moron who doesn't even know what the Bible actually says. A moron who twists things around even when confronted with his OWN WORDS, and makes up definitions to words that don't even exist in the dictionary let alone the Bible. You truly are as stupid as you sound!
"Mary was not single and Joseph was not just a step-father but a legal father. More importantly, one who evidently respected the primacy of the biological Father and followed His instructions to the letter regarding the care and protection of His child."
Gee, Dick, go to any christian pastor or priest and repeat this statement. Atheists and non-christians have been trying to proove for years that Jesus had a biological father so that they could proove he WASN'T the son of God. So go on and tell christian clergyman that God was the biological father of Jesus. I guarantee that you'll be laughed out of the church at the very least, or denounced as a heretic at the worst. Sorry Dick, inventing new meanings for the term biological father isn't going to proove your incredibly stupid point.
Anon, your argument is patently absurd both 1. doctrinally and 2. biologically. And all the name-calling and insults in the world can't bolster it, just in case you're not old enough to realize that, which I suspect.
Can you figure out why, or do I need to write it on the chalkboard for you?
Richard
Also, there seems to be some cofusion about Mary and Joseph's marriage. Mary and Joseph were actually legally betrothed. In other words, they were promised to each other in marriage. However, a betrothment was considered as legally binding as a marriage, and it would have taken an actual divorce to dissolve it. However, the betrothment period lasted one year, and during this time, the couple would not have consummated their relationship, and the woman would have remained with her own family during this time. Jesus was conceived during the betrothment period, and a lot of people who knew this would have considered him a child of an immoral relationship, or in other words, illegitimate. In John 8:41, they heckled him as being illegitimate:
John 8:41
You are doing your father's works." They said to him, "We are not illegitimate children. We have one Father, God himself."
People in Jesus's hometown of Nazareth called him alternately Jesus Son of Mary, and Jesus Son of Joseph. In Jewish tradition, LEGITIMATE children are always called by the father's name. The fact that they referred to Jesus as Son of Mary means that they were not sure of his legitimacy.
Mark 6:3
"Is not this the carpenter, the SON OF MARY, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?" And they took offense at Him.
Luke 4:22
and all were bearing testimony to him, and were wondering at the gracious words that are coming forth out of his mouth, and they said, `Is not this the SON OF JOSEPH."
Also, when Joseph wanted to "put away" Mary because he found out she was with child, Mary would NOT have been stoned for adultery. By the time of Jesus, Israel was part of the Roman empire. Roman law, at one point, allowed husbands to kill their wives for adultery, but by the first century A.D., Roman men were only allowed to divorce their wives for adultery. In Jesus's time, Israel was part of the Roman empire, and Roman law preceded Jewish law. That's why they brought Jesus the woman caught in adultery. They knew if Jesus said to stone her according to the Law of Moses, Jesus would be in trouble with the Roman law. But Jesus turned it around, and told those who were sinless to cast the first stone. If Mary had been put away by Joseph for adultery, she would have had her head shaved according to the Jewish oral law, and she would have had to forfeit her dowry from her ketubah (Jewish marriage contract). However, Joseph was said to be a righteous man, and he probably would have "put her away" "without cause". In other words, he probably would have divorced her so that he wouldn't bring public shame to her.
Matthew 1:19
and Joseph her husband being righteous, and not willing to make her an example, did wish privately to send her away.
And being a LEGAL father doesn't matter to the father's rights crowd. If bio-dad showed up years later to demand his "rights" based on DNA, the FRA's believe that bio-dad's rights should trump the right of the so-called legal father, or the wishes of the child who is forced to visit a complete stranger because of a DNA CONNECTION. It's obvious that FRA's don't consider a LEGAL FATHER anymore than a STEPFATHER because they think a DNA connection trumps everything else.
"More importantly, one who evidently respected the primacy of the biological Father and followed His instructions to the letter regarding the care and protection of His child."
Ha, not only is Dick stupid enough to try to claim that Jesus had a biological father, but he tries to claim that legal/stepfathers are only there to follow the instructions of bio-dad. It's quite obvious, Dick, that you think legal/stepfathers aren't real fathers just like all the other FRA's. By your own words, fathers who are not bio-dad are not fathers. BY YOUR OWN WORDS, A SINGLE PARENT FAMILY IS WHERE THERE IS ONLY ONE BIOLOGICAL PARENT, AND IN JESUS'S CASE THAT ONE BIOLOGICAL PARENT WAS MARY. Now, in order to get around this, your claiming God is Jesus's biological father! I REPEAT, A BIOLOGICAL FATHER IS A HUMAN FATHER WHO HAS A DNA CONNECTION TO A CHILD. The fact that your trying to say otherwise is absolutely laughable. You are an idiot! By the way, you tried to say that I was worshipping women because I said God gave women the ability to create life in their wombs. Ha! Your the one who is trying to equate biological fatherhood with God. What did Jesus tell his followers?
Matthew 23:9 "Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven."
What does he tell his followers about mothers?
Matthew 12:50
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and MOTHER."
Get it! If all christians, including HUMAN BIOLOGICAL FATHERS, did the WILL OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER,they are CONSIDERED MOTHERS.
"Anon, your argument is patently absurd both 1. doctrinally and 2. biologically."
HA! HA! HA! You telling me that you know anything about doctrines or biology. That is just the funniest thing yet. Yeah, Dick, go ahead, write it out on the chalkboard so that I could laugh some more. This coming from a guy who thinks "dead sperm creates life", or that a spiritual deity is a "biological father". Btw, Jesus was not only the son of God. He is God. He existed as part of the trinity prior to the creation of the world. He put HIMSELF in human form, and he and the other two members of the trinity agreed to take on identities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for spititual reasons. They put Jesus in Mary's womb to fulfill the prophecy that the SEED OF THE WOMAN DESTROYS THE SERPENT. This is the only place where biological parenthood comes in the picture. So what, are you going to say that Jesus was his own biological father. Did you know that the Bible says that Jesus was the son of the Father, and was the Son the Holy Spirit? Two different members of the trinity are referred to as Jesus's father. And btw, did you know that the Holy spirit is usually referred to in the feminine form in the ancient Greek of the new testament? That means that God is referred to alternately as both masculine and feminine. Gee, maybe the Holy Spirit should be referred to as Jesus's mother, but than that will negate the point of Jesus being the Seed of the Woman. The point is that BIOLOGICAL FATHERHOOD HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JESUS BEING THE SON OF GOD.
