I recently read a particularly idiotic article called Why Christians Should Be Proud Sexists. Yes, the author thinks it is Biblical to not only be sexist, but also to be proud of it. Apart from infamous appearances by the fallacy of composition and a legion of non sequiturs, the article makes many claims that are not only erroneous on purely logical grounds, but also on Biblical grounds. I'm only going to highlight some of the absolutely asinine claims made in the article, so I'll pass over the extremely fallacious claims about gender stereotypes (I've logically deconstructed and refuted these multiple times before on my blog), discrimination, and so on. I'm going to focus on a handful of the article's egregious Biblical errors. Errors is too tame a word. I will call these claims what they are--heresies that contradict God's nature and Biblical theology. Let's get started!
"Only Men are Made in God’s Image, Not Women"
Yes, the author literally denies that women are bearers of God's image just like men are. Has the author fucking read Genesis 1:26-28? Women were made in God's image to corule creation with men [2], not to be slaves in function (if not in name) to males. Men and women have equal value in Christian theology, and this stubborn fact will not cease to be a fact because people with fallacy-drenched worldviews do not want to admit it. What are some ways that male and female possession of God's image manifests itself in the Bible? For instance, Mosaic Law gives men and women equal legal rights and protection in criminal cases (see Exodus 21, for example). Paul praises men and women in Romans 16 as he commends fellow Christians for their evangelism and service. The Bible is clear: men and women are equal in metaphysical value, and what follows from this inescapably contradicts complementarian teachings.
"Wives Are Regarded as the Property of Their Husbands"
No, husbands do not unilaterally own wives and wives do not unilaterally own husbands. To say otherwise is to embrace heresy. Both husbands and wives "own" each other. A Biblical example of this is in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, where Paul explicitly states that husbands and wives have mutual ownership of each other's bodies. Husbands and wives mutually possess each other's bodies, and not in the sense of either having a "right" to demand that the other submit unilaterally. It is impossible for men and women to have equal value while one of them is the property of the other in the way that the article implies--in a way that is unilateral and sexist. Not even Biblically-codified and allowed slavery involves one party owning the other as if he or she exists just for the owner [3].
Also, a philosophy or theology of gender that says one marriage partner owns the other, but not vice versa, is an ideology from which it follows that sexual consent is not necessarily morally required. In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 22:25-27 clearly condemns nonconsensual sex, calling all rape "like murder", another Biblical capital crime (Exodus 21:12-14), and demanding the deaths of rapists (and this would include the deaths of women who rape males). Consent alone does not make a sex act morally legitimate or permissible (adultery, homosexuality, and so on), but consent IS Biblically mandatory for legitimate sex to be legitimate (1 Corinthians 7:3-5).
"Women Are Commanded to Submit to Their Husbands"
Actually, all husbands and wives are commanded to submit to each other. It's in the damn Bible. Read Ephesians 5:21. When Paul commands all Christians to submit to each other out of love for Christ, that includes both husbands and wives (besides, 1 Corinthians 7 also emphasizes mutual submission). As for the complementarians who insist that later verses in Ephesians 5 demand a unilateral submission of wives to husbands, I notice that they are practically never stupid enough to say that Ephesians 5 demands a unilateral love of husbands for wives. The Bible commands love of all people, not that one gender love the other. Arguing that the instructions in Ephesians 5 are unilateral inherently involves illogicality [4].
The author eventually claims that Jesus was sexist because he did not have female disciples among the 12 Apostles. First of all, Jesus was followed around by a group of women that financially supported him (Luke 8:1-3), a very important feat. Second, it doesn't follow from Jesus not having female apostles that God expects men and women to occupy different social spheres or that men and women should not choose each other as close companions. That's a major non sequitur.
When dealing with special morons like the author of this article, rip apart the assumptions, expose all of the logical fallacies, and call out all of the philosophical errors. Since such people clearly aren't rational, hence why they believe in obvious fallacies and falsities to begin with, it doesn't hurt to raise awareness of their errors in a mocking way. The past few years have empirically shown me how people who don't want to admit they are deniers of reality will not admit such a thing. And wherever they don't, their fallacies trail behind them, leaving an open target for the ridicule, correction, and disgust of the rational.
May the anger of rationalist Christians be aroused at the stupidity and moral inferiority of the fallacious.
[1]. https://biblicalgenderroles.com/2017/12/28/why-christians-should-be-proud-sexists/
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-error-of-complementarian-arguments.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/06/bible-on-slavery.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-ephesians-5-does-not-teach-rigid.html
No comments:
Post a Comment