Is Islam Evil? - Part 7

In previous posts I have shown that the opening sentence of the Bible and the first two chapters of the Old Testament book Genesis are sexist, and that on the assumption that Jehovah inspired and guided the writing of the books of the OT, we should conclude that Jehovah is a sexist and that Jehovah is a false god.

Chapter 3 of Genesis confirms the previous interpretation of the first two chapters of that book. After Adam and Eve disobey Jehovah's command to not eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Jehovah punishes each of them with a curse.  Here is the curse proclaimed against Eve:

To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;

    with painful labor you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband,

    and he will rule over you.”  (Genesis 3:16, NIV, emphasis added)

In the second chapter of Genesis it was already implied that Adam should "rule over" Eve, because (a) the first woman was created for the purpose of helping Adam, esp. helping Adam to be happy, and (b) Jehovah brought the first woman to Adam in order for Adam to name and evaluate her (naming being a common symbol of a king's authority over another person), as with the previous animals Jehovah had made.  So, this explicit declaration that husbands were supposed to "rule over" their wives was already implied in the previous chapter.

In any case, both Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, so neither one was shown to be morally or intellectually inferior to the other (as far as we can tell from the story).  So, Eve no more deserved to be placed under the authority of Adam than Adam deserved to be placed under the authority of Eve.  Furthermore, even if Eve was in some way significantly inferior (intellectually or morally) to Adam, this has no relevance for whether or not women are in general inferior (intellectually or morally) to men, nor to whether or not husbands in general should "rule over" their wives.

Once again, Jehovah is either omniscient or not.  If omniscient, then Jehovah knew that any intellectual or moral inferiority of Eve to Adam was irrelevant to the question of whether husbands should in general "rule over" their wives.  Thus Jehovah was being unfair and mean to billions of women in proclaiming that husbands should "rule over" their wives.  Jehovah was knowingly promoting sexist beliefs and practices by making this proclamation, and so was a sexist for promoting sexism, even though Jehovah knew that women were not in general inferior  (intellectually or morally) to men. If Jehovah was unfair to women by promoting sexist beliefs and practices, then Jehovah was NOT a perfectly good person, and thus Jehovah would be a false god.

On the other hand, if Jehovah truly believed that women were inferior to men, then Jehovah would have been just as ignorant on this subject as the men of ancient Israel, and thus Jehovah would not have been omniscient.  If Jehovah was ignorant in this matter, then Jehovah was a just an ordinary ignorant sexist, like the men of ancient Israel.  If Jehovah was an ignorant sexist, then Jehovah was a false god.

So, it does not matter whether Jehovah was omniscient or not.  If Jehovah was omniscient, then Jehovah was a false god, and if Jehovah was not omniscient, then Jehovah was a false god.  Thus, Jehovah is a false god.  And if Jehovah was a false god, then Jesus was a false prophet, because he taught his disciples to pray to Jehovah.  So, Jesus was a false prophet, and Christianity is a false religion.

There are many passages in the Old Testament that imply that Jehovah is a sexist, on the assumption that Jehovah exists and that Jehovah inspired and guided the writing of the Old Testament.  If you are not convinced by the evidence of the first three chapters of Genesis, then I urge you to buy or borrow a copy of the book God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says by Michael Coogan (editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible, and co-editor of The Oxford Companion to the Bible).  I'm going to briefly summarize here some of the evidence that Coogan covers in more detail in his book.

In ancient Israel and in the OT, women were considered to be property, first of their fathers, and then of their husbands.

1. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery (Exodus 21:7-11).
2. Fathers could sell their daughters into marriage for a 'bride-price' (Exodus 22:16-17).
3. Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to Jehovah (Judges 11:30-39) , yet he is considered to be one of the great heroes of Israel (I Samuel 12:8-11)
4.  Fathers could nullify vows of their daughters, and husbands could nullify vows of their wives (Numbers 30:3-15).
5. Although the OT prohibits several different types of incestuous sexual relationships, there is no prohibition of a father having sex with his own daughter (Leviticus 18:6-16), presumably because she was his property, and having sex with her would mean that she could not be sold for the higher bride-price that could be obtained for virgin girls.
6. The Ten Commandments given by Jehovah, speak of wives as property of their husbands:

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:17, NIV, emphasis added)

