Religious hate of women versus the science of female sperm

www.samesexprocreation.com/document/rape.htm

The science of female sperm, and the science of same-sex procreation (in this case a woman who has inherited her genes from two women, her mothers who are being fruitful and multiplying), not surprisingly puts science in deep conflict with many religions, especially the numerous forms of Christianity prevalent in America and Africa. To deal with this conflict, Christians will turn to their Bibles to assert various forms of "ethical" prohibition with the sexuality of samesex procreation. That's the right of Christians to do. But it is also the right of scientists to point out that the Bible has serious logical and ethical problems with certain passages - evil passages - pertaining to female sexuality. Such biblical passages should be explained much more honestly, or just deleted, before Biblical ethics can be allowed to intrude on scientific activities. In particular, the following passages create significant Christianity/science conflicts:

Note: some might argue that some of what follows is obscene. In 1973, the United States Supreme Court, in Miller v. California created the current rule used by courts to assess obscenity, though one might argue that given the unconstitutionally vague definition of "obscene" in this court decision, the decision itself is "obscene" constitutional law.

Conditions when you can rape a woman?

Many religious people refer to words in the Bible to justify their hatred of homosexuality and same sex marriage. "It is God's will", or some other excuse to not have to think for themselves. But this supposed will of God has many laws, and religious people tend not to explain very well how to organize all of these laws. Since the Bible does not say to the contrary, you have to follow equally all of the rules that appear in similar sections of the Bible. But obeying all Biblical rules equally creates the following connection:

ANTI-HOMOSEXUAL  /  ANTI-SAMESEX     ===>     PRO-RAPE

For example, consider a supposed law of God that appears in Deuteronomy, Chapter 22, verses 28 and 29: 

        If a man meets a young woman, a virgin who is not betrothed,
        and he seizes her and copulates with her, and they are
        discovered, the man who copulated with her must pay to the
        father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver and she
        shall be his wife, but because he debased her he may not
        divorce her throughout his life.

That's right - the word of God is that woman are little more than property, along with animals and land, with some value that changes when attacked. So whoever attacks a woman, in this case a rapist, must pay the owner of the woman (her father) compensation for the damage to the property (the woman) [one shekel was about 2 pounds, so 50 shekels is about 100 pounds. In recent times, the price of silver is $100/pound, so 50 shekels is about $10,000 - for the father]. And that is if you are rapist stupid enough to be "discovered", otherwise you can rape the woman for free. One of the more evil laws of the Old Testament.

[Message from Jesus: I agree such men CAN RAPE WOMEN. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law ... I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished ... whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-19. I am Jesus (ignore Paul), and I approve of this message.]

More sadistically, the psychological feelings of the woman are totally irrelevant - for the rest of her life, the woman raped has to live with her rapist. Whoever wrote this evil passage has absolutely no understanding of human emotions. Some may argue that the payment and marriage protects the "honor" of the woman, but that is almost as evil, given the subservient role of the woman in a marriage. You want to discourage rape? Make the male rapist give ALL of his property TO THE WOMAN (or his family's property), and then banish the male rapist from the community.

Even worse, bibles and bible commentaries never express outrage about this sanctioned rape, or try to provide some apology for its inclusion in the Bible. Silence implies acceptance and agreement of this form of rape. These commentaries include the Harper Collins Study Bible, the Logos Commentary, the Evangelical Commentary, the Interpreters Bible, the Interpreters One Volume Commentary, the International Bible Commentary, the Bible Knowledge Commentary, the New Bible Commentary, and the Abingdon Bible Commentary.

Section 2356 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) discusses rape, at one point stating "..... [Rape] is always an intrinsically evil act. ..." This presumably includes the Deuteronomy 22:28-29 rape, for example, as expressed in the 1990 Catholic Study Bible (based on New American Bible): 

        If a man comes upon a maiden that is not betrothed, takes
        her and has relations with her, and their deed is
        discovered, the man who had relations with her shall
        pay the girl's father fifty silver shekels and take her
        as his wife, because he has deflowered her.
Shouldn't the Study Bible then footnote this rape passage, Deuteronomy 22:28-29, that sanctions rape under some conditions, as an intrinsically evil statement from God? And if evil, why is it in the Bible, and why are bibles and bible commentaries silent about the intrinsic evil of this passage? This passage is literally evil, spiritually evil, morally evil and has no relevant allegorical or analogical use.

