Good Lord, the Vandals have returned.

On the contrary,they know exactly what they do.

Secular humanism being the de facto religion of most of Europe, this was probably to be expected. Reason, after all, trumps tradition. Religion (the real kind) is to be tolerated, but only if it does not conflict with the State Religion.

Why did the Greeks abstain?

"Why did the Greeks abstain?"

$

thats why.

It could be some people find misogyny morally offensive.

Jeff:

And what constitutes misogyny is determined by whom exactly?

Jeff:

It seems to me that this was out of the public sphere.
Unless guys were going to the monastary and making business deals, there doesn't seem to be any harm to letting them have their He-Man Women Hater's Club.

Jeff/Michael:

Right, hatred of women is the only explanation. Just like the members of the Convent of the Sacred Heart are all screaming man-haters.

Jeff:

We find atheism morally offensive. Shall we then outlaw it, on grounds that it is "discrimination" against theists?

Michael is right, this doesn't belong in the public sphere.

Peter, if misogyny isn't the motivation, then what is? Christianity has a long history of misogyny, BTW. One of the Saints (Paul, maybe? My memory is a little shaky here.) waxed eloquent on women's inherent evil.

Paul: Outlawing atheism means creating a category of thought crime. Hard to mesh that with any meaningful concept of liberty.

Tee hee.

I have some doubts about Orrin's assertion that letting Athos go on as is would not harm women.

There is possibly a general reason why all Orthodox states and societies are failed, and among the leading candidates are 1. having Germans for neighbors, or 2. the obscurantism emanating from Athos.

Traditional or not, the Orthodox peoples, men and women, would no doubt be better off it the monasteries were eliminated.

Jeff:

"if misogyny isn't the motivation, then what is?"

Gee, I just can't think why anyone who has taken vows of celibacy would want to live in a sexually segregated community.

I doubt your misgivings have much to do with misogyny or the plight of women. That is too much of a stretch unless you are prepared to argue that Vasser and convents oppress men. Surely what is bothering you is celibacy. Being a thoroughly indoctrinated materialist, you can't shake the Freudian notion that natural life forces are being bottled up and that they will spill out in some warped, anti-social way. Twitch, twitch, drool, drool.

Harry:

"the Orthodox peoples, men and women, would no doubt be better off if the monasteries were eliminated"

Spoken like a true Leninist. The Soviet Union and communist Yugoslavia, Rumania and Bulgaria thought so too. Thrived, didn't they? Especially the women.

Peter:
Did, or did not, one of the most famous saints paint women as decidedly, inherently, sinful?

If so, then the whole concept of celibacy vows rests upon misogyny. The Catholic church is famous for both its celibacy and historical misogyny. Unless there is some other reason you can think of for excluding women from the priesthood.

Micheal really hit the nail on the head: this doesn't sound like a matter for governmental concern. Nor do Vassar and convents.

But that doesn't mean misogyny doesn't exist, nor should one necessarily applaud it just because it comes dressed in sacramental robes.

Jeff:

"Did, or did not, one of the most famous saints paint women as decidedly, inherently, sinful?"

It's your point. Do your own research. The answer is no, but I'm not arguing with you until you cite a source and back it up. "The Catholic Church is known for misogyny...etc". Boy, when it comes to religion, you love to hurl wild, out-of-the-blue prejudices, don't you. Yeah, sure, they despised women. The whole Marian cult was just a cover.

Anyway, we are talking about the Orthodox Church, not the Catholic Church, but, hey, what's a few doctrinal differences among misogynists.

Martha Burke is making her way up the Acropolis now, headed to the monastery with picket signs and little multi-breasted figurines of Athena & Diana.

Peter:

If I have to apologize for making an out of the blue prejudice, then I will. Unfortunately, I simply don't have the time to do the research to back up my memory that at least one of Christianity's--Orthodox or otherwise--most revered saints was convinced women were inherently sinful.

Peter:
"Women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says." (1 Cor 14:34)

"A theology that has led to the denigration, exploitation, and oppression of half the human race for so long can not pass this test. If [our religious tradition is truly to bring enlightenment to the whole of humanity, the problems arising from gender must be urgently addressed." By that same yardstick, much of the Judeo-Christian tradition we have inherited stands under judgment.

