This past semester, I taught two survey classes of world religions. Most of my students came from either a background in Christianity or Islam. I would rather have a more diverse background, which included Jains, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Zoroastrians, or any other of the major world religions. The diversity benefits the learning process.

However, for most of the 17-week semester, the students were objective, until we started addressing either Christianity or Islam. Then, for many students, questioning their religious backgrounds wasn’t easy for them to do. Even though they knew this class is a religiously neutral class, raising of questions about their personal beliefs often rattles some students.

In each class, there will be students from either Christianity or Islam that will question and diss beliefs from within their religious backgrounds. I love teaching, but to be able to utilize those students in class is extremely beneficial. They can put forth questions or comments as a believer to their peers rather than from me. A couple students like that each semester is a great experience for the classes. I don’t care what they believe at the end of the semester, but I do care that they think.

One of my educational jewels, a student that questions, is Rawa. I have written about her before. However, we finally were nearing the end of the semester. We dealt with Christianity and started on Islam. The last week will be devoted to the Baha’i faith.

Rawa, who is a Muslim, addressed the issue of sexism within her faith. To be clear, all religions have had a bad track record related to sexism. Name a religion started by a female, where a female is the head of that religion, or have clergy that are females. Only a few religions have finally allowed females to become clergy-types.

Rawa went on about sexism within Islam here in America and overseas. I posted this reply to her comments.

This was Rawa’s response.

I replied.

Then, as I often do, I added a post-script about an item regarding the UN.

Interestingly, this UN decision addresses the issue of sexism head-on, and it isn’t from a religious mindset. It is societal sexism as reflected in the UN’s decision. Historically, sexism started in society and then morphed into religion. All religions reflect the human condition, which is sexist. Religions merely adopted the fear of women and prohibited women from equality. And, you should be asking why?

Sexism isn’t about women; it is about men and their inferiority. Women can do something that men can’t do, which is create life. Therefore, men have subjugated women since the times back in the caves. Essentially, sexism is not the expression of male superiority but rather male inferiority. There would be no reason for males to diss females if males felt superior to women. Think about that. When men diss females, it is because males feel lacking.

Men came up with the term, the weaker sex. Well, the weaker sex has children and raises them. Additionally, women will outlive men on average by about a decade. Now, tell me again about the weaker sex.

Also, Bryan Sykes, who is a genetics professor at Oxford, wrote Adam’s Curse. Sykes claims that women, the so-called weaker sex, will outlive males. In other words, males may become extinct in 125,000 years due to the male Y chromosome because of various mutations. Sykes claims, “We could survive as a species with no men at all by arranging fertilizations not between sperm and egg, but rather between one egg and another, and the techniques for that are already here.”

Therefore, while all religions need to address their theological sexism, sexism needs to be addressed in the UN and everywhere else. We are all equal, which needs to be reflected in all that we do.

Finally, I posted to Rawa and Bayan.

This is a video about The Disappearing Male.

Connecting the Dots

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Forrest Gump, "Stupid is as stupid does."

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06/28/17