Not only silent, but some commentaries unethically discourage people from thinking about, and criticizing, this evil rule sanctioning rape. I quote from the Commentary on the Whole Bible by three Catholic priests - Jamieson, Fausset and Brown [none of whom have daughters]): 

        ... and yet, it is not necessary that we should curiously
        and impertinently inquire into them.  So far was it from
        being unworthy of God to leave such things upon record,
        that the enactments must heighten our admiration of his
        wisdom and goodness in the management of a people so
        perverse and so given to irregular passions.  Nor is it a
        better argument that the Scriptures were not written by
        inspiration of God to object that this passage, and others
        of a like nature, tend to corrupt the imagination and will
        be abused by evil-diposed readers, ...

These priests, and the silence of other Bible commentaries, are just as evil as the evilness of the passage itself. This passage sanctioning rape should be intensely discussed, if not deleted from the Bible - it is un-American. And of course, once the Bible gives a permission, too many Christians over the millenia were all so willing to blindly obey. For example, in 17th century England, Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale wrote in the Biblical spirit of women as their husband's property: 

        The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself
        upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent
        and contract, the wife hath given herself in kind unto the
        husband which she cannot retract.

Very sadly, for the next 300 years, until the end of the 20th century, this attitude was the law of many lands. For example, in Christian America, until 1976, all states had a Martial Rape Exemption, which prevented the courts from prosecuting men for raping their wives. Fortunately, starting in 1976, American states started repealing this rape exemption in response to protests, not from the churches, but the women's equality movement. Sadly, even today, some states still have exemptions allowing husbands to rape their wives. Globally, in 1995, the United Nations voted to abolish the marital privilege for husbands to sex on demand from their wives. All forms of rape, including marital, should be along the lines of the harsh penalties in the national laws of the United States, for example, 18 United States Code 2242:

Whoever [in the United States] [rapes] another person .... shall be fined ..., imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

That is what should be in the Bible, something similar to the crimimal laws for rape in the United States.

Even more worse, the Bible gives the rapist a way to not have to marry the woman he just raped. Once raped, the woman is detectably no longer a virgin, and Deuteronomy 22:20-21 proclaims: 

        But if this charge [of the husband] is true, and evidence of
        the girl's [his new wife] virginity is not found, they shall
        bring the girl to the entrance of the father's house and there
        her townsmen shall stone her to death, ..

Huh? The penalty for all women for all time for lying about being a virgin before marriage, is to be stoned to death? Most Christian bibles and bible commentaries do not condemn this cruel punishment. [Check commentaries], since after all, aren't women really just the property of their fathers' to be disposed of to gain other property? Indeed, others have argued that this passage has nothing to do with the women's ethics, but rather is a solution (albeit evil) to an inheritance problem. If a woman has a child less than nine months after her marriage, who is the father, and more important in terms of male possessions, who's property does the child inherit? Solution - kill the woman and then there is no property problem to worry about. Another rather more evil law of the Old Testament.

[Message from Jesus: I agree such WOMEN SHALL BE STONED TO DEATH. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law ... I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished ... whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-19. I am Jesus (ignore Paul), and I approve of this message.]

Of course, determining virginity is tricky, so is there an easier way to kill the raped woman? Mostly likely such a woman has a hard life and has to work every day. All you have to do is catch the woman working on the Sabbath, and then invoke Exodus 35:2 

        Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you
        shall have a holy sabbath of solemn rest to the Lord;
        whoever does any work on it shall be put to death;

Anyone who believes Deuteronomy 22:28-29 and Deuteronomy 22:20-21 (or the Exodus 35:2) to be the words of any god should be totally ignored when it comes to any ethical discussions of sexuality, such as female sperm. These rules are a disgustingly evilly abhorrent abomination in their pure hatred of women, and their total contradiction of modern science's view of the devastating mental trauma caused by rape (as well as violating multiple American laws).

To historians, it is not surprising this non-human, property attitude of Christianity towards women. In 584, in Lyons France, forty three Catholic bishops and twenty men representing other bishops hold a debate, "Are Women Human?". The final vote is that thirty two men vote YES, thirty one vote NO. (This probably served as a precedence for the Oct 18, 1929 Canadian Supreme Court decision that Canadian women were not persons in the legal sense of the word).

Islam

Islam's treatment of woman and rape isn't any better. In November 2007, newswires around the world report that a court in Saudi Arabia ordered that a female rape victim be lashed with a whip 200 times - yes, 200 times. The woman had been meeting with her former boyfriend in a car to retrieve pictures of them together, when a group of seven men kidnapped the couple and repeatedly raped both of them. Already horrendously victimized by the seven rapists, the court's verdict is itself a form of rape.