In the Christian tradition, women are not just regarded as inferior-- they are seen as downright evil . "Do you not know that you are each an Eve?" the third century church historian Tertullian demanded of the "uppity" women in Carthage. " You are the devil's gateway; you are the first unsealer of that forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law;... you destroyed so easily God's image, man. Because of you the Son of God had to die."

...

A few years later, Saint Jerome told his disciples to have nothing to do with women. Not only was marriage disgusting and sinful, Saint Jerome wrote, but women should be relegated to an entirely separate sphere. Priests of the Church should not even minister to women, Jerome said, even if they were sick or otherwise troubled. Women were just "too dangerous" to approach, to deal with. They were there solely to tempt men away from God and toward depravity and evil-- just as Eve did to Adam in the Garden of Eden!"

That took far less time than I thought. The text quoted after Corinthians is not from some barking mad atheist, but rather a Universalist Church.

Possibly not your cup of tea, but who's to say which tea is best?

Perhaps I will withhold my apology.

Jeff,

Any Christian saint, Orthodox or Western, firmly believes that all human beings are decidedly, inherently sinful - male and female. Many further believe that men and women are differently sinful, since men and women are, in fact, different - perhaps that's what you're vaguely thinking of.

Jeff,

Any Christian saint, Orthodox or Western, firmly believes that all human beings are decidedly, inherently sinful - male and female. Many further believe that men and women are differently sinful, since men and women are, in fact, different - perhaps that's what you're vaguely thinking of.

Peter, you may be right about celibates wanting to live free of temptation, and as an ex-Catholic I know all about avoiding occasions of sin, but -- even given all that -- eliminating the hens seems to pander more to dark instincts than even Orrin allows for.

Carried to its ultimate extreme, you get . . . Origen. Not a saint but a Father of the Church. Well, maybe a stepfather.

No matter what, Christians just can't help hating sex, can they?

Harry:

Some sects of Christianity don't feel that way; Mormons promote sex, in certain common situations.

Jeff:

Thank you. You may wish to check out
http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/women01.htm
and
http://www.womenpriests.org/classic/mckenzie.htm

These may suffice to show you the charge is irrational given the roles women played in Paul's ministry with his approval and gratitude. In the interests of balance, he second of these is from a decidedly non-conservative site, which perhaps explains the dabbling in slander against Judaism.

Your definition of misogyny seems to comprise any instance where distinctions are made between the roles of men and women in society and even private (family) life. Apart from the awkward facts that that puts you in the position of condemning all of human history until about 1972, lines you up solidly with European secularism, and forces you to conclude most American families are conducting themselves immorally, it makes it easy for you to see misogyny where what is actually happening is that religious men and women are wrestling with natural law. It is like Harry with sex. Any argument that there are objective rights and wrongs about sexual practices, or that sex is a force that can be damaging, brings forth chortled cries that "Christians hate sex." It is impossible to deal with that rationally, because the real argument is occurring elsewhere. If you believe that the fact women and men play different roles in some churches, or that monasteries and convents are segregated, are conclusive, a priori proofs of misogyny, then you are arguing the revealed truths of your own faith, not probing Christianity.

As for Tertullian and Origen, yes, you will find "Eve the Temptress" rants from some church leaders. However, such thinking has always been overidden in the end (that's the cue for you to come in and accuse the Church of squelching free speech). You seem to have great difficulty with the idea that the churches are run by humans. What would you say if I argued that Hemmingway's misogyny is proof that misogyny is inherent in secular materialism?

But don't listen to me. Go talk to the millions of Christian women, nuns, ministers, etc. and tell them they are like African-Americans lobbying for the return of slavery. Tell them they are unbelievably blind and weak to debase themselves so. Tell them they are not fully evolved human beings and have submerged their identities in subservience to males. Just don't forget to invite me along, 'cause I wouldn't miss that for the world.

Peter:
It wasn't my definition of misogyny, these were but a few examples taken from a church sermon, which was but one example of many I could have cited within five minutes of searching. Nor did I ever suggest that Christianity is wholly misogynistic, but rather that one can find strains of misogyny within it. Well?

For reasons of space, I left out a quote where women are described as being uniquely depraved. That doesn't strike me as having anything to do with differing roles of men and women in society.

Have you ever read "To Kill a Mockingbird"? Great book. It somewhat takes to task Catholocism for preaching the unique sinfulness of women. Now the author may have made that up. But I doubt it; I'll be she was reporting what she had experienced.

And none of this lines me up with anything, or condemning anything; rather, it substantiates an observation--that some elements of Christianity, at times, have reserved specific ire for women.

