We all refer to God as HE implying that God is male. What does that mean - that God is male? Does it means that God must have a penis? Does he have testicles? What does God use his penis for? Isn’t that the definition of being male? After all - what is male anyhow? Male is a living being with a penis. If God were female - she would have a vagina. If God had neither - then it wouldn’t be described in terms of gender. Of course - to even bring up the subject of God’s penis is blasphemy because the penis is a dirty thing and God would obviously be ashamed of his penis and that if I end up killed in a car crash or assassinated by a Christian fanatic then it’s because God got angry and struck me down for talking about his penis.
Seriously though - if this sounds ridiculous - it’s in the Bible. We are created in the shape of God. And since God is male then he must have one. And since God fills the universe and has shape then the universe must have a penis. Don’t blame me - the Bible says it! Why would God have such a thing and what does he do with it? What are his sexual preferences? Do you think God ever did it? Maybe that’s why women yell, “Oh God!” Yep - definitely going to burn in Hell for that remark! One of the mysteries of the universe …
The Abrahamic god is male because he is a sky god and sky gods are almost universally male. The sky god is male because the earth god is almost universally female. That makes sense, because the earth “gives birth” to a multitude of creatures so it being female seems the obvious choice. Since the earth and the sky form the world that we inhabit, the sky then has to be male to counter the feminine earth.
Hell yes God’s a male. A white male. A white male republican who’s against abortion and for lots of firearms. Also, he doesn’t like minorities. And he knows every time you masturbate. And he’s a fucking American.
Ever read Maimonides? You are trying to take everything in the Bible literally and don’t see the poetic aspects of it, the metaphor, the analogies etc, etc. What is God-like in us is not our bodies, which age and perish, but our souls which are given by God and are eternal. If God is a man then why do jews do not create statues in His image? If God is male, then why could not God engender His Son the ol’ fashioned way? But read the Bible and the account of Elijah.
Have you ever read a book called “The Shack?” It’s a strange, fantastical work of fiction that addresses the question you pose here in an intelligent and altogether believable way.
Smears, I laughed so hard at your comment I got called a “weirdo” for cracking up at a computer screen
The bible, I believe says, that we are created in the image and likeness of god…not the shape of god. The image - the imago - but it is actually we ourselves who have created this image of a god…to satisfy whatever we need it to be, especially that of patriarch…father.
The imprint of this god within us is more the image of spirit, not the physical.
or one might say an archetype - a collective unconscious ideal that this imprint of a god represents.
Though I certainly have my doubts at times of how deeply imprinted this spirit is within us, if there is indeed a god.
This, of course, relates to a conundrum I’m simply appalled Mutcer didn’t hone onto: If, in its godly aspect, the universe is of Jewish origin, where then became the foreskin? Perhaps such constitutes the dark matter which gives substance to the notion of “nothing”. In any case, the mystery of the divine foreskin is surely a much greater one than is the gender of the universe. Come on, Mute, sharpen up!!
Somewhere between “historical accident” and “basic human religious desires”. The latter is slightly murkier, but the principle deity of most pantheons tends to be either a Sky or a Sun god. When monotheism develops, either the chief god or a god that very closely resembles the chief god, takes over as the exclusive divinity. This makes good anthropological sense, since most polytheistic religions are practiced as henotheisms or quasi-henotheisms. The chief deity is the one with the most powerful followers and they simply decide to eliminate the competition. So, for any given monotheism, it is highly likely that the single God will be either a sky god or a sun god.
The historically accident part is the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. The god of the Jews is a sky god, and there you have it!
Interestingly, it does appear that early Christianity borrowed heavily from mystery cults based around sun gods. This is potentially one of the reasons why the God of the Old Testament often appears at odds with the God of the New Testament. One is a sky god, the other is a sun god but they are supposed to be the same individual.
