2007-03-04 18:20:03 · 16 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
The Judeo-Christian God is called "He" because Yahweh, the Israelite tribal God from whom He evolved, was a male deity. (There were many Gods and Goddesses worshipped in that part of the world at the time.) The male pronoun has been grandfathered in ever since. ;-)
Personally I believe that the Divine is beyond gender, but human beings, interpreting that fundamentally incomprehensible entity in human terms, usually feel most comfortable relating to the Divine as He or She. As far as I'm concerned, you can call the Divine what you like. It remains the Divine.
There are plenty of religions that honor the feminine face of the Divine -- the Goddess. Hinduism comes to mind; so does Wicca, or almost any of the other Neo-Pagan faiths. The Goddess is alive and well, and worshipped today as aspects of Her have been worshipped throughout human history. Did you know one of the earliest recorded religious writings was a hymn to the Goddess Inanna?
2007-03-05 03:34:31 · answer #1 · answered by prairiecrow 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
God has no gender the way we think of them. According to the Bible, He is a spirit and has not a body like men (in English, you can't get around saying the human race without involving the word men, this has nothing to do with gender, or feminism, or masculinism, its just the what our race is called). He also fills the function of a Father. According to the Bible, man and woman are equal, one necessary to complete the other. Adam had no mate in creation (to show him the importance of his wife), and God created Eve to help Adam. He had authority, but this was not all its made out to be. He also had the responsibility of mankind's fate. Eve was not given the authority, and was not given the future stress of the responsibility. But Adam was also to listen to his wife. it is only because of the fall, and the lack of true leadership, that feminism has occurred as a movement and the male, female relationship has become stressful.
Back to the question, God is defined as a He, because any time He reveals Himself, He chooses the form of the gender He chose to bear the authority, and the painful responsibility of being the supporter of the nurturer.
2007-03-05 02:55:15 · answer #2 · answered by matoro1989 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I too use He when I refer to God, but I do this with ambiguity because nobody really knows anything about God. You are right in questioning the assumption of God's gender (if God has a gender). It is entirely possible that God has no gender since that characteristic only exists for procreation.
2007-03-05 02:40:49 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
I once heard that there was some sort of hierarchy about God's preference of people and animals. And apparently the human male species was at the top of the list while the human female was at the bottom, underneath buffalo.
If this is true then it stands to reason that if you were to worship anyone would you worship someone at the top or someone at the bottom.
Look at in this sense.....If you were working in a company that had a hierarchy (and most do), whose instruction would you follow. That of the lowest ranked employee or that of the company director/manager.
2007-03-05 02:35:52 · answer #4 · answered by Spikey and Scruffy's Mummy 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because us Men are egotistical. The bible (all versions) state that God made man in his own image and woman from the rib of Adam. If you follow the evolution doctrine, then you would probably believe woman came first followed by man. Seems plausible. There are species of animals out there that don't have a male counterpart to reproduce with, but still have offspring.
LOL
2007-03-05 02:29:49 · answer #5 · answered by GL Supreme 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
He is referred to in scripture as the heavenly FATHER.
Regardless of this fact it is correct grammar to refer to an animal or person in the male gender if the gender is not known.
2007-03-05 02:27:47 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Linguistics.
Greek, Hebrew and Latin have linguistic gender, which does not always line up with actual gender. In English, God is usually rendered in the masculine. While that does not necessarily imply that God is distinctly "male" in the original languages, it looks that way in English.
2007-03-05 02:30:45 · answer #7 · answered by NONAME 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Because the bible, a book many consider holy, refers to god as a male. Does he have male bits? Well, the christians get very umcomfy when you ask em that
Just say.... "Male--thankyou ---drive thru!"
2007-03-05 02:23:25 · answer #8 · answered by Laptop Jesus 2.0 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Because it is simpler than saying: "He, she or it".
God has no sex.
Souls have only "masculine" or "feminine" traits, for a lack of a better description, and God, being a perfect Soul, has both in balance.
2007-03-05 02:38:23 · answer #9 · answered by ? 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Because that's he is refered to in the bible! I'm not arguing with it ,as you shouldn't either.
2007-03-05 02:47:50 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