And the fact the Jesus, as God Himself, put Himself into a HUMAN WOMAN'S WOMB tells how important the mother/child bond really is both biologically and theologically. After all, Jesus could've put himself here as a full grown man without any kind of biological parents whatsoever. After all, the mother/child bond was degraded as inferior to the father/child bond by this point in history (and still is). By being born of a human woman without the help of a human male is a powerful statement by God how important mothers really are.
So it takes three posts to convey that no, you don't get it.
Oh well, I didn't think so.
Number 1: Biology. If Jesus were some kind of physical clone of Mary, having no other biological parent, He would have been female. Females do not possess any Y chromosomes to give their offspring. So if His sex chromosome, at the very least, did not come from a human father, then it had to come miraculously from God. Which is why Matthew clearly states that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit.
Number 2: Doctrine. It is absurd to claim that a spiritual God can not produce the physical substance necessary to father a perfect child when the entire physical universe emanates from a spiritual God to begin with. Not to mention the first man, whose "father" is identified by the Scriptures as God.
So laugh if you want, but this is about what most Christians who accept the doctrine of the virgin birth believe about it.
You want laughter in church, go in there and start babbling about "pre-fall matriarchies" and such foolishness. And don't forget to tell them that men don't understand the male psyche. And be sure to scream a lot and throw in some fuck-you's. It makes you so much more credible.
Richard
Oh, and while we're talking about this, I enjoyed your little talk about divorce in the bible. But they say nothing about anything I've been talking about.
Ishmael was not sent away in the "custody" of his mother. He was sent away, period, to protect the primary inheritance rights of Isaac. With his mother thrown in for good measure, since she wasn't particularly wanted in that family in the first place. Abraham sent away each of his children by Keturah in the same way when they reached adulthood. Nothing to do with "mother custody."
Ishmael was fourteen when Isaac was born, and probably about 17 by the time Isaac was weaned. He was just about grown, and by that time his mother needed him more than he needed her, as adult sons were responsible for their mothers when they no longer had husbands to take care of them. That's the main reason women wanted sons so much back then.
In this story God comes off as pretty compassionate to delay the birth of Isaac long enough for Ishmael to at least grow up in peace with both parents without having his childhood disrupted by the inevitable family rift. I wish parents were half that kind to their kids today.
As for the intermarried exiles, you'll note that God did not command those separations. This was the response of people who had seen firsthand the misery that resulted from intermarrying with pagan women and were eager to completely purge all traces of it.
As per the Levites, the priests required by the law to marry only virgins of their own people, their mixed marriages were unlawful and void, and their children illegitimate and probably already corrupted by idolatry and unqualified to follow them as priests. It would make sense to send them away and start over with lawful marriages and legitimate children.
For the others, I'm not sure the God of the bible would have required such drastic measures but then those people had been thru a lot and probably felt they were better safe than sorry.
But the interesting thing about both your examples is that they were male-initiated divorces. Although God of the bible "hates divorce," He reluctantly allowed it only to men.
But these aren't the only examples of divorce in the bible. Let's look at one that was female-initiated.
During the time of Christ Herodias (doubtless a feminist visionary) purported to "divorce" her husband Herod Philip and take up with his brother Herod Antipas, which constituted not only adultery but incest as well.
Along comes John the Baptist and points out that her second marriage is unlawful. And like any good liberal feminist woman-firster, she decided he had to be silenced ASAP.
She can't get hubby to do the honors for her, so she calls her cute young daughter, dresses her up in her sexiest duds and has her put on a private burlesque show for step-daddy.
Step-daddy likes what he sees and promises cutie-pie anything she wants. And like any good little child abuse victim she parrots her lines: she wants the head of John for Mommy.
Which was grim, to be sure, but the important thing is that Mommy got what she wanted. And if the bad old man wouldn't give it to her, she had every perogative to use her kid to get it, right?
Not much has changed in 2000 years, has it? That story, in one form or another, is so common today (at least in broken families) that no one even blinks at it.
But if you like the old biblical ways, I'll meet you halfway. Like I told NY over at Gonz's when she was telling us how great Sharia law was, let's pass some new laws that will give women the automatic sole custody of minor children in the event of divorce AND give men the sole right to decide if a divorce should happen. OK?
No? Then, let's go with the New Testament model. No legal divorce at all and no remarriage. Either separated celibacy or reconciliation. Should cut down on move-aways quite a bit, at least.
"Get it! If all christians, including HUMAN BIOLOGICAL FATHERS, did the WILL OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER,they are CONSIDERED MOTHERS."
Careful. NY might pop a hemorrhoid over that one!
But I think the point is obvious. That the importance of all human relationships pale in comparison to the importance of the relationship between the individual and God. Which Jesus always described in terms that the people could understand: a loving father-child relationship.
Now, is there anything else?
Richard
"It is absurd to claim that a spiritual God can not produce the physical substance necessary to father a perfect child when the entire physical universe emanates from a spiritual God to begin with."
That's precisely my point you moron. God CREATED the physical world. He is not a part of it. A BIOLOGICAL PARENT IS PART OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD HIM OR HERSELF, I.E., FLESH AND BLOOD. A BIOLOGICAL PARENT PASSES THEIR CHROMOSOMES THROUGH THE NATURAL PROCESSES OF MATING WITH ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. GOD IS SPIRIT. HE IS NOT FLESH AND BLOOD.
"If Jesus were some kind of physical clone of Mary, having no other biological parent, He would have been female. Females do not possess any Y chromosomes to give their offspring. So if His sex chromosome, at the very least, did not come from a human father, then it had to come miraculously from God. Which is why Matthew clearly states that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit."
With God all things are possible. He created the world, he could do anything he likes in it. First of all, Jesus pre-existed as a member of the trinity before the incarnation. He put HIMSELF into Mary's womb, and for SPIRITUAL REASONS, the other two members of the trinity took on the identity of the Father and Holy Spirit while Jesus became the Son. No biological father could do that. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT JESUS EVEN HAD A Y CHROMOSOME? DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT GOD COULDN'T MAKE A HUMAN MALE WITHOUT A Y CHROMOSOME? HE CREATED THE WORLD, AND he could manipulate the natural processes anyway he wanted to. God could have put himself here without any kind of human parents whatsoever. However, he made himself BORN OF A WOMAN to fulfill a prophecy in Genesis 3:15:
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.
Biologically speaking, the only "physical substance" necessary was the SEED OF THE WOMAN. A BIOLOGICAL FATHER WAS NOT NEEDED. Btw, your definition of a biological father can only be found in Richard's Dictionary. You prooved absolutely nothing biologically or theologically.
