My Actual Homepage - Go here for more info.


I plan to put a graphical banner here eventually...

25 September 2010

Fundamentalists - Islamic and Christian - they all fear vaginas

I just got this email from someone, and it cracked me up.  And fundamentally it's pretty true and accurate too.  I think that one of the sad parts about this is that most of the American fundies won't recognize themselves in it.

Fundamentalists - Islamic and Christian - they all fear vaginas

April 20th, 2010 by VinceWade1 

The war against Al Qaeda, the war against the Taliban, the war against an
alphabet soup of Islamic terrorists who view Christians as Infidels.why is
there this Big Struggle between the fundamentalists of Islam and
Christianity? They are a lot alike. Both fear vaginas.

In case you haven't noticed, religious fundamentalists of all stripes tend
to be more alike than different. Their bedrock belief that their religion is
the only true faith is a trait they have in common. The notion that a
Supreme Being might accept homage from a infinite number of earthly
religions is an alien concept to them. By the reasoning of some Christian
fundamentalists Mohandas Ghandi (Mohandas was his given name, Mahatma was a
title of respect), one of the most morally principled and spiritual men of
modern history, is doomed to hell because he wasn't "saved" by being "born
again." But as someone noted, what should we expect from people who
vehemently dismiss the idea that we evolved from a lower life form yet
accept without question the biblical assertion that we came from dirt?

Something else religious fundamentalists have in common is fear of the
mysterious power of vaginas to threaten male dominance and control.
Virtually every major religion in the world is ruled by men. Mythology and
folk tales through history and throughout the world feature magical or
virgin births. It's a way to deny that the belief systems' principal
character was conceived through the carnal penetration of a penis into a
vagina.

It's no secret that men crave the delight and powerfully intense
satisfaction of those warm, moist, tantalizing crevices. Just ask Tiger
Woods. Or Bill Clinton. Or Jimmy Swaggart. But that's precisely the issue.
Men both famous and not-so-famous have lost control when succumbing to
womanly charms. Earthly organized religion - not to be confused with real
spiritual belief - is largely about control through unquestioned obedience.
Since countless males throughout human history have been known to succumb to
the temptations of the tender trap, it makes a certain kind of sense that
behavior control freaks such as religious fundamentalists would want to
degrade and marginalize something that has such powerful control over the
population with external plumbing. The business of religion is controlling
the souls and wallets of men. Sex is competition for that control, and for
the contents of the wallet, so a man's pubic pursuits must be purified
through the prism of the pulpit.

The sex abuse scandals rocking the Roman Catholic Church are partly the
result of the hierarchy's stubborn insistence on priestly celibacy and
perpetual secondary roles for women in the organization's decision-making
machinery. Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus demand priestly celibacy - or
male rule. His disciple Peter was a married man. Think Da Vinci Code.
Priestly celibacy didn't become mandatory until centuries after Jesus'
death. A case can be made that the ordained clergy of the Roman Catholic
Church is the world's most powerful and enduring males-only club that will
fight to the bitter end to keep it that way.

It's not just a Catholic thing. In a series of  investigative TV news
stories I did some years ago called "Preying from the Pulpit" I reported the
late Baptist fundamentalist preacher Jack Hyles of Indiana was obsessed with
the evils of sex in his Sunday sermons, even as his longtime mistress sat
behind his pulpit on one side while his wife sat on the other. Moreover,
Hyles' school for young fundamentalists used to put extraordinary focus on
pleasures of the flesh by insisting some of the more well-endowed female
students must wear Band-Aids over their nipples to avoid inflaming the
passions of their fellow "saved" male Christians.  Apparently Hyles
understood being "saved" is a transitory proposition no matter what you
proclaim from the pews on Sunday.

For those who doubt the similarity of sex control urges between
fundamentalist Muslims and Christians, I'd invite you to explore their views
in the own words. On the Christian side of fundamentalism there is a
treatise on The Submission of the Christian Wife or Submission Is Not a Foul
Word or simply, Submit to your Husband.

As for vagina-fearing  Muslims, an organization called MEMRI TV is an
excellent source of from-the-horse's-mouth-or-some-other-body-part video
clips about the Islamic compulsion to keep women in their place. The clips
are culled from Middle East TV so you'll have to read the subtitles, but
reading television has seldom been so interesting. 

Echoing Christian fundamentalism, there is the Islamic preacher who says a
woman should serve her husband like a maid; a woman's "strength" (quotes
added) lies in her weakness. Then there's the video to be envied by
Christian wife beaters everywhere in which faithful Muslims are advised that
if your wife bothers you or annoys you or you simply "suspect something"
then beat her - break her head.

All of this may make some wonder if we couldn't solve the Muslim/Christian
conflict that is driving so much military action in today's world by pushing
the politicians aside and having fundamentalist imams and preachers and
priests get together to find common ground in denigrating and demeaning
women. After, all it is written that it is Somebody-or-Other's will.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

So... while it's fun to bash religious people, if that's your main theory, what is your explanation for Soviets fearing vaginas? Soviet women were expected to dress modestly, porn was prohibited, officially sex outside marriage was frowned upon. The level of sexism in USSR was generally several times that you find in the most fundamentalist Southern state. So pick one... either it's NOT really the fault somehow highly correllated to evil religious people, or people worshipping on the altar of "to each according to his need" are just as theorcatic as Rev. Graham or whoever the main example of Christian Fundamentalism is.

Unknown said...

Sigh... Is it just me, or can't FUNDAMENTALISTS see themselves in all the other versions of FUNDAMENTALISM? The problem with the old soviet state was they used the exact same mechanisms and tools that religion used to impose their worldview. There really was no difference, just the origins of the rules and dictates (i.e. bible, koran, or some party manifesto). It's this unquestioning acceptance of the word passed on as authority that leads to all these types of dysfunctions.

Anonymous said...

Yet, your blog post called out "Christian and Islamic" fundamentalists. See, if you wrote it from the view of your last comment, it would have had great merit.

As it is, it sounds like typical commie "opiate for the masses" propaganda (having read such, I can assure you it does) as opposed to defense of liberty or rational thought that you possibly intended it to be (fyi, being of a libertarian bend, I'm as far from a fundie if any sort as you can get).

Unknown said...

Did you miss the part where I said it was an email forwarded to me by a friend (someone who is at least Deist, and probably considers himself a cultural christian)? The post wasn't really supposed to have a great deal of merit, rather be a reflection of fundamentalist behaviour.