Women and religion.

I took a break for the night from working on getting a script for a site to work and read a few semi-random journals. (Interests) There was one particular young girl (and a site that she mentioned) that greatly disturbed me. I'm going to be purposely vague here, because it's not my place--and I don't have the right--to bash her for these ideas, and I don't really want people to find her and comment on her "situation" via my journal. Not that I think any of my lovely friends would do anything mean-spirited. *grin*

The girl is 18, and her older brother had decided it was okay for her to start an online journal, so she was pretty happy.. her account was started just a couple of weeks ago. She had decided, in a very recent entry, that what she had heard about the internet is true--it's a dangerous place for Christians. She has decided that she was going to limit her online time, as such, to the weather channel, her livejournal friends, and a particular site for helping women lead a virtuous life (I don't oppose the notion of virtuousness, but I do oppose the notions that this website spews forth, and I don't want to link to it for that reason.) and possibly a couple of other sites recommended to her by trusted friends, but no search engines or links. She's in college to be a teacher but is quitting after this semester. She mentions her (Christian) religious affiliation, which is one known to be very conservative. She speaks of a simpler lifestyle than what most of us are living.. making her own clothing, etc. She seemed like a nice girl, and very happy. The site she mentioned (I had to look, even knowing I wasn't going to agree with it) was just painful. Pages of stuff about how women should submit themselves to their father's (or husband's) judgement and counsel, stern warnings to take any problems one might have to one's husband instead of one's friends, the notion that you don't have any "rights" to a career or life outside of family, the merits of being a doormat, that sort of thing.

I guess you can see what bothers me about this. It's not that I oppose someone living their life in accordance to what they believe God wants. I applaud the notion. I'm a Christian myself. But MY religion does not require me to submit myself to any mortal figure of authority. I actually wrote a paper about this in college.. feminism and Christianity. I won't go into any great detail on this matter right now, but... in the instance of Christianity (which has been a major factor in shaping the society we live in) the origins of the oppression of women come from the garden of Eden, when God cast them out and told Eve that Adam would rule over her. ... But the key in Christianity is that Jesus died for our sins and all of those sins are washed away. And btw, in the original Hebrew.. Mary was never referred to as a virgin, she was called a young woman.. just a bit of trivia for you.

I digress, this is not intended to be a lecture on religion. It just disturbs me that women--and more of them than I realized--are still following these sort of dictates of their own free will. That's what most disturbed me about this girl. She was so afraid of thinking for herself that she was shutting herself off from the world. Remember the Bonsai Kittens? Everyone was so horrified at the concept--and gullible as well, but that's beside the point--but I don't recall a single one of my acquaintances saying.. "Hmm.. kittens in a jar. I've never heard of such a thing! It's wrong and bad and horrible and.. hmmm, maybe I'll try it. please pass me that bottle when you're finished." I just can't understand how.. if your faith is as strong as you pretend, there's any risk that opposing information will change your mind.

Knowledge is power--not danger. *sigh*

Sunday night

Okay, now I got all that off my chest. It felt too weird to write anything mundane after spewing forth.. ahh, crap, I'm being melodramatic again. Cut to current events.

We had a bit of fun at Mr. Gatti's today, even if the food sucked. Magnus and I played air hockey (and I kept losing, which I feel is hopelessly unfair) and other fun games. I won 12 beaded rings and a little flowery change purse. The rings, of course, will not be worn, they will be cut apart and added to my bead drawer. Well, if I had a bead drawer. Maybe a bead bowl. We also went to check out the cousin's computer.. it is desperately broken. (Probably power supply.) We don't think it's under warranty, but I bet my aunt will make them fix it anyway. She's the goddess of customer service.. she can get anyone to do anything for her in a setting like this.

I'm beginning to understand why totte thinks it's difficult to write a journal entry if I've posted something already. In this case, he's already written everything in the previous paragraph, and since I've already read it, I feel ridiculous writing about it again.

We actually had company tonight. Rae and Bart (cousin and her husband) came down for a few minutes. Rae wanted to borrow books (the Velvet series, by Jude Deveraux, and Her Daughter's Eyes (can't remember by who) and a movie (Ocean's Eleven). We so rarely get company. We often complain about this, but the truth is that we don't mind so much. *laugh* We're so anti-social. Visitors mean clean houses.. hehe.

It'll be very weird for M to be gone all day again.. it's funny how quickly you get used to that, isn't it? I have a bunch of little things that I need to catch up on, though (including comments), so I should be kinda busy tomorrow. We'll see how Tuesday through Friday goes...

Anniversary

I forgot to mention that yesterday was my one-year anniversary at LiveJournal! Yay me! I should have made a cake. It's just like everything else in my life... it seems like just yesterday and like ages ago all at the same time. :) I'm a little surprised that I've kept it up this long. (Okay, I hit a rough spell a couple of months ago and only posted once a week or so, but I'm better now!) I've had a horrible track record with diaries.

I feel like I slept on a bed of rocks last night. I hurt in places that you should never even know you have. And, of course, I woke up feeling more tired than I was when I went to bed. There goes all the things I wanted to zip about and get done today. :)

Magnus hasn't called yet. I guess he went to lunch with his boss or something.. he usually calls then, otherwise. I'm eager to find out how his day went. :)

(no subject)

I must have this shirt.



(Read why here.)