And it isn't like Harry, or me, with sex. I have often said that sex is not inherently wrong, but rather, as with many acts, questions of rightness and wrongness are completely tied up in context and consequences. Now, that could be wrong. But it is definitely not the same as saying there aren't any rights and wrongs, or that sex can never be damaging. But that is also distinctly different from Catholicism's approach to sex, which is to render it sinful under all but one specific set of conditions.

The Bible's story of Adam and Eve leaves open to some spiritually inclined people the notion that women are responsible for sinful temptation. That isn't completely different from the way some spiritually inclined people have used Christ's crucifiction as reason for being anti-Semitic.

Remember, I was only making an observation. Your reaction to it far exceeded anything I said.

(I just now re-read the post, and can see where it may have inadvertantly caused some of your reaction. I messed up the quotation marks--actaully, everything before "That took less time than I thought" is direct quotation; none of the editorial comments are mine)

The Faith that makes marriage a sacrament, or something very close to a sacrament, hates sex, eh Harry? You assert this with a straight face?

What is strange for our materialists to assimilate is that the Christian faith has produced a way to love sex and love children. Materialism makes an idol of the former and despise the latter, as witness the birth rates in the materialist enclaves in the West.

Paul:
I have had a vasectomy.

Because of that, Catholicism views my marital relations sinful; OJ has called my wife and I, as a consequence, degraded.

How are those positions possible without considering sex, engaged in for the sheer pleasure of it, to be inherently wrong?

My children might be surprised to hear I despise them, BTW.

Jeff:

Your elisions are conspicuous. (1) Harry's statement, which I undertook to refute, was that Christians hate sex, which is quite different than the statement that sex for sheer pleasure, deliberately cut-off from the possibility of procreation, is sinful. The latter I did not refute, nor do I have any intention of doing so.

(2) I said that materialism despises children, not that Jeff Guinn despises his children. Need I explain why the two statements are not logically identical, even if Jeff Guinn is a materialist?

It was not very charitable of OJ to call you and your wife degraded; but the fact is we are all degraded by our sins, whatever those sins may be.

Paul:
Harry's assertion that Christians hate sex is probably derived in part from the belief that the pleasure of sex is inherently sinful, and that only the possibility of procreation is sufficient to absolve the act from inherent sinfulness, regardless of any other context. Where did the term "Bowdlerization" come from?

You conflated materialist and materialism in two succeeding sentences. And than go on to blame a belief--materialism--for a population trend that cuts across belief lines. What is your evidence that materialism despises children? Are there materialist preachers espousing child hatred?

It is ridiculous to maintain that the pleasure of sex is inherently sinful. A whole book of th Bible is dedicated to celebrating it.

"By their fruits you will know them." Materialism, as it has been adopted by the various peoples of the world, has been a disaster for children: abortion, pornography, the sexualization of youth, day care, etc.

Paul-

Shame on you! Clouding the issue at hand with the historical record. The widespread acceptance of the materialistic world view has not yet arrived. Once the last vestiges of religious belief have been eliminated the world will be a much better place.

Oh, and Marx was right. Stalin was just a bad man for the job.

Repeating, over and over, the contention that christians hate sex is dumb, ignorant, raw prejudice. The last acceptable "prejudice".

Just out of curiosity, where did the term "Bowdlerization" come from?

Paul:
There aren't nearly enough materialists to account for all those things of which you speak. Never mind that pornography long predates materialism.

Abortion, too, for that matter. Only before modern medicine, people exposed unwanted neonates. Esposito is a fairly common surname. Check out its entymology.

Speaking of the historical record, that is.

Jeff:

"There aren't nearly enough materialists to account for all those things of which you speak."

Surely you jest. But if you don't, are you glad or sad there aren't?

Peter:
No, I don't jest. The number of avowed, secular, materialists in the US is nowhere near enough to account for the various statisticsm, even if we collectively made it a point to be depraved 24/7.

I'm neither sad, nor glad. But to blame these ills on materialism risks barking up the wrong tree.

BTW--having cleared up the confusion over the misogyny quote above, has your response changed any? (this is a pure question without rhetorical content....)

Jeff:

No.

The official stance of the US supreme court and the left is secularism/materialism. It was not always so and the growth and everyday nature of the ills spoken about mighjt just be traceable to that contemporary trend. Abortion, homosexuality, divorce and single parenthood, etc.,etc, are a bit more pronounce as social realities than ever before. Of course, they have always existed but now any semblance of social control has been abandoned, and why not when everything is RELATIVE while absolutes are the remnant of an unenlightened past.

