Why does believers usually tell me God has a masculine gender? Have they checked under his robes to make sure?

Answer 1

Maybe ancient paternalistic theocracies perpetuated themselves and their ideologies by giving the moral high ground to men. Maybe men use these ideological traditions to enable and justify themselves in dominating and subjugating women. Maybe this allows men to gave rise to the full expression of a motivation to out number competitors, regardless of the possible objections and or state of health, heart or mind of female counterparts.

Answer 2

Some early Christian sects considered the old testament God to be the masculine "demiurge" and a threat to humanity, while they worshipped the feminine "sophia." You can see right away how this belief arose by combining Jewish mythology with Greek cynicism. It's fascinating.

Of course, that sort of thing didn't sit well with the men in charge of the early Christian movement, most of whom thought women were not even worthy of speaking in church.

Many religious artists for a while actually *did* depict Jesus and God as male, complete with male genitalia, specifically because they wanted to emphasize that God was male. Also fascinating.

Answer 3

If you want a serious answer:

God probably does not have a gender like we conceive it. The reason we consider God a masculine is because that is how God presented Himself to Adam, Abraham, and Moses, the progenitors of the Jewish and Christian faiths.

Answer 4

The answer to the question about why God is referred to with masculine terms in the Bible really has only one answer: This is the way God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. God is never described with sexual characteristics in the Scriptures, but He does consistently describe Himself in the masculine gender. While He contains all the qualities of both male and female genders, He has chosen to present Himself with an emphasis on masculine qualities of fatherhood, protection, direction, strength, etc. Metaphors used to describe Him in the Bible include: King, Father, Judge, Husband, Master, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are those who would like to blur this emphasis in some of the newer Bible translations, but it is very dangerous to tamper with the way God has chosen to reveal Himself. He most certainly does not intend to minimize women, since men and women are revealed as made in His image and of equal value to Him. But it remains that He is Father, not Mother, and even in the Incarnation chose to come to us as a man, Jesus Christ. One famous Christian scholar, C. S. Lewis, has suggested that gender is far deeper than our human distinctions reveal. He suggests that God is so masculine that we all are feminine in relation to Him. If this is true, it might explain why the church is referred to as the bride of Christ, though it is composed of both men and women.

Answer 5

In the beginning all god figures were female, in that woman gave life. When patriarchial societies became prevalent god became a male. As I have stated before the bible is simply a retelling of earlier tales. Myths get passed down, so to us god is a male.

Answer 6

LOL good question. back in the time when the religion was coming around, men were considered to be superior to women. (still are in some countries today). however you'll see in the Bible it says "He said" referring to the Lord. i think this is just a generalized view from the people of the past.

if you think about it. how offensive would it have been back then to say God was a women? im sure anyone who did was stoned.

Answer 7

Judaism (believing in the same Jehovah/Yahweh god as Christians, last time I checked) does not teach 'God' is masculine. There is no neuter gender in Hebrew, so male is used, but Judaism teaches 'God' has no physicality and is neither male nor female, but pure spirit. Christianity made it male.

Answer 8

No, but the bible says so. Most societies are patriarchal, and use the existence of a male overlord to justify this. Generally, if you look at the polytheistic religions, there's a mother, gives life, and then cedes power. Christianity and certain other religions just forgo that whole mother process altogether.

Answer 9

Those who started the religion were men, so they felt like god was a man too. (If we were triangles, god would be the biggest and best triangle.)

Anyway, in the original writings of Abrahamic faiths, there is the Sophia-Wisdom, which identifies a female aspect of god.

Also, you can blame some of this on translation. In the Hebrew, such as the Sophia-Wisdom, God is feminine, in Greek it was gender-neutral, and in Latin, it was translated to the masculine. (The pronoun went from "she" to "it" to "he.")

Answer 10

god made man in the image of himself. adam was gods first human creation. after himself. he made eve because adam was lonely and saw how the other animals had mates. god said let us make man in our image in the image of god. god is not human, male female, black or white he is a force that created gender for reproduction. he himself is not any gender.