Secondly, the crimes that were considered capital offenses by Yahweh worthy of stoning were things like picking up sticks on the Sabbath and adultery. Can you imagine stoning someone for picking up sticks, or adultery, what kind of a god would decree a punishment like that? Not a loving god that’s for sure. Imagine stoning your child for picking up a toy that you told him not to!

In the New Testament we see Jesus intervening in the case of “stoning of the women caught in adultery,” which according to the laws of Yahweh was perfectly legitimate. So, did Jesus consider stoning to be an immoral act? It appears that he did not approve of it or else he would not have prevented it from happening by saying “he that is without sin cast the first stone,” and “go and sin no more”. So was Jesus going against the laws of his father, Yahweh? It appears so. According to the laws Yahweh gave in the Torah, if a person was caught in adultery the punishment was death by stoning and it matters not whether the people throwing the stones were sinful because they were carrying out Yahweh’s decree.

It’s time to speak out about the things the Bible contains that are immoral, and if those acts of immorality fall at the feet of Yahweh, so be it. Stoning a person is immoral, and wrong for any reason!

Have you ever noticed how it is always women who are barren in Scripture, not once in the entire Bible is infertility ever attributed to the male? It’s a proven fact that up to 50% of infertility is attributed to the male, so if Yahweh created humans then he was well aware of this fact, yet why is it in the Bible that infertility is always laid at the feet of the woman? Even if primitive man believed that all infertility was because a woman was barren it does not mean Yahweh should have agreed with them and supported the idea. Yahweh could have easily informed ignorant humans on the nature of reproduction, instead he led men to believe that they were the carriers of little Homunculus (sperm containing a complete individual human) in their loins, which directly led to the belief that women were only the soil which grew the Homunculus.

Gen.46:26 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six;

Exo.1:5 And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.

2Chron.6:9 Notwithstanding thou shalt not build the house; but thy son which shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house for my name.

Heb.7:5 And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham:

Heb.7:10 For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.

According to the Bible it is Yahweh who causes women to be barren, and it is Yahweh who opens their wombs when he so desires to show his power. It seems that Yahweh is solely the cause of a woman’s infertility and it never has anything to do with a man. When Yahweh decides to open a woman’s womb she gets pregnant with the Homunculus from the man, otherwise she remains barren.

Gen. 11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child.

Gen.21:1-2 And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.

Gen.20:18 For the LORD had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.

Gen. 25:21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

Gen.29:31 And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.

Gen.30:22 And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.

1Sam.1:5 But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the LORD had shut up her womb. And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb…11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

Judges 13:2-3 And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son.

Isaiah 66:9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.

Hosea 9:14-16 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts…Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.

Luke 1:7 & 36 And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years…And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.

My focus in this article is on the Christian religion; because that is the one I am most familiar with – considering myself one for nearly 30 years. The Christian religion like many others has some very positive qualities and has done much good in the world, but the one glaring problem that to some extent overshadows all of its good, is the unequal treatment of women that it promotes. The Bible is anti-progressive compared to its secular counterparts when it comes to women’s issues, because of the fact that its decrees are written as coming from an unchangeable god, therefore whatever is spoken of as “God’s” laws remain immutable. The decree of Genesis 3:16 states a man is given ruler-ship over a woman because of her transgression; this remains a blight on the Bible’s message of unity that can never be overcome. Anytime the stronger and more aggressive male is put in a position of authority over his female counterpart by a god, the outcome is sure to be negative, which is exactly what we see has happened in Christianity. Men have used the Bibles message of male ruler-ship to keep women from fulfilling their full potentials, and it is only when women themselves have risen up in protest and demanded their equal rights as humans that changes have happened.

