The old testament is plenty sexist. "Thou shalt not covet another man's wife"? what about husband? The laws were clearly addressed to the men, because they, essentially, owned the women. That was my point. In those days, men did own women - that was a fact quite apart from religion. However, what it doesn't say is that this should be the case for anyone else. Note that this state of affairs was in place before the laws were given - if the laws were as sexist as you seem to be claiming, what you would have seen would be the laws putting and end to an egalitarian societ and changing it so that it was sexist. If the Law were written today, it would cater for both sexes, because our culture recognises both sexes as equal. Another culture in the future might find this wrong, for all we know.

And yet, according to the New Testament, women should be subservient to their husbands, and shouldn't even speak in church. That's a culture thing. The point of it is that Christians shouldn't do things that were considered unacceptable by society, so as not to give the faith a bad name. In those days, what society considered bad was women speaking in church. Today, it would be something different, like using bad language or whatever.

Yes: the unquestioning, tradition-based, hyperconservative, antiprogressive mentality of the general region. Agreed. That's what I was getting at, but felt a little uncomfortable saying, since it's such a blanket statement and I don't want to offend any open-minded Southerners around here, like Larry, because I know he's not like that.

Yours, .


You must chop down the tallest tree in the forest with... a herring!


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