Why do people always assume God is a male?

Question

Jesus: male, God in the Torah, reffered to as male, in Jewish books, reffered to as "Him/He", etc. etc. etc.

In just about every religion, God is a male, except for some goddesses in Hindu and Greek mythology..

Answer 1

Actually in Judaism God is not male, nor is G_d female. Since Hebrew has no gender neutral pronouns, the male version is used merely for convenience. But in Judaism G_d has no gender. The very idea of G_d being one or the other gender in Judaism is not only absurd, it's blasphemous.

And actually Wicca does worship both a God and a Goddess, believing in the duality of Divinity and the importance of venerating both the male and the female.

My religion, Asatru, places the Goddesses in equal importance to the Gods.

Answer 2

That's possibly due to the fact that humans lived by the "meanest dog ran the pack" mentality for a long time. If you were lucky you'd get a ruler that didn't "take" everything, instead "gave" his people security, etc. In teaching about GOD, early humans used the extended family route to explain GOD the ALL FATHER.
Chiefs, Rulers (good and bad) were also fathers, so reminding people of their connection to power. Women rarely were in power due to reduced actual physical sword wielding power. There are women leaders when brains were important, but in times of battle, back then, arm strength, killing ability was needed more.
For the Jewish people Moses made have actually heard a male voice when GOD talked to him, (to help protect Moses brain (sanity), so he'd be less scared, and be able to understand better (?).
Jesus is male because HE IS male, there are actual witnesses that were there. (they may or may not understood that HE IS GOD.)

Answer 3

#1 - Goddesses are far more prevelant than in just Hindu and Greek mythology.

#2 - God is a generalized term that refers to the divine spark in every living thing. This divine energy is not limited by human characteristics of age, gender, race, religion, creed, none of this.

#3 - To all of you who are misinterpreting the phrase "in God's image," this phrase means that Adam was created Holy. God's image is Holy. Not male, not female, Holy. Period. Study.

Answer 4

A woman is a person who has a womb. God created by the Word of his mouth. He spoke creation into being. He does not need a womb to birth life. Father means:" life giver." God is the author of life. He is the Father of all mercy and the God of all comfort. Some of His attributes are found in men and women in differing amounts. God does not need to be female to be loving and caring. Goddesses are pagan dieties and represented by idolatrous images. Jesus is the eternally begotten Son of God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit comprise the Godhead or Trinity: One God in three male persons.

Answer 5

Abriel is right, GOD was never a Man. That is the result of a mistranslation. In Hebrew and in Arabic, GOD is refered to as a gender-neutral but all powerful being. And I am thinking that most of the translators of the bible felt weird calling GOD "it," as one would describe a rock or a tree. The Arabic word for GOD actually means "The One GOD" with no gender connotations.

Christianity does, by in large, refer to GOD as a Father and the Son, but Christianity is very deviant from Judaism and Islam. I mean, they worship a Man as an aspect of GOD, which is complete blasphemy to the laws of GOD and goes against many of GOD's edicts that condemn idolatry. That part still confuses me about Christianity.

Answer 6

God is neither male nor female, because he is not human.

I actually think all religions agree on this. Some people get confused though, because in English God is called "God" and not "Goddess." This is true with other languages as well.

In Hebrew and Arabic, however, the words for God do not imply any gender (as it should be).

Answer 7

There are more Goddesses than that! Think of it this way, The goddess is the depth of space, the void, the great womb from which all life springs. God is the light of the star, the warmth, the fire. Through these forces all life came to be, and all life mimics this pattern.

Answer 8

In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions, men have been in countrol of the sacred writings for thousands of years. Actually most of the Old Testament was written down during the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people. Prior to that time all sacred literature of these traditions were passed down by oral transmission. Before the advent of agriculture and civilization, The Deity was referred to in the feminine. She was the great goddess, mother of all things, from whose body all creation came. As people begin to settle into villages for the purpose of agriculture, there became a division of labor. Because men were given the job of hunter and protector, they began to believe that they were somehow superior to women. Unfortunately, early women let them beleive this because it made their lives easier. So by the time that sacred scripture was written down, the Deity had ceased to be referred to as female. There are stories throughout the ancient legends of how various goddesses were defeated and supplanted by gods. e.g. Apollo defeats the Python and takes over Delphi from Mother Earth; Marduk defeats the leviathan Tiamat and from her body creates the world. Even Yahweh must deal with Lilith.

In actual fact the Deity is neither male nor female and is both male and female. She/He is spirit, and is Mother and Father of us all. However you perceive this creator spirit to be, He and She does not require gender. Gender is a concept created by this Deity so that all beings on His/Her earth can procreate. When a person attempts to relagate the Deity to one gender or the other, then that person is placing limits on the Deity. This is a prideful and dangerous mistake.

Now, if you noticed, the preceeding paragraph becomes quite cumbersome when I attempt to be non-gender-specific. In most of the languages in this world, this is the case. So we are left with the decision to use either a male or female word and pronouns. It has been traditional for so long to use the masculine that I fear we a stuck with it. Besides, it seems to fit better with our stories.

Answer 9

I think the reason is because men automatically assume a power position. Look at the Bible it was written by a bunch of guys, do you think guys would make an all powerful, benevolent being a female? God is not male nor female. It is God, plain and simple. Its hard for us, as humans, to fathom a being without assigning a sex to it.

Answer 10

Because the concept of God originated with the Jewish people, who - when the religion of Judaism took shape - were a male chauvinist society.