For the most part the Bible’s message has not helped women gain equal rights; it has in fact hindered the cause of freedom on many fronts. Every freedom that women have gained has been won by fighting hard against men who dogmatically hold to their god given position of ruler over women. The argument is sometimes used by Christians that the New Testament declares male and female, Jew and Greek to be equal, but that is clearly only meant in the spiritual sense. One only has to look as far as the book of 1 Corinthians to find the explicit statement that “man is the head of woman”, and that “man is the image and glory of god, but woman is the glory of man” which permanently places women under mans authority and ruler-ship… once something is decreed by god it can never be changed, thus making woman’s rights trapped in the mindset of first century males who considered women to be inferior and subordinate to men.

1Cor.11:3-10 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God….But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.

In my caterpillar stage I could only perceive of god in a very limited and finite way, because I had only seen the world through eyes with very narrow vision. It was impossible for me to comprehend anything other than the god that was defined for me within the pages of the Bible, because I was still in the process of growing. As caterpillars we blindly accept our lot in life as a permanent condition, because it is beyond our understanding that one day we can become butterflies. The teachings of many religions exhort people to accept what has been given them as the will of their particular god, and to cease from struggling to become something better and to simply accept their lot in life. If nothing comes along to challenge that belief then we remain in the caterpillar state our whole lives, never experiencing the wonderful transformation into a butterfly.

We make a temporal, physical footprint while we are in our caterpillar stage, but we make an eternal, spiritual footprint when we are elevated to our enlightened butterfly stage…this completes our human experience.

The story begins in chapter two of Genesis with the formation of the man called Adam from a lump of clay. Now, this in and of itself is the least offensive to a thinking person’s senses, because conceivably a creator god could form life from inorganic material, but what follows is beyond belief. After God created this man called Adam, he made a beautiful garden as a place for him to live, replete with animals and trees for food (except for one bad tree), but forgot to create a mate for him…oops. To solve this oversight of the missing mate, God instructed Adam to search through all the animals that were in the garden for a suitable helper and while he was at it to give the animals names. Well, as we expected nary a helper was to be found…poor Adam, he must have been quite discouraged by the time he finished naming the last critter, but never fear…God to the rescue. God in all his omnipotence caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam (he was probably tired from naming all those animals), and as he was slumbering took one of his ribs to form a helpmate for him (no lump of clay this time) that was part of his flesh. Sort of like the way a child comes from the mothers flesh, but this time instead of life coming from the female it was taken from the male (I guess God likes variety). Now, finally Adam had a mate, but apparently he didn’t inform her properly about the one tree in the entire garden that they weren’t supposed to eat from. Mind you this tree was a magical tree, not only for looks and food, but also for wisdom…and as you might expect the woman wanted wisdom. So, who do you suppose appears on the scene…a talking snake of course! This wasn’t just any old talking snake, he was the most subtle of every creature that God had made, and he knew all about the tree of wisdom in the garden. It’s not to hard to guess what happens next…the talking snake temps the girl to eat from that bad tree that will make her wise. As any parent knows one doesn’t tell their children not to eat something that is delicious and then put it right in front of them along with a tempter to entice them, but then God isn’t like a normal parent. Anyway, Eve eats of the delicious fruit offered to her by the talking snake, sharing some with Adam, and thus for all eternity introduces the concept of sin into the human picture…and gets their asses kicked out of the garden for good!

Now, we could blame Eve, or Adam, but I think the blame must be placed solely on the shoulders of Yahweh…that is if you believe in him, but if you don’t then sin has no place in your belief system either, and that means you are one of the lucky ones who didn’t get indoctrinated with the idea of sin that started with a mythological talking snake in a garden.

1Cor.11:7-9 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

 

Gen.2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Instead of woman being flesh and bone of the man as the Bible teaches, all humans come from and are literally part of the flesh and bone of the woman. A good comparison is that of constructing a building, both male and female contribute to the plans or “blueprint” (DNA) of the building, but it is the woman who supplies all the materials (flesh, and blood) to construct the building.

