If God Were a Woman

[B/W Photodude]

On 8/4/2017 at 7:30 AM, Gregory Matthews said:

Do you speak Hebrew?

Assuming you were speaking to me ... no, I am not fluent in Hebrew. I did study Hebrew in the ulpan (Hebrew school) for about two years at one point and the instructor informed me that I could speak Hebrew better than many who teach Hebrew in the synagogue Hebrew schools in the city I lived in. I do find I know enough that I can often find errors of interpretation in those who drag out their Strong's and try and interpret the meanings of single Hebrew words. I frequently read text in parallel English-Hebrew Bible versions on my Blueline Bible app available for iPhone/iPad and my Strong's Interlinear English-Hebrew Bible. I do not go near the English-Greek New Testament. I consider myself to be "minimally" fluent in English, Spanish, German, and Hebrew. My bucket list includes reading the Bible in three of the listed languages, as I have already done the English one! I find that reading things in other languages really alters your Weltanschauung!

[Gregory Matthews]

Photodude:  Congratulations on your abilities in the Biblical languages.  As you might expect to come from me, I appreciate your understanding that Strong's and Young's  in not the place to go to translate.  I am impressed and I wish that's I had your language abilities.

 

 

 

[GayatfootofCross]

@Gail " I see from reading the Bible that God has a number of female qualities." 

 

9 hours ago, B/W Photodude said:

Name one quality of character that is exclusively female and non-existent in males ... just curious.

Well B/W Photodude ..I don't know if this answers your question and I don't think Gail would mind me thinking out loud to your good question.

I was thinking of A woman's deep maternal bonding that starts when a life is growing inside her.

I don't know if it can be qualified as a quality but it is definitely something males have not experienced and therefore do not have that "quality of character"

 

" “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb" Isa 46:3

"  You put me together in my mother’s womb. " Psalms 139:13

 

[B/W Photodude]

1 hour ago, GayatfootofCross said:

@GailI was thinking of A woman's deep maternal bonding that starts when a life is growing inside her.

I will have to disagree with you on this one. It is like saying that if a woman feels love or empathy, it is feminine love or feminine empathy. But, guess what, men feel all those emotions also. So, you say maternal bonding like it is only women who bond with their child. Fathers also bond with their own children in ways that are not often thought of or even researched. I am not sure how you measure the bonding among strangers for men when they have had forever the code of in dangerous situations, such as sinking ships, it is women and children first. And today you have those social justice warriors in the feminist movement trying to destroy Father's Day and turn it into "Special Person's Day."

But this maternal bonding does cause me to wonder where it was for the 50 million babies that have been aborted over the last 40+ years. 

I know of one Adventist man who when his wife became pregnant with the second child demanded to have an abortion. He said nothing doing. She went along with it but it did not stop her from carrying on all thru the pregnancy about how she should have been allowed to have an abortion. And it didn't stop when the child was born. When the child was 18 months old, the "mother" was still screaming about how she should have been allowed to have an abortion. This child is now grown up, but all thru her childhood she was a very weepy child and not very happy. Makes you wonder if she knows.

Today there are even support groups for men who have lost children thru abortion. Here is an excerpt from a webpage regarding men and abortion:

MEN AND ABORTION

Every child who dies in an abortion has a father as well as a mother. Men also suffer from the tragedy of abortion. They also grieve their lost children. As Dr. Vincent Rue has said, “For men and women alike, the feeling of emptiness may last a lifetime, for parents are parents forever, even of a dead child.”

A man who tried to prevent his partner’s abortion and found that he has no legal right to protect the life of his child may feel emasculated and stripped of his fatherhood. A man who insisted on the abortion, paid for it, or did nothing to try dissuade his partner from engaging an abortionist to kill their child, may become overwhelmed by guilt, shame and self-loathing. Both groups of men often become angry, anxious, and distrustful of women, shutting down any tender feelings which would make future intimate relationships possible. Like women, they too may experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress and psychosomatic illnesses. They may turn to alcohol and drugs as self medication for the depression which engulfs them as a result of their despair of ever being the husbands and fathers they had hoped to be. They may also become addicted to work, exercise or promiscuous sexual activity.

Men are less comfortable than women in expressing vulnerable feelings of grief and loss, or even admitting these feelings to themselves.  Therefore, they are even less likely to present themselves for mental health care to deal with post-abortion loss.  Dr.Vincent Rue, quoting  T.S.Eliot, describes their plight:

“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men…
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless…
Remember us –if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.” (T.S.Elliot)

In men the abovementioned problems may be present for years before they or their care providers recognize the link between their symptoms and the trauma of a previous abortion. Once again, the importance of including questions about pregnancy loss in a routine medical or mental health history needs to be stressed, for men as well as for women.  The relationship between the onset of symptoms and the date of a previous abortion should be considered—bearing in mind that many years may have passed during which the man has suffered in silence. In this way the caregiver can not only work to alleviate the symptoms, but seek help for their root cause as well. In my view it is also important to ask men about a history of post-abortion loss in the course of marriage preparation or entrance into the seminary because unresolved grief and guilt may interfere with the fulfillment of these vocations.

http://hopeafterabortion.com/?page_id=843

IF you want to be politically correct or just accurate, you might say "parent child bonding."