The reasons why Hagar or those "pagan women" received custody really doesn't matter. By ancient middle eastern patriarchal tradition, fathers always got custody of children in a divorce. The fact that Hagar and those other women were allowed to keep their children was pretty much unheard of. By patriarchal tradition, children took on the religious identities of their fathers, and the religious identities of their mothers didn't matter according to man-made patriarchal traditions and customs. The fact that the children were sent away with their mothers was unheard of. Most of these children were probably young enough to be indoctrinated into the jewish religion after their mothers were sent away. That's why it makes absolutely no sense for the children to be sent with the mothers. More likely, the divorce was traumatic enough, and seperating the children from their MOTHERS would have been worse for them.
"No? Then, let's go with the New Testament model."
The Old and New Testament are in complete agreement when it comes to the way marriage really should be between a man and a woman. An agreement that reflects pre-fall conditions:
Ephesians 5:10:
31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Get it! A man leaves his father and mother. He cleaves to his wife. He becomes a member of HER FAMILY, and the children TAKE ON THE IDENTITY OF THEIR MOTHERS THROUGH FEMALE KINSHIP. Divorce wouldn't be necessary because husbands will LOVE THEIR WIVES AS THEMSELVES. Patriarchys is all about the woman leaving her family, cleaving to her husband, and giving her children his identity. The New Testament is more concerned with how the husband treats his wife than it is about divorce.
""Get it! If all christians, including HUMAN BIOLOGICAL FATHERS, did the WILL OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER,they are CONSIDERED MOTHERS."
Careful. NY might pop a hemorrhoid over that one!"
I repeat:
Ha! Your the one who is trying to equate biological fatherhood with God. What did Jesus tell his followers?
Matthew 23:9 "Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven."
What does he tell his followers about mothers?
Matthew 12:50
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and MOTHER."
Get it! If all christians, including HUMAN BIOLOGICAL FATHERS, did the WILL OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER,they are CONSIDERED MOTHERS.
"But I think the point is obvious. That the importance of all human relationships pale in comparison to the importance of the relationship between the individual and God. Which Jesus always described in terms that the people could understand: a loving father-child relationship"
Biological fathers are not God, and the track record of biological fathers toward their children AND their children's mothers has been horrible throughout most of history right up until today! Obviously, if God is trying to make a point through a loving father-child relationship, most men christian and non-christian alike have failed to see that. After all, it's the HUSBAND WHO IS SUPPOSE TO LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS WIFE. And don't tell me most of you do! The fact that there is even an MRA/FRA movement says otherwise.
Matthew 23:9 "Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven."
"Ishmael was fourteen when Isaac was born, and probably about 17 by the time Isaac was weaned. He was just about grown, and by that time his mother needed him more than he needed her,"
Yeah, it shows that Ishmael was just about grown! Really it refers to him as a CHILD, and a child who GOD WATCHED OVER WHILE HE GREW UP IN THE WILDERNESS. One who almost died because Abraham gave Hagar only some bread and a bottle of water, and put them out in the desert for crying out loud. And Abraham was the one who wanted to keep the child when GOD told him to send Hagar and Ishmael away. It clearly says that Hagar cast the CHILD UNDER THE SHRUBS. Do you really think that she would be able to put a 17 year old kid under the shrubs easily? Can't you read Dick? Can't handle that God gave custody of a BOY CHILD TO HIS MOTHER. ONE THAT IS REFERRED TO TIME AND AGAIN AS A CHILD WHO GREW UP IN THE WILDERNESS WHILE IN HAGAR'S CUSTODY. A CHILD THAT HAGAR FOUND A WIFE FOR WHEN HE BECAME AN ADULT!
Genesis
14And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
15And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.
16And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow shot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.
17And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.
18Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation.
19And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.
20And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.
21And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
"But the interesting thing about both your examples is that they were male-initiated divorces. Although God of the bible "hates divorce," He reluctantly allowed it only to men."
Not true! A slave wife was allowed to divorce her husband if he didn't provide her with food, clothing, and sex (Exodus 21 7:11). If a slave wife got these benefits, so could a free woman. Also the law of Moses was not cut in dry in everything.
Ancient near eastern culture (of which ancient Israel was a part of) had customs and traditions that were pretty much universal over the entire fertile crescent. Whatever situation the law of Moses didn't cover was generally understood to be decided by custom and tradition. For example, women had the right to divorce her husband if it was written into her marriage contract that she could. The law that said a man couldn't remarry after his divorce was actually written for the benefit of the WIFE in the cases where there wasn't a marriage contract that specified wife's right to divorce. A woman who was divorced and had to forfeit her dowry could usually get another dowry if she remarried. If her second husband died, her first husband could reclaim her and her new dowry for his own because she did not have proof that the first husband actually divorced her (because of lack of a marriage contract). The law in Deuteronomy forced a husband who divorced his wife to give her a certificate of divorce so that she had a written account of her first marriage. Than her first husband couldn't force her to marry him again because she had written proof. In other words, the first husband couldn't divorce his wife, steal her dowry, claim her as his wife again after she loses her second husband, and claim her dowry from her second husband as his own. After all, King David was allowed to remarry his first wife Mischael after so remarrying in general wasn't a problem.
"In this story God comes off as pretty compassionate to delay the birth of Isaac long enough for Ishmael to at least grow up in peace with both parents without having his childhood disrupted by the inevitable family rift. I wish parents were half that kind to their kids today."
Are you for real? Ishmael grew up in a POLYGAMOUS HOUSEHOLD. There was constant strife between Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. Do you really think that this was a wonderful environment for Ishmael? You are an idiot. First of all, Hagar was a SLAVE WIFE. Do you really think that Hagar lived in peace with Abraham? First of all, Hagar didn't have any choice in bearing a son for Abraham. She was forced into it, and Sarah ended up giving Abraham a slave wife to bear a child because in the middle east at that time, a barren wife could be divorced if she didn't give her husband a child. Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to bear a child on her behalf because of her fear of being divorced, and Hagar didn't have a choice because, you know, she was a SLAVE. What part of that don't you understand? What a fucking idiot. Your trying to turn what was a POLYGAMOUS marriage based on SLAVERY INTO YOUR WARPED IDEA OF A TWO PARENT FAMILY. And you think this was good for Ishmael? Boy, you are an idiot! Ishmael lived in peace with his two parents. HA! HA!HA!
Now six posts to convey that you still don't get it.