7. Virginity was required of young women (Deuteronomy 22:13-21) , and sexual fidelity was required of engaged and married women (Deuteronomy 22:23-24 and Leviticus 20:10 & Deuteronomy 22:22) on pain of death, but neither virginity nor fidelity were required of men.  Men were only required to leave alone the wives (or engaged women) who were property of another man.
8.  In cases of the rape of a girl, it was the Father who was given payment, because his daughter was now damaged goods and would not bring the higher bride-price for a virgin. So the Father rather than the girl was viewed as the victim of rape, and the girl who was raped could be required to become the wife of her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).
9. The laws Jehovah gave to ancient Israel made it easy for a man to divorce his wife, but made no provision for a wife to divorce her husband.  So, even if a man was abusive to his wife or sexually unfaithful to his wife, she had no legal option of divorce. (Deuteronomy 24:1-4).
10.  According to Jehovah's commands, only men were allowed to be priests (Exodus 28:1-5 and 40:12-16).
11. The Laws of Israel, including the Ten Commandments, were (supposedly) given by Jehovah, a deity represented as a male,  to Moses, a male prophet, who then brought them to an all-male audience:

So Moses went down from the mountain to the people.  He consecrated the people, and they washed their clothes.  And he said to the people, "Prepare for the third day, do not go near a woman." (Exodus 19:9-15, NRSV, emphasis added. See also: 20:1-21, 21:1, 24:1-7)


12. The very wording of the Ten Commandments shows that the intended audience was men, and not women: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey..." (Exodus 20:17).  Men are commanded not to covet the wives of other men.  There is no similar command for women to not covet the husbands of other women.  Men owned houses and wives and slaves and donkeys.  Women did not own their husbands, so women could not, on this assumption, covet another woman's husband. 
13. It was acceptable for men to have multiple wives (polygyny) "as did Abraham, Jacob, David, and other biblical heroes, with no sign of divine disapproval." (God and Sex, p.79). There is no indication that a woman ever had, or could have, more than one husband  This is another indication that women were viewed as property of men.  Men could own one wife or many wives.  Women could not own even one husband, because a woman was the property of her father until marriage, when she became the property of her husband.  The laws of Jehovah recognized the legitimacy of polygyny:

If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him. (Deuteronomy 21:15-17, NIV, emphasis added)


14.  The above passage from the Laws of Jehovah not only recognizes the legitimacy of polygyny, it also approves of  traditional favoritism of sons in terms of inheritance.  Note there is no mention here of inheritance for the daughters of the loved vs. hated wives.  The law is concerned with inheritance being passed on to the sons, with the bulk of inheritance going to the firstborn son.  Women were discriminated against in terms of inheritance of property, and Jehovah's laws reinforce this discrimination.
15. Of the "approximately thirty-eight books of the Hebrew Bible, only two, Ruth and Esther, have women's names as titles, and not one is traditionally ascribed to a woman author." (God and Sex, p.55-56, emphasis added). If we assume that the writing and composition of the Old Testament was inspired and guided by Jehovah, then the fact that all of the authors of the OT were (apparently) men, implies that Jehovah had a policy of preferring men over women to reveal himself and his will to Israel.  In conjunction with the fact that the Ten Commandments were delivered by a male prophet to an all-male audience, and the fact that Jehovah demanded that all the priests of Israel be men, it is very clear that Jehovah approved of discrimination against women in terms of positions of religious authority.
16. "Descent was traced through the father; men were usually identified as the "son of" their father, as in Joshua son of Nun and Isaiah son of Amoz.  Women were similarly identified, at least until marriage, as in Rizpah the daughter of Ai and Esther the daughter of Abihail." (God and Sex, p. 22).  See Chapters 5 and 11 of the book of Genesis for an example of descent being traced from father to son.
17. "Within this patriarchal framework, women--daughters, wives, mothers, sisters--were subordinates and, like younger sons, are often not mentioned.  Even when they have narrative significance, they are frequently unnamed: we are never told the names of Noah's wife, Lot's wife, Jephthah's daughter, Samson's mother, Job's wife, and many other notable women." (God and Sex, p. 23). Jehovah's failure to mention women and to name women involved in OT events, suggests that Jehovah had a sexist bias against women.  See the story of Noah in Chapters 6-9 of the book of Genesis.
18. Lot offers his two virgin daughters up to be gang raped by a group of violent men in order to show hospitality to angels who visited his house and to protect his visitors from being raped (Genesis 19:1-8).  This is an example of how men treated women as property.  There is no indication in the story that Lot was wrong to offer up his daughters to be gang raped, so this story reinforces and promotes the sexism that was present in the culture of ancient Israel.
19. Jehovah assigned a monetary value to various categories of persons, so that instead of sacrificing a son or daughter to Jehovah, someone could give the monetary equivalent to Jehovah.  Females and children are consistently valued less than males and adults by Jehovah. For example, a male between age 5 and 20 was valued at 20 shekels of silver, while a female of the same age range was valued at 10 shekels of silver. (Leviticus 27:3-7).
20.  Sarah refers to her husband Abraham as her 'lord' and her 'master' (Genesis 18:12 and 20:3). "Both of these terms are indicative of the status of the wife: she was under her husband's rule, she was his property...the word 'master' is frequently used for ownership in the laws concerning property." (God and Sex, p.24)
21. "The primary function of marriage was to produce offspring--especially, as in most patriarchal societies, male offspring." (God and Sex, p.64).  In ancient Israel sons were much preferred over daughters.  This sexist attitude is reinforced in some Psalms of the Old Testament (Psalm 127:3-5 and Psalm 128:3-6.  Note: The New Revised Standard Version translates 'sons' as 'children' in Psalm 128, in order to avoid sexist language and ideas, but that is not an accurate translation of the Hebrew).

