That's my whole post. Why is god male?

Because when the bible was written the world was male dominated. Today he would be them mother and father.

because it is a LIE

Part of it is from the misconception that God created Adam in his image, but that doesn't necessarily mean "male" IMO God would be genderless, you only need sexual organs for procreation, and obviously God doesn't need to do that. So God would neither be a "man" nor a "woman"

Salaam (Peace) "He" isn't.

Because men wrote the Bible.

Because the patch version with women's rights wasn't out yet.

But seriously now, to quote one of my favourite lines from the bible (I believe it's from one of those long rule lists found in Numbers):

"Because God does not like that"

*grin*... probably, is what I'm thinking.

I think that's why I appreciate the neo pagan, other pagan and wiccan beliefs. They seems to be more balanced.

I have yet to see that in any recent scripture.

HAHA! Lady, I love it..

Well, I don't think God is male. I think the male's in the world attribute God as being Male for obvious reasons.

here's why I think God is both masculine and feminine.
God represents both qualities from BOTH genders
God is loving
forgiving
mother nature
assuring
as a mother would be, or female
God is strong
ruler
head
disciplinarian
hold's wrath
as a father, or Male
I believe God represents both. and is both.
imo

In Judaism, the male names for God represent the giving nature of God because in a sexual relationship it is the male that gives unto the woman. The female names of God represent the receptive nature of God because in a sexual relationship it is the female that receives and creates life. It is the entire creative nature of God which created the world and the female nature of God which bestowed life upon it. God is neither female nor male, God is an it. He has the side which is male (this is the side which bestows blessings upon us) and he has the side which is female (this is the side which receives pleasure from our prayers and our actions). When God responds to us he responds to us in his totality as a deity.

Some have remarked that Observant Jews and Noahides call God a he because its convenient, but it would be perfect legitimate to call him a She.

God is Spirit, neither male nor female. Even right at the beginning, this is shown - Genesis 1:27 - "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

The Hebrew word here for "man" in the first half of this verse is the generic word used to describe humankind, both males and females. the words in the second half translated as "male" and "female" are gender specific and refer to literally men and women. So if God created both males and females in his image, how can God be male?

But...does the bible/torah/qu'ran say that? Because I mean how else would you know? If it's your opinion, that's not really the Chritian/Jewish/Muslim opinion....is it....?

men are better?............LOL J/Ks

Does God have a biological need for sex? If not then It is neither male or female.

hehehe, by all that is described so far, god would likely be more female!!!

Love your sig BTW.

why thank you haha.


why dont we compramise and say he/she is an Homaphradite? or however you spell it

Who says I have to follow any opinion? I have GOD, My beliefs on my God with or WITHOUT any book, religion, or opinion..

shocking, heh!

Assuming here, that LadyHay is talking about the Abrahamic god.

Seriously though! I think the confusion comes with the name Elohim. Generally taken as singular, the use of this word instead of Yahveh is taken by biblical scholars as an important clue to authorship in the O.T.

What most scholars either do not know or care not to inform their constituents is that "Elohim" is not the plural of "El" the masculine form of the name. It is plural of the feminine, "Elowah". Strictly speaking, we can translate the Old Testament name for God as "goddesses".

Oh, no it's just that I thought you were talking about the God being discussed in this topic, which is probably the Abrahamic deity, which shouldn't be confused with the God of your religion...which you sorta did...

Yeah but then you have to take into account the fact that that is based on the gender of a word, not the gender of a god. But I get what you mean there, the only problem is, whether or not the authors had another word to describe this god fellow.

God is no male. We call him "Father" or "he" because she means (female tense) and he stands for (male tense/ or genderless)

The identification with strength. Male humans are stronger than female humans.

I think youve got it.... The perception he is "IT" ... Strong all knowing, All wise.... Like a wise old man.

Can anyone imagine this world, as screwed up as it is... With God being ( forgive me the rest of my female friends)
a PMS"ing female..... ooouch! I do think we'd be beter organized though...lol

I guess you never watched roller derby. I don't mean the fake wimpy Barbie derby, I mean the real thing. I miss roller derby, you don't see it any more.

Actually the gnostic christians believed in the female god sophia hence mother earth. Personally it makes no sense to me to think that a God of all things has a gender since gender is a human thing for procreation but as someone else said it was once a male dominated world. Women are making a comeback though. *she snickers*

One thing him and her are English words.