No, I don't think the Jesus of the Bible was without a Y-chromosome because the Bible tells us that in all ways He was fully God and FULLY MAN. And according to the Bible He is alive today and still fully God and fully man, with glorified flesh and blood.
No, I don't think the Jesus of the bible was sent into the world as an infant to make any particular statement about mothers (which He had very little to say about in His ministry). It was so that He could fully share in all of man's joys, hurts and other experiences and be tempted in all things just as we are. He could not be a perfect substitute for us if He did not walk in our shoes all the way.
"Obviously, if God is trying to make a point through a loving father-child relationship, most men christian and non-christian alike have failed to see that."
Take it up with Jesus, then. His choice of analogy, not mine.
"After all, it's the HUSBAND WHO IS SUPPOSE TO LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS WIFE. And don't tell me most of you do!"
Perhaps not in your immediate experience. My father, on the other hand, has lived a life completely centered around the needs of my mother for the past ten years, as she is an invalid who requires round-the-clock care. I won't even go into the sacrifices my father-in-law made for peace in his family. And I myself would certainly lay down my life in a heartbeat to save my wife or my children. Your little niche ain't the whole world, sis.
"Do you really think that she would be able to put a 17 year old kid under the shrubs easily?"
Don't know, but I guess she managed it. Since the Bible clearly states that Abraham was 86 when Ishmael was born, 100 when Isaac was born, and given that ancient women usually nursed children for at least two years, more often three, and this rift did not occur until after Isaac was weaned, Ishmael was definitely almost grown. By then his father had likely done all he could for him and it would have been as good a time as any for him to go find his destiny elsewhere as Joseph, Daniel, and so many young guys had to do as well.
"Your trying to turn what was a POLYGAMOUS marriage based on SLAVERY INTO YOUR WARPED IDEA OF A TWO PARENT FAMILY. And you think this was good for Ishmael?"
It wasn't ideal but I guess it was good enough since God told the pregnant Hagar to go back and submit herself to her mistress. That was the evidently the right place for her to be at that time, i.e. during Ishmael's childhood.
That's the point that people keep missing nowadays: except in the very worst of circumstances, it's not as important to kids for their parents to be happy as it is for them to BE THERE, tending to their responsibilities. Whoever values happiness over all else has no business taking on kids.
"Ancient near eastern culture (of which ancient Israel was a part of) had customs and traditions that were pretty much universal over the entire fertile crescent. Whatever situation the law of Moses didn't cover was generally understood to be decided by custom and tradition."
Anon, I'm not really interested in what the pagan cultures of the time allowed or didn't allow, as it was disobedience for Israelites to mix with those people or adopt their customs in the first place. Jesus had quite a bit to say about people perverting the Law and adding a little of this and a little of that until the spirit and clear intent of it was forgotten and it ended up serving human interests instead.
"Get it! If all christians, including HUMAN BIOLOGICAL FATHERS, did the WILL OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER,they are CONSIDERED MOTHERS."
And brothers, and sisters, and lions and tigers and bears oh my...
Look, Anon, I can see you've found a way to look at these verses that appeals to your vanity but the fact is that it's as absurd as claiming that you have to actually hate your father and mother, wives and children and so on in order to be a follower of Christ.
The obvious point, if you take it all in context, is that the individual's relationship with God is to be so important and all-consuming that all normally earthly relationships are reduced to the to the level of hatred in comparison to it.
"The New Testament is more concerned with how the husband treats his wife than it is about divorce."
It's primarily concerned with how husbands and wives treat each other, true, but it's pretty clear about divorce, too. And like Jesus told his disciples, if you can't accept what he taught about marriage and divorce, perhaps you aren't called to marriage.
"Get it! A man leaves his father and mother. He cleaves to his wife. He becomes a member of HER FAMILY, and the children TAKE ON THE IDENTITY OF THEIR MOTHERS THROUGH FEMALE KINSHIP."
Again, that's a stretching of the Scriptures to the breaking point to suit female vanity, consistent with nothing else in the Bible.
Patriarchy is not "all" about women leaving their families or what-all. It's mostly a simple matter of two-parent families in which a father's relationship to his children is respected and protected by law and custom.
Perhaps early homo sapiens lived in something approaching matriarchy, but of course we had to have patriarchy (i.e. two-parent families) in order to achieve a state of civilization sufficiently advanced to even give us written records. The few examples of it we still have are not anything that normal people would find remotely desirable to live in.
Tell you what, Anon, why don't you get busy re-writing the bible and let us know what God REALLY meant. You know, The Gospel According to Woman-Firsters. I'd immensely enjoy a copy.
Richard
"No, I don't think the Jesus of the Bible was without a Y-chromosome because the Bible tells us that in all ways He was fully God and FULLY MAN. And according to the Bible He is alive today and still fully God and fully man, with glorified flesh and blood."
Again, YOU don't get it Richard! God is the creator of the natural world, in other words, the biological world. He can do what he likes in it. He's not biologically flesh and blood, and he didn't pass on his Y chromosome through sexual intercourse like a BIOLOGICAL FATHER would. Actually what God did was manipulate the natural biological processes that he CREATED to form a male child in Mary's womb. From a biological prospective, that's not impossible. What He did was a form of:
parthogenesis
A form of reproduction in which an unfertilized egg develops into a new individual.
The "physical substance" that produced Jesus was from a female unfertilized egg. Parthogenesis is usually found among lower life forms of insects and arthropods. This is a biological process created by GOD. And if it's possible for God to do this among lower life forms, than he could do this among humans, and NO BIOLOGICAL FATHER IS NEEDED BECAUSE THE PROCESS INVOLVES THE PHYSICAL SUBSTANCE OF THE FEMALE.
"If Jesus were some kind of physical clone of Mary, having no other biological parent, He would have been female. Females do not possess any Y chromosomes to give their offspring."