Peter:
Why not? After all, I was only reporting what your fellow religionists say. So at the very least you should direct your ire at them, instead of me.

Tom:
That's the problem with freedom. Sometimes people use it to make decisions. Sometimes those decisions won't meet with your approval.

There is an alternative, but it doesn't have anything to do with freedom.

Tom:
Possibly you could point to the absolute truth of which we can all avail ourselves.

Or not. It not, perhaps you should take it up with Luther, rather than the Supreme Court.

The teaching of the Catholic church was that the highest state to which you could attain on earth was celibacy. But if you did not receive that grace (it was called "receiving a vocation" back in the 1960s), then a distant second best was marriage.

Even then we were taught not to enjoy marital sex. Sex, even in the marriage bed, not aimed at conception was taught to us as "nothing but mutual masturbation" and sinful.

Mothers and fathers were very much second-class citizens. That is why I left the Church. I even know the date -- April 1, 1961, when I cut the required Vocation Day recruitment drive at St. Pius X High School in favor of taking a pretty girl to see the Limelighters at the Fox Theater in Atlanta.

I was fond of my parents and had gotten tired of hearing them described as failures.

Only much, much later did I learn of the church's other failings.

As for Mormons, they are doubtfully Christians, are they not?

Jeff:

U.S.Supreme Court:

"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 2807 [1992].)"

Luther:

"Luther maintained that God interacts with human beings in two ways—through the law and through the Gospel.

The law represents God's demands—as expressed, for example, in the Ten Commandments and the golden rule. All people, regardless of their religious convictions, have some degree of access to the law through their consciences and through the ethical traditions of their culture, although their understanding of it is always distorted by human sin. The law has two functions. It enables human beings to maintain some order in their world, their communities, and their own lives despite the profound alienation from God, the world, their neighbors, and ultimately themselves that is caused by original sin. In addition, the law makes human beings aware of their need for the forgiveness of sins and thus leads them to Christ."

I suspect Tom C. knows exactly who he has to take it up with.

Peter:
The point is that post-Luther, there is no one divinely revealed truth. Or, more accurately, there is no earthly source for that divine truth.

Which means that sole source of social control took a dive when Luther took a bow. Without that, what is left to us except to figure it out for ourselves?

I'm a little unclear which part of "At the heart of liberty..." you disagree with.

Jeff:

The part that assures me I can be Master of the Universe if I eat the fruit from the Supreme Court's tree of knowledge.

Peter:
I'm sorry, I missed that part. Probably because it doesn't exist.

In the absence of a sole source of divinely revealed truth, which alternative do you offer? Of all the competing sects and religions on offer, which assumes the mantle of complete truth regarding existence, meaning, the universe and the mystery of life?

Well, of course, there can't possibly be one, because the divine truth of those concepts has to get filtered through the human, sinful, mind, which introduces all kinds of errors. The only hope of discovering those errors, however, seems to lie in continually questioning existence, etc.

Which also seems to lie at the heart of liberty. The other choice is imposed orthodoxy.

Sometimes that liberty will lead to wondering whether what is believed or preached is, well, morally wrong. As in this case, which carries a whiff of profound misogyny. It wouldn't be the first time.

Jeff:

Funny, you don't seem to have too much trouble finding and promoting absolute truths.

Oh really? Which ones?

BTW, you dodged a couple important questions there.

Jeff:

Like just "knowing" a monastery on the other side of the world of a faith you know nothing about is based upon misogyny.

Sorry, Jeff, I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm off to Vermont for a week of skiing with the family in twenty minutes. Gotta take drastic, painful measures to treat the blogging addiction. Take Care.

Well, based on a weird view of sex (that it is bad), then.

But who cares if some silly men shut themselves up on a rock and deny themselves the pleasures of sexual congress with hens? There's more to Athos than that. It has been the source for more than a thousand years of a particular political/religious/social outlook.

You could say that in the 10th century, given what it was up against, the teaching of Athos were an advance, and so Vladimir accepted them.

Time marches on and Athos does not. Orhodox societies were such failures that violent communist revolution looked like an improvement. It is worth asking how that happened.

If the monks all took concubines but continued with their political doctrine, would that be better? Obviously, no.