Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

[Rusty Tyler]

So is God a man or a woman?

Father, son and Holy Spirit.
All designated as generic male in the Bible..

 

[JayUtah]

Great question.
The Word (Logos) the Father and the Holy Spirit.
(or the elohim in general)

Nope. Elohim is a majestic plural. It takes a singular verb. In Genesis, God is talking to someone else.

Is God a man or a woman?

 

[JayUtah]

Father, son and Holy Spirit.
All designated as generic male in the Bible..

So women are not created in God's image?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

In Genesis, God is talking to someone else.

And on the week before the first day, Asherah did say unto THE LORD, didst we not set this universe aside yea unto several billion years ago, that you might do that thing thou wanted to try? When will thee get on with it?

And THE LORD spake, because THE LORD was no fool, verily, verily, it will be started soon, we wished to request thy design input first and thou were busy. How wouldst thou like the monkeys?

 

[JayUtah]

How wouldst thou like the monkeys?

With fabulous hairstyles, thank you.

In Mormonism there are three creator gods, but not the ones you think: Elohim, Jehovah, and Michael. Michael then incarnates as Adam. They created the Earth (although not the universe) out of "unorganized matter." And buried deep in the forgotten discourses of Brigham Young is the notion that Elohim conceived Jesus in Mary by the customary method. (Mormons don't actually teach that and try to keep Young's crazy antics buried in the dusty corners of libraries. That's how you "square" religion, if you can get away with it.)

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Is God a man or a woman?

Neither.
God the Father uses a male descriptor.
God the Son uses a male descriptor.
The Holy Spirit uses a male descriptor.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

So women are not created in God's image?

Yes, they are.

 

[theprestige]

Yes, they are.

Now you're getting it! Poetic language!

 

[JayUtah]

Neither.
God the Father uses a male descriptor.
God the Son uses a male descriptor.
The Holy Spirit uses a male descriptor.

Do they have genitals?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Genesis, genitals.. Hmm.. There's a pattern there.

 

[JayUtah]

Genesis, genitals.. Hmm.. There's a pattern there.

Along with "generic male," which sounds like it's trying to be two incompatible things.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

And buried deep in the forgotten discourses of Brigham Young is the notion that Elohim conceived Jesus in Mary by the customary method. (Mormons don't actually teach that and try to keep Young's crazy antics buried in the dusty corners of libraries. That's how you "square" religion, if you can get away with it.)

Pity, that'd be more in keeping with contemporary mythology of the time. Gods knocked up women left and right, it wasn't anything mysterious.

The Council of Nicaea added some really wacky crap trying to unite the cults.

Along with "generic male," which sounds like it's trying to be two incompatible things.

Agender, but pronouns are he/him. Except functional terminology like that is woke liberal horse ◊◊◊◊, for pussies, so instead we'll just talk around the concept for the next ten pages like real Americans.

 

[JayUtah]

Gods knocked up women left and right, it wasn't anything mysterious.

Knocking up women left and right was a big part of early Mormonism. After the Supreme Court said they couldn't be polygamists anymore, they had to scale it back to knocking up women only left. For a long time, Mormonism encouraged large families, as do Catholics. When that led to economic issues (too many kids for a father to feed), they said not to have more children than you could afford. Where polygamy is still practiced, they have a "lost boys" problem: not enough girls to go around, so only the best boys get to marry; the other boys are simply discarded from the society to make their way as best they can.

Mormons genuinely have an answer to whether gods have gender and genitals. Not so clear with Christians.

 

[theprestige]

Except they're not. Evolution doesn't operate by explosion (the so-called "Cambrian Explosion" is explicitly a metaphor). And if Rusty is referring to the origin of the universe, commonly called the "Big Bang", well, it's got nothing to do with evolution, was pretty much the opposite of big, and was not any kind of explosion.

Relax. I'm trying to meet him halfway, not tear down his entire position.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Do they have genitals?

I think the male designations are relational, not physical.

Matthew 11:27 NIV
“All things have been committed to me by my Father.
No one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son
and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

 

[theprestige]

The Council of Nicaea added some really wacky crap trying to unite the cults.

Yeah, it's amazing the wacky crap that happens when different groups decide to unite under shared values. Waaaay more wacky than the crap that happens when a group with shared values splits up due to points of disagreement! /s

 

[JayUtah]

I think the male designations are relational, not physical.

We can talk in a minute about exactly how a father-son relationship exists. Right now I'm trying to nail down what you think "in his image" means. If the male pronouns are not physical descriptions, then is it fair to say you don't believe God has sex organs?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

And on the week before the first day, Asherah did say unto THE LORD, didst we not set this universe aside yea unto several billion years ago, that you might do that thing thou wanted to try? When will thee get on with it?

And THE LORD spake, because THE LORD was no fool, verily, verily, it will be started soon, we wished to request thy design input first and thou were busy. How wouldst thou like the monkeys?

Tragic?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Nope. Elohim is a majestic plural. It takes a singular verb. In Genesis, God is talking to someone else.

Is God a man or a woman?

I have a documentary on that!

 

[Darat]

Who is " Us " ?

No one knows. In the oldest versions we have it is "us" but there is no contemporary or near contemporary source to explain it. Some have assumed it is the angels etc. he is talking to, some use the divine council idea and so on. My personal view is that it's simply a literary device so it doesn't sound as if god has fallen off his rocking horse and is talking to himself!

So is God a man or a woman?


Indeed, what's that plural verb doing there!?

In the Hebrew bible god is 100% identified as masculine. But is that the same as what we mean as a man?

Nope. Elohim is a majestic plural. It takes a singular verb. In Genesis, God is talking to someone else.

Is God a man or a woman?

God is singular (yeah I know the fanfic throuple but that hasn't been invented yet) so I'd say it's like how the hebrew "adam" (can't do the fancy accents) is the word for human (and is then used to make a pun about the creation of humans), it makes no sense to consider something of which there is a only one a man or woman, it's simply god. BUT god is definitely masculine in the oldest texts.

So women are not created in God's image?

In one of the accounts the Hebrew word for "human" as in species is used until the woman is created, only at that point is there man and woman so in the hebrew says he creates humans in his/our image meaning both. (Of course there is that pesky issue of the other incompatible version of creation of humans).

Do they have genitals?

God has feet, god walks around and god eats food and god is very picky about his food (see Numbers I think 28). So if he made us in his image and he eats then unless he has an ostomy bag of some sort attached we can assume he goes to the toilet and has the same plumbing as we do.