Not so fast Richard! This isn't biologically impossible either. In some lower life forms like West African Frog, FEMALES CAN TURN TO MALES WITHIN A SINGLE SEX ENVIRONMENT without getting a Y chromosome from a male biological parent. This is called heterogamy. Again, the "physical substance" that is used is FEMALE. Again, this is biologically possible among lower life forms, and God, who created these lower life forms, can certainly manipulate these natural processes in higher life forms,i.e., HUMANS or more specifically with Mary. In fact, right in Genesis, you can see these processes at work along with another biological process called fragmentation. Fragmentation is a form of asexual reproduction where a new organism grows from a fragment of a fully developed individual. Each fragment develops into a mature, fully grown individual. This happened when God took Eve from Adam's side (forget rib, that is a mistranslation of the original Hebrew). Again, Eve would probably have been identical to Adam, but God probably did the process of heterogamy. That is the process of changing from sex to another in a single sex environment so that sexual reproduction could take place between Adam and Eve. In this case, Eve became FULLY FEMALE FROM A FULLY MALE PHYSICAL SUBSTANCE. In the normal course of things, females have two X chromosomes-one from their biological mother, and one from their BIOLOGICAL FATHER. Eve didn't have a biological mother to get her second X chromosome from (her first one could come from Adam) Are you going to say that Eve wasn't FULLY FEMALE because she came from a FULLY MALE PHYSICAL SUBSTANCE? After all, Jesus was FULLY MALE after coming from a FULLY FEMALE PHYSICAL SUBSTANCE. The point I'm trying to make is that BIOLOGICALLY it isn't impossible for reproduction to take place with ONLY ONE BIOLOGICAL PARENT, AND THAT ONE BIOLOGICAL PARENT IS USUALLY FEMALE. Again, these BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES ususally take place in lower life forms, but THE VIRGIN BIRTH AND GENESIS BOTH PROOVE THAT GOD COULD AND DID USE THESE SAME PROCESSES IN HIGHER LIFE FORMS,I.E, HUMAN BEINGS. And as far as the VIRGIN BIRTH, THE ONLY BIOLOGICAL PARENT WAS JESUS'S MOTHER. Eve was created with the processes of fragmentation and heterogamy. Jesus was created with the processes of parthogenesis and heterogamy. Adam was created from the dust of the earth.
"No, I don't think the Jesus of the bible was sent into the world as an infant to make any particular statement about mothers"
Ha! Again, Jesus could have been created just like Adam. WITHOUT ANY BIOLOGICAL PARENTS OR SOURCE WHATSOEVER. The fact that he was born from ONLY ONE BIOLOGICAL PARENT, a process that is not biologically impossible, has a lot to say about the value of BIOLOGICAL MOTHERS. Again, this was done to fulfill the prophecy in Genesis 3:15:
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.
Get it the SEED OF THE WOMAN! JESUS'S ONLY BIOLOGICAL PARENT WAS HIS MOTHER! A BIOLOGICAL FATHER WAS NOT NEEDED BIOLOGICALLY OR THEOLOGICALLY!
"Obviously, if God is trying to make a point through a loving father-child relationship, most men christian and non-christian alike have failed to see that."
"Take it up with Jesus, then. His choice of analogy, not mine."
I don't have to take anything up with Jesus. It's the BIOLOGICAL FATHERS in the FRA movement who are going to have to answer to them about they treated their children AND their mothers so horribly.
"Get it! If all christians, including HUMAN BIOLOGICAL FATHERS, did the WILL OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER,they are CONSIDERED MOTHERS."
"And brothers, and sisters, and lions and tigers and bears oh my..."
This comment was based on a direct quote from Jesus's own mouth. Your the one who should take it up with Jesus. It's his analogy, not mine.
Matthew 12:50
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and MOTHER.
"The obvious point, if you take it all in context, is that the individual's relationship with God is to be so important and all-consuming that all normally earthly relationships are reduced to the to the level of hatred in comparison to it."
If your talking about Luke 14:26, than what you say is true. HOWEVER, different people have been hurt in relationships because of sin. This is particularly true in a patriarchal culture where women are treated as inferior. In Jesus's day, women, slaves, and children were especially mistreated. While a relationship with God is number one, the Bible makes it clear in that in order to show your love for God, you have to love your neighbor as yourself. The Greek word for love is Agape. It's the strongest word for love in the Greel language. Christians, in general, are told to show Agape love for other christians, but husbands are especially singled out to show Agape love to their wives. This was done because men are the ones who are in a position of power to abuse their wives, and they were expected to go out of their way to show this to their wives. Unfortuantely, a lot of men than and NOW just don't get this.
"It's primarily concerned with how husbands and wives treat each other, true, but it's pretty clear about divorce, too. And like Jesus told his disciples, if you can't accept what he taught about marriage and divorce, perhaps you aren't called to marriage."
Actually, the Bible says that divorce is fine in the case of a believer who is married to an unbeliever or in adultery. 1 Timothy 5:8 says that a person who doesn't take care of his family is worse than an infidel. A so-called "christian" man who verbally and physically abuses his wife, treats her like a domestic servant, and basically mistreats her, isn't a real christian. In these cases, divorce is valid. You say you treat your wife well, but I have only your word to go by. In light of your views on women, I find this doubtful. Maybe marriage isn't for you.
"Patriarchy is not "all" about women leaving their families or what-all. It's mostly a simple matter of two-parent families in which a father's relationship to his children is respected and protected by law and custom."
Oh, bullshit Richard! The most common family arrangement in patriarchal societies throughout millenium has been polygamous. There wasn't any "two-parents". It was dad with however many wives he happened to be able to afford. Of course, a father's relationship with his children is repected and protected by custom and law. The MOTHERS didn't have any rights! This "two-parent" nuclear family bullshit is a modern anomaly. Even in patriarchal cultures where polygamy was "officially" outlawed(however dad was allowed to have how many mistresses on the side, and this was protected by law while adultery by mom usually ended in divorce). Most "two-parents" lived in EXTENDED FAMILIES with several generations living together. Both parents relied on other family members for help in childcare and to make a living. It was called cooperation. However, even an extended family in a patriarchal society, women didn't have any rights! Your two-parent family theory being the be-all and end-all of patriarchal society is bullshit! Two-parent families only function well when the parents love each other and treat each other with respect. Unfortunately, PATRIARCHY is what has really ruined the relationship between a husband and wife.
Matthew 12:50
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and MOTHER.
I said:
"Get it! If all christians, including HUMAN BIOLOGICAL FATHERS, did the WILL OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER,they are CONSIDERED MOTHERS."
Dick said:
"Careful. NY might pop a hemorrhoid over that one!"
"And brothers, and sisters, and lions and tigers and bears oh my..."
Your awful flippant there Dick! But I noticed that you tend to ignore the other verse that I quoted.
Matthew 23:9 "Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven."
