Why don't these organised religions allow women to become part of their hierarchy.

It's pathetic that women are not allowed to be employed in the positions that men are in these institutions.

These organised religions are to exclusive and should change to be more inclusive or disappear.

A female pope would be nice to see.

humanspirit wrote:
No pope would be even better.

humanspirit wrote:
Not just Abrahamic religions

Both Buddhism and Hinduism (Sati being the most extreme example) show practices or extreme sexism.

Sikhism is in theory much fairer but not in practice (arranged marraige, honour killings etc)

As for a woman pope.

I would support that and women priests too.

However, I would also not wish to demean the role of sisters and nuns. I have met them and been very inspired by them.

mikey mikey wrote:
Its seems to be a common theme amongst just about all the religions I know.
That man is somehow closer to God than woman. Its all quite laughable really.

andyh wrote:
I agree, but I think that sexism is ingrained in the culture prior to the introduction of the religion.

Look at Sikhism that clearly states that men and women are equally close to God. And yet Sikh communities have regular honour killings.

Female circumcision (or genital mutilation) existed in Arabic, African and Asian cultures prior to the arrival of Islam 9in fact dates back to Ancient Egypt).

China has been under an atheist regime for decades and yet they still off their baby daughters...

The list is endless.

It's easy to blame society's sexism on religion instead of examining our culture overall..

mikey mikey wrote:
Very true, religion if anything stems from the culture and/or vice versa.

Its funny but everytime I see the word culture I keep thinking of oi's thread on DIF asking them what british culture was

andyh wrote:
It depends what you mean by the word culture

Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings:

I used it as a by-word for the equally ambiguous term "society"

However, I think that the people oi was addressing think british culture means "like me and my lot".

mikey mikey wrote:
I agree. The ancient Greeks were a bit sexist too - people don't generally blame that on pantheism.

humanspirit wrote:
Fear of women by cowardly men perhaps?

mikey mikey wrote:
Hahaha!!!
You mean the BNP voting, flag waving, walking talking vegetables?

dogsmilk wrote:
It goes back a hell of a long way, at the end of the day I think it just traces back to physical superiority which males have and it got extended into other areas.

andyh wrote:

The creation story. Eve takes the apple from the snake.
Women are slippery and are not to be trusted.
Can't say i disagree...i've done some pretty horrid things

I always took you for a bloke, night gaunt, don't know why That wil teach me to assume.

^^^^ See that bloke word, that's what happens when you hang around a UK forum too much. We don't talk like that here, do we?

Does anyone know about Pope Joan who was debunked then rebunked. Or how about the pope chair that was used to check that the pope had balls. The engraving depicts the scene:

Yes Nosey, I seem to recall a scene in one of the Dan Brown books describing a ceremony where the newly appointed pope has to be checked first to insure his balls are there so they know he's not some woman trying to get into power.

Night Gaunt, some people refer to the apple as representing 'knowledge' - as if we were meant to have been ignorant.

It was always just about keeping women subservient & controlled - well, more than that really, but I'm late going out. got to dash.

I think that whole "knowledge" thing got twisted around but what do you expect out of a forked tongued serpent. I think it was mostly just knowledge of evil, like I really need to know and experience that. but's this is all a little off topic, unless you consider the serpent was a man.

''Original Sin''....what a load of bollocks...

I don't think the serpent was a man, though. I think it was something else out of this world.

It would be like we were in paradise and we knew what good was and someone comes along and says how would you like to know what good AND EVIL is and our ancestor said and we've been paying for it ever since.

No preacher is going to make me feel guilty for being human.

That is not what I am talking about. Guilt is a man made construct, most likely.

Guilt could even be part of the experience of evil meaning we would not be guilty over the same things if there was no evil dna but this dna introduced fears and guilts. That could be why Adam and Eve saw that they were naked because they did not notice before.

Just thinking out loud really. I woke up in the middle of the night.