The dead language your trying to translate for us is a dead language.


We may know what the words might have stood for.


But we do not know what those same words would stand for today.


Even ancient Hebrew is a dead language compared to modern Hebrew.


In order to understand a language completely, I believe you really have to be able to speak and converse in said language.


him/he are male or genderless in English do we really know if these same words translated into another language mean the same thing.

Bwahahahah! That was great!


Anyway, God is only male because when the Bible was written, the world was a male-dominated society. Calling God a "her" would have made God sound less powerful, much like the women of the time were, in comparison to men.

I have a question why can't God be male.

Ten Plagues, The Great Flood...seems like something my ex girlfriend would do during that special time of the month.

He can be called a He. But if God is what we are told he is in the Bible, having a set of "twig and berries" would be a little ridiculous for someone who can create life by making a little pile of dust and breathing on it, don't you think?

Gender is determined by genitalia, and genitalia is used for reproduction. God wouldn't have the need for genitalia, so gender is unecessary.

Actually he would be neither...because I doubt God has a penis or a vagina.

He created everything and is everything, so he is both male and female.

bear with me here
its because god backwards is dog and a dog is a male canine [female canines are called b****es right?]


why was i censored?
it wasnt like i was insulting anyone
i was asking a question which im pretty sure is correct

An unfortunate quirk in Forum activity. The profanity filter removes any words it is programmed to view as insulting, even if the member did not intend it that way. Most of the time, when people use the word you used, it is in a derogatory, offensive manner. As such, the admin team has decided to put a ban on the word to keep these discussions as civil as possible. It is taken as read that we know what you meant and that it wasn't rude or offensive. You're not alone. If I wanted to discuss the effects of cooking ****ake mushrooms in a caserole or stirfry, that word would also be censored (as you can see, it was censored), simply because the section of the word is used often in offensive and insulting tones.

It's something we've all just got to put aside. people know when it's being used offensively or not, and will act accordingly. All the best,

Why then, PA, is it in Genesis 2 that Man is created by God alone, and Woman created out of Man, not as an equal, but as a subordinate?

Man (Adam) was made to tend the garden, Woman was an afterthought to be the companion of Man ("It is not good that the man should be alone").

Two very different creation myths perhaps? One where Man and Woman are created simultaneously and equal, one where they are not?

As many others have pointed out, the authors of the bible were in all probability male and lived in a patriarchal society. Also the precursor deity(s) for the biblical God was probably the Ugaritic Sky god El and the Canaanite Storm god Baal (who may have later become the Adversary), both of whom were conceived of in male form.

Well, this depends on whether we take a literal or figurative view of Genesis, doesn't it. If we take a figurative (as I do) there are spiritual themes to be gained, one of which is clear in Genesis 1:27 when God clearly makes both men and women equal and at the same time. As such, the overall story, including in Adam and Eve in Genesis 2, is there to explain why we exist, not what happened.

Though if we take a literal view (I'd be remiss not to discuss the literal as well as figurative interpretations), then we have the first chapter which clearly states creation of both males and females, together. Chapter 2 then centres on one particular part of creation. Eden. Of course, this view takes the concept that Adam and Eve may not have been the literal first humans on Earth, just the first humans God interacted with, since chronologically God created mankind (male and female) before Adam and Eve. In this sense then, Adam was created before Eve (it would also be remiss to not point out that the Hebrew word for "Adam" can also refer to humankind as it can a person's name - read into that what you will). But the story of Adam and Eve, even in the most literal view, exists to point us to one inescapable conclusion - even providing for the fact that at this stage only one law existed (don't eat the fruit) mankind still disobeyed. Chronologially though, it is impossible to move beyond the fact that God created mankind (both male and female) before he created Adam and Eve. this may explain the people whom Cain was afraid of meeting when he was accused of murdering his brother in Genesis 4 (to paraphrase - "don't send me out into the wilderness, whoever finds me will kill me - the basic question to me is, if Adam, Even and previous Abel, were teh only humans alive (according to biblical timeline), who would be there to threaten Cain?)

though naturally the skeptical view is that this is in fact two seprate creation stories. I don't subscribe to this view and think that differences and the timing of the events show taht they are the one event, chapter 1 being an overview, chapter 2 being a narrowing of the foucs to one part of creation.