Can't stomaach what Jesus is saying about fathers can you Dick? Get it! Call NO ONE on EARTH your father. Basically, it's saying that human beings are not suppose to be elevated in a spiritual sense the same as God the Father. Like this idea of calling priests "Father". The quote says NO ONE, and that includes biological fathers. The judeo-christian TRADITION that tries to elevate fathers as the final authority in the household just because God took on the identity of God the Father. The same is said for the fatherhood exaltation behind the FRA rhetoric. They don't want to be "equal parents" or what other bullshit they try to spout. They want to be the one in charge, or basically to "act as God". This whole patriarchal, fatherhood exaltation is just another form of idolatry. And that's exactly what your doing when you claim God is Jesus's "biological father". Your just trying to come up with flimsy excuses for the fact that Jesus's only biological,i.e., flesh and blood parent is his mother. Sorry,Dick, there isn't any biological father, but I'll give you credit for trying to invent one. You have some imagination. However, trying to say that a biological father's status is equal to that of God the Father is pretty blasphemous even for you.
Now back to the quote about MOTHERS:
Matthew 12:50
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and MOTHER."
Again, here Jesus is comparing christians who do the will of the HEAVENLY FATHER is just like his brothers, sisters, or MOTHER. You laugh and try to mock what I said, but it's true. The quote says WHOEVER. This means women and men, biological mothers and BIOLOGICAL FATHERS. After all, a lot of the christian message is about self-sacrifice. MOTHERS ARE USUALLY THE ONES WHO SACRIFICE A LOT FOR THEIR CHILDREN. It makes sense to compare a true believer to mothers in a spiritual sense. If fathers acted more like mothers, the FRAs wouldn't have all the problems that they have. It's as simple as that.
Oh, btw, before you start spouting off more nonsense that the Bible says that the husband is the head of the wife and wives are to submit to their husbands, I decided to clear that one up for you also. Head in the modern English language can mean authority, but in French, it doesn't have this meaning. In the ancient Greek of the New Testament, the word for head is Kephale. It means source or origin. However, our modern english translators want to give kephale the meaning of authority when it comes to interpretations. 1 Corinthians 11:3 is a good example of this.
1 Corinthians 11:3
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
A lot of people try to translate this passage as some kind of hierarchy with Kephale meaning authority. However, if kephale (head) meant authority in the ancient Greek, this passage would read something like this:
the head of Christ is God; the head of man is Christ; the head of man is woman. You translate kephale as source or orgin, and the passage makes a lot more sense,.i.e., the source of every man is Christ, the source of woman is man, the source of Christ is God. The fact that this passage is talking about source or origin is clarified further on.
1 Corinthians 11:12
For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.
In Epheisans 5 the husband is again said to be the "head" of his wife, and wife is said to "submit" to her husband. Again, head should be translated as source or orgin because the husband is specifically told to agape love his wife as his own body. In other words, he is the source of deep love and concern for his wife. The wife is said to "submit". The Greek word for submit is Hupotasso, and it didn't mean submit as in obey. In Epheisans 5:21, christians are told to "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." I really doubt the verse is telling all the Christians to obey each other. It's basically telling them support and respect each other. The so-called "submission" of the wife to her husband isn't any different than her submission to any other christian in the church. And the husband,as a christian, is also bound to submit to other christians in the church, but his submission to his wife is described as "loving her as his own body". In other words, it's the husband's responsibility to go out of his way to show love and concern for his wife, and it's the wife's responsiblity to "submit" to that love NOT HIS AUTHORITY. The Bible uses the imagery of Christ and his church to represent the marriage between the husband and wife. It says the husband should be like "Christ", but judeo- christian tradition likes to mistranslate words like head and submit to make this mean that the husband should have authority over his wife. Actually, this passage describes Christ's real relationship to the church:
Ephesians 2:11
For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. 15 He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. 16 Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death."
Get it Dick! In order for the husband to be like Christ to his church, he has to love his wife as his own body. The husband has the responsiblity to bring peace and unity to his marriage by reconciling himself to his wife in one new body through love and self-sacrifice. The reasons for this are clear. In that patriarchal culture, the husband is the one in the marriage who had all the power, and he was the one most likely to abuse it. He's the one who has the responsiblity to end any hostility in his marriage brought on by the patriarchal influences of his culture, and it's contempt for women. The husband's responsiblity is to emulate Christ's love and self-sacrifice to the church. This doesn't have anything to do with authority.
Now the wife is suppose to "submit" to her husband like the church submits to Christ. Well, her "submission" is simply to reconcile herself to her husband's love and concern through mutual respect, peace, and unity.
In sum, both husband and wife are suppose to submit to each other through mutual love, concern, and respect, BUT it's the HUSBAND who has the added RESPONSIBILTY to make sure that he keeps the hostile, patriarchal influences of his culture out of his marriage because he is the one who is in a position of power to do so. In other words, he has to "love his wife like his own body" by treating her as an equal.
"Number 1: Biology. If Jesus were some kind of physical clone of Mary, having no other biological parent, He would have been female. Females do not possess any Y chromosomes to give their offspring. So if His sex chromosome, at the very least, did not come from a human father, then it had to come miraculously from God."
Actually I have to correct myself from my earlier post. I said Jesus would've been created by a combination of parthogenesis and heterogamy. Actually, there is a natural process called haploid parthogenesis which is a form of reproduction where an unfertilized egg from a female develops into a new individual that is MALE. In other words, females have male offspring without the use of a biological father. Bees, ants, and aphids reproduce like this, and scientists have already used parthogenesis successfully to create human embryos and an actual rabbit. So it's possible in humans. Jesus used the natural process of haploid parthogenesis (a process that was created millions of years before) to make himself a male child from a human woman's unfertilized egg. If this process could be done in lower life forms, it could be done in a human female by God manipulating the natural processes that he already created millions of years before. With God all things are possible. NO BIOLOGICAL FATHER WAS NEEDED. And Dick, don't tell me this would still make God the biological father because than that would be like saying that God was the biological father of bees, ants, and aphids. I think not.
Aphids?
You're a lot more invested in your ideas than I thought.
Look, Anon, if you're that desperate to believe that Jesus' only biological parent was Mary, then OK, I'll say that sure, it's possible, OK?
Possible, but not very likely.
Since the good Lord didn't have to answer to any woman-firsters, it's a lot more sensible to believe that instead of fooling with all this biological hocus-pocus that God simply went with what was there and miraculously supplied the physical material necessary to fertilize an ovum and produce a perfect male child. It's also a lot more consistent with the other New Testament passages that speak of the nature of his conception.
You're hung up on the "seed of the woman" business but that was merely a prophecy of His divine parentage. It no more means that He was ONLY the seed of woman than Isaac's being called the seed of Abraham's body precludes him from also being the seed of Sarah.