The Old Testament touches on the following topics: the origin of human beings, marriage relationships, arranged marriages, slavery, rape, virginity, sexual fidelity, divorce, incest, polygamy, coveting a neighbor's possessions, the Ten Commandments, qualifications for the priesthood, and the inheritance of property.  In each of these areas of the Old Testament women are treated as inferior to men, as property of men, as second-class citizens of ancient Israel, and as being under the authority of men.  

Assuming that the writing of the books of the Old Testament was inspired and guided by Jehovah, one must conclude that Jehovah was a sexist, thus that Jehovah was a false god. 

Is Islam Evil? - Part 6

Sexism in Genesis

In Genesis, Jehovah is represented as a male, even though Jehovah has no body and thus cannot be either male or female.  I have argued that this aspect of Genesis is sexist, and, assuming that Genesis was written under the guidance and inspiration of Jehovah, this shows Jehovah to be a sexist for promoting sexism.  

Based on this information, Jehovah either believed that women are morally or intellectually inferior to men and thus Jehovah held a false belief about human beings, thus Jehovah was a false god, or else Jehovah did not believe that women are morally or intellectually inferior to men, in which case Jehovah was being unfair and unkind towards women by promoting sexism, and thus Jehovah was not a perfectly good person, and was a false god.

The false representation of Jehovah as a male is not the only evidence of sexism in the book of Genesis.  There are other examples of sexism that provide further confirmation of the claim that Jehovah was a sexist.  For example in Genesis Chapter 2, Jehovah creates various animals for the sake of the first man, Adam, and brings each animal to Adam to be evaluated and named by Adam.  Finally, Jehovah creates the first woman, also for the sake of the first man, and also brings the first woman to Adam to be evaluated and named by Adam.  

This story is sexist because it represents the reason why Jehovah created women as being for the sake of men, and because it states that Jehovah brought the first woman to the first man in order for her to be evaluated and named by him, indicating that men are supposed to rule over women, just as humans were to rule over all animals.

Genesis indicates that women were created for the sake of men:

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." (Gen. 2:18, NRSV)

This verse implies that men have value and worth inherently, but that the value and worth of women derives from their being of value or of benefit to men.  Thus, this verse promotes sexism.  It promotes the idea that women are inferior to men, and that women should serve the needs and desires of men.

The comment by Jehovah in this verse is clearly sexist, but those who have difficulty seeing this should consider if the shoe had been on the other foot:

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the woman should be alone; I will make her a helper as her partner."  (Gen. 2:18, with genders reversed)

There are further indications of sexism in this Chapter of Genesis.  Jehovah brings each animal to Adam, to be evaluated and named by Adam:

So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. (Gen. 2:19-20, NRSV)

Jehovah then creates the first woman, from Adam's rib, and then, as with the previous animals, brings the woman to Adam to be evaluated and named by Adam:

And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. (Gen. 2:22, NRSV)

Thus not only are the non-human animals indicated to be inferior to humans and under the rule of humans, but women are by analogy indicated to be inferior to men and under the rule of men.

In Genesis Chapter 1, Jehovah puts animals under the authority of humans:

God blessed them [humans], and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, NRSV)

When Jehovah brings each animal to Adam to be evaluated and named by Adam, this is a symbol of the placement of humankind in authority over all animals:

Adam earlier had named the animals, which was a demonstration of his authority over them.  Here his naming of Eve suggests Adam's position of rule, as referred to in verse 16.  In the ancient world when one king placed a vassal king on the throne, a new name would often be given to demonstrate the overlord's dominion.  Likewise, when God enters covenant relationships with Abram and Jacob, he changes their names.
(The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, by John Walton, Victor Matthews, and Mark Chavalas, IVP, 2000, p.33)

In Genesis Chapter 1 Jehovah also had named aspects of the universe and the earth to show his authority over creation:

