Yesterday was International Women's Day, a day intended to celebrate the contributions to progress and society made by women.
Women have been held back by the patriarchal mindset that infects almost all societies on earth. A primary source of this harmful and irrational patriarchal mindset is found in the Abrahamic man-made "revealed" religions. All of the Abrahamic "revealed" religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism and Baha'?, are guilty of promoting misogyny.
The original Abrahamic man-made "revealed" religion is Judaism. The other Abrahamic "revealed" religions are all offshoots of Judaism and see Judaism's "holy" book/Word of God, the Hebrew Bible, as being part of their own Word of God. The "holy" books/Word of God of all four spinoff Abrahamic "revealed" religions all refer back to the Hebrew Bible.
Misogyny starts early in Judaism and its Hebrew Bible. In the second creation story God sees that Adam needs a helper. This caused God to create the first woman by putting Adam in a deep sleep and taking out one of his ribs. God then, allegedly, turns Adam's rib into a woman. Adam names her Woman. (Genesis 2:21-23) (In the first creation story God creates the man and the woman at the same time at Genesis 1:26-27.)
At Genesis 3:16 God allegedly told Woman (Adam did not name her Eve until Genesis 3:20):
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
There are many other pathetic and damaging examples of misogyny in the Hebrew Bible. This misogyny spills over to the Christian New Testament. One of the many misogynistic teachings in the New Testament, and which is tied directly to the biblical nonsense quoted above, is found at 1 Timothy 2:11-14 which teaches:
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."
The anonymous author of First Timothy relies on the Hebrew Bible for his misogyny. He claims God made Adam first, so he's ignoring the first creation story, and he claims Adam was not deceived but that "the woman was deceived" by the talking and standing upright snake. However, Adam ate the forbidden fruit, so he must have been deceived, not to mention that God told Adam, not Woman/Eve, not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam was disobeying a direct order from God, not Woman/Eve.
The Quran not only promotes misogyny as Judaism and Christianity promote it, Islam goes a step further and actually commands Muslim men to commit battery against women. Quran 4:34 actually instructs Muslim men to scourge/beat women. It teaches:
"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great."
The above misogynistic "revealed" religious teachings need to be eliminated through compassion and God-given reason. Deists, and all freethinkers, need to let as many people as possible know about the truly ungodly and harmful teachings being promoted in the "holy" books of the "revealed" religions. If Deists and freethinkers can get a large enough number of people to embrace Thomas Paine's Deistic anti-cruelty statement, "I detest everything that is cruel," we will go a long way in making a much better world for women and for everyone.
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