"MOTHERS ARE USUALLY THE ONES WHO SACRIFICE A LOT FOR THEIR CHILDREN. It makes sense to compare a true believer to mothers in a spiritual sense."
Well, don't just stop there, Anon. What do brothers and sisters sacrifice for each other that they should be compared to true believers?
I've got two sisters and none of us have sacrificed anything much for each other as we've haven't even lived in the same state for most of our adult lives. If this were the meaning of the analogy, I think it would fall flat for most people.
You're so into this verse, let's look at the scenario in which it was spoken.
It appears that Jesus was in someone's house and a crowd gathered around Him. He was in the middle of teaching (you know, one of the things he came to do) when someone barged in and told him that His mother and brothers were outside and wanted Him to stop what He was doing and come out to talk to them (probably so they could tell Him to shut up and stop making the VIP's mad).
Then He looked around at the crowd that He was teaching and said "Who are my mother and brothers?" And so on and so forth with what you've already quoted umpteen times.
Obviously what He was essentially saying to the interloper was "SO WHAT? I've got bigger fish to fry here, like teaching these people I came to save about the will of God."
So there you are, sis. Believe whatever tickles your fancy, even if it's absurd in the context of the event. But we've discussed this enough.
"Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven."
Ok, sis, I'll start calling my dad Al. And I'll call my mom "Woman" like Jesus did (she'll love that!) And you'll have to find another name for your rabbi that you're so proud of. And I just don't know what I'll do when my kids talk about their "teachers..."
Come on, how silly can we be? He was talking about comparisons of course. No earthly relationship can approach the importance of that between the individual and God.
"Actually, the Bible says that divorce is fine in the case of a believer who is married to an unbeliever or in adultery."
Hold on there, sis. Jesus said divorce is allowed (not "fine") for adultery, and we can all go along with that. And Paul allowed divorce from an unbeliever but only if the UNBELIEVER wanted it, not the believer. The believer is NOT to divorce.
As a believer you don't get to sit back and evaluate your spouse's performance (with no corresponding examination of your own performance, no doubt) and decide that they're not sufficiently christian-like to continue as your spouse.
And if you really can't stand the person you've chosen, you can go but you can't take up with someone else because that's adultery.
And you wasted a lot of time and energy on submission because no, I wasn't going to bring up submission. I'm not sure I buy your watered-down definition of it but I don't really care about the whole submission thing at all.
It's not important to me for my wife to submit to me. What's more important is that she fulfills her responsibilities to our family just like I do.
"In light of your views on women..."
What views? Do I think we're exactly the same? No. Due to different wiring, I think women are probably more prone to certain kinds of shortcomings, just like we are to ours. But are women as good as we are? Sure. Are they as smart as we are? Sure. Are they as corrupt as we are? Sure.
The peculiar problem we have today is not women themselves but a flawed legal and social system that purports to give women all the rights of adults but with the responsibilities and accountability of children.
You'd think feminists would be offended by this but they love it. They just don't want anyone to point it out too plainly.
But it will all even out in time, after we finally outgrow the "morally superior angel in the house" mythology that's left over from Victorian times.
"Maybe marriage isn't for you."
Well, like my grandpa always said, be sure to take your cues and advice from people who've made a success of things, not from people who've fouled up.
"Unfortunately, PATRIARCHY is what has really ruined the relationship between a husband and wife."
Oh nonsense. Patriarchy has done nothing of the sort. What ruins the relationship between husband and wife in EVERY system is the same thing that ruins all earthy relationships. Which is SELF.
And spare us the spew about FRA's being "selfish." We're ALL poisoned with the love of self, and women no less than us. Rarely has any philosophy glorified the self as much as gender feminism and gynocentrism.
"The most common family arrangement in patriarchal societies throughout millenium has been polygamous. There wasn't any "two-parents"."
I think you're overestimating the prevalence of polygamy. While the majority of human cultures have ACCEPTED polygamy, life until modern times has usually been a hard, sparse existence and very few men could ever maintain more than one wife and family.
But if you find "two-parent" confusing, substitute "both parents." Even in imperfect families the presence of both parents has always been important for children.
It's just like the Ishmael story you brought up. We can all agree Hagar was in a shitty situation. When she ran away from Sarah she was probably headed back to Egypt where she came from and maybe still had family. Ishmael wasn't even born yet and could have simply been assimilated into her family and would never have missed his father, right? If ever there was an opportunity for God to put his stamp of approval on your "pre-fall matriarchy," this was it.
He didn't. He told her to go back. Her son's place during his childhood was in his father's home.
And as you rightly pointed out, Mary was in no danger of being stoned for being an unwed mother so God could easily have made her one to show how great single-mother families are and make her a big heroine for gender feminism, of course.
He didn't do that either. The family He created and placed in that cave in Bethlehem was the same kind of family that's stood the test of time and that it's still His will for every child to have.
Man, woman, child. Then, now, and always.
Sorry, Anon. The validation you seek just isn't there.
If some prick has given you a bad time, then I can understand the anger you've been spewing. Which is the main reason why I've chosen not to stoop to the level of foot-stamping and name-calling that you've displayed in the course of this discussion and which I hope many have read (though I doubt it).
And that's a lot more quarter than woman-firsters give to men who've been put thru agony by corrupt women. Their pain and that of their children is met with denial, contempt, or outright hatred.
Now do you have anything NEW to add, or can we wrap this up?
Richard
"Now do you have anything NEW to add, or can we wrap this up?"
The only thing I have to say which I'm sure you already know. I disagree with most if not everything you've said through this entire thread. We can agree to disagree. End of story.
"If some prick has given you a bad time, then I can understand the anger you've been spewing."
