God as a "Loving Mother"?

Dargos · Post by **Dargos** » 2006-12-06 07:33am

Back story. My son is currently taking classes for his first communion for Back story. My son is currently taking classes for his first communion for the Catholic Church. My wife was sick, so I jumped in to gather the info in the bi-weekly parents meeting.
To make a long story short. The priest asked us to think about what we thought our god is. The all knowing? The Protector? The Judge? "The Loving Father and, or in these modern times, the Loving Mother?"

That’s what he said! Word for word. "Or in these modern times, the Loving Mother?"
When I asked the Priest about the "loving mother" aspect and the feminine aspect that goes along with it, the priest stated that god is "both and neither, we cannot put earthly limits on god"

It just thru me for a loop hearing from a priest (with a Bishop in the room no less) saying that it is ok to consider god as Female.
Anyone else here anything official about the "sex" of god?

Dargos · Post by **Dargos** » 2006-12-06 07:35am

Crap..screwed up the first part of the post

Darth Judas · Post by **Darth Judas** » 2006-12-06 07:38am

That sounds surprisingly pagan, coming from a Christian clergyman. Many pagan, consider God to be female, but at the same time they don't consider God to be either gender. The female aspect (for the most part) comes from the idea that it is the female that brings life into the world, therefore God must be female in order to have created life on Earth.

All in all, though, I think that if God is omnipotent, then (S)He can be one, or the other, or both, or neither. God is God. To say that God is definitely one gender, or the other, is irrelevant.

Dargos · Post by **Dargos** » 2006-12-06 07:47am

Darth Judas wrote:That sounds surprisingly pagan,

Thats the thing that threw me for a loop.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-12-06 08:29am

God is not a she, it is an it...

Cao Cao · Post by **Cao Cao** » 2006-12-06 08:34am

It's not so strange, many Christians these days regard God in a more abstract form distanced from the fundamentalist humanlike sky lord creator.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2006-12-06 08:48am

Dargos wrote:
Darth Judas wrote:That sounds surprisingly pagan,
Thats the thing that threw me for a loop.

God as an abstract - neither male nor female, but traits associated with both- has been Catholic Dogma for about 50 years. Where've you been since Vatican II?

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-12-06 09:09am

While tradition has God as male, there have been lots of times femininity has crept into his image, so to speak. His feminine aspects were once dealt with by worshipping a female consort alongside him, the archetypal Asherah, also known as Astarte.The "God is neither male nor female, but we refer to him as a He" is something I've heard for a long while, too.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-06 12:00pm

Cao Cao wrote:It's not so strange, many Christians these days regard God in a more abstract form distanced from the fundamentalist humanlike sky lord creator.

Yes, but it's quite unusual for a Catholic. Pope John Paul II made a point of reminding his followers about the maleness of Jesus and his Disciples on several occasions, and pointing out quite specifically that Jesus did not choose any females. The Catholic Church is not misogynistic in the same way that fundamentalist Islam is, but it's still got some rather severe policies about females.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-12-07 01:35pm

One question I've found that makes fundies do a double take is "If man really was created in God's image, who's image is woman created in?"

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-07 01:49pm

I always like pointing out that if man was created in God's image, and there was no female yet, why was he made a male? Does this mean that God is male? If God is male, then there must be a female. And I'll bet she did all the work while he took the credit. He was loafing around the living room on the seventh day playing with his toys while Mrs. God was cleaning up his mess and yelling at him to watch the kids.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-12-07 01:51pm

Darth Wong wrote:He was loafing around the living room on the seventh day playing with his toys while Mrs. God was cleaning up his mess and yelling at him to watch the kids.

More like he was watching football?

Post by **Kuja** » 2006-12-07 02:13pm

If God were a mommy, post-partum depression might explain of Her antics back in the old days.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-12-07 03:35pm

Darth Wong wrote:I always like pointing out that if man was created in God's image, and there was no female yet, why was he made a male? Does this mean that God is male? If God is male, then there must be a female. And I'll bet she did all the work while he took the credit. He was loafing around the living room on the seventh day playing with his toys while Mrs. God was cleaning up his mess and yelling at him to watch the kids.

In the first genesis creation story, he does make them both at the same time and it's stressed that they're both made in his image. One of the explanations for the "image" description is that it did refer to physicality and built on the earlier tradition of the king, pharoah or whoever actually looking like the god in question. In the first genesis account of creation, all humankind, male and female are in God's image, so it's a democratisation of the whole identification with the divine thing.

Mrs God was called Asherah.

kc8tbe · Post by **kc8tbe** » 2006-12-07 10:05pm

So, if God was female, and God had sex with the Virgin Mary, then does that make God lesbian?

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2006-12-07 10:18pm

For fuck's sale, does god have an X and Y chromosome? Two X's? An abundance of testosterone or estrogen? A penis or a vagina?

Since probably none of these would apply (it's like asking how a ghost can 'see' despite the fact that his eyes, nervous system, and brain are in a grave somewhere rotting), we might as well ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Or a penis.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2006-12-07 10:37pm

And by the way, it's no coincidence that the Abrahamic-monotheistic-father god comes from very authoritarian, patriarchal societies. This is most evident in the ultra sensitive Muslim countries (who won't even let women show their arms in public), and in fundie communities where women serve their men.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2006-12-07 10:40pm

Superman wrote:For fuck's sale, does god have an X and Y chromosome? Two X's? An abundance of testosterone or estrogen? A penis or a vagina?

Since probably none of these would apply (it's like asking how a ghost can 'see' despite the fact that his eyes, nervous system, and brain are in a grave somewhere rotting), we might as well ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Or a penis.

And I wasn't taking anyone seriously, my reply was to the original poster.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-12-07 11:18pm

Eh, trinity version of God MUST be a man. Anyone who has been to the University of Notre Dame knows Jesus is a huge football fan.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2006-12-07 11:19pm

Dargos wrote:It just thru me for a loop hearing from a priest (with a Bishop in the room no less) saying that it is ok to consider god as Female.
Anyone else here anything official about the "sex" of god?

Everything I've been hearing on the quasi-official side has been strongly deemphasizing the implication that God has a gender. At least locally, there's been a pretty significant change in language, changing most of the "He"s to "God"s.

That's on the Catholic side, for the record.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-12-07 11:41pm

Well, I can tell you I never encountered any ambiguity of the Divine Gender in any of my cathecism classes or later religious instruction at Holy Cross, and this was well in the shadow of the Vatican II reforms. There was always, of course, the pushing of the well-established Cult of Mary.

But the image of Touchdown Jesus at South Bend seems to clinch the issue.

Isana Kadeb · Post by **Isana Kadeb** » 2006-12-07 11:54pm

Darth Servo wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:He was loafing around the living room on the seventh day playing with his toys while Mrs. God was cleaning up his mess and yelling at him to watch the kids.
More like he was watching football?

Hehehe... Its funny cos its true.

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God as a "Loving Mother"?

God as a "Loving Mother"?

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