A passage from a report (hadith) - the Sahih Bukhari - of the sayings and deeds of Muhammad, has Muhammad providing instructions on how to rape women captured in battle. Traditionally, when the Islamic warriors raped war victims, they did coitus interruptus to not get the women pregnant. According to the translation, apparently Muhammad says that they don't have to pull out:

We got female captives in the way booty and we used to do coitus interruptus with them. So we asked Allah's Apostle about it and he said "Do you really do that?" repeating the question thrice, "There is no soul that is destined to exist but will come into existence, till the Day of Resurrection."
You can search the Internet for articles about the wartime rape of the women of the Jewish tribe the Banu-Qurayza, the last Jewish tribe from the city of Medinah to be destroyed (ethnic cleansing) by Muhammad's armies. Around the year 2007, the United Nations tried to pass a global treaty ruling this type of rape of war victims to be a crime.

For more information on the horrors of rape, and efforts to prevent rape, check out the following Web sites.

A bit of irony from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In a speech on 18 October 2004 to the International Lion of Judah Conference of the United Jewish Communities, Justice Ginsburg described artworks in her chambers that are inscribed with a command from Deuteronomy: "Justice, justice shall you pursue" - a nice command that these rape and murder passages of Deuteronomy seem to contradict. She noted that: "I am a judge, born, raised and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs throughout the Jewish tradition." - yes, except where its runs through these rape and murder passages of Deuteronomy.

Not surprisingly, countries that tend to more fervently believe in the religious texts that contain these evil statements about rape, also tend to be countries that have the highest levels of gender inequality. The World Economic Forum annually publishes detailed statistics on gender inequality. The mostly secular Northern European countries have the highest levels of gender equality, while the mostly Islamic nations have the worst levels of gender inequality. In the middle are the "rationally" religious countries such as the Christian-ish United States, France, Italy, and Russia; and the Jewish Israel.

Honor your mother and father, or honor your parents?

Is there anything more universal than having a mother and father? So how can anyone question one of the Ten Commandments, "Honor your mother and father", which becomes a flawed rule once the first woman is conceived by two women using female sperm? Indeed, why isn't it blasphemous to have as a goal making female sperm? Well, in a Christian theocracy the answers to these questions are "NO", "YOU CAN'T" and "IT IS", making quite reasonable a law banning the production of female sperm and/or same-sex marriage. But (a) the United States isn't a Christian theocracy, and (b) do the Ten Commandments even exist?

What do you mean, "Do the Ten Commandments exist?". Well, how about the Ten Commandments as found in the Old Testament book Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 1 to 17, including verse 12: "Honor your mother and father, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee". Well, if you count, there are actually 13 Commandments in verses 1 to 17 (or more if you include Commandments in verses 18 to 26).

Well, how about the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verses 6 to 21 - maybe those are the real Ten Commandments. Sadly, not only are there 13 Commandments in these verses as well, but also they are worded differently from the 13 Commandments in verses 1 to 17 of Chapter 20 of Exodus. Odd in itself, as well as in light of the assumption that both books were written by the same person.

Then there are the third set of Commandments, which can be seen in Chapter 34 of Exodus, verses 18 to 26, which while being 10 number, have little overlap with the first two sets of 10/13 Commandments. Indeed, this third set of Commandments does not have a Commandment to honor your mother and father. And then there are hundreds of other commandments issued in the first few books of the Old Testament.

To science, all of these Old Testament commandment writings are a classic example of the evolution of social rules in ancient times (the third set of Commandments above is thought to be the earliest version). Interesting rules to learn about, especially when it comes to the evolution of social rules in modern times (such as the evolution of modern marriage laws). But to science there is no logic in viewing these rules as absolute rules throughout all of history, and no logic in dictating modern laws (such as the United States Code) according to these Commandments, especially when so formulating such laws on religious principles is unconstitutional.

So when people demand "Ten Commandments in every classroom", simply ask "Which Ten Commandments are you referring to?". For more on the lies of the Ten Commandments, Click Here.

Who was Cain's wife?

In the book of Genesis, Chapter 2, verse 7, God creates the first man, and then in verse 22, the first woman is created: 

        7: then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground

       22: and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man
           he made into a woman

In the book of Genesis, Chapter 4, verses 1-2, this first man and woman, now named Adam and Eve, have two children: 

        Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore
        Cain ... and again, she bore his brother, Abel.

