On being mistaken for a male

I've been posting to the blog of a theology professor, under a rather bland screen name, for some time. I have only debated theology on this blog, nothing else. My posts have consisted of rather simple statements and questions that of course go unanswered.

Some examples:

• If God declared all the world "good" in Genesis, then why was it such a big deal for Adam & Eve to be kicked out of the Garden?
  
• Did Abelard really love Heloise? (our theologian quotes 12th-Century Abelard, who dumped Heloise after defiling her, on love)
• Because you can't prove a negative (non-existence of God) therefore you should believe in God?
• Where in the Bible is there a promise that the world would be any different (on the question of how God could permit "natural" evils such as earthquakes)
• How can believers believe that God *just is* but not believe that tectonic shifts just happen?
• If the Creation & The Fall are metaphors, how many other parts of the Bible are not to be taken literally?

Not particularly masculine, I think. By the time I asked about Heloise the theologian had decided I was male, along with the rest of his commenters. Most of them have very different styles than I do, debating issues point by point, citing mathematical & scientific principles, etc. My style of logic is more about pointing out the obvious, and if I quote anything it's more likely to be one of the less savory parts of the Bible than a mathemetician. It's clear from the theologian's responses to the other posters' challenges that he relishes them, though he has responded to a few of mine. Mostly, he dismisses my critiques as naïve or misguided. Often he accuses me of not understanding his posts. Okay, sometimes I don't, because he cites theories and philosophers that are so far into Nonsenseville that I've gotten off the train long before their depots.

So when I read a few references to myself using masculine pronouns I had a conundrum: admit that I'm female, and by my relatively "simple" or "naïve" mindset drag down his respect level for all other female atheists? or keep mum and see if he ever deduces my gender from my comments or style. Eventually I had to fess up, because other posters were writing about me in the masculine.

The line that shows I was "passing" for male was in response to my question about love, referencing seasonal mating patterns of ducks: "Do the male & female ducks 'love' each other in the Spring? They may have the same biochemical reactions to each others' company that humans do. Does that make human 'love' less real?"

So the topic that revealed I was passing for male was love, which I suppose should be a girly topic. Women are the primary readers of romance fiction, after all. But perhaps my skepticism about the theologian's definition of "true love" arises from being female. He created a scenario in which an 80-year-old man cares for his dying wife of 50 years.

How many times does that really happen? My mother has outlived three husbands, as did my great-aunt. Almost all of my friends have gotten divorced. I know many couples in which the man married a much younger woman after divorcing his wife. Is it only women who think of that when the topic of love comes up?

From my perspective, wife-as-family and family-as-community and community-as-protection explain the whole scenario, when it rarely does happen. No supernatural deity or unexplainable phenomenon necessary.

So I've finally outed myself as a female on the blog and there's been no response yet at all from the blogger. I decided not to make it an issue but not to be dishonest about it. After all, the odds are that in any random sampling of ten atheists only one might be female.

Now the important question: should I have been flattered or insulted to have been mistaken for a man?

Some thoughts on cults (thanks to msnbc's marathon)

Branch Davidians' suicidal/homicidal cult leader David Koresh rose to power by seducing the elderly woman who was the leader at the time that he arrived. She let him preach, and he developed a following. He then dumped her and demanded a man give him his 14-year-old daugher as his wife, and raped her in her sleep before officially marrying her. Yet he still expected to be the sucessor when the old lady died, not her son. He actually did inherit this. Later he had four wives, including another 14-year-old, and finally separated the men and women to make all the women potential mates for himself.

Cult leader Charles Manson seduced troubled young women into his cult, then used them as bait to attract men. And of course the rest literally is History... the women and one of the men killed people on his command.

I wonder how many less destructive cults use women this way. Well, less destructive isn't the right word... less homicidal. Destruction to the women in these cults is harder to see. Rape, incest, other forms of abuse... how many women were socialized as children to respect authority and defer to a man eventually wind up in cults?

Obedience to a leader because you expect the world to end any moment (Koresh) or because it's how you become loved (Manson) or because you fear punishment (Jim Jones) is a bad enough reason to be obedient. Being obedient because you're female is the worst possible reason.

...and a very common one in the "conservative" or "strict" versions of several religions. It's reason enough for women to refuse to join a religion, but most of us are born into it. When we choose to become slaves to cult leaders or the men in our lives it's because we aren't taught to be self-sufficient, to value ourselves as we are, or to make decisions for ourselves.

Men have been victims of cults too, of course. It just seems to me that there's a primitive element to the way cult leaders operate. Round up as many women as you can. In the case of Koresh having as many children as possible was part of the mad plan.

Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh... and Jesus? The lamb grows up to be a ram that has his herd of sheep, with no other rams to threaten his dominance. Females are the currency of power.

How does that make ewe feel?

60/40 Split in "Nones" in 2008 Survey

In this study: http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf
a comprehensive study of religiosity in America has found that among people who don't profess a religion or claim atheism or agnosticism, 60% are male and 40% female, while the percentage of women in Christian denominations is higher than the percentage in the population. On page 11, the study says "These gender patterns correspond with earlier findings that show women to be more religious than men particularly in majority Christian societies."

I wonder if women are more religious in the African societies that promote female 'circumcision' or the Muslim countries that kill women who have been raped "for their honor."

Indiana, land of "In God We Trust" on license plates

I used to live in DC, and that's where I was living when I started this blog (and dropped it). Now that I live in the Texas of the Midwest, I'm encountering fundies again and they just creep me out. I was so shocked that "In God We Trust" is on half the license plates, and that it's the only free choice for tag design other than the state logo. I'll be registering my car soon, and I was dismayed to find that religious sentiments are not permitted in vanity tags. And coincidentally, there is no tag, even at a price, that says "Relax. There's no God."

Standard Tags: http://www.in.gov/bmv/2695.htm



...and in other news:

Atheists sue to stop 'In God We Trust' in Capitol visitor's center
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-07-17-atheist-capitol_N.htm

WASHINGTON — The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to stop the engraving of "In God We Trust" and the "one nation under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance in the new Capitol Visitor
Center.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based church-state watchdog group, claimed the engravings are unconstitutional and would exclude the 15% of
Americans who identify themselves as non-religious.

Uh... what? FFRF includes believers who don't want to mix state and church. Of course Republicans are the sponsors of the bill that supports the engraving, and Democrats don't want to offend independents, who are 85% likely to be believers.

Annie Laurie Gaylor represents FFRF in this article. All the Republicans lining up on the other side are men. Coincidence? Or is USA Today subconsciously referencing the Eve myth?