Define faith?

Schraf, I think the problem is that you are taking what uninformed (and painfully ignorant) non-Christians think Christianity says about the relationship between men and women and reading that into the Bible. Christians generally don't hold the same view.In fact, if you look at the evolution of western Judeo-Christian society vs. the rest of the world, you will see that it has been the (traditionally) Biblically-centered West that has been the author of women's voting rights, rights to work outside the home, presence in fields such as medicine and academia. This is reflected in the makeup of the Christian church, where women have always taken a strong role (in most denominations) in leadership and teaching.Earlier on in the thread, someone wrote that Christianity thrives on oppression, which could not be further from the truth. Christians wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, built the underground railroad, hid Jews during WWII Europe (Corrie ten Boom -- The Hiding Place) and opposed Hitler to the death (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). The heart of the Christian church has always been freedom -- freedom from sin, despair, and eternal death.

TB justification may be religiously based, but it is not Biblically based. In Genesis, Eve was taken from the side of Adam -- not his head or foot -- symbolic of her equality and importance. Likewise throughout the OT and NT, there are female figures upon which the whole history of the Jewish people hinged. Even Christ's ministry was begun through an interaction with a woman. Women have been important figures in the Christian church since its beginning.As for people claiming to be Christians, then discarding Christ's teaching and doing evil things -- I think the claim can be reasonably made that these people are not "little Christs". The abolition movement was based on the teachings of Christ. The underground railroad was formed by people who took Christ seriously. The Nazis were a violently pagan political party/cult who abhorred Christianity, jailing and murdering those who spoke out against them. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of these Christians.Compare that with the statistics of atheism/agnosticism --> how many millions dead in the past century? Lets count the ways ... Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, numerous African regimes... Somewhere near 1 billion murdered. This is what "scientific rationalism" and atheism brings.

I think you are wrong. Religion is found if every human society, or at least has been until recently. Correlating atrocities with religion in that context is about as worthwhile as correlating it with grammatical language.However, enforced atheistic societies are relatively new, so you can compare their fruit with what has gone on before --> brutal repression and murder in scale that has never, ever been seen before on the face of the planet. Lenin, Stalin, and Mao alone murdered 150 million people in the name of atheism. This is equivalent to the entire population of the world at the time of Christ.

I think the take-home message is that atheistic government in its extreme form (as in communist regimes) is demonstrably and reproduceably awful, by far exceeding anything seen before. But I guess that is getting off the topic.My point was not that "religious people" are better, just that people seem to get on better when they aren't so sure that there is no God.

John, you do not understand the "hierarchy" of the Bible. Witness Christ washing his disciples' feet (a painfully subservient posture) and death for his servants in the most shameful way imaginable (the cross). Who ranks highest in this example? If Jesus was higher, why didn't he just avoid the unpleasant stuff? If he was lower, how could he be God and why would we worship him? Your whole theory of hierarchy doesn't make sense in the context of Christianity.The Bible recognizes men and women as different. But it is not obvious or even correct that men rank higher than women in some sort of hierarchy. Nobody would argue that Joseph was greater than Mary, although Joseph was a man. Why was a woman given the honor of giving birth to the Savior, and not a man? Couldn't God have made an exception for his favorite gender? And why does the Bible (and the Catholic Church) focus more on Mary than on Joseph? Why did Jesus start his ministry by talking to a woman (unless he thought she was a man)? Why are there no examples of Scripture that you can cite that say that women are inferior to men? Why do Christians who have read the Scriptures disagree with you? And why does Paul write,"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." He could have left out the gender issue and left the implicit hierarchy you cite intact. There is just no way you can justify a subservient female gender in the Bible.C'mon, John. The West was founded on Judeo Christian values and it is the only place in the world in which women have anything near equal standing with men. The inherently separate but equal standing of women in the Bible led to this. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself and discriminate against them at the same time, regardless of their sex (unless you disregard this fundamental teaching of Christ, which much of the West has from time to time). The teachings of Christ lead, and have led in the Western world, directly toward equal social standing for women. The same goes for racial minorites, the elderly and infirm, and the mentally disadvantaged (within the limits of their capabilities).That is why most of the Middle East (Islam) and Africa (Paganism) are backwards wastelands in regards to social equality and Asia (Eastern Religions) has a long-standing tradition of raising subservient women that is only changing now as a result of increased exposure to the West.[This message has been edited by zipzip, 02-05-2003]