Fine, we have the first family - Adam, Eve and their two sons Cain and Abel. Sadly not the most functional of families, for in verse 8 Cain kills Abel: 

        And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his
        brother Abel, and killed him.

Now Genesis, chapter 4, verses 1-16, is about Cain and Abel, Cain killing Abel, and being slightly punished for killing Abel. Also, Genesis, chapter 4, verses 18-26, is about how Cain builds a city, has a family, while Adam and Eve have another child, Seth. But there is an intriguing biological problem - Genesis 4, 17: 

        Cain knew his wife

Now for Christians who believe the Bible is literally and historically true, a big problem arises: where did Cain's wife come from? Is it his sister, making her life all the more traumatized (first seeing her brother killed, and then having to marry her murdering brother)? Was Cain's wife cloned from Eve, or did Adam have to give up another rib? Or was Cain's wife from another family, raising even more questions (such as were Adam and Eve really the first couple, did God create other husbands and wives, or clone them from Adam and Eve, etc.?).

Sadly, for such an important question of procreation, most Bibles and Bible commentaries are silent. They explain nothing. Where is the ethics in this silence? To science, on the other hand, there is no problem - in the last 100,000 years (longer than any Biblical chronology for human history) there has never been less than 10,000 humans (there have been bottlenecks in human demographics). So to science, the explanation is simple: the story of Adam and Eve is pure myth.

Now some might point out that there have been recent accounts that all humans are descendants of one woman who lived over 100,000 (???) years ago. Wasn't she the scientific equivalent of Eve? No. It just means the descendants of other ancient women were not as successful at surviving.

humanity's ancestors

As an exercise for the curious, try answering the question "Who was Jephthah's daughter?", another obscene story in the Bible (Judges, chapter 11), raising the question "Why didn't Jephthah commit suicide for his stupid boast, instead of murdering his daughter?".

The "young woman" versus the "virgin"?

The sexual health of women with regards to procreation has always been a big obsession of men worried about their "property". No wonder that over the centuries, virginity has been such an important social issue (but of lesser interest to developmental biology, whose main concern is the general health of the mother). Not surprising then that men have lied in their religions about virginity.

In the original Hebrew language of Old Testament book, Isaiah, Chapter 7, verse 14, there appears the following prophecy: 

        Assuredly, my Lord will give you a sign of his own accord.
        Look, the young woman is with child and about to
        give birth to a son.  Let her name him Immanuel.

The original Hebrew word used is almah, meaning young women, not a virgin, especially given its Semitic root that means "to be sexually mature". And the prophecy is for something to happen in the lifetime of the prophet, not in the distant future. And for the most part, English translations of this passage is much the same - a young woman about to have a child.

But not all Bibles. For example, the Catholic New American Bible (similarly with the classic (New) King James Version) has the following passage: 

        Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the
        virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and
        shall name him Immanuel.

Whoa - what's this? Two MAJOR changes. First, "young woman" has been radically changed to "virgin", and "is with child" is radically expanded in time to "shall be with child". These are deliberate mistranslations of the word of God from the original Hebrew.

Around 150 BCE, as part of the preparation of the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Old Testament done in Egypt where there were many Jews who spoke mostly Greek), a Greek translation of the book of Isaiah was prepared. When it came to the word Hebrew "almah", the Greek writers could have easily used the Greek word "neanis", which is the near equivalent of the Hebrew word "almah".

Instead, the Greek writers used the Greek "pathenos", which while similar to "almah/neanis", also has the "virgin" connotation. Why, when "neanis" is the more accurate translation of "almah"? For example, it could have been a marketing ploy. In the centuries before and after the birth of Jesus, there were many other religions being invented and many existing religions, and one way these religions try to triumph the importance of their leader was to say that their leader was born of a virgin (such as Mithras, an early competitor to Jesus). Using "pathenos" was a linguistic deception few people could have detected then, is compatible with how people remembered the story, and makes the Isaiah passage more competitive with other religions for marketing purposes.

Thus, about 200 years later, around 85 AD, when some unknown editor wrote the Book of Matthew, it was easy for him to rely on the mistranslation in the Septuagint version of Isaiah (especially if he did not know the original Hebrew), making Christianity a more appealing marketing sell to people used to hearing about virgin births. This unknown editor thus has Matthew saying at Matthew 1:22-23 (NAB version): 

       All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the
       Lord through the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall be with
       child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel."