As long as lies concerning the equality of women are taught as God given doctrines by men, women will continue to be denied their equal rights as humans. The message that “women’s rights are human rights” is a message that needs to be preached from every pulpit and spoken from every mouth, until we live in world where all humans are treated equally regardless of race or gender.

A year ago I reported in my First Annual Progress Report that I had come to the place in my quest for truth where the Bible was dead and buried as far as being a text revealing the nature of the creator god, this I called the first leg of my journey. Now, I am a year into the second part of that trek and have once again gone through a tremendous amount of change in my perception of what makes up the Whole of our existence. The term “God” has taken on a much more generic meaning in my mind, compared to the specific reference it implied two years ago. I now view “God” as a term associated with the whole of universal consciousness that each of us is a part of. Life is what we each make of it, continually evolving…not a preordained script that we are born to partake in. The meaning and purpose of our lives comes from us, not from some imagined god. Each of us has a unique place in the universe that no other person can fill, what we do with our lives becomes part of the whole which makes a difference in the cosmos…it’s called the Butterfly Effect, meaning the whisper of a butterfly’s wings can make a huge change in the outcome of an event.

If I know that I will always be an integral part of the whole, then what gives meaning to this manifestation of my life at this point in time, is to leave “a path of footprints” on this plane of existence, that will become part of my eternal journey and always be there to help me find my way home. The journey continues…

If one finds any human right that a man enjoys, but denies to a woman then that teaching is clearly biased toward the male and should be noted as such and rejected. It’s long past time when all people should be treated as equals no matter what race or gender they are.

The women who have rights today would not have those rights if they would have sat back and waited for God to mete them out. One can look around the world at women living in countries ruled by religious men and see they are no better off than women were hundreds, or thousands of years ago…men are still dominating them and denying them basic human rights. This should tell women of all faiths that you can’t sit around and wait for a god to give you what he denied you in the first place. We must join together and raise our voices declaring “Women’s rights are human rights!”

One of the worst aspects of the faith that the Bible teaches is that it promotes the idea that one group of people (men) have the right to deny the other group (women) the same freedom of equal rights that they enjoy. To be able to live up to our full potential as humans is a right that all people should share regardless of gender, or race. We all share this planet equally, and all should partake in its abundance, the male gender has not been given exclusive rights to ruler-ship over the female gender as biblical teaching promotes.

Below are some of the worse offenders in the New Testament part of the Bible regarding male authority over women. These teachings come from the mouths of the Apostles of Christ, those upon whom the doctrines of the Christian faith have been built. Whether or not one wishes to accept these teachings as coming from God, one must accept that they are taught in the Church as doctrines given in the Bible. The harm, and suffering to women that these doctrines have elicited are far too numerous to mention…they run the gamete from domestic violence to burning women at the stake accused of being witches. It’s time for Christian women to wake up to what the Bible really teaches and declare with one voice that it is WRONG!

1 Tim. 2:11-14 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. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

 

1Cor.11:3-10 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God….But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

 

1Tim.5:9- Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work. But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. For some are already turned aside after Satan.

 

1Peter 3:1-7 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation (conduct, behavior) coupled with fear (phobos: fear, terror, dread). Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge (intelligence), giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker (asthenes: weak, sick, feeble, impotent) vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

 

Eph 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

 

Col 3:18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

The time is long overdue when the women of the world need to rise up as one voice demanding equality as humans. The same rights that are afforded men because they are members of the human race should equally be afforded women…no exceptions! Every woman has the power to speak out, even if it is only with one small voice teaching her children. One by one as women join together, an army of voices will be heard that cannot be silenced, for far to long men have played the role of the bully and used fear to oppress women and strip from them basic human rights…now is the time for change! Any religion or belief system that does not recognize human rights equally among both genders needs to be looked at long and hard…no “God” who supposedly created women with the ability to bear children, would in turn cause her to suffer at the hands of men because she is the child bearer. It’s time for the hand that rocks the cradle to teach her children that all humans have equal rights.