It's perplexing that religions with misogynistic practices are accepted on the premise that the oppressed women are supposedly happy and fulfilled. This assumption overlooks the possibility (certainty) that these women may be content because they have been conditioned to know nothing else, as it has been their norm throughout their lives.
Religion is not inherently sexist. It's just that most popular religions were born in sexist patriarchal cultures and are, therefore, sexist.
I'm sure there exist non-sexist religions that have female followers who aren't shooting themselves in the face. However, it's a sad reality that such religions are so few and so unpopular that I can't even name one off the top of my head - not counting non-serious religions like pastafarianism.
Look im gennuenly ignorant on this so i whant you to keep that in mind when i ask the following:
Isnt wicca like the whole other extreme? Like afaik they are not really pro equalit between men and women, its more like an all girls club and not really a religion at that? Arent they more like a subculture?
No. Don't make it so easy for them. Structural sexism occurs in authoritarian systems. It's one of the tools to keep the privileged in power.
It's not that the society was just generally sexist (of course they had even more defined gender roles and so), it's that the sexism was actively thought and embraced by those in power! Thus, fiction like the bible also was actively made sexist, to have further "prove" to keep that power dynamic. It was not written that way because "well, back in the days". It was written like that to oppress people!
Because there are over 4000 religions. Also matriarchal cultures exist. While their religions might still be sexist, it wouldn't be the women who are shooting themselves in the head.
Christianity was actually extremely progressive for the time. Women and men were seen as equals spiritually, and had equal political power for a long time. Only when Christianity morphed into Catholicism and was adopted by the Roman Empire that patriarchal political power became the norm. But still, women are seen as equals spiritually, and can be saved just like men.
We can credit most of modern humanist and egalitarian ideals to Christianity, and the folk ways it was practiced and understood (against the top-down hierarchical theology spoused by the Catholic Church).
After all, the enlightenment was a direct descendant of Christianity and so on and so forth.
Edit: I think people don’t really understand how shittily women were treated and seen in the deeper past… like the Classical Greek barely saw women as human beings.
Me saying Christianity was very progressive for the time is not me pulling it out of my ass. Scholars think that, researchers, historians etc.
Depends on how you define a religion. In the broader sense I agree but in the legal sense its complicated. Take the religion of Copyism as an example. An actual recognised religion in Sweden. Whose religion centers around the belief that information should be freely avaliable and whose sacred act is copying anything.
Okay, here's a fact: belief in money is a religion. It's magical thinking that says if you believe something hard enough it'll become true. You cannot be a capitalist and an atheist, because anyone who believes in money is religious.
Antireligionism ftw. I don't care how hard you work to find some random belief system you think works for you personally, all religion is trash on the basis of following someone else's magic beliefs and rules.
I don't understand why people can't just leave their religions and live their lives happily? Why do they all have to find some pagan bullshit to glom onto? Join a book club or something.
I don't understand the downvotes – it's literally true.
If you are experiencing the world mainly by emotions and not filtered through an overblown intellect – like people with an IQ < 50 do – you cannot be fooled by theological argumentation or fake positive emotionality.
A happy intellectually disabled person is a tell-tale sign of a positive, affirming environment.
Lmao no. A lot of religions are decentralised. There is no religious organization behind Lutheranism. If someone mistreats women in the name of protestants than that is bad and all, but it doesn't have anything to do with 99% percent of protestants. There is no shared act in most religions.
Most people in protestant mevements for example don't even believe in a god or Jesus. There is no underlying tenet. There is no blind faith. Do you want to tell me that new paganists all truely believe that there is a thundergod? No they don't. Religion is mostly not about believing in higher beings. Even ancient Greeks have likely not all really believed in their mythology.