(Luke also mentions this virgin birth, but not Mark nor John, raising the question whose writings are more accurate). What this unknown editor did was quite understandable for marketing purposes, but nonetheless Matthew 1:22-23 is a mistranslation of the original Hebrew, and therefore a false fulfillment of the original Hebrew prophecy.

You have to wonder about the hate in the heart of whoever wrote the book of Matthew, not only for playing such games with translating "young woman", but inventing and including in the Book of Matthew one of the most obscene, horrendous lies ever told, a lie that does not appear in the books of Mark, Luke and John, a lie that has led to the deaths of many millions of "our children" over the last 2000 years. This is the infamous false "blood guilt" public oath NOT made by a Jewish mob NOT demanding Jesus' death at Matthew 27:25, which includes the horribly illdefined "us" specifier: 

       Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us,
       and on our children.
"On our children?" This is nothing more than an evil command from an Apostle to randomly kill Jews throughout the centuries. This passage must be removed from all Bibles NOW.

To modern science, virginity plays little role in the health of women and their children during childbirth. In terms of procreation, there is no need to spice it up with virginity, such as that found in the book of Matthew.

Finally, never fully trust any Bible that uses the word "homosexual", since the word didn't exist when the Bible, was written, and instead was invented in 1869 by German writer Karl-Maria Kertbeny. Whatever concept the original Bible writers meant to convey, there are more honest phrases to use in translation.

Does the Koran promise white grapes or virgins?

False translations involving the word "virgin" do not cause problems just with/for Christianity - they also cause problems for Islam. For centuries, Muslims intent on causing terror by taking advantage of emotionally crippled young men have convinced these young men to kill themselves and others in the false name of Islam, with the promise based on a phrase in the Koran, that in heaven they will be sexually served and be able to marry 72 virgins.

But here is the problem. The Arabic word use in the Koran for to indicate "virgin" is "hur". However, much of Arabic writing came into being around the time of the creation of the Koran - before then much of Arab society was based on verbal communication using multiple languages, including Syriac and Aramaic. And in Aramaic, the word "hur" means white and was commonly used to mean "white grapes". So one scholarly argument is that the promise in the Koran is that your heavenly reward for your sacrifice is lots and lots of white grapes.

Wikipedia has an entry on this word "hur" or "huriyah": HOURI, that mostly argues that the "hur" really does refer to virgins (though more along the lines of angels in heaven for Christians). That grapes are delicious in themselves and a prized food in the desert conditions of the Middle East would make grapes a much less misogynistic reward than virgins.

Sadanand Dhume, author of a book on the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, in an article in the 29 March 2007 edition of the Wall Street Journal, page A18, titled "Playboy in Indonesia", writes about the hypocrisy in Islamic countries with regards to enjoying some aspects of Western culture (like science and technology), but not others such as American popular culture as reflected in things like the increasingly-boring Playboy magazine. At one point he has a bit of "virgin" sarcasm:

"On a more flippant note, persuading young men to blow themselves up in order to claim 72 dark-eyed virgins in paradise is that much harder when the dark-eyed virgin next door can be found spread across a [Playboy] centerfold. It's no coincidence that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, a country where Starbucks isn't allowed to use its mermaid logo lest it cause offense."

Additionally, it doesn't help that the Koran has too many passages about non-believers being killed and tortured in the afterlife. Makes it easier to believe that eating 72 grapes is being lied about.

Fewer women, more rapes in India

Let it not be said that herein we pick on Western religions and how their misogyny leads to sanctioned raping of women. The Eastern religions have their misogynies as well. A 17 November 2007 article in India's national newspaper, The Hindu, titled: World Without Women, reports on how women are increasingly being bought as "wives" in many villages because sex-selection (the preference is to have sons) has ensured that few local women are available as wives. From the article:

In the [Indian] states where sex selection is most rampant, there are entire villages where the men cannot find women to marry. So they are "buying" women from other States. And in some instances, where the family can afford to buy just one woman, she is expected to "service" all the men in the family.
"Service" being a euphemism for "be raped by". Currently about 930 girls are born for every 1000 boys. It is just as bad for the daughters of such raped women:
If [these bought wives] have girls, they have several reasons to worry. ... Second, in villages full of men, many of who cannot find women to marry, girls are unsafe. They cannot be sent out of the house alone. And even within the household, they have to be protected.
Protected from being raped. In related news, a reproductive health site reports on how India lags in providing sexual education.