How does he know?

November 30, 2018 • 2:30 pm

When Justin Welby gives me evidence that there is a God, then I’ll start listening to how he knows God’s gender.

Click on the screenshot to see the fun:

At any rate, Anglicans had better replace “He” in the Bible with “They”.

50 thoughts on “How does he know?”

  3. At any rate, Anglicans had replaced “He” in the Bible with “They”.

    That’s timely, since He is currently in deep doo-doo for messing around with CRISPR.

  4. How does he know?

    He pulled down its genes?

    (Isn’t that the punchline to an old fruit-fly biologist’s joke?)

  5. Anglicans had [sic] replace “He” in the Bible with “They”.

    So Anglicans are polytheists now?

    1. I consider Christianity a polytheistic religion. The Holy Trinity, the old Three-in-One, three persons, one god, so, presto-changeo, we’re monotheists — what semantic and theological hoo-haw. Christianity wants the dubious benefits of both, but the ‘primitive’ polytheism must be subsumed under this Trinity stuff. Once the ancient Israelites gave up worshipping their Baals and their Ashtoreths on the hills or wherever, they became monotheists; and Islam is a monotheistic religion Sura 112: Kull- who-allahu wahad, allahu samad. a bad attempt at transliteration here, but from the Koran “1 Qul huwa Allahu ahad 2 Allah hu samad
      3 Lam yalid wa lam yulad4 Wa lam yakun lahu kufuwan ahad.”

      “Say: He is Allah, the One and Only!
      Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
      He begetteth not, nor is He begotten.
      And there is none like unto Him.”

      1. Yaweh won the battle of the gods and goddesses for the Israelites; Allah won the battle of the three separate deities worshipped at Mecca, the other two were female, allat and al uzza.

      2. Yep. The Trinity is clearly an attempt to pretend that the polytheistic religion called Christianity is actually monotheistic. Even that neglects Satan who would be rated minor deity in any other religion except Islam.

        Christians can get quite upset when you point this out to them. They seem to think that monotheism is somehow more advanced than polytheism. Yet, when you ask them to extrapolate the trend a bit further…

  6. Very good, Ken, I didn’t know that one. The classic Drosophila joke among geneticists is this:
    Time flies like and arrow
    Fruit flies like a banana.

    1. I’m with you. My first thought was “such a bland statement.” It just says “God is not male and God is not female.” God is not a hippopotamus, either.
      But shouldn’t Arch have used “nor”?

  8. Either way, god is merely a parental figure, keeping one in a state of childhood.

    As Freud said: “The idea of god was not a lie, but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure. Desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father; for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race…”

    I really like the perspective and insights John C. Wathey has on this:

    http://www.pointofinquiry.org/religious_belief_naturally_selected_-_with_john_c._wathey/

    1. Thank you for the link Colin, which I have earmarked at once for listening to it at any moment. A clear and very well-worded exposure of the urge of human nature to believe in (a) god. One example is the mention of scientist Francis Collins’ “drive to believe”, around 10.30.
      And then, at 12.53: “…prayer of desperation is the adult manifestation of the infantile cry…”.
      .-

      1. Yes, that “prayer of desperation” line really stood out to me too. It is so true.

        There’s a few other interviews with him that can be found on YouTube, and here’s one with Seth Andrews (starts at 3:42)

  9. So we are suppose to think a female had anything to do with that old testament. It’s about like saying g*d could be gay.

    1. I’d say that doesn’t really answer the question, as people regularly and quite normally discuss the personal traits and characteristics of fictional characters. One can argue about YHWH being male or female the same way one can argue about whether Dumbledore is gay.

      1. “And he created them in his image, as man and woman.” or something like that, IIRC. So the judeo-christian G*d is definitely a hermaphrodite or at least having a split personality and body

        1. There’s something I don’t get about that imagery. Why, when I think of someone with both male and female genitalia don’t I envisage a “top” half with one set of dangly bits and a “bottom” half with the other set of dangly bits. Or, for that matter – and with more credible plumbing, front and back sets.
          In the latter case, well, you can work out the dismissive curse.

    2. Trimodal: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. In Judaism, the Kabbala, the Shekhinah was the feminine aspect or attributes of God. In Christianity, the feminine aspect of the Trinity was the Holy Spirit or Sophia.

  12. This seems part of an attempt to modernize Christianity in order to make it more appealing. If they take their project very far, it should be an endless source of humor in the coming years. Was Jesus also neither male or female? If so, what do they do with all the statues and paintings?

    2. They never show his genitalia. He’s like a Disney cartoon cupid. Then again he could be a trans-something.

      1. Since born by parthenogenesis his sex must have been female. He presents himself as a male, so yes, definitely trans-male.

    2. That god could be (mostly) celibate which would explain why he/she/it/them are allegedly so interested in controlling human sexuality.

      You could even argue that the Christian god is anti-sexual since Jesus preached that marriage was unnecessary in the end of days (now long passed) except to prevent greater sin.

  17. Well, IF there is a God, then I suppose Rev. Welby may be correct.

    There is no neutral pronoun corresponding to “it” in Hebrew. Like French but unlike German everything from rocks to tables are ‘he’ or ‘she’.

    The spirit of God “Ruach Elohim” (Genesis 1:2) is a feminine noun. So is the Shekhinah – the Presence of God.

    For a long long time, all translations of the Bible into Chinese have used gender-neutral pronouns for God.

    So, IF God(dess) exists, (s)he looks like Jaye Davidson in “The Crying Game”.

    https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fyED6FjtPaA/hqdefault.jpg

    1. And, if it turns out God exists, my reaction upon reaching the Pearly Gates will be the same as Stephen Rea’s when he found out about Jaye Davidson. 🙂

    2. Didn’t Pope John Paul I (the one who died or got murdered within 3 weeks) speak about “God, our mother”? I dunno if that was ex-cathedra, but I would not be surprised that would have been part of the motive for his murder (if indeed he was murdered -as we all suspect).

  18. God is energy. Gos is love. God is a trans-am. Archbishop should explain everything he can’t explain…which is almost everything he’s putting himself down for.

    1. That was a bit sarky. Actually, despite being a non-believer, I think that any change in a religion that de-anthropomorphizes (is that a real word?) God, and makes God more inclusive and universal, is a good thing, given that religion is not going away.

    2. The Christian god uses whatever bathroom they like because they are omnipresent.

      Even if you are using the bathroom at the same time. Creepy.

      1. Since we may surmise god has no metabolism, he does’t use any bathroom, just like the Queen of England.

      2. I once read (again I can’t remember where), that some nuns actually washed with clothes on as to not show their bodies to God. Apart from the silly notion that the Lord can look through walls, but not through wet clothes (Theo-physics), it depicts the Lord as a kind of Peeping Tom. Weird (Theo-psychology).

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