From: "Alice"
Subject: interesting.....
[R]eligious beliefs do not have anything to do with politics, so the right for women to vote is political, not religious. Since a Christian man, one who believes in the scriptures, must think of his wife as an equal, there would be no problem in submitting to his decisions, since they would be Godly.
Actually, a Christian man doesn't have to think of his wife as an equal - he is commanded to love her, but you can love someone while considering them an inferior. After all, does Jesus consider humans to be his equal? Of course not - so it would be quite easy for Christian men to learn to treat their wives as inferiors who need to be guided and saved from the sins of the world. What would they need with the right to vote? Humans don't get to vote on who will be God, do they?
Moreover, there is no reason to think that every decision made by even the most devoted Christian man will necessarily be "Godly." Christian men are sinners too, and even if they were somehow able to resist temptation and avoid sin, they are still fallible. So one way or another, they will make bad decisions either out of sinful desire or fallible reasoning - two things which are presumably not very "Godly," right?
In addition to commanding that wives submit to their husbands, the Bible also says that women should not teach and not have authority over men. So why is Alice presuming to teach me about Christianity? Isn't voting the exercise of political authority? Does Alice believe that no women should become pastors or even elected representatives? What about female managers in the work place? All of this goes hand-in-hand with women submitting to their husbands because it expresses that idea that women must always submit to male authority - in the home, in the church, and in society generally. If that isn't an "inferior" status, I'm afraid I don't know what is. It certainly isn't a status most men would choose for themselves, so it's hypocritical of them to instruct women that they should be happy accepting it.
Perhaps you should read the ACTUAL ancient literal translation of scripture. And perhaps you should read the ENTIRE bible, instead of taking things out of context.
Actual ancient literal translation? There are so many things wrong with that, I don't know where to begin. It seems as though Alice thinks that a literal translation of an ancient text communicates exactly the same things as the original text - thus, a literal translation of the Old Testament into English is a good as God speaking in English.
That's simply not true. In fact, literal translations are often very poor translations. Assuming that it is possible to translate all of the little nuances and connotations from one language into another (and it rarely is), such translation will not be literal in any way. Translators have a tough job, and it is even tougher when translating out of an ancient language because it is much more difficult to figure out what you may or may not be missing.
It's always interesting to be told that I shouldn't "take thing out of context" because, quite frankly, everyone does it. Conservative evangelicals don't admit they do it, of course, but they most definitely do. Any time they quote a verse at you, they are trying to communicate an idea which doesn't quite jibe with ideas expressed elsewhere - and that means they are taking that verse out of context, exactly as they accuse others of doing.
When they say "you took that out of context" what they really mean is "you are focusing on verses and ideas that I disagree with." You will never be "in context" unless you accept their theology and their doctrines, which of course is just an example of Begging the Question.
As a matter of fact, my husband doesnt believe in God either, like you, he sees himself as too self important to believe there is a power greater than his own.
Alice doesn't know me, so she shouldn't presume to suggest that I see myself as "too self-important to believe there is a power greater than my own." Alice's husband may be an atheist as a consequence of delusions about his own self-importance, but I've never encountered an atheist like that and I would go so far as to say that it's a relatively rare phenomenon in the atheist community.
But seriously, the Bible doesn't instruct women to only submit to Christian husbands - it instructs women to submit to their husbands, period. So Alice must submit to her husband and if she doesn't like the fact that he isn't a Christian, well she'll just have to learn to love it. After all, the Bible counsels against divorce right along with female leaders and uppity wives.
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