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[–] 164 points 3 years ago (4 children)

People sometimes assume religious traditions’ ideas about gender have always been conservative and unchanging.

In many cases, "conservative" views are actually new! Conservatisms always claim to stand for the values of the past, but they quite often make up a past that didn't actually occur.

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  • [–] 99 points 3 years ago

    “The past” - you know, back when they were much younger and didn’t know how the world worked, so they made up a bunch of assumptions in their head and got mad whenever anyone told them they were wrong because it was obvious they were right since they’re brilliant and they came up with it.

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  • [+] 89 points 3 years ago* (27 children)
  • [–] 47 points 3 years ago (16 children)

    A lot of "new" religions like Christianity were all about maximizing reproduction because it's easiest to indoctrinate children.

    Which leads to those religions calling anything that didn't result in children a sin.

    According to the same religious laws against LGBT, masterbation and oral/anal are just as bad.

    But they can't even give up blowjobs and expect everyone else to follow just some parts of someone else religious rules.

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  • [–] 14 points 3 years ago (15 children)

    I thought Christianity is like that because it was based on Judaism, and Judaism is like that because the Hebrews kept getting killed. Hard to keep a people if they don't reproduce and you are constantly enslaved or at war.

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  • [–] 21 points 3 years ago (14 children)

    Modern Christianity seems to prohibit abortion. Historical and modern Judaism seems fine with abortion.

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  • [–] 28 points 3 years ago

    Judaism puts health and safety of individuals over anything else, including the religion. A doctor can work on the shabbos if someone's life is in need, a mother can get an abortion if their life is in danger, and a starving man can eat pork if it is the only sustenance they have.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (10 children)

    The King James Bible actually gives advice on how to abort a baby if it was conceived out of wedlock. Not to mention all the time it said life begins at the first breath. It seems to be more about controlling women than anything else.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (8 children)

    @Lilith02 @JAM Do you have the passages for that? I may need to use them

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    The idea about breath is common in the old testament, Adam for example was given the "breath of life" and that was the moment he was considered alive. Just like the phrase "know in your heart" indicated that they believed human consciousness resided in the chest, they also thought breath was the indicator of life.

    The Numbers text was supposedly a test from God to see if a wife had been unfaithful, and that's what Christians will no doubt claim about it, but in reality it's instructions on how to create a poison that WILL cause a miscarriage and then claim that it's God telling them she was unfaithful.

    The one verse they use to support pro life isn't even an actual doctrinal idea. It's a poem from the book of Proverbs where the prophet Jeremiah was singing about how God had a plan for his life from the very beginning. Nothing about it is intended to be used as a medical interpretation about where and how life starts.

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  • [–] 23 points 3 years ago* (9 children)

    You're right, and both Aboriginal and Indigenous American (many) cultures are testament to that. In some case they weren't simply accepted but seen as gifted, too.
    And there are so many more examples of this from cultures all over the globe (Indian Hijra's come to mind).

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (7 children)

    This is a pearl in the ocean of debate on gender and sexuality. A lot of people can't fathom the fact non-binary genders exist and are accepted in other cultures because they have been socialised by their own heteronormative culture. It's understandable why a lot of people can't make heads or tails about the lgbt community for said reason, but if people get out of their information bubble and read expansively (or even better travel) outside of their worldview, then they will gain better understanding just how complex the world is, and that people of non-binary genders are actually just normal people who deserves respect like everyone else.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (6 children)

    A lot of people can’t fathom the fact non-binary genders exist and are accepted in other cultures because they have been socialised by their own heteronormative culture.

    True

    It’s understandable why a lot of people can’t make heads or tails about the lgbt community for said reason....
    ... then they will gain better understanding just how complex the world is, and that people of non-binary genders are actually just normal people who deserves respect like everyone else.

    False. You don't need to understand a persons' relationship with their gender, or their sexual orientation, to respect them. And you definitely don't need to be well travelled or well read to understand that different kinds of people exist.

    You might not mean it to be, but this argument is coddling the bigots and acting like ignorance excuses bigotry, when it doesn't.
    And more so, as OP and mine and other replies here have clearly shown, probably most cultures on earth have had knowledge of the gender spectrum for hundreds if not tens of thousands of years (because it's part of nature and easily observable without the social constructs), so really there is no justification for that ignorance in the first place, yet it exists, and instead of trying to explain the ignorance you should be asking why it exists and to whose benefit.

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  • [–] 40 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    I first read this as "ancient rabbits" and was really confused for a moment.

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    [–] 35 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I think it would add some much needed levity to the public conversation if we started referring to people as "Tumtums"

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  • [–] 18 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Hermaphroditus is literally older than Jesus. Of course the ancients knew about them. We still use their words to describe Hermaphrodites.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago

    I always say if it's in nature it's totally fine. And we see this in nature, Godzilla also swapped his gender mid-movie so what is the freaking problem with some people to acknowledge this?

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago*

    In shinto tradition there are male, female, and deities with no gender as well. They believe they were venerated before the common era.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    I always interpreted the “don’t be gay” Bible thing to mean “if you’re not gay, don’t pretend to be” kinda thing. So I’ve always thought what the Bible says is wrong is to not accept your sexuality & try to change it.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    I don't think the bible says "don't be gay", I think it says something like "thou shalt not lay with a man as with a woman - that is an abomination".

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Probably says something else too, I’ve been seeing interpretations based on the Hebrew texts, and, unsurprisingly, the versions people know tend to get it wrong & just use the text to reinforce preexisting beliefs.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    I grew up an Orthodox Jew (I’m not as an adult). The way I learned it was that existing as a gay person, as in, that’s simply who you are, isn’t problematic. The issue is the act of gay sex itself, which is what the verse in the Torah refers to.

    That is to say, your understanding is correct.

    Disclaimer: I don’t care about it myself. Just explaining it how I was taught in Orthodox schools.

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