That prick was my own father. He was physically and abusive to my mother, didn't work, didn't do any kind of housework or childcare. My mother finally threw his ass out of the house, and he retaliated by kidnapping us and telling us our mother was dead. For two months, we lived like fugitives while we believed she was dead. I was only six, but I remember the whole thing like it was yesterday. He finally brought us back because he ran out of money. After the divorce, he saw us only a handful of times (he lived in the same town). And no our mother didn't stop us from seeing him. Everytime he showed up out of the blue, she let us go with him (despite her fears of us getting kidnapped again). Other times, he told us he was coming, but didn't show up later claiming that he never said he was coming (calling us liars). Our mother was a single mom, and she did a wonderful job despite a father who didn't pay child support half the time, and she worked over 50 hours a week to pay the bills. Men like my dad are the poster boys for the FRA movement. All he did was grumble about how our mother was a bitch, and how he got screwed. When I heard the rhetoric of the FRA movement, I know my father would've been right at home in the movement. My ex-husband wasn't much better than my father, he was actually in the FRA movement at one point so I know what kind of things are really being said, and concern for children is not one of them. Richard, you say you have this wonderful marriage, and these great kids. You say your own parents have a wonderful marriage. That tells me that you haven't any real experience with the kinds of situations that I grew up in, and you really haven't a clue what your talking about. I'm not saying this to be nasty or sarcastic. I'm looking at the FRA movement from the inside based on experience. Your looking at the FRA movement from the outside. Your ideal about two parents is great. I wish everyone had two parents, but like I said, it's an ideal, it's not reality for many people especially women and children. As for my own father, by rights I should have ended up hating him. I actually loved the man, and I had a relationship of sorts with him until the day he died. However, we were much better off without him, and if he took off never to be heard from again, it wouldn't have been traumatic. However, thinking our mother was dead for two months was horrible. I NEVER forgave my father for that.
"Which is the main reason why I've chosen not to stoop to the level of foot-stamping and name-calling that you've displayed in the course of this discussion and which I hope many have read (though I doubt it)."
I guess your right. I apologize because it was pretty nasty.
No problem, Anon.
You're right that I've been pretty lucky personally in my family background. My wife, not so much, which is why she knows something about the other side of the coin.
From what you've said your dad was a true asshole. I have as little sympathy for anyone who would deprive their kids of a mother as for anyone who would deprive them of a father.
It's unfortunate that there are always some jerks on any side of an issue that will make their own side look bad. I'm well aware that the FRA's are no exception.
But I've enjoyed this nevertheless.
Richard
Richard, I just have to say one more thing and than we can wrap this up.
"My wife, not so much, which is why she knows something about the other side of the coin."
Despite my background with my father, I use to believe like your wife that fathers got a bum deal in child custody.
"I have as little sympathy for anyone who would deprive their kids of a mother as for anyone who would deprive them of a father."
Again, I agree with you in THEORY. I know that there are mothers out there who will deliberately keep the fathers of their children away out of spite just like I know there are men out there who will do the same thing.
"It's unfortunate that there are always some jerks on any side of an issue that will make their own side look bad. I'm well aware that the FRA's are no exception."
This is where I really disagree. Like I said, I use to believe that fathers got a bum deal in custody, and I thought the FRA movement was just a bunch of fathers who wanted to be part of their children's lives. After all, I thought I got a bum deal from my own father so I thought it was nice to see a group of men taking fatherhood seriously. However, the POLITICAL RHETORIC of the FRA movement is quite different than what I believed. I was married to an FRA, I've been to their meetings, I've read their FRA literature and websites. The majority of the men in this movement as well as it's leaders are not men who were treated unfairly in custody disputes. They are men who's primary agenda is to give father's sole physical and legal custody no matter what. It doesn't matter to them if the father is fit for custody or not. They support parental kidnapping (by the father), they actually want to take away a woman's right to get a divorce for ANY REASON (it doesn't matter to them if the wife is divorcing to get away from an abusive spouse), or even to vote. Many of these men ususally have backgrounds of domestic violence, stalking, child physical and sexual abuse. If the mother is unfit, or the father was the primary caretaker, than I haven't any problem with father custody. However, these men don't care about what kind of fathers are getting custody. All that matters to them is that all fathers get custody no if, ands, or buts. Now, I know you disagree with me on issues of joint physical and legal custody, but I'm not interested in rearguing those issues because we both know where we stand on them. However, the FRA movement is only interested in joint legal and physical custody as a means to eventually give full legal and physical custody to the fathers. They aren't interested in two parent homes, or making sure every kid has two parents. Father custody, fit or unfit, is all that matters to them. And they get naive women (like I was) to help them out in the movement by giving these women sob stories about how they were "unfairly" deprived of custody. I bought this shit hook, line, and sinker because I was in love with an FRA. I finally woke up when I realized that most of the men I encountered (including my ex-husband) were exactly like my father. I've actually heard many of these men brag about using false allegations of PAS to get custody from wives that they abused. They were actually proud of this fact. Other men claimed that their wives falsely accused them of domestic violence, or child abuse. I actually checked out the stories of some of these men, and the domestic violence and child abuse claims were legitimate, i.e., there was witnesses to the events described, or medical evidence (like the father's sperm was actually found inside the son's anus). And this guy is still allowed some supervised visitations with his kid. I'm sorry child molesters don't deserve any kind of visitation. I told these men about my own father, and all they said was that my father had to "love" me very much to do what he did. I couldn't believe they were serious. If my father was still alive at this point, I'm sure he would have been a member. In a lot of these cases where these men have claimed PAS, the mothers actually had legitimate reasons not to allow visitation or custody. Are there mothers who unfairly deprive good fathers from seeing their children? Sure there are, but I don't buy PAS as a SYNDROME. In other words, I don't think this behavior is so widespread that there are hordes of mothers out there depiving fathers of custody/visitation. This is political rhetoric put out by the FRA movement in order to give fathers leverage in a custody battle. You know those statistics that you say is all feminist propaganda like only abusive fathers fight for custody, or claim PAS, or kidnap their children, or whatever. I can tell you that they're true. When I lived with my ex-husband, I only had a vague notion of feminism, or "feminist propaganda" as you put it. When I left my husband, I started getting interested in feminism, and when I read the so-called "propaganda", I was stunned by how true it all was. I've seen it, I've heard it, and I lived within the FRA movement for six years, and I can tell you that many FRAs fit those statistics exactly, and the leaders of the FRA movement condone all those behaviors that make up those statistics as well. Sorry, Richard, but the FRA movement isn't the exception, it's the rule.
Oh, and btw, the reason I brought up Matthew 23:9 was because a lot of FRA rhetoric revolves around this idea that a biological father's place in the home is the same as God's relationship to his followers. Of course, I'm not suggesting that you call your father Al. However, the FRA want to make fatherhood exaltation into the level of being God's mini-me in the home. God the Father language is very common in FRA circles. The FRA's are just as guilty as the scribes and pharisees of Jesus's day. They're both hypocrites.
Again, I'n not interested in debating this, or changing your opinion. I'm just giving further explanation about why I feel like I do. I won't be coming back to this thread because frankly I'm sick of it. Good-bye, Richard.
Wow Richard, you've really invested a LOT of time debating this very silly point...
JOSEPH was NOT the father of Jesus. HE was a STEP-FATHER.
GET IT!!!
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