God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. (Gen. 1:5, NRSV)

God called the dome Sky. (Gen. 1:8, NRSV)

God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. (Gen. 1:10, NRSV)

In ancient cultures and in various biblical passages, including passages in Genesis, we see naming as a sign of authority of the name-giver over the person or thing that is named: 

God's separation of light from darkness and his naming them (1:4-5), like his other acts of separating and naming (1:6, 8, 10, 14, 18), are the acts of a sovereign who determines the destinies of his subordinates. 
(The Oxford Bible Commentary, edited by John Barton and John Muddiman, Oxford Univ. Press, 2001, p.43)


The naming of the animals by the human being (vv. 19-20) is the narrator's way of indicating human dominion over the created world (as in 1:28-30); it recalls the divine name giving in Genesis 1. 
(HarperCollins Bible Commentary, Revised edition, James Mays, general editor,  HarperSanFrancisco, 2000, p.86)

Thus the author of Genesis, who we are assuming was guided and inspired by Jehovah, promoted sexism by telling a story in which Adam first gives names to various non-human animals, and then gives a name to the first woman.  

Furthermore, assuming that the actions of Jehovah are correctly described by the author of Genesis, Jehovah intended for this to be the case.  Jehovah brought the animals to Adam in order to get Adam to name the animals, and Jehovah brought the first woman to Adam in order to get Adam to name the first woman.  So, Jehovah was complicit in promoting sexism in two respects: (1) by influencing Adam to perform an action that suggests Adam's superiority to, and authority over, Eve, and (2) by guiding the author of Genesis to record this event in such a way that would promote the idea that men were superior to women and that men should have authority over women.

Again, either Jehovah is omniscient or not.  If omniscient, then Jehovah knows that men are not morally or intellectually superior to women, and so do not deserve to be given authority over women.  In this case Jehovah was being unfair and unkind towards women, and Jehovah is a sexist for promoting sexism and discrimination against women, even though Jehovah knows better.  If Jehovah was unfair and unkind towards women, then Jehovah is not a perfectly good person, and Jehovah would be a false god.  

If, on the other hand, Jehovah is not omniscient, then  Jehovah might be excused for holding the false belief that women are inferior to men, as we might excuse ancient Hebrew men for having held such false beliefs.   But if Jehovah held such false beliefs, then Jehovah is a sexist for holding such beliefs and promoting such beliefs, and Jehovah is also a false god, for being fallible and less than omniscient.

Either way, Jehovah is a sexist, and Jehovah is a false god.  Since Jehovah is a false god, Jesus was a false prophet, and Christianity is a false religion.

To be continued...

Is Islam Evil? - Part 5

Sexism in Genesis

If Jehovah does not exist, then Jehovah is a false god and Judaism is a false religion.  If Jehovah is a false god and Judaism is a false religion, then Christianity is also a false religion, since Jesus was a devout follower of Judaism and he prayed to Jehovah, and taught his disciples to pray to Jehovah.  So, if Jehovah does not exist, then Christianity is a false religion. 

If Jehovah does not exist, then there would be little point in comparing Islam and Christianity in terms of sexism, for we would just be comparing two false religions, both of which should be expected to reflect some degree of sexism, given that both religions were founded in ancient times when sexism was widespread and when there were few or no moral objections being raised against sexism.

So, for the sake of argument, I'm going to suppose that Jehovah does exist, or at least that Jehovah did once exist.  Furthermore, since Jehovah is supposed to be an invisible and intangible spirit we don't have any objective observational facts about Jehovah, only biblical stories and claims about Jehovah.  If the biblical stories and claims about Jehovah are fictional, then we have no basis for making any evaluation, positive or negative, about the character of Jehovah. So, for the sake of argument, I'm going to suppose that the biblical stories and claims about the words and actions of Jehovah are accurate.
  
Furthermore, since Christians believe that the Bible, including the Old Testament, was inspired by God, and that Jehovah is God, I'm going to assume, for the sake of argument, that Jehovah inspired the OT.

Therefore, by carefully examining the OT, we can form conclusions about whether and to what extent Jehovah was a sexist, based on the assumptions that the OT accurately describes the words and actions of Jehovah, and based on the assumption that Jehovah himself carefully guided the composition of the OT. Based on these Christian assumptions, I will attempt to show that Jehovah is a sexist.