[B/W Photodude]

7 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Photodude:  Congratulations on your abilities in the Biblical languages.  As you might expect to come from me, I appreciate your understanding that Strong's and Young's  in not the place to go to translate.  I am impressed and I wish that's I had your language abilities.

I knew a guy in the academy who could speak five languages fluently. I was about as impressed with that as anything else someone my age had accomplished up to that time including all the pianists who could play classical music very well and any other talent. But I do not think I really have any talents above what anyone else is capable of. And I do recommend learning languages as one way to keep your mind sharp and to help ward off age related dementias. I will tell most anyone that you should take up a new intellectual pursuit at least every ten years in a discipline totally different than anything else you have done. Languages are just one way to do it. You can take up music at anytime. You can take up math! Or even, you can take up a very intensive self study course in Bible and there are many many areas to expand on in the Bible. And with Bible study you even have God waiting to show you great and wonderful things (Jer33:3). But with your mind, it really gets back to that saying, "use it or lose it!"

[GayatfootofCross]

1 hour ago, B/W Photodude said:

 

 

Well I can only go by the Maternal imagery of a Loving God that God presents and ... also comparing it to what some Mothers glowingly express of a baby inside her growing and making itself known in a myriad of ways .

woohoo

The Father thing would then be a Paternal Bonding. God has also illustrated -not to the exclusion of the other.

And of course in this broken world full of broken people. We do have all the ills and injustices  you have mentioned ..so  uhh not sure what that proves since we are talking about an unbroken God and  the great care and love for us and the feminine comparison God provides( i provided scriptura refrences in another post above).  God gave both for a reason. 

I myself grew up with a Mother who didn't love me. Right out of High School she got "in the family way" with me in 1962 and my Grandparents wanted me aborted to protect the family's name and rescue their beautiful daughter's reputation. My mom did not want me as well.  So the abortion thing didn't  workout  ..and that horny  teen younger boy that knocked her up wasn't marriage material so they got  some other Dude to marry her (who i never met either) and tried to cover up the fact that she was pregnant before the wedding and hatched a plan to tell everyone i just came early! tada! And even shipped her off 3000 miles away!  (my later siblings and most family members were born in CA but not me!)

Well silly lil me  couldn't wait till my due date and I was born a full three months early . Three Months Early! And cause I was born breach they had to put my mother out during labor. My mother woke up and was presented with me and it was a little abstract for her ..if i can use that word ......  Then the story became that my mom had a secret wedding(eloped) three months before the actual wedding. And the big wedding was for the friends and family. My mother's poor lil sister(my Aunt) was spinning her head trying to get the stories right when asked by friends who count(the months).  My mom was a little girl inside with domineering parents and I basically grew up without a Maternal love and no bonding from her side to me. She was like a older teen sister all my years growing up.

I took away her childhood and ruined her reputation in her little girl's mind. And it didn't help that her own  parents overridden her every decision of taking care and disciplining me. We lived with them pretty much till I was five.

. I am telling you this and all my friends here .. that I didn't get either Mom or Dad love. But I still understand the importance of those Biblical Illustrations. The Masculine and the Feminine God represents  to us! We are Children of the Most High!

" Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! " Isa 49:15

Praise GOD!
 

 

 

 

[GayatfootofCross]

I meant to say "presented me to my mother in a little incubator (keeping me alive) so she couldn't  even hold me furthering the maternal cognitive  dissonance"

[LifeHiscost]

3 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

Well said about men re abortions, and good advice there to follow. I am sure that being from a nursing background, you would also recognize that parental bonding, is much different, for both men and women. For one, quick example, the men do not usually breast feed   And there is a special bonding that happens there, that a father cannot, and does not have to have. There are many differences between HOW the men and women bond to the children in the family. No one form of bonding is better, just different. There are qualities to the parental bonding that can ONLY happen with the Mother. That doesnt make it "better," just different. Men can still have their emotions. And I believe that GATFTC in his above comment had that in mind in his post. He was being "politically correct" by not making it sound like one was better than the other.

While abortion takes center stage when isolating miscreants, I've always felt the dichotomy when putting  these words together, in contrast to the initial Word. Abortion/vasectomy/condom

7"As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it." ....Genesis 9

9Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother's wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother.  Genesis 38

Does it make a difference how we choose to get around God's express wishes?

God is Love!~Jesus saves!  

[CoAspen]

Quote

While abortion takes center stage when isolating miscreants, I've always felt the dichotomy when putting  these words together, in contrast to the initial Word. Abortion/vasectomy/condom

7"As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it." ....Genesis 9

9Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother's wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother.  Genesis 38

Does it make a difference how we choose to get around God's express wishes?

Are you suggesting all forms of birth control are wrong? Apples and oranges! Abortion does not equal the other two. Use out of context, texts, to support your last statement /question...really??