God's gender

Here’s a little thought that just popped into my head. In Christian circles at least, God always seems to be referred to as He, or the Father. Why a He? I can’t see how any gender should be assigned to the idea of God.The emergence of two distinct sexes is a result of evolution, allowing genetic variation in offspring. It is something very down-to-earth and biological. What does this have to do with an omnipotent spiritual being such as God?Now, your average creationist probably doesn’t believe the part about two different sexes resulting from evolution, but even if we ignore evolution completely, what relevance does gender have to God? Maybe in older religions with multiple gods it is understandable, as ‘junior’ gods and demi-gods are often fathered and/or mothered by the union of more ‘senior’ gods. Christianity however, is monotheistic. One God, that created people from the earth and whose son was born from a virgin mother. No mention of any kind of sexual reproduction that I’m aware of. Now, the main distinction between males and females is the reproductive system, which is only useful to a physical organism. If God is an omnipotent spiritual being and would produce his son via virgin birth, I doubt he would need or possess anything resembling the human reproductive system.My logic is thus, to label God as a He is tantamount to saying He has a male reproductive system and is thereby attributing a biological characteristic to Him (or should I say, It?), which to me seems like it could be seen as a type of blasphemy.So, 2 questions:1. Why He?
2. Could assigning a gender to God be considered blasphemy?All intelligent viewpoints/thoughts welcome.Personally, I say that it was man who created God in his image, not the other way around.

Where were you thinking this should go?

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Not sure, kinda new to this, but was thinking Faith and Belief, otherwise Miscellaneous Topics.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

[qs]Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground." Gen 1:26 [/qs]If you believe the bible then Woman was then formed from Adam's rib a bit later. You are missing a word in there...theoretically.Alledgedly would also work. This could be interpreted as fallen angels breeding with women and producing offspring, Nephilim.This message has been edited by Tal, 01-05-2005 02:45 AM

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

If god is male, he surely should get those manly urges, right? Does god masturbate?

Ask Him when you Him.

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

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If god is male, he surely should get those manly urges, right? Does god masturbate?

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Well, one of the Egyptian patriarch gods certainly did, and created the world by ejaculating into a furrow.

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1. Why He?

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Because the Patriarchal religions are specifically misogynist and sought to eradicate the public legitimacy of the feminine. Muhammed set out on his reform of the biblical religions becuase christianity had failed to comprehensively abolish pagan goddess-worship in the form of the virgin mary. I would suggest that this pattern has duplicates in many other cultures in which an early female originator goddess is supplanted or superceded by a male patriarchal god.

It is an anthropomorphism. A human characteristic assigned to God so that humans can understand him. In a family the man is and has been the head or authority (no offense to libs) of the family. We are described as God's children and He our Father so that we can understand our relationship to Him. It has nothing to do with God having a penis, though if he wanted I'm sure he could make a big one.

Well, I suppose God must be male because:1) He defeated or otherwise overcame his female consort, Ashtarah; or in the possibility that God originally exhibited dual sexuality ...2) By the time of the Exodus, He came to find homosexuality so totally abhorant that He felt compelled to surpress his femine side maybe to set an example to us guys not to even dress in women's clothing.Anyway, it seems the evolved God of current Judeo-Christo-Islamism is firmly in the macho category shared by Zeus and other Hellenistic male warrior deities.This message has been edited by Abshalom, 01-05-2005 15:32 AM

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Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

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god appears to be a hermaphrodite.

Whether it was intentional or not, thank you for the compliment.

God has no gender. The word "he" is used to describe God because the relationship of God to humans is like that of father to son, and "he" is the human word used for fathers.Just because there is no word to describe what God is does not mean he is limited by the words we do use to describe him.

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If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

An interesting question you pose Thor.1. Why He? He, is in line with the description ‘Father’. Given that the bible needed to be applicable to mankind, I would imagine that being gender specific, enables {wom}man to have an identifiable basis. That the bible was scribed and translated by males would seem to be indicative of the patriarchal perspective held at that time (I wonder if it has changed ).Taking into account the biblical story though: God made the mate and gave similar physiological characteristics, to me that is indicative of a consistency of, ‘like’ (though man has 23 chromosones, and woman 22). Attributes are different though, so God had to have at his disposal both means of comparism. So it is feasible God is non gender specific, perhaps a hermaphrodite or intersex, if we were to assign something to Him. In regards to the patriarchal perspective as a whole, there is also another line of argument, based on the assignment of the sexual organs, but I will leave it out. 2. Could assigning a gender to God be considered blasphemy?Your question leads me to wonder, blasphemy against whom?
If God inspired the book, and it was written in accordance with him, then it would be as He determined it to be. Therefore no blasphemy. If on the other hand, man wrote the book of his own volition, then he could surely not have blasphemed against God.Either way one of the strongest foundations for a patriarchal world, that could ever have been conceived was adopted. If that was Gods intent, or mans alone we might never know.Shaz