And again,as I said in my opening statement, the opening chapters of Genesis 1-11 are highly poetic and suggest a poetic/figurative interpretation, which leads to the core issues discussed rather than the actual events. As such, the theological view from this perspective shows that man and women were created together, and Adam and Eve were focused on, with both Adam and Eve sinning.

Regardless, whether literal or figurative, I don't think it radicaly changes the interpretation of the event and that God did indeed create both male and female in chronological order. though if you want specifics I can give you my reasoning as to why I view these passages as figurative (I've mentioned them before, but if you've missed them, I'd be happy to go back through them - as long as it's tomorrow, lol.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My apologies in advance (well, retrospect as it turns out) for the probably lack of coherence and grammatical sense of this post. It's late. I had an early morning, and have another mornign ahead ofme. I'm just taking a few days off in between finishing uni and applying for jobs, so I'm not so worried about late nights/early mornings (unless it makes my post entirely incomprehensible).

Hope it does make sense. All the best, Leo

I am a simplistic person. So my simple mind goes to the thought, "Why aren't the bible and all testaments up graded to a more modern way of thinking?"

Everything else in this world gets upgraded, made better, even some Testaments, as far as I know, so why not upgrade it and make it non gender specific? Please don't get me wrong. I'm not some extreme feminist here trying to assert myself because I Am Woman. I just appreciate balance greatly.

Edited to change are to aren't.

Because he has to make decisions????

Hahahahahaha good one....

Oh, your avatar made me laugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dude, that's so funny. Where did you get it?

-Josh

Ok, from my belief system THE God of Israel, Yahweh (who is called 'God' by the Christians and Allah by the Muslims) is a male.

He was born that way. That's his gender. I believe that Yahweh is the head of a group of people from another planet who created all life on Earth and were mistaken for Gods.

This is why we have other religions that talk about GODS. Male and Female gods. In Greece they used to live up on Mount Olympus - male and female gods. These people, in reality, were humans from another planet who made us in their image. This is why we have males and females.

-Josh

"why is God male?" Again, My God is NOT only male, but also female! My GOD is both masculine and feminine..
Why do you have such an issue with this, beats me.
As a Christian, I would assume most Christians think that "God" is male. I, on the other hand, disagree with that.

I agree 100%

Well if some of you believe God is male, some don't and some believe it is both, who exactly are the Christians? How can you have two Christians that believe two different things? That just means one of them is Christian and the other is of a different religion, or maybe they're both not Christians, but they sure aren't of the same religion.

You clearly have no knowledge whatsoever in the study of religions. Speak not, what you know nothing of. I suggest that you learn what the word hermeneutics means because anyone who studies religions will tell you that it is the most important word in studying ANY religion.

One more thing hewak before you post with some wise-crack. Before you make some unintelligent argument of it not being the same religion take a look at Hinduism. It can be categorized as a monotheistic or a polytheistic religion. Neither is wrong. So if you can't understand that I suggest you hit the high road and educate yourself a bit more.

CHRISTian, because I believe Jesus CHRIST to be the son of GOD. That's why I'm Christian. Whether I believe God is masculine, or feminine, or both, it doesn't, NOR should it reflect on my Christianity as a whole. Maybe what's confusing you is I (personally) believe that Jesus is separate from God. That they are two separate beings.

Looks like the Christians have dominated this world . Probably should convert...

But Jaida, my only problem is that religions are so slithery. They'd say they're for a war when at the same time they're protesting it. For example Islam believes that all of these religious folk, no matter whether they are related to Islam or not, are all prophets of God. In this manner, to be Muslim means that you believe in every religion in the world, but you're a Muslim. In other words, you believe in one religion and at the same time you believe in all of them. Almost every religion does something like this; being on both sides of the arguement so that everyone believes they're the good guys. But dude, how much hate and intolerance can you generate towards me? I mean what you said was very cruel.

To better explain myself Shankpin, I'll use an example of Gnostic Christians and Christians. Generally, both have the same beliefs but because of one slight difference on a topic, they become two different religions. So that's what I mean when I say that it seems reasonable that all members of a religion would share the same views, otherwise, would they really be part of the same religion? Gnostic Christians and Christians didn't, see what happened?