Although I am accepting Christian assumptions here, for the sake of argument, we should keep in mind the naturalistic view of the OT. Atheists and naturalists have no problem explaining the acceptance and even promotion of sexism in ancient writings. Sexism has been around for a long time, across many peoples and cultures, and moral objections to sexism are a fairly recent phenomenon. Thus, it is no surprise to atheists and naturalists that ancient writings, such as the Quran and the OT, show acceptance of sexism and even promote sexism. This is what one would reasonably expect, if there are no omniscient and perfectly good beings who go around helping human authors to compose stories and books.

Christians and Muslims also accept this sort of naturalistic explanation for the acceptance and promotion of sexism in various ancient writings, with the exception of their own sacred books. Atheists and naturalists are simply being more logically consistent in accepting this kind of explanation in the case of the Quran and the OT, both of which appear to show acceptance of, and promotion of, sexism. 



The first indication of sexism in the OT occurs in the first book of the OT: Genesis.  The first indication of sexism occurs in the very first sentence of the very first paragraph of the very first book of the OT:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth...
(Genesis 1:1, NRSV)

The Hebrew for the phrase "God created" is Elohim bara.  Both the name Elohim and the verb bara are gendered: male.  The verb bara indicates 'he created', and the name is also masculine.

But for both Christians and Jews, God is a spirit, God has no physical body, and thus God cannot have a penis.  God is not physically a male, because God has no body at all, neither a male body nor a female body.  Given that God has no body, and thus cannot be either male or female, there is no necessity in Jehovah being represented as a male, referred to by a masculine name, nor for Jehovah's actions to be described in terms of masculine verbs.  

In the first Chapter of Genesis (NIV translation) there are seven instances where the masculine pronoun 'he' is used in reference to Jehovah:

1:4  ...and he separated the light from the darkness.
1:5   ...the darkness he called 'night'
1:10  ...and the gathered waters he called 'seas'
1:16  He also made the stars.
1:27  ...in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
1:31  God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. 

The word 'his' is used in reference to Jehovah in Chapter 1:

1:27  So God created mankind in his own image...  

In the second chapter of Genesis (NIV) there are ten instances where the masculine pronoun 'he' is used in reference to Jehovah:

2:2 (twice), 2:3 (twice), 2:8 (twice), 2:19, 2:21, and 2:22 (twice).

The word 'his' is also used of Jehovah in Genesis chapter 2:

2:2  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

[Note: this is not unique to the NIV translation.  Similar use of the masculine pronoun 'he' in the first two chapters of Genesis can be found in other modern English translations, such as NRSV and NASB].

If Jehovah was omniscient, then Jehovah would know that: (a) Jehovah is neither male nor female, and (b) that Elohim is a masculine name, and (c) bara is a masculine verb.  Jehovah would also know that English translations of the first two chapters of Genesis would use the masculine pronoun 'he' to refer to Jehovah, given the Hebrew words and phrases used in those chapters.  So, Jehovah would know that the words of the first verse of Genesis as well as the first two chapters of Genesis would be misleading in characterizing Jehovah as being a male.   

Furthermore, given the sexism of ancient cultures, including ancient Hebrew culture, Jehovah would (if omniscient) know that using primarily masculine language about Jehovah would tend to preserve and even promote the view that women were inferior to men and that men ought to maintain authority over women.  So, if omniscient, Jehovah would have knowingly promoted sexism among the Hebrew people by inspiring the words of the first verse of the book of Genesis.

Of course, if Jehovah was omniscient, then Jehovah did not hold the false belief that women were inferior to men.  That implies that Jehovah would have promoted discrimination against women even though Jehovah knew that women were not inferior to men and that women were just as capable as men of being rulers and leaders.  This makes Jehovah doubly sexist, because not only did he knowingly promote sexism, but he did so knowing that sexism was based on false assumptions about the inferiority of women to men, so presumably Jehovah is a misogynist: Jehovah dislikes women and is unfair to women, for no good reason.  Unlike the ignorant and fallible Hebrews of ancient times, Jehovah (if omniscient) knew better than to believe that women were morally or intellectually inferior to men, and yet Jehovah promoted sexism and discrimination against women anyway.  

If Jehovah was not omniscient, Jehovah might be excused for mistakenly believing that women were inferior to men, but then Jehovah would not be God, and Judaism would be a false religion.  On the other hand, if Jehovah was omniscient, then Jehovah must have known that women were not morally or intellectually inferior to men, and that the sexism and discrimination against women that Jehovah promoted was unfair and based on a false belief in the inferiority of women.  In this case, Jehovah was unfair and mean for promoting sexism, and thus Jehovah was not a perfectly good person, and thus Jehovah was not God, and Judaism is a false religion.  Either Jehovah was omniscient or Jehovah was not omniscient.  In either case, Jehovah was not God, and Judaism is a false religion, and thus Christianity is also false religion.

To be continued...